Prep School Confidential (A Prep School Confidential Novel) (36 page)
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Authors: Kara Taylor
Brent’s father turns to me. “Pierce Conroy,” he says. “And you must be…”
“Anne Dowling,” I say, even though it’s obvious this is the first time he’s hearing my name. His handshake is dismissive, as if he can’t wait for this day to be over. I study his face. It seems very familiar to me. Probably because it’s so much like Brent’s: strong jaw. Asymmetrical smile.
We all shut up for the national anthem and then sit down. I sit between Claire and Brent, who gives clipped answers to his father’s questions about the crew season. Claire says she loves my dress. We wind up talking about Newbury Street and I don’t even notice that Brent’s seat is empty until he comes back holding a cardboard tray. He picks a fully loaded hot dog from the top and passes the tray down to Claire and me.
Claire tears a soft pretzel in half and hands a piece to me. Brent inhales the hot dog in two bites and takes a pull from his extra large soda. Mr. Conroy watches from the corner of his eye the whole time. It doesn’t take me long to figure out why: Brent is diabetic.
“Are you sure you should be—” Mr. Conroy starts, but Brent freezes him with a look and tears open a box of Cracker Jacks. Beside me, Claire sighs, as if this pissing contest is a frequent scene in the Conroy household.
Mr. Conroy’s BlackBerry rings, and he excuses himself. When he’s gone, Claire mutters, “Real mature, Brent.”
“I am the
epitome
of mature.”
I snigger to myself. Just last night, Brent donned a ski mask and mooned the security cam outside the boys’ dorm because Murali dared him to.
Brent tosses a Cracker Jack at Claire and puts a hand on my knee. He doesn’t move it for the rest of the game, except to stand up and shout whenever the Sox score a run. I feel like I should at least cheer my team on, but the Yankees wind up winning and I don’t want to get followed and shanked on the way back to the train.
Claire hugs Brent good-bye, then me. “You’re the first girl from school he’s ever even talked about,” she whispers in my ear. “Keep an eye out for him, okay?”
“You enjoy the game, Dad?” Brent asks Mr. Conroy, whose mouth forms a line. He spent about six of the nine innings on his phone. I can sort of see why Brent doesn’t like his dad. The only thing Mr. Conroy seemed to care about was Brent’s crew season. He barely even acknowledged the “new girlfriend” thing.
Claire flicks Brent’s ear and tells him to bring me home for dinner sometime.
“Where is home for you anyway?” I ask around a yawn as we catch a train back to school.
“Bedford.” We plop into two empty seats and he plants a kiss on the top of my head.
“Bedford,” I repeat. “I have no idea where that is.”
“I’ll show you sometime.”
“Good.” And I mean it. I want to know everything there is to know about Brent Conroy. I know his favorite song is “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen and his favorite class is British literature, but I want to know the important stuff, too. That’s why I can’t help but say, “What’s the deal with you and your dad?”
Brent stiffens. “It’s stupid family stuff.”
“You can tell me, you know,” I say.
He hesitates. “My dad lived away from us for two thirds of my life.”
“Your parents were separated?” I wonder if anyone at school knows this.
“Not technically. But they may as well have been. We have a condo in Boston, near my dad’s office. He stayed there more than he stayed at home with us.”
I contemplate this. My mom has totally accused my dad of being a workaholic before, but when I was little, he’d still come into my room no matter how late he got home to tuck me in and talk to me with my Lamb Chop puppet.
“Anyway, every time he’s home for long stretches of time, he acts like we’re not practically strangers or anything,” Brent goes on. “He tries to tell me what to do, when my mom and grandparents are the ones who raised me. And he’s never afraid to tell me what a disappointment I am, as if I give a shit what he thinks.”
I think of how Brent baited Mr. Conroy into saying something about eating all that crap at the baseball game. I picture the shell-shocked look on Mr. Conroy’s face. A funny feeling comes over me. Brent has already changed the subject, and I nod at what he’s saying even though I can’t really hear him over the ringing in my ears.
Because I know where I’ve seen Mr. Conroy before.
He’s the boy standing next to Matt Weaver in the crew team photo.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kara Taylor wrote
Prep School Confidential
in her first semester of graduate school, in between pulling all-nighters and listening to her dad say writing isn’t a real job. Now she lives on Long Island and writes full-time. Learn more about Kara at
www.KaraMTaylor.com
.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.
PREP SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL.
Copyright © 2013 by St. Martin’s Press, LLC. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Cover design by Danielle Fiorella
Cover photograph by Barry David Marcus
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Taylor, Kara.
Prep school confidential / Kara Taylor. — First edition.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-250-01759-8 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-1-250-01760-4 (e-book)
[1. Boarding schools—Fiction. 2. Schools—Fiction. 3. Murder—Fiction. 4. Conduct of life—Fiction. 5. Mystery and detective stories. 6. Youths’ writings.] I. Title.
PZ7.T21479Pre 2013
[Fic]—dc23
2013003058
e-ISBN 9781250017604
First Edition: August 2013