The Year of the Gadfly (36 page)

The last time I'd checked, the school's website displayed photographs of our campus, populated by children resembling a United Colors of Benetton commercial. But now Pasternak clicked on the word bubble and a new page appeared. Up came the football team's hazing photos. Pasternak clicked again. Here were pictures of a man sitting at a computer, his hands clutching his erect penis, his eyes rolled back in his head. Pasternak clicked. Here was the wreckage from the Prisom Artifacts, over which Matt Sheridan stood with a baseball bat. Another click: the three hanged figures burning in effigy—Brotherhood, Truth, and Equality.

“I've left a dozen messages for the IT guy,” Pasternak said. “He won't pick up his cell.”

“So you need me to take the site down?”

“Don't be flip, Jonah. Not now.” Pasternak paused. “You can take it down?”

I told Pasternak what I needed to make the site go away, and he found me the relevant passwords. I sat down at his desk to operate. I typed in the FTP log-in and password, and the inner workings of the school's website loaded onto the screen. “I'm not going to be able to put the old site back,” I said. “You'll have to find your tech guy for that.”

Pasternak didn't answer. He stood by the window, watching the students get out of their parents' cars and lumber up the steps. Each kid wore a monstrous backpack, a kind of freak-show stomach that grew from the wrong side of the body, and was grossly distended with academic glut: The Annals of America (dubbed The Anals) and the Norton Anthology of Every Last Word in the English Language.

“Okay,” I said. “I'm finished.”

Pasternak turned, his face dour. “What happened to this place, Jonah?”

What was I supposed to tell the man? He was talking about Mariana as though a golden age once existed. And maybe it had, early on, when Prisom's vision was still pure. But more likely there'd never been such an era. Most good things in life came prepackaged with nostalgia; otherwise nobody would appreciate anything. But maybe I wasn't giving the headmaster enough credit. Maybe he was only trying to survive in this hostile environment as best he could. Just like the rest of us.

 

That afternoon I sat at my desk in the science department, perusing the old
Devil's Advocate
s that Pasternak had given me. I flipped through pictures of Matt Sheridan, a baseball bat in his hand, his face twisted in anger. In another picture he bent over a small fire smoldering amid piles of smashed glass. I looked through the photos of Jeffrey Franks. These had not come out in a
Devil's Advocate
but were mailed in an anonymous envelope to Pasternak over the summer. Franks had not been set up like Matt Sheridan; months of pornography traffic showed up on his office computer. The photos before me now displayed Franks at his desk, ogling wide-eyed Japanese cartoon women, their breasts and asses like flesh-colored beach balls, their limbs entwined with tentacles. The expression on his face was nauseating.
He sat right here at my desk,
I thought, and shuddered.

But where had the photos of Franks come from? Prisom's Party could have stolen footage of Sheridan from the school's security cameras, but there was no reason for such cameras in the science department. This meant a photographer had been in the office at the time. But that seemed unlikely. I could see someone hiding behind Franks's chair, snapping pictures of his computer screen, but what about the photographs of his face and lap? The only way to get those shots would be to stand in front of Franks,
on
his desk. This was a mystery, but one I could solve.

When my brother died, the police called the car crash a weather-related accident. My parents weren't convinced. They knew Justin. Only seven months earlier, he'd put himself on crutches by slamming his foot against a wall. After that, a shrink had given him a bottle of antidepressants, but Justin refused to take them. He said he didn't need them, that he didn't want chemicals dictating his behavior.

“You masochistic moron,” I'd said. “You must really like being unhappy.”

“I like being me,” he said.

If Justin's history wasn't reason enough to doubt the police report, my parents also knew how distraught he was over losing the final round of the Academic League semifinals—a tournament for which he'd spent months preparing. There were enough insinuating factors to make my parents wonder whether, in the moments before impact, my brother had pressed the accelerator instead of the brake.

The police agreed to leave the car alone for forty-eight hours, the exact period of time Jewish law allots mourners to bury the deceased. My father spent those two days in the bitter cold, measuring and analyzing Justin's car tracks and the black ice at the crash site. He covered sheets of paper with calculations, becoming so consumed that the earth ceased to be made of hard matter but dissolved into angles and degrees. A purely mathematical plane. He was hoping to draw a line from the impact point backward up the street, thereby determining whether the crash was accidental (Justin hit black ice and lost control) or intentional (Justin hit a metaphorical wall, past which his life, the planet, the very universe, dissolved into nothing). Like my father, I would now measure the angles at which Prisom's Party captured Franks with his pants down, and those angles would show me where the photographer had hidden.

I was sketching out my plans when Rick Rayburn and Stephanie Chu entered. Stephanie's desk was next to mine. We shared a passion for Orson Scott Card novels and spent many an hour debating the minutiae of the Shadow series when we should have been grading exams.

“You've been working hard,” Stephanie said, collecting notes for her next class. She bent over my desk. “What's all that?” Rayburn joined Stephanie, peering over my shoulder.

“When was the last time anybody used the books from that top shelf?” I asked. We all looked up at the old textbooks, their spines sagging.

“Beats me,” Rayburn said. “Isn't that a book by Albertus Magnus?”

Stephanie laughed. “Let's tell the kids we're now offering AP Alchemy and see how many bite!”

Rayburn and I seconded this notion. Then he sat down and Stephanie went to class.

I inspected my calculations. When the three of us glanced at the bookcase, I'd let my eyes wander to the spot from which I believed Franks's photographs were taken. Sure enough, peeking from between a large textbook and a couple of manuals was a small black lens. Casually, I turned around in my chair and asked Rayburn a question about midterm exams. There was another small camera tucked into the bookcase behind my desk.

“By the way, Jonah, my sister-in-law tells me that Peter came home all excited yesterday. Seems he finally garnered the nerve to talk to Iris Dupont.”

“Is that so?”

“I hear you gave him a little encouragement.”

“It's possible.”

“Well, if they get married, we'll make you an usher.”

“I can't wait,” I said, rising from my desk. The temptation to look at the cameras was too strong. I walked down the quiet hallway, wondering where the other cameras were. Was I being watched right now? It was entirely possible. I could be certain of only the two cameras pointed at my desk, however, so I would have to make those cameras my weapons.

LILY OPENED HER
eyes. The ceiling spun like a frantic carousel. Her head throbbed with a mud-colored pain. She pushed herself upright, and her stomach plummeted. She doubled over and sat unmoving until the sick feeling passed.

Slowly, she raised her head and looked around. She recognized Veronica's basement: the large television and mint-green walls. The overnight bags spewed their stuffing like abused teddy bears. Feminine detritus littered the floor. Candy and chips were crushed into the carpet. Cold, gray light filtered in. She was alone.

Lily remembered drinking from Alexi's flask, but nothing afterward. Had anything happened with Alexi? The previous night seemed like a distant memory: half dreamed, half true. The art project.
Sacrificial Lamb.
What she'd said about Justin.

She forced herself to stand. The world spun away from her, but she stumbled to the bathroom. The tiles were cold under her feet. In the mirror, her under-eye circles were like dark thumbprints. She'd just lifted a hand to fix her knotted hair when she saw a flash of black on her wrist. She yelped and shook her arm, but the black spot didn't move. She held her wrist up to her face to find a dark smudge. Then, in the bathroom mirror, she noticed a couple spots of black on the hem of her T-shirt too. She lifted the bottom of the shirt and saw more black on her lower abdomen.
What the . 
.
 . ?
she thought, realizing her stomach was speckled with dark splatters like ants. Lily rubbed at the black spots, but they seemed to be imprinted on her skin. What had happened to her? Was this some kind of rash? An allergic reaction? Had the girls spiked the flask with more than just a sleeping pill? She pushed down the rim of her pajama pants. More black. An awful coldness seized her. She pulled down her pants all the way. Her quads were their usual creamy color, and she breathed a sigh of relief. But then, on her inner thigh, she spotted a black dot. With shaking hands, Lily pulled down her underwear. She screamed. Her pubic hair, once white, was now jet black.

At that moment the ceiling began to shake. “Lily?” Feet pounded on the stairs. A chorus of voices called out, “Lily! Are you awake?”

Lily pulled up her pants, wiped her eyes, and came out of the bathroom to find Veronica, Amy, Jocelyn, and Krista clustered around the door.

“Oh my God!” Veronica shrieked, throwing her arms around Lily's neck. “Last night was amazing. You were perfect!”

“She's not perfect anymore,” Amy muttered.

“Lily.” Veronica cupped her palms over Lily's shoulders and looked deeply into her eyes. “You're okay, right? I'm sorry it got messy, but it's not permanent dye. It'll wash out.”

Lily nodded, bewildered.

“I'm sorry I couldn't tell you what was going to happen. But if you'd known in advance, it would have ruined the effect.”

Exactly what Alexi had said. But Alexi had also promised no more tricks.

“So listen, I'm going to edit the tape and then give you a copy.”

“Wait—what are you going to do with it?”

“Like we discussed. I'm sending it with my application to the artist apprenticeships. But Lil, don't worry, they'll keep the materials private.”

“But—”

“What?” Veronica's face hardened. “What's the matter?”

“Headache,” Lily stammered.

Veronica brightened. “Go lie down and I'll make you my hangover special. You'll be feeling great in no time.” The girls made room for Lily on the center couch, according her unexpected deference. She felt like the virgin about to be handed to the sea monster, except that for her, the sacrifice had already taken place.

Veronica returned with a glass of something green and frothy.

“Don't inquire about the elements of this particular concoction,” Jocelyn said. Her accent seemed to have returned.

Lily took the glass and sipped. The liquid was chalky but otherwise tasteless.

Veronica could hardly sit still. “Last night was just amazing. And to do the whole thing at school? Perfection.”

Lily put down Veronica's drink. She was feeling worse. “School?”

“Where the film's climax takes place, Lil. In the Trench.”

“We're all ready for the raw footage,” Krista said.

“Yeah,” Amy smirked. “It's raw all right.”

“I'm going to go home,” Lily said. “I'm going to call for a ride.”

“Already?” Veronica pouted, then looked doubtful.

A few minutes later Lily was changing her clothes in the guestroom when Veronica walked in. She leaned her lithe body against the door, and her dark hair fell down over her shoulders. Lily could just make out her naked breasts beneath her white tank top. She tried not to stare.

“Listen,” Veronica said. “Alexi told me how he screwed up out there in the field, and I just want to say—thank you for staying in character.”

Lily nodded. She couldn't look at Veronica.

“It really means a lot that you've been part of this.”

Lily concentrated on her feet. It felt good to have her own shoes back.

“But Lil?” Veronica came to the bed. “It's really important to keep this between the five of us. The material is sensitive, you know? We don't want to hurt anyone or get anyone in trouble.”

Lily stared into Veronica's sable eyes and for a moment became stuck there, as though in tar. She nodded numbly and let Veronica lead her downstairs.

 

“I don't understand why girls your age wanted to have a sleepover party,” Maureen said when she picked Lily up. She'd just come from running a wedding brunch, and her car, including the floor of the passenger seat, was packed with vases and flowered centerpieces. Lily shifted uncomfortably among the profusion of petals and turned away from her mother.

“Your father says Veronica and her friends are artists.”

Lily pressed her eyes shut. The girls must have stripped her. They must have touched her. And what about Alexi? Had
he
touched her? Lily shivered deep inside and bit her lip to keep from crying. The thought of Alexi touching that part of her while she was passed out sent sick waves rushing through her. But thinking about his fingers touching her, his eyes examining her—that also made her wet. Right there in the car with her mother. Lily wanted to tear the heads off the flowers at her feet. What Veronica had written in the diary was true; she was a sick, disgusting person.

 

At home, Lily refused her mother's offer to “brighten her room” with leftover wedding roses. She locked herself in the bathroom and turned on the shower as hot as she could stand it. As promised, the dye began washing out, running in black streams down her legs. The water in the tub turned muddy. She soaped up and scrubbed. After a few minutes, the dye on her skin was mostly gone, but her pubic hair remained the color of smoke.
It's not permanent,
she told herself, and scrubbed harder. There was no change. Panicked, she tried a different soap. “It's not permanent!” she whispered again and again. But the color had set.