TWO
“JILL!” HENRY LEANS against his car, a nearly new Lexus that he lovingly calls Bruce. “Let’s get outta here.” Warmth blooms in my chest and I make my way to him, feeling every pair of eyes follow us.
I climb up into Bruce and set my bag at my feet, next to a stack of hardcovers.
“Oops, don’t mind those,” he says, waving his hand at the books. “New haul.” They look bleak as hell with words like war and democracy printed on their covers. Henry flicks the radio to NPR, his favorite, and I bite back a smile. It’s too cute when he nerds out on journalism.
“We invited some freshmen to come to Nikki’s tonight.” Henry turns sharply out of the school parking lot, waving goodbye to Dr. Jarvis, the elderly physics teacher who always has food on his tie but low-key adores me.
“Already?” I ask. “Isn’t it too early for new undies to be hanging around?” I try to remember when I first started going to Player parties, when Adam told me to come along with him. It smelled crisper, more like crunchy leaves than leftover sunscreen. We’re still firmly planted in SPF season.
“Robert started scouting the little dudes at lax preseason,” Henry continues. “He says we got some winners already.”
I chew my lip. “It’s still too soon, though, don’t you think?”
“Maybe,” Henry says carefully, like he’s actually thinking it over, like my voice matters. “But we gotta start thinking of pops early. That’s what every senior class always says, right?”
Ah, the pops. Also known as pop-quiz-like challenges. Also known as the bane of my existence. I was sentenced to my first one a week after being tapped to be a Player. That asshole Tommy Kotlove instructed me to break into the middle school chem lab after tennis practice and swipe a beaker for his girlfriend, Julie Strauss, to use as a flower vase. I almost started crying on the spot. I didn’t know then that would be one of the easier ones.
“Still seems early,” I say.
“You know, Bryce Miller could be pretty good.”
“He would,” I say slowly.
“Adam say anything to you about it?”
The truth is that Adam had texted me this morning before school. It was short, but stuck with me all day: Watch out for my bro, will ya? I know you’ve got my back, Newman.
“I’m sure he’s expecting it,” I say.
Henry rolls his eyes. “Yeah, well, Bryce will have to get in on more than his brother. Being related to Adam Miller doesn’t just guarantee you the world.”
“True,” I say, willing the conversation to stop. Adam’s name always sounds chewed-up and poisonous in Henry’s mouth.
“We’ll see if it’s a fit. We always do.” Henry pulls to a stop in front of my house.
My skin is crawling and I’m itching to get away from his questions about Adam. I plant a quick kiss on his cheek. “See you later, babe.”
“Jilly! Is that you?” Mom says as I push the door open. “I’m in the kitchen. C’mere!”
She does this often, greeting me at home in boxy linen tops and wide silk scarves, her artist hands always pulling something out of the oven or her paint box. Today, she wraps a generous tray of lasagna in tinfoil. She makes it every year as a back-to-school tradition. “How was it? First day of senior year!” she nearly squeals. Her excitement turns her blossoming wrinkles into craters.
“Great!” I say, smiling wide so she has no reason not to believe me.
“That Henry’s car?”
“Yep.”
She shakes her head and laughs. “What a guy.”
On the depressing side of fifty, Mom is still the most dazzling woman in the cul-de-sac, active in three book clubs, the temple sisterhood, and Gold Coast’s various community service projects—all while throwing elegant pots and twisty-turny vases that land her in the pages of Vogue and Architectural Digest once a season. Her cool factor makes it seem like we can keep up with everyone else at Gold Coast Prep, but the reality includes long hours teaching ceramics at the community college and giving private lessons to the uber-privileged Mayflower crowd. She says it’s all worth it, to do what she loves and give us the childhood she never had. Her parents were hippies, strung out at the end of the seventies, selling merch for B-list bands while driving around in an RV. Being able to send Jared and me to Prep is a badge of honor for her, even if the whole situation makes me feel like I’m carrying her and Dad’s hopes and dreams around like a precious 8,000-pound weight.
I didn’t really register their intense desire for my excellence until fifth grade, when Mom and Dad not-so-subtly suggested I apply for Gold Coast Prep’s Alumni Merit Grant for Students in STEM. It was given out in secret every year, and afforded one lucky student full access to the school’s multimillion-dollar science wing, AP classes, and extracurriculars. Dozens of alumni have ended up in the best undergrad science programs, to no one’s surprise. I’ve never seen Mom and Dad as happy as they were when I got in.
It’s not like scholarship is plastered on my forehead, but sometimes I swear it must be obvious. No designer loafers to offset the pleated plaid skirt. No car of my own. No summers in the Hamptons. “Who needs a beach house when you live near the beach!” Mom said when I told her Shaila invited me to the Arnolds’ place out east back in middle school.
The grant doesn’t cover everything—there are still extra expenses like uniforms and textbooks and Science Bowl dues. And all of Jared’s tuition, of course. All of Mom and Dad’s resources go into making sure we can stay at Prep with the hope that it will somehow pay off. That my baby brother and I will get into better colleges—Ivies, ideally—than if we went down the street to Cartwright Public High, where only half the class graduates.
How we would pay for college was always a sticky subject, one I tiptoed around on purpose. I pretended not to hear them fighting about it late at night in hushed tones after they thought we were asleep. “Just let her get in first,” Dad always whispered. “We’ll find a way.”
But is it worth it? The long hours Dad spends crunching numbers in a soulless office? The fake smiles Mom puts on when she has to pretend those awful wine drunks are brilliant artists? To be determined. And, that’s where the Player Files come in. I need to do well. For me, but mostly for them.
But here in Gold Coast, Mom is forever optimistic. She’s the mom who trusts just about anyone, because people are inherently good, Jill, they just are. Even after Shaila, she still says that.
It’s that same motto that made her say yes one day during a temple sisterhood meeting when Cindy Miller suggested that her eighteen-year-old son tutor Jared in English on the cheap.