Alder texted: LOL, Amy was like, uh, thanks for the theory. She at least agreed it looked like bike mud!
Just as we were leaving, setting our empty cups on the counter, Fran texted back: Nine minutes for Jacob, twelve for Max w/ training wheels, if I got the spot right. J says he could do it faster if it weren’t so wet.
25
I deployed myself that night as a weapon. A spy, in the grand tradition of women who trade sex, or the promise of sex, for secrets. Only I was wearing pajama pants and a USC sweatshirt, and all I did was text Mike Stiles. I’m stir-crazy, I wrote. Need to talk to someone not on the fucking witness list. Drinks on balcony? It’s not too cold!
When I opened the door he looked composed, but as he stepped inside he flushed. He was aware, at least, that he was a married man entering a woman’s hotel room at night. We sat outside and drank whiskey out of the two ornate glasses from the ice bucket tray. We talked about Lola, about his tripping over their pronouns (he was working on it) and how they were doing at Baylor.
I couldn’t get out of my head the idea of Mike being there at that ski house when Dorian put Beth on the monitor. Mike maybe showing Dorian where the security camera was. Mike being part of the “all of them” who’d sat and watched. I couldn’t imagine it was something he was proud of. I wondered if he ever thought of it at all.
I waited till he’d refilled his glass to say, “This hearing is bringing up so much for me. All my adolescent insecurities. I wanted to leave that kid behind.” I felt guilty that I was basically quoting Beth here, but I’m not a creative liar.
“That’s funny. I never knew you were insecure. You weren’t trying to play the game, from what I remember. I mean that in a good way. You weren’t doing the whole teen magazine thing.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Just—the girls who’d all get the same haircut and try to sit on your lap in the library. They were insecure. You weren’t like that.”
Under most circumstances, I’d have called a man out on using “You’re not like other girls” as a compliment, but this wasn’t the moment. I looked straight at him and said, “I’ve always known what I like.”
An unoriginal line, but yes: His ears reddened, he started to say something and stopped.
It was too cold, so we moved inside—Mike in the flowery chair, pulled close to the bed so he could put his feet up in their woolly socks. I reclined on the too-many-pillows that the Calvin Inn provided and took my sweatshirt off. I’d put thought into the tank top I wore beneath.
“I bet you’re the only person from that ski crowd doing actual useful work now,” I said. “Isn’t everyone else basically just turning money into more money?”
He protested, but was clearly flattered. He swished his whiskey and said, “It’s hard to break that pattern of what your parents want. You think you have to earn at least as much as them. Then there were kids like Serenho who didn’t grow up with much. My grandfather and my dad worked their asses off and I get to have this comfortable life in academia, but there’s always the safety net.”
“Wait, I thought Serenho was loaded.” I took a sip to hide my shoddy acting.
He leaned in, secretive. “No way. He was on massive aid, and the last two years Rachel Popa’s family paid for him.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Because they could. I don’t know; he’s just a great guy. And he knew how to charm it up with people’s parents. Moms, especially. We’d rag on him, how he was suddenly so polite, like, That sweater really suits you, Mrs. Stiles.”
I could see it. He’d been so good with teachers, had the kind of casual relationships with them that meant when I’d show up early for ninth grade English he’d already be there, asking Mrs. Hoffnung how he could get this chocolate ice cream stain out of his favorite oxford.
“Wasn’t he always going on vacations with you all?”
“Sure. But we’d pay. We’d find ways, like a few of us would gather money for the keg and make sure he didn’t get hit up.”
I said, “I guess Thalia knew, obviously. That he was on aid.”
“Yeah, but he also never took her home to Vermont, you know? And her showing up later, she didn’t see him when he was wearing crap clothes and cheap skis. She only met him after he had all the stuff we’d given him.”
This stung. I’d never noticed that Robbie had dressed badly, maybe because he was a boy, and because even his “crap” clothes were still a step up from Indiana. That he’d undergone his own transformation, parallel to my raiding of Fran’s sisters’ closets, hurt. I couldn’t figure out why. Maybe I felt for him, or maybe I hated that his friends had elevated him to social stardom, when my own transformation, liberating as it was, had only distanced me further from most of my peers. But hadn’t my own friends held me up? Hadn’t I done fine?
“I had no idea,” I said. I poured us both more whiskey. “You must’ve felt protective.” I worried Mike would snap into defensive mode, but he leaned back in the floral chair, feet close to mine. He had an impressive five-o’clock shadow. “When everything happened with Thalia, I didn’t realize how vulnerable he might have been. It’s one thing if a rich kid gets accused of something and they can lawyer up, but if they’d blamed Robbie he’d be in the same position as Omar.” I didn’t believe that was true for one second. “He must have been terrified.”
“He was.” Mike’s eyelids were drooping. I needed to keep him awake, happy, talking.
I said, “I remember Scalzitti got those photos developed, like, right away. When usually the last thing you’d want proof of was drinking on campus. I always imagined that was to protect Robbie. Or maybe Robbie asked him to.”
Mike pointed at me. “That’s exactly it,” he said. “Scalzitti wanted to destroy the film. I was there in Lambeth and they had this blowup. Serenho was like, They’re gonna say Thalia was with us, and we’ll all get blamed. If we get the pictures developed they’ll see she wasn’t there. Scalzitti was still chickenshit so I literally walked him over to the darkroom to see that little—what was that guy’s name? Ritter? Otherwise I think he would’ve dumped the film in the creek.”
I said, “There were the timestamps and everything. That was a lifesaver for Robbie.”
“For all of us, probably.”
“Right. Because no one who was there could’ve done it. Which—that wouldn’t have been obvious for a few days, right? It took a while for them to get the cause of death, and the time of death. You figure, at first it might’ve looked bad. These are the kids who were out drinking, and they were sneaking around campus, so who knows what else they did.”
Mike looked confused, thick brows coming together. “I guess the point was she wasn’t with us.”
“But it’s funny,” I said, “that Robbie took that risk.”
“He knew he had nothing to hide. That makes it easier.”
“I know from Sakina that you guys got to the mattresses in clusters,” I lied. “I mean, that only makes sense. You were probably slower than everyone else with your leg. But when they ask about it, you just—you simplify it, right? If you all walked there together, it gets the gist across better.”
“Wait, is that what she said on the stand?”
“I doubt it. I mean, if anything, they’re interested in when people left.”
“Right.” He relaxed back in his chair. “I don’t know. In the days afterward, we kept checking with each other, making sure we had our story straight. Not like we were making it up, but just things like whose idea was it, how long were we there. Honestly, we decided together to say it was only drinking and cigarettes. There was definitely some pot, but that wasn’t in the photos, so why bring it up?”