The cubby is a secluded nook on the back side of the school building. It’s shielded from the playing fields by the parked school buses and the Dumpster used by the wood shop. It isn’t romantic, but it is private, and couples who don’t have cars frequent the cubby before school, after school, and during school. Allegra Pancik and Brick Llewellyn purportedly had sex in the cubby during morning announcements a few years earlier—the stuff of high school legend.
Ainsley follows Teddy through the corridors and out the back door of the cafeteria. Jasmine Miyagi, the queen bee of the freshman class, tries to stop Ainsley. She probably wants to gossip about Candace, but Ainsley waves her off. Nobody thinks anything about seeing Ainsley and Teddy together because nobody other than Ainsley, Teddy, Candace, and Emma know they’ve broken up.
Teddy is three strides ahead of Ainsley. She had thought maybe he would walk alongside her, maybe hold her hand.
They get to the cubby, find it empty. Teddy checks in all directions to make sure the coast is clear, which is standard operating procedure when using the cubby for intimate purposes. Ainsley can’t wait to kiss him.
But suddenly he slams her up against the shingles of the building. Her head smacks hard. Teddy’s hands are around her throat. His eyes are blue fire, and his voice drops to a scary whisper.
“It was you,” he says.
“No,” she blurts.
“It was you. I know it was you. And Emma, that little tart. She lifted the cocaine bag from her father’s jeans pocket after he came home from work, and you stole the gin from your grandmother’s bar cart.”
Ainsley blinks. He’s exactly right.
“I know you, Ainsley,” Teddy says. “I know your tricks, and I know Emma’s tricks. I’ve spent all year with you. I’ve waited outside while you lifted booze from your grandmother’s house. I’ve been inside your grandmother’s house. I’ve seen the Bombay Sapphire. The coke was probably Emma’s idea. You probably resisted at first, but then she talked you into it the way she talks you into everything.”
Every sentence he speaks is truer than the last, but Ainsley can’t give that away. She clamps her fingers, like bracelets, around his wrists.
“Get your hands off my neck,” she says. “You’re scaring me.” Teddy’s mother is in a mental hospital. Ostensibly her state of mind was affected by his father’s death at the cat-food factory, but what if mental illness runs in the family and Teddy is not actually the greatest guy Ainsley has ever met but rather some kind of maniac who is going to strangle her here behind the high school?
“You’re scared now?” Teddy says. “Just wait.” He lets go of her neck, but she’s even more intimidated. “I’m going to Dr. Bentz in the morning. That gives you time to turn yourself in this afternoon.”
A part of Ainsley does want to turn herself in. She will cry to Dr. Bentz, admit her wrongdoing, tell him the gin was hers but not the coke. She’ll explain her broken heart, her grandfather dying, her grandmother breaking her hip, her mother leaving her alone for days. If she needs to, she will hark all the way back to losing her baby brother. She was only two, she doesn’t remember him, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t affected when he died. Her mother was forever changed: when Tabitha looks at Ainsley even now, she sees Julian’s ghost. (This may sound like a stretch, but how does Ainsley know it isn’t true? Her life, she is certain, would be better if Julian had lived.) Dr. Bentz is famous around school for being evolved, in tune with the careening emotions of teenagers. He has a record of being lenient with students who admit their wrongdoing, but what he can’t stand… is a liar.
To admit the truth, however, means to turn in Emma. Can Ainsley betray her best friend? No, she can’t. Emma only swiped her father’s empty baggie of cocaine in order to help Ainsley get back at Candace. It was Emma who took the risk of placing the incriminating evidence in Candace’s locker; someone could easily have seen her.
Ainsley realizes that what she wants most—a chance at recapturing Teddy’s affections—is lost to her either way. By trying to destroy Candace, she has made Candace into a heroine.
So now Ainsley’s choices are between bad and worse. She chooses bad; she calls Teddy’s bluff.
“You sound like a hillbilly who came East and watched too much Gossip Girl,” Ainsley says. “This is Nantucket. People don’t plant alcohol and drugs in other people’s lockers on the off chance they’ll get suspended, Teddy. You can tell Mr. Bentz your conspiracy theory, but it’ll sound like something you saw on Netflix. I already told you: I like Candace. You two make a cute couple. I wish you only the best.” Ainsley tries to force sincerity into these last sentences, but still they feel flaccid.
Teddy pauses, however. He may know her, yet she also knows him. He’s unsure now.
“Fine,” he says.
Ainsley has no idea what “fine” means: he’s going to Mr. Bentz or he isn’t? However, asking him to clarify seems dangerous.
“Fine,” Ainsley says, and she walks off with the manner of a girl who has nothing to fear.
Emma has already left school, and although Ainsley knows she is probably just down the street at Cumberland Farms hanging out with BC and Maggie, smoking weed and devouring three slices of cardboard pepperoni, Ainsley decides to walk home. She needs to think.
She never meant to be a bad kid; she only wanted to be a cool kid. When she really lets herself think about it, she can’t believe what she and Emma have done. It’s shameful, and it’s dangerous. They’re going to get caught. Of course they’re going to get caught. They are going to be the ones to get suspended… or worse. And Dutch will likely get in trouble, too, because the cocaine was his.
Going to college might be in jeopardy. What will her mother think? What will her father think? Her stepmother, Becky, will be proved right: Ainsley is a bad seed, a terrible role model. She should not be allowed around her half brothers.
With each car that passes as she walks, Ainsley turns, hoping it’s Emma in the Range Rover. Or that it’s Teddy in his uncle’s truck. But all the cars are unfamiliar. The summer people are here; no one recognizes her.
In the driveway of the carriage house, Ainsley sees a navy-blue Bronco. She blinks. Aunt Harper’s car.
She came! Ainsley feels a rush of elation and relief. Aunt Harper came! But her joy is chased by a panicky fear. She told Aunt Harper that Tabitha was fine with her coming, but that was a big fat lie.
Tabitha is still in Boston with Eleanor. When Ainsley spoke to her mother at lunchtime, Tabitha hadn’t disclosed when—or if—she was coming home. Tabitha said she was sending Meghan over to check on Ainsley. Ainsley is just going to have to tell Aunt Harper the truth: Tabitha doesn’t want her there. Maybe Aunt Harper won’t care. Maybe Aunt Harper will stay anyway.
Ainsley opens the door and is immediately greeted by a Siberian husky with eyes the color of glacial ice. A dog—Aunt Harper’s dog—is in the house! Again, Ainsley is both thrilled and extremely uneasy. Ainsley has wanted a dog since the beginning of time, but Tabitha always said no. Eleanor once had a dachshund, but it ate shoes, and they had to give him away.
“Hello? Ainsley, is that you?”