“Wrapped for what?” asked Jonas Everett, who seemed to have just woken up, from a middle row.
“You know what.” Ryan shook his fist and tongued his cheek, creating an obscene visual that made Molly feel queasy all over again.
“Baller,” Wyatt said, grinning.
The class laughed.
In the front row, Abigail Cress had taken out her own Salesman and was staring determinedly at its cover. Molly could see they’d hit a topic about which Abigail had none of her signature confidence. And for the first time, Molly liked her. She and Molly were together in their miserable discomfort, the only ones in the room who wanted the conversation to end.
Their common opponent was Ryan, who willed it to go on and on. “So, Miss Nicoll,” he said, stretching tanned arms over his head. “You and Mr. Ellison.”
“We saw you together,” Steph said, looking delighted and a little guilty.
“All those private lunches,” said Ryan.
Molly stood up and took her place at the whiteboard. “Okay, guys, that’s enough.”
“What’s he like?”
“Do you know where he went?”
“Did he tell you he was leaving?”
“No,” Molly said, a little too forcefully. The room was silent, and she realized that she had been hurt by this small slight, that he had not thought enough of her to tell her goodbye.
“That’s cold,” said Nick Brickston, aptly; she supposed that he had read it on her face. Nick had been silent to that point, lounging in his seat in the corner of the room, splaying his long legs under the desk.
“I’d like to move on, please,” Molly said.
Nick Brickston continued; the class turned to hear him. “All that time you hung out together? Then he just cuts out? You must be pissed.”
“Hella,” Ryan said.
Around the room were whispers and murmurs of assent. The kids had turned back to stare at her, with expressions both curious and pitying. Even Calista Broderick was watching her closely, her eyes unusually lucid, conveying something like compassion. Molly could see that it wasn’t going to stop. And she didn’t want to shut them down the way a typical teacher might—open dialogue was good for classrooms, and anyway there was kindness in their questions. Some buried thing within her, some long-subdued instinct, lunged for it. “Okay,” she said. She leaned against the whiteboard, hugging her book to her chest. “Yes, we were friends. No, he didn’t tell me he was going. Yes, it bothers me. Of course it does.”
“But do you know—” began Samantha Aster.
Molly flashed her palm. “None of us knows what really happened, do we?”
In the silence that followed, Molly’s kids glanced uncomfortably at one another. Molly had the sudden, horrible thought that they did know—they walked the same halls and heard the same rumors; they had heard, and maybe passed on, every sordid detail. They knew who the girl was when Molly did not. She had the thought that now they were protecting her.
Abruptly, in the front row, Abigail stood up. “I need the bathroom pass,” she said.
“You know you don’t have to ask,” Molly told her, grateful for the interruption. She smiled meaningfully at Abigail while handing her the slip of purple paper. Poor girl, she thought, she seems so mature in so many ways, but she’s not ready for this.
Abigail hurried out of the room.
“That’s some fucked-up shit,” Nick Brickston said philosophically as Abigail left, returning them immediately to the topic of Doug.
“That’s enough,” Molly told him, although she couldn’t disagree. And liked him just a little more for having said, so bluntly and efficiently, what she could not.
THE ARTIST
This was how Nick Brickston got away with it.
Step One: Tell the client to register for the SAT at a distant location—a high school in San Francisco was best—where all would be anonymous.
Step Two: Make a fake high school ID with his picture and his client’s name. His tools were few: iPhone camera, MacBook Pro with Photoshop, the laminating machine in his mom’s home office.
Step Three: On test day, go to the school and wait. Flash the ID card and admission ticket. Keep the chitchat to a minimum, giving them no reason to ask questions.
Step Four: Sign his client’s name on the line. (He studied each client’s handwriting, then mimicked it—he’d heard that when test officials suspected cheating, they’d analyze the writing on the essay portion, and this, he thought, was a stupid reason to get caught.)
Step Five: Sit for the test. Open the booklet. Wait for the magic to start.
—
The essay test always came first. Nick told his clients ahead of time which historical and personal examples he planned to write about; that way, on the ride home, they could tell their parents how the test had gone and sound legit.