Sloan sat on a bench in the girls’ locker room and removed her shin guards and cleats. She pulled her damp jersey over her head and blotted sweat from her neck. She slid out of her shorts, removed her sports bra, and left both in a sodden pile on the floor. She headed for the shower, which was deserted by now. It was Friday afternoon, late May, and no one had spoken to her for weeks. She was the designated social outcast, the assumption being that she had written an anonymous note to the Climping Academy vice principal, naming Troy Rademaker and Poppy Earl as two students who’d been given answers to the California Academic Proficiency Test and had cheated their way to better grades. Word of this betrayal had spread through the school within a day. Sloan had been outspoken in her exhortations to Poppy to abandon the plan to cheat, so when the typewritten note arrived, Austin Brown had persuaded the entire junior class that Sloan was guilty of violating their trust. That Sloan was innocent was beside the point. She was judged to be guilty as charged and her heated denials sounded hollow even to her own ears. Sloan was a jock: tall and sturdy and well-coordinated. She was also smart, studious, and strong-willed. Even so, the isolation was wearing her down.
As she crossed the tile floor, she pulled the rubber band from the tip of the braid that extended halfway down her back. She shook out a cascade of waves, which fell across her shoulders like a cape. If she washed her hair, it would take hours to dry, but that was better than a sweaty scalp. As usual, the shower smelled of bleach, a scent she associated with winning as well as defeat. The hot water was healing and she didn’t regret having the space to herself. The effect of the shunning was already deadening and while she feigned indifference, she was acutely aware of the disapproval washing over her. No one addressed a word to her. No one acknowledged her presence. No one made eye contact. If she spoke to a classmate, she received no response. Even a few students in the freshman and sophomore classes had taken up the ban. In the main, the seniors abstained from participation, but she sensed that they viewed her with scorn, thinking she’d brought it on herself.
The cheating scandal was set in motion when Iris Lehmann had pulled the fire alarm bell and then waited until the halls and classrooms had cleared before she scurried into the school office and photocopied the test and answer sheet, which had been distributed to the faculty cubbyholes. The test had been administered on Friday, April 13, and shortly after the grades were posted, some three weeks later, the anonymous note had showed up on the vice principal’s desk. Originally, Troy’s score wasn’t suspect because his grades were usually good. Poppy did better than past performances warranted, so suspicion had already been aroused where she was concerned. In a misguided attempt to disguise their duplicity, Troy and Poppy had answered the same two questions incorrectly. Both were summoned to the vice principal’s office, where Mr. Lucas grilled them. Poppy might have talked her way out of it, but Troy had cracked under questioning and he’d implicated her.
Sloan had heard about their intentions in advance and she’d made her disapproval clear. She might not have gotten wind of it if it hadn’t been for the cluster of students all a-buzz with the news. Fully half the class knew what was going on and yet she was blamed for the leak. As much as she disliked the idea of cheating, she would never have turned them in. She and Poppy had been best friends since their first day at Climping Academy as kindergarteners. Sloan had always been the better pupil of the two, sailing through classes without effort, while Poppy pulled mediocre grades at best. Sloan couldn’t even count the number of times she’d tutored Poppy, working through English and math, quizzing her in history and social studies. The process didn’t seem to get easier for Poppy, and Sloan sometimes felt guilty because it all came so easily to her.
Once showered, she dressed, pulled her damp hair into a ponytail, and headed for the parking lot. When she reached her stepfather’s snappy red MG, she saw that the word SNITCH had been scratched into the paint on the driver’s side. She stared at the damage, realizing she’d be forced to tell Paul what was going on. She’d hoped to endure the ostracism in silence, but the vehicle was his pride and joy and any repairs would have to be billed to his insurance. No point in confiding in her mother, who was generally zonked on booze and the various prescription drugs she took for assorted ills, imaginary and otherwise. Her mother responded to stress by taking to her bed. If she heard about Sloan’s excommunication, her impulse would be to phone the school and lodge a long, rambling complaint, which would only make the situation worse.
Sloan and her mother had been close once upon a time, but that had changed abruptly. Sloan had been conceived out of wedlock, a quaint concept that Margaret had confided to her when she was five. Margaret told Sloan she met her birth father in Squaw Valley the winter after she graduated from a small Methodist college in Santa Teresa. She’d been looking for a change of scene and managed to pick up work as a waitress at a first-class resort. Cory Stevens was a ski bum in residence, lean, good-looking, easy-going, adventuresome, and kind. Margaret had assumed he came from money since he lived with no discernible source of income. They’d had a passionate affair, and at Christmas when Margaret learned she was pregnant, she was distraught, thinking Cory was unlikely to settle down. To her surprise, he seemed to take it all in stride. Though he wasn’t prepared to marry her, he’d sworn he’d stick with her until the baby was born and provide handsomely for the child. Two weeks later, he’d been killed in an avalanche. Margaret was left with a single photograph of him and promises he couldn’t fulfill. She’d moved to Long Beach, had borne her baby girl, and made the best of it.