Stuffed with coffee, al pastor tacos, and horchata, Soren and I made our way toward Imperial Day Academy. With the austere budget we’d been given, it was the only place we could afford to have the dance. Still, Hector and I had done a smashing job with what we had to work with. We moved the dance from the gym to the courtyard, which I couldn’t believe had never been suggested before. That alone made the whole affair exponentially less grim.
We’d enlisted a group of volunteers to fish every last turtle out of the pond and put them in a tank in the main office for the night. I’d made the decision to move them, not wanting to see any of the little creatures accidentally trampled to death on my watch. I made sure everyone washed their hands before and afterwards, that the turtles were not over-handled, that no one threatened to swing them by the tail or put them down the back of anyone else’s shirt. I made sure that every last one of them was accounted for when we wheeled the tank down to the main office.
We’d strung fairy lights up everywhere, convinced Chris Gibbons to DJ for free as his Honor Week tribute, and hired some food trucks to come out with tamales, grilled cheese, kogi tacos, and ice cream sandwiches: basically, the four LA food groups washed down with aguas frescas ladled out of big plastic containers.
It looked amazing. When I saw Hector and Esme standing across the courtyard, I was so excited about what we’d done that I forgot about the confession I’d made to Soren and dragged him over to them.
“Who plans the best motherfucking Homecoming dance?” I asked as I bounced up to Hector, half-singing and half-dancing, the best I could manage of either.
“We plan the best motherfucking Homecoming dance,” Hector replied, fist-bumping me before looking sheepishly at Esme, who glared at him. I couldn’t tell if she disapproved of Hector swearing or of Hector talking to another girl, even if it happened to be me.
She was wearing a hot-pink strapless mini-dress and strappy silver heels. Looking at those shoes, all I could think was that if she stepped in a sewer grate, her ankle would snap like a twig.
“Hi, Esme. You look pretty,” Soren said, and the sour look on her face turned sweet.
“Thanks, Soren,” she said.
Hector put his arm around Esme’s waist, then asked, “Can you do a walkthrough of the food trucks, make sure the fire marshal isn’t going to shut us down?”
“Want to come with?” I asked Soren.
“I could eat,” he said.
“You just ate half a dozen tacos,” I said. “I watched you do it.”
“I’m just saying I could eat again is all.”
As we set off to inspect the food trucks, I realized there had been something off about my conversation with Hector. Ordinarily, he would have done the walkthrough himself. He’d let you help with things if you asked, but Hector Estrella would never ask you to do something he could do much better himself.
Tonight was different. Tonight Senate President Hector Estrella was on a date.
“You guys have fun,” Esme called after us, and maybe I imagined the extra emphasis she put on the word guys, but I do not think that I did. For a split second, I wondered if maybe I should have just sucked it up and worn a stupid strapless dress like everybody else.
But then Soren slipped an arm over my shoulder in a way that was friendly, yet intimate, and whispered, “That girl does not like you.”
I smiled and put my arm around his waist as we headed toward the food trucks. No one had ever viewed me as a threat before. For some reason, this pleased me.
At the grilled cheese truck, we ran into Cal and Zelda Parsons, who was wearing a dress that made Esme Kovacs look like a nun. It was spangly and silver and backless, and I was not entirely sure what was keeping it affixed to her body. It was the first time I’d ever seen her without her horn-rimmed glasses. I waved at her. She squinted back.
“That’s a nice suit you’re wearing, McCarthy,” Cal said, nodding to Soren. “Is this your beard?”
“I’m her date,” Soren said, and this seemed to shut Cal up, about what I was wearing anyway.
Cal surveyed the hallway, the decorations, the food trucks, the courtyard. I couldn’t help joining in, proud all over again of how good it looked.
“So, this dance . . . ,” Cal said, his lip curled, “was clearly planned by a Mexican.”
“Dude,” said Soren at the same time I said, “The fuck?”
Zelda Parsons stared off into the middle distance like her body was present in our conversation but her mind was somewhere else entirely. With his proclivities toward the easily manipulated, I guess I wasn’t totally surprised Cal was drawn to her.
“We rented a penthouse at the Standard afterwards, if you’d like something to eat that isn’t served in a cardboard boat. It’s fifty dollars a person. Zelda is collecting the money. Soren, perhaps you can bring a snack to share with the rest of the class?” Cal mimed smoking a joint, then threw an elbow into Soren’s ribs, just as Mrs. Lester walked past, making her rounds on chaperone duty. Ever since her failure to contain the P-P-P-PLEDGE incident during the election assembly my freshman year, I did tend to seek her out any time I needed faculty for an undesirable task, such as, say, chaperoning a Homecoming dance. To her credit, she always agreed and never quite had the nerve to look me in the eye, so I suppose being disappointed by her was not without its upsides.
“Everything in order, Ms. McCarthy? Mr Hurt?” she asked.
“Just kidding around, miss,” Cal said. “Everything’s perfect.”
Then, as soon as Mrs. Lester had moved on, Cal turned to Zelda, reached up her dress and pinched her thigh.
“Come on,” he said. “We’re done here.”
Robotically, Zelda turned and followed after him.
“What’s got into him?” Soren asked, as they walked away.
“That’s how he always is.”
A slow smile spread over Soren’s face. Then he started to laugh, and once he got going, he couldn’t stop. He doubled over, clutching onto the back of a folding chair to keep from slumping over on the pavement.
“What’s so funny?”
“I am no longer a person Cal has to be nice to.” When he caught his breath again, he added, “I mean, I always suspected he was a piece of shit, but he used to make far more of an effort to hide it around me.”
I still had my eye on Zelda Parsons, tottering away on her high heels. If Livia could have seen her now, she would have found her to be beneath contempt. Was that what had caused this, I wondered? Was the disgrace of her former mentor so shattering that it had completely destroyed Zelda? Stranger things had happened, I supposed, and for less cause. What was she getting out of it, though? Being Livia’s flunkie was certainly less degrading than being Cal’s.
Soren got a helping of kogi tacos and an ice cream sandwich while I checked in with the vendors. Then we circled back toward the courtyard, where attendance had almost doubled in our absence. What had looked like a perfectly pleasant gathering a few minutes before was now a legitimate party in full jubilant swing.
The sophomore senators, Lucy Lin and Veronica Ollenbeck, started a conga line around the courtyard while Chris Gibbons spun records competently, even though he looked like a self-important prig while he did it. In the hallways, there were long lines for the photo booth, the caricature artist, the aguas frescas. The fact that we hadn’t had enough money to hire a security guard in addition to the four teachers who were chaperoning nagged at me, but everybody seemed to be in a good mood, having a good time. There was nothing to worry about, I told myself. People danced, they ate, they talked to their friends, and then they went out to dance again.
Soren pointed toward the courtyard conga line and asked, “Want to?”
“Sure,” I said, caught up in the moment enough to forget about my limp. Once around the courtyard wasn’t going to kill me. I grabbed Soren’s hips and fell in line. It was my victory lap.
The song ended and the line dispersed as Chris Gibbons put on a slow song. People paired off, and gradually, the dance floor filled up with swaying couples. Soren held out his hand to me and I took it. Everyone around us mashed their bodies together like horny music-box toppers, but Soren put one hand around my waist and held the other and led me in a proper waltz, slow and simple enough for me to keep up without stumbling.
I had to reach up to touch his shoulder. He was almost a foot taller than me, but I couldn’t help thinking that we looked good. I liked him, and we were having such a good time that when I saw Hector and Esme dancing with their fingers entwined, their foreheads pressed together, eyes closed, mouths mumbling unheard endearments, I almost felt happy for Hector. Almost.
Then the music came to an end and while the next song faded in, one wall of the courtyard lit up. Sappy instrumental music began to play and a picture of Cal ladling soup at a homeless shelter appeared on the wall. For the next five minutes, Chris Gibbons played a slideshow of Honor Week. It had been carefully curated. Neither Hector nor I appeared in any of the pictures. No senator at all did, even though they’d done just as much as the Honor Council members and planned a whole dance on top of it. Cal was in at least half the pictures. At the end of the song, there was a smattering of polite applause from people who wanted to get back to dancing.
“Is everyone having a good time?” Chris Gibbons asked. The crowd humored him with a murmur in the affirmative.
“Okay, this next part is a little bit cheesy, but we’ve had a slideshow and Christmas lights and fruit punch, so I say let’s go with it. Embrace the cheese. Could I get Hector Estrella and Claudia McCarthy to come up here?”
I went. What else could I do? Hector met me at the front and whispered, “What’s going on?” before we joined Chris at the microphone. I shrugged, and Hector frowned at me like I should be more concerned that we didn’t know what was happening at the dance we’d planned. In hindsight, he was right.
“What’s this all about?” Hector asked into the microphone Chris handed him with a nervous chuckle.
“Very funny,” Chris said, producing two envelopes. He handed one to Hector and one to me. “You can’t have Homecoming without a king and queen, right?”
For one horrifying moment, I thought he meant to crown Hector and me king and queen right there, but then I realized whatever was about to happen would be much, much more humiliating than that.
“I don’t remember voting,” Hector said into the mic, still friendly, still chuckling, but with just a hint of misgiving in his voice.
“A panel of students, faculty, and staff did the voting. It was meant to be a surprise,” Chris said, adding with saccharine glee, “Surprise!”
A murmur went through the crowd because at this point, they didn’t care about the legitimacy of the election. They just wanted to know whose names were in the envelopes.
Chris Gibbons threw an arm around each of us and said, “Let’s all give a big hand to everyone who made this great night possible. And while we’re at it, everyone who made this great week possible, this great school possible. It’s all of you. So give yourselves a big round of applause.”
Hector and I exchanged a look, and I knew that I’d get an earful from Crabby Hector later that night. Like, would it have killed him to thank us by name? Or at least to thank the whole Senate for busting our asses for the past month? But then Chris Gibbons said, “Claudia, why don’t you do the honors?”
Chris Gibbons was our DJ. We’d hired him, and absolutely none of this was in the plan we’d discussed. So, whose plan was it? I didn’t have to look very hard to find out. No further, in fact, than the name in the envelope Chris Gibbons had handed to me.
“The Homecoming King of Imperial Day Academy is . . .”
Chris Gibbons forced the mic into my hands and played a drumroll. My classmates stared at me expectantly at first, then with impatience. Hector watched to see what I was going to do because we knew that there had never been any vote taken to determine the names in these envelopes. But if I didn’t open mine, someone else would.
I opened the envelope, looked at the slip of paper inside to confirm what I already knew, and stuttered into the mic, “C-C-Cal.”
Applause tore through the courtyard, loud and raucous this time, as Cal ran from the back, high-fiving everyone in his path, and joined us in front of the DJ booth. He pumped both of his fists and let out a whoop, then jumped up in the air and clicked his heels together like a leprechaun because, sure, why not.
Cal took the microphone from me and said, “Who’s my queen, Estrella? Don’t keep the people waiting.”
Apparently he could remember Hector’s name if there were other people watching.
Hector’s face went stony as he opened the envelope. Cal shoved the microphone in front of his face and hopped from one foot to the other, antsy for his next photo op to get underway.
When Hector drew the embossed notecard out of the envelope, his face crumpled, though he recovered so quickly I’m not sure if anyone spotted it besides me and Cal, who was expecting it. Hector pasted on a fake smile as he looked out into the crowd and said, “I’m so happy for you, Esme. Come on up here.”
Esme began to thread her way through the crowd, but in her three-inch heels, it was slow going. Cal dashed out to meet her halfway, swept her up in his arms, and carried her to the front, where at least a dozen people took their picture before he finally put her down. Chris Gibbons produced two crowns and handed them to Hector and me. I put the tiara on Esme’s head while Hector gritted his teeth and crowned Cal.
Chris Gibbons crowed into the microphone, “Ladies and gentlemen of the Imperial Day Academy, I give you your king and queen.”
More wild applause as Cal kissed Esme on the cheek, then picked her up in his arms again like she was something he owned, and now Hector and I were standing awkwardly in the middle of cheers that were not for us. Hector was looking at Esme and Cal like he wanted to be ill. If my girlfriend looked that happy about having Cal’s hands on her thighs, I guess I’d feel ill, too.
“Come on,” I said, taking his hand and leading him back into the crowd before he made a face that someone other than me could decipher.
Once we were safely in the hallway, almost deserted now that everyone had filed into the courtyard to celebrate Imperial Day’s royalty, Hector’s face registered the full shock of what had happened.
Yes, it was just a stupid dance, but the truth of what had just happened was too big to ignore: Cal had schemed his way onto the Honor Council, ratfucked his way to the presidency, then crowned himself king of the damn school. Because he could.
The whole thing had been orchestrated to deliver maximum insult. Having us up there to announce the so-called results like we’d had something to do with them. The fact that out of all the girls at Imperial Day he could have chosen, including his own girlfriend, he’d picked Esme, then made Hector send her running into his arms.
“Did she know this was going to happen?” Hector looked up at me, his eyes pleading.
I wanted to give him a hug, and not even one that had ulterior motives in it. I just felt bad for him.
“Of course not,” I said. Esme had looked happy enough with that crown on her head, but I couldn’t help wondering what was going through her mind when Cal picked her up and lifted her onto the stage. Did she want to be there? Was she just smiling because that was what you were supposed to do when people were watching you?
Before I could say more, Soren appeared with a look on his face that said he knew something was the matter even if he didn’t understand its full scope.
“I can’t find Zelda Parsons anywhere. I don’t know, maybe you want to . . .” Soren made a gesture like he was patting someone on the back. “Or something?”
And then there was poor Zelda Parsons. When Cal scooped Esme up in his arms, I’d been so focused on Hector that I’d almost forgotten that Zelda had to watch it happen, too. What’s more, she had to watch everyone in the whole school watch her watch it happen. While I did not consider Zelda Parsons a friend, neither did I think of her as my enemy, so I left Soren and Hector and went looking for her. The hall was empty, but there was a bathroom at the end of it, the eternal refuge of girls crying in public places. I opened the door, and sure enough, I could hear someone sobbing in the last stall.
“Zelda?” I called out.
The snuffling stopped, but there was no reply.
“Zelda? It’s Claudia.”
A long pause, then I heard her voice from the stall, teary and cold all at the same time.
“I know who it is.”
I suppose there weren’t a lot of people at Imperial Day with a voice that sounded like mine.
“Are you okay?”
“No, Claudia. I am not okay.”
One minute her quasi-boyfriend, or whatever Cal was, had been reaching his hand up her dress; the next he was sweeping Esme Kovacs up in his arms. That there’d never even been an election meant that Cal could have picked her, but he didn’t. He’d picked her friend. I imagined that must have been hard to watch.
“You’re too good for him, Zelda,” I said.
She let out a cracked little peal of laughter, then emerged from the stall. Her makeup was smudged under her eyes, her hair was disheveled, and whatever adhesive had been holding up her backless silver dress had come loose. She clutched the front against her chest with one hand as she punched the stall door so hard with the other that she cried out and grabbed her knuckles. The dress slipped down to her hips, and she yanked it back up, smearing the silver bodice with blood.
As soon as she’d lost control, though, she regained it, sneering as she walked over to the sink and turned on the faucet, dripping blood onto the ceramic.
“Is that what you think this is about?” she asked, still holding up her dress with one hand as she rinsed her bloody fingers. “You think I’d cry in the bathroom at a school dance over a boy?”
When she’d finished cleaning up her knuckles, Zelda cupped her hands under the faucet and splashed the water on her face, scrubbing her skin as if she wanted to tear it off. Finally, she tugged her dress up and leaned against the bathroom stall with her head thrown back and her eyes closed. I turned off the running water.
“Zelda, what happened?” I asked. I took two steps back, made my voice soft and low, afraid that any sudden movements would make her bolt right out of the bathroom.
She lowered her chin and fixed her eyes on mine, the kind of face you might make at a firing squad.
“Let’s say the Honor Council president corners you after a meeting and says you should hang out some time. You tell him you don’t think that’s such a good idea. Then he tells you, ‘You’re so good at your job. The Honor Council is really going to suck when you’re not on it anymore.’ And maybe he doesn’t come right out and say it, but you know what he means.”
“Oh, Zelda . . .” I put my hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off.
“You can’t make a deal like that and expect it to save you. Not for very long. Somebody should tell Esme Kovacs that.”
“Is there anything I can do?” I asked. I was thinking about immediate things, like getting her out of the bathroom unobserved or finding some gym clothes for her to borrow, or a bandage. But Zelda didn’t care about anything like that.
“You have no idea how much worse it’s going to get, Claudia.” She shuddered, then looked at the back of her hand.
“What do you mean?”
Before she could answer, we heard a scream from the hallway. Not a playful scream. Not a surprised one. Something terrible was on the other end of that scream. Zelda and I looked at each other, and ran out of the bathroom toward it.
Trixie Pappadou and her girlfriend and fellow senior class senator, Sarah Reisman, crashed into us. They were hysterical. Nothing they said made any sense, though eventually we ascertained that they’d snuck past the barricades into the hallway by the main office. When Zelda and I started down the hall in that direction, they screamed again and begged us not to go.
We got them to sit down and breathe, and while Zelda was calming them down, I got up and went to investigate. I wasn’t alone. The girls’ screams had attracted a few people from the dance, and together, we rounded the corner and made our way toward the main office.
The perpetrator had not tried to conceal what they’d done. The main office door had been flung open. Monday morning, people would say that the lock should have been fixed years ago rather than standing as a testament to how trustworthy Imperial Day students were and how well the Honor Code worked.
The carpets were soaked. There was broken glass everywhere. The smell was horrible, marshy and wet. It clung to the insides of my nostrils for the rest of the night.
Someone threw up in a trash can.
Mr. Woolf came running up behind us and said, “I’m calling the police.”
The teachers rounded all of us up in the courtyard, and we waited for the police to arrive. Everyone was in a state of shock. Some people looked shattered. More than a few people cried.
The office had been vandalized. The windows were broken, the aquarium smashed.
Someone had killed the turtles.
Every last one of them.