AMANDA
THURSDAY, JANUARY 11
On Thursday, I sit down at the dining room table with both my parents for the second time since Christmas. I used Linda’s Amex to go shopping after school again today, and I’m feeling good about the reasonable yet impressive spread I assembled from the prepared foods counter. But as I dish chicken scaloppini and fingerling potatoes onto our plates, it’s hard to ignore the fact that my parents are hardly talking.
Dad takes a bite and chews slowly. “Did you cook this?” His question is directed at my mother, who says nothing. “It’s not that chef again, is it?”
She stiffens in her chair.
“I cooked,” I jump in before she can respond. “Well, I prepared. It’s from the store.”
Jack frowns but keeps eating. He wishes Linda would cook more, or at all, and I hold my breath and will him not to pick that fight. Not right now. Not when we’re all actually eating together and this meal was almost as inexpensive as homemade.
“Carter took me to Verde last night,” I volunteer before he can decide to press. I’ve already told Dad about our date, but my mother, typically, wasn’t up yet when I left for school this morning. “The lamb was really excellent.”
“Any occasion?” she asks, raising her wineglass to her lips. She takes a small sip in a pointed exercise of restraint; I’d bet she has fund-raising calls to make after we’re finished.
I want to tell her about Rosalie—that her exit from Carter’s life was the occasion—but she’ll find a way to twist around whatever I say. She’ll make this about me gloating, not celebrating. She’ll find a way to make it about herself.
“He was just taking care of me. After that stuff with my locker at school.”
My mother takes a larger sip. “What stuff with your locker?” Dad asks. So I guess Linda didn’t find the school’s call important enough to share.
“Nothing,” I say quickly, sensing the three of us edging dangerously near another fight. “Some prank. Carter was concerned about me, that’s all.”
“I hope you weren’t too needy.” My mother frowns into her fingerling potatoes. “It’s nice that Carter took you out, but you have to grow a thicker skin. You’re a beautiful young woman from a good family. Kids”—she gestures with her glass, a few drops of Chardonnay splashing onto the table—“are bound to act out of jealousy from time to time. You have to show Carter you’re strong, that you’re up for the job of being his partner. Because it is a job, Amanda. Don’t forget it.”
I’m not sure whether her last statement is directed at me, my dad, or herself. Visions of steely, resplendent Robin Wright flash before my eyes. House of Cards is my mother’s favorite show for a reason.
Dad stands abruptly and takes his plate into the kitchen, leaving me alone with Linda at the dining room table.
“I wasn’t needy,” I say, my voice small. “When Carter dropped me off, he wasn’t ready for the night to end.”
“Good,” she replies, her words clipped. “Always leave him wanting more.”
• • •
By the time I’ve finished clearing the plates, my father has retreated into his office and my mother has stationed herself in the dining room to make a round of calls to future Museum of Fine Arts donors. With the benefit less than two weeks away, her fund-raising efforts have been ramping up. She seems more stressed than usual about meeting her goal, which is entirely performative, because Linda Kelly always meets her goal. I slip upstairs before I get assigned a section of the call list. I’ve had enough of my mother’s priorities tonight.
In my room, I perch in my desk chair and check my phone. No new messages from Private since the instruction to email that kiss shot to Rosalie’s dad last night. First me, now Rosalie. Maybe I haven’t been giving Private enough credit. Maybe this was never really about me. Maybe Private’s end game is to take Carter down.
I try to think it all through. Rosalie only broke up with him two nights ago. When Private sent me the photos, she or he or whoever might not have known that Rosalie had already ended things. I have no love to spare for Rosalie Bell, but she broke it off. My business with her is done. Whoever else she kisses is beside the point, and anyway, I don’t know this girl’s family. If she’s bi or whatever, outing her would be majorly vile.
I switch on my phone again and stare at the selfie of Carter and me on New Year’s, the night all this began. We’re stunning, but are we happy? I pick up the framed picture, the one of the two of us from our ninth-grade spring formal, and compare. My hair is done up in silly beauty pageant curls, and Carter’s shoulders barely fill out his suit. One of the spaghetti straps on my dress is slipping down my arm. But both of our faces glow. I look back to my phone. On New Year’s, we’re dressed exactly right, posed exactly right. We look polished and elegant. Picture-perfect. But no, I decide, not happy. I switch the background shot on my phone to a selfie of Adele and me goofing around in oversized flannel pajama sets over winter break.
Then I take a deep breath. Carter and Rosalie are done. He took me to Verde to apologize and start over. Things are going to be better now, as soon as I can get this Private creep off our backs. We can be happy again. We’re already halfway there.
I press my fingertips against my temples and try to think. Carter’s birthday is in thirteen days. That’s still a lot of time. I need to think two steps ahead, make a move before Private does.
I send the photos to myself, then open a new message and attach them.
Subject: Just thought you should know
From: me
To: Rosalie Bell
I’m not trying to scare you or anything, but I wasn’t kidding about those anonymous texts. I know they’re not from you, but someone is out to get me, and looks like they’re out to get you too. The texter sent me these with instructions to send them to your dad.
Don’t freak, okay? I didn’t do it, and I’m not going to. As long as you stay out of Carter’s life, we’re good, and honestly I don’t want to waste another second thinking about you, but in case you don’t want people knowing you kiss other girls, consider this a heads-up that someone wants to blow up your spot.
You owe me.
—AK
I close out of my email and text Private.
Mission accomplished.
You emailed her dad?
I handled it my way.
Straight to Rosalie herself.
Don’t make me angry, Amanda.
I did not say you could do that.
You don’t get to tell me what to do.
Silence. I’ve won. I turn off my screen and open up Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse, which I’m reading for class at Chatham. I curl into the pillow wall on my bed and let myself get lost in the story for over an hour until something that sounds like tiny pebbles pings against my window. A second later, it happens again. Carter hasn’t thrown pebbles at my bedroom window since freshman year. My stomach fills with a rush of butterflies, and my fingers fly up to clasp the onyx heart at my neck.
I switch off the overhead light so I can see out, then pad over to the window. My bedroom looks out on the side of the house, a strip of landscaped flower beds that dissolve into a rock garden. I can’t see much directly below me, but the garden lights are on. There’s no one out there, but something that looks like little pieces of paper is scattered across the rocks. Love notes? The butterflies rise into my chest.
I slip on a warm sweater and shoes. Downstairs, Dad’s still in his office, but the dining room is dark. It’s a little after ten, too late to make donor calls. I grab a flashlight from the drawer and walk out the sliding glass doors onto the back deck.
Outside, I switch on the deck lights, but there’s no one back here, either. I shine my flashlight on the lawn leading out to the gazebo and pool. Nothing.
Then I walk around the side of the house to the rock garden. Before I even get all the way down the path, I can see what the little pieces of paper really are. Not love notes—photographs. A million prints of the same picture: Rosalie and Carter, one arm wrapped tight around her waist, her face turned to the side, following the direction of his fingertips. His face is turned toward her, relaxed and smiling. He’s pointing at something on the wall in front of them, a large photograph, the colors smeared out of focus in Trina’s picture. Because that’s what this is. One of the pictures Trina took in November at that gallery opening in Pittsburgh. The pictures that proved Carter was cheating. The pictures she swore no one would ever see but me.
I snatch one from the ground and hold it under the flashlight beam. I haven’t looked at this photo since she showed me the shots. They looked different on her camera, smaller and less vivid somehow. Or maybe I wasn’t looking as closely two months ago; maybe the past few days have worn me down. He’s squeezing her close to his side, and even though I can only see part of his face, he’s clearly happy. Not perfect and posed, the way he’s been lately with me. Just totally happy.
“Fuck,” I whisper beneath my breath. I drop the flashlight and drop to my knees. Trina swore she deleted those shots, but there must be hundreds of prints here in my yard. I scramble around on the ground, gathering them up, the rocks digging into my hands and knees and messing up my favorite pair of jeans. I don’t care. Tears prick at the corners of my eyes.
I know they broke up, but it doesn’t matter. Seeing this—how they were, just two months ago—still hurts just as hard. The tears spill over, and then I’m sobbing, mascara streaming down my face, lips twisted into an ugly, silent howl. There are too many photos. I can’t hold them all. I run back around the house and grab a utility bucket, then I spend the next half hour finding every last photo in the rock garden until my nails are crusted with dirt and my face is streaked with snot and tears, and I know I’ll never, ever be able to unsee the image of my boyfriend, happy and in love with Rosalie Bell.
When I’m upstairs again, I shove the bucket into the back of my closet and slam the door. Then I look at myself in the dresser mirror. I look like hell. I slip inside my bathroom, which connects directly to my bedroom, and turn on the shower, let it run hot. I strip off my clothes until they’re in a dirty heap around me and pull back the shower curtain. But before I can step inside, my phone beeps. I think about leaving it, but I can’t. I have to know.
I wrap my bathrobe around me and walk back into my room. The new message indicator is flashing, Private Number.
The first message is the same horrible photo of Rosalie and Carter, a digital copy, as if I didn’t have enough. The caption reads, Wake up and smell the truth, Princess.
The second message is also from Private.
You think it’s over between Rosalie and Carter, but they’re both lying to you. Send the photos to her father, and put Rosalie in her place.
My stomach clenches, acid pooling where there used to be butterflies, and I know I’m going to be sick. I run back to the bathroom and crouch over the toilet, gagging and gasping until I’m trembling all over and there’s nothing left inside. When I can move again, I stagger into the shower and stand under the hot stream until I finally stop shaking.
Trina took those photos, but she doesn’t have any reason to hurt me. More likely, she lied about deleting the shots—sent them to someone or loaned out her camera. I should be furious with her, but right now, I’m too wrecked to be angry. Somehow, Private is everywhere. I start sobbing again, the water streaming down my face, mixing with the salt.
My heart is splintering into a thousand tiny pieces, but admitting how much this is getting to me means letting Private win. And that’s not going to happen. Tonight, I’ll curl into bed with Huggie and let the heartbreak wash over me. Tomorrow, when I have my shit back together, Trina and I need to talk.