The Diamonds (33 page)

Lili ripped open the first envelope (boys) with her pinky and read the names. Ryan, Duncan, Tiger. Anderson. Jed.

My mouth was as open as a twenty-four-hour diner.

Then the girls: Clarissa, Priya, Lili. (Big shock.) Jenny Murphy.

Lili paused, staring at the bleached paper in her hands. “And, uh, that's it,” she said into the camera.

“That's only four!” Dara exclaimed.

“There's one more!” Dana echoed. “Do you think it's us? Did they count us as one person?”

Mr. York, who supervised the announcements, walked onto the screen and whispered into Lili's ear. He pointed at the piece of paper, and then at her.

“Oh, fine,” Lili said as he walked offscreen. “And Marni Valentine.”

Everyone in class looked at me.

“No effing way,” Dara said.

“Who voted for her?” asked Dana. “Everyone hates her.”

“Yay, Marni!” Mrs. Bloom exclaimed, jumping up
and down. When she realized that no one else was clapping, she stopped.

“Finally,” Lili said, drawing everyone's attention back to the screen, “as of this morning, the student government has decided that all newspaper articles, no matter their content, must be preapproved by the Diamond Court before printing. This is to protect the student body from defamatory and disparaging material of any kind.” She nodded emphatically. “Thank you, Bennington, and have a nice day.”

I knew two things immediately:

1. There was no way on earth that enough of the student body had voted for me to earn me a princess spot (or Jed a prince spot, for that matter). Someone else was behind this, and I had to find out who.
   

2. Anderson was the rat.
   

Anderson had been hiding something Saturday night; he was the only other person who knew about the ex-posé. There was no way the Diamonds came up with the idea of censoring the
Bennington Press
without prompting. After all, the newspaper was one of the ways they'd furthered their power in the first place. They wouldn't publicly insult Tommy unless they believed he was working against them. And the only way they would think that was if Anderson had spilled the beans.

I tried, really tried, to think of other excuses. Any excuses. Only I couldn't. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to run and find Anderson, to pound
my hands against his perfect chest and tell him I knew his secret.

I remembered the wondrous look on Anderson's face during the fashion show, when the student body had seemed to accept him like they had before the Closet Incident; I remembered the night we'd spent underneath the stars and the conversation we'd shared; I especially remembered the way Anderson had given me the boot over the weekend. Had Clarissa been inside with him that night? When had been the moment he'd decided that our relationship was no longer enough? Why hadn't he told me?

Then I flushed each and every one of those thoughts from my mind. If I'd learned anything from Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu (and my entire experience with Clarissa), it was this: keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

So that was exactly what I did.

When I saw Anderson in the hall, I gave him a kiss and said, “Congratulations!” Later, when I saw Tommy, I told him to contact the rest of the Stonecutters and call an emergency meeting for that afternoon.

There was work to be done. Crying would simply have to wait.

“It's really over?” Boyd asked. He had on a black top hat and white sunglasses. “Like, for good?”

I nodded. The Stonecutters were assembled in Anderson's den for our final meeting. “We've had a great run, but there's no way we'll ever accomplish
what we set out to do. The Diamonds are just
too
good,” I said, trying to conceal the inner monster gnawing at my stomach.

This was the only way.

“I agree,” said Tommy, a somber expression on his face. “Now that the
Bennington Press
articles need to be approved before the printings, I have my work cut out for me.”

“Dude,” said Turbo softly.

“So that is eet?” Monique said. “We throw our-selves down and surrender?”

“This blows,” Turbo said.

Jenny was typically silent, and Jed looked at me as if to say, “What's up your sleeve, Valentine?” His fingers were
just
touching Darcy's; they were almost holding hands.

Anderson, looking slightly uncomfortable, rubbed my back. It made me cringe. “I guess it's for the best,” he said.

That was our cue to leave. Everyone stood up, looking confused, and gathered their belongings—backpacks, purses, notebooks, tap shoes (Boyd)—before filing down Anderson's narrow hallway. Someone—I think it was Turbo—said, “I can't believe Marni is a quitter. I never would have guessed.”

Keeping my mouth shut was one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do. We left one by one, dispersing into the afternoon as if we had never met to begin with.

As if the Stonecutters had never existed.

I lingered in my car, fiddling with the knobs of the radio until nearly everyone was gone and only one other car remained in front of Anderson's house. I rolled down my window to catch Tommy's attention. He nodded once and sped off, toward his house.

I followed him.

Three days later—it was a Thursday night, seven o'clock—my mother grinned at me unabashedly during dinner. At first I thought she was merely excited (the casts for her carpal tunnel would be coming off the following week), but then I realized that she was all glittered and be-gayed
(Candide
, Bernstein, 1956) for another reason entirely.

She'd found out about Snow Court.

“When were you going to tell us?” Her lipstick, which I had applied that morning before school, was smudged and leaky.

“Tell us what?” Dad asked, looking up from the
Times
. “Did you win some kind of award?”

“No,” I said. “It's really no big deal.”

Mom, who was shaking in her seat, could no longer contain her hysteria. “
Marni
is going to be Ice Queen!” she squealed, waving her casts in front of her. “She's one of
five
princesses! Oh, honey, Rose told me, and
she
heard from Diana Aubingdale's mother! Why didn't you tell me? This is so
exciting!”

I almost choked on a piece of chicken. “It's really not a big deal,” I said, “and I'm not going to win, so, whatever.”

Dad pursed his lips. “Ice Queen, eh?”

“Oh, but you
could
win, Marni,” Mom said before taking a sip of the Jamba Juice I'd brought her for dinner (Pomegranate Paradise). “Clarissa's prettier, of course, Priya's more fun, and, well, Lili's smarter, I suppose”—she looked at me with pride—“but it's not
totally
hopeless.” She sighed into her chair. “What are you going to wear? David, give Marni your credit card. Let her go buy something
fabulous
at the mall.”

“I don't need a new dress,” I said, dropping my fork onto my plate.

Perhaps it was because the dance was that weekend and the winter pep rally—where the Snow Court would be introduced and each member would have the opportunity to say a few final words on his or her own behalf—was the very next day. Perhaps it was because of Clarissa and Anderson and every other minor disaster that had snowballed into the catastrophe that was My Life over the past few weeks. Or perhaps it was simply because I was insulted that the only aspect of My Life my mother cared about was something I (A) didn't deserve and (B) didn't care about, but I threw my hands down on the table and stood up.

“The Snow Ball means nothing to me. If you ever listened to me, you would know that,” I said. “Maybe if you stopped thinking about yourself for, like, five minutes, you would see that my entire year so far has been a disaster. Jed dumped me, and the Diamonds stopped being friends with me because I started dating Clarissa's
ex-boyfriend, who I thought I was in love with but, as it turns out, screwed me over. Now I have nobody.”

I turned to my father. “And while I'm at it, Dad, you know I love you, but I don't want to be a lawyer. I never have. I don't have a clue what I
actually
want to do, but it's not that.”

I paused, catching my breath. “Oh, yeah. And I don't want to go to Georgetown.”

It was such a relief to say everything that had been bottled up inside me. I felt free, like the weight I'd been carrying on my shoulders for the past however many years had suddenly—and completely—been lifted. I didn't even care what either of them had to say in response.

“Well,” my father said after a few minutes. He removed his glasses and massaged his eyelids. “That's certainly a lot to take in.”

“I'm sorry,” I said, sitting back down. “But it's how I feel.”

Dad reached over and grabbed my hand. “You don't have to apologize for your feelings, Marni. I wish you had told me earlier, of course, but what you do with the rest of your life is up to you.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“You really don't want to go to Georgetown?” he asked. “Not even a little bit?”

“No, I don't.”

I certainly didn't expect everything to be la-di-da after a confession of that magnitude. Dad, I knew,
would be okay; it was my mother who I wanted to say something,
anything
.

She reached out her arm and rested it on the table. All that stuck out of her cast were her fingertips—which I'd painted red for her—and she wiggled them at me. Slowly. With my free hand, I touched her fingers with mine, and the three of us sat there, silent, holding hands until our arms grew tired.

It wasn't perfect, but for the first time in a long while, it felt like home.

Which leads me to the point in my story, dear reader, when I am forced to make a confession: I've kept something from you. A big secret. I didn't tell you because I knew you would think less of me, and you would have the right to. I did a terrible, awful thing, the kind of thing you lose a friendship over.

And I did.

When I ran into Anderson outside my house at the end of September with Hot Dog, it wasn't the first conversation we'd had alone—without Clarissa. It was the second. The first was in the parking lot of Dunkin’ Donuts over the summer, when I bumped into him buying a Coolatta and he walked me to my car, and we chatted about silly things, the weather and what my plans for the weekend were. Then, out of nowhere, he kissed me. His mouth tasted sweet and tangy, like his coffee. He wrapped one sinewy arm around my back and kissed me harder.

“My truck,” he said, cocking his head toward his Jeep a few feet away. “The back folds down.”

It was still bright outside, not even three o'clock. “What about Clarissa?” I asked.

“What about Jed?”

And there it was. Anderson wanted to hook up with me in the back of his truck. He had a girlfriend. I had a boyfriend.

I followed him and left half an hour later.
At least we didn't have sex
, I told myself, climbing into the driver's seat of my Taurus and starting the engine, my head swarming with pictures of what I had just done. No one would ever have to know.

If I could take it back, I would. I was a nervous wreck the rest of the summer, dying every time I saw Clarissa and Anderson together, every time she mentioned his name, every time I listened in confidence as she divulged their most intimate secrets. I wanted to tell her so many times, and so many times I almost did. But then the incident with Jed happened, and she was such an extraordinary friend to me (or so I thought); and then Anderson asked to be my partner for art class, and my feelings for him, the ones I had tried so hard to extinguish, came gushing forth like water from a fountain. By then the two of them had already stopped dating, and I already had one secret. What was the difference, really, if I had two?

You know the rest.

I'm not proud of what I did. Honestly, I'm not. It was
clear that Clarissa had found out somehow, the only plausible explanation for her blackmailing Jed into dumping me over the announcements. Revenge. The only thing I was unsure about was how long Anderson had been seeing Clarissa behind my back. Days? Weeks?

Once I pieced together the intricate plot, I told Tommy everything.

“That's intense,” he said.

“You tried to tell me about Anderson and I wouldn't listen,” I said over the phone. “I'm sorry.”

“You don't have to apologize. I understand.”

I thought about the afternoon when I'd witnessed Anderson and Clarissa at Starbucks, about the night when he'd left me alone, lying on the cold grass of my backyard, about his strange and sudden involvement in the fashion show. Surely these were signs. Why hadn't I seen them?

“Is that why you had me stop trailing Clarissa? Did you see them together?”

A minute or so passed before Tommy replied. “Yeah. A few times. I was pretty sure they were up to something. When Anderson left our sleepover early, I followed him. He went to Clarissa's. That's when I knew for sure. I didn't tell you because I knew you'd be upset. I was trying to protect you, Marni.”

“I guess I got what I deserved, huh?”

“No. Nobody deserves that. Why don't you call Anderson and talk to him? Explain how you feel.”