The Diamonds (4 page)

Priya, Lili, and I gathered around Clarissa. “Absolutely,” she replied.

“That was a very impressive trial,” he said, unzipping the robe he'd worn (his regular clothes were underneath, don't worry) and placing it on a hanger. “Unconventional, but impressive.”

“Thank you,” Clarissa said.

“Have you ever thought of joining the mock trial team?”

“Uh,
no,”
Priya blurted out before Clarissa could respond.

Lili elbowed her in the boobs. “She means
not recently.”

Townsen narrowed his eyes. “Well, you should. There aren't very many people who can relate the law to everyday life here at Bennington. You would be a great addition to the team. You all would.” He looked at Clarissa, then at me. “Think about it.”

“Townsen is
so
out of touch,” Priya said once we were outside. She pulled her hair back with both hands and
scanned the student parking lot. “I mean, seriously. Mock trial? I'd rather get run over by a My Little Pony.”

“My Little Ponies aren't real,” Lili said, taking out a compact and blotting her forehead.

“Duh,” Priya said, “they're magical. And they
hurt.”

“Whatever,” Clarissa said as we approached Priya's BMW. She had parked underneath an old tree, and the roof was sprinkled with sap. “I think we should do it.”

“What?” said Priya, shocked. “You're not serious, right?”

“Actually, I am.”

I didn't have much to add to the conversation. I was still speechless from the trial—from the entire day, really, which had started out like any other and ended in a cacophony of emotions. I felt ready to go home, crawl into bed, and never leave.

After a few seconds, Lili said, “Well, it could be kind of… fun.”

Lili was already on the executive board of student government. She
would
say something like that.

Clarissa looked at me. I shrugged. After what she'd just done for me in AP Gov, defending my name and seeking revenge on Jed, there was nothing I could refuse her. Besides, I thought, it
would
make my father (J.D., NYU School of Law, '77) pretty happy.

“I'm game,” I said.

“This is wrong in
so
many ways I can't even begin to count them,” said Priya.

“That's just because you can't count,” Clarissa spat. She leaned in closer, holding Priya's gaze and refusing to let go. “Come on. Everybody's doing it.”

And really, that was all it took.

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

—
The Third Amendment
to the United States Constitution

Fast-forward three weeks.

Life after Jed (LAJ) was difficult. Once the reality sank in—that we were no longer together, that he had taken advantage of me and abused my trust—I was a complete mess. I had no energy whatsoever. I even slept with a box of tissues on the pillow next to me just so I wouldn't have to get up in the middle of the night to blow my nose.

Fortunately, the Diamonds were there for me, and eventually the intense, stabbing pain of no longer having Jed in my life had morphed into a kind of numbness, like my entire body had been soaked in a vat of Icy Hot. I'd returned to Bennington after a few days of bed rest (emotional rehabilitation, Clarissa called it)
and began to piece my life back together. I wasn't happy, but I was moving on—or trying to, at least.

As it turned out, mock trial was actually interesting. I had certainly spent enough time in courtrooms with my dad to feel comfortable in that sort of setting, and it was nice to be good at something the other girls weren't. Lili had only memorized the basic elements of our AP Gov textbook, while Priya and Clarissa could barely piece together three or four episodes of
Law & Order: SVU
. I, on the other hand, had a working knowledge of the Constitution and could even recite the decisions of the more famous Supreme Court cases by heart.

Plus, it was a great distraction from my nonexistent love life.

Now that the Diamonds were official Mock Trial People (MTPs), nearly every student at Bennington wanted in on the action. That afternoon we were conducting our own version of jury duty to choose twelve Bennington students to assist us during the trials.

Once the bell rang at the end of ninth period, I hurried to my locker.

“Hi, Marni.”

I looked over my shoulder. Aaron Banke. Soccer Player.

“Hi,” I said, turning back around.

Ever since I'd been dumped, a never-ending line of guys had appeared, trying to get my attention and take me out on the weekends. Although I was flattered, I couldn't bring myself to even think about dating
anyone. Even though Jed had deeply hurt me, I still missed him more than anything.

I missed him waiting for me at my locker in the mornings and walking me to class, taking me out to (semi)fancy restaurants on Saturday nights and paying the bill, calling me up for no reason whatsoever, just to say hello, and I missed knowing it was him from the way he said, “It's me.” I realize those may seem like tiny, unimportant things, but each one left a hole inside me the size of a penny; with all of them added up, I felt like a walking piece of Swiss cheese.

My only consolation was that life for Jed had turned out pretty tragically. After the trial, he'd been impeached from student government, falling from the Bennington stratosphere faster than I ever could have imagined. He didn't even eat lunch in the cafeteria anymore; it was that bad. And Darcy, who had always been on the outskirts of popularity, was looking sloppier and sloppier every day.

Clarissa said the entire situation was a classic case of “What Goes Around … Comes Around” (Timberlake, 2007); still, I couldn't help feeling that
I
was the biggest loser. At least I had my friends, I thought, slamming my locker. Then I turned around and saw Jed.

He looked awful. His usually gelled hair was longing for a trim, and his cheeks were sunken, like he'd lost a few pounds. The khakis he always wore (perpetually washed and pressed) were rumpled and frayed at the bottom, the collar of his shirt droopy and sad-looking.

I watched as he practically tripped over some freshmen in the hallway, eyes half shut, not bothering to look where he was walking. A few members of the football team passed by, and one of them (a kid named Paul Warden, hair the color of tomatoes) pushed Jed into a bunch of lockers; he crumpled to the floor, books spilling in front of him like a deck of cards.

“Loser,” Paul spat as he whisked by. “Watch where you're going.”

I'm not sure what came over me, but I went to help Jed. Without looking up, he slipped his hands into mine for support—it felt odd, to be holding his hands, because they felt so familiar but weren't mine to hold anymore—and stood. He leaned against the wall made entirely of blue lockers and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Thanks,” he said, noticing me for the first time. When he realized that I had been the one to help him, he bent over quickly to collect his books. No hello or anything.

“Are you okay?” I asked. If anyone should have been acting weird, it was me. Not him.

Jed looked at me with one raised eyebrow. It was a look I'd seen hundreds, no,
thousands
of times before.

“I gotta go,” he said, picking up his stuff and scurrying away. He didn't even look back.

“Where were you?” Lili whispered as I slid into one of the chorus room chairs. Priya was busily filing her nails and Clarissa was stationed at the front of the room,
trading whispers with Mr. Townsen. I glanced at the clock—ten minutes before the potential jurors were supposed to arrive.

“Sorry,” I said, dropping my bag between my feet. “I saw Jed.”

Lili raised an eyebrow. “And?”

“Nothing,” I said, not wanting to relive our brief encounter.

“Are you okay?”

“Sure. I'm fine.” I gave an unconvincing smile. “I promise.”

Lili squeezed my thigh. “I'm really proud of you, Marni.”

“What about me?” Priya asked, looking up from her nails, which were starting to resemble pink claws. “Are you proud of
me
?”

“Uh, sure,” Lili said, “but you weren't dumped recently.”

“Thank
God,”
said Priya, slipping her nail file into her purse. “That would effing
suck.”

I wiggled the fingers on my right hand. “Remember me? The girl whose boyfriend humiliated her on the morning announcements? I'm right here.”

“Sorry. I forgot.”

“Do you want an Altoid?” came a voice from behind me. I glanced over my shoulder to see Marcus Hall, whose glasses were
actually
held together with Scotch tape. Four different Altoids containers—peppermint, citrus, apple, and tangerine—were spread across his hands. “I have breath strips, too.”

“No thanks,” I said, even though I really
did
want a citrus one.

Just then, Mr. Townsen cleared his throat and addressed the group. “Hey, gang,” he said. “Is everyone here?”

Aside from Marcus, the rest of the MTPs were seated toward the front of the room. Jenny Murphy was the farthest away, hair up and away from her face, lips twisted into a scowl; Sherry Something (I had never bothered to learn her last name) was next to her, dressed in a sweater that made her look homeless; Eric Ericsson, a pockmarked boy in my economics class, sat two seats over from Sherry, and next to him was a shiny girl named Karen, who was always
super-
freaking-
excited
about
everything!
Xo-Yeung, a Chinese kid who went by the name “Bob,” was absent that day.

That was the entire mock trial team, aside from the Diamonds.

“Great,” Mr. Townsen continued. The setup of the room was similar to how Townsen had organized our in-class trial. “We're selecting a jury today, which I'm absolutely
thrilled
about. We're only steps away from hosting real trials here at Bennington. Are you guys pumped or
what
?”

All the MTPs in the front row (sans Jenny Murphy) bobbed their heads, razzle-dazzled by our presence—Clarissa, Priya, Lili, and me—and the new, mainstream recognition for their club.

Jenny raised her hand and started speaking. “Mr. Townsen, for the last time—we didn't come in first
place in speech and debate at last year's conference because we needed to
modernize
. I think we're perfectly fine how we are.”

“I certainly see your point, Jenny,” said Mr. Townsen, “and I do respect your opinion. But I
am
the faculty advisor and it couldn't hurt to … broaden our horizons. Until now, there haven't been enough members to even
have
a jury.”

I didn't blame Jenny for trying. She was fighting to protect her turf (see
West Side Story
, 1957). But Jenny was no match for Clarissa, and she was
certainly
no match for the Diamonds.

As if on cue, the chorus room door opened. Face after face, jacket after jacket, shoulder bag after metro-sexual shoulder bag of different-colored bodies rushed in. Students filled the empty seats in a matter of seconds.

“Welcome, everyone,” Townsen said. “There's more room up front. Don't be shy.”

It was an interesting group. Members of nearly every social subset were present, from Sharon Cho, president of the Key Club, to Monique French, a foreign student from Paris, to Molly Dephrym, who single-handedly ran GALATGFCADD (Gays and Lesbians and Their Gay-Friendly Companions Against Drunk Driving). More than a few guys had showed up as well, including Ron Tucker and Tre Lombardo, two of Priya's ex-boyfriends; Oliver Forsting, who had an Italy-shaped birthmark on his forehead; and Boyd Longmeadow, the metropolis of
the Bennington theater scene (of which there was a small yet intimidating one).

“Look at all the freshmen,” Priya muttered. “There's like a million of them. What whores.”

Fact: Of all the students at Bennington, freshmen are the most impressionable.

It wasn't out of the ordinary for them to buy us gifts and attempt to sit with us at lunch. They reminded me of myself before I'd come to Bennington, before I'd been adopted by Clarissa, when I'd had stringy hair and awful clothes and eaten my lunch alone, when I would have done anything in the entire world to be liked and have friends. That was a time I never wanted to return to.

“They're everywhere,” Priya continued. “Just looking at them makes me need to Purell.”

“There
are
a lot of them,” Lili agreed. “I only put up a dozen posters!”

A fake-blond girl approached us, and I put my hand out like a cop directing traffic. She pointed to the chair next to me, where my coat was draped. “Is this seat taken?”

I blinked. “Yes.”

“Really? I don't see anyone sitting here.”

I could have (quite easily) made room for her. I didn't, though. I was
not
going to let some random freshman show me up in front of my friends.