The Fall of Butterflies (10 page)

I
have resolved
not
to go to the Fall Ball. Let them celebrate their harvest on their own! Besides, celebrating the harvest by dressing in superexpensive dresses and puking booze seems more like celebrating the fall of western civilization.

There is no way I'm going.

“Remy. I have something to tell you. It's about the Fall Ball.”

“Ooh, this sounds official. Yes, Willa Parker. I am all ears. Please be very serious.”

Remy is lying on her bed with her legs up on the wall, contemplating her brand-new blue toenails. It's a funny way to sit, but I have tried it and I find it very comforting.

“Okay, fine. Here goes. I've decided not to go to the Fall Ball.”

“What?”

“I, Willa Parker, being of sound body and mind, have decided not to attend the Fall Ball.”

“No. No, no, no. You have to go. I have to take you. It will be fun. There will be frolicking, remember?”

“I do not wish to frolic.”

“I do not wish to frolic without you.”

Now it's my turn to lie on my bed and contemplate my toenails. Mine are orange. Neon orange. I don't know why I made this choice, but now I'm stuck with it.

“Besides. Milo will be there.”

“Nope. Not falling for it. You said sixty percent with a chance of scattered maybes.”

“Yeah, okay. I did say that. But you have to go.”

“Nope.”

“Please. Pretty please with sugar on top.”

“Look, Remy, even if I wanted to go, which I don't, I couldn't, because I don't have anything to wear, and so the night will be ruined and I'll just turn into a pumpkin or whatever.”

“Okay, that is not how that story goes. Like, at all.”

“Look, I just don't have those kinds of things lying around. Like . . . if it were a real harvest ball, with hayrides
and candy apples, maybe, but not dressy stuff. Nope. No way. Just don't have it. Cannot get it.”

“Oh, well, that's easy.”

“Please enlighten me, o wise one.”

“You can just borrow something of mine. I have a zillion things. And they're just sitting there. In my closet. Feeling lonely.”

“I don't know . . .”

“I'm serious. Some of them even have the tags still on; it's shameful. Come on. You have to come. Please?”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, of course. I'll just go get them.”

“Go get them?”

“Yeah, I'll go now. Be right back.”

Remy is up and throwing on a jacket and almost out the door in a whirlwind of dress-scavenging activity.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“It's called New York. Maybe you've heard of it? Crowded place with very tall buildings.”

“So . . . you're just going to New York now. Even though we have a test tomorrow?”

“Yes, this is much more important.”

And there she goes, Remy Taft, off to forage for a dress for her poor, pathetic, huckleberry friend. I don't know how to take this. On the one hand, I'm grateful. I've never had a
friend forage for me before. On the other hand, this is not exactly honor-student behavior. It's not even student behavior. We have a test to study for, and she's . . . gone.

She calls up to me as she barrels down the stairs.

“Leave the door open! I left my key!”

Of course she did.

I
guess Remy is really taking her time looking through her closet, because it's two days later and she's still not back. Maybe her closet actually leads to Narnia and she is busy fighting the White Witch and communing with Aslan the Lion. That, actually, would make more sense than taking two days to find a dress. For her friend. To go to a ball. That she doesn't even want to go to.

When she finally does comes back, she kind of looks like she just stepped out of a laundry basket. It's late and I am studying down in the Denbigh study room, which puts the other study rooms to shame. I guess with this one they decided to go “full nautical.” The room is painted a deep shade of navy blue, with white trim, and everywhere there
are pictures of ships, or nautical maps, or anchors, and even kicky pillows that have coral on them in embroidery. Maybe what happened is some salty dog sent his seaworthy daughter to Pembroke and dedicated this room in her honor. Either that, or someone in the housing department has a flair for interior design that will never be squashed!

Either way, I seem to be the beneficiary of this aquatic revelry, as no one else is in here and, now that I think about it, no one ever is. Maybe there is some sort of macabre rumor about this place. Maybe when no one is looking that octopus will crawl out of that painting and grab you. Never to return!

Speaking of never returning . . .

“Mission accomplished.”

“Um, Remy, is that you? I used to know someone named Remy, but she left on a quest and was swallowed up in some sort of interplanetary alternate universe. I do miss her.”

“Well, miss her no more! She is here. I mean, she is me! I mean, I am here! Get your face out of those books and come upstairs. I have something vast and thrilling for you to see, little farm girl.”

Look. I'm annoyed at her. I feel jerked around. And lied to. Or deceived. Or something. I mean, something is just not right here. How does a girl just disappear for three days? Where does she go? What is she doing? Did she forget how
to use her cell phone's text function? Why doesn't she just tell me? I mean, it's not like she's smuggling weapons in from Mexico. I hope. And if that's not it, I mean, is there something wrong with her? Is she dying of cancer or something and not telling anybody because she's being supernoble and transcendent and then one day I'll just walk into our room and she'll be gone, never to be seen again?

“Remy, I'm gonna be honest with you here. And I know this may not be that cool, but whatever, maybe I'm just not cool. I don't understand why you just keep disappearing. And, honestly, not to sound like your grandma or anything, but I'm worried.”

“What do you mean?”

“What do I mean? Okay. You've been gone for three days. With no text or anything. After taking off like a house on fire. Also, sidebar, you disappeared before that for two days. Also no explanation.”

“I don't even remember that.”

“Okay, well, I do. Look, it's no big deal, just tell me, okay? There's no reason to be weird about it. I just—it's just worrying me, kinda.”

“Wait. Is this really bothering you? Seriously?”

“Yes, it actually is. It's like a trust thing or whatever.”

She smiles in this gigantic way that is practically blinding, then grabs me in a hug and smooshes her cheek against
mine. “Farm girl! It's like you really care.”

My entire body floods with warm fuzzies. My scowl loses its hold on my face despite my effort to keep it there. “Yeah, well. I'm waiting. Explain.”

“Okay, okay, okay. I was back in New York and my mom asked me to stay a few days, because she said she missed me, so I did.”

“Even though you had a test.”

“Well, I can make it up. It's not like they're gonna kick me out.”

And that's true. Of course they won't kick Remy Taft out. How could they? Her dad's on the board of trustees. Whoever kicked her out would be fired by the weekend. Remy knows it. They know it. And presumably her mom knows it.

“Okay. Okay, fine. Thank you for telling me. I'm sorry I can't be cooler or whatever.”

“Oh, but you are cool, Willa. And you are going to be ice-cold when you see what treasures I have pillaged in me travels.”

“It's this room, isn't it? It turns you into a pirate.”

“Yar, thar is the secret of the pirate's study cove! Now ye landlubber must die before she tells the tale!”

“Something about being called a landlubber makes me feel fat.”

She breaks character. “Maybe it sounds too much like
blubber. Like you feel like a landblubber.”

“Sometimes I do feel like a landblubber.”

That's how easy it is. To get me to like her again. Here we are, back where we were before. And I am happy. Oh, so happy.

And then that happy turns into giddy when Remy shows me her grand reveal. In the old maid's quarters next to our room, there it is. The room has finally achieved its true calling as a closet. There is a full-length mirror and some kind of upholstered bench/sofa and a little desk thing with a chair and another mirror perched above it, designed, I'm guessing, for sitting and admiring yourself in ultimate comfort.

And then, oh, and then, there is a giant rack of clothes in the middle.

You have got to see this rack of clothes. It's absurd. It's absurd and wonderful and frivolous and exquisite. Slippery silks, poofy tulle, rich velvets, and playful chiffon in a sixty-four Crayola box's worth of colors.

Remy smiles, proud, standing back and observing her work.

“You like?”

Drawn like a magnet, I approach the rack of all these intricate, some embroidered, some bohemian, some simple, all elegant, with-the-tags-still-on dresses. These are not just any old dresses. These are the kinds of dresses that take
weeks to make, the kind of dresses you have to order, the kind of dresses that trip you on your way up the stage to accept your Oscar.

The kind that cost as much as a car. And they're beautiful.

“Well, Iowa. Take your pick.”

What's funny about this moment is I know Remy has no intention of
lending
me any of these dresses. No, she is planning on giving me one. Whichever it is, whichever I choose. And it's not braggy. And it's not conditional. And it's not proud.

It's just Remy.

“Jesus, Remy, look at all of this. I could never . . . this is . . .” I pause. “It's like—you saved my life.”

I meant the dresses. I only meant the dresses. But that's not how it came out. It came out like I was planning to throw myself off the bell tower and then somebody came in and erased, just simply erased, the thought or even
the memory of the thought
of that.

It came out before I could take it back. Before I could grab it.

And Remy looks at me, catches it.

“I don't know, Willa,” she says, taking my hand. “Maybe it's the other way around.”

H
otchkiss Hall is something much grander than it would be in a movie. It's this enormous, cavernous space with dark wood molding and giant iron chandeliers hanging down from the rafters. Said rafters are hand-painted in a colorful style somewhere between
Game of Thrones
and
Aladdin
. On each wall are oil paintings of various extremely respectable dead white people. There is an enormous stone fireplace in the middle of the hall. This fireplace looks like it could eat a normal fireplace. Tonight, the fire is lit. So if you wanted to flambé a small football team, that would be the place.

Remy and I are not matching. Never. That would be gauche! But we are complementary, that's for sure. It's like we're in the same photo shoot. For Valentino. Yes, folks. I
am wearing a Valentino dress for the first time in my life, and I almost feel like I should cash it in for tuition.

Shall I describe it to you? I know you are dying to see it. It's a gray tulle dress with the most delicate wool flowers hand-sewn in no pattern whatsoever. They start at the bottom and then spread out as you go up the dress, like the dress is emerging from the woods, until there's nothing but gray chiffon and fabulousness. It's a diaphanous thing, and I feel a little bit like a wood sprite swooping around everywhere. And then there's Remy's dress. Which is hilarious. It's a navy blue tulle dress with a giant red heart over Remy's heart and what look to be hearts and rocket ships embroidered on the skirt of the dress. I know. It sounds insane. And it is insane. I don't know who in their right mind designed this dress and who for. Well, actually, I do. They designed it for Remy. Only Remy could get away with this dress. But, boy, does she ever.

To get into this giant gala event, we have to walk up the marble steps, into the grand room. And when we walk up the steps into the grand room, it is like a record scratch. I'm not kidding. You could hear a mouse holding a pin and then dropping that pin.

Frankly, I'm a bit embarrassed by all of this, but Remy just takes it in stride and glides into the room with the greatest of ease. I guess she is used to stopping rooms. Of course she
is. But this is my first room-stopping. I have never stopped a room before. I have never even stalled a room.

There are plenty of Witherspoon boys around, in various interpretations of black tie. My favorite one is the guy next to the DJ, who is wearing a skinny black tux, skinny tie, with a mop of blond surfer hair and checkered Chuck Taylor high-tops.

“Who's that?”

“Who?”

“The cool guy with surfer hair?”

“Oh, that's Zeb. He's from LA. Of course.”

“People in LA name their kids Zeb?”

“Um, yeah. They also avoid gluten like the plague but drink a drink called Kombucha that looks like someone jizzed in it.”

“Gross.”

“He's cool, though . . . wanna meet him?”

“Maybe later . . . Do you see Milo?”

Remy is distracted, looking at something on her phone.

“Wait, I'll be right back.”

Aaaaaand she's gone again. Great. If she leaves for two days I'm gonna scream.

But the DJ is playing Yeah Yeah Yeahs and I notice Zeb is spiking the punch. And he notices I notice he's spiking the punch.

“Shh.” He lifts up his finger to his mouth and smiles.

I smile back. He's kind of a cute guy. There's something light there.

“I'm improving the recipe. It's an ancient one handed down from my ancestors.”

“Really? Is your ancestor Jack Daniels?”

“He's my father, actually. No, wait, that's Darth Vader.”

We both stare at each other, a bit nervous.

“Okay, that joke didn't really work.”

“I sort of liked it.”

“I like your dress. You look kind of like a wood fairy.”

“I
feel
kind of like a wood fairy.”

“I don't really feel like a wood fairy.”

“No. You look more like an ad for . . . people who wear tuxes and . . . ride skateboards.”

“That's a pretty small Venn diagram overlap.”

I like this guy. This Zeb. I like the fact that he seems to hail from different climes. Breezy ones. There's something gentle about him. I bet he's a Buddhist. Isn't everybody from California a Buddhist?

But there is no more time to contemplate this Zeb, because Remy has come up behind me, captured my arm, and whisked me away toward the cloisters. I look back over my shoulder. “Bye, Zeb.”

“Wait, how did you know my name?”

“She's stalking you,” Remy chimes in.

#facepalm

Thanks, Remy.

But now we are in the cloisters and all is dark. There's a sarcophagus on the other side of the vault, and it's just plain creepy. In the middle is a fountain, coming out of a shallow well. About six feet down. The water burbles over into the fountain and the music can barely be heard from inside the hall, although you can see the light flickering inside through the giant stained-glass windows.

“Remy, I kind of liked that guy.”

“Zeb's supercool. You should like him. Just don't fall for him, 'cause he's got this ridiculously beautiful supermodel girlfriend he's totally in love with. His dad is some famous director, so he's kind of been cool all his life. Like he was raised on sets with everybody fawning over him all the time.”

“Ah, bummer . . . Well, now this party just got boring again.”

“No, no, this party hasn't quite started, my dearest Iowa.”

“Come again?”

“So, remember how you were kind of wondering where I went sometimes?”

“Um. Kind of. By which I mean, of course.”

“So . . . one thing that I sometimes have been doing is something that you might be interested in, but I'm scared to
mention it because I don't want to freak you out.”

“Okaaay.”

“Can I tell you? Promise not to be mad?”

“Okay.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

“Okay, here.”

And she places something in my hand. Something little and pink and round with a heart on it.

“You've been collecting Valentines?”

“No, no. Much better. Although I guess you could say it's a Valentine, because it fills you with love.”

“I'm confused.”

“So, okay, this is Ecstasy. Also known as MDMA. And it makes you feel like you're in love. With everything.”

“
This
is what you've been doing.”

“Doing and recovering. There's definitely a recovery period.”

It's getting cold out, and I'm beyond uncomfortable in every way. I shudder.

“Look, you don't have to. You don't. I just thought it might be fun. And maybe thrilling.”

I'm frowning down at this small pink thing in my hand. “I don't know . . .”

“Well, maybe just try it. Just to say you did it or whatever.
The world's not gonna end. And if it does . . . wouldn't you like to be wearing that dress?”

She smiles and nudges me.

I can't help it. I know I shouldn't, but I can't help it. There it is—curiosity.

“Okay. Ready?”

“Okay. Ready.”

“Stick out your tongue. I'll do it at the same time.”

We both stick out our tongues, like little kids at the doctor. She places one pink pill precisely on each of our tongues. Gulp. We wash it down with some bottled water I hadn't even noticed before. I guess her diabolical plan was calculated.

“And away we go . . .” She smiles, mischievous.

I don't know where this “away” is.

I don't know if I'm an idiot.

Ask me in twelve hours. I'll know then.