Chapter 15

15

Saturday, 11/25/24

The others stopped off after their hike at some Maine dive bar that didn't card, and it was near dark by the time they got back to the house in a cacophony of chatter. "Cavalry's coming," Greer said, nudging her knee against mine under the covers; we got dressed as quickly as we could and joined them downstairs, where Margot was opening what looked like a very fancy bottle of red wine. "Oh, hello there!" she trilled, popping the cork with a flourish. "You guys enjoy your afternoon?"

I could feel myself blush, but Greer just smiled. "We did, in fact. Thank you for asking." She plucked a wineglass from the rack. "How was the rest of the hike?"

We spent the next couple of hours getting cheerily drunk, James and his buddy Leo posting up at the pool table while Greer held court in an enormous leather recliner and Dagny and Margot painstakingly re-created a dance from some Disney Channel movie they'd both liked as kids. "Linden!" Margot ordered, yanking her phone out of her leggings pocket and waving it in my direction without missing a step. "Come here, take a video."

I grabbed her phone and dutifully opened the camera app; I was just about to hit record when a text popped up from a contact listed in Margot's phone as Boy Genius. Not to be that person, but we still need to deal with the Greer situation. Then, half a second later: I know you don't want to think about it, but if she runs her mouth we're fucked.

Holy shit. I froze for a second, then glanced around wildly, but the rest of the group had drifted out onto the deck. "Did you take it?" Margot asked, looking at me a little oddly.

"Um," I said. "Sorry, I had it on portrait. Try again?"

"I remember the first time I used a cell phone," Greer heckled me from across the room, her cheeks flushed a winning pink from the wine.

"Yeah, yeah." I tucked the text—and the question of who the hell Boy Genius might be—into the back of my head for later consideration. "Okay, go."

Margot was the kind of girl who liked playing hostess, who you could tell was going to grow up to throw elaborate dinner parties involving oysters and cheesecloth. That night she took the better part of three hours to prepare an Italian-style feast she'd found on TikTok, using what had to be every dish and pan in the professionally outfitted kitchen, only to wrinkle her nose in disgust upon taking her first bite of pasta. "This," she announced brightly, "is…inedible."

"It's not!" Greer promised, though in fact it sort of was—gluey and garlic-forward, already mostly cold. "It's good."

"It's pretty bad," Celine put in helpfully.

"Fuck you," Margot said sweetly, "and fuck dinner. We're skipping to dessert." She disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a box wrapped in gold ribbon. Inside were a dozen intricately decorated truffles, each one nestled in a fluted paper cup.

"A guy I know in town makes these," Margot explained as she passed them around the table; from the way she said it she could have meant some bespoke chocolatier in suspenders just as easily as some dude who sold Gatorades at the gas station and had a little hustle on the side. "He said they're the real deal, so one per customer, please, children. The closest hospital is like forty minutes away."

"Here," Greer said, handing me the box. I only hesitated for a second before popping one into my mouth. It was more bitter than I was expecting, a little unpleasant. All at once it occurred to me that maybe I should have asked a question or two before tossing it down the hatch.

Once she'd finished her own truffle, Margot nodded at James across the table. "Okay," she said with a businesslike clap of her hands, "are we ready to play?"

"Play what?" I asked, suddenly suspicious.

"Catch the Turkey," Greer said with a roll of her eyes.

"What's Catch the Turkey?"

"Pretty much exactly what it says on the label." James grinned from down the table. "We take him out into the woods, set him free, give him a head start. First one to catch him wins."

"Wait," I said, momentarily confused. I really, really did not want to accidentally participate in any more animal cruelty this semester. "Like, an actual turkey?"

Margot laughed. "No, sweet pea," she said, like it should have been obvious. "Not an actual turkey."

I shook my head. "Then who—?"

"FNG," James announced. "It's only fair."

"FNG?" Celine asked.

"Fuckin' new guy," I said quietly, a slow, sick feeling of dread settling over me. I'd been the fuckin' new guy enough in my life that I answered to it almost instinctively, which was why I was so surprised when James turned to Leo instead.

"Sorry, old chum," he said, reaching over and squeezing one of Leo's skinny shoulders. "Look like you're it tonight."

"Fuck you, James," Leo said, but he didn't quite stick the landing.

"James—" Tanner started, then broke off as soon as James raised his eyebrows; all at once I thought I probably understood everything I needed to about the intricacies of that particular fraternal relationship. I'd known people like James before, the way privilege can burnish a person to a shine so glossy it's easy to miss the mean streak. I'd known people like Tanner too.

"What happens when you catch him?" I asked.

"That," James said lightly, "is up to whoever does the catching."

"Anyway, that's not the point." Margot's smile was luminous. "The thrill is the chase."

"Are you serious?" I shook my head. "That doesn't feel like, kind of fucked up to you?"

"Spoken like a guy who wants to be the turkey," Henry said.

"Shut up, Henry," Dagny said, reaching for her wineglass. "I don't want any part of this, for the record. I'm going to go be high in the hot tub like God intended and you all can come find me when you're done."

"Yeah," I heard myself say, looking down the table at Leo, whose pale cheeks were flushed bright red. "Bro, you definitely don't have to—"

"It's fine, dude." I recognized the way Leo raised his chin, like he was daring James to punch him. Like he was daring me to. "I can handle it."

"I'm not saying you can't handle it, I just think it's—" I turned to Greer. "Are you doing this?" I asked her.

Greer shrugged. "It's just a game, Linden," she said softly. "It's supposed to be fun."

"And you've played it before?"

"Pal, it's essentially tag," James said, sitting back in his seat and fixing me with a gaze of benign contempt. "Are you really going to be a little pissant about a game of tag?"

And: no.

In the end, I suppose I wasn't.

Out on the front porch Margot blew a tiny whistle, all of us scattering into the darkness of the woods beyond the circle of outbuildings—one, Margot had explained with a wryness that might or might not have been the genuine article, for each branch of the family tree—that ringed the main house. It was freezing, the winds screaming through the pine trees overhead. The place felt haunted, which I knew in some part of my brain wasn't possible but which felt all at once like the only logical conclusion; I thought of bears and wolves and owls with talons big enough to carry a grown man off into the darkness. I thought of ghosts wandering sorrowfully through the trees.

I blinked, trying to orient myself, but my brain was as foggy as the trail had been earlier that day, everything taking on a hazy sheen and a low buzz humming at the back of my head. When I'd eaten the chocolate I'd figured it was weed; shit like that was almost always weed, as far as I knew. But all at once I realized it hadn't been—or at least, if it had been, it wasn't like any weed I'd ever had before.

I was fully prepared to wander the woods forever, licking dewdrops off leaves to stay alive, when the glowing yellow lights of the main house rose before me. I ran out of the woods like I was being chased, then stumbled through the door and up the stairs into the bathroom before collapsing onto the floor and pressing my cheek against the black and white hexagonal tiles with the unshakeable certainty that I would always be high, I would never not be high, I would be high until the day many years from now when I died, presumably from the stress put on my body from still being high. It was nice down here, actually. The floors were so clean I could have eaten Thanksgiving dinner off them. Maybe I could just stay down here forever. That might not be so bad.

At last I dug my phone out of my jeans pocket, closing one eye to try to see the screen clearly. I thought again of the text Boy Genius had sent to Margot: If she runs her mouth we're fucked. I thought of what Greer had told me about Emily on our hike, and of Holiday's face in my living room right before I'd left the apartment yesterday, the dark inscrutability of her expression. Then I opened my recent contacts and scrolled to her name.

I was expecting her to answer right away—one thing about Holiday was that she always had her phone on her—but it rang for a long time before she finally picked up. "Hi!" she said cheerfully, and it felt like putting aloe on a sunburn before the outgoing voice mail message continued. "You've reached Holiday Proctor. If you get this message, hang up and send me a text. Not you, Bubbe, you're good. I'll call you back as soon as I can."

"It's me," I said after the beep, squeezing my eyes shut; I knew there had definitely been times in my life when I'd felt lonelier than I did in that moment, but I couldn't think of any off the top of my head. "I guess you're out. Or sleeping, maybe. It might be late. I took an edible, but I think it might have been like…laced with something? Or maybe that's just how edibles are. I've never done edibles before. I'm not really a drug guy. Although I guess alcohol is a drug, right? It's a…depressant." I blinked, scrubbing a hand over my face. "I'm at Margot's, did I say that already? Or I guess you…know that.

"Anyway," I continued, "they had us play this fucked-up game where we had to chase a turkey. Not a real turkey. I don't want you to think I'm not a supporter of animal rights, what with the whole goldfish thing. Pattern of behavior, I know." I could tell even in the moment that I wasn't making sense. "Anyway. I do actually have a reason for calling." I filled her in on the message I'd seen on Margot's phone—at least, I tried to—plus an abbreviated version of the story Greer had told me about Emily. "Anyway," I said again, "both of those could be something, right? Or maybe nothing. It's kind of weird here. I probably should have just stayed, yesterday." I sighed. "I'm sorry. I keep thinking about kissing you."

Oh, fuck.

The floor tilted under me then, even though I was already lying down. "I mean, " I said, trying to push myself upright—trying to recover but not able to quite make it happen, "just that I probably shouldn't have done it. Not that I like, regret it or anything. Just that, um. Like. You're my best friend, obviously. And that's not really…a thing it's cool for best friends to do. Maybe in France. Or like, some of the girls at Bartley used to, but that was kind of a different—" I broke off. "I should go. Okay. Call me back. Or not, if you're busy. Tell your bubbe hello for me."

It took me three tries to end the call, my finger slipping uselessly against the smudgy screen of my phone. Once it finally went dark I laid my head back down on the tile, closing my eyes against the spinning and waiting for a morning that felt a million years away.