But I smooth my smile out enough that they can think to themselves, good manners, that new girl. Well-behaved.
So they can think I’m on their side, as much as any St Andrew’s girl can be.
The teachers say, Jade, excellent, excellent, and make neat notes on their lists, and just like that I’m Jade and Jade only, from the first time they call roll.
And someday soon, when I’m standing in front of this castle with the palm trees and the gaudy-bright California flowers that clash hard with gray stone—
when I’m holding my long knife as it drips blood—
when the snakes slither out from under the foundations—
when Duncan and Duffy and Connor and Banks are dead and I’m queen, terrible and savage—
—all these teachers, they’ll say, oh, Jade? Jade Khanjara?
They’ll pause.
And then they’ll settle back into that look they’re giving me this morning, and they’ll say:
Lovely girl. She’d never do a thing like that.
New Girl
When all the beautiful vain St Andrew’s Preppers spill into the castle I’m waiting in the common hall. Right in front of the Virgin Mary statue where the lacrosse boys’ girls take pictures, one after another: #StAPstunners #blonde #prepschoollife. The boys roll up the minute before the last bell, but the girls come in early to stand guard with Mary, full of grace. Slice and dice: who-and-who hooked up last night, who looks like a skank today, who’s drinking where tonight. Unsheathe mirrors and front cameras, oh my god I look so VILE, and tap the screen and post the shot: #pretty #model #LAgirl.
Not that I’d know anything about it.
Not that I’d know all their names already. Who they hate and who they’re afraid of. Who’s fucking which #StAPlax boy. Who went to the party Friday night and watched that little whore with the jade-green eyes when she drank that just-for-her drink too fast and had to grab that dazzle-smiled boy’s arm when the room got slow and fast and dizzy.
I’m just the new girl.
I wait by the statue with her shy downward gaze. Half a smile playing on my lips. Phone out, scrolling, not waiting for anybody.
Innocent little flower with a silver crucifix.
They show up all at once, bursting around the corner in a cloud of laughter and sick-sweet perfume. Six of them, a whole flock—fluttering and flitting left-right-left, orbiting the girl in the middle. Starlings with hollow bones and skinny legs and voices that tilt up-up-and-away—
“Oh my god did she really—”
“What a fucking tart—”
“Can you spell trash—”
They laugh too loud, a show for all the plodding not-it girls.
“Just, god, that was a party—”
“Well, what did you expect, it’s Duncan we’re talking about—”
Their elbows wing in, toward the girl in the middle: Duncan’s girlfriend. Their queen for today, the tallest and the prettiest. She’s beautiful in that about-to-break way, like a Russian runway model who lives on cigarettes and other girls’ jealousy. Ice-blue eyes and flax-white hair. Her Hollywood tan almost covers up the hollows in her face.
Almost. Not quite.
“Still can’t believe you blew it off, Lilia—”
—and that’s her name, not Lila or Lily or Lillian: Lilia Helmsley, missing last Friday. She gave her girls a neat excuse on all their party pictures, so bummed I’m missing it, my mom is such a Nazi for making me do this spa weekend, she’s the worst, but she’s lying. She was hiding from a boy she doesn’t like but can’t dump because he’s the king and she’s the queen and she has to stay perfect.
Besides, if she dumped him, he’d tell the whole world she’s a slut-dyke-cheater-prude, and he’d slam her skull against the wall until she couldn’t remember he made it all up.
She’s afraid of him but she can’t tell him no or enough or good-bye.
She’ll never stop him.
“—and I’m just saying, make sure Dunc doesn’t forget what you look like, or what you can do for him. Like, I’m not saying anything happened Friday, but—”
Another elbow flies and the blabbermouth girl squeals, but shuts up.
“He won’t,” says Lilia, wan, both hands clutching her Starbucks cup. She notices me before the rest of them do. Her eyes are dead-blank but the truth sits right there anyway: she knows Duncan fucked someone else at the party.
She’s glad.
I smirk.
She stops walking and her flock stops, too. The starling on her right sees me: “Who the fuck is that, and who does she think she is?”
Lilia sips her coffee and blinks slow. “New girl.”
Her right-hand girl scoffs. “Let’s get rid of her.”
Lilia starts walking again, toward me.
“God, you’re too nice,” says her right-hand girl, and everyone else shrills for real, but they hurry up next to her anyway. What this weak little spindle-queen says, goes, as long as she’s Duncan’s.
Lilia floats in front of me, smiling veneers and black coffee. “You’re new,” she says. “I’m Lilia.”
I spin my coven’s crucifix between two fingers. “Jade,” I say.
“You’re in our spot,” says the right-hand girl with a toss of honey-blond hair. Her eyes say, get out, and her stance says, I’m next in line and God it’s my turn, and all Summer’s online stalking says, industry parents, smarter than most, not afraid to fight dirty.
I spin the crucifix again. “I didn’t see the sign.”
Three of the minion-girls go wide-eyed and drama-starved. A fourth falls onto Lilia’s arm and says, “We love her.”
“Adore,” the rest of them chorus.
“Jade,” says Lilia. “Welcome to St Andrew’s.”
Then they swoop in, all of them, skirts and feathers and hi oh my God you’re going to love St Andrew’s, you’re lucky we found you, no offense but we’re the only girls worth knowing, everybody else is just jealous, love the necklace—Tiffany, right?
Inside. Just like that.
But the right-hand girl hangs back. “Jade,” she says, tapping out the end of it with the tip of her tongue. Her left hand hooks against her hip, two fingers resting on the handle of her sabre.
Piper Morello, Duffy’s girlfriend, freshly on-again after their Friday night fight. She’s clawed her way up to where she is: Lilia’s lady-in-waiting, captain of the fencing team, a junior who tells seniors what to do. A girl who carries a sword on her hip even in the off-season, no guard, swinging from a tie she’s looped around her waist, shining sharp on her skirt and her skin. It’s against all the rules and that’s why she does it. So everyone knows the rules don’t apply to her, in the halls of St Andrew’s or the locked-tight rooms at Duncan’s house.
I could love her if I didn’t hate her so much.
fine, go fuck some roofied slut, said Piper Morello on Friday night—
see if I give a shit, said Piper Morello in the doorway harping at second-place Duffy—
you’re worthless anyway, said Piper Morello while everything spun and I tried to separate up from down, tried to scream, tried to rip my arm out of Duncan’s grip, got a hand around my throat for the trouble—