Chapter 4: The Scholars Dinner

Trudy read the email out loud three times on the walk home.

"Pending review of conduct unbecoming a Haldane Scholar."

"It's nineteen thousand eight hundred dollars, Liv. My mom drives a school bus."

"I know."

"I didn't even touch her. I said you didn't own a hair dryer."

"I know."

She stopped on the sidewalk and stared at me.

"Stop saying you know. How would you know anything? You're a thief, apparently."

Then she burst out laughing, and then she was crying, and I stood there holding her on College Avenue while a bus went by.

That night I waited until she was in the shower.

Then I went out to the side steps and called a number I'd known by heart since I was eight.

The Haldane Foundation's director had run my father's charity for thirty years.

She came to every one of my birthday parties with a book instead of a toy.

"Olivia," she said, sounding wide awake at ten at night. "Sweetheart. Are you all right? Your father said you were at some school out west."

"I'm in Pennsylvania. Trudy Coyle is my roommate."

There was a silence on the line.

"Oh dear."

"Who suspended her?"

"Olivia, I'm not supposed to..."

"Who?"

Her shoulders sank.

"Your father. He signed the suspension himself, this morning. He sent it straight to me with a note to process it today."

I put my forehead against the cold railing.

"Thank you," I said. "Please don't tell him I called."

My father picked up on the second try.

It was three in the morning in London, and he still sounded like he'd been waiting.

"So you found out."

"You suspended my roommate's scholarship."

"I signed a form Lorna brought me about a complaint. Lorna's girl was upset."

"Lorna's girl is lying about being your daughter."

"Which is why you should come home."

His voice stayed soft and reasonable.

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