Chapter 6: The Fundraiser

My mother called nine times on Sunday, and I let every one ring.

She left four voicemails.

The first said, "Laney, come home and apologize to your sister."

The second said, "Dad is very hurt."

The third was just breathing, and the fourth was Camille, in a trembling whisper, saying she forgave me.

Aunt Jo listened to them all on speaker, standing at the stove, and said nothing until the last.

"That child," she said, "is going to be a senator."

On Monday I went to school.

Jo drove me, and parked outside the gate, and looked at me over her sunglasses.

"You don't owe anyone a speech," she said. "You're allowed to keep your own news."

"I know."

"Good. Now go be a person."

The first thing I saw in the main hall was a banner.

It was blue and gold, strung between the trophy case and the counselor's office, and it said:

WESTPORT HIGH CONGRATULATES OUR HARVARD ADMITS.

There were two names under it in white vinyl letters.

Camille Bogert.

Holden Linden.

There was a third space after them, a bare patch of wall where nothing had been stuck.

Somebody had drawn a small sad face there in marker.

I looked at it for a while.

Then a girl I had sat next to in chemistry for two years stopped beside me.

"Hey, Laney," she said, in the careful voice people use at hospitals. "I'm really sorry."

"For what?"

"You know. About not getting in anywhere."

"I got in somewhere."

"Oh." She gave me a tiny nod. "Right. Of course you did."

She backed away, looking at her shoes.

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