Page 4 of All These Beautiful Strangers
But being in the A’s wasn’t something you could put on your college application. It wasn’t even something you could, well, tell anyone about. The A’s didn’t do bake sales or car washes; they didn’t involve cleats or sweating; and they most certainly didn’t have a secretary keeping minutes.
Last year, when the new dean of arts tried to make a Saturday morning cultural enrichment class mandatory, the A’s unleashed a smear campaign so vicious that the dean was gone by the end of fall semester. In the end, no one “knew” how the dean’s scandalous emails with a fifteen-year-old girl with daddy issues from Maine had leaked to every student, administrator, and faculty member on Knollwood Prep’s LISTSERV, but everyone “knew” that the A’s were somehow behind it. While the headmaster had launched an investigation into this breach of school security, in the end, he could do little but applaud that this indecent man was exposed and send him packing, effectively putting an end to those dreaded classes and preserving our precious Saturday mornings for the sacred act of sleeping in.
The A’s were the reason we had No-Uniform Fridays, single-room dorms for seniors, and a prom so decadent it was sometimes mentioned on Page Six. No one knew what dark form of blackmail, bribery, or manipulation went into acquiring these beloved rights and traditions, but everyone knew the A’s were behind them. The A’s could also get you out of some sticky situations. My freshman year, Celeste Lee, a supposed A, got in a fight with Stephanie Matthews in the girls’ restroom on the second floor of the science building and gave her a bloody nose. Celeste would have gotten suspended if Stephanie reported her to the administration. No one knows for sure what sort of arm twisting the A’s did behind closed doors, but when the headmaster called Stephanie into his office later that afternoon, she kept her mouth shut.
The A’s reach went beyond Knollwood Prep. It was rumored they had key players on the admissions boards of all the Ivy Leagues and Seven Sisters, and that their influence could get you in the door at the Fortune 500 company of your choosing after college graduation.
The A’s were something everyone knew about without really knowing anything about them. There was no way of even knowing who the A’s were, really, unless you were one of them. Because unlike all of the other clubs at Knollwood Prep, you didn’t choose to be in the A’s. The A’s chose you.
Drew called out my name softly in the dark, just loud enough for me to hear if I was awake but not loud enough to wake me if I was asleep.
I debated answering but eventually said, “Yeah?”
She sat up and flicked on the light. “Just say it already,” she said.
“Say what?”
“Do you have somewhere to be tonight?”
“Maybe,” I said.
“Thank god,” Drew said. She climbed out of bed and crossed the room to her closet. “I’ve been watching you all day to see if you had gotten one too, because I couldn’t just ask,” she said as she pulled on a pair of thick black leggings and boots.
“Who else do you think got in?” I asked as I dragged myself out of bed and started to rummage through my own closet. What did one wear to a late-night rendezvous with the most notorious secret society on campus? I decided on a pair of dark skinny jeans, my Keds, a black tank with oversized armholes, and a hoodie.
“I’ll throw myself off the Ledge if Marissa Wentworth got in,” Drew said.
So she had figured out the riddle. What has a head but never weeps? What has a bed but never sleeps? What runs but never walks? A river, of course. The A’s were meeting at the Ledge above Spalding River. People called it the Ledge because that’s what it was—a clearing in the woods off the county road that looked over a steep ravine and the river below.
“Marissa Wentworth is not A material,” I said. “They want someone with an edge. Someone who isn’t afraid to get their hands dirty.”
“Do you think Leo got in?” Drew asked.
“Of course Leo got in.”
“He told you?”
“Not in so many words,” I said. “But come on, what world do we live in that Leo wouldn’t get in?”
“True,” Drew said, rolling her eyes.
Drew and Leo had dated for two seconds during our freshman year, which was about twice as long as Leo had been with anyone. It had ended how all of Leo’s trysts ended: badly. Still, even though Drew wasn’t Leo’s biggest fan, she had to admit that Leo was an obvious choice for the A’s.
Leo put an unconscionable amount of thought into everything he did, so it wouldn’t be right to say he was “effortlessly” cool—though something about the way he carried himself did evoke that word. Leo wore his hair slicked back from his forehead. He always dressed nicely—tailored jeans and V-neck tees that were fashionably distressed and sleek leather jackets. Leo exuded a confidence that made whatever he did seem cool. It would have been pointless to tease him about anything, because Leo thought more of himself than anyone I’d ever met, besides perhaps my grandfather.
One after the other, Drew and I slipped out our second-floor dormitory window into the thick arms of the elm that towered over Rosewood Hall dormitory. We lowered ourselves into the deep V of its trunk. Neither of us were strangers to forbidden late-night excursions.
In the Rosewood Hall parking lot, Drew turned her headlights off and shifted her BMW into neutral. Together we pushed the car to the road, only jumping in when we were sure we weren’t in danger of waking Ms. Stanfeld, our housemother, who lived in an apartment on the ground floor of the dormitories.
When we were far enough down the road, Drew opened her sunroof and howled at the moon. I laughed and put my arm out the window, fanning my fingers to catch the damp night air as it slid past.
We didn’t talk about what was happening or what was to come. We didn’t speculate about what the A’s would make us do to become one of them, even though we both knew that whatever it was, it would not be easy. Instead, we exuded an attitude of cool nonchalance and pretended we were neither excited nor terrified, when we were both.
Two
Charlie Calloway
2017
