Page 49 of Lessons in Power
“Don’t handle me with kid gloves, Tess.” Emilia’s fingers curled, driving her nails into her palms. “Say what you mean.” Emilia stared at me so hard I could feel the weight of her stare on the surface of my skin.
“You weren’t the only one he took pictures of.” That much I could say without betraying any confidences—or forcing anything out of her that she wasn’t ready to give.
Emilia was silent for four or five seconds before she spoke. “If I were going to guess where one might look for people who knew John Thomas Wilcox for who and what he was,” she said quietly, “that social media experiment of yours wouldn’t be a bad place to start.”
I Stand With Emilia.
Emilia stared at me for a second longer, then turned back to the sink. “This case is going to get national attention. My parents hired a lawyer, but the kind of lawyer we can afford isn’t going to be enough.” She pressed her lips together. “He was the whip’s son, Tess, and Asher is nobody.”
I knew, in that moment, that Emilia wasn’t just talking about Asher.
“I’ll get Asher a lawyer,” I promised her. “I’ll do whatever it takes.” Emilia rinsed her hands methodically and then lifted her gaze to the mirror. At first I thought she was checking her makeup, but then I realized that she was studying her own expression—removing all hints of weakness.
“You don’t have to be okay right now,” I told her. “Whatever you’re feeling—it’s okay to feel that way.”
Emilia pushed past me. She reached for the door, then paused. “What is it you even think that I’m feeling?” she said, her voice quiet but cutting. “Am I supposed to be sad? Or maybe in shock? Maybe I’m supposed to be spiraling downward. But I’m not. I’m not sad, and I’m not in shock, and I’m not spiraling.” She glanced back at me. “You worry about my brother and finding out who wanted John Thomas dead,” she ordered. “Because I’mfine.”
In between second and third period, I called Ivy.No answer.
In between third and fourth period, I called Ivy.No answer.
At lunch, I called William Keyes. He answered. I asked him what it would take to get someone from Tyson Brewer’s firm to represent Asher. There was a pause on the other end of the line as my grandfather processed the fact that I was asking for a favor.
“Just say the word, Tess,” Keyes told me. “All you have to do is ask, and I can get your friend an entire team of defense lawyers, the best in the country, free of charge.”
Free of charge to Asher, maybe, I thought. Accepting this favor would undoubtedly cost me.
“Do it.”
CHAPTER 35
As it turned out, pinpointing which of my fellow students might have wanted John Thomas dead was significantly harder than putting the best defense lawyers in the country on retainer. Even my reputation as a fixer couldn’t loosen lips, not when it came to speaking ill of the dead.
“There’s a term that psychologists use to describe our memory of moments that surprise and shock us, the ones where we hear news that rocks us to our core.” Dr. Clark stood at the front of my last-period class, looking at us one by one.
“Flashbulb memories,” Dr. Clark said. “That’s what they call memories for large-scale, emotionally significant events. Most Americans who were in elementary school or older on November 22, 1963, can tell you exactly where they were when they heard that President Kennedy had been assassinated.” Dr. Clark let those words sink in. “The day the space shuttleChallengerexploded,” she continued, listing off another flashbulb-memory-provoking event. She swallowed. “September 11, 2001.”
These were the dates that lived forever in people’s memories—bright and detailed, forever memorialized with a kind of visceral horror. I couldn’t remember 9/11, let alone theChallengeror the day Kennedy was shot.
Monday, November 6,I thought.President Nolan. John Thomas. November 6.
“After the events of the past couple of days,” Dr. Clark said, “I’ve been asking myself what people will remember about this week, this tragedy.” She took her time with the words, each hard-won—and even harder to listen to. “Will they remember where they were when President Nolan was shot? Will they remember refreshing news pages, desperately waiting for an update on his condition? Will they remember going to the polls in record numbers, because voting was the only thing they could do? Will they remember the First Lady telling them that her husband had been put in a medically induced coma? Will they remember the look on her face as shesworeon live television that President Nolan would make it through this, that he was a survivor?”
The room was quiet, silent but for our teacher’s voice.
“Will people remember the president’s sons standing behind the First Lady at that press conference? Will they recall anything at all about the week leading up to the shooting?”
Dr. Clark shook her head. “I don’t have any answers for you. I can tell you,” she said, looking out at us—andthroughus, “that I was on an airplane on September 11th. It was a transatlantic flight, my senior year in college. I was studying abroad. I remember landing and getting off the plane. I remember people turning on their phones. I remember the news spreading, slowly, from person to person—and the airport …” She closed her eyes. “I rememberthey had the news on. I remember watching. And I remember thinking that I’d almost flown through New York.”
I recognized the rawness in her voice and looked down at the edge of my desk, pushing back against the emotion causing my throat to tighten and my eyes to sting.
“I want you all to take a few minutes,” Dr. Clark said, “and write—about Monday, about what you remember, about what you think that other people will remember when they look back on that day. Write about the questions you have, what you’re feeling. Write about whatever you’d like.”
There was a moment of agonized silence.
“Can we write about John Thomas?” a girl from the front row finally asked. Her voice was wobbly. The question sucked the oxygen out of the room.
Thatwas what the students at this school would remember.Thatwas their flashbulb memory—hearing the news about the president, and then being shuffled into lockdown, terrified that there was a gunman loose in the school.
