Page 109 of All These Beautiful Strangers

What the hell was going on? I turned toward the French doors on the far end of the dining hall, looking for a quiet place to talk.

“Yes, the boy you brought to dinner,” my father said. “I’m not sure what the nature of your relationship is, but whatever it is, it needs to stop.”

I pushed open the French doors and walked outside. It was cold out and the patio was nearly empty.

“I’m not sure I understand,” I said.

Was my father really calling to demand that I break up with a boy he had met once over dinner?

“He’s not right for you, Charlotte,” my father said. “His family—they’re not the right sort of people. And the apple usually doesn’t fall far from the tree. I don’t want you seeing him anymore.”

“His family?” I said. I’d never heard anything bad about the Daltons, and Margot had seemed perfectly nice. “But I thought you and his mother were friends.”

“Then you’ve been misled,” my father said. “Margot—I don’t want you around her. If she tries to contact you again, you are to let me know immediately and I will take care of it.”

“Okay,” I said. As in Jeez, okay, why don’t we all just calm down. But I think my father took it as an acquiescence to his command.

“All right,” he said, and he sounded slightly placated, and a little tired. “This is for your own good, Charlotte. Trust me on that.”

“Okay,” I said again.

But I didn’t trust him. I didn’t trust him at all.

The disciplinary hearing was just as horrible as I had thought it would be. I sat with the rest of the A’s as we watched Headmaster Collins offer Drew the chance to save herself by giving us up, but she didn’t take it. He gave her until the end of the day to clear out her things and leave campus.

That evening after the nightly curfew check, I lay on Drew’s bare mattress and stared up at the ceiling alone in the dark. It was so quiet in our room without the sounds of her breathing, of her turning over on the bed.

It didn’t matter that Drew wanted to leave, that she had gotten caught on purpose. I still felt like I had just lost my best friend.

I got out my phone and texted Greyson.

I’m gonna need you to come over and hide all my razor blades, I wrote.

But he didn’t come back with a funny quip to take the edge off my anger.

Greyson: What’s wrong?

I started to type out a response and then erased it. I started again, then stopped again. Finally, I just wrote out the truth.

Everything, I said.

Thirty

Grace Calloway

June 2007

I checked my watch again. She was running late. I drummed my fingers on the table and glanced again at the menu.

I had picked this place because Alistair had mentioned bringing clients here, and it seemed like the type of place where she would be comfortable. The wine list was two pages long, the cheapest bottle over two hundred dollars. What I hadn’t anticipated was the attentive service. It was too attentive. Nearly every time I took a sip from my water glass, someone came by to refill it, and the waiter hovered nearby. Any accidental glance in his direction or inadvertent gesture brought him over, inquiring if there was anything he could get me.

I had chosen a dark booth toward the back of the restaurant, hoping for some privacy. I didn’t want us to be overheard.

At half past the hour, I looked up and saw her—dressed fashionably in a trench coat and heels, her arm bent at the elbow, carrying a Birkin bag. She had a cell phone clutched in one hand, though she wasn’t on it. Her pale, straw-colored hair fell just below her shoulders in a perfectly straight cut. She was the type of person who was so well put together and who carried herself with such confidence that you almost forgot she wasn’t pretty.

I got up to greet her but she waved away the gesture, so I sat back down.

“Margot,” I said. “Thanks so much for meeting me.”