Page 18 of All These Beautiful Strangers

“Well, I have no idea what it means, but at least it rhymes, sort of,” I said.

“She’s talking about how repressed she feels,” Stevie said. “Like she’s living in this little box where she can barely breathe.”

“Then why can’t she just say that?” I asked.

“Because, sometimes the words we have aren’t enough,” Stevie said. “You need things like metaphor and sound and rhyme to get at the full weight of it.”

“I guess,” I grumbled, turning the page.

“I’m going to go dig up Plath’s unabridged journals,” Stevie said, getting up from the table. “Maybe they’ll give us a good historical context that we can use to analyze the poems.”

“Sounds thrilling,” I said.

I kept reading. Suddenly, I got the distinct feeling that someone was watching me, and I glanced up to see Dalton standing there, across the table from me.

“Coming to pay me homage for my ungodly poker skills?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Something like that,” Dalton said. He fished an envelope out of the pocket of his blazer and slid it across the table toward me. Then, to my surprise, he sat down.

“You know,” he said, “if someone—not mentioning any names here or anything—but if someone had been playing by the rules last night, things might have turned out differently.”

“Yes, well, someone regrets nothing,” I said, opening the envelope and sorting through the cash.

Dalton laughed. “Are you really going to count it in front of me? Don’t you trust me, Calloway?”

“I trust you about as far as I can throw you,” I said, tucking the envelope into my American Literature textbook. “And I probably wouldn’t even be able to lift you.”

“Is this distrust specific to me or to all guys in general?”

“Oh, all of you,” I said. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

Dalton laughed again. “How did we get such a bad rap?”

“Have you met my cousin Leo?”

“I sincerely hope that your whole perception of the male populace is not based on Leo,” Dalton said.

I laughed. “Unfortunately for you, I have firsthand knowledge of the inner workings of the male teenage mind, and it doesn’t bode well for any of you. You’re all gross.”

Dalton leaned forward and tapped on my textbook. “Doing a bit of light reading?” he asked.

I held up the textbook so he could see. “American Lit,” I said. “We’re deconstructing poems from Plath’s Ariel. I can’t make heads or tails of it, but we have to write some big paper.”

“Who do you have?”

“Mrs. Morrison,” I said.

Dalton nodded. “I could help you with that.”

“Oh yeah?” I said. “You a big Plath junkie?”

He laughed. “Hardly,” he said. “Literature’s probably my worst subject.”

“Well, with that ringing endorsement, I might just fend for myself,” I said.

Dalton looked stealthily side to side, as if checking to make sure no one was close enough to hear. He leaned forward again and lowered his voice. “I was talking about the A’s cache,” he said.

“The A’s cache?” I repeated, as quietly as I could.