Page 81 of All These Beautiful Strangers

“Yes, Jake Griffin, her high school boyfriend. He grew up down the street. They met when they were children.”

Jake Griffin. That name sounded so familiar. Where had I heard it before?

“He was a good kid, a smart kid,” said my grandmother. “He went to boarding school up in New Hampshire, I think it was. On a full scholarship. But he passed away very young. Grace was still in high school—oh, she must have been sixteen or so when it happened. Very young. She was devastated. It took her a long time to get past it.”

A boarding school in New Hampshire? A boy who passed away? A cold shiver ran down my spine. Jake Griffin. I hadn’t heard that name before, but I had seen it. In the front of my father’s senior yearbook, on the “In Memoriam” page. Jake Griffin, the boy who had died, the one in the picture with my father on Healy Quad, their arms wrapped around one another, smiling at the camera. Jake Griffin and Alistair Calloway, the caption had read.

I tried to put all of the pieces together in my mind, to make them fit. What did it mean that:

My mother had dated this boy

At the same time my father was friends with him

In the same year this boy had died, and

Seventeen years later my mother disappeared into thin air?

Because what were the chances it didn’t mean anything?

Twenty

Grace Fairchild

Spring 1997

I sat with Teddy’s family and Margot during the ceremony. When Teddy walked across the stage in his cap and gown and received his diploma, we all stayed politely seated, unlike most of the other families, who popped up to snap a photo. Eugenia had hired a photographer to sit close to the stage and document everything. She had also made all of us arrive two hours before the ceremony so that said photographer could take pictures of us with Teddy in his cap and gown at the most scenic spots on campus. That way, we wouldn’t have to jostle for pictures with all the other graduates and their families. I also secretly suspected Eugenia wanted the pictures taken when her hair and makeup were freshly done, rather than after she had sat through the hour-long ceremony in the blistering sun.

I’d bought a new outfit for the occasion—a pale pink dress on discount at Saks Off 5th. It was a designer I’d heard Olivia mention once. The dress was formfitting but had a modest neckline and hit a few inches above my knees. I felt pretty in it, but as I was posing for pictures, I had a disturbing thought—what if the dress was too sheer? I hadn’t thought so when I’d stood before the mirror in the dull fluorescent lights of the dressing room, but standing in the bright sunlight, I wondered how much people could see and cursed myself for not thinking to buy a slip, just in case.

Now, as the band played and the graduates marched proudly down the aisle with their diplomas in hand, Teddy’s father leaned toward me.

“We’re going to miss our reservation,” he said, frowning at his watch. The ceremony had started late and was now threatening Eugenia’s perfectly laid plans.

“Alistair, stay behind and wait for your brother,” Eugenia said, fanning herself with her program. “We’ll go ahead to the restaurant and hold our table.”

Margot put a hand on Alistair’s elbow and fanned herself furiously with a program with the other. “I’m going with your parents,” she said. “If I stay in this heat one more minute I’m going to get heatstroke.”

“I’ll wait with you,” I volunteered.

Alistair nodded. “Go corral the troops,” he told me as he stood, his hands in his suit pockets. “I’m going to find a restroom.”

It took me a few minutes to find Teddy on the mall with all the other families and graduates. But eventually I spotted him off to one side, standing with some of his friends in a half circle, facing the other direction, toward the stage. I recognized two of them: Graham Park and Nick Cheng. Teddy and I had met them for a late movie downtown and gone out for sushi a few times. They were nice guys, always very polite. The third boy was tall and gangly, with freckles. He was half turned toward me so I could see his profile. I tried to place him in my mind, but I couldn’t remember ever meeting him.

“I still contend that Teddy here is the true champion,” Nick said, clapping Teddy on the back.

“Nick pointed her out to me earlier, over by the fountain,” the tall one said. “I saw that little pink dress she’s wearing. There’s no way she hasn’t put out.”

I stopped walking. The realization that they were talking about me hit me hard in the gut. I suddenly felt like I wasn’t wearing any clothes. It was like one of those horrible dreams where you suddenly realize you’ve been walking around naked and everybody is staring at you.

“Like I said, I’m bowing out this round,” Teddy said.

“Bullshit,” Graham said. “I’m not winning by default. Let’s review the plays. Nick?”

“Teddy went to first with that Zeta Sigma, rounded second with that French foreign exchange student, and made third with the econ TA,” Nick said, counting each of Teddy’s conquests off on his fingers. I wondered when these encounters had taken place—were they while we were together? Before?

“And you hit a home run with the townie,” the tall gangly one said.

Townie. I didn’t even have a name.