They Never Learn, page 12
The boy knocks the bottle against my arm, the sweating glass leaving a cold smear of moisture on my skin. “Come on, it’s a party.”
Allison glares at him. “She doesn’t drink.”
“Why not?” He leers at me, looking down my top. “Can’t be against your religion, dressed like that.”
“Back off, Kyle,” Allison says. “She said no.”
Kyle scrambles backward, trying to disappear into the crowd to get away from Allison’s glare.
“Thanks,” I say.
“He just wants to get all the pretty girls wasted, ’cause that’s the only way he’ll get laid.” Allison narrows her eyes, then tips her head back and drinks the bottle of beer he gave her in a few long swallows. “Let’s dance!”
I tense, gripping Wes’s hand harder. His knuckles accidentally brush against my thigh, touching my skin through the fishnet, and he jerks like he’s been shocked.
“I’m not really much of a dancer,” I say.
“I don’t believe that. With these hips?”
Allison grabs me and squeezes. I blush, and for whatever reason, my eyes go straight to Wes. He doesn’t respond, but when Allison pushes me toward the staircase, he follows us.
The second floor has slanted walls, like an attic. All the furniture has been pushed off to one side, and in the middle of the space a clump of people are—well, I guess it’s dancing, but it looks more like they’re all rubbing up against each other while the techno remix of a pop song blares from big speakers set up in the corners.
Before I realize what’s happening, I’m in the middle of the floor, and Allison’s pressed up against me. I can’t see where Wes went. There’s a dented disco ball hung from the rafters, throwing off strange, jagged light that distorts everything.
Allison’s unzipped her hoodie, revealing a tight black tank top underneath it, already riding up to show a sliver of her stomach. She puts her hands on my waist and tugs me close so our hips smash together.
I try to stay in rhythm with the music and Allison’s much more confident gyrations, but I feel totally ridiculous. Like everyone’s watching me, thinking about how awkward and pathetic I am. Like they can somehow sense the heat building between my legs as Allison rubs against me, moving to the beat.
Allison swings her head, tossing her blue hair in a wide arc, and I almost stumble over my own feet. I grab on to her to hold myself steady, and my hands end up so low I’m practically cupping her ass. I start to apologize, lift my hands away, but Allison seems unbothered. She makes a figure-eight motion with her hips, grinning, her teeth glowing as blue as her hair in the strange light. I might feel ridiculous, but Allison isn’t embarrassed. She doesn’t care if the whole world sees us.
Including Wes. My eyes have adjusted to the shattered light now, and I find him over in the corner near the stairs, nursing his beer and watching us dance. Allison tosses a look over her shoulder, and at first I think she’s trying to get him to join us. I let myself imagine it for a second: Allison pressed against my front, Wes molded along my back, their hands tangling on my hips.
But Allison isn’t looking at Wes. She’s looking past him.
Bash. He has his hair slicked back, and he’s wearing all black, plus what looks like liner smudged around his eyes. It makes his cheekbones appear hollow, vampiric. Maybe that’s what he’s supposed to be, but it’s not much of a costume.
As soon as his eyes meet Allison’s, she grabs me tighter, grinding against me so hard it almost hurts. I stiffen. Is that all this is? I’m just a convenient prop to try and get his attention?
Well, it’s working. When the song changes to a slower one, the dance floor crowd breaks up a bit, people filtering out to get drinks or some fresh air, and Bash sidles over to us.
Allison turns to face him, her arm still around my waist. “Hey, Bash.”
I want to push her off me. I want to push her so hard she hits the floor.
“Hey.” He looks Allison up and down. He clearly doesn’t know what her costume’s supposed to be, but he doesn’t ask either.
I look over at Wes again. He knocks back the rest of his beer and heads toward the stairs without giving us a second glance.
“It was so awesome of you guys to host tonight.” Allison moves toward Bash, tugging me along with her. With her free hand, she laughs and touches his shoulder—the skin right below the rolled-up sleeve of his T-shirt. “Remember that night a couple weeks ago when—”
“Who’s your friend?” Bash asks.
“Oh.” Allison looks at me, then back at Bash. He’s staring at me like she’s not even there. “This is my roommate, Carly. Carly, this is—”
“Are you a theater major too? I don’t think I’ve seen you around.”
He has seen me around, plenty of times. He just didn’t notice me when I wasn’t half-naked.
“No,” I say. “I’m—”
“She’s an English major. I totally dragged her along, she hates parties.” Allison smiles at me, but there’s something mean behind it. As if it’s my fault this asshole is ogling my boobs.
Another fast song starts up, and people begin to file back out onto the dance floor. I don’t really want to dance anymore—didn’t want to dance in the first place—but at least it might pull Allison’s attention away from Bash.
He uses the excuse of all the bodies pressing in around us to get even closer to me. “You’re having fun tonight, though. Aren’t you?”
Bash smiles and the light from the cracked disco ball glints off his white incisors. My heartbeat spikes with panic. He’s so close now I can smell his sweat. All I can think about, besides running outside and never looking back, is smashing my fist into his perfect teeth.
Allison drops her hand from my waist and steps between me and Bash. I’m so relieved, but my jaw is still clenched with tension. She’s going to stand up for me. She’s going to tell him to back off, the same way she did with that Kyle guy.
But instead, she smiles and loops her arm through Bash’s elbow. “So since this is your house,” she says, “I bet you know where they keep the good stuff.”
He finally drags his eyes away from me. I swear I can feel an oily smear where his eyes passed over my skin.
“Sure,” he says. “Come with me.”
Bash starts leading her off.
I reach for her. “Wait, Allison, I—”
But they’re already gone.
27 SCARLETT
Kinnear ushers me inside his house, hand hovering possessively over the small of my back. The lights are dimmed low, and the space smells like meat, a mix of char and spices wafting from the kitchen. Soft classical music streams from the wireless speakers set up in each corner of the room.
“May I take your coat?”
“That’s all right.” I want to keep it in my sight—and also avoid the chance of fibers transferring to the other items in his closet.
I lay the coat over the back of one of the dining chairs instead. White taper candles burn on either side of a polished wooden carving board, and there’s a stack of precisely folded cloth napkins at the head of the table, but he hasn’t put out the place settings yet. That’s one less thing I’ll have to deal with later. I can’t leave any sign that Kinnear had a guest this evening.
Kinnear looks relaxed, sure of himself, the sleeves of his black cashmere sweater pushed up casually to his elbows. No glasses tonight, so his blue eyes gleam bright in the candlelight. He thinks this is just another date for him, another easy seduction. I wonder if he makes all his conquests the same meal, plays the same music, whispers the same clichés in their ears.
“Let me get you a drink,” he says. “What’s your poison?”
I take the whiskey bottle out of my purse and hold it up to the light.
Kinnear smiles. “You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?”
Indeed I have.
I hand him the whiskey. I’m still wearing my black cotton gloves, and I kept my hands covered every other time I touched the bottle, so only Kinnear’s fingerprints will show up on the amber glass.
He goes to the sideboard and pours us both generous portions. I remove the gloves and tuck them in my pockets for later. I chose this dress specifically for the generous pockets at the hips—and the deep V neckline.
“Ice?” Kinnear asks.
“No, thank you.” I hang the purse off the back of the chair next to my coat, then wander toward his bookcases. I’m glad of the glass fronts over the shelves, because my bare fingers itch to glide across the gilded spines. When Kinnear saunters after me, holding out my drink, I wave him away. “I’ll have it with dinner.”
He sets the glass on the table and takes another swig of his own whiskey. “You know, I toured this distillery when I was living abroad.”
“Really?” I say. He’s standing right beside me now—much closer than necessary—and he lifts the whiskey to his nose, breathing in the scent. “Is it as good as you remembered?”
Kinnear takes another swallow. I know I should smile at him, the sort of vacant, rapturous stare that will make him think I’m desperate to go to bed with him, so I watch the muscles in his throat move and think about how, a short while from now, that neck will turn purple and swollen. My lips curve upward.
“It tastes even more magnificent directly from the cask,” he says. “You know they only use trees cultivated in one specific grove in the Scottish Highlands to make the barrels?”
“I didn’t. How fascinating.”
I was in fact well aware of that detail already, because Kinnear told the same exact story to the dean of admissions at an alumni event last year. That’s why I bought this particular kind of whiskey: so he’ll bloviate about the flavors and history and not keep track of how much he’s consuming. He’s already almost to the bottom of his first glass.
“They must have changed something, though; I’m detecting a note of…” He sips again, considering. “Black pepper, that’s it. It’s good. Adds a hint of bitterness.”
I steal a glance at the clock on the wall. About twenty minutes until the drug I mixed into the whiskey starts to take hold. That’s not what will kill him, but it should make him drowsy, pliable. Easier to overpower.
It’s a triple dose of the same liquid sleep aid I saw in his bathroom during the Homecoming party. In the unlikely event that the police run a tox screen after his death, it will look like he took too much, by accident or on purpose.
“Dinner’s about ready,” Kinnear says. “I made you my famous—”
“Oh, I thought you were going to show me that book first.” I peer up at the shelves, squinting like I can’t find the title, even though I clocked it from across the room. The Collected Letters of Lord Douglas Vance, gold script stamped into pale blue cloth. It’s at the top of an entire bookcase stuffed to the brim with books about Victorian writers—all men, of course.
Most of the volumes are so pristine, it’s clear Kinnear has never read them. He wants people to admire them, and by extension to admire him. A man like Kinnear doesn’t deserve a library like this. Maybe his family will donate it to the university after his untimely death.
He slides the glass door away, deliberately brushing my shoulder as he reaches for the book. Another volume, sitting right beside it on the shelf, catches my eye. It’s smaller than the others, compact enough to fit in a pocket, and there’s no title or author printed on the red spine. What’s more, it looks like someone’s actually read it, the edges faded and frayed from handling.
I point to it. “What’s that?”
“Oh, that. Just a little something I picked up at a rare bookstore in London, years ago now.” He leaves Vance’s letters on the shelf and takes the small book down instead, opening the cover so I can see the handwritten inscription.
The Diary of Viola Emily Vance
My hand darts out to touch the yellowed page, but I stop myself just in time. “Is it…”
“Real?” He smiles. “Yes. No idea how it ended up in that ramshackle shop instead of with the Vance estate.”
He’s never mentioned this diary, never cited it in any of his papers. This whole time, this whole fucking time, he’s had a one-of-a-kind primary source that would be invaluable to my research, and he’s left it sitting on the shelf, buried amongst books by every pretentious asshole of the era.
“Of course, it’s mostly juvenilia,” he says. “Little poems and such she wrote when she was first married. But you can take a look if you want.”
He hands me the diary, holding it by the corner like it’s a piece of trash, like it means nothing. I want to snatch it out of his hands and cradle it against my chest. But I can’t touch anything, not without my gloves.
“I don’t want to damage it.” I try to sound deferential, demure. Anything but full of murderous rage.
Kinnear eats it up. Any hint of perceived helplessness, and men fall over themselves to play the hero. He takes the book over to the dining table and sets it down by the stack of napkins. Then he pulls out a chair for me. I sit, spine stiff, and Kinnear leans over me, arms caging me in, to turn the delicate pages covered in Viola Vance’s unmistakable scrawl.
“This one’s not half bad.” He reads a short poem fragment, his whiskey-soaked breath rustling my hair. On the last few words, he slurs a little, though he keeps going like nothing’s wrong.
The drug is working already.
“It’s wonderful,” I say. It is, despite his mangling.
“You know,” Kinnear says, “if I end up getting the Women’s Academy fellowship, it doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t access the archive.”
I turn my head to look at him. He’s so close, he probably thinks we’re a breath away from kissing. If only he knew what I really wanted to do to him.
“You could come to London.” He lays his hand on my shoulder, pressing the pad of his thumb into the bone. “Spend some time with me, and I could see about getting you guest access.”
Under the table, I dig my fingers into my thighs. How dare he. How fucking dare he. He thinks he’s going to get the fellowship—the fellowship I deserve, the fellowship that should be mine in the first place, that would be mine if he weren’t “Cambridge chums” with the goddamn curator—and he’ll do me the favor of helping me with my work if I fly across the Atlantic to suck his cock.
He disgusts me. I’m so tired of pretending he doesn’t.
But not for much longer now.
“That would be amazing.” I force myself to hold his gaze, and for a second I think he’s actually going to try to kiss me. I can’t allow that, obviously—too many forensic variables, not to mention my own gag reflex. His eyes are looking less focused by the second. I think I’ve waited long enough.
“I know we were supposed to have dinner but—” I shift in my seat, so his hand falls away from my shoulder, but he has a clear view of the cleavage spilling out of my dress. Even with his gaze going glassy, Kinnear doesn’t miss that. “I’m not really hungry.”
28 CARLY
It feels like Allison’s been gone an hour, but it can’t have been that long. The dance floor is back in full swing, and everything’s swirling, all the lights and the music and the writhing bodies.
I press my back against the wall to steady myself. A guy in a zombie costume dances too close to me, the shredded sleeve of his shirt brushing my arm. I shrink closer to the wall and take a deep breath, but my chest heaves like a romance novel heroine in this stupid corset.
Someone taps me on the shoulder, and I whirl around, but it’s only Wes. He jerks back, out of my reach. Oh God, I almost hit him, didn’t I? I force my hand down to my side, still tightened into a fist.
“Are you okay?” He looks around. “Where’s Allison?”
“She left.” It’s hard to get the words out; my throat feels cinched tighter than my waist.
“You want to go outside for a minute?” he asks.
Really I want to leave the party, but I don’t want to ruin Wes’s night any more than I probably already have. And I can’t leave without Allison.
Wes offers me his hand, and I let him pull me away from the relative safety of the wall and down the staircase. We’re still holding hands as we head out the back door. Despite the cold, the patio is almost as crowded as the dance floor, a thick haze of smoke hanging over all the pirates and sexy cats and glow-in-the-dark skeletons gathered there, so Wes and I keep walking, toward the thicket of cars parked haphazardly on the gravel lot behind the house.
“Who are you supposed to be, anyway?” I ask. Now that we’re away from the party, my throat feels less like there are fingers around it, but my voice sounds weirdly far away, my ears still ringing from the music.
“Oh, uh—I’m Rivers Cuomo,” Wes says.
I blink at him.
“The lead singer of Weezer?”
I have no idea what he’s talking about. This whole night feels blurry, even though I’m completely sober.
“That band we listened—” Wes pushes the thick-framed glasses up higher on his nose.
They’re a lot like the ones Alex wears. They look right on Alex, but on Wes they’re a little much, taking over his face so it’s hard to focus on his features.
“Never mind. It’s a pretty lame costume anyway. That wasn’t cool, you know,” he says, lowering his voice even though we’re far enough away from the house that no one’s likely to overhear. “The way Allison was using you to get his attention.”
My chest burns, with shame and something else, at the memory of Allison’s body pressed up so close, moving against mine, the music vibrating through us. “Oh, no, that’s not—”
“Trust me, she’s always been like this. She never wants what’s right in front of her. She wants what she can’t have.” He looks me in the eyes. “You get used to it after a while.”
