Confessions: The Private School Murders (25 page)

53

My mother was in bed
that Sunday morning, propped up against silk pillows reading the
Times
, when I slipped into the room.

“Mom, there’s something I have to tell you,” I said, standing at the foot of the huge bed she shared with my father.

She lowered the paper and folded her hands atop the pages. “You have my full attention.”

“I’ve met someone,” I told her. “His name’s James Rampling and I think… actually, I
know
. I’m in love with him.”

I pictured her beautiful face lighting up. Imagined her opening her arms for a huge hug. Conjured up what it
might feel like to hug her back. To close my eyes and feel connected to her in a real way. In a mother-daughter way.

But no.

Instead, she stared at me with her lips pursed.

“How?” she snapped. “How did this happen?”

Then, while my mouth was still hanging open in disappointment, she got up, waving a hand at me not to answer, and left the room in her poppy-covered pajamas. Two minutes later, she and my father came back upstairs. My dad was already dressed in a cashmere sweater, the collar of a button-down shirt sticking out the top, and pressed pants. His standard Sunday attire.

“Tandy, sit,” my father said, like he was talking to a dog. He pointed at the child-sized slipper chair near the fireplace. I did as I was told.

“This is not love,” he began. “It’s infatuation. You are far too young to be in love.”

“No, I’m not,” I argued. “Plenty of people fall in love in high school. Some people for life.”

“You are not ‘some people.’ You’re an Angel,” my mother interjected. “We expect you to focus on your studies, and you can’t do that if this…
person
… is absorbing your attention and monopolizing your time.”

“But I—”

“And
James Rampling
!” my mother cried, throwing up
her hands and looking at my father. “James Rampling? Of all people!”

“But what do
you
know about—”

“Don’t argue with your parents!” my father thundered. “We know what’s best for you.”

I felt like I was on the verge of earning myself a Big Chop, so I bit down on my tongue. Screw my parents. If they didn’t want me to see James, fine. I’d already been doing it for a month without them knowing. I could just keep doing it.

“And don’t even think about sneaking around behind our backs,” my father said. Again my jaw dropped. He shook his head. “Tandy, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but there’s a good chance that Royal Rampling set this whole thing up—that he’s using his son to get to us. He could be trying to get close to you so that he can undermine the family business, the business that will be yours one day.”

“Dad. Come on. Not everything is about the family business,” I said. “James and I are—”

“This is not up for negotiation, Tandoori,” he snapped. “You will e-mail James and tell him that we forbid you to see him. You will not take his calls, you will not answer his texts. And if you see him on the street, you are to walk the other way. Do you understand?”

End of discussion.

I looked up into my parents’ eyes, and I knew for sure. If I didn’t comply, there was a Big Chop looming, and the last few Big Chops had been creative and brutal. Like Hugo’s punishing summer job in agricultural boot camp, for example. I knew they were already devising what they’d do to me if I disobeyed. So I sat up straight and stared straight ahead.

“I understand,” I said.

But that didn’t mean I was going to follow their orders.

Which takes me back to the most crucial turning point in my life so far. James and me, walking down West End Avenue, hands clasped between us.

“My father overheard me talking to you on the phone,” James said. “He kind of freaked out when I told him about you.”

“Shocker,” I said quietly.

“He started going off about how your parents are criminals and he won’t let them get their hooks into me,” James continued, looking ahead toward the next traffic light.

“Criminals?” I repeated.

James nodded, squeezing my hand. “He warned me that if I keep seeing you, he’ll cut me off. Trust fund. College fund. Everything. And that if I disobey him, I’ll be very sorry. I know him, Tandy. He’s ruthless. But I’m not giving in to him. There’s no way I’m giving you up.”

The way James looked at me, I knew he meant it. I paused at the next corner.

“My parents threatened me, too. They said I had to cut off all contact with you,” I told him.

He lifted our hands and kissed the back of mine. “How’s that working out for you?”

I smirked but then rolled my eyes. “It’s like we’re living in a police state.”

“We are,” he replied, his blue eyes going serious. “We’ve always been prisoners. All that matters to them is
them
. They couldn’t care less about what we think or feel.”

“Well, that’s stating the obvious,” I said with a wry smile.

He took a deep breath, still solemn. “What if we escaped?”

“What do you mean, escaped?” I asked, intrigued.

“You know.” He leaned toward me, his eyebrows arching. “Ran away.”

Run away? I imagined what that might be like, and a tingle shivered through me: Being truly alone with James. Spending the night. Waking up in bed beside him. Making a real life for ourselves. Free from our parents’ cages.

But then I saw Malcolm and Maud bursting into whatever room we were staying in and dragging me away.

“We’ll get caught,” I said.

“Maybe. And maybe we’ll outwit, outlast, and outplay them,” he said, the sunlight dancing in his eyes. “On our terms.”

Our terms. I liked the sound of that.

“I’m in.” I smiled. “Take me with you.”

54

James and I walked south,
surrounded on all sides by speed-walking streams of office workers surging along the sidewalk toward the subway. The avenue was jammed with honking vehicles that shot ahead, then squealed to a stop at the next red light. Horns and sirens blared.

I was quiet, clutching James’s hand, as my mind ranged over the undefined, wide-open possibilities.
Running away
. It sounded as impossible as
eloping
—like a thing from a storybook or a bygone era. But this was real. We were making it happen. Together. Right
now
.

I’d never disobeyed my parents on this kind of scale. This wasn’t like wearing my mother’s tank top or sneaking a slug of vodka. This was huge.

I was exhilarated. And I was scared.

“We should text them,” James suggested as we turned to walk east along Sixty-Fourth Street. “Tell them we’re going over to friends’ to study or something. Then we’ll take the batteries out of our phones so they can’t track us. That will buy us some time.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said.

Except I didn’t really have any friends to speak of, so a text like that would instantly raise suspicions. Instead, I told Malcolm and Maud I’d been forced into a study group and was meeting the group at the library. Then we disabled our phones and kept walking until we got to Penn Station, the overcrowded, labyrinthine station that services three major rail lines. From there we could go to Chicago or Miami or Montreal—and connect in those cities to anywhere in the world.

We descended by escalator two stories underground, and James led me to the Long Island Rail Road portion of the station, where thousands of people crisscrossed the gray granite floors to ticket booths and platforms, pulling luggage, carrying children, taking pictures.

James told me to look down so our faces wouldn’t be caught on cameras of any kind. He bought tickets, and we boarded our train.

55

The train was
a perfectly romantic getaway transport, with its sleek styling and luxurious bilevel interior. I felt like I was stepping into some classic black-and-white film as James and I settled into our double seat on the top deck. The conductor punched our tickets to East Hampton and hovered longer than necessary.

“Weekend getaway?” he asked.

“Something like that,” I said.

He smirked like he knew what I was thinking. I looked away because I didn’t even want to
know
what he thought I was thinking.

“I’d like to be either one of you for a day,” he said, smiling as he moved on.