The Diamonds (14 page)

“Hi,” I said. “I got your message last night.”

His eyes widened. “And?”

“How about Friday night? You can take me to see Anderson's show, and then we can go to Ryan's party afterwards.”

“Cool,” he said. “I mean, great. I mean, I'm looking forward to it.”

He sounded so sincere that I wanted to take him by the shoulders and whisper the truth into his ear, but I
couldn't. I was doing this for me. For Anderson. So I channeled Clarissa and blew him a kiss, acting as casual and carefree as possible.

“Pick me up at seven,” I said. “Bye.”

Then I made my way to class.

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

—
The Ninth Amendment
to the United States Constitution

Once Anderson was officially in my life, everything was different.

I no longer spent hours obsessing over Jed and how I “Used to Love Him” (Fiona Apple, 2005); my grades improved; I was happier, healthier, and more fun to be around. I didn't even push any freshmen in the hallways. Well, I
hardly
pushed any freshmen in the hallways.

Really, I let Clarissa, Lili, and Priya take the lead. I loved the trials; don't get me wrong. Sitting next to my best friends and laying down social law was the highlight of my day. But looking back, I'm not sure I could even tell you what most of them were about. I thought only of Anderson, of the way we stared knowingly at each other in the halls, the time I spent with
him in the early evenings at his house. I still felt incredibly guilty about lying to Clarissa, but I was In Love. What was I supposed to do? All I wanted was for her to start dating someone. Anyone. Then, once I was sure she was really over Anderson and her feelings wouldn't be hurt, I could tell her. He and I could start dating out in the open. No more sneaking around. It wasn't the best plan ever, but it was all I had.

After listening to Anderson practice his new guitar for what seemed like forever, his show was only a few days away. I couldn't
wait
. Nothing else even crossed my mind until the Diamonds helmed a trial that, for multiple reasons, would have tremendous consequences.

Reason No. 1: It was the first trial for which Mr. Townsen would
not
be present. Since the daily number of applications we received sufficiently outweighed the amount of time we had at mock trial meetings (no one—me included—ever wanted to stay past five o'clock), and since Townsen was thoroughly impressed with our work, the Diamonds were now allowed to hold after-school trials any day of the week. “I trust you girls to follow the letter of the law,” he'd told us. Lili and I would be serving as judges, while Clarissa and Priya represented the prosecution and the defense, respectively.

The only person this pissed off was Jenny Murphy, whose other extracurriculars made it impossible for her to attend additional meetings. Eric Ericsson and
Sherry Something were also unable to attend the new meetings, as were three of the jury members who, along with Jenny Murphy, were Mathletes.

Clarissa immediately replaced the jurors with three of her choice—Michelle Adalgo, Robin Berningham, and Eileen Smith, freshmen girls who worshipped the ground she walked on. She also began planning character-assassination plots for the remaining jurors—Michael Tompson, Nicole Morrey, and Joy Darling—who she felt were working against her.

Reason No. 2: This was the first trial that Principal Newman would be attending. Unlike most school administrators, Principal Newman was a moron. Two years earlier, he'd forgotten the name of our school at an assembly. (“Welcome, Barmingham students!”) He was old and tired and didn't do much of anything. How he'd held on to his job for so long was beyond me, though I think the parents of Bennington students actually preferred a principal they could easily manipulate over someone they, well, couldn't.

Principal Newman would be observing the trial before (potentially) approving the plan to let us—I mean, mock trial—dole out punishments for certain students
instead
of the dean.

Reason No. 3: I'd finally finished the new version of the Bill of Rights Clarissa had asked me to write. Supposedly, Priya had finished her robes, and Clarissa insisted that all four of us wear them. Now that we were holding trials completely on our own, without
Townsen, it was important for us to “look as fierce as possible.”

Knowing Priya, I hoped they weren't see-through.

I arrived for the trial almost ten minutes early. Priya and Lili were in tow, along with three iced coffees (french vanilla) and once iced latte (mocha). Directly across from the chorus room was a faculty bathroom, which we weren't supposed to use, but that had never stopped us before.

Clarissa was already inside, applying her lipstick at the mirror. “There you are.”

Priya took a black valise from underneath her arm. “Here are the outfits,” she said. “They're not so much
robes
as they are
really amazing dresses with sleeves
, so be careful with them.”

Priya unzipped the garment bag and withdrew the robes one by one.

Mine fit like a second skin. The black material wrapped itself around my waist and fell just below the knees; the sleeves were long and billowy. For something so low-cut, it was surprisingly conservative. I was impressed.

Priya twisted her shoulders like a Vegas showgirl. “If you're going to have a
trial
, you'd better do it in
style.”

Clarissa fixed her hair in front of the mirror and adjusted her pendant. She looked like she belonged on the cover of a magazine called
I'm Gonna Punish You
. “Does everyone have their diamond on?”

I glanced down at my neckline. Check.

“Marni, do you have the modified constitution?”

I reached into my bag and pulled out the pages I'd printed off the computer. “I'm not sure if this is exactly what you had in mind.” I had altered only the first ten constitutional amendments, which made up the Bill of Rights; they were the ones most people knew.

“Marni,” she said once she was done looking them over. “These are amazing. So funny.”

“Really?”

“This must have taken you
hours,”
said Lili.

“Let me see, let me see!” Priya said, doing the Hokey-Pokey with her hands. “I wanna see!”

“I'm happy to help,” I said. And I
was
. It's not often I can put my semiobscure knowledge of the Constitution to use (while exhausting my father's personal library). Clarissa turned her attention back to the mirror. “What should we
call
it? We need something really … you know. Jazzy.”

“What if we called it the Diamond Rules? Marni made them with us in mind, and we
do
want people to follow them, or at least pretend to,” Lili suggested.

“The Diamond Rules,”
said Priya. “Classy.”

Clarissa smiled. “I like it.”

Outside the faculty bathroom, things were less serene. A bunch of kids rushed past us, no doubt trying to find last-minute seats for the trial. I hadn't gotten far before I heard the voice of a boy I liked to pretend did not exist.

Tommy.

“Wait up, Marni!” he said. “I need to talk to you.”

I hadn't forgotten that Tommy was supposedly writing an article about me.

“What do
you
want?” Clarissa asked, stepping beside me and scowling.

“To apologize,” he said. Tommy loosened the neck of his shirt (light purple, a daring color for any high school guy to wear, let alone one without a girlfriend). “Sorry I bothered you the other day, Marni.”

“Apology accepted,” Clarissa said for me. “Now, if you don't mind, the club for dork-ass virgins who aren't going to get laid for at least the next five years”—she sniffed the air—“and who smell bad is meeting in the
band
room.”

Tommy crossed his arms. “I guess
this
isn't a good time to talk about the article, either?”

“What article?” asked Clarissa.

“I'm, uh, trying to put an article together about Marni, and—”

“About Marni? Why?”

“That's sort of what I wanted to talk to you—I mean, her—about.”

Clarissa grabbed hold of his shirt and practically threw him inside the chorus room. She moved so quickly I barely had time to blink. I'd never known she was so strong.

“I'll give you something to write about.”

“Totally in conclusion,” Priya said in her closing statement, which was more coherent than I'd expected,
“Joy Darling, a juror and a terrible dresser, has been accepting, like, bribes in turn for her vote. You've heard from three brave”—Priya motioned to the sophomores sitting together a few feet away—“and fashionable witnesses who have each admitted to paying Joy off. Now it's up to
you
guys to, like, decide her fate.” Priya curtseyed. “Thanks.”

I had never been less prepared for a trial. Usually, Clarissa and I knew beforehand the details of the case from the application and discussed a game plan. This time around, there was no application; Clarissa had organized the trial herself, and I knew from our conversation in Café Bennington that it was totally bogus. It was also the first time I'd stepped out from behind the judges’ bench and was acting as the prosecution. (Clarissa wanted to ensure that everything ran smoothly for Principal Newman.)

Joy Darling, who was definitely
not
the kind of girl who would ever accept a bribe (she had bangs, for crying out loud), sat next to me, on the verge of tears. The girls who had supposedly bribed her—Liza Vorla, Sheila Covington, and Mary Black—would have done anything to get on Clarissa's good side. Who knew what she'd promised them in return for lying.

“Thank you,” Clarissa said. Lili was next to her, a serious expression on her face.

I turned to Joy, who was dabbing her right eye with a tissue.

“Marni, the defense may present its case.”

I didn't
have
a case. No one could refute the girls’
statements except for Joy, and frankly, it was highly unlikely that anyone would believe her.

“Joy,” I said softly, tapping her shoulder. “What do you want to do?”

She stopped with the tissue and stared at me blankly. One eye, I realized, was smaller than the other and slightly wonky. Her cheeks were red and puffed out like a chipmunk's.

“Do you want to testify?”

“What's the point?” she asked. I couldn't think of one. “Clarissa is out to get me.” Her eyes started to water. “I just don't know what I did wrong. Do you?”

“Uh, no,” I said, crossing my legs. I didn't even have any paper in front of me to shuffle. What a disaster. “If you don't want to take the stand, Joy, I'm not sure what else there is to do.”

Joy took a fresh tissue from her pocket and blew into it so hard I thought her nose fell off. “Whatever you think is best,” she said.

The room had been silent the entire time, and Clarissa repeated my name. “The defense may begin.”

I stood up. At this point there was no way Joy would be found innocent, but at least for Principal Newman's sake, I wanted to give some semblance of a proper trial. “Joy Darling would like to assert that the allegations against her are false. She does not have any proof, but since the evidence is entirely circumstantial and based on witness testimony, it's up to you, the jurors, to decide who is telling the truth.”

I looked at the jury, the eleven students I had helped
Clarissa pick (Joy had no alternate), and couldn't help cringing. Carrie May had her cell phone in her hand, and I could tell she'd been texting the whole time. Emmy Montgomery was applying lip gloss even now, as I spoke, and Ronnie Yelman was ogling Clarissa as if she were a filet mignon at Henry's, the most expensive steakhouse on Long Island. The only people who were paying attention were Michael Tompson and Nicole Morrey, who knew something was fishy and would no doubt be Clarissa's next victims.

As frustrating as it was, I couldn't really be mad. I had assisted Clarissa every step of the way; so had Lili and Priya. I'd issued just as many punishments as Clarissa. The sudden power of the mock trial team was our responsibility, too. And while I didn't really care what happened to Joy Darling (sorry, Joy), I had an icky feeling she was only the first of many to come.

I turned to Clarissa and Lili, who were fixing their robes. “The defense rests.”

Once the trial was over, we took a ten-minute break for the jury to deliberate.

“Wonderful job, girls,” Principal Newman bumbled, approaching the front of the room. His tie was crooked and one of the buttons on his dress shirt was undone. “Incredible.”

“I'm
so
glad you liked it,” Clarissa said, pointing to Kathy Shiblay, the mock trial team stenographer. “Kathy could make you a copy of the transcript if you like.”

Principal Newman adjusted his glasses. “No, no, that won't be necessary. It was like I was in a real courtroom,” he said. “It gave me chills. Well, either it was the trial or the ice pack I'm using for my knee”—he pointed to his right leg—“but I definitely had chills. Brrr!”