Are you sara, p.3
Are You Sara?, page 3
The speeches, the scholarships, it is never about them. It is about us. It’s about how our families’ tuition makes these important scholarships happen, how it looks good that we attend a school that is just so gosh darn benevolent.
I’ve heard from upper years that it’s always hit or miss with these scholarship students. You have this tight-knit class for basically your whole life, and then bam! You’re stuck with three new kids until graduation you better hope don’t suck.
This year was our turn, and I wasn’t really sure what to expect from the first two students, Nathan Price, who struck me as totally average in every way, and Andrea Chan, who seemed OK, although it’s embarrassing to think about how there’s only, like, two other Asian kids in our whole school.
Anyway, the third student—Tommy Eagle—he caught my attention, and not just because he’s hot. Tommy rolled into assembly late and everyone saw. Apparently, he’d slept through his first-day-of-school alarm in the guest room of the family he’d been billeted to. And even when our principal made a joke at his expense, in front of the whole school said it was nice of him to show up, Tommy didn’t seem fazed. He looked like he didn’t even care about being here. About this new life the private school had given him, the advantages it would afford him when he applied to colleges, and jobs, and even country clubs.
And why should he care? It doesn’t matter. Nobody else believes me when I say this whole world our parents are paying for is bullshit, but it is, and honestly, it was pretty sexy to see someone else think that, too.
“I’m Ellis,” I announced after assembly. I’d stayed behind, waiting for him by the exit as everyone else shuffled back to class.
“Tommy.” He smiled politely and extended his hand. The formality of this made me want to laugh out loud, but I didn’t. I shook it.
“Are you a junior, too?”
“Guilty,” I replied.
“So we’re classmates.”
“Friends, too, maybe.”
“I already have a lot of friends.” Tommy smirked, and I totally blushed, because I couldn’t tell if he was flirting or being an ass, and I keep thinking about that moment, and I still can’t tell. He must have been flirting. Right?
We’re three weeks into the school year now and the rumbling feeling is back, comes on in waves. It’s not food poisoning, and this time it isn’t a gut instinct, either.
I think I’m . . . in love.
The way my parents flip out at each other, I didn’t think I believed in love, and I definitely didn’t know it felt like this. It’s sickening, honestly. My stomach hurts all the time, and if I say something stupid in class I can’t sleep at night, wondering if Tommy heard, if he thinks I’m just some dumb girl, if he thinks about me at all.
I don’t want to sound conceited, but I am used to guys fawning over me—the guys at school who grope at me and pretend it’s a joke and who I’ve known since before their voices dropped. The guys I meet at Model UN and fundraisers who say things like “when I get into Yale” to try to impress me and “I bet you like it from behind, don’t you, Ellis” to cut me down. Guys who aren’t really guys, but middle-aged men, like a few of Daddy’s golfing buddies, who have been staring at me ever since I hit puberty.
Tommy’s pretty shy and hard to get to know, but you can just tell he would never treat a girl like that. He would never treat me like that.
Deep down in my gut, I just know it. I just know one day he’s going to love me, too.
6.
Thursday, September 29
I don’t feel right without my phone. Like I’ve skipped a meal, or forgotten to wear a bra. The same officer from this morning drives me home, and I keep reaching into my back pocket expecting to find it. Besides the information from my Ride app, Detective Kelly won’t find anything useful. The number and phone itself are only two months old. I bought it secondhand off Facebook Marketplace.
Finally, I get home. There are still a handful of police officers and crime scene investigators lurking around, but thank god they’ve taken away Ellis’s body. It’s easier to think of her that way, as Ellis rather than Sarah. Someone different from the girl I met. I duck under the police tape cordoning off the house and keep my head down as I pass them. I live in the basement apartment, and a narrow, overgrown path takes me around back to my entrance.
Once inside, I lock the door behind me, kick off my sneakers and starfish onto the bed. I close my eyes, waiting to be overcome with fatigue. My body is bone tired, but sleep escapes me.
I can’t stop thinking about her.
I was one of the last people to see her alive, and the thought of it chills me to my very core. Could I have stopped it? Would Ellis still be alive if I had noticed her getting into the wrong Ride? If I’d taken her outside through the main door, where the street is always full of college kids?
I open my eyes, roll over and stare blankly at the ceiling. Again, I try to play out everything that happened last night. I don’t remember Ellis arriving at Gavin’s, but I do remember her. She was beautiful, effervescent. I remember seeing her and thinking how nice it would have been to be a young, carefree student—mindlessly running from class to a frat party, the library to the bar, with no responsibilities other than taking care of number one. Pressing your credit card into the bartender’s palm and telling your friends, “It’s fine—I’ve got this round” because it is fine; your parents pay the bill.
Ellis was twenty years old, eight years younger than I am. When I was her age, I was living at home and still sharing a bedroom with Tina. I worked in my parents’ store evenings and weekends, around the undergrad classes I managed to squeeze in. It took me six years to finish my bachelor’s in economics, but I finished. It took me two more to get into law school with a first-year scholarship, but I got here. And now . . .
My toes curl in my socks. They’re cold, dried sweat sticking to the skin.
Now I don’t know what I’m doing.
My laptop dings, startling me. I roll onto my side and scrounge around beneath the covers until I find my year-old MacBook Pro buried deep beneath the duvet. I have several notifications. Another pissy email from student administration, which I delete without reading, a few texts from Tina, and a new email from Ajay.
Ajay Shah
9:54 a.m.
Subject: Where r u
Professor Miles doesn’t look happy . . .
I groan softly into my pillow. I am in my third and final year of law school, and more than half my classes are seminars. Right now, I am missing Corporate Financing. There are only sixteen students, and Professor Miles notices when we don’t show up. She expects us to be there early and come prepared with pointed observations about the readings she assigned, to spend all ninety minutes in feverish debate about the case law and rules that enable rich companies to keep getting richer.
I am going to get a lecture for skipping. At least today I have a reason not to be there.
Long story. Tell you later.
Shivering, I sit up in the bed and close the window. I know I shouldn’t leave it open in this neighborhood, but I have a south-facing apartment, and it can get hot down here during summery afternoons.
I hear a thud above me and wonder if I should go upstairs and check on my landlady. Zo is elderly and quiet as a mouse, so I only ever hear her when she drops things, which is happening more frequently these days. I know I got lucky with Zo. Rent is dirt cheap, even for Hillmont Road, and when I showed up two years ago with a few cardboard boxes full of clothes and a kettle, she let me furnish the apartment with odds and ends from her own house, which she claimed she no longer used. Dishes and crockery, yellow with age. The desk and office chair that her sons used to do their homework in the eighties. A paisley duvet cover she sewed herself.
My basement apartment is 320 square feet, the plumbing groans, and the hardwood leaves splinters in my bare feet, but it’s the first place I’ve ever called my own. It’s as at home as I’ll ever feel.
I am restless, and I know I won’t be able to sleep. I check the time on my alarm clock. If I shower right now, I can probably make it to my next class. I might even have time to do some of the readings beforehand. With a sigh, I take my laptop to the desk. I open my syllabus for Civil Procedure. We’re only a few weeks into the semester, and I’m already behind. I pinch my cheeks, hard, and then get to work.
I read rule after case after rule after case. But the information goes in one eye and seemingly out the other, because no matter how much I try to focus, I can’t stop thinking about Ellis.
Last night she was alive. Now she’s dead.
I bite my lip, and on an impulse, I open up a web browser. I type in “Sarah Ellis” and “Windermere, Massachusetts,” and several hits appear. The first is her Instagram profile, which is private. I can’t see anything—her photos, her friends, not even a descriptive caption. Nothing but a tiny profile picture. I can only just make out that it’s her.
I click on the next few hits and read a handful of articles about her parents, where she’s listed next to the rest of their accolades. Her father, Dr. Ryan Ellis, is a cardiologist and professor at Windermere’s medical school. Dr. Beverly Ellis is a family doctor, with a bustling practice on the rich side of Main Street. They have a son, too. Ellis’s brother, Adam, is a physics major at Stanford. I find a photo of the four of them, arms linked, at a hospital fundraiser two years ago. They look like a picture-perfect family, with their sparkling white teeth and white linen outfits. I would be irritated if I didn’t know that one of them was just murdered.
Remembering what Ellis’s mother said at the station, hesitantly, I start a new search.
There’s no Tommy Eagle on social media, at least none under the age of fifty, and there isn’t much of a trace of him on Google, either. The only match I can find is from a press release dated three years earlier from Bishop Bailey Hall, a prestigious prep school just outside of town.
We are overjoyed to welcome this year’s scholarship students to the future graduating class: Nathan Price, Andrea Chan and Tommy Eagle. Bishop Bailey Hall has a rich history of sponsoring three young persons of diverse backgrounds who have shown considerable, demonstrable academic excellence . . .
I click out of the article, my mind racing as I try to fit the pieces together.
Presumably, Ellis went to Bishop Bailey Hall, where she met Tommy. But why does Ellis’s mother think he killed her—because he wasn’t from their upper-class world? Because Tommy was a scholarship student?
I search Ellis’s name one more time, but nothing comes up, and, reluctantly, I return to my studies.
It won’t be long now until the newspapers catch wind of this. Until the entire country has been informed that a rich white girl was strangled. They’ll demand answers. They’ll hound the police until the ugly truth is exposed.
I can’t help but wonder if the same thing would have happened for me.
7.
I don’t finish my readings, shower or go to class. Still, I’m late for my second job. I need to pick up Benji.
It’s a twenty-minute walk to his school. I only have ten to spare, and so I run, and I’m winded by the time I arrive. Benji is standing primly on the sidewalk, next to his teacher. His black hair is styled into tight cornrows that merge at the base of his skull, but today they’re covered with a baseball cap. He’s in his little uniform, blue pleated pants and a white collared shirt that somehow never gets dirty.
“Sorry,” I say, running up to them. I shoot Benji a grin between breaths. “Sorry I’m late.”
Benji is seven. It’s that age where he still looks like a cute kid but is actually kind of a dick. He walks two steps in front of me the whole way home, ignoring my attempts at small talk in favor of kicking stones and occasionally stomping on an innocent bug or flower bed. I compliment him on his new hat, and he responds by taking it off and hurling it into the street.
I don’t bother retrieving it, and neither does he. I am one thousand percent sure I don’t want to have children. I have a feeling I wouldn’t be a very nurturing mother.
We arrive at the house. It’s at least a hundred years old and vines lick their way across the old brick, beneath windowsills and rain gutters. The lawn has been replaced with a low-maintenance rock garden, a cobblestone path cutting through to the front door. The interior of the house is even more beautiful. It’s like walking into the Four Seasons on Dalton Street.
“Are you hungry?” I ask Benji, as I hang up our coats.
He drops his backpack in the foyer and races to the basement without answering me. Benji is allowed exactly thirty minutes of Xbox before I have to call him upstairs and force-feed him a snack, something healthy like apple and almond butter, or yogurt, or avocado on toast, which he sometimes hides in my backpack. After that, he’s supposed to practice piano and do his homework until his mother gets home. One time I asked him if he wanted to go into the backyard and play soccer with me. He told me to go fuck myself.
I hover at the top of the stairs until I hear machine guns and the blood-curdling shrieks of his video game, and then my shoulders relax. I have precisely twenty-nine minutes to myself, and a luxurious house to spend them in. I tiptoe over to the wide, velvety sectional and make myself comfortable.
I wake up with a start. Groggy, I fumble around for my phone, and then remember it’s with Detective Kelly. I sit up. I pad over to the window and peer through the curtains. It’s dark outside. I press my hand over my face.
Fuck. Professor Miles’s Tesla is in the driveway.
“Sara,” I hear her call. “Are you awake?”
She’s in the kitchen, and when I round the corner, I find her and Benji sitting at the picnic-style table that overlooks the patio. There’s a spread in front of them—salmon steaks, asparagus, baby potatoes. Usually, I’m the one who starts dinner for her. I still don’t know the time, and I wonder how long I’ve been sleeping.
“Professor Miles,” I say, trying not to look at my feet. “I’m so sorry.”
“Sara. How many times do I have to tell you? When we’re at home, call me Madison.”
I nod, crossing my arms.
“Benji,” Professor Miles says. “All finished?” When he nods, she continues, “Why don’t you go get ready for bed, is that OK, sweet pea? I’ll be upstairs in a minute.”
Gingerly, he pushes up from the table. I ruffle the top of his head as he brushes past me.
“Good night, Benji,” I say. “See you tomorrow.” Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t respond.
Professor Miles gestures for me to sit down in Benji’s empty seat, and as I sit, my stomach growls, loud enough that she must have heard. She doesn’t offer me any dinner. She never has.
“Madison,” I say, looking her in the eye. “I’m sor—”
“Don’t worry about Benji,” she interrupts, smiling at me through pursed lips. “He said he came upstairs after thirty minutes of Xbox and started his homework on his own.” She sighs. “He’s a good kid.”
I bite my tongue.
“But finding you asleep on the couch like that”—she palms the wood of the table—“after you skipped class this morning. Well, let’s put it this way, Sara. It’s hard for me to see you struggle.”
I bite down on my tongue, hard. I don’t want to say something I’ll regret.
Two months ago, when my actions caught up with me and I was desperate for money, I emailed every single professor at the law school, asking if they needed a research assistant. I’d gotten a job at Gavin’s pretty easily because nobody wants to work for a creep, but a few shifts a week wasn’t going to be enough to cover rent and tuition.
She was the only one who responded, and when her name arrived in my inbox, I thought I’d won the lottery. The Professor Madison Miles is everyone’s favorite professor, especially among us rare Black or brown students, who see her as something of an icon. She is intelligent and tough as nails, and has a reputation for putting mediocre white men in their place. But as luck would have it, she didn’t want an assistant; her daughter, Brooklynn, was about to leave for college, and her little “sweet pea” needed a babysitter.
As luck would further have it, our idol Professor Madison Miles turned out to be something of a bitch.
“To be honest,” she continues, “I was surprised to see you sign up for my advanced seminar this semester, considering . . .”
She trails off. I don’t need her to remind me I barely scraped by academically last year. She does it often enough.
“There are a lot of people on the waiting list. If you’re not serious about corporate financing—”
“Madison,” I interrupt, “something happened last night.”
She narrows her eyes, and I can tell she’s expecting just another excuse.
“A student was murdered.”
Her mouth falls open.
In as few words as possible, I tell her what happened. I tell her how Ellis and I got into the wrong Rides the night before, that she was killed on my doorstep. I tell her I’m still “in shock,” a term the paramedics used when checking my vitals and that might help me now.
“How . . . who . . . ?” Professor Miles sputters. I’ve never seen her at a loss for words before. “Sarah Ellis, you say? Oh god. I know her. She was a year ahead of Brooklynn at Bishop Bailey. And her father, poor thing. He’s faculty at the medical school!”
I nod, consolingly.
“How could such a thing happen?” She doesn’t wait for me to answer. “I bet it was the Ride driver. You know, I tell Brooklynn not to use any of the apps.” She shakes her head. “And this is exactly why. No regulation. No oversight. There could be a serial killer in the front seat, and we’d have no idea . . .”
I make all the right nods and sounds as Professor Miles processes the tragedy that’s just happened in her quiet, safe little town.
I’m so glad I can be there for her right now.
