The diamonds, p.24
The Diamonds, page 24
“Jed and Marni are only trying to disparage my reputation because they are unhappy with their own mistakes. That audio clip was completely doctored. I would never say such horrible things about a school I love so much.” For a moment, I thought she was going to speak to me directly, but that didn't happen. “In fact, I wasn't going to say this, but it's only fair that you all know the truth.
“Marni Valentine used to be my dearest friend. Over the summer, however, she seduced my boyfriend and had her way with him. What kind of person would do that to her very best friend?”
I grasped my thighs. I would not let Clarissa get to me. I would not show anyone at Bennington that I was weak. Even if I had been wrong.
“Don't believe a word she says about me. Marni is the one who's a liar. Not me. Not Lili or Priya. Marni.”
By this time, Mr. Townsen was standing next to Clarissa. He tapped her on the shoulder and held out his hand, curling his fingers to indicate that he wanted the microphone back.
“Thank you,” said Clarissa. “Oh, and vote for me!”
Clarissa sat down and crossed her legs. “Tired yet?” she said to me triumphantly. It irked me. Mostly because even though she was so very deluded about so many things, she was also right. About me. I had betrayed her trust and been with her boyfriend behind her back. I'd hurt her and kept what had happened a secret.
But she still needed to be stopped.
“This is certainly different,” Mr. Townsen said. There was a low hum among the crowd, but for the most part, the whole of Bennington was still paying attention. Principal Newman was breathing into a paper bag; his secretary, Ms. Rose, was fanning him with a manila envelope.
“It seems like we should wrap things up and, uh, get back to class.” Townsen looked over at the court. Of the princesses, Clarissa had been the only one to speak. “Do any of you ladies mind if we skip the formalities?”
Now was the moment I'd been waiting for. When I was supposed to take the microphone and list the millions of wrongs Clarissa had accrued over the past few weeks. To name names, reveal secrets, and be sure that every single person who had made my life a living hell since the Closet Incident would understand what was really going on. But suddenly that didn't seem like the best road to travel.
I finally had the attention of the entire school, and it was time to apologize.
“I have something to say, Mr. Townsen,” I said, rising from my seat.
Clarissa coughed. “Hasn't she already done enough?”
“Everyone has the right to a fair trial. In America, we are innocent until we are proven guilty.” Townsen handed me the microphone. Then, so that no one else could hear, he said, “Make it count.”
My wrist wobbled as I lifted the mic to my face. I felt like a substitute teacher trying to get the attention of an unruly class.
“Hi, everyone,” I said.
A second or two went by, and then a girl whose voice I recognized (either Dara or Dana Hoebermann) screamed, “I haaaaaaaaaaaate you!” Then an identical voice echoed, “I love your dress!”
People laughed, and the bleachers came alive. I couldn't tell if the students were for or against me. I could barely even see anything.
“I know what you all must think of me. But this isn't about me, Clarissa”—I turned to her—“and it's not about Anderson. It's about you.
“When I first started at Bennington, you were there for me. You were a friend when I needed one, and you made this school—which we all know can be extraordinarily difficult at times—enjoyable. Priya and Lili too. Being popular was more than I could have ever asked for. But it's not everything. It's not the most important thing. Actually, it's not really important at all. When I stopped being friends with you, I met a group of people I never would have gotten to know otherwise. People who are amazing and loyal and funny. And just because they aren't Diamonds or on the football team or the basketball team or whatever team doesn't mean they don't deserve the same kind of happiness.”
I took a few steps forward, addressing the entire gym. “For the past few weeks, the Diamonds have been putting us on trial. For things we didn't do, for things we did do but are unimportant, for hanging out with the ‘wrong crowd’ or for any inane, ridiculous little reason. And we've all gone along with it. But this has to stop. Now.”
I walked back to my chair, where my purse was sitting. I reached inside and pulled out a packet of white paper. “The Diamond Rules,” I said, watching as people nodded in acknowledgment. “I'm sorry to say I was the one who first came up with these. I never intended for them to make anyone feel uncomfortable or unwelcome in their own school.” I dropped the packet onto the floor. Then I stepped on it with the heel of my shoe, reached down, and ripped it in half. “No more,” I said, turning toward Clarissa, Lili, and Priya, who were watching me with a mixture of curiosity, fear, and glitter lip gloss.
“I think it's time for one last trial,” I said. Jed and Turbo had returned from the television studio and were standing in the corner with Monique. “We may not have fancy robes or a stenographer or a bailiff, but we do have one thing: the truth. And, this time, a real jury of our peers.
“Anyone who has ever felt violated by the Diamonds, who has had an unfair trial or been accused of a crime you didn't do, please raise your hand.”
I didn't expect everyone in the gym to raise their hands. I didn't even expect half the students at Bennington to participate, so when they did, I was overwhelmed. The gym was covered in arms and hands and fingers.
“Good,” I said. “You can put your hands down. Now, raise your hand if you think that Lili should be removed as student body president, and that the Diamonds’ membership on the mock trial team should be revoked on the charges of bribery, perverting a jury, slander, and purposely violating the principles of the United States Constitution. If you agree that, based on the evidence you've heard today, the Diamond Court should cease to exist—”
“Evidence?” Clarissa shrieked. She didn't even need a microphone. “What evidence? That recording was bogus, and you're a liar.” She turned to Mr. Townsen for help. “This is ridiculous! You have no real proof!”
Then Tommy entered from the back of the gymnasium, through a door that had been closed off for the pep rally. With him were four freshmen, staff editors of the Bennington Press, each of them carrying a stack of newspapers on a rolling cart. “Actually, we do,” he said. At the sound of his voice, two hundred or so heads changed direction.
Clarissa grabbed her hair and pulled. “What is going on here? Arlene? Arlene!” Priya was already calling someone (her father?) on her cell phone, and Lili, I think, was crying. It was hard to tell.
Despite the lights (and my exhaustion), I could see Tommy smile at me from across the room. The freshmen started handing out the newspapers to each row of the bleachers. They were the thickest newspapers I had ever seen; they must have weighed ten pounds each.
“Here's the latest copy of the paper,” he said for everyone to hear. “Everything you need to know is right here.”
If you haven't already guessed what this particular edition of the Bennington Press was, then you haven't been paying close enough attention to my story. It was the exposé I had promised Tommy I would write detailing my journey with the Diamonds. It included transcriptions of their plans to handpick and bribe the jury, plus case files and pictures, and described Clarissa's “take no prisoners” quest for the Ice Queen crown, my secret relationship with Anderson, and my explosive confession about our past. It provided documentation of the students we'd wronged and the individual rights we'd violated and depicted my rise to and fall from grace, the mistakes made and lessons learned, and finally, my realization that I was better off without my so-called friends. Without the Diamonds.
It was longer than I'd expected, and way more personal, too, but I think it turned out pretty well. If you're wondering exactly what it said, don't worry.
You've just finished reading it.
Epilogue
We shall find peace. We shall hear angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.
—Anton Chekhov
In the end, Tommy got his article and the Diamonds got their due. After Mr. Townsen and Principal Newman read the exposé, Clarissa, Lili, and Priya were given a two-week suspension that went on their permanent records.1
The Diamonds were removed from the mock trial team, and Lili was impeached from student government. Jed was given back his old position in a unanimous vote by the executive board. As it turned out, Mr. Townsen was the faculty member who had nominated me for Snow Court. Apparently, our little after-school chat had left an impression on him.
That night, at the dance, Jenny was elected queen and Anderson was elected king. (I later discovered that according to the actual votes, Clarissa should have won. There happened to be some pesky little rule about the Ice Queen having to not be suspended, however, and Jenny was the first runner-up.) When Jenny's name was called, she rejected the crown, saying that she would never want to share recognition with such a pig. Then she pointed at Anderson and laughed.
For better or for worse, Bennington went without an official Snow Queen. And much to everyone's surprise, no one died or anything.
A few days after the pep rally, Darcy and Jed were an official “couple.” I was happy for them. Really.
Monique bleached her mustache and started dating a sophomore named Terry, who was really into computers. Turbo still went by Turbo and skated in the student parking lot after school, but now, whenever I saw him, I would stop to chat about pending college acceptances and wheelies. We still skate together at least once a week.
Boyd was cast as a lead in Bennington's spring musical, West Side Story, and I was thrilled for him.
Tommy continued as editor-in-chief of the Bennington Press but reverted to once-a-month issues, leaving him time to, you know, have a life. We eat lunch together every day.
As for me, well, there were best friends lost and gained, lessons about the Constitution learned, tyranny, betrayal, heartbreak, a student revolution, and last but not least, fleeting moments of true love.
Just before vacation I got my art project back. I'd spent hours agonizing over the drawing and the (imperfect) way I had sketched Anderson's features. (Donaldson apparently realized I had no place in an AP Visual Art class and gave me a C+, which I totally deserved.)
I thought about ripping it into a million pieces or feeding it to my father's paper shredder, but ultimately I sat down, drawing in hand, and went back to work. Sometimes you simply need a little perspective to make things shine. And while the original portrait might have been incredibly mediocre, now, with the additions of my past few months at Bennington, of mock trial and the Diamonds and the Stonecutters, I've turned my assignment into a true work of art.
• EXHIBIT R •
I remember a conversation I had with Anderson just before Christmas. After the pep rally, we basically stopped talking. There was no huge fight. No big scene. One day we were together, and the next we were not.
I'd switched my seat in art class and perfected a routine of avoiding him at school, but one day over winter break—it was a Tuesday, and I was wearing a thick scarf and a leather jacket—we were alone together in the parking lot of Dunkin’ Donuts. This was the second time such a moment had existed in the universe.
I had blindly parked my car next to his. As I went to open the door, keys and coffee in hand, he was suddenly only inches away.
“Hey,” he said. Already his voice was foreign to me. “How are you?”
“Fine.” The air nipped my cheeks, and my ears burned from the cold. I didn't return the question.
Anderson looked better than ever. I'd heard he was still with Clarissa, but I didn't know for sure. He'd also been accepted early decision to Wesleyan. Despite numerous attempts by the Stonecutters, he was never formally punished by the Bennington administration.
Anderson flipped up the sheepskin collar of his jacket. Behind him, twinkling holiday lights of red, green, and white were strewn across the storefronts. “You know, Marni, I'm really sorry about how things worked out. It probably doesn't seem that way, but I am.”
I had envisioned this conversation a million different times in a thousand different ways, and suddenly, now that we were having it, all I wanted was for it to be over. What can you possibly say to the person who opened your heart to feelings you never knew existed, only to take them all away?
I still had no idea why Anderson had betrayed me and gone back to Clarissa, why he'd betrayed the Stonecutters and (potentially) ruined our chances for success when he'd seemingly believed our cause was just. Had it all been a game?
“Marni? Did you hear me? I said I was sorry.”
“Yeah, well, I'm sorry, too.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don't know what I did wrong, Anderson, but obviously I was never good enough for you.”
“That's not true.”
“I thought we had something incredible,” I said.
“We did.”
“I thought we were meant for each other.”
No response.
“Why couldn't you have just told me you were unhappy?”
Anderson's face was blank except for his eyes, which were an icy blue. “I tried.”
“When? When did you try?”
“That night. In your backyard. It wasn't you, Marni, it was just… everything. That's when I started seeing Clarissa again. I wanted my life to go back to the way it was.”
“But why did you have to lie?” I asked. “Why did you have to go behind my back?”
“I was scared, I guess. I never meant to hurt you.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying not to cry. I had all my answers, so why didn't I feel any better? “You hurt me more than anyone in my entire life ever has.”
He winced. “Do you think you'll ever forgive me?”
I wanted to punch him.
I wanted to kiss him.
I couldn't do either.
I lifted the tiny plastic lid on my coffee, steam rising from the cup like a phoenix. I took one last look at him. “Goodbye, Anderson.”
Here's what I know: people enter your life for a reason. Sometimes they stay forever, I guess, but in my experience they come and go. Quickly. It's what they leave behind that counts, what stays with you once they're gone. Those are the important things.
I will never regret being friends with Clarissa and the Diamonds, because they taught me what to look for in real friends, like the Stonecutters; I will never regret dating Jed, because he led me to Anderson; and I will never regret my relationship with Anderson, because he showed me what it felt like to love, and be loved, and what it felt like—the raw intensity, the tears, the heartache—to be hurt. Those are things I will keep with me as I move forward to wherever it is I will go in life. Those are all treasures I will cherish and curse and ultimately, I believe, be thankful for.
This is how my story ends: Anderson left. My phone buzzed. I dug it out from my pocket. It was Tommy, wondering what was taking me so long. I smiled and clutched the phone in my hand as the noise from the parking lot sang all around me and it began to snow.
1 Lili was deferred from Yalea, while Clarissa was admitted early decision to the University of Pennsylvania.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you
Nadia Cornier, for taking such good care of me; Stephanie Lane Elliott, for making me a better writer and loving musicals as much as I do; Beverly Horowitz, Vikki Sheatsley, Jennifer Black, and the entire team at Delacorte Press for making a dream come true.
Julia Alexander, Blair Bodine, Nic Cory, Alan Honigman, Dan Kessler, Jordy Lievers, Anna Posner, Brett Schrier, Michael Stearns, Amy Shebar, and Paul Wright for their encouragement and support.
Elly Daugherty, for believing in me, and the many fantastic educators I've had the privilege of learning from.
Kate Berthold, for bringing my characters to life and never letting me go hungry.
Peter Lerman, for giving Anderson a voice and for his friendship, which taught me many things. To hear Peter's music, please visit him at www.peterlerman.com.
Finally, my grandparents, Arnold and Eileen Honigman, and my entire family—especially my parents, without whom life would be meaningless.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ted Michael was born in 1984 and grew up in Roslyn Heights, New York. He is a graduate of Columbia University and the Juilliard School and is a Presidential Scholar in the Arts. This is his first novel.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2009 by Ted Michael
Illustrations copyright © 2009 by Kate Berthold
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children's Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
“Into Your Eyes” by Peter Lerman. Copyright © 2009 by Peter Lerman. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Malawer, Ted.
