The diamonds, p.6
The Diamonds, page 6
Once we were settled, Clarissa said, “You may be seated.” The collective noise of seventy or so bodies sitting down filled the room. The trials were so popular that people had to sign up on a sheet outside the chorus room the day before to watch the proceedings. (There was even an alternate list.)
“Today's trial, Goldstein v. O'Hara, is about to begin. Are all parties present?”
I glanced around the room. There was Rosie Goldstein, a junior who played lacrosse (which, in my opinion, was totally lesbionic) and had teeth that reminded me of candy corn. Across from her was Erin O'Hara, also a junior, and one of Rosie's best friends.
The scenario: Two weeks before, Rosie's boyfriend, Mark (senior, blondish, semiattractive), showed up at school with a fist-sized hickey on his neck. Everyone assumed it was from Rosie. The following week, Erin walked into school with a matching one, and people start putting two and two together. (Side note: Why do people let other people give them hickeys in visible places?)
Clarissa, who, above all else, hated cheaters, was über enthusiastic about this case. I, on the other hand, was less than psyched. After everything that had gone down with Jed, and after I'd hung out with Anderson behind Clarissa's back, I felt (A) sort of uncomfortable and (B) sort of hypocritical laying down the law for Erin and Mark.
“Yes,” said both the prosecution and defense teams. Jenny Murphy, whose lap was filled with books and notepads, simply nodded.
“Will the prosecution please call its first witness?” Lili said.
Eric Ericsson stood up and snorted. “Surely. The prosecution would like to call Kelly Silver to the stand.”
Kelly, who couldn't have been more than five feet tall and walked with a limp, wobbled toward the witness stand. I wasn't particularly fond of Kelly; she talked too much, and most of what she said was unintelligible.
“Do you swear to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” Marco asked.
“Ya, totally.”
Eric adjusted his belt. His shirt—plaid, red—was tucked in and pressed. “Kelly. How do you know the defendant, Ms. O'Hara?”
“Thank you so much for asking, Eric. I know the defendant because we, like, go to school together.”
“And you two are friends?”
“I wouldn't say that,” Kelly muttered. “We, like, know each other. Not biblically or anything, though. Just because I kissed Amy Steinberg at a Halloween party last year doesn't mean I'm a lesbian, no matter what anybody says.”
Eric turned to the jury. “Let it be stated, for the record, that Ms. Silver and Ms. O'Hara are not close friends. Also, she is not a lesbian.” He turned back to Kelly. “Why don't you tell me about last Wednesday?”
Kelly leaned back in her seat. “Last Wednesday was wild. I mean, like, crazy. I had to stay after school because I get tutored in math—I'm, like, totally dumb about numbers, so whatever—and I was leaving school and walking to my car”—she smiled at the jury—“FYI, I drive a BMW”—she fanned herself with her hand—“and I'm, like, doing my own thang when I see these shadows where all the smokers hang out. Meanwhile, I'm totally on the phone with my BFF, Jenny, and I remember being like, God, Jenny, just shut up for a hot second, because I think I see a ghost. And I, like, legit thought it was a ghost. No joke. But when I got closer, I was like, Oh, that's not a ghost. It's Erin O'Hara and Mark Durango, making out, and I remember being like, Awwww, but then I was like, Wait, back that shit up, those two are not together! Mark is dating Rosie Goldstein, who, by the way”—she offered Rosie an apologetic frown—“is such a better person than Mark or that rabies-infected, Macarena-dancing lady of the night Erin.” She paused. “And that's all I remember.”
“No further questions, Your Honors.” Eric returned to his seat as Jenny Murphy rose from hers.
“You may cross-examine the witness,” Clarissa said.
“Thank you,” Jenny said, taking a few steps, her heels clapping loudly on the floor. “Kelly. Isn't it possible that the people you saw kissing were not Mark Durango and Erin O'Hara, but two completely different people?”
Kelly blinked. “Are you saying I'm dumb?”
“Of course not,” Jenny said. “I'm simply raising the possibility that you may have been mistaken.”
“I'm not dumb, and I'm not blind,” Kelly spat, wiping the corners of her mouth. “I know what I saw. You're trying to cover this up”—she pointed at Jenny—“just like Watergate. I won't be silenced!” she screamed, pounding her fist on her thigh. “I won't!”
Clarissa banged her gavel on the judges’ bench. “Marco, please remove Kelly from the witness stand.”
Marco approached Kelly, offering her his hand. She refused it, choosing instead to leap from her chair and run out of the room as if she were being chased.
“What a nutjob,” I whispered to Priya. Then, out the corner of my eye, I noticed that Clarissa's gavel was covered in what looked like rhinestones. “Does Clarissa have a Bedazzled gavel?”
Priya stared at me like I was as crazy as Kelly Silver. “What other kind of gavel is there?”
“Never mind.”
“Eric,” Clarissa said, asserting her control over the room, “you may call your next witness.”
“Gladly,” Eric replied. “The prosecution would like to call Mark Durango to the stand.”
By the end of the trial, two things were clear:
1. Mark and Erin were fooling around behind Rosie Goldstein's back.
2. I shouldn't have drunk an entire iced coffee beforehand; I had to pee like whoa.
During the break, while the jury deliberated—this could take anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or so—I used the bathroom and found my way back to the judges’ bench. Clarissa was chatting with Mr. Townsen, while Priya and Lili were debating the benefits of using pore-cleansing facial masks before bed.
“They just suck everything right out of you,” Priya was saying. “Like a vacuum cleaner, but for your face. And who doesn't want that?”
“What do you think is taking so long?” I asked, sitting down.
Lili shook her head. “No idea. This one is pretty simple.”
“What should their punishment be?” I asked. “No PDA?”
“Eh,” Lili said. “It's been done.”
“What about if, like, they have to walk around the school in handcuffs?” Priya suggested, smiling.
“First of all,” I said, “I don't think we're allowed to demand that people wear handcuffs. Secondly, we want to keep Mark and Erin apart—not allow them to be together twenty-four/seven.”
“You're right,” Priya said, smacking her forehead. “What about, instead of handcuffs, they have to wear, like, friendship bracelets? Made out of hemp! They'd have to wear them every day”—Priya started laughing maniacally—“or else.”
Lili rolled her eyes. “No, sweetie. Just… no.”
Clarissa chose that moment to reenter the conversation, slipping into her seat between Lili and Priya and wrapping her arms around them, pulling us into a tight clump. We called this our Deliberation Pose. The four of us would tilt our heads so that our hair covered our faces and, in soft voices, decide the fate of whoever was on trial.
“Obviously Emily and Mark are going to be found guilty,” Clarissa said without even a hint of doubt. “Thoughts on punishment?”
We ran down the typical sentencing for cheating on a significant other.
“I don't know,” Clarissa said, “this all just seems so … uninspired. Marni, what do you think?”
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I just said. What should their punishment be?”
I was confused. Usually, that was Clarissa's job. “You want me to decide?”
“Why not?”
She had a point. Why not decide? I had been cheated on. I knew the score.
“Think about it,” Clarissa instructed, pulling us out of our huddle. “Fast. The jury is back.”
As expected, the jury found Erin and Mark guilty of Cheating in the First Degree and of Being Skanky Exhibitionists Who Don't Know How to Properly Administer Hickeys.
“This is ridiculous,” Jenny Murphy said, loudly enough for everyone to hear.
Clarissa shot her a death glare.
“That's all,” said Jake Snider (juror no. 1), taking his seat. He passed the verdict over to Clarissa, who looked at me eagerly.
I cleared my throat. It was Now or Never. “On behalf of the court,” I said, trying to invoke even the slightest bit of Clarissa's authority, “the Diamonds sentence Mark Durango and Erin O'Hara to no PDA on or around the Bennington School property. Mark and Erin are no longer allowed to be within five feet of one another at any time.” I glanced at Clarissa for help. She did nothing except widen her eyes. It felt like a challenge. Nothing was going to change the fact that, for Rosie, her boyfriend and her best friend had betrayed her trust. I knew that much from experience. But I had the power to make her life a little easier, didn't I? What good was having that power without using it?
“In addition, Erin and Mark are required to wear clothing that exposes their necks for the next two months. If either is seen with a hickey, or a bruise that resembles a hickey, they will be required to do community service with Ms. Romano's special education class at the Bennington Cemetery on Saturdays. Erin and Mark are no longer allowed to eat lunch in Cafeteria B, and any student seen fraternizing with either individual will hereby be banished from Cafeteria B as well.”
I reached over, grabbed Clarissa's gavel, and slammed it down as hard as I could. The sound was deafening. “Case closed,” I said.
“That was amazing,” Clarissa told me. We were in her car, driving toward my house. My hands were still shaking from the trial. “You were so in control.”
“Really?”
She nodded, turning up the radio. “I was so impressed. I didn't think you had it in you.”
I understood where she was coming from. I'd even surprised myself.
I thought about Erin and Mark and how the few words I'd uttered would, most likely, change the course of their entire year. It both scared and exhilarated me. Outside, the sky was darkening into night. We sped down Willis Avenue, the funky beats of MIKA blasting from the speakers.
“Doesn't it feel good? To lay down the law and know that whatever you say, people will follow it?”
“Yeah,” I said. After this, there was no going back. I was addicted. I would stay part of the Diamond Court forever. “It does.”
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed … and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation …
—The Sixth Amendment
to the United States Constitution
On the second Friday of every month, all the Bennington seniors with social lives attend the Sound of Music sing-along at the Roosevelt Multiplex, an artsy cinema about twenty minutes away from my house.
To this day, I'm still not sure how the tradition got started or why the sing-along was an exclusively “senior” event. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that it was, you know, a Sound of Music sing-along. What underclassmen wanted to explain to their parents why they needed to be dropped off at the movies wearing an outfit fashioned out of living room drapes?
I met up with Clarissa three hours before the movie started to coordinate our outfits. I was going as the virginal nun-in-training (also known as a nunette), Maria, who taught the Von Trapp children the importance of sunshine, laughter, and singing in harmony. Clarissa was going as Elsa Schraeder, the vampy sexpot who tried to steal the Captain away from Maria and send the children away to boarding school (where—I'll say it—they probably belonged).
“So, how are you holding up?” Clarissa asked, standing in front of her mirror and adjusting her boobs so that they stretched the front of her dress to full capacity. (Clarissa didn't exactly have a sense of the time period, if you asked me.)
I looked at her blankly. I was sitting on the edge of her bed.
“With Jed,” she clarified.
“I still miss him,” I said, falling back and resting my head on her pillow. “But more the idea of him than anything else.”
“I know what you mean,” Clarissa said. “I was the same way right after I broke up with Anderson. It gets better, I promise.”
I stared into the eyes of my very best friend (for better or for worse, that's what Clarissa was, how much she meant to me) and struggled with a response. Everything inside me screamed to tell her about my trip to Anderson's house and my confused feelings for him, no matter how upset she would be.
Then I heard it: “Laaaaadieeeesss,” said the voice, high and chirpy. “The party has arrived!” Priya had suddenly appeared outside Clarissa's bedroom door, a six-pack of Coronas in one hand and a bottle opener in the other. I'd almost forgotten she was coming. “Oh, and Lili's here too.”
“Very funny,” Lili said, brushing past Priya and making her way inside. She was dressed as Liesel, I think, the eldest Von Trapp daughter, who fell in love with a Nazi but realized at the last minute that Nazis were totally lame.
“Who are you supposed to be?” Clarissa asked Priya, who was clad in a slinky black number that stopped in the middle of her thighs.
“I'm a nun,” she said, lifting one of the bottles in her hand. (Clarissa's parents were out for the night, which was why we'd chosen her house to pregame.) “You really can't tell?” Priya turned to face Clarissa's mirror. “Oh,” she said, “duh.” She reached down, grabbed a silver cross, and held it up to her chest. “How about now?”
“Oh,” Clarissa said. “Now I see it. Totally. A nun.” She looked at me and laughed. “Don't you, Marni?”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Totally.”
Priya opened her beer and took a swig. “Whatever, Marni. Let's see who goes home alone tonight and who doesn't.” She eyed my costume as though it were a garbage bag. “Then we'll talk.”
“That's it!” Clarissa jumped up from her bed and grabbed my wrist. “We'll find you a guy tonight. Someone to take your mind off Jed.”
I already have someone to take my mind off Jed. You dated him for almost a year.
“That's such a good idea!” said Lili.
“Brilliant,” said Priya, who was busily squeezing fresh lime into her Corona and drinking up the fizz as it overflowed. “Brilliant.”
Clarissa grabbed her makeup case. “Lili, hand me my brush.”
“It's a fashion emergency! Code Blue! I mean, Red!” shouted Priya, swishing beer on her dress as she shimmied. “Aw, shit.”
“You guys, I look fine,” I said. I was no longer some clueless middle school transfer student in need of a makeover. I had spent two whole hours getting ready, What was the deal?
“Yes, you do,” said Clarissa, pulling out a compact with twenty different-colored eye shadows. “But you don't have a boyfriend anymore. It's a whole new world out there,” she said (Aladdin,1992), “and starting tonight, you are officially on the prowl.”
About an hour—and the rest of the Coronas—later, we all piled into Clarissa's Audi. I was the designated driver. Staring into the rearview mirror, I didn't think I looked that different. Sure, I was blushing, but that was because of the MAC blush; and sure, I was smiling, but that was thanks to the four layers of lipstick; and yes, my eyes were giving off an innocent, doelike vibe, but that was courtesy of Clarissa's shading expertise and not anything particularly new or interesting about me.
“Can we listen to something less annoying?” Clarissa whined, flicking off the radio. She was next to me in the passenger seat. I stared at her profile. Even with all the makeup in the world, I would never look like her.
“It's your car,” I said. “We can listen to whatever you want.”
“I love music,” Priya shouted. “Turn it up!”
Clarissa glanced over her shoulder. “There's nothing playing, Priya.”
I twisted the wheel and kept my foot on the gas, pulling into the parking lot. “We're here.”
“Thank effing God,” Priya said, tossing her empty Red Bull can out the window.
“Priya! Wait for a garbage,” Lili said, getting out of the car and picking up the discarded aluminum from the ground. “You shouldn't litter.”
Priya fluffed her hair. “Your mom shouldn't litter.”
“Good one,” Clarissa said. “I love Your Mom jokes.” She grinned at Priya. “Or maybe I just love your actual mom.”
We all laughed and started walking toward the movie complex. I imagined how I would direct this scene in a movie—probably in slow motion, with closeups of our faces and then a pan out to the four of us walking side by side. An electric song would be playing in the background, and I would make sure the cinematographer spent a good amount of time focusing on each of us—Lili, in her maroon curtain dress; Priya, in her slutty nun habit; Clarissa, in her royal evening wear, looking like the voluptuous baroness she was; and me, a young Julie Andrews, heavily doused in liquid concealer but perhaps the prettiest I'd ever looked.
Take that, Darcy McKibbon.
Lili gasped. “Okay, don't look now, Clarissa, but you-know-who is standing right outside buying his ticket.”
“Who?”
“Anderson,” said Lili. “And Ryan and Duncan. Oh, and Tiger.”
“Shit,” Clarissa said, grabbing my arm. “What are they doing here?”
Obviously, the exact same thing we were.
This is as good a time as any to give you a rundown of Anderson's friends.
Ryan Brauer: a tight end on the football team with short chestnut hair, a forgettable face, an overly thick neck, and an even thicker personality.
Duncan Correy: another football player. I can't remember his position, but Duncan is actually a cool guy.
Tiger: also—surprise!—on the football team. Tiger's real name is Jeremy; his last name is Lyon, which sounds like “lion,” and before I got to Bennington, someone started calling him Tiger for the goof. I have nothing more to say about that.
