The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant by Joanna Wiebe Read Free Book Online Page B

drops her gaze and folds her hands. “It’s for the best, but I desperately miss home sometimes.”
    Unspoken details hang in the air, details that would require a stealthy hand to grasp them without further upsetting poor Lotus. My hand has always been prone to shaking, so I don’t press. Not with Lotus sobbing like she is. No one else seems to care much, anyway. Maybe Lotus is known for emotional overreactions or maybe they’re as self-involved as all the richies I grew up with back in Atherton.
    When it’s my turn to talk, I keep the details to a minimum and close off every emotion I have about the death of my mother. My story may have arrived on this island long before I did, but that doesn’t mean I have to confirm every suspicion these people have about me.
    I begin, “I went to a regular school—”
    “A public school,” Harper clarifies under her breath.
    “Yes, a public school in California. It was good.” I pause as my brain skips past all the other stuff. “My dad thought it would be a good idea for me to come here because it’s sure to look great on my transcripts.”
    Garnet half-smiles, but no one else reacts. The stories the rest of the kids tell are at least as vague as mine, but, unlike me, everyone seems to regard Cania as an undesirable last resort. Like Siberia for teens—somewhere they’ve been exiled to. Could it be that Cania isn’t the ultimate prep school, isn’t the sure way into the Ivy League? As if to solidify my suspicion, a guy with emo eyeliner tells his ill-fated story.
    “My mom and the pool boy were vacationing in the French Riviera for the millionth time,” Emo Boy says with a forced lisp. He strokes his long bangs away from his face. “So, I mean, what would you do if your parents were always leaving you with the maids?”
    “Easy. Go clubbing,” Pilot says.
    “I know, right?” Emo Boy tugs his sweater cuffs over his thumbs and hunches into himself. “So I was at a rave, this madass club, and, yeah, I’d taken some E—hello, it’s a rave. And there was this bitchin’ dancer in a cage, just slathered in glow paint, right?” His voice becomes muffled as, endlessly fidgeting, he shifts his fists over his mouth. “So I climbed up on some speakers. And I leapt out onto her cage. And it, like, dropped from the ceiling. And my mom had to come home early because I was in the hospital. And she was so pissed. So, yeah, here I am.”
    Harper’s Thai chum, Plum, goes next. She was a child actor-turned-singer in Thailand before Cania.
    “I was doing lines of coke with my dad’s friend after some red carpet event,” Plum says casually, pulling a compact out of her bag and swiping red lipstick on. “That man was more a dad to me than my real dad. Anyway, I passed out in the VIP lounge. The effing paparazzi took photos and plastered them everywhere. Bitches. So, yeah, now I’m here. No life. No shopping. Nothing but the Big V race and a dance every now and then.”
    Finally, it’s Harper’s turn. She openly shifts her bra to boost her cleavage and gazes at everyone but me, which is fine because it’s taking every morsel of my brainpower to sort out what she’s wearing. These uniforms are head-turning without modifications, yet she’s replaced her white shirt with a superlow V-neck tank, “forgotten” her tights, and hiked her skirt up wicked high. (I should not know she wears a red thong, and yet I do.) Sure, she has sleek hair, a cool Balenciaga blazer, and accessories that would make Rachel Zoe look like a pauper, but nothing can mask the truth: she’s over-the-top sleazy.
    “This is my second year at Cania, y’all. My daddy said I should come here after last Christmas,” Harper says. Stroking a thick lock of red hair with both hands, she stares into space. “We had what you might call a falling out. I wanted Santa to get me a pink Hummer, but my stepmonster said if I wanted to get around so bad I should try riding our expensive horses for a change. So I