Work Text:
Here is what Irene knows:
As the the new girl, she’ll walk into class on her first day already surrounded by rumors. The new girl is always surrounded by rumors. It goes with the territory—you’re either ingénue or femme fatale, and Irene never has been very good at playing coy.
They’ll say: I hear her parents told her it was a choice between coming here or reform school.
(Parents. Well. Her mother died a long time ago, and neither her stepmother nor her father particularly cares what becomes of her.)
They’ll say: I hear her last boyfriend got busted for drugs, and now he’s doing time in juvie.
(Phil had been the son of one of her father’s friends, and she would never have dated him if her father hadn’t made it clear he approved. Even now, when she thinks of their infrequent dates to go see whatever blockbuster Phil chose, all she remembers is greasy hands plunging into her bag of popcorn, slurping from her can of soda.)
They’ll say: I hear she was the one who turned him in.
(That—admittedly, that much is true. She turned him in, and she set him up, and she doesn’t regret it.)
Irene holds her head high, keeps her voice cold and clear, and eats lunch alone on the roof.
Oranges. Her favorite. She twists the chain of her mother’s locket around one hand and stares straight up into the sun.
Here is what happens to Gen a week before:
It’s not just being the new girl that makes you part of the rumor mill. Rummage through enough people’s lockers, and you get a certain reputation, one that involves lots of running from the football team, no matter who your dad might be.
In this case, yet another escapade lands him back in the dean’s office. When the hall monitor wrangles him into a seat (“Let go, Helen! Or else I’ll tell Uncle Eddie I caught you kissing your boyfriend in the library a week ago.”
His cousin raises an eyebrow at him. “You will not, mostly because you, my boy, were supposed to be in detention at the time, but also because you like Soph almost as much as I do.”
“Well,” he admits, “that is a fair point.”), the dean’s not yet in. His assistant helpfully explains this is because he needed some time to collect his feelings before dealing with Gen for the sixth time this week.
“Really, it wasn’t my fault,” Gen explains. “Honestly.”
The assistant just tsks and goes back to work, ignoring him. In the face of such negligence, how can Gen not see it as a sign from fortune to explore?
It only takes a minute to pick the lock on the dean’s filing cabinet (really, locks are so old-fashioned; Gen’s tried to convince the man of this so many times before) and pick out a few interesting options. His own file is as comfortably thick as ever; if he’s not in multiple volumes by the time he graduates, Gen will be disappointed in himself.
And imagine that, Stan apparently had a bit of trouble with lock-picking himself in his heyday! Not surprising, given how Stan has never come across anything mechanical, watch or lock or microwave, that he doesn’t want to take apart, but it was funny that somehow, his brother never mentioned that in any of his lectures before.
Finally, he pulls out the file for the new transfer student expected, according to the grapevine, in a matter of days. It’s surprisingly thin: only a transcript listing several exemplary grades, a immunization record form (up to date, good for her), and a photograph of a pale girl with a long neck, grave eyes, and long dark hair severely pulled back by a headband.
Gen stares at that photo for quite some time; so long, in fact, that he almost misses the heavy footsteps that mark the dean’s return. It’s only quick reflexes that allow him to replace the file, and the lock, and be seated in his chair with an angelic expression before the dean walks into the room.
“Eugene,” begins his father wearily, “what have I done to deserve you?”
Here is what Irene has not yet discovered:
In her locker, which she has not yet opened because she hasn’t yet bought any books to place inside, wait two identical red-glass earrings. Gen chose them specifically because he thought they might brighten up Irene’s complexion a bit; black hair, white skin, and the gray of her uniform blazer makes a striking combination, but he thinks she could do with some warmth, too.
They’re not rubies, not real ones at least; Gen hasn’t the money to buy any, and, more to the point, neither does anyone around him. If anyone did, though, and made the mistake of flaunting them, he’d reallocate them in the blink of an eye. One day, though; one day she’ll have them.
Helen finds this a terrible idea.
Curtis, on the other hand, thinks it’s romantic. When Gen points this out, Helen snorts and retorts, “Of course Curtis thinks it’s romantic. You could probably talk him into thinking the moon was made out of blue cheese if you tried. He’s not your best friend, he’s your victim!”
(Which, privately, Gen finds very offensive. Curtis was the one who knocked Gen down when they first met, not the other way around.)
Still, as previously mentioned, Irene hasn’t opened her locker yet, and so her ears are bare through the morning. Curtis looks appropriately aghast; Helen looks caught between smugness and sympathy; and Gen simply concentrates on trying not to sulk.
Here is what happens nevertheless:
Irene is eating lunch on the roof, hands smelling like oranges, when the door opens, and a skinny wild-haired boy races through, uniform untucked and tie askew. “If the football team asks, I was never here, and I definitely don’t know what happened to their exercise gear.”
Irene swallows her last section of orange and says, “I certainly don’t see anything worth my notice.”
The boy smiles at that, brash and wide and entirely too open for his own good. Irene resists the urge to warn him to stop the habit before it’s too late. “I’m Gen,” he announces. “Would you like me to steal back the rest of your jewelry?”
Irene stills, and almost without noticing, reaches for her necklace again. “What do you mean?”
“Well, something distinctive like that,” Gen says, gesturing towards the bees etched into the locket, “has to be part of a set. Except if you’re selling pieces off, one by one—earrings, definitely, maybe a bracelet, too—it’s probably going to a pawn shop, and not because you want to see the last of them, either. Was it your idea, or someone else’s?”
Irene forces herself to stay expressionless.
“You don’t have to answer that,” Gen adds quickly, apparently having remembered his manners. “But if they’re still somewhere in the city—and I’m judging by your face that they are—I can get it back for you.”
Irene laughs. She can’t help it. “Of course you will. What are you, a freshman?”
Gen places his hand over his heart, the picture of righteous indignation. “I am a sophomore, thank you very much. I look young for my age.”
“You skipped a grade, then. Don’t lie to me.”
Another smile, then; wider this time. “Never. All right, I did. But it's not like it matters.”
“It matters because I’m not sending a fourteen-“
“Fifteen—“
“Oh, well, that changes everything. I’m not sending a fifteen-year-old to jail for the trinkets my dad gave to his girlfriends before my mom had been dead a week.” That’s too much to confess, but what’s the use? He’ll probably work it out, anyway, and he needs to know that her mother’s jewelry had been scattered legitimately; or at least as legitimately as anything was in her father’s line of work.
Gen, though, doesn’t seem to pick up on the futility of this. “Oh, good,” he says, looking delighted. “That just makes it easier. Look,” he comes closer, and takes her hand, and she does not flinch away. “I can do this for you....“
“Irene.”
“Thanks. I can do this for you, Irene, I swear I can. Do you believe me?”
Do you believe me, he asks; not will you let me?
Irene does not, cannot believe anyone. She has too much to lose. She knows this, has always known this, will not forget it because some charming clever boy two years younger than she is looks deep into her eyes without spooking—
“Yes,” she says, and means it.