If We Were Villains: A Novel

My head cleared as Brutus and Cassius’s coup collapsed. Richard had disappeared out the door during intermission, and no one saw him again until Act IV when he returned as Caesar’s ghost—an apparition doubly sinister for its stony solemnity. The final curtain fell at ten thirty, and my body ached with fatigue, but the layered drama of the assassination scene and anticipation for the party kept me awake and alert. By the time I’d washed my face, gotten my costume off, and dressed myself again, most of the second- and third-years had gone. James and Alexander were waiting in the crossover with four fat spliffs rolled already (one for each of us and one for Filippa, who had already gone back to the Castle to change). We left the FAB and strolled down the path through the woods with our hands in our pockets. We didn’t mention the Three-One incident, except for Alexander saying simply, “I hope he’s learned his lesson.”

When we were only thirty feet from the Castle, the sultry party light began to soak through the thick shadows of the trees. We stopped to finish smoking and stamped the roaches down in the damp pine needles. Alexander turned to us and said, “We’ve had a long week. I plan to make a long night of it, and if you two aren’t royally fucked by midnight I will take it upon myself to see that you are fucked, royally or otherwise, by morning. Understand?”

Me: “You make it sound a lot like date rape.”

Alexander: “Do as I’ve said and it won’t come to that.”

James: “You’re both of you going to hell.”

Alexander: “Directly.”

Me: “Posthaste.”

Alexander: “Every man put himself into triumph; some to dance, some to make bonfires, each man to what sport and revels his addiction leads him. Go.”

Obediently, we went.

The front door opened and a wave of noise crashed out to meet us. The Castle was crammed with people, some drinking, some dancing, sparkling in their party clothes. (The boys didn’t look too terribly different from usual—only better dressed, better groomed—but the girls were hardly recognizable. Night had fallen, and with it came short slinky dresses and dark mascara and satin lipstick, transforming them from mere girls to a coven of bewitching nocturnal creatures.) The welcoming roar washed over us; hands reached out to snatch our clothes and drag us helplessly inside.

Two kegs sweated in the downstairs bathtub, tightly packed in with ice and bottles of water. Stacks of Solo cups cluttered the kitchen counter, while handles of cheap rum, vodka, and whiskey were arranged in a bowling-pin pyramid on the stove (mostly paid for by Meredith’s exorbitant monthly allowance, with more modest contributions from the rest of us). The good stuff was stashed in Alexander’s bedroom. As soon as we arrived, Filippa nipped upstairs and returned with a Scotch and soda for each of us. Immediately thereafter, James and Alexander both disappeared, sucked away into the crowd. Most of the theatre students had assembled in the kitchen, where they talked and laughed twice as loudly as they needed to, still performing, observed by less obnoxious onlookers from the art, language, and philosophy departments. Choral and orchestral students eager to criticize the music selection and dancers eager to show off had filled the dining room, which was so poorly lit that they either had only a dim idea who they were dancing with or simply didn’t care. Music thundered through the floorboards, every bass note a tiny earthquake, the footstep of a slow-approaching dinosaur. The surface of my drink shivered and vibrated until Filippa threw a handful of ice in it.

“Thanks,” I said. Her expression was distant, distracted. “You okay?”

“Fine,” she said, with a pained sort of smile. “Got a wicked bruise but not where anyone will see.”

“You look good to me,” I said, lamely. She wore a short blue something that showed off her long legs. Mercifully, she wasn’t too made-up and still looked human.

“It happens every now and then,” she said, exhaling, allowing herself to relax. “Where’ve you been?”

“Outside. Alexander rolled you a spliff if you want it.”

“God bless the filthy hedonist. Where is he now?”

“On the dance floor,” I said, “prowling for first-years who don’t know they’re gay yet.”

“Where else?” she said, and left the kitchen, deftly weaving between the people at the counter fighting to get a hold of the rapidly diminishing mixers. I took a long drink of Scotch and soda, wondering how long the cross-fade would take. Colin and several other third-years paused on their way out to the driveway—where people would be smoking and chatting and waiting for their eardrums to stop throbbing—to congratulate me on a good show. I thanked them, and when they filed out, Colin hovered on the threshold. I bent my head close to his to hear him.

“Three-One went off the rails today,” he said. “Everything all right?”

“I think so,” I said. “Pip got knocked around a bit, but she’s tough. Have you seen Richard?”

“He’s upstairs, throwing back whiskey like it’s keeping him alive.”

We shared a look that was one part disdain, one part concern. We both remembered all too well what had happened the last time Richard drank too much.

“What about Meredith?” I asked, wondering if she might be a contributing factor to Richard’s foul mood, or if James and Alexander and I were solely to blame.

“Holding court in the garden,” Colin said. “She hung all the lights out there. I think she’s watching to make sure no one tears them down.”

“Sounds about right.”

He grinned. (Though we had originally compared him to Richard, the comparison didn’t stick. He played the same bombastic roles, but offstage his cockiness was endearing more than infuriating.) “Want to come out for a smoke?” he said.

“I’ve had one, but you should find Pip in the yard.”

“Great,” he said, and stepped out after his friends. I turned to scan the kitchen, wondering where James had gotten to.

For maybe an hour, maybe longer, I wandered from room to room, conversation to conversation, accepting drinks and congratulations with polite disinterest. The music in the dining room was so loud I could hardly hear what anyone said. The dull red light and constant surge and sway of bodies exacerbated my state of intoxication, and when I began to feel dizzy, I ventured out into the driveway. As soon as I set foot outside, the same flirtatious girl from Halloween spotted me. I did an abrupt 180 and escaped around the side of the building to the garden.

The garden—less an actual garden than a small plot of grass bordered on three sides by trees—wasn’t as crowded. People stood in clumps of three or four, talking and laughing or gazing up at the string lights, which had been painstakingly stretched from tree to tree. The yard twinkled as though several hundred obliging fireflies had decided to attend the party. Meredith sat on the table in the middle with her legs crossed at the knee, a drink in one hand and a toothpick speared through two olives in the other. (She, apparently, was sipping martinis while everyone else made do with well liquor and Coke.) I hovered uncertainly at the edge of the yard. We hadn’t said more than a few words to each other since the dressing room incident, and I wasn’t sure where we stood. Before long I found myself staring at her legs. Her calves tapered perfectly to slender ankles and black pumps with five-inch heels. I considered the possibility that she was sitting on the table because she couldn’t stand on the soft ground without sinking into it.

When she realized I was there she smiled—without resentment, it seemed. (The boy beside her—he played cello with the orchestral students, though I didn’t know which year he was—carried on talking, unaware that her attention had shifted.) A little ripple of relief went through me. She turned toward the cellist again but looked down into her drink, stirring slowly with her olives.

I was about to go back inside when I felt an arm slide around my waist.

“Hello, you,” Wren said, with the cuddly, kittenish affection she always displayed when she’d been drinking. She was wearing something pale green and floaty that made her look like Tinker Bell.

I ruffled her hair. “Hello. Having a good time?”

“Splendid, only Richard’s being a snot.”

“I’m shocked.”

Her nose crinkled as she frowned. She was still hugging me around the waist and I wondered vaguely if she could stand up on her own. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him,” she said, with an edge of bitterness in her voice I hadn’t heard before. “He’s always been a bit of a pig, but now he’s … I don’t know. Mean.”

It was such an innocent word that I felt a twinge of something protective, big-brotherish. I squeezed her against my side and said, “I don’t know if ‘mean’ does it justice.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know, it’s not just mean—it’s sadistic. He’s been battering us onstage. Opening night he about busted my eardrum, Filippa’s got a bruise the size of Australia, and James—” I stopped, belatedly remembering my promise to keep it to myself. My verbal and visual filters weren’t working properly.

“What’s he done to James?” she demanded, with a kind of fearful uncertainty. She was trying to keep up, but the whiskey wouldn’t let her.

“I said I wouldn’t tell anyone. But he’ll tell you, if you ask him.” I thought of him twirling a strand of her hair, and it occurred to me that he’d do just about anything she asked him to. Something clenched uncomfortably in my chest.

She frowned again. Her arms had gone loose around me, as if she’d forgotten they were there. “You know, he scares me sometimes.”

“James?” I asked, bewildered.

She shook her head. “Richard. I’m afraid he’ll really hurt someone, or himself. He’s just … reckless, you know?”

It wasn’t the word I would have chosen, but I nodded anyway. “You should tell him that. You’re probably the only person he’d listen to.”

“Maybe. But it’ll have to wait ’til morning. Right now he’s completely plastered.”

“Well,” I said, “if he’s too drunk to stand up this party might turn out okay.”

I had a strange, sinking feeling just then. Richard, no matter how much he drank, had never been fully incapacitated by alcohol. It only made him more, if I used Wren’s word, reckless.

Meredith slid off the table and excused herself from her admirers (of which there were four, by that time). She crossed the yard with surprising steadiness, cocked her head, and said, “Aren’t you two precious.” Up close and in my less than lucid state, I couldn’t stop staring at her. She wore a snug black sheath, one shoulder bare, a strap of tiny jet beads glittering on the other. In those shoes, she was almost as tall as I was.

“The garden looks amazing, Mer,” Wren said.

“Yes.” She smiled up at the lights. “I hate to leave it. And I must lose / Two of the sweet’st companions in the world.” She winked. Her eye shadow—dark plum purple—somehow made her eyes even greener.

“Where are you going?” Wren asked.

“Inside for another drink.” She raised her empty cup. “Refill?”

Wren hiccupped. “I think I’m done.”

“I think you are, too,” Meredith said, barely scolding, almost sisterly. She turned to me. “Olive, Oliver?” She raised her toothpick, one last olive speared on the end.

“You have it,” I said, unable to suppress a smirk. “If I did it would be cannibalism.”

She gave me such a piercing look that my temperature shot up about ten degrees, then bit the olive off the toothpick and disappeared inside. I watched her go and stared dumbly at the empty doorway until Wren spoke.

“She doesn’t seem to be suffering much.”

“What?”

“She and Rick are ‘taking some time off,’” she said, making quotation marks in the air with only one hand. “I figured you knew.”

“Uh, no. I didn’t.”

“Her idea. He’s not exactly pleased about it but you know how he is, he won’t apologize for anything.” She made a face. “If he’d just swallowed his pride she might have changed her mind.”

“Oh.”

She yawned, pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. “What time is it?”

“Dunno,” I said. “Late.” My own eyelids felt a little heavy.

“I’ll go find out.”

“I don’t want to know.”

She let go of me, pushing herself off my side to stand up straight. “Okay, I won’t tell you.” She petted my arm, like I was a dog, then meandered up the steps, a bit of her skirt pinched between two fingers.

The yard had mostly emptied during our conversation. People were either heading back inside or (I hoped) going home. I ventured out into the middle of our little clearing and closed my eyes. The night air was chilly, but it didn’t bother me. It soothed my warm skin like a salve, rinsed the smoke from my lungs, evicted Meredith’s velvet shadow from my head. When I opened my eyes I was surprised to see a patch of blue between the dark treetops, a white sliver of moon grinning down at me. A sudden desire to see the whole sky urged me to take the trail down to the lake. But when I made to move, James’s voice held me in place.

“Well shone, Moon. Truly the moon shines with a good grace.” I turned to find him standing behind me, hands in his pockets.

“Where’ve you been all night?”

“Honestly?”

“Yeah, honestly.”

“I was making the rounds for a while, but I got overwhelmed and snuck upstairs to do some reading.”

I laughed. “You utter dork. What brought you back down?”

“Well, it’s after midnight, and I can’t disappoint Alexander.”

“By now I doubt he even remembers telling us that.”

“Probably not.” He tilted his head back to admire the sky. “It looks farther away when there’s so little of it.”

For a while we just stood there, faces upturned, not speaking. The noise from the Castle was a dull rumble in the background, like the clamor of car engines on a road in the distance. An owl hooted softly, somewhere. It occurred to me (for the first time, I think) how alone we were when the Castle was empty, when there wasn’t a party, when the other students were all half a mile away at the Hall. It was just us—the seven of us and the trees and the sky and the lake and the moon and, of course, Shakespeare. He lived with us like an eighth housemate, an older, wiser friend, perpetually out of sight but never out of mind, as if he had just left the room. Much is the force of heaven-bred poesy.

There was a soft fizz of electricity; Meredith’s lights flickered and went out. I looked back toward the Castle in the deep gloom. The kitchen lights were on and the music audible, so I assumed we hadn’t blown a fuse.

“Wonder what happened.”

James was not curious enough to tear his eyes away from the sky. “Look,” he said.

With the lights out we could see stars, tiny pinpricks of white scattered around the moon and glinting like sequins. The world was perfectly still for one precious instant. Then there was a crash, a shout, and something inside shattered. At first, neither us moved. We stood staring at each other, hoping—silently, desperately, pointlessly—that someone had simply knocked a bottle off the counter, or slipped on the stairs, or some other clumsy, innocent thing. But before either of us could speak again, voices inside started screaming.

“Richard,” I said, my heart already in my throat. “I bet anything.” We raced back toward the Castle, in as straight a line as we could manage.

The door was hanging open but people had blocked it completely, filled up the gap. James and I shoved them aside to get into the kitchen, where at least a dozen others had made a ring around the edge of the room. James broke through the circle first, knocking two second-year linguists out of his way. I wasn’t sober enough to judge the distance and slammed into him when he stopped, but the close press of people kept both of us from falling over.

The cellist who’d been talking to Meredith outside sat crumpled on the floor with one hand over his face, blood dribbling out between his fingers. Filippa crouched beside him, perched on her toes in a glittering mess of broken glass. Meredith and Wren stood facing Richard, and all three of them were shouting at once, their words overlapping and indistinguishable as music and laughter churned in from the next room. Alexander hovered in the doorway behind Richard, but he was leaning on Colin and in no condition to intervene, so James and I pushed forward to arbitrate.

“What happened?” I asked, hollering to be heard over the racket.

“Richard,” Filippa said, giving him a dirty look over her shoulder. “Came downstairs and sucker punched him.”

“What the hell? Why?”

“He was watching the yard from the upstairs window.”

“Everyone calm down!” James ordered. Wren fell silent, but Richard and Meredith ignored him.

“You’re out of control!” she yelled. “You need to be in a straitjacket.”

“Well, maybe we could share one.”

“This is not a fucking joke! You could have knocked his teeth out!”

The boy on the floor groaned and leaned forward, a long thread of blood and saliva hanging from his bottom lip. Filippa stood up swiftly and said, “Yeah, I think he probably did. He needs to go to the infirmary.”

“I’ll take him,” Colin said. He left Alexander leaning on the doorjamb and gave Richard a wide berth as he came across the kitchen. He and I and Filippa got the cellist to his feet and draped his arm around Colin’s shoulders. They weren’t even out of the room before Richard and Meredith resumed their shouting match.

Meredith: “Are you happy now?”

Richard: “Are you?”

“Both of you, stop!” Wren’s voice had climbed to a dangerously high pitch. “Just stop, can’t you?”

Richard rounded on her and she took one wary step back. “This isn’t your problem, Wren.”

“No,” Filippa said, sharply, “you’ve made it everybody’s problem.”

“Don’t be a bitch, Filippa—”

James and I both moved forward, but Meredith spoke first and Richard froze, all the muscles between his shoulders bunched and bulging.

“Don’t talk to her like that. Turn around and look at me,” she said. “Stop bullying everyone else like a fucking schoolboy and look at me.”

He turned and lurched toward her so suddenly that everyone jumped back, but Meredith didn’t move an inch—she was either brave or crazy.

“Shut your mouth—” he started, but she didn’t let him finish.

“Or what? You’ll knock my teeth out, too?” she asked. “Do it. I dare you.”

I decided that perhaps “brave” and “crazy” were not mutually exclusive. “Meredith,” I said, carefully.

Richard swung toward me, and James and Filippa shifted closer, closing ranks. “Don’t tempt me,” he said. “You I’ll send to the infirmary in pieces.”

“Back off!” Meredith shoved him, both hands hitting his chest with a flat thump; before she could withdraw again he grabbed her by the wrist. “It’s not about him. You’re making it about him because you can’t hit me and you’re just desperate to hit someone!”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Richard said, jerking her forward. She twisted her arm against his grip until her flesh went white. “If I knocked you around a bit, gave everyone something to stare at? We all know how you like everyone staring at you. You slut.”

Between the six of us, we’d called Meredith some version of “slut” a thousand times, but this was horrifically different. Everything seemed to go silent, despite the music pounding in the next room.

Richard grabbed her chin, tilting her face up toward his. “Well. It was fun for a while.”

My last thin thread of hesitation snapped. I lunged at him, but Meredith was closer. People screamed as she backhanded him across the face—it was nothing like Camilo’s class, not precise or controlled, but a wild, savage blow meant to do as much damage as possible. Richard swore obscenely, but before he could get to her James and Alexander crashed into him like a pair of linebackers. Even their combined weight wasn’t enough to knock him down, and he kept bellowing curses, snatching at every inch of Meredith he could reach. I grabbed her around the waist, but he already had a fistful of her hair and she cried out in pain as he yanked on it. I lifted her right off the ground and wrenched her away from him, crushing her against my chest as I lost my balance and stumbled into Filippa. Richard, James, and Alexander pitched backward and fell against the cabinets, half a dozen people rushing to catch them before they hit the floor.

I pawed Meredith’s hair away from my face, one arm locked tight around her, unsure whether I was trying to protect her or control her or both. “Meredith—” I said, but she elbowed me in the stomach and shoved me off. Filippa seized my shirt when I staggered and held on, like she was afraid of what I might do if she let go. Meredith stared straight past us at Richard, arms rigid at her sides, chest heaving. Slowly, he pushed himself upright. James had already backed away, and the few people still holding on to Richard hastily removed their hands. Alexander cursed softly, touching his fingertips to a bloody lip. Everyone else’s eyes were fixed on Meredith, but it wasn’t the kind of staring she was used to. Everything she felt was written on her face—shame, fury, paralytic disbelief.

“You bastard,” she said. She turned and shouldered past me and Filippa, scattering terrified first-years as she made her way to the stairs.

Richard and I stood facing each other, like unarmed fencers. Alexander flickered in my peripheral vision, reaching up for a napkin to wipe his mouth. I could hear Wren whimpering, but the sound was distant. James stood behind Richard like a shadow, watching me with a shell-shocked expression, one part dread, one part indignation. Anger bristled on my skin, trapped there by the fabric of my shirt pulled tight against my body. I wanted to hurt Richard like he’d hurt Meredith, like he’d hurt James, like he would hurt any one of us who gave him half a reason. I glanced at Filippa because I didn’t trust myself not to attack him any more than she did.

“I’ll go,” I said, stiffly. She nodded and let go of my shirt, and I didn’t wait. The crowd parted as easily for me as it had for Meredith. I turned into the hall between the kitchen and dining room and pressed my back flat against the wall, breathing slowly through my nose until my head stopped spinning. I didn’t even know what I was drunk on anymore—whiskey and weed and howling rage. I took one last long breath, then ducked through the doorway to the stairwell.

“Meredith,” I said, for the third time. She was the only one there, halfway up the stairs. Music droned in the walls, half muted. Warm pink light leaked in from the kitchen.

“Leave me alone.”

“Hey.” I climbed the first three steps behind her. “Wait.”

She stopped, one hand trembling on the banister. “For what? I’m done with this fucking party, with all of them down there. What do you want?”

“I just want to help.”

“Is that right?”

I stared up at her—dress disheveled, arms folded, face flushed—and felt a tiny, painful thud in the pit of my stomach. She was too stubborn. “Forget it,” I said, and turned down the stairs again.

“Oliver!”

I gritted my teeth, turned back around. “Yes?”

She didn’t say anything at first, just glared at me. Her hair was tangled and caught in her earring where Richard had grabbed it. That little rip in the middle of me opened wider and it burned—raw and tender, red and angry.

“You really want to help?” she asked. It was only half a question—tentative, suspicious of the answer.

“Yes,” I said again, too fiercely, stung by her doubt.

That same brazen, fearless look she’d given me in the dressing room flashed across her face. In one impulsive motion, she came down the three steps between us and kissed me, caught me, both hands curled tight around the back of my neck. I was startled but still, oblivious to everything but the unexpected heat of her mouth on mine.

We separated an inch and looked at each other with wide, unguarded eyes. Nothing about her had ever seemed simple, but she was, then. Simple and close and beautiful. A little tousled, a little damaged.

We kissed again, more urgently. She forced my lips apart, stole my breath right out of my mouth, pushed me backward until I hit the banister. I grabbed her hips and pulled her against me, ready to feel every inch of her.

An unfamiliar voice interrupted the thick noise of music through the wall. “Oh, shit.”

She disengaged, broke away, and I nearly lost my balance in the sudden absence of her body. Some nameless first-year was standing at the foot of the stairs, drink in hand. His eyes slid from me to Meredith with dull, unfocused surprise. “Oh, shit,” he said again, and staggered out toward the kitchen.

Meredith reached for my hand. “My room,” she said. I would have followed her anywhere, and I didn’t care who knew—Richard (who deserved so much worse than such petty betrayal) or anyone else.

We climbed the stairs hastily, clumsily, impeded by her high heels, my drunkenness, and our foolish refusal to keep our hands off each other. We ran down the hall on the second floor, crashing against the wall and locking lips again before we stumbled into her bedroom. She threw the door shut and turned the bolt behind her. We collided more than embraced, the whole feverish scene shot through with flashes of pain—she clenched her fingers in my hair, caught my bottom lip between her teeth, shuddered when the rough stubble on my jaw scraped her throat. The bass from the dining room downstairs thudded under everything like some savage tribal drumbeat.

“You look fucking amazing,” I said, in the split second I had to speak when she pulled my shirt up over my head.

She tossed it across the room. “Yeah, I know.”

The fact that she knew was somehow sexier than pretending she didn’t. I fumbled for the zipper on the side of her dress and said, “Great, just making sure.”

The rest of our clothes came off and were carelessly discarded, everything but our underwear and Meredith’s shoes. We kissed and gasped and grasped at each other like we were afraid to let go. My head swam, the floor shifting and tilting under me whenever I closed my eyes. I ran one hand from the nape of her neck to the small of her back, her skin electric under my fingertips. The warm silk touch of her lips against my ear made me groan and clutch her closer—delirious, addicted, furious that I’d ever pretended not to want her.

We were halfway to the bed when a fist boomed on the door, made it shake in its frame. Another fist followed, and another, pounding and pounding like a battering ram. “OPEN THE DOOR! OPEN THIS FUCKING DOOR!”

“Richard!” I reeled back, but Meredith grabbed me fast around the neck.

“He can bang on the door all night if he wants.”

“He’ll break it down,” I said, and the words disappeared between her lips before they even left mine, the thought forgotten before I finished it. My pulse was wild.

“Let him try.” She shoved me backward onto the bed, and I didn’t argue.

Everything after that was disjointed and confused. Richard hammered on the door, bellowing curses and threats I could barely hear—his voice only part of a heavy rhythm, “I’LL KILL YOU, I’LL KILL YOU, I SWEAR TO GOD I’LL KILL YOU BOTH.” It was impossible to listen with Meredith between me and him, tangible, intoxicating, the tiny intake of her breath enough to drown out his riot of noise. He faded out, like the end of a bad song, and I didn’t know whether he’d left or I’d gone deaf to everything but Meredith. My head was so light that without her weight on top of me I might have floated away. Inch by inch, my brain and body reconnected. I let her have her way for a little longer, then rolled her over on her back and pinned her down, unwilling to be entirely submissive.

When I collapsed beside her on the mattress, my muscles were quivering under my skin. We were too hot to touch by then, and we lay with only our legs tangled together. Our shallow breaths lengthened, deepened, and sleep pulled me swiftly down like gravity.