Read "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
I had hoped the weather would be cool for my lunch with Bunny, because my best jacket was a scratchy dark tweed, but when I woke on Saturday it was hot and getting hotter.
"Gonna be a scorcher today," said the janitor as I passed him in the hall. "Indian summer."
The jacket was beautiful-Irish wool, gray with flecks of mossy green; I had bought it in San Francisco with nearly every cent I'd saved from my summer job-but it was much too heavy for a warm sunny day. I put it on and went to the bathroom to straighten my tie.
I was in no mood for talk and I was unpleasantly surprised to find Judy Poovey brushing her teeth at the sink. Judy Poovey lived a couple of doors down from me and seemed to think that because she was from Los Angeles we had a lot in common. She cornered me in hallways; tried to make me dance at parties; had told several girls that she was going to sleep with me, only in less delicate terms. She had wild clothes, frosted hair, a red Corvette with California plates bearing the legend JUDY P. Her voice was loud and rose frequently to a screech, which rang through the house like the cries of some terrifying tropical bird.
"Hi, Richard," she said, and spit out a mouthful of toothpaste. She was wearing cut-off jeans that had bizarre, frantic designs drawn on them in Magic Marker and a spandex top which revealed her intensely aerobicized midriff.
"Hello," I said, setting to work on my tie.
"You look cute today."
"Thanks."
"Got a date?"
I looked away from the mirror, at her. "What?"
"Where you going?"
By now, I was used to her interrogations. "Out to lunch."
"Who with?"
"Bunny Corcoran."
"You know Bunny?"
Again, I turned to look at her. "Sort of. Do you?"
"Sure. He was in my art history class. He's hilarious. I hate that geeky friend of his, though, the other one with the glasses, what's his name?"
"Henry?"
"Yeah, him. " She leaned towards the mirror and began to fluff out her hair, swiveling her head this way and that. Her nails were Chanel red but so long they had to be the kind you bought at the drugstore. "I think he's an asshole."
"I kind of like him," I said, offended.