by Paula Morris
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ladies: Everything about the neighborhood seemed to belong in a different century.
Outside, rain had begun to fall again, and girls hurried in, shaking off wet umbrellas, pushing back hanks of damp hair. They all looked incredibly prissy, Rebecca thought. And there was another strange thing about the students at Temple Mead Academy: They were all white. Back in New York, the kids in Rebecca's class were black, white, Asian, Hispanic. Every ethnicity and religion and fashion fad in New York was represented. Here everyone looked the same.
The bell rang, and this made her smile, in spite of herself: Even the bell here was more genteel than the one at Stuyvesant -- a ladylike ding rather than a crude electronic beeping. Suddenly the foyer was deserted, wet footprints the only sign of the throng of girls. Rebecca felt a surge of anxiety. Soon she'd have to walk into a classroom full of strangers and be introduced, have all these girls stare at her.
The front door pushed open again, and two people bustled in. One was a pale-skinned girl around Rebecca's age. She wore her dark hair in a loose ponytail tied with a black plaid ribbon. The Temple Mead blazer and skirt somehow looked more fashionable on her, as though it was a costume rather than an ugly uniform. Behind her stood an elderly black man, wearing a khaki raincoat, carefully lowering an umbrella.
"I'll be back for you after school, Miss Helena," he said, and the girl turned away without speaking. She looked at Rebecca and paused for a moment, a bemused and haughty look on her face. Rebecca didn't feel hot anymore: A chill rippled down her spine.
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This Helena was very pretty, Rebecca thought, but there was something about her -- something imperious or spoiled -- that made her look unhappy. The girl said nothing; she walked up the sweeping staircase with slow, deliberate steps, clearly unconcerned about being late. The old man nodded over at Rebecca and then stepped outside again. She heard the umbrella click open and then footsteps slapping down the wet stairs. Surely he wasn't this girl's personal umbrella holder? Rebecca thought only narcissistic celebrities paid people to do things like that. It didn't seem possible that a girl her age would have someone to escort her to school in the rain. Why couldn't she carry her own umbrella?
Rebecca decided to ask Aurelia about her after school, although after she was ushered into the office of the principal -- Miss Vale, a petite, elegant, middle-aged woman who seemed too busy to even look at Rebecca -- and then led to her first class, she quickly forgot about Helena. There was so much to take in that first day. Her new teachers were OK -- no one too mean, no one especially nice. The history teacher asked Rebecca where she came from and then wrinkled her nose at the words "New York." The math teacher grumbled for a while about Rebecca starting the semester so late, and the only male teacher she had all day, for French, looked distraught when he realized the class now had twenty-one students: He liked the girls to work on spoken exercises in pairs, he said, and then paused, as though he was waiting for Rebecca to offer to leave.
She felt the same way about the girls as she did the teachers -- nobody was awful, but nobody was particularly friendly. Or maybe that was unfair: Maybe it was Rebecca
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who didn't feel very friendly. Back in New York, she was used to having a large group of friends, many of whom she'd known for years. The thought of starting all over again in a new place wasn't very appealing, especially as she'd only be here for a while.
Luckily, the principal had commissioned two other tenth-graders from her homeroom to eat lunch with her, so Rebecca didn't have to sit by herself. Temple Mead's lunchroom, with its corniced ceiling and shining floorboards, looked more like a ballroom than a cafeteria, though it had the same long skinny tables and beaten-up plastic chairs as Stuyvesant. Amy and Jessica, the girls looking after her, showed Rebecca where to pick up food, and then led her to a table near the window.
"Y'all have a lunchroom like this in New York?" Jessica asked her. She was a redhead with gold-rimmed glasses, and sometimes it was hard to tell if she was speaking or just giggling. Rebecca nodded, sipping from her bottle of iced tea.
"I'd love to go there," sighed Amy. She was Jessica's best friend, a skinny girl whose blazer looked two sizes too big. They'd been in the same class every year since they were six years old, they told Rebecca while they were standing in line. "Sometimes we drive to Houston to go shopping, but I wish we could go to New York."
Amy and Jessica had the same strange accent as everyone else Rebecca had met so far, and it wasn't at all drawly and Southern in the way she'd been expecting. It was true that they said "y'all," but she was surprised to hear that people in New Orleans sounded more like New Yorkers than hayseeds.
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"We're going to Dallas at Thanksgiving, so my mother can get her dresses for the balls," Jessica giggled. "The balls?" "Yeah, you know."
Rebecca shrugged. None of the mothers she knew in New York went to balls -- but then, none of them lived in white-columned mansions, either.
"During the season," Amy explained, putting down her grilled cheese sandwich. "Carnival. Mardi Gras."
"I thought that was all parades and stuff," said Rebecca, trying to think of the few things she knew about New Orleans.
Amy and Jessica exchanged bewildered glances.
"There are way more balls than parades," Jessica said. Her mouth twitched into a nervous smile. "And everyone here -- all their fathers belong to a krewe."
"Like a rowing crew?"
"No!" they said in unison. Jessica slapped a hand over her mouth to stifle an eruption of giggles.
"Krewe with a k," Amy explained, enunciating carefully, as though Rebecca was slow in the head. "A krewe is like a club, a private club. Each krewe organizes its own parade during Carnival, and throws a huge ball afterward."
"The ball's the most important thing," Jessica agreed. "The old-line krewes -- their balls are really exclusive. By invitation only. That's where the daughters and granddaughters of krewe members make their debuts. All the krewes wear costumes -- and masks to disguise their identities. It's amazing."
Rebecca tried to look interested, but talk of masked old men and debutante balls made her feel even more out of
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place here. She didn't even know things like this still went on in America, and she couldn't really visualize them. All she could think of was Zorro and maybe the Ku Klux Klan dropping into a Jane Austen movie.
"The newer krewes sell tickets to their balls," Amy whispered, her eyes wide, as though she was communicating a shocking secret.
"We'll explain everything to you," tittered Jessica. She carefully licked the thin coat of ketchup off a french fry. "Don't worry."
"There's so much you need to know," Amy said, shaking her head. "About how things are done here, and what's important. School stuff as well."
"Like, we're not allowed on the back gallery during classes or in the side yard at any time unless we have gym. Or to sit on the front steps, ever," Jessica told her.
"Or to leave the school grounds during lunch unless we have written permission."
"And whatever you do, don't run along the street when you're wearing your school uniform. They hate that. We're supposed to comport ourselves as young ladies at all times."
"Young ladies," agreed Amy, her mouth full of sandwich, and both girls started giggling again. But Rebecca got the feeling they weren't laughing at the rules, exactly. They just laughed whenever they couldn't think of anything else to say.
Rebecca tried her best to smile back at them, but her heart was sinking. She didn't want to comport herself like a young lady or sit giggling with Jessica and Amy at lunchtime; Mardi Gras parades might be fun, but she didn't care one iota about the exclusive men's clubs that ran them. She missed
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her friends back home. And however much the Stuyvesant girls liked to complain about the boys at school -- about how loud they were, and how they were only interested in boring things like baseball and Xbox -- Rebecca kind of missed having
those boys around.
"We have a formal dance every spring," Jessica was telling her, gesturing with another french fry. "You have to go with a boy from St. Simeon's ..."
"You have to," agreed Amy. "Don't even think about going with a boy from another school. It's social death."
"What if you don't know any of the boys at St. Simeon's?" Rebecca couldn't help asking. Jessica and Amy stared at her.
"Well, usually your family knows his family," said Jessica, half swallowing her simpering laugh. "Or your brother or cousin or someone introduces you to a guy there. We could find someone for you, maybe. Someone who doesn't have a date already. Like Toby Sutton!"
Amy burst out laughing, and Jessica joined in; they were rocking back and forth, almost in tears. Rebecca didn't know what was so hilarious.
"Sorry," Amy managed to choke. She lowered her voice. "It's just ... it's just that Toby Sutton is this really ugly, mean boy."
"Sssshhhh!" Jessica warned her.
"You brought him up!"
"He's Marianne Sutton's brother," Jessica whispered. "But he's not like her at all -- she's real sweet. But he was almost expelled from St. Simeon's last year."
"Why?"
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"They say he tried to set the school library on fire," hissed Amy.
"You don't know that for sure!" Jessica hissed back, nervously glancing around the room.
"And then the Suttons had to donate half a million dollars to the library restoration fund, so he could get let back into school."
"Really?"
"That's what I heard. Anyway, I'm sure we can find someone better to take you to the Spring Dance. Though it is the social event of the year. Apart from Helena Bowman's Christmas party, that is. Not that you'll get invited to that!"
They both started tittering again.
"I think I saw Helena Bowman this morning," Rebecca told them, trying not to be annoyed by their private jokes. "Is she tall, with dark hair?"
Jessica gave a long, solemn nod.
"She's dark and Marianne is blonde. They're both juniors. And best friends."
"Helena's more beautiful," said Amy.
"Marianne's nicer," muttered Jessica, but Amy ignored her.
"Helena lives in the best house. It's one of the biggest and oldest in the Garden District. All the tour buses stop there. Her ancestors were, like, one of the first families to live here. And her father is in Septimus."
Rebecca must have looked as puzzled as she felt, because both girls started talking at once, explaining that Septimus was one of the old-line carnival krewes and that their parade
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was one of the most spectacular every year. It even had a unique route, looping back along the river and curling up toward the Garden District, rather than ending downtown. The year after the storm they didn't hold a parade, but since then Septimus parades had been bigger and more spectacular than ever. They were planning a huge one this winter, the Friday before Mardi Gras.
"Helena's ancestors founded the krewe right after the Civil War," Jessica whispered, as though she was passing on classified information. "Only the oldest and richest families in this area are members."
That counted out Aunt Claudia, Rebecca thought. She wasn't rich, Aurelia's father was some Cuban who'd disappeared before he ever saw his daughter -- or got around to marrying Aunt Claudia -- and the little house on Sixth Street had only been in her family since the I940s, when the Garden District was pretty run-down and the smaller houses, at any rate, were going cheap.
"So you've been to Helena's party?" she asked. Amy looked crestfallen, and Jessica gave a nervous giggle that turned into a hiccup.
"We're not in with -- you know, Them," she explained.
"That's what everyone calls Helena and her friends," whispered Amy. "Them."
"Why?" asked Rebecca, pushing her plate away.
"They don't have the same rules as the rest of us," said Jessica. "They kind of get special treatment -- better than the seniors, even."
"Like being allowed to arrive late?" Rebecca thought of Helena, strolling in this morning after the bell had rung.
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"Yeah." Jessica nodded. "And after the storm, when the whole school evacuated to Houston for a semester, and we all had to go to classes there, Helena didn't have to show up. Someone said her family went to their place in Aspen instead."
"Make sure you don't annoy Helena," said Amy, raising her eyebrows. "Or Marianne."
"How could I annoy them?" Rebecca asked. This was a strange warning -- Helena and Marianne were a year older, so that meant they wouldn't be in any of her classes. And somehow she doubted that Aunt Claudia moved in the same lofty social circles as "Them." In fact, she doubted that Aunt Claudia moved in any sort of social circle at all, apart from the circle of people who sat in deck chairs around Jackson Square, telling fortunes or selling souvenir watercolors.
"You're sort of, you know, an outsider," said Jessica, with a sympathetic shrug of her shoulders. "You might not know the right thing to do or say when you're around them."
"The right thing?"
"Just -- if they talk to you, be real polite," advised Amy, leaning over her tray as though she didn't want anyone else to hear: Rebecca had to snatch at her arm to stop Amy from dipping one sleeve into some ketchup. "They could make a lot of trouble for you if they don't like you."
Rebecca said nothing, but she thought this was kind of ridiculous. She wasn't going to be intimidated by two snooty juniors. And what trouble could they make for her? Not invite her to their boring Christmas party? Keep her away from the lame-sounding boys of St. Simeon's?
"You don't have to worry about me," she told Amy and
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Jessica, and gave them a false cheerful grin. They both looked relieved -- probably for their own sakes, she decided later. If Rebecca was going to be some kind of social pariah, they didn't want to be dragged down with her. And even though this was just her first day, Rebecca had a niggling feeling that she wasn't going to fit in very easily here at Temple Mead and that Jessica and Amy would start avoiding her the second they realized this as well.
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***
CHAPTER FOUR
***
BY THE END OF THE DAY, REBECCA FELT WORN' out and dispirited. The layout of the school was confusing: It seemed to be a maze of locked doors, roped-off staircases, and dark hallways that led nowhere in particular. Aurelia had all her classes in the more modern building next door, so she wasn't around to help point Rebecca in the right direction.
The rain had dwindled to an intermittent drizzle. Rebecca waited for Aurelia on the steps outside, relieved when she saw her little "cousin" bouncing toward her, another girl -- blonde and grinning -- in tow. If only Aurelia were older: She and Rebecca could hang out at school. But there was quite a division between what was called the junior and the senior school at Temple Mead, and Rebecca was realizing that they were never going to see each other during the day.
"This is Claire," Aurelia announced breathlessly. "She lives on Third Street. Her house is, like, three times as big as ours."
"But everything in it is so boring," Claire complained as
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they all wandered toward the main gate. "You have all that cool stuff, like the monkey skull and the dried bat."
"I haven't seen the dried bat yet," Rebecca told her, thinking how disgusting that sounded.
"Marilyn ate it," said Aurelia breezily.
"My mother says Relia's mother is descended from a voodoo queen," Claire confided. "Which is why she looks all crazy. And why she 'Sees Things.'"
"Sees what kind of things?" Rebecca was curious. They passed the long line of luxury cars idling outside the school gates and strolled along Prytania.
"Oh, you know," said Aurelia, taking long steps to avoid cracks on the sidewalk. "Like the future and the past. Though sometimes she's not sure what she's seeing."
"My sister says she just makes it all up to get money out of touri
sts." Claire lowered her voice. "But my sister doesn't know anything. She's just a Pleb."
"A what?"
"A Pleb. Short for PLEB-ee-an. We learned about them in Latin."
"I think you pronounce it plib-EE-un."
"Whatever!" Aurelia was almost doing the splits, which was probably against school rules, Rebecca thought. "We say Pleb because it rhymes with Deb, and everyone is pretty much either a Pleb or a Deb."