“Where is Roxanne?”
“She went to town.”
Click. Annette locked the door, and I felt the blood rush in my ears. How many times had Annette locked my bedroom door at home? A hundred? A thousand?
Annette slipped off her shoes and climbed the ladder to my bed. I had several questions, starting with “Where have you been lately?” But she was pulling my Norton Anthology off my lap and crouching over me, and then stretching herself out on my comforter. She leaned in and kissed me, soft and slow, with a gentleness that made my heart feel like it was made of lead and was going to fly away, all at once.
“You smell good,” she murmured.
She ran her fingers along my back while her lips and tongue searched for mine. Her hand slid under my shirt and found my breast. I’d longed for her and now here she was, smelling like salt and autumn and herself. Like Annette.
“I’ve missed you,” she said, sitting up to lift her jersey and sports bra over her head. The sight of her nakedness, of her pale, barely damp skin, made my breath catch and I pulled her back to me, inhaling her, kissing her mouth, her neck, her shoulder, her belly. My body tingled with longing as we touched each other, as her fingers touched me the way no one else could until everything else seemed to slide away, until there was nothing but Annette.
Later, we curved into each other like spoons in the window-filtered sunlight, just lying there, breathing and content. Almost perfect. Almost, but not quite.
“I talked to my mom yesterday,” Annette said, running a thumb over my opal pendant. “It was five thirty and she was already sloppy.”
I turned so I could see her face.
“I wasn’t even listening to what she was rambling about. I just kept thinking how happy I was not to be there—to be so far away,” she said. “And then she got all emotional, saying she couldn’t believe her only daughter had left her, and I felt awful.”
I felt a flash of anger. That was so Shannon. “She wants you to feel guilty, Annette. She’s manipulating you.”
Annette sighed. “Probably.”
“Probably?”
“Okay, yes. She’s manipulating me. But she’s also my mom.”
“She was also hurting you when you lived at home.”
She nodded, biting her lower lip. “I know. But now that I’m here, my dad has to deal with her by himself.”
“Your dad is an adult.”
She let out her air in a whoosh. “Yeah.” She moved the clasp of my opal necklace to the back of my neck and wrapped one of my curls around her pinky.
“Annette?”
“Yeah?”
“What are we doing?”
“Lying on your bed?”
That wasn’t what I meant, of course—she wasn’t answering my question. Part of me wanted to push her—get us out of the closet, into the open, where we could shine in the sun. But for some reason, I couldn’t get the words out.
“Some of the girls are ordering pizza on Friday, after lights,” Annette said, totally switching gears. “You should join us.”
I tried not to let disappointment seep in—the last hour had been too perfect. But I wanted more of this intimacy—a lot more—not a pizza party with the Soleets.
“You need to give these girls a chance, Josie. You had a good time with us on Dress to Impress night before you ran off and ruined my grandmother’s dress.”
That felt a little snide, but I couldn’t deny that I did run off. And even though she was trying to sound lighthearted about the dress, I had, probably, ruined it. And we both knew how much she loved it.
“I’m having it cleaned,” I told her. “Roxanne says that Royal Cleaners can work miracles—”
The door handle turned and Annette bolted upright, instantly searching among the covers for her shirt. “Josie?” Roxanne called.
I was pulling on my own clothes when I heard the key turn in the lock. A moment later, the door opened and Roxanne appeared, loaded down by shopping bags. “What’s with the locked doo—” She stopped mid-sentence. “Oh, sorry.”
Annette’s jersey had just cleared her shoulders and she yanked it down but still looked utterly exposed, and a lot like the first time Shannon almost caught us fooling around in her room.
We were twelve. “What was that?” Annette whispered, sitting up fast. Her ponytail was lopsided, her shirt untucked.
“I didn’t hear anything,” I replied, smooching her on the lips and knocking her math textbook to the floor. We’d been studying for a math quiz in her room, and had gotten a little distracted.
“It sounded like a car door.” Her eyes darted toward the hall.
We sat perfectly still for several long moments, listening, hearing silence.
Annette picked up the math textbook and flipped to the right page. She scanned it for a second, then slammed the book shut. “Done!” She smirked. Then she pounced on me, pinning my arms to the bedspread and attacking me with kisses (not a bad way to be attacked).
Annette and I had been doing a lot of kissing. Not in public, of course, but whenever we were alone. Her ponytail tickled my neck and she lay down next to me and put her hand on my belly under my shirt, brushing her fingers over my skin.
My heart pounded as butterflies took flight in my stomach, their delicate wings flapping wildly. We were heading into uncharted territory. I put my hands on either side of her face and opened my mouth just a little, my tongue tenuously venturing forth. We had just started to French kiss and I had no idea what I was doing. The only advice I’d gotten was from my older brother, Ben, and as far as I could tell, he was no expert. Though we did, at least, both like girls.
Annette sighed as our tongues tentatively mingled, and she slid her hand to my waist, pinching it.
“Hey!” I said in protest.
“Hay is for horses,” she replied, leaning back in. I was inhaling the chocolate and butterscotch cookies we’d stolen from the kitchen, when I heard footsteps coming down the hall. I bolted upright, hitting Annette’s chin with the top of my head.
“Ow!”
“Door!” I whispered frantically. Annette pulled my shirt down over my stomach and undid her ponytail holder, shaking her hair free.
“What are you—”
“Annette?” The door handle turned.
Annette leaped to her feet and bent over, letting her golden hair touch the ground before running her fingers through it like a comb.
“Yes?” she replied as she righted herself, pulling her hair through the elastic band into an impressively neat ponytail. The girl was as sly as a fox.
Shannon’s tall frame appeared in the open doorway, the corners of her mouth dropping the moment she saw me. “Do you have any other friends, Annette?” she asked, the disgust in her voice lingering over the rim of her gin and tonic.
I was too freaked to take offense—my heart thudded in my chest like Josh’s drum machine. “We’re doing math,” I offered. “Decimals.”
“Well, it’s getting late, and Annette needs to start dinner.” Her eyes glinted and I noticed for the hundredth time that they were just like Annette’s, only two shades darker and a zillion shades meaner.
I pulled my cell out of my pocket. “My mom just texted that she wants me home by six.”
“You’d better get out of here, then.” She took another swallow and pushed off the doorframe. “You wouldn’t want to be late.”
“The cleaners in town are still working on the dress,” Roxanne said while Annette busily swept her hair back into a ponytail. I wasn’t sure what she was so stressed about—Roxanne had found us in the bathroom the day we arrived and obviously didn’t care that we were a couple.
Shooting me a “what gives?” look, Roxanne tipped the bags, dumping her goods on the floor and sending colored scraps of paper flying. There were bottles of shampoo, conditioner, lotion, a huge jar of bath salts, and a paper bag with some kind of large bottle.
“What’s in the bag?” I asked.
Roxanne reached in and pulled
out a magnum of vodka.
“You carried that giant bottle across campus in broad daylight?” Annette was aghast.
“It’s an old trick my brother taught me.” Roxanne had one older brother, August, who’d graduated from Brookwood two years ago. He was at Harvard now. “They don’t expect students to be brazen enough to tote bottles of booze around during the day, so they never check. Plus, they don’t actually want to bust you. They want to turn us into überprofessionals who will go out and rule the world.” She brandished the bottle like a cowboy with a shotgun. The girl was freakishly strong.
Annette regarded Roxanne with a look of skepticism, as if she were a species of girl she’d never seen before.
“What?” Roxanne asked. “I’m not kidding.”
“I believe you,” Annette said quickly, hopping down from the top bunk and turning back to me. “Ten thirty, Friday,” she said in invitation. “Think about it at least.” Stepping gingerly over the array of stuff on the carpet, she disappeared through the door.
Roxanne shoved the bottle of vodka back into the paper bag and stashed it in the bowels of our closet. When she reemerged, she picked up her toiletry stash, flicking the wayward bits of colored confetti off the bottle of shampoo. She stood there for a second, her dark eyes on the bottle of Pantene. I could tell she was thinking about something.
“What?” I asked.
Roxanne half shook her head. “I hate to admit it, but she’s not totally wrong to be skittish. I mean, I’m totally cool with girls who like girls. Who cares? But the thing is, some people around here do care, and they judge.” She walked into the bathroom and dumped her stuff into the sink.
I considered that for a minute, remembering how people at home had judged, too. Even after Annette had sweetened everything with her smile and her fudge, people still talked. Some pretended they didn’t know. Others pretended they didn’t know us. But most people eventually got over it. Would it be the same here?
“Marina saw us kiss the night of Dress to Impress.”
“And she didn’t say anything?”
“I don’t think so.”
She set the shampoo and conditioner next to the tub. “That girl has more going on than she wants us to know.” She sat on the edge and arranged the bottles in a row. “Josie?”
“Yeah?”
“Is it simpler when you’re both the same sex? Like, do you get stuff about each other because you’ve got the same hormones?”
“Does it seem simpler?” I asked.
Roxanne shook her dark head slowly. “No,” she admitted as she got to her feet and picked up the broom, ready to attack the floor. “It seems like relationships eat you up no matter who they’re with.”
“I’ll take a pepperoni,” Marina said, handing over a flimsy paper plate. Two pizzas had just been delivered to the dorm, and we were piled into Annette and Becca’s room, buzzing around the cheesy, crusty, tomato-saucy pies like starved flies.
“Save me one!” Cynthia protested, waving her own plate in the air. Becca snatched the paper disc and hastily slid a greasy piece onto it before handing it back.
I bit into my own piece of cheese and chewed. It wasn’t great pizza—far from it. The crust was underdone and too thick, and the sauce tasted like tomato paste. But as I pulverized the mediocre combination of carbs, fat, and salt between my teeth, I felt unexpectedly okay. Pigging out on pizza was something I knew how to do—something all five of us seemed to have in common.
“Pass me a cheese,” Annette said. Her plate was grease-stained and bent dangerously when Becca topped it with a second slice. Annette lifted it to her mouth and caught the greasy tip of pizza between her teeth, mumbling her thanks between chews.
Marina flipped open the lid to the pizza box and grabbed her third piece of pepperoni. “Thank God this is calorie-free.” She took a huge bite and chewed it like cud.
Cynthia nodded, nibbling the last of her crust.
“Since when?” I asked. “Last time I checked, grease and carbs were pretty damn caloric.”
Becca smiled at me—the smile she reserved for those who just didn’t get it. I willed myself to let that smile go right through me, to vaporize into thin air, but the word Soleet swam in my brain like a minnow in a pond.
“You’re going to eat pizza with who?” Roxanne’s voice swam right along with it—she’d been unable to hide her disdain when I told her where I was going. “Why, exactly?” she’d asked.
“Because Annette asked me to,” I’d replied, knowing my answer wouldn’t satisfy my roommate. For some reason, I really cared about what she thought. There was something about Roxanne that rang true—she didn’t seem to do things unless she wanted to, as if peer pressure didn’t exist for her.
Cynthia leaned against Annette’s bed, her palm cradling her stomach. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Perfect timing!” Marina chortled. Why didn’t she get the pitying smiles from the Soleet in charge? Was it the wardrobe? The money? Both?
Becca had gotten to her feet and was rifling through a drawer. Moments later, she produced a multipack of toothbrushes—five, to be exact. She ripped the package open and handed one to each of us. Baffled, I took the green plastic wand with bristles, noting with surprise that it was a no-name brand. Apparently, Soleets could be rich, popular, and cheap. “I’ve got my own upstairs,” I said.
“This is different.” Marina jiggled with laughter.
“We’ll use the bathroom at the end of the hall so we can each have a stall,” Becca instructed. “Cynthia can keep watch.”
Watch? “What are we watching for?” I asked.
“Intruders,” Becca replied, as if that explained everything.
The other girls were on their feet, clutching their toothbrushes and looking exhilarated. It seemed we were all going into the bathroom across the hall. I followed the other girls through the door, noting that we were practically in formation—probably the result of Becca and Annette spending so much time with Lola No.
Cynthia dutifully took her post at the door. As Becca and Marina disappeared into a pair of stalls, the purpose of our mission began to unfold in the back of my brain. My mouth dropped open as the words calorie-free echoed in my mind. Wait, really? Half a second later, I heard the first gag—Becca’s, I think—followed by the sound of liquefied pizza surging into the toilet.
I clutched Annette’s sleeve. “You’re not actually goi—”
The defiance in her eyes silenced me, clearly saying “yes, I am,” and I watched as she tugged the fabric loose from my fingers and stepped into an empty stall. I heard Marina retch and heave a mass of pizza puke, heard the spatter of regurgitated crust and sauce and cheese hit the water, and found myself wondering when the toilets were last scrubbed.
Annette gagged and retched, tricking her body into sending the partially digested food back up. A second later, the contents of her stomach splattered into the toilet, sending a fresh waft of pizza puke to my nose. This is so messed up on so many levels, I thought. Was this really what she’d been doing on Friday nights? The thing she wanted me to be a part of?
Someone flushed a toilet, and I heard a bolt unlatch. A moment later, Becca appeared—pink cheeked, a little sweaty, and extremely pleased with herself. As if she’d just done something impressive, something I should admire. She saw me standing there next to an empty stall with a fresh toothbrush and a clean toilet and her eyes narrowed as if to say “I knew you didn’t have it in you.”
I had absolutely no idea what to do with that, or even where to begin. So I silently turned and left the bathroom, walking past Cynthia and taking the stairs two at a time.
I rushed up the stairs, flustered and wondering what was wrong with this place. With Becca. With Annette. I practically ran right into Roxanne, who was at the top and heading down. “How was it?” Her voice had an edge of fake cheerfulness.
“You don’t want to know,” I replied.
“Let me guess—the pizza was calorie-free.”
/> I gaped. “How did you know?”
She half rolled her dark eyes. “Ritualistic barfing isn’t exactly original around here.”
“What, it’s like a thing people do? Like play field hockey?” She looked so calm just standing there, as if she were telling me that there was a new glee club starting up.
“Sort of, yeah.”
“Sort of?” I echoed. The pizza was becoming a mean wad in my stomach, and for a second I thought I might need to throw up for real. I threw a glance over the edge of the railing. If I aimed right, I might even be able to hit the first floor—a little gift for Becca.
“People do it all the time,” Roxanne said, nonplussed. “Welcome to boarding school.”
I gaped at my roommate, not sure what I expected from her, what I wanted her to say. Giving up, I changed the subject. “Where are you going?”
“Laundry,” she said, a little grumpily. “I’m out of underwear.”
Roxanne disliked doing laundry almost as much as she disliked the Soleets, and had well over two dozen pairs of underwear so she wouldn’t have to wash her clothes very often.
“You want help?”
“Not with my clothes,” she said. “But I could use help cutting pieces for my next project.” I watched her face shift into excitement. “I have a new idea, and I think it could be brilliant!”
“Whoa, did you just use the B word?” Roxanne never said anything close to brilliant about her art. She was her own worst critic.
“I did!” She was practically gleeful.
I peered at her. “Who are you, and what did you do with my roommate?”
She laughed. “Will you help?”
I nodded.
“Great.” She dashed down the stairs, and I headed to our room, which was half-covered with new cutouts in blues, grays, and greens—all traces of the rainbow confetti were gone.
In the bathroom, I turned on the hot water and slathered my hands with soap, as if I could wash the barfing scene off. I wanted to figure out why the group vomiting was so shocking. It was no secret that Sara Kinsley binged and barfed her way through freshman year back home. But Sara was a mess—she did it because she had a problem. Becca and her posse seemed to be doing it for fun.
Without Annette Page 12