That’s what this dorm should be called: Dingymist Dormitory. “Morningview” it is not.
“Here we go!” Dad sounds ten times more enthusiastic than I feel as he swings open the driver’s-side door. “If this doesn’t look like a real New York City college experience, I don’t know what does!”
“Remind me to pick a school in the suburbs,” I murmur under my breath, opening my own door reluctantly. Mom, Dad, and Arden are already gathered at the trunk, pulling out the plethora of bags from Knickknacks and Whatnots. As they pile my belongings along the curb, a deafening sound appears behind me, growing louder and louder, like the dangerous rumblings of your neighbor’s illegal fireworks. I dive off the sidewalk without turning around, trying to hover for safety behind Dad, all without looking like I’m hovering for safety behind Dad.
“Hi there!” a voice calls as the thunderous sound comes to a sudden halt. “Moving in for the PhotoRetreat?” I peer from behind Dad’s back to find a perfectly innocent-looking pair of teenagers—college students?—standing over a giant blue bin on wheels.
“She is,” Arden answers, pointing in my direction. “Avalon Kelly.”
The girl in the duo scrolls through the papers attached to the clipboard in her hand. “Yes, here you are, great!” she says. “You’re in room six-oh-nine. The counselor in charge of your area should be up there to assist in getting you settled—her name is Ella. Family, feel free to help Avalon to her room, but then we’re encouraging parents and siblings to make a fast exit, and let our retreaters unpack with their roommates. You know, for bonding and all that.”
Mom and Dad both nod as if this makes perfect sense, and Arden begins plopping bag after bag into the blue cart. The boy of the duo hands Dad a sign for the windshield of his car—eligible for thirty minutes of parking only, which really does mean they’ll have to leave quickly.
And then, I’ll be alone.
I fiddle with my phone as Mom fills out some paperwork—signing my life away to the ghosts of Dingymist Dorm, most likely.
“Why am I the only one doing the heavy lifting around here?” Arden interrupts my thoughts. “Move it or lose it.” I take the last bag from the trunk and place it on top of the overflowing bin.
“There, I helped,” I tell her.
“Did you bring your phone charger?” she asks.
“Nice time to remind me,” I say. “If I claim I didn’t, do you think I can leave?”
“Right, because I’m sure all your fellow PhotoReady addicts wouldn’t have one to spare,” Arden says. She begins rolling the cart toward the ramp leading to the front door, putting every ounce of her weight behind it. “Seriously, you’re just going to stand there?” she calls over her shoulder. I help her maneuver the cart up the ramp and through the front door, only to find a lobby that somehow looks even worse up close. We steer the bin past the unsmiling security guard and onto the waiting elevator.
“We only have thirty minutes to unload you, Avalon,” Dad says as we rise.
“I heard,” I tell him curtly. “Let’s get this over with.” When we reach the sixth floor, I exit the elevator and find another counselor waiting in the vestibule.
“Hello!” She is just as chipper, if not more so, as the two downstairs. “Do you know what room you’re headed to?”
“Uh, six-oh-nine,” I answer.
“Oh, perfecto!” she says, extending her hand toward mine to shake. “I’m Ella, your dormitory chaperone for the week.”
“I’m Avalon,” I reply shyly.
“Oh, you’re Avalon,” Ella says. “I was wondering whose face would be attached to that name. It’s so pretty.”
“Thank you,” I say. “Or, I guess, thank my parents.” I point to my family, who has rolled up behind me with the cart. “Since I didn’t pick it.”
Ella laughs at this, but there is something so robustly perky about her that I can’t tell whether she means it or not. “Let me show you to your room,” she says. “I think you’re the first to arrive.”
“Yes, Sofia is on her way from the airport,” I say.
“So you guys have already been in contact?” Ella asks, and I nod. “Perfecto!”
I haven’t even known this girl a full minute yet, and she’s already said “perfecto” twice. “Perkyfecto” was more like it.
We make our way down the hall until we reach the door with the numbers 609 hanging across its center. “Here we are!” Ella calls, riffling through her key ring until she finds one labeled with the same number. She removes it and hands it to me. “Would you like to do the honors?”
“Um, sure,” I say, and I unlock the door to find a bare room, with little more than a bunk bed, two mattresses, two desks, and a couple of chairs. I immediately wish I weren’t the first to arrive, that Sofia could have gotten here first and made this place look more like a home and less like a prison cell.
I also wish that my family would leave immediately, without even kissing me good-bye. That they would head downstairs and take Ella with them, leaving me with this huge bin of stuff and this tiny room, in order to deal, all on my own, with the tears that are stinging the backs of my eyes.
I avoid eye contact with everyone as we unload the contents of the cart, in case the film of tears is visible. Thankfully, it doesn’t take long before the bin is empty, and I have been boxed into the room by Knickknacks and Whatnots bags.
Which also means that I’m about to be left by myself in this strange place with these strange people, none of whom—not even Sofia—I really know. Not like how I know my family, or Celia, or anyone whose presence is as comforting to me as a preschooler’s teddy bear. Ella flits out of the room so that we “can say a proper good-bye” (a “perfecto” good-bye, I’m sure is what she means), and my parents both give me a tight, suffocating hug.
“Remember to keep us updated,” Mom says. “I’ll contact Sofia if you’re not responding to my proof-of-life requests. Or Ella—I now have her number too.”
“Be careful, but have the best time,” Dad says, backing out of the room and pulling Mom along with him. “Arden, we’ll be in the hall. Make it quick.”
And as much as I managed to hold it together in front of my parents, the minute the door closes and I’m left with only my sister, my eyes sprinkle with tears, my cheeks scrunching sideways into the telltale sign that a sob is about to escape.
“Hey, HEY.” Arden grabs me by my shoulders and gives me a small shake. “Snap out of it. You’re in New York. People come from all over the world to see this place once, for one day, and you get to be here—to live here—a full week.”
“I know,” I manage to mutter through a gasp of tears. “But—”
“Nope.” Arden cuts me off. “I’m the one who should be crying. I’m the one about to head off to Golden Girls Land. You? You’re the lucky one.” She raps two soft pats against my cheek. “Plus, you know you’re the big sister, right? You’re supposed to be the role model here. Buck up, chump.”
Despite myself, I laugh at the serious expression on Arden’s face, which makes her break into one of her famous grins. “That’s more like it,” she says. “I’m not going to hug you because I’d rather not have a shoulder full of snot for our entire flight. So, you know, text me and everything. And for the record, I’m still not joining PhotoReady, so don’t expect me to look at your pictures all week. Just send me the ones that you think I won’t hate.” I nod as Arden marches toward the door, calling a casual “Ta-ta” as it closes behind her.
And then . . . silence.
I wipe the backs of my hands across my eyelids, trying to pull myself together. With the tissue box that we purchased buried in the Knickknacks and Whatnots rubble, I begin to dig through the bags in desperation. Luckily, I find the box in the third bag, and I pull out three tissues at once. I blow my nose harshly, and then I begin dumping the rest of the bags’ contents onto the bottom mattress. But looking at all the stuff at once makes me feel overwhelmed, so instead, I find the bag with my phone and tap out
a text to Sofia.
I’m here. Do you have a preference on the top or bottom bunk? I sit on the surface of one of the desks—one of the only clear areas left in the room—to wait for her response.
If you don’t mind, bottom would be better for me, Sofia writes back. I have kind of a heights thing. How’s the room???
I swoop my eyes from one end of the space to the other, trying to think of how to describe it. Every angle I turn, the bare walls stare back at me, quiet in their blankness.
It’s, I begin to type, but then Sofia’s words pop into my head: I photograph what scares me. I photograph the things I scare. I open my camera and begin taking pictures of the room, rather than describing it with words. I photograph the bunk bed—the twists and turns of the metal coils, and the sea foam–green mattresses. Then I head to the bathroom, standing in the middle of our tub to try to capture the whole room at once. Afterward, I stand in the bedroom’s threshold, aiming my camera toward the front door. I snap a picture of the vague glimmer of the doorknob against the darkness of the door itself, and then I reposition my camera to try to capture the upper corners of the frame.
And without warning, the door flies open, startling me to the point that a scream—an honest-to-goodness scream—escapes from my mouth.
“SURPRISE!” the person in the doorway bellows. And even if her PhotoReady account hadn’t shown me what she looks like, I’d somehow know Sofia anywhere. She pushes the door open wider so that it bangs against the wall, and she flings herself into the room.
“You scared me to death!” I yell, but despite the fact that my heart is beating so hard that I can feel it in the back of my head, I find myself laughing. Sofia throws her arms around my shoulders, letting the door slam behind her. I hug her back, this stranger-slash-friend. And for a moment—a small moment, but still a moment—I feel a little bit more at home.
“Whoa,” Sofia says, glancing into our bedroom. “Did you bring all of New Jersey with you?”
“Most of this would be my mom’s doing,” I tell her. “But speaking of bags . . .”
“Oh, right,” Sofia says. “I left mine in the hall. Everyone at the airport looked at me like I was nuts, but compared to your nonsense . . .” She trails off with a smile, opening our door and wheeling in not one, not two, but three suitcases. Two of them are so large that petite Sofia herself could definitely fit inside. “So, first things first—I brought my photo printer so we can begin decorating the walls with our PhotoReady shots. It’s looking awfully depressing in here.”
“I like your priorities,” I tell her, helping to wheel one of the bags into the bedroom. And despite the small amount of time we’ve been in each other’s company, I feel like I’ve known Sofia much longer. Something about her reminds me of Celia—the bubbly talkativeness, the hyper darting about. I already feel comfortable with her—much more comfortable than I ever anticipated feeling in New York.
Sofia blocks the remainder of our “hallway” by opening one of the body-size suitcases.
“So once you have that thing unpacked, we’re going to see if you fit inside, right?” I ask.
“Definitely,” Sofia agrees. “And then you’re going to wheel me down the hall to Ella’s room and tell her you can’t find your roommate.”
“Oh, you met her?” I ask. “How many times did she say ‘perfecto’?”
Sofia’s dark eyes grow wide. “Thank goodness you noticed that too. I thought someone had to have been secretly videotaping me for a prank show—it was seriously every other word out of her mouth!”
As if on cue, a knock sounds at our door, and Sofia and I fall suddenly silent.
“Do you think it’s her?” she mouths to me. We tiptoe to the door and then each try to place an eye over the peephole. Since Sofia is shorter than me, we end up with our heads stacked on top of one another like a totem pole, which makes us sputter into nervous giggles, giving ourselves away to whoever is on the other side of the door.
“Avalon and Sofia?” the voice calls. “It’s me, Ella. I wanted to see how you two are making out in there.” Sofia unclasps the lock.
“We’re starting to unpack,” Sofia tells her. “We have kind of, um, a lot of stuff.”
“Perfecto,” Ella says, and I have to bite the insides of my cheeks to keep from laughing in her face. “Let me know if you need anything—you have until four p.m. to unpack, and then all of the retreaters are meeting in the lobby to head to an early dinner.”
“Perfecto,” Sofia responds, and to her great credit, not one centimeter of her face so much as crinkles. In contrast, I have to turn around to prevent the giggles from escaping, because the sight of Sofia’s stone-straight face makes me want to laugh even harder. When I hear the door close, I whirl around to face her.
“I can’t believe you did that,” I say, letting the pent-up laughter escape in a giant fit, somehow more powerful from having had to hold it in. I sit on top of Sofia’s luggage, clutching my middle. “How did you say ‘perfecto’ with such a straight face? And do you think she heard us talking about her when she knocked? We were right by the door.”
“Nah, and even if she had, Ella doesn’t strike me as the type who would have caught on,” Sofia says. “I doubt she realizes that ‘perfecto’ is her main vocabulary word.” She reaches down to her open suitcase and hauls out a box. “Have you seen an outlet anywhere?”
“Behind the desks,” I point. “Good luck making your way over there.” Sofia dodges our bags and places the box on an empty desktop, removing the printer.
“Do you want to plug in your phone first?” she asks.
“Sure,” I say. “Should I open my photos?”
“Yep. Choose which picture you want to print, and then hit this orange button. Trust me, this is the best invention ever. It’s so much faster than any other photo printer I’ve had.”
I open my album, and the last picture I had taken automatically fills the screen. And if I weren’t seeing it with my own eyes, I swear I wouldn’t believe it existed.
“Sofia,” I begin, “you’ve got to see this.” I hold my phone out to her, and her chin drops down, followed by an enormous grin.
“How did you ever capture that?” she asks. “You didn’t even know I was coming—I wanted to surprise you.”
“I was taking pictures of the door,” I explain. “You had asked how our room was, so I wanted to show you. So when you walked in, you walked into my photo.”
“Well, obviously, that’s the one that needs to be printed first,” Sofia says. “Since it’s capturing our first meeting.”
“Agreed,” I say, plugging my phone into Sofia’s printer and dutifully pressing the orange button. A few seconds later, the photo is in my hands, Sofia hovering next to me with a roll of double-sided tape.
“Let’s put it in the middle of this blank wall, and then work out from there,” Sofia suggests, pointing to the wall across from our bunks. She puts four small squares of tape into each of the corners of the printout, and then positions it in place. “I love it. How about you print out nine more photos you want to add, and then we’ll switch?”
“Perfecto,” I answer her, but Sofia already has her phone poised in front of our faces, ready for a selfie.
“It’s our first roommate picture,” she says. I place my chin near her shoulder and tilt my head toward hers, drawing my lips closed for my usual toothless smile.
“You’re not going to post that, are you?” I ask once she snaps it.
“Why? We’re adorable,” she says, holding up the photo for me to see. And while Sofia looks just like herself—cheerful and happy to be here—my smile, or lack thereof, makes me seem like the crabby, boring roommate.
“I think we could do better,” I tell her. “We’ll try again later.” What I really mean is next time we take a photo, I’ll make sure to take it myself, and then crop out the bottom halves of our faces.
“Nah, I like this one,” Sofia insists, making a great flourish as she loads it onto her feed. “Let t
he entire retreat see we’re the best roommates.” And since I suspect there’s no arguing with Sofia when it comes to her PhotoReady page, I decide to let it go. “Look,” she says a few seconds later, holding out her phone triumphantly. Our photo appears with the caption NYC BFFs!!! I give her a thumbs-up before opening PhotoReady myself to be the first one to star it.
* * *
Slowly but surely, Sofia and I make our way through the multitude of bags littering our floor. We take turns printing pictures, while also putting sheets on our beds, placing our clothes in the dresser, bringing our toiletries to the bathroom, and displaying our snacks across the desktops (Sofia almost immediately polished off a bag of chips. For such a little thing, she sure could eat).
“Too bad we don’t have beanbag chairs,” Sofia says. “They’d make a great addition.”
“I hate to tell you, but I’m not sure we could jam much more into this room,” I say as she tries to force her three empty suitcases into the tiny closet.
“It doesn’t look half-bad in here, all things considered,” Sofia says. “Oh, wait! I almost forgot.” She dives for her bookbag and rustles around, eventually pulling out a box of tiny lightbulbs on wired strings.
“Christmas lights?” I ask her skeptically. “It’s April.”
“No, twinkle lights!” Sofia says. “I mean, yes, technically, I suppose they’re Christmas lights, but trust me—they’re a dorm room must-have. Now where should we put them?” We both look around the room.
“How about as a ‘frame’ for our mural?” I suggest.
“Good idea, but that would make it harder to add more pictures to it,” Sofia reasons. “Up and down our bedposts?”
“I think I’d have trouble sleeping if we kept them on at night,” I say. “And I’m guessing the point is to keep them on at all times?”
“Yes, definitely,” Sofia agrees. “So where? The bathroom?”
“How about around the windows?” I suggest.
“Yes!” Sofia exclaims. “Let’s do it.” We each climb onto a desk and begin draping the lights across the top of the windows, securing them with Sofia’s tape. We cascade them down the two sides of the panes, bringing the ends together along the bottom—a perfect fit.
Spring Break Mistake Page 3