Around the corner, in the kitchen, somebody dropped a bunch of pots. It made a huge crash. I jumped to my feet before I could stop myself, screaming a little. The dining hall was deserted. I ran.
I sprinted into my room, out of breath from trying to dodge Barnaby Charon. Not that I’d seen him again. In fact, even with my eyes going everywhere at once, I hadn’t glimpsed so much as the guy’s shoestring. He’d disappeared.
Tamara was sprawled out on her bed again. Another girl sat at Tamara’s desk.
This new girl was beautiful, in that put-together way that made you wonder if she might end up on a TV show or something.
“Hi,” I said.
Tamara nodded toward her friend. “You know Brynn Laurent?”
“Hey,” Brynn said to me. You could tell she was from the South right away, even hearing that one word. It came out sounding like what horses eat. She tilted the chair, balancing it on the two back legs with one of her feet on the desktop. I watched her pull the desk drawer open and play around with the junk Tamara kept there.
“Ugh. Get out of my stuff,” Tamara said. Brynn smirked, took out Tamara’s lip gloss, and used it.
“So where are you from?” I asked Brynn, wondering if she’d already been through my desk.
“Texas,” she said, smacking her lips together.
“How’s that?”
“Like a fat man on a pogo stick.”
While I was trying to figure out what that meant, Brynn tossed the lip gloss back in the drawer. She knocked it shut with her foot and landed the chair’s front legs.
“A fat man … on a pogo stick?” I asked.
“Yeah. Hot and sweaty. C’mon, Tamara.” Brynn got up and walked out the doorway. I’d only known her about two minutes, but already she reminded me of Lia so much I couldn’t decide if I was sad or relieved to see her go.
“Come. Back. Here.” Tamara called after Brynn like she was talking, but with the volume turned all the way up.
From down the hall, Brynn replied, “They’re starting a movie in the commons. Bring popcorn.”
Tamara groaned and pulled herself off the bed. She went to her closet and yanked a pair of sweatpants up under her formal dinner dress, grabbed a pack of microwave popcorn, and shuffled to the door. She made it look like a huge effort.
“What. Movie?” Tamara yelled down the hall.
“Shut up!” someone suggested, from behind a closed door.
“The Notebook,” Brynn shouted back. Tamara put on her flip-flops and disappeared out the door.
After they left, I changed into a T-shirt and yoga pants and unpacked the rest of my stuff. I hung up dresses and pants, thinking how Brynn had used Tamara’s stuff. Since Brynn was so pretty I bet people didn’t mind if she acted a little selfish, or helped herself to things that didn’t belong to her. I’d noticed that had happened when Lia’d grown into her smile. People treated her differently, even though she was the same.
My personal jury was still out on Tamara, and I told myself I should try to make friends with her, since she was my roommate. I wasn’t sure she’d make it easy, though.
The room was too quiet. I kept remembering how Barnaby Charon turned and stared me down from across the dining hall. There was nothing left to unpack. I had an urge to call home again. Or even call Lia. But it was already eight thirty, and with the time difference, everyone back home was probably sleeping.
I didn’t care about the movie in the commons, so I wandered back down the hall, reading the nameplates on the doors. One of the open doors had a nameplate ripped off. The one that remained said BRYNN LAURENT. I peeked inside. Hello, trophies. They lined her shelves and cluttered the top of her wardrobe. Ribbons were pinned to a corkboard over her bed, her name in gold cursive on all of them. There was a framed photograph of her dressed in tennis whites, swinging a racket. Wild guess? Brynn was a tennis champ.
The next room belonged to JESSIE KEITA and NORA ALPERT, and that door was closed. I heard voices inside, so I knocked and opened the door right away. I wasn’t into waiting to see if they wanted to talk to me.
Jessie sat on her bed, her face all blotchy from crying. Nora sat next to her. Right away, I wanted to press some cosmic rewind button and get sucked backward over the threshold, pulling the door closed behind me as I went. Nora gave me a look that said: I will kill you if you leave after seeing Jessie this way. Still, it took a moment to decide if I was more chicken of Jessie’s crying or of Nora’s retribution. I stayed. Nobody said anything.
“So … homesick?” I asked into the awkward silence. It seemed like a fair guess. Jessie rolled her eyes and blew her nose. Nora shook her head no. I sat down next to them. “Please don’t tell me you’re crying over the guy from the chapel.” It was the only thing I could think to say. I couldn’t imagine how she’d have guy drama already, but maybe the boy was someone she knew from back home. Then I flashed onto Mark Elliott and realized that a crush of devastating proportions could happen pretty quickly.
Jessie started laughing. Or crying. Or something
You know — little giggly sobs and nose sniffles that turned into brays and barks. Like someone rolling the radio knob back and forth between stations.
Nora and I glanced at each other, worried. I couldn’t tell if Jessie was losing it or getting better. I didn’t think Jessie knew, either.
“Over Skinny Butt?” I asked. I didn’t even know who I was talking about. And suddenly, we were all laughing.
“Jessie doesn’t even know his name!” Nora cackled. Someone farted. Jessie turned purple. All fingers zeroed in on her. Tears streamed down her face. Nora fell off the bed with a thump. I howled.
“Skin. Nee. Butt!” Nora wheezed.
“What is his name?” Jessie shrieked.
“There’s a school roster by the dining hall, you freaks.” Brynn stood in the doorway, eating popcorn. Like we were a show. A boring show. She turned to walk out.
“What?” I called after her.
“With the photos you sent in on your applications! Don’t you ever look at anything?” she yelled over her shoulder.
“I d-d-d-don’t think …” Jessie stuttered. I grabbed her arm and pulled her off the bed. She came easily, like she was the kind of girl who was used to following someone.
Brynn was back in the doorway. She had a new top on and her honey-blond hair freshly brushed. “I’m going with you,” she announced. “This place is a total estrogen fest. At least at the dining hall, there’s a chance of running into some guys.”
Brynn was right. When we got to the dining hall, there was a poster board of all students and teachers tacked up in the front hallway. I found mine in the city of faces, the words CAMDEN FISHER, FRESHMAN, MINNESOTA, written underneath. My whole existence, boiled down to four words.
Jessie scowled at the wall. Brynn pointed out her own photo, and asked Nora where hers was. Nora had a goofy picture, with her eyes crossed and tongue sticking out. “They let you in knowing you l-l-looked like th-that?” Jessie asked.
“What? Beautiful?” Nora asked back, her puffball of dishwater-brown hair yanked back in a ponytail, neon running shorts showing off her leapfrog legs. It was weird, but Nora’s easy confidence did make her kind of beautiful. I liked her already.
Brynn tapped a manicured fingernail on another head shot. “Here’s my sucky roommate, who decided she didn’t want to come to school after all,” she said.
My eyes fell on the photograph Brynn pointed to, and my head filled with tingling déjà vu weirdness. There was something about the girl in the picture. Her smile. She had a gap between her front teeth, probably like someone famous and I had simply forgotten who. The words under her photo read DREA SHAPIRO, FRESHMAN, NEW HAMPSHIRE.”
A door swung open behind us, and the echo of male laughter came from the dining hall, footsteps echoing on the terra-cotta tiles.
“Well, hello, fellas!” Brynn sang, turning around fast, like we had been doing something naughty. Four upperclassmen walked by, all of t
hem still in their formal dinner clothes, neckties undone. One of them was Mark Elliott. They slowed down and approached us.
“Hello, yourself,” one of the guys said. He was tall, dark, and handsome, his teeth flashing when he added, “Brynn, right?”
She winked in response. “Beau, right?” she answered. “And who are your friends?”
“Mark, Sloan, and Carlos.” Beau gestured at each guy.
“Hi,” Mark Elliott said. It was hard to breathe, but I managed to not pass out, based purely on the fact that I wanted to impress the guy.
Brynn looked ready to get her flirt on, but before she could, Beau’s smile went mischievous. “You ladies know what time it is?” He pointed to the big clock in the hallway. It read 9:59. Jessie gasped and bolted for the doors. We were going to be late for check-in.
We raced back to Kelser as fast as we could. Jessie and I were in the back, and tennis champ Brynn had a good lead on us, but Nora must have had a fifth gear in those legs, because she was way ahead and making it look easy. Out on the lawn, it was dark and everything smelled like mown grass and marine layer. It felt good to run.
Nora got to the doors of Kelser first. She lay into them without slowing down, arms out to push them open. Her whole body smacked against them and she crumpled like a swatted fly. I made a note to remember that the doors at Kelser House opened out instead of in. Nora picked herself up and pulled the door open. We all piled in behind her, desperate to have at least one foot across the threshold, when Miss Andersen, the dorm head, saw us. I don’t know how she could have missed us, though. She was right there.
Miss Andersen looked pointedly at her watch. “Get to your rooms. Now,” she said, in an irritated tone. We disappeared.
My room was Tamara-free even though it was past check-in. I paced a small circle, out of breath, wondering where she could be. But half the freshmen were probably missing curfew. First days were tricky. I got changed and slipped into bed.
In the dark of my room, I let myself think again about the man from the airplane, Barnaby Charon, here at school. I remembered his hand against my collarbone, sliding up to wrap around my throat. I tried to focus instead on classes tomorrow, and what I was going to wear, and when I’d get a chance to see that cute senior guy again.
A while later, I realized my roommate was in her bed after all. I guess I must have fallen asleep. That seemed a little wonky, because my head had been completely full of thoughts. But Tamara had not been there when I came in, and yet there she was — covers pulled up around her shoulders, flip-flops on the floor in front of the bed.
“Where were you?” I was surprised to find I sounded half-asleep.
“Brynn’s,” Tamara said. “She’s afraid of the dark.”
I said, “Hey, you know anything about Barnaby Charon?”
I expected her to not know who I was talking about. I mean, he was an obscure school trustee who wasn’t even a teacher. But with each second of silence that went by, I knew Tamara knew exactly who he was. After a long while, she said, “Keep him away from me.” Then she yawned.
“Yeah.” I felt peaceful when she said that. I could definitely relate. The last bit of stress in my stomach unclenched and I slept.
I woke up in the dark. Someone was sitting on my bed.
I froze with terror, my eyes shut, and waited for a whiff of clean soap smell so I would know for sure it was Barnaby Charon. I tried to remember all those brilliant one-liners I’d come up with while I’d hid in the airplane bathroom. Get away! You pig! Don’t touch me! I would say all these things. Loudly. Just as soon as I was ready to open my eyes.
The thing was, nothing smelled like soap. The bed creaked. I opened my eyes.
A boy sat, his back to me, on the edge of the bed. Another boy sat on Tamara’s bed. Not psycho student stranglers, I realized after a second. Only boys. Probably from our freshman class, judging from their lack of muscles and the nervous sweat hanging about them. Maybe runt sophomores.
Tamara lay on her side, her brown eyes murky in the minimal light. She and the boy on her bed whispered together. I couldn’t hear too much, just the hushed breathing noises they made talking. I shut my eyes.
OK. So there were strange boys in my room. They could have been murderers, yes, but the bigger issue was that if Miss Andersen found out about them, we’d all be expelled. I’d read the rule book. Being in the room of someone of the opposite sex was a huge, steaming pile of violation. I didn’t think that kind of thing had a point rating, it was so serious.
I considered sitting up and telling those guys to get lost, but I figured all it would win me was my roommate hating me. Plus, it wasn’t even guaranteed to make the boys leave. What if they laughed at me and stayed? Short of shoving them out the door, I couldn’t make them go without calling Miss Andersen, and there was no way I was going to get everyone, myself included, in that kind of trouble.
I made like I was rolling over in my sleep and glared at the wall for a long time, furious. It might seem like it would be hard to fall asleep with those guys there, but after a while, I did. When you don’t want to be somewhere and there is no way to get your body out of the situation, your brain sometimes packs a bag and thumbs a ride anywhere it can go.
I woke up the next morning with a bunch of angry things to say to Tamara. So naturally, she was already gone. I wore my funk of irritation like a housecoat and skulked up to the dining hall. After grabbing an apple from the breakfast spread, I went over to the hallway and studied the student-and-faculty photo montage. Something else had solidified in my mind overnight: where I’d seen Brynn’s roommate before. She’d been on the plane, talking to Barnaby Charon.
At first I couldn’t find her picture anywhere. I looked and looked, but the pictures were in a hodgepodge.
It was probably the stress, I told myself. I glanced at my watch. It was already 7:20 in the morning. I still had to get back down to my room, make my bed for inspection, brush my teeth, yell at Tamara for having guys in our room last night, and arrive on time for my first class. It was going to be a busy morning. I ate my apple and took my time, moving over to where Brynn had stood the night before. I closed my eyes and stuck my finger out, imagining I was poking a picture.
I opened my eyes. Not a photo under my fingertip. A name where a picture had been taken down and a thumbtack removed. DREA SHAPIRO, FRESHMAN, NEW HAMPSHIRE. I looked at that spot for a few minutes. You know. Considering.
When classes let out at three o’clock, every student had to sign up for an athletic activity. Brynn and Nora went to the real sports tryouts, competing for spots on the varsity or junior varsity teams. Then there were students like Jessie and me. I knew right away we were headed for intramural athletics: open gym, weight lifting, aerobics, free swim.
The nice thing about aerobics was that it let out at the end of the hour. That meant a little extra time for other things. For instance, Mr. Cooper, the drama teacher, had asked for volunteers to paint sets for the winter play. I’d signed up right away. Mr. Cooper was this big, tall, balding guy with a soft face and wire-rimmed glasses. He reminded me of a giant teddy bear. I like helping out, and the way Mr. Cooper had lost his briefcase in our first drama class that morning, the guy seemed like he could use all the help he could get.
But since set painting hadn’t started up yet, I was free as a bird when aerobics ended that day. Jessie headed back to the dorms while I swung by the tennis courts to say hi to Brynn.
Well, mostly to say hi to Brynn. The girls’ tennis team played in the fall, boys in the spring. So it was girls hanging around the courts. Except for this incredibly perfect senior boy I might have mentioned: Mark Elliott.
He came in from the far field with a herd of lacrosse players. But as the other boys went on toward their dorms, Mark dumped his field gear outside the tennis courts, changed his shoes, and let himself into an empty court. As the girls’ team trickled away from the tennis area, he grabbed a racket and began practicing his serve. I sat down on a bench and pr
etended to watch Brynn finish up, but every now and then I’d sneak glances at the guy.
“Why does he practice so much?” I asked Brynn, when she came off the court. She was wearing a bridal veil of sweat. That girl was a warrior about tennis.
“Why? You like him?” she asked.
“No!” I felt myself get hot in the face. Brynn squirted water in her mouth from a bottle, swished it around, and spit it out. I was a little grossed out. She usually seemed so … I dunno. Southern. It was like watching Scarlett O’Hara scratch her armpit.
“Rumor has it, Mark’s brother is nationally ranked,” Brynn said.
“Who’s his brother?” I asked, kind of overwhelmed that there might be twice as much Elliott hotness walking around campus. Lately, I’d found myself thinking of him as “MarkElliott,” like it was all one word. Like he was a brand name.
“Doesn’t go here,” Brynn said. I didn’t understand. But I did know Brynn’s sly smile meant she was onto me. I shut my trap. There is nothing worse than someone knowing you like somebody.
Brynn wiped her face with a towel. “His brother lives in Nueva Vista with their parents. Mark’s the one who got sent away.”
I felt all at once supergrateful that Brynn had told me a tidbit to add to my meager MarkElliott fact collection, and stabby with jealousy that she knew so much about him. I mean, she called him “Mark” like it was nothing.
I had a sudden, perfect vision of Mark Elliott pouring his heart out to Brynn late at night on the tennis court. What guy could not be in love with Brynn? She always stood gracefully and smiled with the right amount of teeth showing. Her hair was always so … bouncy. Also, she had a restless look about her, like she would get into trouble just to amuse herself. I squirmed with embarrassment for even thinking I was cool enough to like Mark Elliott when people like Brynn roamed the earth.
The Last Academy Page 3