Across the room, Naomi sat on the scratched leather couch with Crystal, their friend Benny Cunningham, and Sage Francis, who had been regaling them with tales of the fabulous African safari she’d gone on this summer. It didn’t sound so great to Naomi. Flies, malaria, and smelly wild animals. Fun! She gazed toward the doorway, saw her new roommate waltz in on Maurice Johnson’s arm, and immediately elbowed Benny hard in the ribs.
Benny was from Main Line Philadelphia, stood to inherit $200 million, and was pretty in a horsey way: tall and lithe, with long, thick hair and enormous brown eyes. She was a prude and always blamed it on where she grew up, as if Philly were a different planet where the girls drank whole milk and saved themselves for marriage. Despite her prudishness, she was also a major gossip who read Page Six religiously but acted like she knew it all firsthand.
“Looks like Maurice’s gone in for the kill,” Benny’s best friend, Sage Francis, laughed, pointing. “Guess he knew where he could get some.”
Naomi shrugged. She couldn’t imagine her naïve new roommate being a slut, but there was something seemingly sparkly and fresh about Bree that might make her irresistible to, say, an entire indie rock band, which was the rumor going around campus. And she did have some kind of air of mystery about her, which reminded Naomi of someone. Jade, perhaps?
“So are you guys really applying for room transfers?” Sage whispered, touching Naomi on her bare shoulder.
“Room transfers?”
Sage fluttered her heavily glittered eyelids. She always overused eye glitter, because a cute French guy she’d met in St. Barts during spring break the year before had told her that it made her eyes look huge and sexy. “I thought you and Crystal were ready to scratch each other’s eyes out.”
“Well...” Naomi trailed off. “I wasn’t planning on transferring...” She looked at her roommate. Crystal was across the room talking intensely to Celine Colista, the other field hockey captain. They’d all played field hockey together since arriving at Bridgeport freshman year, but Naomi had never taken it as seriously as the rest of the girls. Would Crystal really transfer rooms behind Naomi’s back? Had it come to that? She turned back to her new roommate, who was standing in the doorway and gazing starry-eyed, as if she’d never been to a party before in her life.
Bree was kind of overwhelmed—but in a good way. Maurice returned, weaving a strong-smelling Bridgeport travel mug in front of her face. “For you.”
“What’s in it?” she asked, taking the mug with both hands.
“Does it matter?” He grinned and clumsily tipped the contents of his own mug down his throat.
Bree put the mug to her lips. The strong, sour liquid tasted like beer mixed with rum. It gurgled down her windpipe, bringing tears to her eyes.
“Hey, there’s Amir!” she managed to gasp. Amir stood by one of the giant windows, surrounded by three tiny girls with matching ponytails. When he saw Bree across the room, his face brightened and he waved. She raised her hand to wave back, but Maurice grabbed it and pulled her to his side.
“It’s time for the new girl to do our little initiation ritual,” he said, smiling devilishly.
“What?” Bree frowned. “I haven’t heard of any initiation rituals.”
“Then you haven’t been talking to the right people.” Maurice took another long drink from his mug, then set it on the ancient silver radiator. “Come with me.” He led her to the door.
On the way out, a couple of guys gave him high fives. “Where you goin’, Pony?” one of them asked. Maurice just raised his eyebrows. The guys started laughing and making whooping, whinnying noises.
“What’s that all about?” Bree asked, glancing back at the hooting boys.
“Who the hell knows?” Maurice muttered, as he opened the heavy wooden door for Bree.
“Who’s Pony? You?”
“Shhh,” Maurice interrupted. Bree pursed her lips together, feeling a little uneasy. But this was boarding school. Magical Bridgeport land. She was safe here, wasn’t she?
Outside, the night was pitch-black and dead quiet except for the sounds of some crickets left over from summer. Maurice stopped in front of the Bridgeport chapel, the building next to Richards. The chapel was squat yet stately, with stained glass windows and a heavy oak door.
“What are we—?” Bree started. She hadn’t been inside the chapel yet—she would be tomorrow morning, for roll call, announcements, and prayers.
Maurice stubbed his cigarette out against one of the front windowpanes. “It’s a tradition for new Bridgeport students to go into the chapel before school actually starts.”
“You’re not going to lock me in or anything, are you?” Bree asked in a wavering voice, not caring how Old Bree she sounded.
“Of course not.” Maurice raised his eyebrows. “I’m coming in with you.”
“Oh.” Bree’s heart was picking up speed. “Okay, then.”
Maurice pulled on the enormous oak door until it opened. The chapel’s inside was lit only with a few candles. And it was as quiet as...well...a church.
“It’s really nice in here,” Bree whispered.
“Sit over here with me.” Maurice patted a space on one of the dark wooden benches. In the candlelight, with his hands curled neatly in his lap and his dreads slicked back, Bree wondered if she’d misjudged Maurice. Maybe he was actually really spiritual and sensitive.
She slid into the pew next to him. “So this is the ritual, huh?”
“Ritual?” Maurice looked at her cluelessly.
“You said that—” Bree stopped. Of course there wasn’t a ritual. It was a trick.
They were silent for a minute, listening to the wind pressing up against the sides of the chapel. Then Maurice placed his hand over hers.
“You were so beautiful this morning,” he whispered breathily, mixing up the b and m, so that he said mootiful and borning. “Especially when my dad gave you a ride up the hill.”
“Oh,” Bree answered, beaming. He did remember! “Well, thanks.”
“You’re from that all-girls school in New York, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.” Had she said that this morning? She didn’t think so.
“Did you get kicked out?”
“Not exactly.”
Then Maurice lurched toward her. She thought he’d just lost his balanca, but his mouth was suddenly all over her face, and his tongue was poking through her lips. Bree’s first reaction was to push him away, but tingles of pleasure began to run up her spine. Maurice was an amazing kisser, maybe better than anyone else she’d ever kissed. She touched the nape of his neck, squeezed her eyes shut, and allowed herself to be swept away. The wooden bench made tiny aching creaks and groans. Their slurpy kissing noises rang against the alcove ceilings. His hand traced the outlines of her fingers but then quickly moved down her wrist to her forearm and finally up to her chest.
Bree slid away from him, alarmed.
“Whatsa matter?” Maurice smirked, his eyes flickering back and forth from one of her breasts to the other. He didn’t look like a spiritual little angel anymore.
“Well...this is a little fast,” Bree managed. “That’s all.”
“Come on,” Maurice urged, his voice getting sleepier. “Bree from New York. Crazy Bree.”
“I’m not all that crazy,” Bree contradicted. She had a creepy feeling that Maurice was quoting someone. What had people been saying about her? And where had they gotten their information?
Then suddenly Maurice tipped over, laid his head on the bench, and began to quietly snore. Bree stood up. Maurice was wasted. She looked around the empty chapel, his snores echoing off the beamed ceilings.
All this made her feel very Old Bree. She sighed and looked around at the dimly lit chapel. School didn’t officially start until tomorrow, she resolved. New Bree was just getting warmed up.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Date: Wednesday, September 4, 9:50 A.M.
Su
bject: Dude...
Z,
Missed a fucking awesome party. Can’t even remember the end, except for this fresh little sophomore and me were really getting along. I’m still in bed and I think I’m gonna stay here all day. Bet you had a fucking awesome excuse for not being there. Was it Jade? You saw her this summer, right?
Hey man, write back, 'cause we all think you’re dead.
Later,
Reese
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Date: Wednesday, September 4, 10:01 A.M.
Subject: Better in person...
Hey, Naomi. You got off the phone so fast. Just when we were getting to the good part! I can’t go another day without seeing you. I know your classes start tomorrow, but you’re done by 4, right? How about I hop the shuttle and come over tomorrow afternoon? Maybe we could spend a little time under that soft comforter of yours....
8
“Oof!” Naomi slammed into a tall guy as she walked down Stansfield Hall’s third-floor hallway. She’d been trying to kill a couple of minutes catching up on e-mails on her cell phone before meeting with some new teacher named Mr. Dalton, who was supposed to be the new Disciplinary Committee adviser. Corey’s message had just popped up on the screen. “Sorry,” she muttered to the person who’d bumped into her, without looking to see who it was.
“You better watch where you’re going with that. It’s Naomi, right?”
She looked up. An unbelievably handsome boy was standing in front of her. He looked like Michael B. Jordan but taller, darker, and better. He wore a slightly rumpled oxford shirt with the bottom two buttons buttoned incorrectly. Naomi couldn’t help but imagine him haphazardly throwing it on over his hard, muscular chest, as he climbed out of bed.
“I recognize you from the picture in your student file,” the boy went on. “I’m Eric Dalton, the new DC adviser.”
Oops. This was no boy. “Oh! Um. Hi, Mr. Dalton,” Naomi stammered, shoving her cell phone in her pocket. “I’m, uh, sorry about that.” She held out her hand.
He shuffled a coffee mug—the same maroon-and-white Bridgeport Owls mug that they mixed drinks in at their dorm parties—from one hand to the other and gripped hers. Naomi was suddenly glad that she had a moisturizing fetish and that her palm would feel silky in his hand.
“Those aren’t allowed here, you know.” Mr. Dalton raised his eyebrows at her phone. For a second Naomi thought he was serious and started to muster up an excuse. Then he whispered, “But I won’t tell...this time. Go sit down in my office and I’ll be with you in a sec.”
Flustered, Naomi smiled, wishing she had something witty to say.
The door to his office stood open. She walked in and looked around. For a guy who’d just arrived at Bridgeport, he sure had a lot of stuff. There were posters wrapped in brown paper on the floor, a large black globe, and books and papers everywhere. She noticed a decanter filled with what looked like red wine on the oak table in the corner, and her mind started to race.
Settle down, she told herself.You’re here because he’s new to Bridgeport and he wants to meet all the DC members. That’s probably cranberry Snapple, not wine.
She walked up to one of the posters that Mr. Dalton had hung in a heavy, gilded frame. It was actually an old inscribed scroll, mounted and framed. She squinted at the Ancient Greek words and murmured, “‘Praise each god as though they were listening.’”
“How’d you know that?” a voice called out behind her.
Naomi jumped. Mr. Dalton stood in the doorway, grinning at her slyly, as if he knew a big secret and was ready to spill it. “I spent a little time in Greece,” she said uncertainly.
“You want to sit down?” he asked. “Sorry for all the papers.” He quickly picked a stack of papers up off a chair, leaning so close to Naomi that she couldn’t help but notice how good he smelled. Like Acqua di Parma, which was the only type of cologne she could stand on a guy.
“Can I get you anything?” Mr. Dalton sat down in his high-backed brown leather chair. It made a farting creak, which both of them pretended not to notice. “I have little fridge, some glasses, although I only have...well...actually, all I have, I think, is some Pinot Noir.” He frowned, then blinked hard. “Sorry. I mean, obviously we can’t have Pinot Noir. I don’t know what that’s even doing in here, because I wasn’t drinking it or anything.”
Methinks Mr. Dalton doth protest too much, Naomi thought wryly, watching him nervously pull his shirt collar away from his neck. “I’m fine,” she stated primly instead, perching on the edge of her chair.
Dalton switched on the flat-screen Mac sitting on top of his desk. “Okay. Naomi. So they’re making me put all the old DC cases into a database. They gave me the grunt-work jobs because I’m new.” He flashed his perfect teeth nervously, and she wondered silently if he just had amazing dental genes or if these were veneers. It was a tough call, one she wouldn’t mind investigating more closely. With, say, her lips.
He shuffled the papers. “So besides meeting all the DC appointees, I’m looking for someone to help me weed through all this DC stuff to get to the relevant information and then help enter it into the computer. But it has to be someone who was on DC last year, because the material is confidential to non-DC students. Were you on DC last year?”
Naomi licked her lips. “Well, no,” she answered, wanting to lie.
“Oh.” Mr. Dalton sounded disappointed. He let out a sigh. “That’s too bad.”
“We wouldn’t have to tell anybody, though, would we?” Naomi suggested slowly. “I mean, I want to help. It would...it would look good on my transcript.”
Sure. That’s why I want to do it, she thought.My transcript.
“I don’t know... ” Mr. Dalton shook his head. He stared at her quizzically. Naomi nervously brushed a hair off her cheek. “How old are you?” he finally said.
“Seventeen.”
“Huh.” He tilted his head and smiled with one side of his mouth.
“What?”
“Well. You don’t look seventeen. That’s all.”
Guys said this to Naomi all the time. They were always astounded she was still in high school. “How old are you?”
He straightened up a little. “Twenty-three. I just finished Brown.”
Naomi unconsciously chewed the red polish off her pinkie.
“I’m going to go to grad school, but since I went to Bridgeport, I thought I’d pay my dues and teach here for a couple years,” Mr. Dalton continued.
“I want to go to Brown,” Naomi blurted out.
“I could imagine you there.” He nodded.
She stared at her gorgeous twenty-three-year-old teacher and didn’t pull her eyes away for the second he stared back.
“All right.” He finally broke the silence. “I think maybe we could figure out a way for you to help me—I mean, if you really want to.”
I want to, Naomi wanted to say. I really, really want to. But she remained silent.
“Maybe we could meet up again tomorrow morning, before class? Oh, and the name Mr. Dalton sounds really weird. Maybe I’ll be used to it when I’m fifty and running the family business. But for now...” He lowered his eyes and then looked back up at her from beneath his thick curly lashes. “Call me Eric?”
“Sure,” Naomi agreed, smiling. She could think of a lot of things she’d like to call him.
Just then the papers that he’d removed from her chair started to slide off his desk toward Naomi’s lap. He lunged forward, grabbing for them. At the same time, Naomi leaned down to catch some papers that had landed on the floor. Their heads collided.
Ouch. “Fuck!” Naomi cried, seeing a brief flash of white. Then she clamped her mouth shut. Even though most Bridgeport kids had dirty mouths, you weren’t supposed to curse in front of the teachers. Bridgeport Owls must always have good manners, and bad language was a sign of indecency and bad breeding.
He rubbed his forehead, wincing. “You okay?”
Naomi swallowed hard. What if Mr. Dalton thought she was uncouth and trashy? But then she noticed his concerned expression and decided he didn’t care.
“I think I’ll live,” she replied finally.
“Well, that’s good,” he laughed. “Because I’d definitely like to keep you alive.”
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Date: Wednesday, September 4, 10:53 A.M.
Subject: Hot, hot, hot
Hey Sis,
I just met the perfect guy. He’s smart, gorgeous, shy, sweet and sexy. Trouble, though: he’s a teacher. As in, the kind that gives you homework assignments. The kind that sits up on the Bridgeport stage during assembly. The kind that grades papers and isn’t supposed to touch students...I’m sure you get the gist. What to do?
xoxoxo,
Little Sis
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Date: Thursday, September 4, 10:57 A.M.
Subject: Re: Better in person...
Corey,
Sure, you can come over tomorrow, but my room’s out. Crystal’s being a real prima donna. Surprise, surprise.
See ya soon.
Naomi
9
Crystal leaned up against the dusty wooden doors of the old stables, trying not to get dried horse manure on the heels of her brand new, round-toed black leather shoes. The weathered red barn sat next to a three-acre horse paddock, separated from the rest of the Bridgeport campus by a patch of densely settled pines. A whistle blew in the distance, and Crystal recognized the gruff voice of Coach Smail, the girls’ field hockey coach, yelling, “That won’t cut it on varsity, ladies!” The first full day at school consisted of grueling eight-hour tryouts for the fall teams, but Crystal was exempt since she was already a varsity field hockey captain.
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