It’s new, this anger, this questioning her choices. I keep feeling around the edges of it like it’s a loose tooth.
Honor is picking at her salad, bored, ready to move on to more interesting topics and more interesting people, when Nick walks up with his empty dinner tray. He’s changed out of his crew clothes. His hair is wet, washed, still flopping across his eyes. Honor looks up and smiles like she hasn’t been watching the door for the past few minutes. I’m done eating. I sit on my hands, trying to cover up the horsiest bits of exposed skin. There’s not much I can do about my hair.
“H. You ready? We need to be in Baldwin in five.”
“Yeah, yeah. Let’s do it.” Honor scrapes her chair back and picks up her half-eaten dinner. “See you guys back at the ranch.” She nods to Eloise and India.
Nick smiles at the rest of us. “Girls. Birdie. Later.”
“Bye, Nick.” Eloise, India and Lauren wave.
I sit frozen. My face feels hot, sunburned, like it did the time I fell asleep on the beach in sixth grade. I see Honor take it in, half amused, half annoyed. I can still feel it after they’re gone.
India looks at me. “Uh-oh. Another one bites the dust, huh?”
“Why, are they—?” I’m clearly the only one who has no idea what’s going on. I need to find out if they’re together as much as I need everyone not to know about my crush. “Are they in a study group together?”
“They’re on the committee to pick music for the winter dance,” Eloise says. “Or are you asking if they’re together?”
“Um, both?”
“They went out last year. Now they’re just really close friends.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he’s not over Honor.” India laughs.
“They’re friends,” insists Eloise. She must have the dirt on some more current conquest of Honor’s. “Really.”
What bugs me is that Honor doesn’t even like music. I mean, she listens to the same, lame boarding-school classic rock that everyone else does—the same stuff my mom probably listened to when she was at Hardwick—and she’s also up on current stuff that’s considered cool, but she doesn’t like it. She doesn’t even think about it.
“Who are they getting? For the dance?”
“Don’t know yet,” says Eloise. “Tonight’s the first meeting. Last year it was Brandon Collins.”
Yikes. Brandon Collins is a “soulful” John Mayer-alike. “Really? For a dance?” I can’t picture it.
“It was awesome,” says India.
Eloise practically spits out her water. “India, how much of it do you even remember?”
They both laugh. I guess you had to be there.
I keep thinking, Girls. Birdie. Girls. Birdie. Meaning I’m not part of their group. Or meaning I’m special. I don’t know.
Later at the library, it’s too hard to concentrate. Girls. Birdie. Girls. Birdie. The words bounce back and forth across my brain like a tennis match. I push my books aside and start to wander, looking at the class photos that line the walls of the entry hall, going back to the 1890s.
I quickly home in on my mom’s class photo from the year she graduated.
She looks pretty, freckled and relaxed, with that long, sleek, layered hair you see on actresses from that era. Julia Roberts and Uma Thurman and Claire Danes.
I start reading the long list of names along the bottom, looking to see if there’s a Wren (there never is), or just to find out what kind of names the kids in my mom’s day had. I try to guess which ones might have been Hannah’s friends. Studious, bespectacled Esme? Sharp-eyed Caroline? Dreamy, distracted-looking Victoria? Paige, with her neat, no-nonsense bob? If they were her friends, she doesn’t talk to or keep in touch with any of them now.
Then I notice something funny. Hannah’s name is followed a little farther down the list by the name Edward Gibson. He’s handsome, but that’s not why I’m drawn to his image. Honor’s father? I can see the resemblance, or I think I can. He definitely shares her confidence. He seems anchored, relaxed, like he belongs where he is, and the rest of the picture has formed around him. And it’s pretty common for alumni to send their own children to Hardwick. Still, that would be the craziest coincidence if our parents were in the same class, and now we are roommates.
Instead of going back to the study carrel and my art history book—we’re studying Mannerism, meaning ladies with olive skin and long, curvy necks staring out at you sideways—I sit down at the closest computer terminal and look up Edward Lawrence Gibson of New York, New York, Stone Cove Island, Massachusetts, and Amagansett, New York. Graduate of Hardwick Hall. Graduate of Princeton University. Married in 2000 to Annabelle Gibson née Bromley. Heir to the family business, the L.W. Gibson department store in New York.
Two children, Honor and Edward, Jr. Ned. I was right.
Divorced 2007. Lots of society party pictures, first with his wife (blonde, thin, knows how to pose for a photo), then without her. Some more recent party pictures with Honor alone, and with Honor and Ned.
I’m suddenly irritated that I’m spending time on this. Do I think somehow that because Hannah was classmates with Honor’s father, Honor will like me now? Why can’t I just not care that she doesn’t? I stand up with resolve—not that anyone is watching—and force myself back to the study carrel.
Rosso Fiorentino, Alessandro Allori, Agnolo Bronzino, Benvenuto Cellini. I try to memorize the names in the book, turning them into a song in my head Allori, Bronzino, Cellini . . . the Mannerist ABCs . . .
The next night, I skip the library and go back to the barn after dinner instead. A bunch of girls are getting ready for a show the next day, and the horses need to be braided and have their legs wrapped in big padded shipping bandages before getting loaded onto the trailer in the morning.
There are about ten of us. I don’t know how to braid—it’s apparently a finicky, particular skill, requiring patience and precision—but I have offered to help clean tack and polish boots. It seemed like a good way to get out in the night air, away from studying and away from my room.
The moon is so full it lights the dirt aisle that runs down the center of the barn. The show horses are tied on each side of their halters to hooks outside the stalls; girls in rolled-up jeans stand on overturned buckets, their mouths and fingers deftly juggling bits of yarn, rug hooks and seam rippers. Eloise is among them. There’s a crappy radio tuned to a classic rock station. The mood is festive. Mr. Kelley said good night an hour ago after making sure we all were assigned tasks.
In the tack room, Honor, India and I clean bridles. Actually, India and I clean, while Honor taps away at her cell phone and shows pictures to India. They giggle and gossip, and I listen, scrubbing the leather and squeezing out my sponge in the soapy water, wishing once again I wasn’t one of the only students without a cell phone. My mom decided to be a big rule-follower on this, unlike just about every other Hardwick parent, apparently.
“Hey, hey there.” I hear a husky voice, coming from outside the barn. A boy’s voice. The rowers from the first boat are on their way back from double practice and have made a detour. We wander out to meet them, drawn like moths. I spot Nick first. Then his friends. Bennett Hale. Van Rowen Alder. They start chatting up the girls who are braiding; they joke around, threatening to splash us with dirty, soapy water. Nick grabs a polo wrap and starts tying Honor’s arms to her body. I watch it all from my perch on a tack trunk.
“Who wants a ride?” Honor asks, untangling herself. She unclips Rainmaker, snaps a lead rope to his halter and swings her leg over his back right there in the barn.
“Honor,” asks Eloise, “what are you doing?”
“It’s fine,” says India. “The floor’s not hard. It won’t hurt him.”
“What about you, though?” says Missy Holt, a First Year. She’s uptight, prissy, so this comes off less as concern and more
as a scold. I learned from India that Hardwick recruited her as a champion pony hunter rider.
To answer, Honor wheels Rainmaker around and sets off down the dirt aisle bareback, at a trot. At the far end, they turn and canter back, stopping short in a cloud of dust.
“Dude,” says India. “We just gave them baths, you know.”
“Sorry.” Honor grins, not looking sorry. “Who wants to ride with me?”
India snaps a lead onto a large pony named Sparkle Plenty and hops on. “Whoa, he’s sooo bumpy. I’m totally going to fall off.”
“Your feet are practically touching the ground,” says Honor. “El?”
Eloise shakes her head. “Two more to braid after this one. I’m going to be up all night.”
“I will,” says Nick.
“Yeah, right.” Honor laughs.
“Hey, my uncle has a ranch out west. I’ve ridden.”
“Take Jasper,” says Honor, pointing to a skinny chestnut horse known to be cranky but reliable. He tries to nip Nick’s leg as Nick grabs an overturned bucket to scramble on top of him.
Honor and Nick ride up and down the aisle, laughing at each other, pretending to race, Nick clinging to Jasper’s mane. He pulls up near the tack room. “How about you, Birdie? Care for a ride?”
“I can’t,” I say, shaking my head. “I’m a total beginner.” I know enough to tell that what they are doing is dangerous. And against the rules. It feels mischievous. I start to smile.
“Hop on,” he says. “I’ll take care of you. Jasper won’t mind, will you, buddy?”
“I’ll give you a leg up,” says India. She’s already returned Sparkle Plenty to his stall. Before I can answer, she’s grabbed my knee and boosted me up so I’m sitting behind Nick on Jasper’s smooth, warm back.
As I settle myself, I catch a flash of annoyance—or did I imagine it?—from Honor. She turns her attention back to Rainmaker. There is nowhere to hold on except around Nick’s waist. I sit close to him and circle my arms around his stomach. It’s hard to breathe. I’m trembling a little—so many things about this situation to feel nervous about—and I hope he can’t tell.
“Ready?” he says. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.” He nudges Jasper, and we walk slowly up and down the aisle. I hang on. It’s easier than I expected.
“Okay?” he asks.
I nod.
“Good. We’re going for a trail ride. Be right back.” Before I can stop him, he’s steering Jasper through the big barn doors and outside into the warm night. It’s beautiful. We circle the barn once in the dark. I watch the giant moon instead of the ground. It’s utterly quiet except for the shuffle of Jasper’s hooves through the grass.
When we reach the front of the barn again, Nick stops. “Nice. Thanks.”
Is that it? I think as he signals for me to slide down. He hops off after me and hands me Jasper’s lead rope. Then he walks back into the barn.
“Showing off your cowboy skills?” Honor calls. There’s general laughter. I stand there in the dark, holding the horse. I’m not trembling anymore, but I have no idea what to do.
“Here,” says India, coming out to meet me. “Want to put him back? He goes next to Sparkle. And then we should go.” Only the braiders are allowed to stay past ten tonight. “Don’t let him barge in past you. Walk in first and show him who’s in charge. Make him wait.”
I can’t help but feel like Nick just did the same thing to me.
I follow India into the stall and learn how to take off Jasper’s halter, where to hang it, how to check his hay and water.
“Bye, guys,” calls India later, locking the tack room door. “Eloise, don’t wake us up when you get back.”
“As if,” says Eloise. India not only snores, she is a ridiculously sound sleeper.
“Should we wait for Honor?” I ask.
“She went up already,” says Eloise.
When I look around for Nick, he’s gone too. “That ride was so crazy,” I tell India, smiling to mask all the uncertainty bubbling inside me.
“Right?” she says, looking delighted. “Don’t you just love it here?” She doesn’t bother to wait for my answer.
Chapter Four
I Make a Friend
Friday nights at boarding school are a total washout. On a weeknight after dinner, kids are either studying or doing a club activity like campus radio or the theater group or chess; the list feels endless.
There are a cappella groups—Madrigals for boys and Chickadees for girls. Usually they perform under the echoey arches of the old buildings, which make everything sound prettier. The members appear to take it super seriously. I can’t imagine anyone in Ventura being able to watch them with a straight face, much less wanting to join. But I always stop and listen.
Why does the boys’ group get the respectable name and the girls’ group the goofy name? That I can’t tell you, except to say it figures.
Like every other night, the ultra-studious pore over schoolwork. Everyone else watches a movie in Baldwin Hall or TV in one of the dorm common rooms or just hangs out. A favorite activity: experimenting with the microwaves in the common room kitchens to see who can create the most gooey, extreme, gross-out dessert. None of it feels like my scene. The movie is usually some sucky Sandra Bullock romance, and the Selby kitchen just makes me homesick for good California food, like the tacos they make in the back of this liquor store on Ocean Avenue: warm and fresh, in tortillas some little old lady baked that morning, with spicy tomatillo sauce and crisp slivers of radish. Completely the opposite of goopy, hydrogenated, choco-corn-syrup crap whipped up by a bunch of giggly girls with flannel nightgowns and greasy hair.
By my fourth lame Friday, I decide there’s no point in hanging around. I retreat with my new guitar, Hummingbird, to an empty common room on the first floor and puzzle out some songs. We’re allowed to hang out in other dorms at night, as long as they are girls’ dorms. The penalty for getting caught in a boys’ dorm common room at night is not nearly as severe as getting caught in a boy’s room with the door closed after visitation, which usually results in an immediate and permanent trip home. Not that I have to worry about that.
The armchairs and sofas—worn tweed and plaid with saggy centers—are terrible for guitar playing. I perch on the end of one sofa, close enough to the wall that I can brace my toes against it and balance the guitar. I stare out the window absently. I’m about to strum when a pale, panicked face pops up against the black nothing. I almost jump out of my skin.
It’s a boy about my age or a little older. I don’t recognize him from my year. He has dark hair and an impish face. All at once he starts banging on the window—loudly. It’s enough to disturb anyone in Selby who’s trying to sleep or study, not to mention our housemother. I open it just to keep both of us from getting in trouble.
“Thanks,” he says. He has the subtlest hint of a Southern accent. He scrambles in and somersaults awkwardly onto the sofa beside me.
“Hi,” I say, for lack of anything more inspired.
“I skipped Madrigals. I’m supposed to be in bed sick. Just saw Rivington coming across the quad and had to go into major avoid mode. I hope I didn’t scare you. It’s a little Halloween or something, appearing in the window like that.”
Rivington is the housemaster of Meade House, which I just happen to know is Nick’s dorm. “But you’re not sick.”
“I’m sick of warbling show tunes with a bunch of pansy-asses.” This seems funny coming from a boy who—now that I get a better look at him—is slender, only slightly taller than me and has a ruby-colored mouth that could only be described as pretty. I bet he was mistaken for a girl all the time until he got zits and his voice changed.
“I’m not interrupting, am I? Chazzy, by the way.” He shakes my hand, formal but relaxed.
Who does he remind me of? Peter Pan, maybe? Little Jackie Paper, w
ho loved that rascal Puff? “Wren. You’re not. Interrupting, I mean. I’ll try not to warble.”
“And I’ll try not to make any bird jokes, Wren.”
“Much appreciated.”
“So go on,” he says.
I’m not used to an audience. I hesitate.
“Go on.” He sits up straighter. “I’ll even sing with you if you promise no Frozen or Phantom of the Opera.”
“What about Baird?” I whisper. Mrs. Baird is our housemother, unpredictably attentive, but not to be crossed in the wrong mood.
“I’ll sing falsetto,” he says. “She’ll never notice. Or maybe she’ll join us?”
“Yeah,” I say, laughing at the mental picture. “She’s awesome. You’ve seen her at vespers. She really rocks.”
“No doubt. So, what have you got?”
I start in on “Red Vines,” an Aimee Mann song that’s one of her bigger hits. It’s weirdly intimate to sing in front of a total stranger, but for some reason I surprise myself and don’t care. Maybe because it all feels a bit surreal: a pixieish elf somersaults into your life and demands music.
He nods in time as I strum. “Cool,” he says. “I only know the chorus of that one, but it’ll work.”
I sing a little of the first verse quietly, because I’m still not convinced we’re safe from Baird. Chazzy joins in on the parts he knows and fakes the others. He harmonizes in an effortless way that makes it clear he either has perfect pitch or years of training or both. No wonder he’s in the Madrigals. It’s fun. I usually don’t have anyone to play with.
Midway through, he stops.
“I know. Oh, I know what we need to do. This is brilliant. Follow me.” Before I can answer, he’s up and climbing back out the window. “Pass me the guitar.”
“What?” There’s no way I am sending Hummingbird out into the darkness with this strange boy.
“I’ll be careful. Trust me. This’ll make your Friday night.”
“That wouldn’t be hard,” I tell him.
He laughs. “And I promise we won’t get caught.”
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