Paula Morris (5 page)

"I haven't seen the dried bat yet," Rebecca told her,
thinking how disgusting that sounded.

"Marilyn ate it," said Aurelia breezily.

"My mother says Relia's mother is descended from a voodoo
queen," Claire confided. "Which is why she looks all crazy. And why
she 'Sees Things.'"

"Sees what kind of things?" Rebecca was curious. They
passed the long line of luxury cars idling outside the school gates and
strolled along Prytania.

"Oh, you know," said Aurelia, taking long steps to avoid
cracks on the sidewalk. "Like the future and the past. Though sometimes
she's not sure what she's seeing."

"My sister says she just makes it all up to get money out of tourists."
Claire lowered her voice. "But my sister doesn't know anything. She's just
a Pleb."

"A what?"

"A Pleb. Short for PLEB-ee-an. We learned about them in
Latin."

"I think you pronounce it plib-EE-un."

"Whatever!" Aurelia was almost doing the splits, which
was probably against school rules, Rebecca thought. "We say Pleb because
it rhymes with Deb, and everyone is pretty much either a Pleb or a Deb."

"What are you talking about?" Rebecca was confused.

"Well," said Claire, dumping her schoolbag on the ground.
"In Roman society, there were various classes, right? At the top were the
patricians, who ran everything and got to be emperor. At Temple Mead, that's
Them."

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"Oh." Rebecca nodded. "I heard about 'Them' today.
Helena Bowman, right? And Marianne ... is it Sutton? Those are the names I
remember."

"Not bad," Aurelia said approvingly. "Who told you
about Them?"

"I had lunch with two girls from my homeroom. Amy and
Jessica."

"Jessica Frobisher? She's my cousin!" Claire rolled her
eyes. "She's a Pleb."

"Totally," agreed Aurelia.

"OK, so it's the Patricians and then the Plebs ..."

"No. Between them there are two other classes. First, the
senatorial class, who were all really ambitious and got to wear special
togas."

"With purple stripes," added Aurelia, and Claire nodded.
They were so in earnest that Rebecca couldn't help laughing.

"They're the Debs, see? They want to be Patricians, but they
can't make it in. So instead they laud it over everyone else. They're on all
the committees and boring stuff like that. And they're all obsessed with balls
and parties. The thing they want most is to be queen of a carnival krewe the
year they're debutantes."

"So that's why they're Debs and not ... Sens?" Rebecca
ventured.

"Exactly." Aurelia nodded. "And then there's the equestrian
class. They're the girls who represent the school in sports."

"Tennis, volleyball, soccer," said Claire, sniffing.
"Though they're not very good at any of them. We always get our butts
kicked by Country Day and St. Louisa's."

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"But the school loves them and gives them prizes and things
all the time."

"And they wear those ugly bandages on their knees and
elbows."

"So you call them ... ?" The complexities of all this
were overwhelming.

"The Cavalry," Aurelia and Claire said together.

"And then there are the Plebs, right?" Rebecca was
starting to make some sense of their "class" system.

"They were the workers of Rome," Claire explained,
scratching her messy blonde hair ferociously until a stray bobby pin tumbled
onto the ground.

"The mob," sang Aurelia.

"The emperor made sure they stayed happy by arranging chariot
races and gladiator fights. In return, the Plebs did their work and stayed in
the background and didn't rebel or anything."

"And that's what Amy and Jessica are -- Plebs?" Rebecca
tried to suppress her smile.

"Practically everyone is," sighed Claire. "Except
us, of course."

"What are you two?"

"Goddesses!" grinned Aurelia.

"Can I be a goddess as well?" Rebecca asked. She'd
played some basketball at school, but doubted that she could make it into the
Cavalry: She wasn't sure that Temple Mead even had a basketball team. The Debs
wouldn't have her, and being a Pleb didn't sound very appealing.

"Hmmm." Claire screwed up her face. "You're from

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somewhere else, so maybe you could be a goddess in another
religion. Or -- I know! You could be Cleopatra."

"I don't know about that," Rebecca laughed. "She
ended up dying tragically, remember?"

"But she was glamorous and fascinating," said Claire,
picking up her bag. "And Marc Antony gave up
everything
to be with
her."

"Didn't do him much good," Rebecca said wryly, and both
Claire and Aurelia looked sad, as though Marc Antony was a personal friend of
theirs. "Humiliated in battle and then forced to kill himself."

"So romantic, right? Oh, no -- I'm going to be late for
ballet!" Claire sped away down Third Street, and with that Rebecca's Latin
lesson came to an end.

But during lunchtimes the rest of that first week, when Rebecca
either sat alone or managed to find a seat with Jessica and Amy -- who made
little effort to include her in any conversations -- she realized that Claire
and Aurelia might be onto something. A few members of the Cavalry stomped
around the lunchroom, wearing their elastic bandages; a tableful of Debs
conducted an overloud conversation on Who Was Wearing What to the first
debutante ball of the season. The vast majority seemed to be Plebs -- girls
like Jessica and Amy who weren't going to win too many academic prizes,
sporting accolades, or popularity contests, but were happy to cheer everyone
else on. These were the girls who filled the ranks of what was known as the
school's dance troupe, though

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Rebecca quickly learned that "dancer" here meant a
majorette without a baton who marched in a dozen parades during carnival season,
accompanied -- of course -- by the St. Simeon's school band. And instead of
gladiator fights and chariot races, the Plebs looked forward to the Spring
Dance.

That Friday, Rebecca left the lunchroom early: She wanted to find
the library and maybe take out a book or two on the Roman Empire. She thought
she knew the way but, after several wrong turns, she was completely
disoriented. Maybe her good sense of direction only applied in the streets of
New York, where everything was on a grid: The long, dark hallways of Temple
Mead made no sense to her. And then the bell was ringing, and the corridors and
stairs filled with girls hurrying to class. The library trip had to be
abandoned.

Climbing the stairs to the third floor, Rebecca heard someone
calling her name. She turned her head to look, but couldn't see anyone in the
sea of plaid uniforms that she recognized. Then she felt a hand on her elbow,
drawing her away to the side. The girl pulling Rebecca over was a willowy
blonde with wide, penetrating blue eyes: Marianne Sutton. And behind her,
leaning against the banister and looking bored, as though she were waiting for
a bus, was Helena Bowman.

"It
is
Rebecca, isn't it?" Marianne asked her in
an imperious tone, and Rebecca nodded. "You're new here, aren't you?"

Rebecca nodded again. She couldn't quite bring herself to speak --
not because she was intimidated by Marianne and Helena, but because she didn't
want to act like she was yet another of their humble servants.

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"And your last name is Brown?" Marianne asked, frowning.

"Yes." Rebecca figured she should speak rather than keep
nodding, though she couldn't believe the rudeness of this girl. Marianne hadn't
bothered to introduce herself-- she'd just assumed that Rebecca would know who
she was. She probably thought Rebecca would be honored by the attention.

"Do you have a middle name?" This wasn't the first time
Rebecca had been asked this question. Some of her classmates had very strange
first and middle names: There was a girl in biology whose first name was
Buchanan, and Amy's middle name was Claiborne. Both Buchanan and Claiborne were
family names -- a mother or grandmother's maiden name. Amy explained that it
let everyone else know where you came from, who your "people" were.
It seemed really important to these girls that they were part of the history of
the city and that everybody knew it.

"So?" Marianne sounded impatient. "What is
it?"

Rebecca was tempted to say "Cleopatra," but she knew
they'd never believe her. Helena, who had been staring off into the distance up
until now, turned her cool gaze onto Rebecca. This look, combined with the tone
of Marianne's voice, made Rebecca's blood boil. They weren't even pretending to
be friendly: They were just being blatantly rude and nosy. Whoever Rebecca's
"people" were, she knew they wouldn't be good enough for these girls.

"Actually, I have two," she said, trying to sound as
frosty as Marianne. This was a lie: Rebecca didn't have a middle name at all.
"Maria Annunciata."

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"You're kidding." Marianne looked confused. Helena's pretty
face hardened into a sneer.

"I'm named after my grandmother. My mother's from El
Salvador," Rebecca continued, deciding to make her lie even more brazen.
"She used to be a maid. That's how she met my father -- he was a doorman
at the same hotel."

Marianne said nothing, but dropped the hand on Rebecca's elbow.
Rebecca knew this would happen: Both Marianne and Helena were huge snobs, just
as she suspected. How dare they look down at her!

Rebecca hurried up the stairs away from them, her face hot with
anger. But she couldn't help laughing when she thought about Marianne's amazed
expression. At least, she thought, neither of them would ever bother her again.
And she wouldn't have to worry about the pyromaniac Toby Sutton asking her to
the Spring Dance, either.

The sooner the word got out at Temple Mead about her humble -- if
invented -- Hispanic origins, the better. Rebecca didn't care what any of them
thought of her. And she planned to spend as little time as possible thinking
about
Them.

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***

CHAPTER FIVE

***

WHEN REBECCA AND AURELIA ARRIVED HOME from school that day, Aunt
Claudia was still out, reading tarot cards down in the French Quarter. Rebecca
was glad: She wasn't in the mood to answer any "how was your first week at
school?" questions. Amy and Jessica sat with her at lunchtime because
they'd been told to, but they were never going to be real friends. Nobody else
talked to her much. And in all her classes, Rebecca felt out of step: The
curriculum in Louisiana was completely different from the one she'd been
following in New York. In every subject she was either way ahead and bored --
or way behind and confused.

It wasn't hot -- more like a mild day in spring rather than a late
fall afternoon, something else to confuse and frustrate her -- but Rebecca's
school uniform felt as though it was stifling and scratching her half to death.
Hanging up her blazer, she accidentally jostled one of the voodoo decorations
on her bedroom wall, almost knocking the stick doll to the floor. These stupid
things were just one more irritation. "Right," she said aloud.
"That's it."

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Aurelia's curly head poked around the bedroom door.

"Were you talking to me?" she asked, wide-eyed.

"I want to clear these things out of here," Rebecca told
her, pointing at the gaping mask and a rough-edged hanging box added by Aunt
Claudia just this week. "I'm sick of bumping into them, and they creep me
out, anyway."

"We could put them up in the attic," suggested Aurelia.
At least
she
was always friendly. "If you can help me get the
ladder out."

Rebecca was surprised to hear a house this small had an attic, but
once they'd climbed the stepladder, moved aside a panel in the hallway ceiling,
and hauled themselves up into the triangle below the roof, she realized that
"attic" was a slight exaggeration. This was an unfinished crawl
space: Aurelia was small enough to walk around hunch-shouldered, teetering on
the narrow beams, but Rebecca had to stay on her hands and knees, careful to
stick to the grid of rafters so she didn't plummet through the insulation tiles
into the room below.

The small space was already crowded with boxes and suitcases and a
dusty trunk. With some difficulty, Aurelia held up an axe with a wooden handle
to show Rebecca: This, she said, was there in case the Mississippi ever burst
its banks and they had to escape into the attic and hack their way onto the
roof to be rescued. As far as Rebecca knew, this was their one concession to a
"hurricane preparedness" kit.

Rebecca pushed the cardboard box packed with the relics into one
corner, getting more grumpy by the second. It was so stuffy up here, and her
knees ached, crawling over the

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wooden rafters. Her fingertips brushed the spiky legs of a dead
cockroach: It was all she could do not to cry out.