The Complete Private Collection: Private; Invitation Only; Untouchable; Confessions; Inner Circle; Legacy; Ambition; Revelation; Last Christmas; Paradise ... The Book of Spells; Ominous; Vengeance (3 page)

I followed her out the door, wishing I felt half as excited and confident as she did. Unfortunately, I had already seen the girls on our floor. Seen them chatting on their cell phones, folding their two-hundred-dollar jeans, toting their Kerastase hair products into the bathroom, and I already knew that I was in over my head. And they all seemed as if they already knew one another. They approached one another easily and talked like old friends—as if they had all lived here together their entire lives, cultivating private jokes and creating a specific style that I would never be able to match, having come to the game so late. There wasn’t a single item in my closet that wouldn’t make me stick out like a Podunk loser—a Wal-Mart frequent shopper.

I didn’t know how to do this. I didn’t know how to chat and tell secrets and be friends. No classmate of mine had been inside my house since I was eight. I didn’t do birthday parties or slumber parties or anything else, and as a result no one at my old school knew anything about me. Which was just the way I wanted it. I had made that choice back when my mother had first begun her long and continuous downward spiral. To protect myself. To protect other people from her. And it had worked all this time. Not a soul outside my immediate family knew my secrets.

What I had never realized was that after seven years of antisocial behavior, I had rendered myself incompetent. Incapable of teenage normalcy. I was a sorry excuse for a girl. And no matter how much I wanted to, I was starting to wonder if there was anything I could do to change. If there was anything I could possibly do to make people
want
to get close to me. Especially these people. Less than five hours at Easton and I was already fairly certain my girlfriendless drought would continue.

The meeting was being held in the common room on our floor—fifth floor, Bradwell. The U-shaped hallway of our dorm terminated at each end with a door to the common room. Beyond this room were the elevators to the lobby, which meant that in order to get to your room you had to walk through the common room and take one of the two doors to your side of the building. When I had come through earlier, the well-worn couches and chairs had been placed all around the room, creating nooks for studying and one television-viewing area. Now all the seating had been arranged in a wide V, facing the TV. Dozens of girls crowded on and around the couches and chairs, chatting and laughing. The place was packed and the decibel level was staggering. A thick concoction of perfumes—and scented hair products and scented lotions—choked the air. Constance bounded right into the room and took a seat on the arm of one of the couches. The girl at the end, who now had a perfect view of Constance’s ass, rolled her eyes and pulled her arm in close to herself. I hovered by the door. There seemed to be more oxygen there.

A young woman stood near the TV making notes on her clipboard. When Constance had entered, she’d looked up and smiled. Her long, smooth hair was pulled back in a plaid headband and if I bumped into her on the street I never would have pegged her for any older than seventeen. She checked her gold watch and wrinkled her nose quickly.

“Okay! It’s about that time! Let’s get started,” she said. “Come in, come in.” She waved me into the room and everyone turned around to look. With no other options in sight, I walked around to the end of the V, dropped to the floor near Constance’s feet, and hoped that everyone would stop staring.

“Hello everyone, and welcome to Easton Academy. I am Ms. Ling, your house mother.” She paused and laughed. “That sounds so old. Do I look old enough to be your ‘mother’?” she added, throwing in a couple of air quotes, made awkward by the clipboard and pen in her hands.

A few people laughed halfheartedly. Even more rolled their eyes. Ms. Ling didn’t seem to notice. She crossed her legs at the ankle and hugged the clipboard to her chest.

“A little bit about me,” she said with a smile. “I graduated from Easton Academy six years ago. Lived in this very dorm my freshman and sophomore years. This was back before they built the freshmen their own dorm,” she added with a sly smile. She wanted us to feel like she was one of us. Or maybe
she
just wanted to feel like she was still one of us. “After I graduated, I went to Yale undergrad and Harvard grad where I received my master’s degree in East Asian
studies last spring. After that, I am proud to say that Easton invited me back to be the first ever teacher of Chinese language and culture. So if any of you are interested, it’s a beautiful language and there’s still time to transfer into the intro class.”

Silence.

Ms. Ling blinked. It seemed like she had expected a few enthusiastic volunteers and our nonexistent reaction threw her. She stood up straight and cleared her throat, checking her clipboard.

“Okay, onto the rules. I know some of you have heard these before, but bear with me,” Ms. Ling said. “I have to go over everything. Them’s the rules.”

She flushed when, once again, no one laughed. Didn’t she realize that trying too hard was about the worst thing she could do if she wanted us to think she was cool? I mean, according to her autobiography she had
been
one of us only six years ago. Did people really forget that quickly?

“First, let’s talk about curfew,” she said, earning a few groans which actually seemed to perk her up. We were alive!

What followed was a long litany of the rules and regs, all of which were listed in the Easton Handbook we all had back in our rooms. Of course, I had thought that some of them were just for show—to make the parents feel like they were sending us to a nice, strict, no-nonsense school—but it turned out that they were all real and that the school took them very seriously. We really did have to sign in with Ms. Ling in her room on the first floor every night before ten. After that, we weren’t allowed to leave our floors without express
permission from Ms. Ling herself. There were quiet hours every night from six until nine and we were not allowed inside Bradwell between classes. Guys were only allowed inside the dorm between the hours of six and nine each night, and then they were only permitted in the common rooms (this announcement was met with a few snickers, the most obvious of which came from a sort of pig-faced girl with blond hair and big boobs who sat in the center of the V). Once she was done reading us the three-page-long list, Ms. Ling looked up and grinned.

“So that’s it! If you have any questions, please feel free to come see me in my room. I have a really good feeling about this group. It’s going to be a great year! I look forward to getting to know each and every one of you!”

She had to yell that last part because everyone was already on their feet and heading for the doors.

That night, since there was nothing to study for yet, quiet hours were suspended so that each floor could have a little get-to-know-you party. I was never good at parties, so I was kind of dreading it, even though I knew I should just go. If I wanted a new start, I was going to have to go against instinct, which meant being social. The very idea gave me cramps, though, so I avoided thinking about it and flipped through my Easton Handbook on my bed while Constance got ready. And talked.

“So when we
finally
got to the bottom of the mountain, I was totally dehydrated and had this streak of mud all the way up my side and this guide was waiting for us there and he was like, ‘Did you not see the trail?’ and we were like, ‘
What
trail?’”

I smirked because I could feel her looking at me and it sounded like the point in the story where she would expect some kind of reaction.

“Anyway, are you ready?”

The moment of truth. I put the book down. “Maybe I’ll come
down later.” I honestly didn’t know until that moment that I wasn’t going to go. But I didn’t take it back.

“Want to make an entrance, huh?” she joked.

Not remotely.

“Something like that,” I said.

“Okay,” she said with a shrug. “But don’t blame me if all the good pizza’s gone!”

I’ll live.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said.

As soon as the door was closed I felt really bad for bailing. What was wrong with me? There was no way I was ever going to make friends if I sat alone in my room. I knew this. But still, somehow, I couldn’t make myself move.

I sighed and leaned back against the denim pillow my brother had bought me at Target, settling into my self-imposed exile. So this was my new home. This square, cream-colored box with its creaky wooden floor, standard issue twin beds, matching desks, and five-drawer dressers, one of which I couldn’t even fill. Within five seconds of seeing my half-empty side of the huge closet, Constance had asked, “Do you mind?” and then promptly jammed up the empty space with three extra wool coats and a puffy black parka. It all contributed to my feeling that I didn’t fit or, more accurately, that there wasn’t enough of me to fill a place like this.

I heard laughter outside the window and stood up. The large bay window with a sill big enough to sit on was, hands down, the best feature of our room. Earlier, Constance had gone out to meet some
of our floor-mates and had come back beaming, happy to report that only two rooms had a window like this and we were beyond lucky to get one. I sat down on the sill and stared out the last window pane. Another peal of laughter rang somewhere out in the darkness and my heart ached. What the hell was I doing here? How could I possibly have thought this would be a good idea?

Leaning my temple against the glass, I willed myself not to cry. This was unbelievable. Was I really homesick? For what? For my pins-and-needles home life? For the cinderblock halls of my old high school? For the
strip malls
? My mind flashed on my father and on Adam, who had never been anything but sweet to me. I saw my dog, Hershey, wagging his tail when my dad got home, expecting to see me as well. I saw the ugly flowered wallpaper my parents had hung in my bedroom before they knew I was a tomboy, wallpaper I had always hated but which now felt like the perfect emblem of home. I thought of the lacrosse team and our vow to actually get to the state championships this year. Why did all of this suddenly seem so huge? The day before I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

A tear squeezed out and it was like a wake-up call. No. This was not acceptable. I was not a weakling. I had made my choice. I was not going to call my father and beg him to come back for me. There was nothing in Croton for me. Nothing worth sticking around for, anyway. I knew this. I just had to focus on it. I stared into the darkness, at the lights in the windows of the other dorms, and told myself that I belonged here. I forced myself to try to believe it.

I will be happy here. I will make friends. This is the beginning of a whole new life.

And that was when I saw her. A girl, sitting in a window just like mine, directly across the way. She was wispy and thin with delicate features, smooth pale skin, and light blond hair that fell in loose waves around her tiny shoulders. She looked almost ethereal, like she could float away at any moment with the help of a light breeze. She wore a white tank top and short pajama shorts and seemed riveted on the pages of the book she held in the crook between her bent legs and her flat stomach. I was so riveted by
her
that I didn’t notice anything moving in her room until another girl swooped in out of nowhere and snatched the book out of her hands. I sat up straight, startled, thinking for a split second that the girl had been threatened. But then I saw the taller, darker girl twirl the reader into the room and onto the bed. There she joined two others who sat, laughing, their bare legs splayed out as they ate from a box of chocolates.

I turned fully toward the window now, crossing my legs Indian style in front of me and balancing precariously on the windowsill. Then the lights across the way were doused and my breath caught. Moments later, a flicker of light. Then another. Then another. Gradually the room started to glow and the figure of the dark-haired girl loomed through the dancing shadows as she lit candle after candle. Soon the four girls were bathed in the warm light. One of them rose and handed out glasses. Large, round glasses with delicate stems. Each was already filled with deep red liquid.

Wine. They were drinking wine right there in their dorm. Laughing and chatting and sipping in the candlelight.

In my entire life, I had never seen anything like these girls. They seemed so much older, and not just older than me—which they obviously were—but too old to be in high school. Every move they made was graceful and sure. The held their glasses with carefree assuredness as if they drank from such delicate crystal each and every day.

This girl, the laugher, had piled her brown hair on top of her head in a messy bun, held there by a pair of chopsticks. She was stunningly beautiful, with dark, tan skin and a lithe, athletic figure. She flashed a knowing smile, which she prefaced by a narrow, sliding glance at her friends. She wore a red silk robe over a tank top and boxers and seemed to live to tease. The second girl was petite, with messy, dark blond curls and cheeks like a porcelain doll. She was playful with the others and seemed younger than them, shoving and rolling her eyes and clapping when she laughed. But it was the reader and the dark-haired girl I couldn’t tear my eyes from.

The dark-haired girl wore nothing but black underwear and a large silk nightshirt, undoubtedly made for a man, with only the two center buttons done. She shook her thick hair back, took a sip of her wine, and held the novel up to read from it to her friends, gesturing dramatically with her glass, but never spilling so much as a drop. All three of them gathered together, rapt with attention at the girl’s performance, and I thought,
This girl is the leader
. As she continued to read, she placed her glass down and lifted the
ethereal girl’s arm. The girl stood on cue, a slight, far-off smile playing about her lips. The dark-haired girl thrust their hands above her head and the bottom of her shirt fell open, exposing a long, red scar along her stomach, just above her hipbone. I was so startled by this garish imperfection on such a flawless being that I almost looked away. But then she stepped breast-to-breast with her friend and the scar was covered and I realized they were dancing. They moved as one, twirling through the shadows and the flickering candlelight. The little cherub reached for her sound dock and acoustic guitar music echoed through the quad, sending a shiver down my spine.