Thorn Abbey (2 page)

“Hi,” I say, forcing a smile.

I can feel three pairs of eyes giving me the once-over. They all seem to linger on my blue flip-flops and unpolished toenails. “Hey,” a pretty strawberry blonde with a Southern accent—Priscilla?—says. “Welcome to Kerrith! This is
the
most awesome dorm on campus. Well, except for the bat problem. But we won’t talk about that.”

The what?

This is followed by a chorus of “where are you from?” and “what do you like to do?” type questions. I tell them I’m from upstate New York, I was second clarinet in my high school honors band, and I love Russian novels and screwball comedies. I stop there because they already look a little bored. I decide not
to bring up my interest in astronomy or the fact that I can recite the periodic table of elements.

Priscilla volunteers that she is from Dallas and wants to go to law school someday. Elinor says that she is from Fair-something, Connecticut, and rides horses. Yoonie adds that she is from Los Angeles and plays the violin. They all seem polite but distant. Of course, I’ve never been very good at making small talk.

The four of them proceed to discuss their fall schedules: Who’s taking French, who’s got Bags for English, why is there a new photography teacher? Elinor says that Miss Lawrence—the photography teacher?—had to leave because the headmaster found out about her affair with Mr. Z.

“Mr. Z? Uh-uh, no way,” Priscilla says. “He’s like old and married . . . and
Asian
.” She elbows Yoonie, and the four girls crack up.

“Hey, Asians are tigers in the bedroom,” Yoonie says.

“Yeah, I know. Your dad and I hooked up during Parents’ Weekend last year,” Devon says with a grin.

“Bitch!”

“
Asian
bitch!” Devon snaps back.

They all crack up again.

I have no idea what they’re talking about, so I stand there nodding, smiling stupidly, wishing I could make a smooth,
graceful exit. But to where? My stomach grumbles. I haven’t eaten since breakfast, which was an Egg McMuffin on the Greyhound.

I point to the refreshment table. “Excuse me. I’m just going to . . . um. I’ll be right back.”

“Ew, that stuff’s disgusting, I’d stay away,” Elinor says, scrunching up her small, elfin face. “I have Hydroxycut in my purse, do you want one?”

Hydroxycut?
“No, I’m good. I’ll just . . .” I wave and turn and bump into a chair. The room seems crazy crowded all of a sudden, an obstacle course of furniture and people. I blush and head toward the refreshment table.

“Well,
she’s
different,” I hear Elinor say behind me.

“Yeah, she’s totally not like—” Priscilla’s voice drops to a whisper.

I’m totally not like who?

I
T’S MY FIRST NIGHT AWAY FROM HOME—AS IN REALLY AWAY
from home, aside from Girl Scout camp and a few sleepovers and visiting my grandparents’ farm in the Finger Lakes. I have a hard time falling asleep; the mattress is too soft, and the sheets Mom bought for me at Target reek of polyester and practically crackle with newness. Plus the radiator hisses and clangs, and the room is insanely
hot
.

I’m not sure where Devon is. It’s eleven o’clock, past curfew. I saw her just after dinner, and she said something about a party at a dorm across campus. I lie here, resorting to my usual insomnia trick: counting weeks by Mondays.
Monday September second, Monday September ninth, Monday September sixteenth, Monday September twenty-third . . .

Somewhere around November eighteenth, I feel my eyelids grow heavy.

Minutes . . . or hours . . . later, I wake up to the muffled sound of crying. The room is pitch dark, except for a thin sliver of moonlight slicing through the curtains. Also, the room, which used to be too warm, is now too cold, even though the radiator is still hissing and clanging. Is the window open?

“Devon? Are you okay?” I whisper.

No answer.

I can just make out her form across the room, huddled under her purple silk quilt. For a second I’m unsure what to do. It’s not like we’re best friends or anything, and she doesn’t seem like the crying type, so maybe she just wants to be left alone.

But the sound of her quiet sobbing is so heart-wrenchingly sad that I get up and tiptoe over to her bed. As I pass the window, I check to make sure it’s closed. It is.

“Hey, Devon?” I kneel down and tap her shoulder.

She groans and rolls toward me. She smells like sleep and musky perfume. “Hmmm? What?”

“Did you have a nightmare, or—”

“Shit, what
time
is it?”

I glance around, totally confused. Devon wasn’t crying; the sound was coming from somewhere else in the room, and now
it’s stopped. “Ohmigosh, I’m so sorry! It’s just that I thought you were . . . I mean, I heard someone crying, and I thought it was . . .”

Devon bolts up. Her emerald eyes flash with panic—or maybe the moonlight is playing tricks on me? A second later, they are hard and inscrutable again. “It must be Gita next door. She probably got dumped by her boyfriend. Again,” she snipes.

“Oh, okay.”

“You interrupted my awesome dream. I was surfing in Bali with two hot locals.”

“I’m sorry.”

I retreat to my bed, embarrassed. My alarm clock glows 1:49. I shiver and burrow under my comforter.

“Devon?”

“What?”

“Do you think we should go check on her? Gita?”

A heavy sigh. “No, we shouldn’t go check on her. I’m sure she’ll chill once her Xanax kicks in.”

“Oh, okay.”

I lie there for a long time listening to Devon toss and turn, wondering why I never get it right, why I’m always making the wrong gesture. I take a deep breath and start to count again:
Monday September second, Monday September ninth, Monday September sixteenth . . .

Devon is talking to someone.

“Please don’t be sad. I hate it when you’re sad.”

Silence.

“No, no, it’s not like that!”

Silence.

I blink into the darkness. It’s 3:23 a.m. The room is even colder than it was before; my extremities are practically numb.

“Please, let me prove it to you.”

Silence.

S
he must be on the phone. But this late?

The moon is brighter now, and I can see Devon sitting cross-legged on her bed, her body angled away from me.

I can also see her cell charging on her desk.

“Just tell me what to do. You know I always do what you say.”

I shift, and one of my pillows bumps up against my night-stand, knocking over an empty Coke can. Devon whirls around. I close my eyes and pretend to be snoring.

Silence and more silence. I can feel Devon’s gaze boring into me in the darkness. There’s probably a simple explanation for all this: She is talking in her sleep, or drunk, or on drugs, or nuts. Or all of the above. Or maybe I’m having one of those weird dreams that feels completely real. Whatever it is, I wish it would stop.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, I
OVERSLEEP, WHICH
I
HARDLY EVER DO.
I
skip my shower and get dressed in two minutes flat, a new record. I don’t want to be late for my very first class at Thorn Abbey, an English seminar called The Twentieth-Century Novel.

I see Devon at breakfast, but only for a moment. She is just leaving the Lanyon dining hall as I rush in.

“Sorry if I woke you last night,” she apologizes. “I got fucked up at Lise and Sophia’s party. And then I had this insane nightmare!”

Oh. Mystery solved.

“I was babbling like a crazy homeless person in my sleep, wasn’t I? What did I say?” she goes on.

“What? No! Honestly, you didn’t bother me at all,” I lie.

She gives me one of her dazzling smiles. “Good! Hey, let’s
have lunch together later. Meet back here at noon? You don’t have any plans, do you?”

“Um, no. Lunch sounds great!”

Actually, I’m incredibly relieved that she invited me. I was worried about having to eat alone in the losers’ corner, if this school even has one of those. Or worse yet, taking food back to the room to avoid everyone.

I’m also relieved to know that Devon talks in her sleep sometimes. I never did figure out what was wrong with the heater, but it seemed to be working again by the time I woke up.

Devon and I say good-bye. I grab a poppy seed bagel and scarf down most of it as I head to room 429.

Lanyon seems very old and historical. The hallways are lined with faded photos: class of 1880, class of 1881, and so on and so on. Of course, I manage to get lost. There are so many sets of stairs, some of which go all the way to the top and some of which only go up to a certain floor and then sprout wings and annexes. The place is like a maze.

I finally find room 429. The teacher, Mr. Bagley, is writing some stuff on the blackboard about our summer reading assignment,
The French Lieutenant’s Woman
. He peers at me over the top of his tiny, round glasses, then pulls a crumpled index card out of his jacket pocket. “You must be . . . ah, Tess Szekeres. Did I pronounce that right? Have a seat. We were just about to start our discussion.”

“I’m so sorry I’m late, I got lost, and—”

“No worries. It’s the first day of the new school year.”

The room is small and college-like, with a massive oak seminar table and twelve chairs. I take the remaining seat, between a boy with short, coppery hair and a girl I could swear was Mila Kunis. Across from me are two blond girls I recognize from Kerrith. One of them stares pointedly at me, then types something on her iPad and slants it toward the other girl. I cover my mouth, wondering if I have bagel stuck in my teeth.

Mr. Bagley turns from the blackboard and taps one of the words he has written—OUTCAST—with a piece of yellow chalk. “Please elaborate,” he says simply. “Anyone? Franklin?”

The boy next to me glances up from his spiral-bound notebook. He and I seem to be the only ones without an iPad or laptop. “Well, the heroine of the book, Sarah Woodruff, is an outcast,” he says. “But she brings it on herself. She lies to make herself seem like more of an outsider than she really is.”

“Example?” Mr. Bagley prompts him.

“Well, like how she claimed that she’d, uh, had a relationship with a French lieutenant. She hadn’t. She just wanted people to think that she was a—”

“Ho,” the boy on the other side of Franklin cuts in. Everyone laughs, except for Franklin, who blushes and looks down at his notebook.

Mr. Bagley seems amused. “You’re actually on to something, Nate. Even though your choice of vocabulary is rather questionable.” He pauses and glances around the room. “So why would Sarah Woodruff want people to think she was a woman of ill repute? Tess?”

Oh, God, Mr. Bagley is calling on me. Does he seriously want me to discuss sex in class? Help!

I clear my throat. “I guess she lied about . . .
that
 . . . because in some ways she
wants
to be an outcast. I mean, being an outcast is not fun for her. People judge her and criticize her for being different. But being an outcast also gives her freedom.”

“Freedom from?”

“Freedom from Victorian morals and rules. She’s completely alone, so she can be her own person and do what she wants.”

Mr. Bagley beams. “Yes, yes, that’s right, isn’t it? Which leads us to our next subject, existentialism.”

Okay, that wasn’t totally horrible. No one is laughing and pointing at me, although the two Kerrith girls look as though they would if they could. I ignore them and check out the other people sitting around the table. There’s Mila Kunis, Franklin, Nate . . .

 . . . and then there’s this boy at the far end of the table.

He has wavy brown hair and long, slender fingers like a concert pianist.
He’s so cute,
is my first thought. Then:
Why is
he so sad?
He is staring moodily out the window. At the sea? At something else? I wish I could give him a hug, which is about the dumbest idea ever. I don’t even know his name.

Just then, he turns and looks right at me. His dark eyes flash with anger. How utterly humiliating. He thinks I’m spying on him. Which I kind of am. I pick up my pen and pretend to be busy taking notes.