I flip off my brother, ignoring the snort of laughter from the bed. “I was going to say, hide my belongings because the other one looks like she’ll start nesting in my sock drawer.”
“Be nice,” Julian says. I stall as he opens his laptop, hoping to see the look on his face when he actually Googles what “JFGI” means—because he will—but he’s waiting for me to leave, unmoving.
I blow him a kiss. “Always.”
*
I cross the grassy area between the two buildings, breathing the fresh air. The girls’ dormitory sits across the courtyard from the boys’, a mirror of architecture, though not smell. I punch in the security code. The door opens with a click and I enter the first floor hallway of the dorm. Cheap perfume, augmented by the heavy heat, takes the place of sweaty shoes and teenage boy. My room is halfway down the hall, the fashion gods on my side, not assigning me to an upper floor like last year. The building is too old for an elevator, and climbing stairs in heels isn’t fun.
The door to my room is ajar, some sort of Bollywood pop music oozing out the crack, and I groan under the sitar’s whine. I can deal with the clutter, I’ve lived with my brother for eighteen years, but the playlist is going to be an issue.
“Hi,” I say, layering a polite smile on top of my lipstick. I glance over the room, noticing the changes since lunch: three more piles of polished stones and one with sea glass, and another tweedy sweater slung over the back of the chair. “Is Sonja here yet?”
“I haven’t seen her.” Faye sits at her desk, sorting through some kind of crap littering the top. Feathers, maybe. “Have you?”
“No.” I slip my shoes off and sit on the edge of my bed. The mattress is new, good springs and cushy with my foam pad from home, Mom’s nice sheets and two extra pillows. I hope Julian will be comfortable in his, and that his roommate doesn’t snore. “She said she would text me,” I say, checking my phone again.
“You know her?”
“From last year. We weren’t roommates, but SHP is a small program. By the time it’s over you’ll know everyone. She and I were going to do the registration thing together. Have you already been through the line?”
Faye nods. “How many times have you been here?”
“Just last summer. I came with my brother, Julian. You’ll meet him later. He’ll be the one with his nose shoved in a book.”
She looks up and brushes her hair aside. She’s got pretty eyes, wide and dark. Her face is okay, too, for being so tiny and round. My fingers itch to get mascara on her.
“Sonja’s probably just saying hello to people.” I check my phone and send her another quick text.
“She’s friendly, then?”
I nod. “She’s really nice. She’s got a pretty incredible reputation, though.”
“How so?” Faye’s curiosity seems genuine.
“Well, she’s smart. Like really smart. Early admission to Vassar, entering as a sophomore even without SHP credits, all of that. I heard she’s had a gallery showing in New York City for her paintings. And don’t even get me started on how freaking beautiful she is.” I pluck the bottle of black nail polish off my dresser. Licorice Lingerie, it’s called. “But then there are these rumors about her...”
Faye drops whatever she has in her hands (they clatter over the desk—not feathers then) and leans forward. “What kind of rumors?”
We’re going to get along fine.
“The typical ones.” I shake the nail polish bottle, the rattle ball inside matching the music’s beat. “Like she and Roger Baker were caught half-naked behind the Science lab, which I believe, and also that her hair is a weave—it’s not, that’s pure jealousy—but there is another one that maybe she isn’t really gifted, like not enough to be at this program. I heard from Tammy Lawrence, who said that Megan Chambers heard Roger say that her family gave some of their land rights to the school when it was built, and some founding by-law allows descendants to go to any program they want.”
“Really?”
“I know. It’s just stupid, for a ton of reasons. I mean, she’s black, or half, anyway. And this college is over two hundred years old. Even if her ancestors did own land here, which was kind of rare at the time, would their kids have been allowed to go to a white school?”
“This building isn’t that old,” she protests.
“‘The dorms were built in 1928,’” I quote. “‘The institute was founded by Moravian settlers in 1766 when Bishop August Gottlieb Spangenberg expanded his parish from Pennsylvania.’” The rest of the memory fades out of focus.
“Are you into history, then?”
“Oh, no. It’s on the plaque. On the statue outside.” I wave my drying fingertips toward the window. “I have an eidetic memory.”
“You remember everything you read?”
“I can picture everything I’ve seen. Everyone calls it photographic recall, but that’s not really the right term.”