“I don’t think I could explain it easily.”
“Good. I hate long stories. But,” she said, pausing and looking back, “I think you might have your hands full. You might have Dracula’s daughter for a roommate.”
“Her I could handle,” I said.
Marcy’s face brightened even more. “I’m going to like you,” she said. “And you’re going to like me.”
She said it with such confidence that I couldn’t help but laugh.
Maybe it was possible, I thought. Maybe I could escape the past, just as my father hoped I would.
6
Marcy went at my luggage like a starving resistance fighter behind enemy lines who had just had an airdrop of needed supplies. She moaned and groaned about not being my size every time she took out something and held it up to see how it might look on her. It reminded me of how Haylee would put on something Mother had bought us both and tell me why it looked better on her than it did on me, even though we had identical bodies and there was nothing different about our dresses, blouses, or skirts. According to Haylee, the color would do more for her complexion, her eyes, and her hair because hers was subtly different. If Mother had heard her say it, she would have punished her severely, which would mean I would suffer, too. The logic was that if there was the seed of something wrong in one of us, it would be in the other. Punishment wasn’t just retribution to Mother; it was preventive, protective.
While we were unpacking, Claudia entered, practically tiptoeing to her side of our room. I realized quickly that she had a way of moving about surreptitiously, making hardly a sound, and keeping her eyes from meeting anyone else’s. She wasn’t simply shy; she wanted to be unnoticed, to completely disappear, which was not something easy to do in this place, I thought.
There was a window across from each bed, and each of us had a bedside light, a side table, and a small pink area rug beside the bed. The flooring was similar to the wood floors in the study hall. There were dark brown paneled walls and, to the right of the door, a bulletin board on which we could tack any reminders or schedules. Already pinned to it were the dormitory rules in big black letters.
“Need any help?” Marcy asked Claudia, peering around her at her suitcase.
“No,” she said quickly. “Thank you,” she added after a long moment, like someone who had just remembered she should say that.
“So where you from?” Marcy asked her.
“Allentown.”
“First time in a private school?”
She looked like she wasn’t going to answer as she took out clothes and began to hang up blouses and skirts.
Marcy shrugged, and we continued with mine.
“No, it’s my third,” Claudia finally said. It was as if sounds entered her ears and then took their time reaching her brain.
“Third? Did you say third?” Marcy asked.
“In three years,” Claudia added. Then she smiled, but it wasn’t so much a smile as a smirk that said, So shut up about it.
“Say,” Marcy said, turning to me as well. “Now that I think of it, how come your mothers didn’t come along to see you guys enrolled and moved into the dorm?”
“My mother’s recuperating from a long illness,” I said.
Claudia thought a moment, obviously deciding whether to answer Marcy.
“My mother’s home with my younger sister, Jillian. She’s six now. Our little princess,” she added. “Jillian didn’t want to take the ride, and when she whines, it’s like a thousand church bells ringing. I usually put my hands over my ears, but my mother says I should stop doing that because I might give Jillian a complex. So my mother stayed home with her to keep the peace. That’s the slogan that hangs above our heads in my house: ‘Keep the Peace.’?”
Neither Marcy nor I spoke. Marcy turned to me and widened her eyes. We finished getting my things into the drawers built into the closet. We could hear Terri marching up and down the hallway and calling for all newlyweds to join their parents in the lobby to go to Mrs. Mitchell’s orientation meeting. She paused in our doorway.
“Watch out for Marcy,” she said, staring at her like a schoolteacher reprimanding a first-grader. “She tends to borrow everything she can and then conveniently forgets to return it. That’s why she helps newlyweds unpack.”
“It’s not doing me any good,” Marcy whined. “Nothing Kaylee has fits.”
“You can borrow anything I have,” Claudia said. “And forget to return it.”
Marcy and I looked at each other and then started to laugh.
But Claudia didn’t. She looked like she meant it. We all started out.