Down the hall, Dylan cupped her chin in her hands and peered through her window, too tired and confused to concentrate on work. She stared at the sky as it slanted into a warm, evening yellow. Weird how the sun set so late here. In New York it would have been almost dark at this time of the evening.
Sonia’s MacBook pinged on the other side of the room, followed by a flood of hysterical giggling. Sonia snuck a look at Dylan over the top of her screen.
“Hey, what’s so funny?” Dylan swiveled hopefully around.
No answer. Sonia was typing furiously.
“Sonia?”
“Yeah? What?” Sonia looked annoyed, as if Dylan had interrupted her in the middle of an unprecedented creative flow.
“Uhh, just wondering what was in that message.”
“What message?” Sonia inquired, raising her thin, perfectly plucked eyebrows. “And why would I tell you about my private affairs?”
Dylan blushed. She turned back to the French grammar book she’d been studying and tried to concentrate on the subjunctive. Que le bonheur vous sourie: May happiness smile upon you. What crap. Tristan’s mom was French, and he spoke it fluently. Dylan had thought they might take a trip to Paris together, now that she’d moved here. Over the summer, as they’d lain side by side on the beach, Tristan had told her all about the long weekends he spent there at his family’s house, drinking cappuccinos in his favorite outdoor cafés and shopping for used books along the Seine. He’d said how much he wished he could show her, if only she didn’t live so far away. Well, now she didn’t. And they were less than three hours from Paris by Eurostar…
Tap tap taptaptap.
Dylan threw her head into her hands as she heard the familiar sound start up again. For fuck’s sake! Sonia had been knocking her pen against her desk like that for the past hour and a half, stopping and starting and stopping and starting. It was infuriating. All day long, Dylan had been racking her brains over why her roommate was being so awful, but she just didn’t get it. Unless Sonia was auditioning for a part in Mean Girls.
Dylan thought back over the day to lunchtime, when Miss Sharkreve had come marching into the room just as Dylan finished unpacking, with Sonia trailing after her.
“Sonia is going to take you to the dining hall,” Miss Sharkreve had announced. “And she’s going to make sure you feel settled in. You don’t mind, do you, dear?”
Sonia had smiled saccharinely. “Actually, I was going to have some lunch here, but I’m happy to change my plans. Though Dylan probably doesn’t need my help. I’m sure she’ll make her own friends soon enough.”
“Precisely,” Miss Sharkreve said. “And you can be one of them.” She disappeared through the door.
Sonia eyed Dylan coldly. “I’m going to the toilet.”
“Okay, should I come with you?” Dylan jumped up. But Sonia was already gone.
Feeling like a jack-in-the-box, she sank back onto the bed. Several girls her age ran past the room, all talking over one another. Some of them looked in at her curiously. No one said hello.
Dylan twisted her cuff bracelet around on her wrist, wondering what everyone in New York was doing right now. It was five hours earlier there; they were probably just waking up, maybe meeting for coffee at the hot dog stand across the street from school.
The boarding house had gone as silent as a museum. Dylan had had enough of waiting here like an idiot. Venturing into the hallway, with its dark blue carpet and light yellow walls, she passed a bulletin board overflowing with pictures of joking, smiling girls in front of columns and ancient temples. Athens, Spring Term, the heading said. That was an exotic vacation. At Dylan’s old school in New York, the best place they ever traveled to was boring old Vermont for the yearly ski-trip.
Finally stumbling on the toilets, she pushed through the door. Plip. Plip. The only sound was coming from a leaky tap. She bent down. No sign of shoes under the stalls.
What was going on? Dylan felt dizzy. Numbly, she traced the empty hallway, hearing only the creaking of her own footsteps.
“Oy!” barked a husky, aggressive voice. A girl was standing at the top of the staircase, barring Dylan’s way. She was strong-looking but attractive, with jet-black hair hacked off into a fringe. She had a tiny mole under her left eye that punctuated her face, making her look like she was constantly winking at you. Dylan recognized her from Sonia’s ski-trip photos.
“You must be the famous ex.”
“Ex?” Dylan echoed.
The girl didn’t bother to reply, she was giving Dylan the once-over, a sour smile on her lips.
“Don’t tell me,” she said. “That bitch Sonia ditched you already.”
Dylan shrugged noncommittally. In the photos it had looked like this girl was one of Sonia’s partners in crime.
“Typical,” the girl spat bitterly. Dylan felt like she was a prop in some lunatic’s private soliloquy. Finally the girl held out her hand. “Mimah,” she introduced herself. “You know, you’re my replacement. I was meant to be sharing that room with Sonia—till she started acting like a total bitch. Follow me.”
Mimah led the way across the lawn, back to Quad. Along one side, the dining hall had its own building, entered through an arched doorway. A crowd of girls was pushing and chattering loudly around it, but Mimah forced a path through them—not that she needed to. When they saw who she was, they scattered like iron filings from the wrong end of a magnet.
“Junior privilege.” Mimah turned to Dylan. “We never wait in lines.”
Inside, the room burst with chatter, clanging silverware, and chairs scraping across the spankingly polished floor. The vaulted ceiling was lined with warped wooden beams. Oil paintings of stern-faced former headmistresses adorned the walls. A file of girls snaked toward the kitchen, where dinner ladies in peaked yellow caps doled out portions of chicken nuggets, fries, and pizza. Mimah steered Dylan straight to the salad bar.
“Don’t even bother with the cooked food,” she advised, foisting a tray into Dylan’s hands. “It’s practically poison.”
Dylan frowned at the troughs of rabbit food in front of her. Her tummy was growling. “So, what—are we supposed to eat lettuce for every meal?”
“No, don’t worry. At breakfast they do sausages and eggs and baked beans on toast. That’s all right. And then on good days we might get things like lasagne, or tacos, or spag bol, which aren’t so hard on the old stomach.”
“You know, like spaghetti Bolognese?”
“Oh.” Dylan scanned the crush of students for Sonia. There she was, at a table in the middle of the hall, picking at her watercress and grated carrots. Next to her were Alice and a stunning blonde whose hair, even though it was tangled and pinned up haphazardly, still managed to look perfect. The three of them were bending their heads toward one another, obviously discussing something. Her? As if reading Dylan’s mind, Alice glanced up. Then she nudged the blond girl.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, ignore them,” blurted out Mimah. “Come on, here’s where I always sit. I’ll fill you in on those bitches.”
Beepbeep. Beepbeep. Dylan jumped. Sonia was still tapping her pen, and the sky hadn’t got any darker. Her phone was lit up on her desk. She grabbed it. Maybe it would finally be Tristan.
It was. Her heart skipped a beat. She scrolled down.
Hi. Forgot you were coming this week. Things v busy. Maybe c you round. T
Dylan stared at the screen. Tears were threatening to overflow for the second time that day. She turned her face to the window again, forcing them back.
A movement caught her eye. Part of the hedge round the rear of the boarding house was trembling and shaking. What the hell? It looked like someone was sneaking out. A slim silhouette flickered into the orchard beyond. Was it…? Dylan squinted into the sunset.
Yes. It was Alice Rochester.