I guess Remy is really taking her time looking through her closet, because it’s two days later and she’s still not back. Maybe her closet actually leads to Narnia and she is busy fighting the White Witch and communing with Aslan the Lion. That, actually, would make more sense than taking two days to find a dress. For her friend. To go to a ball. That she doesn’t even want to go to.
When she finally does comes back, she kind of looks like she just stepped out of a laundry basket. It’s late and I am studying down in the Denbigh study room, which puts the other study rooms to shame. I guess with this one they decided to go “full nautical.” The room is painted a deep shade of navy blue, with white trim, and everywhere there are pictures of ships, or nautical maps, or anchors, and even kicky pillows that have coral on them in embroidery. Maybe what happened is some salty dog sent his seaworthy daughter to Pembroke and dedicated this room in her honor. Either that, or someone in the housing department has a flair for interior design that will never be squashed!
Either way, I seem to be the beneficiary of this aquatic revelry, as no one else is in here and, now that I think about it, no one ever is. Maybe there is some sort of macabre rumor about this place. Maybe when no one is looking that octopus will crawl out of that painting and grab you. Never to return!
Speaking of never returning . . .
“Mission accomplished.”
“Um, Remy, is that you? I used to know someone named Remy, but she left on a quest and was swallowed up in some sort of interplanetary alternate universe. I do miss her.”
“Well, miss her no more! She is here. I mean, she is me! I mean, I am here! Get your face out of those books and come upstairs. I have something vast and thrilling for you to see, little farm girl.”
Look. I’m annoyed at her. I feel jerked around. And lied to. Or deceived. Or something. I mean, something is just not right here. How does a girl just disappear for three days? Where does she go? What is she doing? Did she forget how to use her cell phone’s text function? Why doesn’t she just tell me? I mean, it’s not like she’s smuggling weapons in from Mexico. I hope. And if that’s not it, I mean, is there something wrong with her? Is she dying of cancer or something and not telling anybody because she’s being supernoble and transcendent and then one day I’ll just walk into our room and she’ll be gone, never to be seen again?
“Remy, I’m gonna be honest with you here. And I know this may not be that cool, but whatever, maybe I’m just not cool. I don’t understand why you just keep disappearing. And, honestly, not to sound like your grandma or anything, but I’m worried.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do I mean? Okay. You’ve been gone for three days. With no text or anything. After taking off like a house on fire. Also, sidebar, you disappeared before that for two days. Also no explanation.”
“I don’t even remember that.”
“Okay, well, I do. Look, it’s no big deal, just tell me, okay? There’s no reason to be weird about it. I just—it’s just worrying me, kinda.”
“Wait. Is this really bothering you? Seriously?”
“Yes, it actually is. It’s like a trust thing or whatever.”
She smiles in this gigantic way that is practically blinding, then grabs me in a hug and smooshes her cheek against mine. “Farm girl! It’s like you really care.”
My entire body floods with warm fuzzies. My scowl loses its hold on my face despite my effort to keep it there. “Yeah, well. I’m waiting. Explain.”
“Okay, okay, okay. I was back in New York and my mom asked me to stay a few days, because she said she missed me, so I did.”
“Even though you had a test.”
“Well, I can make it up. It’s not like they’re gonna kick me out.”
And that’s true. Of course they won’t kick Remy Taft out. How could they? Her dad’s on the board of trustees. Whoever kicked her out would be fired by the weekend. Remy knows it. They know it. And presumably her mom knows it.
“Okay. Okay, fine. Thank you for telling me. I’m sorry I can’t be cooler or whatever.”
“Oh, but you are cool, Willa. And you are going to be ice-cold when you see what treasures I have pillaged in me travels.”
“It’s this room, isn’t it? It turns you into a pirate.”
“Yar, thar is the secret of the pirate’s study cove! Now ye landlubber must die before she tells the tale!”
“Something about being called a landlubber makes me feel fat.”
She breaks character. “Maybe it sounds too much like blubber. Like you feel like a landblubber.”
“Sometimes I do feel like a landblubber.”
That’s how easy it is. To get me to like her again. Here we are, back where we were before. And I am happy. Oh, so happy.
And then that happy turns into giddy when Remy shows me her grand reveal. In the old maid’s quarters next to our room, there it is. The room has finally achieved its true calling as a closet. There is a full-length mirror and some kind of upholstered bench/sofa and a little desk thing with a chair and another mirror perched above it, designed, I’m guessing, for sitting and admiring yourself in ultimate comfort.
And then, oh, and then, there is a giant rack of clothes in the middle.
You have got to see this rack of clothes. It’s absurd. It’s absurd and wonderful and frivolous and exquisite. Slippery silks, poofy tulle, rich velvets, and playful chiffon in a sixty-four Crayola box’s worth of colors.
Remy smiles, proud, standing back and observing her work.
“You like?”
Drawn like a magnet, I approach the rack of all these intricate, some embroidered, some bohemian, some simple, all elegant, with-the-tags-still-on dresses. These are not just any old dresses. These are the kinds of dresses that take weeks to make, the kind of dresses you have to order, the kind of dresses that trip you on your way up the stage to accept your Oscar.
The kind that cost as much as a car. And they’re beautiful.
“Well, Iowa. Take your pick.”
What’s funny about this moment is I know Remy has no intention of lending me any of these dresses. No, she is planning on giving me one. Whichever it is, whichever I choose. And it’s not braggy. And it’s not conditional. And it’s not proud.
It’s just Remy.
“Jesus, Remy, look at all of this. I could never . . . this is . . .” I pause. “It’s like—you saved my life.”
I meant the dresses. I only meant the dresses. But that’s not how it came out. It came out like I was planning to throw myself off the bell tower and then somebody came in and erased, just simply erased, the thought or even the memory of the thought of that.
It came out before I could take it back. Before I could grab it.
And Remy looks at me, catches it.
“I don’t know, Willa,” she says, taking my hand. “Maybe it’s the other way around.”