The Virgil Virgin
The next morning, I woke up feeling a little bit more in the swing of things. I didn’t short-circuit the toaster oven, so I actually got to have breakfast. I left on time and found a cab right on Perry Street, so I didn’t have to book it to make the bell. And the sun was out, which made the cold air and brisk wind a whole lot more bearable.
But the best part of the morning was that when I walked into the library for study hall, I immediately honed in on the third table, and just like Camille had said, it was crammed with all my friends.
Camille stuck her arm in the air to wave. As I made my way toward the table, I realized that I already recognized a lot more faces than I had only yesterday.
“Hey, girl,” Olivia called out to me from one of the computer stations as I walked past. “Let’s grab coffee sometime this week.”
“Totally,” I whispered back, noticing that the librarian was giving me the squint eye from behind her bifocals. “I’ll text you, okay?”
At the next table, Ramsey was going over a math problem with a towheaded girl in a white Oxford shirt and a black cashmere vest. When she saw me walk past, she pointed her finger and said, “This is the Stuy transfer I was telling you about. We’re on for practice tonight, right, Flan?”
“Totally,” I nodded. “Can’t wait.”
Ramsey gave me a thumbs up. I returned the gesture, crossing my fingers that she didn’t expect me to be some great, untapped field hockey talent just because I came from a school where other people played it well.
I was just about to sit down next to Camille when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to find Shira Riley grinning at me. Shira was one of the most popular girls in the senior class. Camille had told me that she was suspended for a week this past fall after the dean got wind of Shira’s role as ring-leader in the underclassmen hazing that went down during the traditional Thoney initiation the first week of school. She had a perfect body, hair that most girls had to pay hundreds of dollars for in Japanese straightening treatments, giant brown eyes … and just a little bit of a history with my brother, Patch.
“Hi, Shira,” I said.
Standing in my living room eating ice cream with Patch, Shira had always seemed pretty cool to me. But standing here in the middle of the Thoney library with its unspoken social seating and the darting eyes of a hundred other girls, Shira looked every bit the part of Queen Bee.
“Hey, Flan,” she said, and then reached out in a surprise move to give me a big hug. I could almost hear the other freshmen girls around me gasp.
“Patch called me yesterday and told me that his little sis was starting up at Thoney. He made me promise to look out for you and make sure you’re settling in okay.”
For a second, I was surprised that Patch had called all the way from Croatia. But then, it would be like him to make sure there were reinforcements to look after me when he wasn’t around to do it himself.
“Yeah, he was on a train to Sarajevo,” she continued. “I don’t know how he gets away with missing so much school! But the two of us should definitely join in on his spring break plans.”
“Totally,” I said, a little breathless.
“Fabulous.” Shira grinned and flounced back down the aisle toward the upperclassmen tables.
I took a seat between Camille and Harper, aware that many eyes were still on me after my tête-à-tête with Shira.
“Um, did Shira Riley just hug you?” Amory whispered over the top of her white fluffy Rebecca Beeson turtleneck sweater.
“Yeah,” I said, trying to sound like I hadn’t been totally caught off-guard myself. “She went on a couple of dates with my brother.”
Harper’s jaw dropped. She leaned over the mahogany table and hissed, “She blindfolded Anna Jacobs and made her stick her hand in the toilet to touch a peeled banana during Freshman Haze Week.”
Camille busted out laughing. “Omigod, is that why she got suspended? What a lame trick.”
“Kind of,” Harper said, but she was laughing, too. “I’m still scared of her.”
I cocked my head and looked at the table where Shira was sitting with her friends. Sure, they looked really cool and put-together, but they also looked like us, just a group of friends sitting around a table, laughing about some inside joke no one else in the world would find funny. I couldn’t imagine myself ever hazing any underclassmen, but I did get this weird momentary glimpse into the future—that in three more years, our table in the library might be one that looked just as intimidating to a group of new freshmen girls.
“She’s not so bad, you guys, really,” I said. “Patch told her to look out for me. She said to let her know if there’s anything I need.”
“Anything at all?” Camille asked, rubbing her chin and looking mischievous. “Why don’t you ask her to make Willa stick her hand in a toilet?”
That mental image sent our whole table into hysterics, and we could barely pull it together even when the librarian came over with her finger over her lips to hiss us into silence.
When we’d finally quieted down and even opened a textbook or two, I looked up to see Mattie standing at the head of our table with a handful of square purple envelopes in her hand.
“Special delivery from the Student Senate,” she said, handing out heavy calligraphed envelopes to each of us.
“Ooh, do you think this is for the January Virgil?” Morgan asked, as Mattie turned on her heel and went on her way, distributing the envelopes to the rest of the girls in the library.
All five of us opened our envelopes and pulled out slate gray invitations with cream colored ribbon tied to the top. An iridescent opal font spelled out the details of the first Virgil party of the semester, which would take place at the Central Park Boathouse a week from this Friday.
“Wait a second,” I said. “Virgil? Is this that oration challenge thing Thoney does with the Dalton boys?”
“Whoa,” Camille said. “Pulling out the Thoney tradition trivia. Did you get that from some old story Mama Flood told you about her days as a private school girl?
Harper folded her hands primly and put on her best debating voice. “Virgil used to be a night of debates between the guys and the girls. Everyone got all decked out and riled up to argue with each other. It was hot.”
“So hot,” Camille said, teasing Harper about her obsession with all things debate.
“But somewhere along the way,” Harper continued unaware, “the actual debating sorta fell by the wayside. What we do at Virgil now is—”
“Drink cocktails!” Morgan and Amory chimed in at the same time.
“Virgin cocktails,” Harper corrected. “But it’s totally swanky and fun.”
“And the best part is,” Camille said, “one Thoney girl gets to be the social director for each Virgil event.” She looked down at the invitation and read, “Nominations will take place this week, and the host will be announced on Monday.”
“And being host is a good thing?” I said, watching other clusters of freshmen around us whispering excitedly over their invites.
“It’s, like, the hugest honor there is,” Harper said, looking serious.
“You’re basically Miss Thoney of the month,” Morgan said, barely looking up as she flipped through The Pulse magazine.
“Flan,” Amory said, “you should totally run. You’re the new girl, which makes you the ingénue. You have this air of mystique about you, and everyone will want to get to know you. This will be a great way for you to solidify yourself on the Thoney scene.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Wouldn’t people rather vote for someone they know?” Hosting sounded like a lot of work. I’d planned some really fun parties in my day, but I was also totally down with being the girl who just showed up and had an amazing time.
Amory cleared her throat and nodded her head toward two tables over where Willa was sitting with Kennedy. “You mean like Willa? Queen Bitch over there is class president and thinks she’s going to win, but I personally will not be voting for her.”
“I second that motion!” Harper added, banging her Paul Frank glasses case down on the table like a gavel.
The rest of us covered our mouths with our hands to keep from laughing so we wouldn’t get kicked out of the library by the already pissed-off Miss Dorsey.
As it turned out, the librarian may have been too engrossed in her microfiche to bother with us at the moment … but someone else had taken a particular interest in our conversation.
In her purple Vera Wang turtleneck wrap dress, Willa nudged Kennedy and the two of them looked up and glared at us.
“Yow,” Camille whispered to me. “If looks could kill, I’d be writing your eulogy right now.”
Before I could respond, Willa held up her Virgil invitation as if it were a challenge and mouthed three terrifying words.
Bring it on.