Nobody in Particular(2)
When all this went down—back when I was young and na?ve—the first thing I thought was, Holy shit, I get to live in Henland? It might be a small country, but it’s freaking stunning, and it’s within driving distance of places like Paris and Brussels. Seriously, I could drive south from Boulder for longer than either of those trips and still be in Colorado. The second thought was, Wait, isn’t Bramppath there? Bramppath College (college, it turns out, can confusingly also mean high school in some countries) is famous for being one of the best schools in the world for pumping out musical geniuses. Maybe, I thought, I could be one of them.
I don’t think Mom and Dennis were exactly psyched about the idea of me going to boarding school, but they let me apply for a scholarship anyway. In hindsight, I’m pretty sure they thought I’d never get it in a million years.
Then I got short-listed. And accepted.
Which brings me to today. Touring Bramppath in person for the first time, as out of my depth as a rubber duck in the ocean.
“The ballroom is to the right of the tennis courts,” Hellene says to Mom, who makes her “impressed” noise. “The main piano is there,” Hellene adds, pointing, and I perk up. “You can book practice slots online, but I believe you’re the only serious player at the school at the moment. It’s all about the strings this year. You should find it mostly free.”
Mom pumps a fist in the air at me. I pump mine back, and hope she can’t tell that I’m panicking.
The thing is, I didn’t have the best start to high school. Things have been better recently, but that’s thanks to my best friend, Rachel. Rachel, who lives in Boulder, and won’t be here to have my back if the Bramppath kids decide they hate me. And they might. It wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened to me.
At the end of the tour, Hellene takes us into a small room near the main office. “Just wait out here for a moment,” she says, going through a door that leads into an ominous black stairway. “I’ll grab your uniform.”
Mom and I exchange a glance. Shrugging, I sit down on one of the dozen or so wooden chairs lining the wall. There’s one other person here, a girl about my age with perfect lips and a sharp chin who looks like she might be East Asian. She gives me a distracted smile and pushes her bangs out of her eyes, showing off straight, high-set brows.
I don’t know how to tell if her clothes are expensive without referring to labels, and I can’t see any of those, but something about them looks expensive, anyway. She’s dressed in head-to-toe neutrals, her bag is all floppy like real leather, and her shoes are spotless.
I bet she has a Porsche.
Hellene comes up the stairs clutching a box. She grunts under the weight of it, and I jump up to give her a hand, but Mom gets there first. When they haul the box onto the desk, Hellene steps back, catches her breath, and notices the other girl. “Oh, Molly. Senior cape, right? I’m sorry, we’re running a little bit late.”
Molly shrugs. “I’m not in a rush.”
Satisfied, Hellene starts unloading the box. “The compulsory uniform is covered by the scholarship,” she says, handing me a mountain of clear, individually wrapped packages, all in varying shades of dark green and white. “I’ve got your shirts, skirts, vests, and socks.… Here’s the school tie, the school jumper, your formal dining gown—this one’s heavy—and the senior cape.”
“What, no emblazoned underwear?” Mom jokes, and I concentrate on melting into the floor. If probably-owns-a-Porsche Molly didn’t peg me as an outsider before, she sure knows now.
The bundle, which is roughly as tall as I am, starts forming a leaning tower of packages in my arms almost as soon as Hellene hands it over, so I transfer it to a nearby chair. For a beat, I think it’s going to hold its balance, but then it topples over, littering the room with plastic-sealed clothing.
Amazing.
With poker-hot cheeks, I start snatching the packages up, and Molly covers a laugh behind her hand. I wince, and she stops.
Hellene goes on to Mom: “There’s also a rugby jumper, but as it’s an optional purchase it’s not covered.”
“That’s fine. How much is it?”
“A hundred and fifty.”
Euros? I snap my head up. “It’s fine,” I say to Mom. “Seriously. I have, just, so many sweaters, I don’t need another one.”
Mom bites her lip and folds her arms. I think by trying to give her an out, I’ve accidentally embarrassed her. “It’s fine, honey.”
“I can get one later, right?” I ask Hellene in a squeaky voice. “If it turns out I do really want one or whatever?”
Something that looks a whole lot like relief sneaks across Mom’s face. “Is the sweater decorated with precious jewels, by any chance?” she asks Hellene, who breaks into a peal of laughter.
Something moving next to me catches my eye. Molly has crouched down to my level to help me gather the packages. I smile, half grateful, half wary, as she dumps them back on the empty chair. “Thanks.”
“No worries,” she says, before lowering her voice. “I wasn’t laughing at you. I was laughing at Hellene. I’m pretty sure she’s flirting with your mum.”
Hellene’s leaning over the desk while she explains the forms to Mom, right up in her personal space. Maybe my “she’s putting on an act for her job” theory was only half right. Molly and I sit down next to each other, and I whisper back, “You think?”