The St. Ambrose School for Girls(27)
I have the strangest suspicion she’s stood over Greta Stanhope’s dead body in her mind a couple of times.
“Would you like help?” I say, nodding at her textbook. “I’m really good at math.”
chapter NINE
It’s six a.m. The church bells are ringing. It’s finally Mountain Day.
I open my eyes and try to remember what day it is. Tuesday.
It’s the week following the geometry test, which I did not miss and which Strots got a B on. She’s particularly satisfied with her result. I’m particularly worried about all the internal mail I receive, the good news being that there have only been generic notices in my box since last Thursday.
My roommate and I have not discussed Greta again. But when I see the girl either in the dorm or out on campus, I think of what Strots told me. I look past the expensive wardrobe and the gold bracelets, the vacation plans I overheard down by the river, the rule-the-world attitude. I wonder if Greta’s hiding the kind of fear about being judged that I wear closer to the surface… if all her gloss isn’t like my black clothes and my dyed hair, a suit of deflection.
Maybe I’m a target because I represent everything she hates about herself. Maybe she feels like an outlier because ultimately she can’t keep up financially with the girls she dominates socially, and I am the living, breathing symbol of an outcast.
Maybe she’s still pissed at what I interrupted that night, shortly after we all moved into Tellmer.
Ultimately, her motivations matter less than her actions. And that is why I remain on full alert.
Sitting up, I look out the windows. It’s light already and very clear. Another perfect fall day. I really wish I could spend it in classrooms, and as the prospect of huffing and puffing awaits me, I don’t want to climb anything, even out of bed.
“Why can’t they start this shit at nine,” Strots mutters. “But noooo, we gotta get the kids up at the crack of ass.”
Strots shoves her bare feet into her black shower shoes and scuffs out of the room, towel looped over her shoulder. As she leaves, I eye her legs with envy. They are heavily muscled, extending out from beneath her loose boxer shorts like pistons.
She is going to have no trouble climbing anything. Even Everest.
I really should have tried to get myself out of this elevation-oriented activity. At Ambrose, we’re required to take one physical education class a semester, but I got that waived because of the lithium and the way exertion affects my sodium levels and thus the drug’s intensity.
It’s too late now. I am going to go climb a mountain.
I change quickly before Strots is back from her shower, and I leave ahead of her so she won’t have to deal with the awkwardness of walking out of our room with me. Whenever this happens, we invariably go down the stairs side by side, and make our way together to Wycliffe for food or to whatever classroom building we’re bound for. But it’s out of obligation on her part, and I know that her teammates would rather I get out of the way.
Besides, lately, Keisha from the third floor has been Strots’s strolling companion. Strots and she are spending more and more time together, one waiting for the other at the base of the stairs by the mailboxes for meals and classes. I wonder whether this is prearranged or a habit they both fell into. Probably the latter. Strots doesn’t waste a lot of time dissecting things.
I feel cut out, but it’s not like Strots was walking with me much anyway. No, it is the closeness that has developed between the two as teammates that I envy, when all I will ever have with Strots is physical proximity determined by a dorm room lottery system.
As I wander alone to the dining hall, I entertain a fantasy that Greta and the Brunettes will think of some cute, girlish way of avoiding the Dickensian death march that the rest of us must face. As thin as they are, they don’t seem hardy enough for mountain climbing, and given that Greta’s father has been on campus for meetings with the other trustees these past few days, I tell myself that she’ll appeal to him, and he’ll get her excused.
If she can, I’ll bet she gets Francesca and Stacia out of it, too. Rain desertions in blue Porsches aside, Greta will want her friends to stay behind as well. They’ll paint their toenails in her room and listen to Guns N’ Roses while the rest of us strap on crampons, kernmantle ropes, and collections of carabiners. While they lounge around, we will risk our lives over ice floes and great vertical wedges of granite, harnessed to the rock, relying on only our wits and our equipment to prevent us from plunging to our deaths. After nightfall, we’ll return to Tellmer Hall dehydrated, bruised, and broken of spirit, our best efforts dashed in the face of the earth’s gorgeous but cruel wiles. The three of them will not be here when we come back. They’ll be in Greta’s father’s buttercup yellow Mercedes with the matching hubcaps, driving off to have dinner at the headmaster’s house.
I know the certainty of all this as if it is an article written in Francesca’s newsletter.
In Wycliffe, I eat alone at my table by the exit and the little-used trash bin. I’m not certain how long I’ll have to go before I can pee, so I’m careful not to take in too much liquid. Except then I worry about dehydration. And sodium levels. And insanity.
I envy the other girls who are just bitched they’re out of bed so early.
We convene at seven o’clock in front of Tellmer Hall and the Wycliffe girls join us. Hot RA is standing in front of the loose groups of students. He’s addressing us, he’s smiling, he’s charming and handsome, his hair wet from his shower, his shoulders broad under a turquoise sweatshirt with a map of Nantucket on it. The other RAs are behind him, and Ms. Crenshaw is among them. The husband and wife who are in charge of the third floor look like brother and sister with their same blond coloring, and I recognize some of Wycliffe’s RAs from campus. One of them is my French teacher, Mlle. Liebert.