She Was the Quiet One

The offer gave Bel a warm buzz. This cool, older girl liked her. Maybe it wasn’t so bad here.

“Really? I might take you up on that,” Bel said.

“People’ll tell you we’re a bad influence, but don’t get scared off.”

“It’s not true?” Bel asked.

“Oh, no. It is true.”

Bel laughed, and Darcy smiled at her approvingly.

“You know,” Darcy said, “when I heard we were getting twins from California, I thought, This could be cool. Then when I heard you were Enrights, I got really excited.”

“You know my family?”

“Oh, yeah. My mom and your dad practically grew up together. They belonged to the same country club in Connecticut, and were at Odell at the same time. They even dated. Your dad was a hottie, and something of a wild man, apparently. Then he ran off with this gorgeous Mexican girl he met in college, and my mom was devastated.”

“That ended up being my mom. She’s from California, but yeah, she was beautiful.”

“I can tell that by looking at you. Your sister, though? Kind of a dweeb, no?”

“Rose is all right. She’s just quiet,” Bel said, feeling defensive on her sister’s behalf. Though she couldn’t resist adding, “We’re pretty different.”

“Family. Can’t live with ’em, can’t kill ’em. My fam’s cool, though. Mom lived in Moreland back in the day, not long after the school went coed. This dorm always had the raddest girls. But now they’re trying to break our spirit.”

“Who is?”

“The brass. The headmaster and the trustees. They brought in these new dorm heads to straighten us out, which, trust me, is an impossible task. Besides—”

Darcy looked at Bel meaningfully, and laughed.

“What?” Bel asked.

“They screwed up royally, and they don’t even know it,” Darcy announced, stepping over to the bay window. “C’mere. See that guy in the blue blazer?”

Bel looked down onto a wide, rectangular lawn, surrounded on all sides by graceful brick buildings. Tables and chairs had been set out in the shade cast by Moreland’s walls. Students and their families were gathered around, listening to an extravagantly good-looking man, who stood a little apart, talking to the crowd, gesturing gracefully with his hands. Bel couldn’t take her eyes off him.

“Who is he?” she asked, breathlessly.

“Heath Donovan, the new dorm head, well, cohead, along with his mousy math teacher wife,” Darcy said. “He teaches English, too. Is he the bangin’est thing you ever laid eyes on? All the girls want him. I swear I get tongue-tied around him, and normally I don’t shut up.”

“He’s gorgeous. Why do you say it was a screwup to make him the dorm head?”

“A guy like that, in a dorm like this? Come on. By tradition, the Moreland seniors like to cause trouble. It’s practically a graduation requirement. We’re like the biggest beasts, and we have the best pranks planned. Want to hear our crazy idea, inspired by Heath the Hottie?”

“Of course.”

“You have to promise not to tell.”

“I would never,” Bel said.

“It’s a contest. Which senior girl can bed Donovan first.”

It took a second for Darcy’s meaning to sink in. A contest to hook up with the dorm head? Bel hoped she wasn’t serious. Yet, when Darcy laughed uproariously, Bel joined in. Who was she to judge? She’d made a cool, new friend. She ought to go with the flow.

4 (#ulink_a39fc2fa-cc51-5fd8-8684-e3cac468a3a0)

Classes didn’t start until tomorrow, and they already had homework. How was that even possible? Rose only found out because her roommate came back from dinner and started FaceTiming with some boy on her laptop, complaining about the reading for English.

“Wait, what? There’s homework already?” Rose said, panicking mildly.

Rose’s roommate was Skyler Stone from New Jersey. Skyler had long brown hair and wore a lot of makeup to cover her iffy complexion. Other than her skin, she was pretty and well-dressed enough to make Rose feel like a frump by comparison. Then again, most of the Odell girls made Rose feel like a frump. Skyler had been a freshman last year, and acted put-upon to be rooming with a newbie.

“If you want to see your homework,” Skyler said, in a snippy tone, “log on to campus net. It’s posted there in your academic module.”

Rose had no idea what any of that meant, but she was hesitant to annoy Skyler by asking another question. Instead, she grabbed her laptop and headed up the stairs to the third floor to find her sister. There was virtually no chance that Bel knew how to look up homework assignments on campus net already. But Skyler’s sharp tone had stung, and made Rose homesick for her sister.

Rose was the older twin by twenty minutes, and she tried to look out for Bel, though Bel didn’t always appreciate it. Bel had poor judgment sometimes. Mom had worked full time. To make extra money, she taught landscape painting in the evenings and sold jewelry at craft shows on the weekends. When Mom was too busy to look out for Bel, Rose took that responsibility on herself. She could handle it. Rose was intelligent and levelheaded. She got good grades, and was careful in her choice of friends. Bel was moody and immature and ran with a bad crowd. She’d cut class and go hang out on the beach to get high. Rose knew it for a fact. She’d even had words with Bel about it, more than once. When Bel told her to mind her own business, Rose went to Mom. But Mom was sick by then, and had other things on her mind. Besides, Mom wouldn’t hear a word against Bel, even if it was true. Bel was her pet. So, for the six months that their mother was sick before she died, Bel ran wild. Rose was disgusted by it, frankly. If there was a silver lining to the tragedy of her mother’s death, it was getting Bel away from bad influences, and into a situation with stricter supervision.

Rose knocked on the door of 305.

“Come in.”

Bel’s roommate, Emma, was alone in the room. They’d met earlier at the welcome reception. Emma was beautiful and cool, and had been so nice to Rose at dinner tonight. Bel’s room was great, too—the only sophomore double with one of the huge bay windows that Moreland was famous for. Rose was jealous that Bel wound up with the better room and the better roommate. But if having such prime stuff helped her sister settle in here, then Rose didn’t mind.

“Hey, Rose. Bel’s out at the moment,” Emma said.

“Do you know where she is? Apparently, there’s homework already.”

“Yeah, welcome to Odell. There’s always homework.”

“I just wanted to make sure she knows.”

Emma smiled. “You’re such a good sister.”

She wore leggings and an Odell sweatshirt, which seemed to be the uniform for hanging around the dorm at night. Her shiny black hair hung over one shoulder in a long braid. Rose made careful mental notes of these details so she could copy them later. The new clothes she’d been so excited about seemed wrong once she got here. No surprise really, since they’d been picked mainly by Grandma. Bel had pushed back on what Grandma chose for her, but Rose had been afraid to rock the boat. Why make Grandma mad over a few pieces of clothing? But now Rose realized that she’d ended up with a prissy wardrobe. Bel’s clothes were way cooler. Maybe her sister knew best sometimes, after all.

“I wanted to ask Bel if she knows how to log on to campus net to see the assignments, and also borrow a few of her things. Which dresser is hers?” Rose asked.

“That one,” Emma said, pointing.

Rose rummaged quickly in Bel’s dresser and took a couple of pairs of leggings, a flowy top and a cardigan sweater with leather trim on the front. Bel had so much stuff. She wouldn’t miss this.

“I don’t know when Bel’s coming back, but I can show you how to log on to campus net if you like,” Emma said.

“That would be great, thank you.”

Rose handed Emma her laptop. Emma proceeded to demonstrate how to log on to the school-wide network and navigate it. Rose was surprised to find that she had not only homework assignments, but e-mails.