Good Girls Lie(5)
The blond goddess stares back, a perfectly groomed eyebrow cocked. Her voice is sharp and low, demanding. “Class?”
“Um, ’23. Sophomore.” As if they can’t do the math.
“Hmm. Be sure you take the left staircase, wouldn’t want you not graduating, now would we?”
I glance over my shoulder at Dr. Asolo. Hadn’t she said Odd classes were to take the right staircase? But the professor is busying herself with another student folder and doesn’t look up.
The girl turns back to her crowd and says, sotto voce, “Did you know if your roommate dies, you get the room all to yourself for the rest of the year? I wonder how long this one will last.”
The girls surrounding her titter, and a chill spreads down my spine, making me stand straighter. We are the same height, eye to eye, and there is something smoldering in the other girl’s depths. Fire and hate and more, something wrong. I am the first to look away.
Dr. Asolo, who is paying attention after all, takes exception. Her pleasant tone is gone now. “That is quite enough from you, Miss Curtis. You are excused.”
With another coy smile, the girl floats away, her hair drifting down her back in a perfect, shining blond curtain. The circle of girls around her giggle loudly as they follow. My eyes stay on the older girl until she is out of sight, through the doors.
Jesus. What was all that about? It’s like she knew. It’s like she looked right through my Cheshire smile and into my heart and twisted the tiny knife she found there, like a key in a lock.
This is a very bad idea.
I fight the urge to run, plant my feet, flexing my quadriceps so I am grounded, stable.
Dr. Asolo retakes her seat. “That was Becca Curtis. Senator Curtis’s daughter. Becca’s a senior and loves to spook the incoming girls. She’s only playing with you. Ignore her.”
“It wasn’t very funny. Is she always so mean?”
“No, actually. She’s quite a lovely girl. One of our best students. A true leader. Just a wee bit sadistic when it comes to newbies. You’ll see. You’re in sister classes, after all, and many of the school events are done with your sister class. Odds and Evens.”
“I see.”
“Kitchen rules are straightforward and posted on the door. The Rat—that’s the little café over there, through the staircase in the back of the building—is open until 10:00 p.m. If for some reason you miss a meal, you can always grab a latte and a banana or a sandwich. I highly recommend the tuna melt. Library hours are in your packet, along with your class schedule and everything else you might need, including your keycard for the buildings and student ID. Don’t lose them—there’s a five-hundred-dollar fee to replace them. Can you manage that bag by yourself or do you need some help?”
“I can manage.” I slide the packet into my backpack and redirect my suitcase, immediately wishing I’d agreed to help. The bag is so heavy, but it’s all I have.
“Excellent. Welcome to Goode. You’re going to love it here.” Dr. Asolo starts away but I stop her.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Asolo, I’m supposed to meet with the dean. Can you point me toward her office?”
“Oh!” Dr. Asolo peers at me curiously. “The dean doesn’t usually meet with students on their first day. And opening convocation is in an hour. Her office is just there, through the doors, down the hall.” She points toward the right side of the building. “You can leave your bag with me if you like.”
“Thank you. I’ll bring it with me.”
“Suit yourself. It’s been a joy, Ash Carlisle.” She smiles briskly and disappears back into the office, shutting the door behind her.
I take a huge, shuddery breath, blow it out, hard.
I’ve got this.
5
THE DEAN
Dr. Ford Julianne Westhaven watches from the attics as her girls arrive for term. She loves it up here. When she attended the school, she was desperate for a glimpse into the seniors’ hall, for an invite to the forbidden level. As the ultimate legacy, she thought it was her right. But traditions are traditions, and the only time she’d been allowed, up until her own senior year, was blindfolded, being dragged up the wrong set of stairs during a secret society tap.
The room is cozy. The windows overlook the Blue Ridge Mountains on one side and down the mountain to the green valley on the other. If she could set up her permanent office here, she would. Instead, she uses it for escapes during the day when she doesn’t have the time to flee to her cottage on the grounds.
She knows she has to go down and greet the classes, is excited, in her way, but turning herself from a months-long private life to a public one always takes a toll. She is at heart an introvert, has to force herself to smile and laugh and participate in her own world. Being continually thrust in front of the microphone as the mentor to two hundred impressionable young women is alternately terror-inducing and exhausting. She is expected to speak at every opening convocation, every graduation, and several times in between. She is their lodestone, their shining light, their leader.
Ford aspires to be a novelist, not headmistress to a band of brilliant young girls. Oh, she knew she would take over the school eventually, but hadn’t planned to be doing this in her thirties. She assumed she’d step in once her mother was too infirm to handle the school, that she’d have a full, laudable writing career first.