She Was the Quiet One

Bel had hoped that she and Rose would be rooming together. But they were on different floors, Rose on two, Bel on three. Darcy ordered another girl to help Rose, while she hauled Bel’s box up the extra flight of stairs to show Bel to her room.

“Thanks for the help,” Bel said.

“No worries, we always do it,” Darcy said, huffing. “You’re in a double. All sophomores are. It can be grim or it can be fun, depending on who your roommate is.”

“Who’s my roommate?” Bel asked.

“Some dork, probably. C’mon, let’s go see.”

They walked down a long hallway, lined with closed doors on either side. It was dingier than Bel had expected given the beautifully manicured grounds, with old carpeting, dark wainscoting, and a stale, musty smell. Cards were pinned to each door with the occupants’ names carefully written in calligraphy. Darcy stopped in front of Room 305.

“This is you. Looks like you’re with Emma Kim,” Darcy said. She braced the box on her knee and flung the door open.

The room was empty, and extremely tidy. Light streamed through the enormous bay window opposite the door. Bunk beds were crammed in along the wall where they entered, so the open door smacked up against them. Emma had moved in already, claiming a bunk, a dresser and a desk. Her things were neatly laid out, and the bottom bunk was made up with a pretty duvet and pillows. A poster for a boy band hung over her desk.

“Emma’s probably out on the Quad. There’s a welcome reception you need to get to,” Darcy said.

“What’s Emma like?” Bel asked dubiously. From her stuff, she was a neat freak with awful taste in music.

“Kind of a nerd. Not much money. Plays the violin. But she’s pretty, and not a narc. Anyway, if you don’t like her, you’re welcome to hang with me and the seniors.”

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

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.

“Wow, I got an invitation to tea with Mrs. Donovan,” Rose said. “Did you get it, too?”

Emma read the e-mail over Rose’s shoulder. “No, it’s just for you,” she said. “The e-mail says she’s your advisor. You’re lucky. Mrs. Donovan is so nice. I had her for Algebra last year. The Donovans are a huge improvement over the last dorm head. Thank God they fired him.”

“Did he do something wrong?”

“He let Moreland get totally out of control. This dorm has a rep, you know. It’s the slut dorm.”

“Seriously?”

“I hate to use that word, since it shames girls for behavior boys get high-fived for. But, yeah. Which brings me to a rather awkward subject.”

“What’s that?” Rose asked, alarmed.

“You may have noticed that Bel and I haven’t exactly hit it off. At dinner, I invited her to sit with me, and she went and sat with those seniors instead. You know. Darcy and Tessa?”

“I’m so sorry. I apologize for her rudeness.”

“Oh, I don’t care about that. I have more friends than I know what to do with. But I feel it’s my responsibility to warn you that Bel’s hanging with a bad crowd.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Darcy Madden and her cohorts are notorious. Trust me, you don’t want your sister messed up with them. You need to say something.”

“I’ll try,” Rose said, shaking her head. Just when she’d been feeling like they’d dodged a bullet by coming to Odell, history started repeating itself. “I don’t know if it’ll do any good, though. This has come up before.”

“What do you mean?” Emma said.

“Oh, well—”

Rose realized she was on the verge of saying too much. She liked Emma immensely, but she didn’t know yet whether she could trust her. If Rose blabbed, Bel might get in trouble.

“Nothing,” Rose said. “I didn’t mean anything.”

“No, really, Rose. You should tell me. I live with Bel. You don’t. If I know there’s something to watch out for, I can help keep her on the straight and narrow.”

Emma had a point there. Rose was on a completely different floor, and wouldn’t be able to look out for Bel as much as she would like.

“Okay, well, back home, when our mother was sick, Bel got . . . a bit wild.”

“Wild, how? Drugs? Boys?”

“I’m not entirely sure. She would cut class, though. You shouldn’t hold it against her. It wasn’t her fault. She had no guidance.”

“You didn’t cut class, did you?”

“Oh, no. I wouldn’t do that.”

“You can’t cut class at Odell. You get a demerit every time, along with early check-in for a week. Two demerits and you can’t compete for the school in sports or other activities. Four demerits is a suspension.”

“I’ll let Bel know,” Rose said.

“You should. I will, too. Word is the Donovans are planning a big crackdown. If Bel doesn’t get her act together, she could get DC’d.”

“‘DC’d’?”

“Sent to the Disciplinary Committee. That happens for serious infractions, and then it goes on your record for college applications. You can even get expelled.”

“That would be awful. You’re right. I need to say something to her.”

“You seem very loyal,” Emma said. “I wish I had you for a roommate instead of her. She strikes me as a real flake, but I bet you and I would be a great fit.”

Rose flushed with pleasure, though she felt guilty for talking about her sister like that with Emma. Then again, Bel was flaky. You couldn’t deny it. Rose shouldn’t feel bad if Emma had figured it out for herself.

5

Rose woke up on the first day of classes to find that a perfect ray of sunlight was streaming through a crack in the window blinds. It felt like an omen. Life started fresh today. She jumped out of bed and hurried to get dressed, humming under her breath. Skyler groaned and pulled the covers over her head.

“Are you always this cheerful in the morning?” Skyler said. “I can’t handle it.”

“I’m just excited to go to class.”

Rose had stayed up late last night doing her introductory assignments, but she didn’t feel tired in the least. On the contrary, she was energized. Every word she’d read was emblazoned on her brain, and she couldn’t wait to get into the classroom to talk about the material. Like all the great boarding schools, Odell used the Harkness Method. Rose had read up on the Harkness Method before starting here, and it sounded like the perfect fit for her. Small classes, discussion-based learning. At her old school, she’d hated the big, chaotic rooms. The teachers turned their backs and talked to the chalkboard while kids surfed the Web or goofed around. If Rose spoke up in class, kids rolled their eyes. Odell was different. She could be herself here. She could be smart, and learn a lot, and people would like her for it.

It was a perfectly cool September morning. Delicate light filtered through towering elm trees as Rose walked to her first-ever Odell class. She couldn’t get over the beauty of the campus, its vast expanse. She’d walked five minutes from her dorm to get to breakfast, and then ten minutes back in the opposite direction to get to Founders’ Hall for class, all on brick paths that crisscrossed dew-covered lawns. When she stepped into Founders’ Hall, she felt the weight of centuries in the air of its dark paneled hallways, redolent of books and dust. Yet kids rushed by her on the stairs, laughing and goofing around as if the grandeur was old news. Rose couldn’t imagine getting to the point where she took this place for granted, and yet, she wished for it to happen, because that would mean she belonged.

The walls of the social studies classroom were lined with framed maps from another century. A marble bust of George Washington watched her from a pedestal in the corner. The teacher was eloquent and thoughtful, and the discussion lively from the start. Rose made her first comment about ten minutes in—something about how the Constitution was the result of compromise—and Mr. Mendez liked it so much that he wrote it on the board. For the rest of the class, kids kept referring to “Rose’s point,” and she was so proud of herself that she had to take care not to act cocky. English class second period was amazing, too. Mrs. Sunderland went around the room and asked each of them to name a favorite book and say how it had influenced them. Rose talked about the Little House books, which she’d read obsessively between the ages of ten and fourteen. Not only did nobody roll their eyes at her, but two other girls piped up to say they’d read those books over and over, too, and loved them just as much.

French was the best of all. Mademoiselle LeBlanc was a native speaker who insisted that the students speak only French in the classroom. (She also had a chic haircut and beautiful suede boots.) Rose was terrified at first. She’d been studying French since middle school, and had never been asked to do more than conjugate verbs on paper. Miraculously, when her turn came, her tongue knew what to do. “Bonjour, mademoiselle,” Rose said, the words flowing out almost effortlessly. “Je m’appelle Rose Enright. Je viens de Californie.” The teacher nodded approvingly, and Rose suddenly had a new ambition. She would become fluent in French, speak with a perfect accent, live in Paris. Odell had a study-abroad program where you could live with a French family for a summer. She would convince Grandma to send her. Oh, life was exciting.

Emma Kim was in Rose’s French class, and when the period ended, she fell into step beside Rose, as if it was perfectly natural for them to walk to lunch together. The cool morning had become a bright, sunny day, and the Quad smelled of warm earth. Rose chatted and laughed with her new friend as they headed to the dining hall. Emma was a returning sophomore like Skyler, but didn’t seem to mind that Rose was new. Rose cherished the hope that they would become close friends. The girls she sat with at lunch in her old school had never been much more than acquaintances. They didn’t hang out, didn’t text, didn’t invite her shopping or to the movies. It wasn’t like she hadn’t tried. She didn’t really understand why they didn’t want to be closer; maybe they didn’t consider her fun. Here at Odell, she hoped, the definition of fun would be different. Rose herself would be different here. If this morning was any indication, she would fit in, have friends, be liked and admired.

The new part of the dining hall, known simply as the New, was a soaring, modern space, all glass and white walls, with brightly colored flags hanging from the high ceilings (Odell had students from thirty countries). Giant photos of local flora decorated the walls. To Rose, the New looked like some space-age art gallery with tables. As they walked in, a warm buzz of conversation washed over Rose, and her heart lifted. Bel was here somewhere in the crowd. Rose wanted to find her, to gush to her twin about this amazing place. She searched the crowd as she followed Emma to the food line, but didn’t see Bel.

She noticed something else interesting, however.

“What’s that writing on the walls?” Rose asked Emma.

“The names of every graduating senior are carved on the panels.”

“Since when?”

“Going back, like, to the beginning of time. This is the new part of the dining hall, but if you go to the Commons, where they have the formal dinners, you’ll see names dating back to the early 1800s.”

“Seriously? My father and grandfather went here. Do you think I could find their names?”

Emma looked impressed. “Of course, you just need to know their class year. I had no idea you and Bel were legacies. She never mentioned it.”

“Oh, Bel doesn’t care about that sort of thing.”

“Not care? That’s crazy. My parents grew up in Korea, and even they knew Odell. Once my name gets carved on the wall, I’m not letting anybody forget it.”

They got their food, and made a beeline for a table where some other sophomore girls from Moreland were sitting. Apparently, students sat by class year. Seniors rated the best tables, farthest from the glass doors that admitted cold blasts of air during the bitter New Hampshire winters, closest to the food line. Emma told Rose to never, ever try to sit there. They would chase you away, your name would be mud. Freshmen were relegated to the outskirts, to an area they called Siberia. The other grades filled in the middle. Kids in the fast, popular crowd tended to sit at coed tables, whereas your normals were more likely to sit single-sex, like the Moreland table they were at now.

Skyler was at the Moreland table, sitting next to a girl named Lucy Ogunwe, who ran track and sang in the choir, and was in Rose’s civics class. There were girls Rose recognized, and others she hadn’t met yet. Emma introduced her around, but the glow of welcome was diminished by a flicker of worry when it hit home that Bel wasn’t here. Bel was nowhere to be seen, in fact. At their old school, when Bel didn’t show up to lunch, it usually meant she was ditching.

Toward the end of lunch period, a loud whoop went up from the tables where the seniors sat, and Rose turned to look. A muscular boy with a prominent forehead was wiping a gob of whipped cream from his face while kids around him laughed.

“You’re gonna regret that,” he said, his loud voice carrying in the sudden quiet.

Darcy Madden, identifiable by her bright blond hair, stood beside him, doubled over laughing. The boy grabbed Darcy and smeared the gob of whipped cream on her face. Darcy squealed, then struggled and broke loose, and the two of them ran from the room.

“That’s like something that would happen in my school in L.A.,” Rose said. “Lunch was out of control there.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not normal here. That was Darcy, the one I warned you about, and her boyfriend, Brandon. Those two really push the envelope. Disruptive behavior can get you demerits, you know. The teachers don’t look happy.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“Do you see your sister?”

“What? Where?”

“She’s sitting right there,” Emma said, nodding toward the table Darcy had fled from.

Rose following Emma’s gaze and saw Bel, who was fully ensconced, chatting and smiling like she’d known those people forever.

“Oh. That’s where she went.”

Rose was actually relieved to see Bel in the lunchroom. At least she wasn’t off in the woods somewhere, ditching school. But Emma apparently didn’t see it that way.

“Like I was telling you last night,” Emma said, “those seniors are bad news. You need to do something.”

“What should I do?”

“Go over there, talk to her.”

“Now? Really?”

“Yes, really. She’s your twin sister, right? It’s on you to look out for her reputation. If Bel gets in trouble, it’ll reflect badly on you.”

That was a new concept to Rose. Back home, the school was big and impersonal, and nobody cared who your family was, unless they were rich or famous. But what Emma said made sense. At Odell, everybody knew everybody. Heck, her ancestors’ names were carved on the wall. And she didn’t want Bel to get in trouble. She wanted to be a good sister, and help her find her way here.

“You’re right. I’m going to say something,” Rose said.

Rose got up and marched across the dining hall toward the senior tables. Bel saw her coming, and narrowed her eyes, shaking her head slightly to tell Rose to keep away. Rose hesitated. She didn’t want to embarrass her sister in front of the seniors, but she was also conscious of Emma and the other Morelanders watching to see what she would do. She had to do something, right? Emma had said so. She strode up to the senior table.

“What are you doing?” Bel asked, looking alarmed.

“What are you doing?” Rose replied.

“What does it look like? I’m eating lunch.”

“Come sit with the sophomores.”

“Why? I’m happy here.”

“You shouldn’t sit at a senior table. It’s not done.”

A tough-looking girl with wavy red hair looked at Rose with a bemused expression. “Who is this chick?” she asked Bel.

“My sister,” Bel said.

The redhead reached over and patted Bel on the head playfully. “It’s cool, sis. Darcy said Bel could sit with us. She’s like our new mascot.”

Mascot? That sounded a bit condescending, and yet, Rose felt a tentacle of jealousy stir. She met her twin’s eyes pleadingly.

“Bel, come sit with me, please. I need to talk to you about something.”

“Get lost, Rose. I’m busy.”

In front of strangers, no less. Bel was probably just showing off for her new friends, but still, that really hurt. Rose was only trying to help. Couldn’t Bel see that? Why didn’t she just come along, instead of turning this into a scene?

“You don’t have to be so nasty,” Rose said.

“Hey, is that my sweater you’re wearing?” Bel said.

“Yeah, it’s cute. I borrowed it.”

“Without asking?”

“Since when do I have to ask?”

“Since when do we share clothes? We don’t like the same things. We’re not the same size. Give it back.”

“Fine, I’ll give it back tonight,” Rose said.

“She means now,” the redhead said, in a snarky tone. “You are big, sis. You’ll stretch it out.”

Rose’s cheeks burned. This nasty girl had just called her fat in front of a table full of seniors. Not only did Bel not rise to her defense. She actually smirked.

“Screw you, Bel. I don’t want your skeevy clothes anyway.”

Rose tore the sweater off and threw it in her sister’s face. The look of shock in Bel’s eyes gave Rose a sick thrill as she turned on her heel and fled back to the Moreland table. Rose had always been the loving sister, had always looked out for Bel. Come to think of it, she didn’t get much in return, did she? Bel never repaid the favor, never invited Rose to hang out with her cool friends. To the contrary. She’d been willing to humiliate Rose in front of the seniors.

The Moreland girls had left already, which came as a relief. Hopefully they’d missed the conclusion of that awful scene. Rose’s tray sat alone on the table, the half-eaten taco swimming in a pool of congealing orange grease. She bused her tray, worrying kids would gossip about her now. Her fabulous first day of classes had been ruined; and her self-confidence, which had been soaring this morning, was now in tatters. All because of Bel. As much as Rose loved her sister, she would struggle to forgive her for this.