You’ve arrived early, haven’t you? Send the nuns my love! Paris is splendid, I’ve drunk buckets of champagne, and guess what? Ralphy asked me & I said yes! It was terribly romantic. He says you have to swear to protect me from all the Italian lotharios. Ciao! Izzy xx
5.
August
I sat for a while on the bed, staring at the orchard below my window. Ripe apples dropped to the earth with dull thuds. Bumblebees stumbled frowsy girdles around the trees. Isabella had been talking about her French vacation for months, and I knew of course that when Ralph met her in Paris, there was a risk he’d ask her to marry him. My skin felt suddenly saggy and limp on my body. Ralph had known to seize his opportunity; maybe he was smarter than I’d realized. It was meant to be our year, I thought sullenly. Our year of freedom. Isabella wasn’t supposed to spend it yoked to Ralph.
I stared at the bland expression of the Mona Lisa. Why would she have chosen to send me this postcard? Perhaps the image was so cliché it had come back around to being fashionable? Or perhaps she really thought I was so dull and unimaginative that I’d appreciate such a stale keepsake. I read through her message again and noticed it was postmarked three weeks ago. A spark of hope twinkled in my chest. Isabella often got carried away. She could easily have changed her mind after three weeks of listening to Ralph’s theories about federal income tax rates. Probably, most likely, almost certainly, she got wrapped up in the moment. And by the time she arrived, they’d have had some foolish squabble and called it off. She’d be poking fun at Ralph’s Yale cufflinks and complaining about his loud, boorish friends with names like Peanut and Stoaty. Probably, most certainly, there was nothing for me to worry about.
I rummaged for my toiletry bag and followed the corridor down to the bathroom at the end of the hallway. It was so large it was almost industrial, as if you’d wash sheep in there. On the right were three ancient tubs stippled with verdigris under the faucets, and on the left three sinks and three cubicles with toilets. The unshuttered window at the back of the room looked onto the sharp contour of the Blue Mountains, so anybody for miles around would be able to see us bathing. Peering out, I thought of those boys by the train tracks, lining up to throw mulberries at the glass. I washed my face and hands at one of the basins, and the door swung open to reveal a blond girl.
“Oh hi,” she said, her eyes alarmed. “Please tell me you’re a student.”
For a wild moment, I imagined telling her that I was the headmistress, a new chambermaid, faking a French accent, affecting a lisp. I grappled with the urge like a big billowing sail until it collapsed. “Yes, I just arrived.”
“Thank goodness!” She gripped my hand. It was Greta of the visitors’ book. She had a creamy complexion and the hale prettiness of a cherub. “I’m so glad to see you. I’ve been here for a week already and I’m going out of my gourd.”
“No one else has arrived yet?”
She shook her head, leaning against the edge of the basin. “It’s just been me and Donna Maria. And the silent sisters. If they count. I suppose they don’t. Do they?” She laughed in a teetering, unsteady way.
“Where have you traveled from?” I had practiced the phrase on the train, deciding it was exactly the right tone of elegant curiosity with which to quiz my new classmates.
“Oh, hardly far,” Greta said, slouching against the sink. Her backside was ample and shapely, and her curves spilled over the rim of the basin. “I was in Venice with Bobby, my fiancé.”
I braced myself for the phoniness I’d need for the next part of the conversation. “How exciting! May I see?” I gestured toward the diamond on her left hand.
“Please.” She yanked the ring from her finger and handed it over with so much enthusiasm I realized I’d misjudged her. As I held up the stone, I thought, She’ll be one of those girls who stretches out her angora sweater by sitting with her knees inside it, and gives her last cigarette away to a veteran at a tram stop.
“Lovely,” I said.
“Try it on, if you like,” she said, gripping the edge of the basin. “Unless—you’re not engaged, are you?” She scanned my hand in a panic. Her eyes were green like a cat’s, her lashes blond.
“No.” I smiled and slipped on the ring. I held out my hand. “How pretty.” I took it off as quickly as seemed polite and gave it back to her. “Do you have any photos?”
“Of Venice?” Her eyes widened. “Oh, hundreds. And postcards, too. It’s simply divine. Have you been?”
I’d been referring to her fiancé but was relieved she’d misunderstood me. I shook my head.
“You must come to my room and let me show you my album. It’s exactly as nice as everyone says it is,” she said with a sigh. “Even so, it doesn’t really make up for being away.” She looked over to the window and back at me. “I think I’m homesick already. I’ve been bawling my eyes out.” She swallowed. “I promised Mom I wouldn’t. But even she was bawling her eyes out when it came time to say good-bye. I bet there are moms all over America worried to death about their little girls being so far away.” She smiled, but her lips were twitching. “Was your mom awful sappy about it?”
Startled, I opened and shut my mouth. “No,” I said.
She frowned.
“I mean—” The day I had left to board the United States, Granny had taken Rhona for an anemia test and Mama had been distracted on the drive, looking again and again at her watch. “My mom has this big party to plan.” I licked my lips. “She’s kind of preoccupied with entertaining.” I searched for possible reasons to celebrate and settled on the annual LeBaron extravaganza. “Labor Day.”
Greta smiled, rolling her eyes. “Oh boy, my mom is just the same. We always have a cookout, and this year my brothers insist on catching all the fish themselves.” She shook her head. “It’ll be mayhem—all wet Labradors and piles of sailing gear on the dining table—” She broke off, shrugging. “But I don’t need to tell you, I’m sure.”
I gave her a smile but my chest was tight. “Yes,” I said. “I know exactly what you mean.”
* * *
Before supper, Greta insisted on touring me around the downstairs landmarks: the whitewashed classrooms, the mail cubby, the Mariani frescoes of golden apples across the library ceiling. Then back in my room, she fell into ecstasies over the view of the swollen afternoon light falling in spokes through the apple trees. At six, we washed our hands and faces and Greta brushed her hair. She offered to brush mine, but I knew it would make it frizzy more than neaten it up, so I pinned it behind my head with the tortoiseshell hairpin Rhona had given to me. Or rather, Mama had given to me and written, Love from Rhona, on the card.