By the time we walked back up to the academy, the first stars had come out, dimpling silver studs in the lake. The stone path pulsed heat underfoot, and owls fluttered in the chestnut trees along the hill. Isabella and I strolled arm in arm through the shadows, taking deep breaths of warm air dusky with herbs. Sometimes as we walked, Isabella whistled, or else we dreamed up histories for the silent sisters. They had been tragically widowed, disgraced movie stars. They were lost princesses, heirs to castles in Monaco. They had once been academy girls, just like us.
9.
September
The second Saturday of term, Greta and I rose early and passed the time before breakfast playing cards in the common room. When one of the sisters came in to shake the rugs out of the window, we put down our hands and assumed a polite silence. It seemed rude to carry on chatting while one of the sisters was there, as if we were deliberately excluding her. Greta and I had taken armchairs on either side of the fireplace, and over her shoulder I watched the lake turning a champagne color as the morning grew hotter and hazier. When Isabella woke up maybe I could convince her to go down to the water—I had a new bikini and I was anxious for its Italian debut. After graduation, Granny had insisted on fitting me out with a new wardrobe for “touring,” as she called it. My academy closet was decked out in gloriously bland linen dresses and cotton T-shirts. The bikini itself had been Granny’s suggestion, “for sailing parties.” I didn’t know what kind of cruises she expected me to attend in a convent, but I was grateful anyway.
Greta dealt me a hand. “I refuse to be ‘old maid’ again,” she said seriously. I snapped out of my daydream and stared at her for a second, misunderstanding.
Nancy knocked on the door. “Good morning,” she said. “So. Donna Maria was just saying there are trails all around where we can go hiking.” She put one hand on the doorknob. “Would you two like to come with me?”
“Um . . . now?” Greta looked at me, startled.
“Just us two?” I said.
Nancy shrugged. “You want to ask Bella?”
“Yes,” I said, beaming. It was glorious to be so carelessly acknowledged as a pair, inseparable.
Greta was gnawing on the corner of a playing card. “Is it a long hike?”
“Not so long. Two hours, maybe three. I’ll meet you downstairs after lunch,” Nancy said.
Greta sat up in the armchair. “But won’t it be terribly hot?”
Nancy wrinkled her nose. “It won’t be so bad. Doesn’t it get hot in Delaware?”
Greta pursed her lips into a little bow, as if she were trying not to cry. “Yes, but then we go sailing.”
“Let’s do it at four,” I said, to break Nancy’s gaze from Greta. “It’ll be cooler then.”
“OK,” Nancy said. “Sounds swell.”
After lunch, Greta came to my room and lit a cigarette by the window. She’d changed into linen pants and a white cotton T-shirt and tied her hair back in a ponytail with a white ribbon. She looked as dainty as a novelty candy.
“Do you do lots of hiking in Connecticut?” she said.
I shook my head. “Isabella doesn’t enjoy hiking.”
Greta tapped me playfully on my arm. “I mean your family, silly.”
“Oh.” I pressed my fingernails into my palms and tried to suppress a blush. “Not really. We only go hiking to find a good picnic spot.” I conjured a false memory, of Mama, Dad, and Rhona, sitting on a tartan picnic blanket peeling oranges and tossing pith into the grass.
Greta laughed. “Your mom sounds way too glamorous to be fighting off midges. Unless—are you sporty types?” She ran her finger over the filter of her cigarette. “As soon as my brothers stop talking about regattas, they start talking about skiing.” She smiled, but I could see the thought of home had wounded her. She cleared her throat. “Where does your family go skiing?”
“We don’t. Not exactly.” I swallowed. I watched the sunlight striking the faint, downy hair on her brow. My stomach filled with static as I deliberated how to begin. Mama was afraid to learn because she didn’t even see snow until she was married? Rhona was prone to breaking bones because of poor health? My eyes burned. It had been nice, for a while, to be anonymous, unremarkable.
“Oh, Bridge,” she said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you homesick.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. I didn’t deserve her sympathy. I could feel it swelling before us: sly questions, subtle inferences, pointed looks during dinner-table discussions about desegregation.
“Do you want to call them now?” She looked at her wristwatch. “It’s breakfast time on the East Coast. I’ll wait with you if you like. You’ll feel much better once you hear your mom’s voice, and if you’re feeling tearful, Donna Maria will let—”
“My mom won’t be there,” I said.
Greta’s head twitched. “Is she”—she blinked at me doubtfully—“at work?”
A thick, sticky trepidation coated my insides. Now was the moment to explain Rhona’s appointments. And how she needed special attention but it was OK because of Mama’s nursing career. And, no, Mama wasn’t a nurse in Connecticut but she had been in England, but no, she wasn’t English, and their two weddings and Granny’s tolerance and no, I know I don’t look it and yes, of course we go to Mass, and my slight but undeniable irregularity. I grasped for a neutral place, a safe space, where my family could dwell until I could bear to retrieve them.
“She’s at the summerhouse,” I heard myself saying.
“Oh.” Greta’s face relaxed.
I saw Mama standing by the window of a whitewashed cottage. Sandy footprints on a nautical-striped rug. A bundle of sunshine yellow sweet corn abandoned on a marble countertop.
“They don’t have a phone there or—”
I shook my head.
Greta brushed the curls out of my face. “Oh, Bridge, let’s not talk about home anymore,” she said, reaching to hug me. “It’ll only make us blue, and we’re supposed to be here for an adventure.”
* * *
We waited for Nancy by the side door of the academy. The tread in the center of the step was worn down to a stub, and I realized the front door with the bell must only be used for visitors. Isabella was flicking her lighter on and off, experimentally holding it to a dry leaf and blowing away the charred embers. Nancy appeared from round the front of the building, wearing a gray men’s shirt, jeans, and sturdy-looking boots.
Isabella nudged me. “Does she expect us to climb the mountains into Switzerland? It’s like Pippi Longstocking goes camping.”