Anna Breen (Huntsville, Texas; STEM scholarship; choir leader) sat on the floor trying to
assemble what looked like a bookshelf. This was a girl who would never quite fit. She’d
end up in a singing group or maybe get heavily into her church. She definitely wouldn’t be
partying with her other roommates.
Then the other two girls shuffled out of one of the bedrooms, awkwardly hefting a banged-up university-issued desk between them.
“Do you have to put that out here?” asked Anna glumly.
“We need more space,” said a girl in a flowered sundress Darlington knew was Mercy
Zhao (piano; 800 math, 800 verbal; prizewinning essays on Rabelais and a bizarre but compelling comparison of a passage in The Sound and the Fury to a bit about a pear tree in The Canterbury Tales that had garnered the notice of both the Yale and Princeton English departments).
And then Galaxy Stern (no high school diploma, no GED, no achievements to speak of
other than surviving her own misery) emerged from the dark nook of the bedroom, dressed
in a long-sleeved shirt and black jeans totally inappropriate to the heat and balancing one
end of the desk in her skinny arms. The low quality of Sandow’s video had caught the
slick, straight sheaves of her black hair but not the severe precision of her center part, the hollow quality of her eyes but not the deep inkblot of their color. She looked
malnourished, her clavicles sharp as exclamation points beneath the fabric of her shirt. She
was too sleek, almost damp, less Undine rising from the waters than a dagger-toothed rusalka.
Or maybe she just needed a snack and a long nap.
All right, Stern. Let’s begin.
Darlington rapped on the door, stepped into the room, smiled big, bright, welcoming, as
they set the desk down in the common room corner. “Alex! Your mom told me I should
check in on you. It’s me, Darlington.”
For a brief moment she looked utterly lost, even panicked, then she matched his smile.
“Hey! I didn’t recognize you.”
Good. She was adaptable.
“Introductions, please,” said Lauren, her gaze interested, assessing. She’d pulled a copy
of Queen’s A Day at the Races from the crate.
He extended his hand. “I’m Darlington, Alex’s cousin.”
“Are you in JE too?” Lauren asked.
Darlington remembered that unearned sense of loyalty. At the start of the year, all the
incoming freshmen were sorted into residential colleges where they would eat most of their meals and where they would eventually sleep when they left Old Campus behind as
sophomores. They would buy scarves striped in their residential college colors, learn the
college’s chants and mottos. Alex belonged to Lethe, just as Darlington had, but she’d been assigned to Jonathan Edwards, named for the fire and brimstone preacher.
“I’m in Davenport,” Darlington said. “But I don’t live on campus.” He’d liked living in
Davenport—the dining hall, the big grassy courtyard. But he didn’t like Black Elm sitting
empty, and the money he’d saved on his room and board had been enough to fix the water
damage he’d found in the ballroom last spring. Besides, Cosmo liked the company.
“Do you have a car?” asked Lauren.
Mercy laughed. “Oh my God, you’re ridiculous.”
Lauren shrugged. “How else are we going to get to Ikea? We need a couch.” She would
be the leader of this crew, the one who’d suggest which parties to go to, who’d have them
host a room for Liquor Treat at Halloween.
“Sorry,” he said with an apologetic smile. “I can’t drive you. At least not today.” Or any day. “And I need to steal Alex away.”
Alex wiped her palms on her jeans. “We’re trying to get settled,” she said hesitantly, hopefully even. He could see circles of sweat blooming beneath her arms.
“You made a promise,” he said with a wink. “And you know how my mom gets about family stuff.”
He saw a flash of rebellion in her oil-slick eyes, but all she said was, “Okay.”
“Can you give us cash for the couch?” Lauren asked Alex, roughly shoving the Queen
record back into the crate. He hoped it wasn’t the original vinyl.