BACK IN MINERVA, THE TWO OTHER RESIDENTS WERE SLOUCHED cozily on the sofa, with Ellie’s legs draped casually over Hayes’s lap as she talked about Paris. Hayes didn’t seem to be listening. He was working his phone. Pix was sitting at the table again but her tooth collection was gone, replaced by glossy Ellingham Academy folders and paperwork.
“You’re back!” she said. “Okay. I need a few minutes to go through the basics. . . .”
“Don’t you have to wait for David or something?” Ellie said with a groan.
“His plane from San Diego is late, and the sooner we start the sooner we’re done. It’s fast.”
“But he’s coming, right?”
“He’s coming,” Pix said.
Stevie, Nate, and Janelle took seats at the table. Ellie and Hayes remained in their huddle, and Hayes was still on his phone.
“Hayes,” Pix said. “Just look up for five minutes.”
Hayes tipped his chiseled face up and smiled easily, setting the phone on the sofa.
“So,” Pix said, consulting a list, “welcome, everyone, to Ellingham. ID cards. Each of you has been issued an ID card. That card is programmed to give you access to buildings you need to be in.”
Ellie rolled dramatically off the sofa and onto the floor, where she landed facedown. Pix continued.
“Visitors from other buildings have to stay in the common areas, so they can be in this room or the kitchen, but that’s it. You all got the official Ellingham rules of conduct, which includes information about consent and respecting other students. No means no here. Okay . . .”
Pix quickly scanned the list.
“Common sense stuff. No drinking, no illegal drugs. Any food in the kitchen needs to be in sealed containers and labeled for food allergies, but no one in here has a peanut allergy; I think we should be okay with that. No fires. Except for in this room when I’m present. Seriously, Ellie, no fires . . .”
Ellie groaned.
Janelle raised a hand. “Soldering?” she asked.
“Fine in the common room. No one has a microwave, okay . . . No unauthorized leaving of campus. We have shuttles to Burlington on the weekends leaving at ten in the morning and coming back at four. Alert me right away in case of a medical emergency in the house. There’s a nurse living on campus, the doctor comes in three times a week, and security can respond to any medical emergency if you need immediate help. If you need to speak to anyone, you can speak to me in confidence, and we have two counselors on staff and you can make appointments online or in person. I think that’s it. . . .”
She scanned the page again.
“Most of this you can read yourself. I said no fires already. Seriously, Ellie . . .”
“No fires,” Ellie mumbled into the floor.
“Okay! Then that’s it. Everybody take a folder.”
Nate immediately grabbed a folder and scurried back to his room. Pix headed back up to her apartment. Ellie peeled herself off the floor and went to the table to lean in over Stevie and Janelle.
“Tub room,” she said to Janelle and Stevie in a low voice. “Both of you. Fifteen minutes. Bring a mug.”
It seemed like a command that should be obeyed.
Fifteen minutes later, mugs in hand, Janelle and Stevie knocked on the tub room door. Ellie was in the tub, dressed in what appeared to be nineteenth-century pantaloons and a corset. This alone would have caught Stevie’s attention, but what held it was the fact that the water was bright pink.
“Shut the door,” she said. “We needed to have a little cocktail party to celebrate your arrival.”
She indicated a pile of wet, used towels on the floor next to her as if it was a comfortable divan.
Stevie wasn’t sure where to start, really. The fact that they’d just been lectured about drinking. The fact that Ellie was in the tub, dressed in pantaloons, and dyeing herself pink. Or the fact that there was a saxophone leaning against the tub. That too.
She decided to let the whole thing go and see where the conversation took them. That was a technique in criminal investigation when you wanted to get a sense of someone—let people talk, let them guide, and they’ll take you to who they are.
“I’m just dyeing my outfit for tonight,” Ellie said.
Both Janelle and Stevie decided to sidestep the fact that Ellie was also dyeing herself pink. No need to state the obvious.
“What’s tonight?” Janelle asked.
“Tonight is the party!” Ellie said. “Here. Mugs. Here.”
She reached around clumsily behind her and pulled out a champagne bottle.
“Mugs,” Ellie said again, reaching out.
“But Pix just said . . . ,” Janelle started.
“Mugs.”
Stevie passed over her mug, and after a moment, so did Janelle. Ellie poured some foamy champagne into each.
“It’s warm,” she said. “I only managed to bring a few bottles home from France, and it’s cheap, but even the cheap stuff in Paris is better than most stuff here. Okay. I’m going to talk you through all of that. First . . .”
She raised her mug, and Stevie and Janelle got the hint that they were to clink.
“Skål.”
Ellie sipped heavily. Janelle looked into her mug. Stevie hesitated for just a moment, and then decided to go for it. She had only drunk a few times in her life, but if there had ever been a time and a place, this was probably it. And they could probably ditch the mugs in time. Probably. The champagne was warm and had a hard, mineral taste and fizzed up her nose. It was not unpleasant.
“Drinking,” Ellie said, draining her mug. “They know it happens. We’re in the middle of nowhere so that kind of limits what goes on. This is a real no-one-can-hear-you-scream kind of place.”
Janelle was still staring into her mug. She raised it to her lips a few times and was clearly pretending to drink.
“They don’t really care as long as you don’t get too messed up,” Ellie went on, rolling to the side to adjust her wet clothing. “If Pix catches you, she just makes you dump everything out. My advice: buy cheap, buy often, put it in another container. Most people get stuff on the weekend coaches to Burlington. The only thing to watch for there is that Security Larry has a bunch of narcs in the liquor stores who’ll call him if anyone from Ellingham shows up. They make things hard but not impossible. Plenty of people on the street will buy for you for five bucks. But don’t get caught by Larry. He’ll bust your ass. Okay! Next point.”
She poured herself a little more.
“Curfews. This one is easy. You can handle it a few ways. One, you can have someone take your ID back to the house and fake tap you in for the night. Works sometimes, but if Pix is in the common room and sees it isn’t you, that’s bad. Better solution, come back and go out the window. Again, Larry will bust your ass, but it’s not as bad as drinking. The other security people, they vary. Depends on how hard Larry’s been riding them. Having people in your room, not too hard. Pix doesn’t really check very much. She’s cool. She’s also easily distracted. She’s super smart but her mind is always elsewhere.”
The way Ellie was holding her arms, Stevie got an eyeful of her tattoo. In fact, she was pretty sure that Ellie was holding her arm in the universal “ask me about my tattoo” position. It was composed of elegant script. The ink was very dark, and while there was no redness, there was just a bit of white scarring around it if you looked carefully. It was new, and it extended from the inside of her elbow to her wrist:
Mon coeur est un palais flétri par la cohue . . .
“It’s Baudelaire,” Ellie said when she saw that Stevie was fully engaged. “I got it over the summer in Paris. Do you speak French?” she asked.
“I do,” Janelle said. “Well, some. I think it means . . . my heart is a palace . . . something . . . ?”
“. . . debased by the crowd.”
Stevie had no idea what the hell that meant, but she nodded.
“I was reading this poem one night in Paris over the summer,” Ellie said, elegantly turning her arm, “and it just hit me, and I said to my mom, I’ve got to get it on my arm. My whole arm. And she agreed. We had some wine, and we went and found a place in the Canal Saint-Martin. My mom’s new lover is a street artist down there and he knew a place.”
Stevie reflected for just a moment on how she’d spent the summer. The majority of the time she was working at the Monroeville Mall in the knockoff Starbucks. When not working, she read. She listened to podcasts. She walked down to the ice cream place. She bought mysteries cheap from sale tables in front of the library. Doing everything she could to drown out the politics. Her life was the opposite of hanging around Paris with your mom and your mom’s lover getting tattoos.
“Another thing,” Ellie said. “The cell service up here sucks. The Wi-Fi goes out all the time.”
“How do we watch TV?” Janelle asked.
Stevie had the feeling that Ellie was about to say she didn’t watch TV.
“I don’t watch TV,” Ellie said.
Stevie gave herself a point on her mental scorecard.
“You don’t watch TV?” Janelle said, in the same way you might ask, “You don’t breathe oxygen?”
“I make art,” she said.
“I make machines,” Janelle replied. “And I keep the TV on while I build. I need TV. It’s how I focus.”
Janelle looked to Stevie in a kind of panic. Stevie knew from their summer conversations that Janelle was not joking. She seemed to know every show. Janelle was nature’s finest multitasker, someone who could talk, build a robot, follow a show, all at the same time.
“Can’t help you,” Ellie said, proffering the bottle again. When Stevie and Janelle declined the refill, she topped up her mug. “I don’t watch TV at all. Never have. We never had one growing up. My house was always about making art. I grew up in an art colony in Boston, then in a commune in Copenhagen, and then in New Mexico, and then we went to Paris for a while.”
“Where did you go to school?” Janelle said.
“Wherever we were. The commune had a good school. If I could do anything—got rich or something—I’d start a commune. This place would make a good commune. So, tell me about your love lives.”
Ellie punctuated this command by setting the bottle on the floor with a clunk. Stevie felt a queasy chill. This was not her favorite topic.
“I broke up with my girlfriend,” Janelle said, staring into her mug. “That’s when I reprogrammed the microwave.”
“Creativity can come from things sucking,” Ellie said. “I was in a rut last spring and I saw Roota in a pawnshop in Burlington. I had to have her. I didn’t have the money at the time, but I found a way. I made a little art, I got a little cash, I got Roota. We’ve been together ever since.”
She patted the saxophone.
“I’ll tell you something else,” Ellie said. “This place turns people into bunnies. It’s the isolation. Trapped up here on the mountain, snowed in. When the power goes out, things get freaky. What about you?”
This was to Stevie.
The champagne bubbles reached Stevie’s brain just then. Sitting in this high-ceilinged turret in the semi-dark, with her new friend Janelle and this strange but amusing artist dyeing herself pink . . . she was filled with warmth and a kind of slow relaxation. She would just be honest.
“I never met anyone who I was really . . . I don’t know. I don’t come from a very interesting place. Like, my parents are . . . do you know who Edward King is?” Stevie asked.
“The senator?” Janelle replied. “That asshole?”
“That’s the one,” Stevie said.
“Who?” Ellie said.
“Edward King is a jackass from Pennsylvania,” Janelle said. “He’d like to roll everything back to the bad old days.”
“My parents love him,” Stevie said, leaning back against the radiator. “They work for him. His local office? Is our house.”
“Oh my God,” Janelle said. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“It’s not the kind of thing you put in a message,” Stevie replied. “But I did what I could to help. I went into the volunteer document the night before the last phone bank session and changed all the numbers. They made a lot of interesting calls. Krispy Kreme headquarters, the Canadian Embassy, Disney World, the Scientology Celebrity Centre, SeaWorld . . .”
“Beautiful,” Ellie said, tipping back her head and laughing. “I love it.”
Ellie had removed her ring and set it on the rounded edge of the tub. As she laughed, she swung out her arm and knocked it off the edge. It rolled under the tub.
“Oh shit,” she said.
Stevie got down on the floor and reached around under the tub. As she pulled her hand back, something scraped against her skin.
“Be careful,” Ellie said, putting the ring back on. “There are some old pipes or something under there. They’ll cut you.”
This seemed like something Ellie should have said before Stevie shoved her hand under the tub. Then again, Ellie did seem like the type who jumped before checking if there was a pool under her, and probably provided advice in the same style.
“So,” Stevie said, “that’s where I come from. And my parents are kind of obsessed with me partnering up with someone. To them, dating is one of the highest achievements of teenage life, so . . .”
“Understood,” Ellie said. “Then do what you want up here.”
“Definitely,” Janelle said. “I mean, my parents are kind of the opposite. They’re all about school. School now, girls later. And now I’m here, so . . .” Janelle let out a long exhale.
“We should get ready to go,” Ellie said, standing up suddenly and bringing an end to the conversation just as Stevie had fully eased into it. Her clothes dripped heavy and pink. “I’m coming for you in a few minutes. It’s time for the party. Go get ready!”
In the warm darkness of the hall, Janelle and Stevie hunkered for a moment.
“What the hell was that?” Janelle said. “I mean, I like her? I think? But the stuff with the poem, the French stuff, living on the commune, the no TV thing. I don’t know.”
“Maybe this is what we came for?” Stevie said.
“Maybe,” Janelle said. “Something about people who make a big deal out of not watching TV. I guess I never hung out with a lot of art people. Do you think this Wi-Fi thing is going to be a big deal? Seriously, I need my TV. I’m going to have to figure something out. There has to be a way to get a strong connection. Okay. I guess we get dressed. See you in a minute.”
In her room, Stevie confronted her clothes, pawing through them quickly. She had not anticipated a party situation this early. She was never exactly party ready. When people at school looked online for party outfits and looks, she was genuinely confused. There were people who seemed not only to understand these things, but to accomplish them. A striped top, a wide-brimmed hat, shorts for that “special beach weekend.” Lipsticks for fall, jeans that were perfect for a hayride, pendant earrings for that holiday party and snowball fight. Who lived these lives?
The party outfit was going to be black shorts and black tank top. Stevie owned no jewelry. Her concession to the occasion was a pair of red flip-flops.
Janelle appeared at her door dressed in a baby-blue dress covered in lemons, with matching lemon earrings, and a gentle lemony perfume. This was all acceptable from Janelle, because it made sense. If Janelle could build a machine, she could build an outfit.
Random, discordant bleating came from upstairs. Ellie was playing her saxophone, and one thing was clear—she did not know how to play.
“Oh,” Janelle said, looking up. “That may get old, fast.”
“Is this ‘party’ enough?” Stevie asked.
“You look great,” Janelle said, and it sounded sincere. “I just, I got nervous. I wear my lemons when I’m nervous.”
A moment later, Ellie, still pink, still drippy, came down the stairs, nudging a reluctant and unhappy Nate. She had saxophoned him out of hiding.
It was time to go to a party.