Private Read online

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  I will be happy here. I will make friends. This is the beginning Wine. They were drinking wine right there in their dorm.

  of a whole new life.

  Laughing and chatting and sipping in the candlelight.

  And that was when I saw her. A girl, sitting in a window just like In my entire life, I had never seen anything like these girls. They mine, directly across the way. She was wispy and thin with delicate seemed so much older, and not just older than me—which they obvi-features, smooth pale skin, and light blond hair that fell in loose ously were—but too old to be in high school. Every move they

  waves around her tiny shoulders. She looked almost ethereal, like made was graceful and sure. The held their glasses with carefree she could float away at any moment with the help of a light breeze.

  assuredness as if they drank from such delicate crystal each and She wore a white tank top and short pajama shorts and seemed riv-every day.

  eted on the pages of the book she held in the crook between her This girl, the laugher, had piled her brown hair on top of her

  bent legs and her flat stomach. I was so riveted by her that I didn’t head in a messy bun, held there by a pair of chopsticks. She was notice anything moving in her room until another girl swooped in stunningly beautiful, with dark, tan skin and a lithe, athletic figure.

  out of nowhere and snatched the book out of her hands. I sat up She flashed a knowing smile, which she prefaced by a narrow, slid-straight, startled, thinking for a split second that the girl had been ing glance at her friends. She wore a red silk robe over a tank top threatened. But then I saw the taller, darker girl twirl the reader and boxers and seemed to live to tease. The second girl was petite, into the room and onto the bed. There she joined two others who with messy, dark blond curls and cheeks like a porcelain doll. She sat, laughing, their bare legs splayed out as they ate from a box of was playful with the others and seemed younger than them, shoving chocolates.

  and rolling her eyes and clapping when she laughed. But it was the I turned fully toward the window now, crossing my legs Indian

  reader and the dark-haired girl I couldn’t tear my eyes from.

  style in front of me and balancing precariously on the windowsill.

  The dark-haired girl wore nothing but black underwear and a

  Then the lights across the way were doused and my breath caught.

  large silk nightshirt, undoubtedly made for a man, with only the two Moments later, a flicker of light. Then another. Then another.

  center buttons done. She shook her thick hair back, took a sip of Gradually the room started to glow and the figure of the dark-her wine, and held the novel up to read from it to her friends, ges-haired girl loomed through the dancing shadows as she lit candle turing dramatically with her glass, but never spilling so much as a after candle. Soon the four girls were bathed in the warm light. One drop. All three of them gathered together, rapt with attention at the of them rose and handed out glasses. Large, round glasses with

  girl’s performance, and I thought, This girl is the leader. As delicate stems. Each was already filled with deep red liquid.

  she continued to read, she placed her glass down and lifted the

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  ethereal girl’s arm. The girl stood on cue, a slight, far-off smile playing about her lips. The dark-haired girl thrust their hands above her head and the bottom of her shirt fell open, exposing a long, red scar along her stomach, just above her hipbone. I was so startled by this garish imperfection on such a flawless being that I almost looked THE BILLINGS GIRLS

  away. But then she stepped breast-to-breast with her friend and the scar was covered and I realized they were dancing. They moved as one, twirling through the shadows and the flickering candlelight. The little cherub reached for her sound dock and acoustic guitar music echoed through the quad, sending a shiver down my spine.

  “Billings House? That’s an upperclassmen-only house. And even if The ethereal girl spun out of her friend’s arms toward the

  you’re a junior or senior, you have to meet certain requirements to window and suddenly she froze. My heart caught, startled at her get in.”

  abruptness, but it took me a good long moment to realize she was

  “Requirements?”

  staring right at me. I had mistaken her gaze as flighty and un-

  “Academic, athletic, service. If you meet their requirements,

  focused, but I saw now that it was the exact opposite. She looked you get an invitation from housing at the end of the year. It’s very right through me, around me, all over me, taking in everything and selective. You have to be an integral part of the Easton community turning me inside out. Embarrassed, I looked quickly away,

  to live there.”

  pretending to be preoccupied by something in the room, but it was Her expression said, “You will never live there.”

  no use. I had to look back. When I did, she was holding her curtains I had just met Missy Thurber five minutes before and already I

  wide with both hands, still staring.

  felt like choking her. She was the piglike girl who had snickered I was breathless. I was caught. But I couldn’t look away. Would about the no-boys rule at yesterday’s meeting. She had highlighted she tell her friends? Would she report me? Could I get kicked out of blond hair that she wore back in a French braid and a nose that Easton for spying? I stared back, willing her to be kind. Willing her turned up so far at the end that you could almost see into her nos-not to tell. For a long moment, neither one of us moved.

  trils. You’d think that a girl with a nose like that wouldn’t have the Then she smiled, ever so slightly, and snatched the curtains

  guts to be so superior, but she managed to look down it at everyone closed.

  she saw. She also held her shoulders so far back when she walked it

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  was as if she wanted her large breasts to enter any room a good fif-piercing horror stories, lifting their shirts and sticking out their teen seconds ahead of her. Ridiculous. I would never have even

  tongues to display their war wounds.

  bothered talking to her if Constance hadn’t told me both her par-Near the front of the room was a large table with slightly more ents and all her siblings had attended Easton and that she knew ornate detailing. Several teachers sat there with their food, talking everything there was to know about the school. I had looked up the in low tones or reading from newspapers. A couple of older gentle-dorm behind mine in the catalog, but other than its name, Billings, men sat back with their arms crossed over their chests, scanning there was no information. All the other dorms read “Bradwell,

  the room as they spoke to one another, eager to pounce if someone sophomore girls’ housing” or “Harden, junior and senior boys’

  stepped out of line.

  only.” Billings just said “Billings House.”

  “You don’t apply. They invite you,” Missy said again, rolling her

  “At the end of the year, we should apply. We should all apply,”

  eyes. “How did she even get in here?” she said, not so quietly, to Constance said in her enthusiastic way as we walked out of the

  Lorna, the mousy girl on her other side. Lorna had small features breakfast line and into the Easton cafeteria with our trays of fruit overpowered by bushy brown eyebrows and the kinkiest brown hair and toast. “I bet we would totally get in,” Constance added to me I had ever seen. She hadn’t said much so far, but she hadn’t left alone.

  Missy’s side all morning, so I had a feeling I didn’t like her.

  The Easton cafeteria was a cavernous room with a domed ceiling

  “Nice attitude,” I said.

  that terminated in a small, cut-glass skylight that danced slivers of Mis
sy scoffed and took a seat at the end of a table, forcing the sun on the tables and chairs below. Unlike Croton High, the furni-rest of us to squeeze between her and the chair behind her to get in.

  ture here was not made of standard-issue plastic and metal, but

  “Whatever. The point is, not just anyone can get into Billings.

  real, solid wood. Cane-backed chairs were set up alongside tables You have to be . . . special,” Missy said as she prissily opened up her with thick legs, and all surfaces shone as if they had been freshly napkin and laid it across her lap.

  waxed. On the walls were paintings that evoked various facets of life

  “And it’s like once you live there, you’re golden,” Lorna added.

  in historical New England. Farmhouses, covered bridges, skaters

  “They all get good grades—”

  on a frozen pond. All very quaint and old-fashioned. All almost

  “Even if your grades sucked before. Go figure,” Diana Waters,

  funny when juxtaposed against the kid with the MP3 player who was another girl from our floor, interjected. She was a pixie-ish girl executing a sleeper hold on some other guy in an effort to comman-with short blond hair and clear braces. “Plus every captain of every deer his portable game system. Or the girls swapping summer

  team and every president of every club lives there—”

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  “They’re achievers,” Missy said. “Women who lived in Billings

  table in the very center of the cafeteria. Leading the pack was the girl have gone on to be senators, movie stars, news anchors, novelists.”

  with the dark hair and the scar that was now hidden somewhere

  “And college? Forget about it,” Diana said. “They get recom-

  underneath a pristine white linen blazer and black T-shirt. I flushed mendations from all the Billings alumnae and every single one of just thinking about it, knowing it was there when she had no idea that them ends up at an Ivy. Every single one.”

  I knew. She was tall—even taller than my five nine from the looks of

  “You’re kidding,” I said.

  her—and, I couldn’t help noticing, in flat shoes. She spoke to the

  “I shit you not,” Diana said. “Their track record is blemish-

  ethereal girl, who walked next to her with her head tipped toward her free.”

  friend, but with that far-off expression in her eyes.

  “Yes, it is,” Missy said as she spread some low-fat cream cheese Behind them was the sly girl, whose light brown hair was again

  on her bagel. “I can’t wait until next year. To have one of those huge up in a messy bun. She led with her hips as she walked, her back rooms? The cages they have us in now have got to be a human rights straight and her chin up. A gawky brunette boy stared at her as she violation.”

  passed him by and she winked at him surreptitiously. He turned a

  “What makes you think you’re going to live there? I thought you deep, disturbing shade of purple before sliding down in his seat had to be invited, ” I said pointedly.

  and hiding behind his manga book. The girl laughed to herself, tri-

  “I will be. I’m a legacy,” Missy said. Like, duh. “Both my mother umphant.

  and my sister lived in Billings.”

  With her was the cherub, whose blond curls bounced as she

  Okay. Now I hated her even more. The fact that someone like

  scurried after her friends. She was the only one of the four who that could just have something like Billings handed to her just illus-walked with her head down, her pale skin blotched with pink from trated everything that was wrong with the world.

  some kind of exertion, pleasure, or embarrassment. She hugged

  “Which basically means they have to take her,” Lorna added

  her books to her chest and seemed to be concentrating hard on

  with a laugh.

  something going on in her head.

  Nice. Maybe Lorna didn’t entirely suck.

  They really were here. They really did exist.

  Missy shot her a look that made her go instantly pale. “Not that

  “I would kill to be Noelle Lange,” Diana said, leaning her chin you wouldn’t get in anyway,” Lorna added quickly.

  on her hand.

  “Check it out,” Diana said, lifting her chin. “Speak of the devils.”

  “Yeah. That’s gonna happen,” Missy said sarcastically.

  I looked up and there they were, striding two-by-two toward a

  “Which one’s Noelle?” Constance asked.

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  “White blazer,” Lorna said, envy dripping from her very lips.

  “Omigod! Yes! She was on the billboard outside my Pilates

  “Rumor has it that Harvard, Cornell, and Yale are all fighting for her.”

  studio!” Constance exclaimed.

  “Please. She’ll go wherever Dash McCafferty goes,” Missy said,

  “Omigod! Keep your voice down, you freak!” Missy shot back,

  glancing over.

  mimicking her.

  I saw that the big, blond guy who caught my punt yesterday was

  “Wait. She’s an actual model?” I asked.

  now sitting on a table behind Noelle, rubbing her shoulders with

  “What? Like you’ve never seen one in the flesh before?” Missy

  his huge hands. She tilted her head back, her long tresses tumbling said. “Half the girls in my building back home have done the spring down behind her, and he leaned down for a kiss.

  shows.”

  “More like he’ll go wherever she goes,” Diana said. “I highly I glanced around and noticed that at least half the male population doubt Dash wears the pants in that relationship.”

  of the room was in fact watching Kiran, most of them practically

  “When Noelle’s in the room, she’s pretty much the only one

  drooling.

  wearing pants,” Lorna added.

  “And then there’s Taylor Bell,” Diana said. “From all accounts,

  “That’s true. I take it back,” Missy said.

  the smartest girl ever to step foot on the Easton campus.”

  “Who’s the reader?” I asked, noticing that ethereal girl once

  Across the way, the cherubic girl laughed and had to slap her

  again had her nose stuck in a book.

  hand over her mouth to keep from spitting out her oatmeal. Didn’t

  “That’s Ariana Osgood,” Missy said. “Her family owns half the

  look like a genius to me, but then again, I’d never seen one of those South. Which means the rest of the Billings Girls forgive her for in the flesh either.

  being from the South.”

  “Best schools. Hottest boyfriends,” Diana said. “Yeah. Being a

  Diana, Constance, and Lorna all snickered.

  Billings Girl definitely wouldn’t suck.”

  “They’re in oil,” Missy added. “All big, cigar-chomping, bane-

  I stared across the room at the four girls and the guys who hovered of-the-environmentalists types. God only knows how they pro-around them, my pulse racing with a new sense of excitement. A few duced her.”

  more girls sat down at the other end of their table, every last one of

  “She’s a poet,” Diana explained. “She writes half the literary

  them beautiful and poised, though to me they seemed second-string magazine every quarter. She’s really good.”

  compared to the four girls I had seen the night before.

  “The model is Kiran Hayes,” Lorna said. “She’s done

  “What about the others?” I asked.

  Abercrombie, Ralph Lauren . . .”

  “Eh, they’re in Billings too,” Diana said with a wave of her fork.


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  So I was right. It was Noelle and her friends who were impor-

  tant. Noelle and her friends who were the most worth knowing.

  My heart pounded against my rib cage and I pressed my sweaty

  palm into the thigh of my jeans. I had never wanted anything as much as I wanted to be at that table right then. If I could just enter TRADITION

  that inner sanctum, every door at Easton would open up to me.

  I would never have to worry about being accepted or fitting in. I would be leaving my own crappy, depressing home life so far

  behind maybe i could manage to forget it altogether.

  Easton was a nondenominational school, but it had been founded

  by Presbyterians back in the early nineteenth century. According to the catalog, they had discontinued group prayer in the 1990s, but they still called the morning, school-wide gathering “morning

  services.” The daily assembly was held in the ancient chapel at the center of campus, surrounded by the class buildings, the offices of the instructors and deans, the gym, cafeteria, and library—all of which I was eager to explore. Beyond this circle were the dorms, beyond them the playing fields, and beyond them the mountains

  and trees and clear blue sky. It was a hot morning, normal for early September, but as we stepped through the arched doorway and into the chapel, it was like walking into a cave. Goosebumps popped out all over my skin as the cool air washed over me and I shivered in my lightweight T-shirt. Suddenly, I understood why most students had brought along cardigans or jackets. The high walls were made of cold, musty gray stone and the slim stained-glass windows only

  allowed the most minor shafts of sunlight to enter.

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  I hugged myself as I passed by the Billings Girls. Ariana was in I glanced around for Thomas but didn’t see him among the

  the very last pew, reading, while Kiran and Taylor sat near the cen-seniors. Hanging on the walls between the windows were long,