Class - Cecily Von Ziegesar [3]
“I don’t know.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I heard the food was better?”
Her drab green army duffel—the only bag she’d brought with her on the bus from Erie, Pennsylvania—blocked the hallway like a dead body. She dragged it into the room. “This one is fine,” she told Shipley, attempting to modulate her bitchy tone as she sat down on the bed against the far wall. She turned to Sea Bass, still perched on the windowsill. “And you live where?” she asked, the bitchiness coming back. It was obvious the boys were only hanging around because Shipley was beautiful and blond. She also seemed weirdly shy, which was a good thing, because Eliza herself was anything but. They’d get along swimmingly. Two peas in a pod. Two pumpkins in a patch. Two hens in a peck, or whatever the fuck you called it. “Because I really need to count my tampons before orientation starts.”
Sea Bass stood up quickly. Damascus was already gone. “Remember there’s a keg waiting for you when you get back!” Sea Bass called before slamming the door.
Looking for something to do, Shipley unzipped the smaller of her two bags and pulled out her new Ralph Lauren sheet set. She could feel Eliza staring at her as she ripped open the plastic and removed the bottom sheet from its casing. She’d spent a long time at the Lord & Taylor in Stamford, picking out new sheets. They were the first she’d ever bought for herself and she wanted them to be right. Something about this pattern, with its dark purple, navy blue, and hunter green swirling paisleys seemed just rebellious enough to say “college,” while still being Ralph Lauren.
“Nice,” Eliza commented. “Those are really nice sheets,” she clarified. “Really.”
“Thanks.” Shipley couldn’t tell if her new roommate was entirely sincere. She stretched the bottom sheet over the mattress, tucking it in where it draped at the sides. “I told those guys I didn’t get into Dartmouth, but actually I did.” The fact that she and Eliza had both chosen Dexter over an Ivy League school gave them at least one thing in common. “Just like you, I decided to come here instead.” She smoothed the wrinkles out of the sheet. The room looked better already.
“How come?” Eliza unzipped her duffel bag and pulled out a collection of books—The Bell Jar, Flowers in the Attic, Interview with the Vampire—and a giant white rabbit’s foot on a little gold chain. Kneeling on the mattress, she thumbtacked the chain to the wall so that the rabbit’s foot hung over the head of her bed. She sat back and smiled, delighting in its perverse mix of tackiness, gore, and desperation.
Shipley shook out the top sheet. Her parents were annoyed when she’d even applied to Dexter. When she’d decided to go, they’d almost stopped talking to her. Of course they blamed the school for not keeping a closer watch on Patrick. And what exactly was Shipley trying to accomplish anyway? Dartmouth was a far superior school. But Shipley was eighteen now, and she was tired of doing the right thing in the shadow of the brother who’d always done the wrong thing. To her, Dexter represented a sort of backless wardrobe, a gateway to a far more interesting life than the one she’d led thus far. Patrick had come here and then—gloriously—disappeared.
Someone knocked. “Shipley Gilbert? Eliza Cheney?”
Eliza went over and opened the door. “Who wants to know?”
A tall, lean person with spiky golden brown hair, a square jaw, a prominent Adam’s apple, and long earlobes decorated with two tiny gold studs blinked coldly back at her. Eliza studied the baggy shorts, loose-fitting Dexter T-shirt, and brown suede Birkenstocks. Male or female? It was impossible to tell.
“I’m Professor Darren Rosen, your