Page 9 of Good Girls Lie
Oh, ha, bloody ha.
I look back up the hall and one small wren detaches herself from the flock and joins me. “Sorry. We like to have fun with new girls. You’re Ashley? I’m Camille.”
“My name isn’t Ashley. It’s Ash.”
“Well, that makes no sense. Ash isn’t short for Ashley?”
“No.”
Camille’s perfectly petite nose rises an inch, and one groomed eyebrow quirks.
Judgment made.
“Ash, then. Well, as I said, I’m Camille. We’re here.Acrossthe hall.” She gestures toward a pristine white door with 214 engraved on a rounded, champagne brass plaque bolted to the door. How could I have missed it?
Two corkboards are below the room number with our names on top:Ash—Oxford, Englandon the left,Camille—Falls Church, Virginiaon the right. Both hold pushpins. Mine is empty, Camille’s has photos of her travels—in a sari, on the back of an elephant, feeding a camel—and a few buttons with chirpy sayings on them.
“Don’t be angry. The girls thought it would be funny if you believed the storage room was your suite.”
“I didn’t find it funny at all.” An intimate staring contest ensues. Camille is the first to look away.
“Whatever. They’re just goofing. You’re the last one here. This is ours. The view is decent, but the room’s nothing to write home about.”
I follow Camille in and have to bite my lip again from exclaiming aloud. Gotta look cool, gotta look nonchalant. But...this is nothing like what I expected.
Oh. Oh, my.
The website showed rooms that were small, dingy, and dark, similar to the one across the hall, but this—this is practically sumptuous. Light gray walls, wainscoting, bright white crown molding along the ceiling. Spacious. Lovely.
The beds are bunked, one on top of the other, towering with fluffy pillows and warm down comforters. There is an overstuffed sofa, the windows have gray velvet hangings, two dark wood desks that look like priceless antiques sit side by side on the other end of the room.
This palace is mine. Mine, and Camille’s.
It takes me a moment to focus back on my new roommate. Camille has been prattling on, ignorant to my awe.
“Are all the rooms like this?”
Camille pops a hip. “Ugh, yes. They redecorated last year and went with this neutral crap, and it’s soooo boring. It’s like living in a hotel. It used to be so cool, sort of dark and gothic, had its own personality, you know? Really old-school. More European flair. Granted, the building is super old, so it was probably time for an upgrade. I mean, nothing worked, the windows were stuck shut, and the bathroom pipes creaked and moaned. But this...it’s, it’s...”
“Monotonous.”
“Yes, that’s it, exactly. Monotonous. Monochromatically monotonous.” She giggles at her alliteration as I move to the window. The view is pretty, the quad a green expanse stretching out in front of the building, lined with old oak trees and pathways. A large sundial stands in the center, circled by a stone bench.
Camille is still talking. “You’re allowed one painting for above your desk, but we can’t even put things on the walls outside of that. It is so 1984 here. Rules, rules, rules. Big Mother is always watching, too.”
“Big Mother?”
“Dean Westhaven.”
I bite back a laugh. The moniker fits.
“Anyway, I was saying, I never got your letter. I’m from DC. You’re from England?”
“Yes. Oxford. It’s northwest of London.”
A full-blown eye roll. “I’ve been to Oxford. My father was ambassador to France for a time, and we traveled all over Europe. But you already know that frommyletter.”
“Yes. How nice for you.”
