Page 43 of All These Beautiful Strangers
The dormitory was empty since it was the middle of the day; the halls felt lonely and forlorn. I followed Ren and Darcy to the end of the hall on the first floor, where all the seniors’ rooms were. Ren slid her key card in and held the door open for me.
Ren’s room was messy. She was a senior, so she didn’t have to share. There was a single bed against the window, unmade, with a plain black Parachute duvet and linens in disarray. There were a chair and desk by the door, and literally every inch of the desk’s surface was covered—a clunky hair dryer with its cord snaking off the edge, a silver Miu Miu leather card case, a statistics and probability textbook, a half-drunk bottle of Diet Pepsi. And there were clothes everywhere—hanging from the chair, littering the floor so that it was impossible to walk without stepping on something.
“God, you’re such a slob,” Darcy said as if it were an endearing quality.
“There’s an order to my madness,” Ren said. She leaned down and removed what looked like a cosmetics case from underneath a pile of T-shirts. She sat on her bed and opened it; inside was a grinder, an eighth of weed in a little baggie, and a vape pen.
“Make yourself at home,” Darcy told me as she shut Ren’s door and took a seat on the other end of Ren’s bed.
I found a beanbag chair buried under some discarded blue jeans, so I cleared it off and sat. Darcy tossed me the latest issue of Cosmo from a stack of magazines on Ren’s nightstand and I absently thumbed through it, my eyes sliding over the glossy images and article titles: “Choosing the Perfect Lip Gloss for Your Skin Tone,” “5 Tricks to Try in Bed That Will Blow His Mind,” “The Absolute Must-Have Trends This Fall.”
I’d never had an easy time making girlfriends. I didn’t particularly like the things a lot of girls liked—I didn’t care for makeup or make a big deal about clothes and shopping; I’d never had a boyfriend. But, more than that, it was that girlfriends took a lot of work. When I hung out with boys like Leo, everything was refreshingly easy and transparent. You played video games or cards or whatever, and sure, boys could be crass or give each other a hard time, but you always knew exactly where you stood. With girls, so much happened beneath the surface; there was so much subtext that had to be read and analyzed, so many unspoken rules that you had to pay attention to. And there were feelings to account for. Part of the reason Drew and I got along so well is because we operated without all the BS. Yael and Stevie were part of the package deal, but even with them I often found myself saying or doing the wrong thing.
“So, find anything good?” Darcy asked Ren.
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Ren said as she focused on pouring the ground buds into the vaporizer. “She got a B minus on her physics test last week, which is bringing down her class average. And it looks like she hasn’t taken statistics yet, and you know Mr. Wong only gives out like two A’s a semester. You’ve already taken that, so you have a huge leg up next semester.”
I didn’t ask who they were talking about, but I knew enough to guess. It was common knowledge that Darcy Flemming and Stella Ng were neck and neck for valedictorian this year. Was Ren using her privileges as runner to keep an eye on Stella Ng’s academic record and give Darcy the inside scoop on her competition? I was a little surprised though that they would talk about it so openly in front of me. Did this mean they considered me part of their inner circle now, that they trusted me with their secrets?
Ren took a drag on her vape pen.
“I hope so,” Darcy said. “I wanted to compete in the Maclay Finals this year, but with things being as tight as they are, my mom was adamant I take a break from riding and focus on my studies.”
“Horses are stupid,” Ren said, exhaling.
“Do you ride?” Darcy asked me.
“No, but my sister does,” I said. “That’s why she chose to go to Reynolds actually. They have a stable and a competitive equestrian team.”
“Your family has a place on Martha’s Vineyard, right?” Ren asked me.
“Yeah,” I said. “In Edgartown.”
“I thought so,” Ren said. “I thought I saw you at L’Étoile this summer.”
“Yeah, we go there a lot.”
“My father has a place in Chilmark on the water,” Ren said. “We have a big party for the Fourth every year. You should stop by some time.”
The Montgomerys’ annual Fourth of July party was legendary. Guests dined on oysters and lobsters in hundred-foot-long white tents on the estate and danced under the stars to a live band. Last year, the Montgomery family had put on a fireworks show on the beach that was rumored to have cost over a hundred grand. My fling at the time, Cedric Roth, had attended. He’d told me all about it.
“Sounds fun,” I said.
“Here,” Ren said, tossing me the vape pen.
The first time I’d smoked was that past summer in the room over the boathouse with Cedric Roth, where he hid his bong far from the prying eyes of his parents.
“Breathe,” he’d instructed, and I’d leaned forward, putting my lips to the glass barrel.
He showed me how to inhale, how to hold the smoke in my lungs. My throat burned. It felt like it was on fire, and I instinctively coughed, but then I couldn’t stop coughing, harder and harder. I remembered the way my body loosened and my mind unraveled and everything around me felt different, how I could taste the air on my tongue for the first time.
Now, when I took a drag on Ren’s vape, the smoke tickled my throat but I held back the cough. My eyes started to water.
We weren’t allowed to have candles in our dorms, but Ren had an electric wax warmer plugged in on her desk. She got up and took a meltable wax square out of its packaging and placed it on top.
“Harvest Apple,” she said.
I stared at Ren’s walls, which were white and bare. Most girls hung posters of their favorite bands or put up bulletin boards covered in ribbon and pinned with photographs, or strung up string lights, but Ren hadn’t bothered.
