Chapter 6
I
didn't tell my parents about Teresa, at least not yet. When they got back from Cornell, they looked so happyâfull of pride for their Ivy League son. They raved about the campus, the restaurants, and the quaint collegiate location. I didn't want to strip them of that poignant, parental, “just-dropped-my-firstborn-off-at-college” moment by informing them that the remainder of their family was about to implode when the next flight landed from San Juan.
I convinced Lilly to stay quiet until I determined the right moment to drop the news. She easily agreed. She had bigger things to occupy her brain waves, namely her debut at Spring Mills High School.
She spent thirty minutes straight talking to her mother about “expectations” and how she needed to appear “
muy inteligente
.” Lilly was already intelligent, and I didn't expect her to have to work very hard to prove that to her new teachers. But her parents were understandably nervousâLilly's academic performance had to justify their losing their daughter for a good chunk of her teen years.
“Last chance to change your mind. You sure you're ready?” I asked as I opened my custom-made jewelry box and pulled out the diamond stud earrings that my parents had given me for my confirmation.
Lilly was carefully selecting her “first day of school” outfit from my closet. She insisted that I show her what “everyone else would be wearing,” but I doubted that I was the best judge. I tended to lean more towards the casual, comfy attire rather than the sleek, trendy looks Madison (and most of the female student body) preferred. I did, however, have a closet full of skirts and dresses from family occasions gone by, and after ten years in the district I knew that dressy attire was a safe choice on day one.
“It just seems a little formal for school,” Lilly said, glaring at the array of skirts flowing in my walk-in closet.
“Look, I could tell you to mimick an outfit from the celebrity pages of last week's
People,
but I think it's a little late for that. Trust me, a lot of girls will be wearing skirts.”
“Skirts with ruffles?” she asked, flicking a pale pink frock.
“Those are box pleats, and yes, girls will be wearing stuff like that.”
I had already selected my outfit. I was planning to wear the dress I wore to Vince's graduation. No one outside the ceremony had seen me in it, and I thought it was safe to say that even those who had would have forgotten after three months of summer vacation. “It seems kinda boring,” Lilly said as she held a black skirt to her waist.
“Well, our school's kinda weird about clothes. We don't have a dress code, but there's a âcode of conduct' that eliminates any item that could be worthy of MTV.”
I clipped the price tags from my new leather school bag and filled it with pencils and pens from my desk. My mom had bought Lilly and I a complete set of new notebooks, binders, folders, rulers, and calculators. I love school supplies.
“So, Madison's picking us up tomorrow at 7:15,” I stated.
“Oh, great,” she grumbled.
I stared at Lilly, my head tilted. “Give her a chance. You haven't seen the real her yet.”
“Well, maybe I won't need to,” she said as she arranged a navy skirt and ivory top on my bed.
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“I don't know. I guess I just need to figure this Spring Mills thing out, you know?” She collected the outfit in her arms, along with a matching pair of navy sandals from my shoe rack, and headed toward the door.
“You will. And I'll help you.”
“Hey, I'm a big girl. I can tie my own shoes.”
“That's the beauty of Spring Mills. You don't have to tie your own shoes. You can hire people to do that for you,” I joked.
Lilly shook her head and left the room. She seemed impeccably calm for a girl about to enter a world that was utterly unfamiliar. I think I was more nervous for the start of school than she was.
Â
Madison's red Audi smelled amazing. I wish they could bottle that new car smell, because I would drench my entire house in it. I slumped my head onto the black leather headrest and inhaled deeply.
“So, Lilly, how you feelin'?” Emily asked from her permanent seat in shotgun.
Since Lilly and I shared a residence, and therefore always had to be picked up together, we were designated backseat passengers. Not that I minded, but I knew that if Lilly wasn't around, then Emily and I would at least rotate positions in the front.
“I'm okay. I'm mostly worried that I'll be behind in my classes.”
“Aren't you at all freaked out that you're going to a school that speaks a foreign language?” Madison asked, looking at Lilly through the rearview mirror.
“Like my English sucks?” Lilly rolled her eyes. “Besides, considering my school back in Puerto Rico was almost entirely Americans, I don't think it'll be too strange. How different could it be?”
Madison pulled into the driveway that led to Spring Mills High School. The lawn was speckled with students clad in designer clothes and toting leather backpacks. A couple of guys kicked a soccer ball back and forth; a group of elite senior girls were cuddled on the laps of their football stud boyfriends; a few familiar sophomores goofed off on the steps; and the remaining kids chatted in small groups with headphones or cell phones attached to their ears.
The flower beds, which were everywhere, were so freshly fertilized that the earthen scent floated into the car even with the windows sealed and the air conditioner blasting. The stone building shone with recently painted windowsills and new red doors at the column-flanked entrance.
“Wow,” Lilly mumbled under her breath.
She tugged at her borrowed blouse (only two inches of cleavage showed, which I considered a vast improvement).
“It's nice, isn't it?” Emily grinned as she twisted to look at Lilly between the leather seats.
“You should see how crappy the schools outside the Main Line are. When we play them in sports, I feel like we're rolling into a prison,” Madison boasted.
“Mad, you're a ballerina. Since when do you play sports?” I asked.
“We've gone to some of the football games,” she said, her blue eyes twinkling.
“Once.”
Madison pulled into the student parking lot and eased into a spot near the fence that led to the tennis courts. I grabbed my new messenger bag and climbed out of the car. My chocolate wrap dress hung below the wide belt cinched at my waist. I tugged at the hemline.
“First day of school, gotta love it,” Emily stated as she flung her plaid tote bag onto her shoulder and adjusted her black skirt.
Madison checked her hair in the car window and yanked at the waist of her designer jeans. She was wearing an exact replica of an outfit Cameron Diaz was photographed wearing on Rodeo Drive last week, down to the red ballet flats.
“So what does your school look like in
Puerrrto Riccco
,” Madison purred in a fake Spanish accent.
“Not like this,” Lilly mumbled.
A few minutes later, I walked Lilly to the front office. Since my dad had registered her via cell phone while the dean was on a par three, she hadn't received a printed schedule in the mail.
We stopped in front of the glass doors. Three secretaries hurried behind a large wooden counter handing out rosters that students had lost over the summer, checking doctors' notes, and reviewing homeroom discrepancies. The office always buzzed with chaos in the mornings.
I reached for the door handle, but Lilly grabbed my arm.
“What?”
“I want to go in alone.”
“Are you nuts? Why?”
“Because I want to.”
“Lilly, I know all of the secretaries. I can help you out.”
“I wanna do it on my own.” She stared through the glass into the bustling office.
“So, what, you just want me to leave you here and go to class?”
“Yes,” she said firmly.
“Lilly, you don't know where anything is. At least let me look at your schedule and show you where your classes are. You still have to find your locker,” I said, foolishly assuming my tenure in the district would make me rather useful.
“You've done enough already. Trust me. I can do this by myself. I can't be âMariana's cousin' forever.”
“It's the first day of school! Where are you getting âforever' from?”
Lilly angled her head and peered at me.
“Mariana, I have no friends here besides you. And I can't just assume that your friends will be my friends. We live together; we eat dinner together; we go to school together. If I keep following you around, we're both gonna lose it.”
If I had been in Lilly's position, actually
when
I was in Lilly's position this summer, I had no desire to branch off on my own. Lilly's life was my life. Aside from the occasional trip to the Internet café, we did everything together. I needed her in Puerto Rico, at least until I met Alex. But I even met him through her. I wasn't good at meeting new people. Madison, Emily, and I had been glued to each other for so long that I had forgotten how we had become friends. I couldn't imagine that Lilly didn't need me in the same way.
“Okay, go for it. But if anything happens, you have my cell.”
“Mariana,
I
don't have a cell.”
“Oh. We should make sure my dad gets you one.”
Lilly turned toward the door, took a breath, clutched the metal handle, and pushed it open. I watched for a moment until she attracted the secretary's attention, but once they were involved in conversation, I took my cue to leave.
Chapter 7
M
y locker looked exactly the same. Students kept the same metal storage unit with the same combination throughout the duration of high school. So with each passing graduation, the hierarchy of the class wings rotated. The senior wing from last school year now housed freshmen, and my hall of lockers went from being the “freshmen wing” to the “sophomore wing.” It was odd to see freshmen roaming the hall that my brother had occupied with his senior buddies last year, but that was the cycle of Spring Mills.
“Hey, Locker Buddy! You're back!” I cheered as Bobby McNabb approached the locker adjacent to mine. “How was bloody ole Dublin?”
“I think that's a British accent you're attempting there, 'cause the Irish definitely don't sound like that.” He swung open his locker door, his blond curls flopping onto his forehead.
“Oh, so you're an expert now?”
“I am, brutha,” he smirked, peeking at my butt. “Hawareya? Nice arse.”
“Okay, I'm gonna pretend you did not just look at my butt,” I said, a shocked smile across my face. Bobby's cheeks flushed.
I hung my messenger bag on the hook in my locker and pulled my small red purse from inside.
“So, did you do the whole film thing?”
“Yeah. It was cool. Ireland's awesome. We traveled all around. I filmed the whole thing. You'll have to see it.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I heard you went away. To Puerto Rico?”
“Yeah. It was kind of a last minute thing. Didn't really have much of a say in the matter thanks to my brother.”
“He at Cornell now?”
“Yup, left last week. He was beyond excited to get out of here.”
“I bet. So, whatcha do in Puerto Rico?”
“Well, I brought back a five-foot-four replica of myself.” I grinned as I slammed my locker door closed. “My cousin Lilly moved back with me. You'll see her. She's a freshman, looks just like me.”
“Seriously?”
I nodded, tossing my purse on my shoulder.
“Well, she must be pretty hot then.”
My head jerked back slightly, but before I could react Bobby shut his locker and headed down the hallway. I watched him walk away.
Â
By lunchtime, I had started to sense that a major shift had occurred in the world of Spring Mills High. I had been approached by more than a dozen students, each one commenting on how “cool” and “awesome” my new cousin was. In the ten years I had been in this school district, I couldn't remember a single classmate ever calling me cool. But in less than a few hours, Lilly had not only met the elite of our student body, she had won them over.
“Okay, so how many people brought up my party to you this morning?” Madison asked as we sat at our “usual table” in the cafeteria.
“Like, everyone,” Emily stated, shooting me a pointed stare.
“Oh, yeah. Me too,” I added quickly. “They all said Orlando was so hot in person.”
I fidgeted with the dangling starfish on my silver necklace. Between Teresa's impending arrival, which I still hadn't mentioned to my parents (it just didn't seem like breakfast conversation), and Lilly's insistence on being utterly independent of my presence, I was starting to feel consumed with drama. I needed solutions. So, I decided that I would tell my parents about Teresa at dinner tonight (how I would do that, I didn't know). But I still hadn't determined how I would check in on my cousin. Since Lilly was a freshman, a year below me, we didn't share any classes. I hadn't passed her in the hall once all day. I had no idea how she was reacting to the new environment, though the peer reviews did give me reason to suspect that she was doing just fine.
“Have people mentioned Lilly to you at all?” I asked, dropping the charm to grab another low-cal potato chip to go with my rubber no-meat hot dog. It was better than the bottled water and carrot sticks Madison called a meal.
“No, why would they? She hasn't even been here a day.” Madison straightened the collar of her designer shirt.
“It's just, a bunch of people have come up to me today. Like, people who don't normally talk to us.”
“Like who?” Emily asked as she bit into a cookie.
“Like Sarah Weaver and Chad Murray.”
“You know those guys?” Emily grumbled through a mouthful of chocolate chip cookie.
“No. That's just it. I didn't even think they knew I existed. But all day I've had jocks and cheerleaders talking to me about my cousin. Like Lilly's already one of them.”
“Mariana, that's impossible. No one becomes instantly popular. Not in Spring Mills.” Madison swished her shiny blond hair over her shoulder, brushing off the conversation.
“Hey, Mariana! I met your cousin. Dude, she's awesome!” yelled Derek Jansorn, captain of the JV lacrosse team.
He was standing in the snack line with a group of lacrosse buddies, who were tall, built, and arguably the best-looking guys in our grade. I hadn't held a conversation with any of them since elementary school.
“See!” I squealed, nodding to the boys.
“Okay, that was weird,” Emily muttered.
“I know, and it's been happening all day.”
I flicked a small wave at the guys and grinned awkwardly. I wasn't sure what the proper response was to their comment. It wasn't like I could thank them or take credit for Lilly's “awesomeness.” Actually, it amazed me that someone who practically shared my skin could even be deemed “awesome,” given that our shared appearance hadn't done much for me in the popularity department over the past fifteen years. Of course, I was noticeably missing her double D's.
“Maybe something happened this morning we don't know about,” Madison suggested, frowning.
I nodded, though I didn't agree. I saw Lilly in Puerto Rico; I saw how many male friends she had and how guys reacted to her presence. There was something about her they were drawn to, and I was guessing that whatever that “something” was, it followed her across the ocean.