The Last Academy (3 page)

Each table had about ten students and one or two teachers. Nora’s was the table I was serving. Seated with her was a friendly young teacher named Mr. Graham. I spotted Jessie at a table next to the kitchen, and she waved as I walked by. She wore a purple, teal, and black pouf of a dress that instantly made me feel not so ridiculous in my waiter garb, so I gave her a big smile back. After I’d done my duty of doling out roast
chicken breasts and rice to a bunch of hungry, overdressed schoolmates, I stood near the wall next to another waiter — a junior named Sasha. Sasha smelled like incense and was busy inspecting her nails. She looked like she thought individuals who had achieved the title of junior shouldn’t be subjected to things like being on the waitstaff, and if I brought attention to the fact that she was with a lowly freshman like me, I’d regret it. So instead, I took in the scenery.

The dining hall had a wall of large windows. The view was amazing — foothills gave way to orange groves that ended in the little town of Nueva Vista below. Beyond that, the sea. Mrs. Sibley, the headmistress, was seated at a table that was dead center in front of the windows, probably to give her the best view. A bunch of senior boys sat with her. They were joking with one another, laughing. Mrs. Sibley gave them a reluctant smile.

Mark Elliott, the guy who’d announced lacrosse tryouts, was there. He raked his sandy blond hair back with his fingers and laughed. He was supereasy to look at. Taking advantage of my waiter’s coat of invisibility, I helped myself to a big, moony eyeful.

And then I saw, at the other end of the headmistress’s table, the man from the airplane.

I
took a step back, bumped against the wall, and pressed flat up against it. Like part of me believed if I pushed hard enough, my body could dissolve right into the wood and plaster. Stupid. But escape to the other side was so close, you know? I mean, if not for the laws of physics and everything.

Airplane guy seemed to study the ocean view, hands folded in front of his plate.

I elbowed the girl next to me.

“Who’s that at the headmistress’s table?” I asked, out of the corner of my mouth.

“Umm … Mrs. Sibley, the headmistress?” Sasha didn’t even look up from her nails, letting the dripping sarcasm do the work for her. I felt like Jessie all of the sudden. I had a crazy urge to wiggle my eyebrows. I nudged Sasha again.

“Quit it, Frosh!” Sasha threw some elbow back my way. It wasn’t gentle.

“Just look and tell me!”

I knew when she saw who I was talking about, though, because she got still. In a wary tone, she said, “That’s Barnaby Charon.”

“What’s he doing here?”

She heaved a labored sigh. “He’s on the school’s board of trustees, lifetime membership. All the land the school is built on belongs to him. Ditto for everything you see out those windows, all the way down to the beach. That means he pretty much owns a piece of all the teachers and students here. Even Mrs. Sibley and Dr. Falzone have to listen to what Barnaby Charon says. You do not want to draw the attention of a guy like that.” She groaned. “My table’s out of water.”

Sasha pushed herself off the wall and shuffled away. In that same instant, Barnaby Charon turned in his chair and stared right at me.

All around, three hundred other students chatted in some parallel universe I was no longer in. I held my breath. It was like having the Great Sphinx in Egypt turn and give you the old sand eyeball.

Mrs. Sibley stood up, clinked her fork against her glass,
and thanked the waitstaff and kitchen crew. She reminded the students that classes started bright and early tomorrow, and dismissed us for the night. A thousand chair legs scraped over the wood floor, like waves crashing. The exodus swelled and rose and swallowed what I could see of Barnaby Charon.

I ducked down, like I had dropped something on the floor, and crept behind a table. It seemed like a good idea when I did it. But as the sounds in the dining hall diminished and everything got quiet, I realized that hiding wasn’t a good idea at all.

The last footsteps echoed and the dining hall was silent. I could hear my own breathing, the place was so quiet. When I stood up, Barnaby Charon would be there, in the emptied dining hall, waiting for me. I knew it. I could feel his hand around my neck like a brand.

Around the corner, in the kitchen, somebody dropped a bunch of pots. It made a huge crash. I jumped to my feet before I could stop myself, screaming a little. The dining hall was deserted. I ran.

I sprinted into my room, out of breath from trying to dodge Barnaby Charon. Not that I’d seen him again. In fact, even
with my eyes going everywhere at once, I hadn’t glimpsed so much as the guy’s shoestring. He’d disappeared.

Tamara was sprawled out on her bed again. Another girl sat at Tamara’s desk.

This new girl was beautiful, in that put-together way that made you wonder if she might end up on a TV show or something.

“Hi,” I said.

Tamara nodded toward her friend. “You know Brynn Laurent?”

“Hey,” Brynn said to me. You could tell she was from the South right away, even hearing that one word. It came out sounding like what horses eat. She tilted the chair, balancing it on the two back legs with one of her feet on the desktop. I watched her pull the desk drawer open and play around with the junk Tamara kept there.

“Ugh. Get out of my stuff,” Tamara said. Brynn smirked, took out Tamara’s lip gloss, and used it.

“So where are you from?” I asked Brynn, wondering if she’d already been through my desk.

“Texas,” she said, smacking her lips together.

“How’s that?”

“Like a fat man on a pogo stick.”

While I was trying to figure out what that meant, Brynn tossed the lip gloss back in the drawer. She knocked it shut with her foot and landed the chair’s front legs.

“A fat man … on a pogo stick?” I asked.

“Yeah. Hot and sweaty. C’mon, Tamara.” Brynn got up and walked out the doorway. I’d only known her about two minutes, but already she reminded me of Lia so much I couldn’t decide if I was sad or relieved to see her go.

“Come. Back. Here.” Tamara called after Brynn like she was talking, but with the volume turned all the way up.

From down the hall, Brynn replied, “They’re starting a movie in the commons. Bring popcorn.”

Tamara groaned and pulled herself off the bed. She went to her closet and yanked a pair of sweatpants up under her formal dinner dress, grabbed a pack of microwave popcorn, and shuffled to the door. She made it look like a huge effort.

“What. Movie?” Tamara yelled down the hall.

“Shut up!” someone suggested, from behind a closed door.

“
The Notebook
,” Brynn shouted back. Tamara put on her flip-flops and disappeared out the door.

After they left, I changed into a T-shirt and yoga pants and unpacked the rest of my stuff. I hung up dresses and pants, thinking how Brynn had used Tamara’s stuff. Since Brynn was so pretty I bet people didn’t mind if she acted a little selfish, or helped herself to things that didn’t belong to her. I’d noticed that had happened when Lia’d grown into her smile. People treated her differently, even though she was the same.

My personal jury was still out on Tamara, and I told myself I should try to make friends with her, since she was my roommate. I wasn’t sure she’d make it easy, though.

The room was too quiet. I kept remembering how Barnaby Charon turned and stared me down from across the dining hall. There was nothing left to unpack. I had an urge to call home again. Or even call Lia. But it was already eight thirty, and with the time difference, everyone back home was probably sleeping.

I didn’t care about the movie in the commons, so I wandered back down the hall, reading the nameplates on the doors. One of the open doors had a nameplate ripped off. The one that remained said
BRYNN LAURENT
. I peeked inside. Hello, trophies. They lined her shelves and cluttered the top of her wardrobe. Ribbons were pinned to
a corkboard over her bed, her name in gold cursive on all of them. There was a framed photograph of her dressed in tennis whites, swinging a racket. Wild guess? Brynn was a tennis champ.

The next room belonged to
JESSIE KEITA
and
NORA ALPERT
, and that door was closed. I heard voices inside, so I knocked and opened the door right away. I wasn’t into waiting to see if they wanted to talk to me.

Jessie sat on her bed, her face all blotchy from crying. Nora sat next to her. Right away, I wanted to press some cosmic rewind button and get sucked backward over the threshold, pulling the door closed behind me as I went. Nora gave me a look that said:
I will kill you if you leave after seeing Jessie this way
. Still, it took a moment to decide if I was more chicken of Jessie’s crying or of Nora’s retribution. I stayed. Nobody said anything.

“So … homesick?” I asked into the awkward silence. It seemed like a fair guess. Jessie rolled her eyes and blew her nose. Nora shook her head no. I sat down next to them. “Please don’t tell me you’re crying over the guy from the chapel.” It was the only thing I could think to say. I couldn’t imagine how she’d have guy drama already, but maybe the boy was someone she knew from back home. Then I flashed
onto Mark Elliott and realized that a crush of devastating proportions could happen pretty quickly.

Jessie started laughing. Or crying. Or something

You know — little giggly sobs and nose sniffles that turned into brays and barks. Like someone rolling the radio knob back and forth between stations.

Nora and I glanced at each other, worried. I couldn’t tell if Jessie was losing it or getting better. I didn’t think Jessie knew, either.

“Over Skinny Butt?” I asked. I didn’t even know who I was talking about. And suddenly, we were all laughing.

“Jessie doesn’t even know his name!” Nora cackled. Someone farted. Jessie turned purple. All fingers zeroed in on her. Tears streamed down her face. Nora fell off the bed with a thump. I howled.

“Skin. Nee. Butt!” Nora wheezed.

“What
is
his name?” Jessie shrieked.

“There’s a school roster by the dining hall, you freaks.” Brynn stood in the doorway, eating popcorn. Like we were a show. A boring show. She turned to walk out.

“What?” I called after her.

“With the photos you sent in on your applications! Don’t you ever look at anything?” she yelled over her shoulder.

“I d-d-d-don’t think …” Jessie stuttered. I grabbed her arm and pulled her off the bed. She came easily, like she was the kind of girl who was used to following someone.

Brynn was back in the doorway. She had a new top on and her honey-blond hair freshly brushed. “I’m going with you,” she announced. “This place is a total estrogen fest. At least at the dining hall, there’s a chance of running into some guys.”

Brynn was right. When we got to the dining hall, there was a poster board of all students and teachers tacked up in the front hallway. I found mine in the city of faces, the words
CAMDEN FISHER, FRESHMAN, MINNESOTA
, written underneath. My whole existence, boiled down to four words.

Jessie scowled at the wall. Brynn pointed out her own photo, and asked Nora where hers was. Nora had a goofy picture, with her eyes crossed and tongue sticking out. “They let you in knowing you l-l-looked like th-that?” Jessie asked.

“What? Beautiful?” Nora asked back, her puffball of dishwater-brown hair yanked back in a ponytail, neon running shorts showing off her leapfrog legs. It was weird, but
Nora’s easy confidence
did
make her kind of beautiful. I liked her already.

Brynn tapped a manicured fingernail on another head shot. “Here’s my sucky roommate, who decided she didn’t want to come to school after all,” she said.

My eyes fell on the photograph Brynn pointed to, and my head filled with tingling déjà vu weirdness. There was something about the girl in the picture. Her smile. She had a gap between her front teeth, probably like someone famous and I had simply forgotten who. The words under her photo read
DREA SHAPIRO, FRESHMAN, NEW HAMPSHIRE
.”

A door swung open behind us, and the echo of male laughter came from the dining hall, footsteps echoing on the terra-cotta tiles.

“Well, hello, fellas!” Brynn sang, turning around fast, like we had been doing something naughty. Four upperclassmen walked by, all of them still in their formal dinner clothes, neckties undone. One of them was Mark Elliott. They slowed down and approached us.

“Hello, yourself,” one of the guys said. He was tall, dark, and handsome, his teeth flashing when he added, “Brynn, right?”

She winked in response. “Beau, right?” she answered. “And who are your friends?”

“Mark, Sloan, and Carlos.” Beau gestured at each guy.

“Hi,” Mark Elliott said. It was hard to breathe, but I managed to not pass out, based purely on the fact that I wanted to impress the guy.

Brynn looked ready to get her flirt on, but before she could, Beau’s smile went mischievous. “You ladies know what time it is?” He pointed to the big clock in the hallway. It read 9:59. Jessie gasped and bolted for the doors. We were going to be late for check-in.

We raced back to Kelser as fast as we could. Jessie and I were in the back, and tennis champ Brynn had a good lead on us, but Nora must have had a fifth gear in those legs, because she was way ahead and making it look easy. Out on the lawn, it was dark and everything smelled like mown grass and marine layer. It felt good to run.

Nora got to the doors of Kelser first. She lay into them without slowing down, arms out to push them open. Her whole body smacked against them and she crumpled like a swatted fly. I made a note to remember that the doors at
Kelser House opened
out
instead of in. Nora picked herself up and pulled the door open. We all piled in behind her, desperate to have at least one foot across the threshold, when Miss Andersen, the dorm head, saw us. I don’t know how she could have missed us, though. She was right there.

Miss Andersen looked pointedly at her watch. “Get to your rooms. Now,” she said, in an irritated tone. We disappeared.

My room was Tamara-free even though it was past check-in. I paced a small circle, out of breath, wondering where she could be. But half the freshmen were probably missing curfew. First days were tricky. I got changed and slipped into bed.

In the dark of my room, I let myself think again about the man from the airplane, Barnaby Charon, here at school. I remembered his hand against my collarbone, sliding up to wrap around my throat. I tried to focus instead on classes tomorrow, and what I was going to wear, and when I’d get a chance to see that cute senior guy again.

A while later, I realized my roommate was in her bed after all. I guess I must have fallen asleep. That seemed a little wonky, because my head had been completely full of thoughts. But Tamara had not been there when I came
in, and yet there she was — covers pulled up around her shoulders, flip-flops on the floor in front of the bed.

“Where were you?” I was surprised to find I sounded half-asleep.

“Brynn’s,” Tamara said. “She’s afraid of the dark.”

I said, “Hey, you know anything about Barnaby Charon?”

I expected her to not know who I was talking about. I mean, he was an obscure school trustee who wasn’t even a teacher. But with each second of silence that went by, I knew Tamara knew exactly who he was. After a long while, she said, “Keep him away from me.” Then she yawned.

“Yeah.” I felt peaceful when she said that. I could definitely relate. The last bit of stress in my stomach unclenched and I slept.

I woke up in the dark. Someone was sitting on my bed.