“I take it she was a litterbug?” I asked, hitching my thumb in that direction.
“In a manner of speaking, yes, she was,” Scout said, then put a hand on my arm and tugged.
“All right, that’s enough fond reminiscing and conspiracy theories for the day. We need to get to class. Have fun at school.”
“MA is always fun,” Jason said. “Good luck at St. Sophia’s.”
I nodded as Scout pulled me out of the garden, but I risked a glance back at Michael and Jason.
They stood side by side, Michael an inch or two taller, their gazes on us as we headed back to school.
“I have so many questions, I’m not sure where to start,” I said when we were out of their sight and hauling down the alley, “but let’s go for the good, gossipy stuff, first. You say you aren’t dating, but Michael obviously has a thing for you.”
Scout made a snort that sounded a little too dramatic to be honest. “I didn’t justsay we aren’t dating. We are,in fact , not dating. It’s an objective, empirical, testable fact. I don’t date MA guys.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. While I didn’t doubt that she subscribed to that rule, there was more to her statement, more to her and Michael, than she was letting on. But I could pry that out of her later.
“And your community service involvement?”
“You heard—we clean up litter.”
“Yeah, and I’m totally believing that, too.”
That was the last word out of either of us as we slipped through the gap between the buildings,
then back onto the sidewalk, and finally back to St. Sophia’s. In the nick of time, too, as the bells atop the left tower began to ring just as we hit the front stairs. Thinking we needed to hurry, I nearly ran into Scout when she stopped short in front of the door.
“I know this is unsatisfying,” she said, “but you’re going to have to trust me on this one, too.”
I arched an eyebrow at her. “Will there come a day when you’ll trust me?”
Her expression fell. “Honestly, Lil, I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
Famous last words, those.
There were three more periods to get through—Brit lit, chemistry, and European history—
before I completed my first day of classes at St. Sophia’s. Maybe it was a good thing I hadn’t had much of an appetite for lunch, because listening to teachers drone on about kinetic energy,Beowulf , and Thomas Aquinas on a full stomach surely would have put me into a food coma. It was dry enough on an empty stomach.
And wasn’t that strange? I loved facts, information, magazine tidbits. But when three, one-
hour-long classes were strung together, the learning got a little dullsville.
My attention deficit issue notwithstanding, I made it through my first day of classes, with a lot of unanswered questions about my suitemate and her friends, a good two hours of homework,
and a ravenous hunger to show for it.
And speaking of hunger, dinner was pretty much the same as breakfast—a rush to the front of the line so Scout and I weren’t stuck with “dirty rice,” which was apparently a combination of rice and everything that didn’t get eaten at lunch. I appreciated the school’s recycling, but “dirty rice” was a little too green for me. I mean that literally—there were green bits in there I couldn’t begin to identify.
On the other hand, it definitely reminded you to be prompt at meal times.
Since we were punctual and it was the first official day of school, the smiling foodies served a mix of Chicago favorites—Chicago-style “red-hot” hot dogs, deep-dish pizza, Italian beef sandwiches, and cheesecake from a place called Eli’s.
When we’d gotten food and taken seats, I focused on enjoying my tomato- and cheese-laden slice of Chicago’s finest so I wouldn’t pester Scout about our meeting with the boys, her
“community improvement group,” or her midnight outing.
Veronica and her minions spared us a visit, which would have interrupted the ambience of eating pizza off a plastic tray, but they still spent a good chunk of the dinner hour sending us snarky looks from across the room.
“What’s with the grudge?” I asked Scout, spearing a chunk of gooey pizza with my fork.
Scout snuck a glance back at the pretty-girl table, then shrugged. “Veronica and I have been here, both of us, since we were twelve. We started on the same day. But she, I don’t know, took sides? She decided that to be queen of the brat pack, she needed enemies.”
“Very mature,” I said.
“It’s no skin off my back,” Scout said. “Normally, she stays on her side of the cafeteria, and I stay on mine.”
“Unless she’s in your suite, cavorting with Amie,” I pointed out.
“That is true.”
“So why this place?” I asked her. “Why did your parents put you here?”
“I’m from Chicago,” she said, “born and bred. My parents were trust fund babies—my great-
grandfather invented a whirligig for electrical circuits, and my grandparents got the cash when he died. One trickle-down generation later, and my parents ended up with a pretty sweet lifestyle.”
“And they opted for boarding school?” I wondered aloud.
She paused contemplatively and pulled a chunk of bread from the roll in her hand. “It’s not that they don’t love me. I just think they weren’t entirely sure what todo with me. They grew up in boarding schools, too—when my grandparents got their money, they made some pretty rich friends. They thought boarding school was the best thing you could do for your kids, so they sent my parents, and my parents sent me. Anyway, they have their schedules—Monte Carlo this time of year, Palm Beach that time of year, et cetera, et cetera. Boarding school made it easier for them to travel, to meet their social commitments, such as they were.”
I couldn’t imagine a life so separate from my family—at least, not before the sabbatical. “Isn’t that . . . hard?” I asked her.
Scout blinked at the question. “I’ve been on my own for a long time. At this point, it justis , you know?” I didn’t, actually, but I nodded to be supportive.
“I mean, before St. Sophia’s, there was a private elementary school and a nanny I talked to more often than my parents. I was kind of a trust fund latchkey kid, I guess. Are you and your parents close?”
I nodded, and I had to fight back an unexpected wash of tears at the sudden sensation of aloneness. Of abandonment. My eyes ached with it, that threshold between crying and not, just before the dam breaks. “Yeah,” I said, willing the tears not to fall.
“I’m sorry,” Scout said. Her voice was soft, quiet, compassionate.
I shrugged a shoulder. “I’ve known for a while that they were leaving. Some of those days I was fine, some days I was wicked pissed.” I shrugged. “I’m probably not supposed to be mad about it. I mean, it’s not like they went to Germany to get away from me or anything, but it still stings.
It still feels like they left me here.”
“Well then,” Scout said, raising her cup of water, “I suppose you’d better thank your lucky stars that you found me. ’Cause I’m going to be on you like white on rice. I’m a hard friend to shake,
Parker.”
I grinned through the melancholy and raised my own cup. “To new friendships,” I said, and we clinked our cups together.
