The Other New Girl Read online

  A bit later, in my room, splayed out on my bed, surrounded by assigned history books, my mind was far away from dances and holding hands and fitting into my new school. I was comfortable by now, accepted, on the inside looking out. So I could afford to think about studying, which had begun to actually interest me in a way that it never had before. On Saturday night, we could stay up late. There was no lights out bell and no proctor telling us to quiet down and get to bed. Of course, even that privilege had limitations. Midnight was the absolute deadline unless you were a senior. It was eleven forty-five and my mind was somewhere in the Reformation around mid-eighteen hundred when there was a soft knock at my half-open door.

  I looked up and there was Moll, who looked like she couldn’t decide if she would come into my room or turn and run down the hall to get as far away as possible.

  “Oh,” she said, “I’m sorry. You’re studying.”

  “That’s okay. Come on in.”

  “No, I don’t want to bother you.”

  “Hey, I’m ready to quit anyway. There are only so many wives of Henry I can get through in one sitting. What’s up?”

  She edged a little closer into the room, keeping her back against the doorframe as if she needed support to remain standing. There were dark circles under her eyes and I wondered if she had trouble sleeping. I’d seen eyes like that before. When my mother had migraines, the skin under her eyes would darken and she’d get this haunted look about her. She’d lie on a chaise lounge in her bedroom all day with her arm slung over her forehead, an ice pack behind her neck, her cocker spaniel, Ginger, curled on her thighs like a small lap rug, the dog’s head down, eyes darting here and there at every little sound, silky ears flapped to the sides of her head.

  “We saw you at the gym tonight. We were going to come over and talk to you but you disappeared.”

  “I know. I . . .” She stopped and rubbed her palm against her cheek. “I, uh, didn’t feel like talking to anyone.”

  “Moll,” I said it in a soft voice, trying to make her feel comfortable, “is there some boy you like?” It was a shot in the dark but I thought maybe it would hit a target.

  She turned red like she had before and I thought she might spontaneously combust and then how would I explain that to Bleaker?

  “So there is someone.” I stood up and walked over and closed the door quietly. “Who is it?”

  “I can’t say.”

  She shrank even farther back against the doorjamb and looked at the floor as if there was some hidden message down there.

  Then she whispered so softly I could barely hear her. “Donald Wingart.”

  I knew who he was because Daria was the photography editor for the yearbook and one day she asked me to come help her in the darkroom when she was developing some black and white prints she’d taken. She’d done a bunch of shots of the school orchestra. That term was a bit inflated because the string section was two girls on violins and the horn section was one trumpet and a tuba. On a chair, straddling the tuba, his head completely hidden behind its bell, was Donald Wingart, his little legs sticking out underneath and his fingers pressing on the valves.

  “You mean the tuba player?”

  She looked up at me and I thought I could just make out tears glistening in her eyes.

  “Moll, there’s nothing wrong with having a crush on a boy. It’s normal.”

  “But it feels so odd,” she said. “It makes me nervous.”

  I wondered what nervous felt like to Moll since she seemed nervous all the time anyway.

  “Well that’s normal, too,” I said and sat down on the end of my bed facing her. I folded my hands and waited but when she didn’t say anything else, just to keep the conversation going I asked, “Hey, Moll, tell me about your family. Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  She nodded. “An older brother. He has a doctorate. He teaches at MIT. He’s very brilliant. He’s really my half-brother.”

  “You’re smart, too. I guess you know that already. So he’s much older than you, huh? What about your parents?”

  “There’s only my mother. My father died when I was two. He was in his sixties already when I was born. He was hit by a train. He was a doctor and a lawyer. He was married before he met my mother but his wife died. She had cancer. He worked for a big pharmaceutical company in New Jersey. My mother’s a microbiologist. She still works there. That’s how they met. At work. My mother was at the station to meet him and he walked across the tracks to her and a train came. She was forty-two when I was born. I was a mistake.”

  “Oh, Moll, nobody’s a mistake. You were a gift.” It sounded like a pat answer and I was uncomfortable that I’d said it. But I did feel sorry that she felt that way. No one should feel they were born by mistake. I lived with my own sack of weighty mother messages so the empathy I felt was really for myself as much as it was for her.

  She sighed and moved one step away from the door into my room.

  “Do you think he would ever ask me to a dance?”

  “Donald Wingart? I don’t know. Have you talked to him?”

  “No.”

  “Well, are you in any classes together?”

  “No.”

  “Do you see him at the library?”

  “I did one time.”

  “Well that would be a good way to talk to him. Just sit down at the same table and sort of drop a book or something.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “So he’d notice you and help you pick it up.”

  “Oh.”

  “Try it and let me know what happens. Maybe he’s been watching you, too. You know boys can be very shy.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure.”

  She said she’d better go, thanked me for talking to her, and left my room slowly as if she was thinking about how to solve some gigantic problem. I got into bed, and by then all the room lights, except for the seniors’ rooms on another floor, had been automatically turned off from some main switch that controlled the electricity to the rooms in Fox. I saw a crack of light from the hall under my door as Daria opened it and slipped into my room.

  She shut the door quietly and whispered, “Shhh,” before she climbed onto my bed and sat with her back against the wall.

  “I just got out of the mattress room and didn’t want to go up to my room yet. Jan’s in there now.”

  “In your room?”

  “No, in the mattress room.

  “Really? Alone?”

  “Don’t be stupid. Of course not.”

  “Who’s in there with her then?”

  “Jan’s with Stocky. He can be a real ass.”

  “I know. He tried to get me to go in there with him. He let me use the wire as a bribe.”

  “I don’t know why Jan bothers with him. Maybe she thinks she can’t do any better but I think she can. I saw Moll coming out of your room. What did she want?”

  “Oh, some advice, I guess.”

  “About what?”

  “Boys.”

  Daria started to laugh and then clapped her hand over her mouth.

  “Oh shit, I forgot it’s after lights out. If they catch me in here we’re both cooked,” she whispered. “What did she want to know about boys? How they’re different from girls?”

  “No. She was, you know . . .”

  “What?”

  “Oh just asking about the dances and stuff like that.”

  “Come on, give. It must have been more than that.”

  “Well, yeah, she said she has a crush on someone.” I immediately realized I shouldn’t have said anything. It was a confidence and I had blabbed it, probably because it was Daria.

  “No!” she hissed. “The other new girl likes someone. Who?”

  “I can’t tell you. She’d be upset.”

  “Come on. You have to tell me. We’re a group and whatever any one of us does or hears, she has to tell the others. That’s the way it works.”

  “Really, Daria, it’s not right. She trusts me.
”

  “And so do I. But if you’re going to keep things from me, well, then I can’t trust you and the others won’t either. Anyway, who cares if she trusts you or not? If you tell me, she’ll never know.”

  I thought about that for a minute and it seemed to make sense.

  “It’s Donald Wingart.”

  “Who’s he?”

  I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. She didn’t even know who he was so it couldn’t possibly matter that I’d told her.

  “Nobody really.”

  “I don’t know why you bother with her. She’s so strange.”

  I wondered the same thing about myself but had no answer so I let it go.

  FIFTEEN

  The Trestle

  IT WAS ONE OF THOSE BEAUTIFUL DAYS WHEN THE SKY IS SO blue it hurts your heart and the air feels clean and cool on your skin. Wafting scents of newly mown grass and baled hay came to us as the river gurgled lazily by down below. We huddled high up under the train trestle, strictly forbidden to students, where nonetheless generations of them had come in ones and twos to have a private and quiet moment. Even climbing up to the trestle was forbidden, as was venturing through the woods as far as the river. Generally, the Nonnahanny wasn’t deep at this point but there were fish in some pools in the middle and occasionally someone would appear, rod in hand, to fly cast out while wading near the banks on the pebbles that made up its bed.

  On this day, with the sun shining brightly, the river glittered and danced as if to its own music and I felt almost drunk on its beauty. We’d had a few chilly nights but winter seemed a far off cloud on this day. We scrambled up the riverbank to the trestle as fast as we safely could. I’d waited for Wes behind a clump of honeysuckle that spread itself into a kind of nest grown wild over a group of saplings. I looked around but figured if anyone had walked this far and taken the chance we were taking, they would want to be seen even less than we would. Our only companions seemed to be twittering wrens and the occasional drifting cloud high up in that blue sky.

  The turning leaves were at their hot peak. It was like looking out through a kaleidoscope with every gust of wind.

  “You go ahead of me,” Wes said. “In case you slip, I’ll catch you.”

  It made me feel good when he said that—to know he was looking out for me.

  “Okay.” I went as fast as I could. The bank was dry. Leaves and twigs were not easy footholds but every once in a while there was a patch of rock outcropping to hold onto with one hand, while balancing with the other. I had to make my way half on hands and knees where it got really steep and I dared not look down or back. Once I did slip and felt Wes grab my ankle and hold it firm. I stayed like that longer than I had to.

  “Go ahead,” he said quietly. “It’s okay.”

  “I can’t look down or I’ll get dizzy.”

  “Right. Never look back on a climb. But you’re doing fine. Once we get up there it’s all flat.”

  We continued like that and soon we’d made it to the top of the bank, which was really more of a ridge where they’d built the trestle for the railway bridge.

  “Phew,” I said and sat down to look at the trestle spanning the river. “I’ve never seen a trestle from below before.”

  “Yeah, it’s kind of cool.” Wes sat down next to me and put his arm across my shoulders, which was fine and felt totally normal, as if we’d just accomplished something together. From far off we heard a train whistle.

  “Here comes one,” he said and hunched closer. “It’s going to be loud, you know. Just warning you.”

  “So you’ve been up here before?”

  “Sometimes. Last year.”

  I nodded. He was a senior, so this was his fourth year at Foxhall. Of course he’d done more things there than I had. Probably with other girls. What was I thinking? Of course with other girls. Other girls here at the trestle? We could hear the train slowly clacking far off in the distance.

  “Here she comes,” he said.

  “Wes,” I started to ask, but then stopped.

  “Yeah?”

  I wanted to ask but I also felt stupid asking about other girls when he was sitting here, taking this chance with me. If we’d been caught, we’d be suspended, maybe even kicked out. I was so deeply in trouble already, I was taking an even bigger risk by sitting here under the trestle with him. He must have known that. The whole school seemed to know I was on demerit until Christmas break. And Bleaker giving me an extra chore sweeping the Assembly Room on top of that was humiliating, which was probably what she was trying to do. But if he were kicked out, his college plans would be a shambles. We were both risking a lot so I backed off.

  “You’re taking a big risk coming out here with me,” I said instead of asking what I really wanted to know.

  “You’re worth it,” was all he said.

  Then we could hear the train just rounding the bend before the river.

  “Watch under it when it comes across. It’s really cool. You can see the wheels turn and all the gears. It’s the coolest thing. Last year I used to come down here when I was all stressed out and just lie back and watch as many trains as I could.”

  So he didn’t bring girls here. He came for the trains. I smiled and stretched out on the sweatshirt he’d spread on the ground under me so I could see the bottom of the trestle better. He slid down next to me and turned sideways so he could put his arm across my waist. He put his head against my shoulder and I could feel his chest rising and falling with each breath. His shirt smelled a little like oats and it made me think of a barn where I worked one summer feeding horses.

  The train got louder. It was almost to the bridge now and we watched as it started over. The clacking turned to a kind of humming and a thrum-thrum-thrum sound with the train rolling along. It was a freight train and as the engine reached the middle of the trestle, the whistle sounded again. A long blast that was a chord like music and then two short blasts and then a very long one that lasted until the engine was directly above us, and Wes was right. You could see every detail of the train’s underbelly as it rumbled along.

  It was so loud, I could barely think. The noise from it echoed off the water and came back up as if it was hitting us like echoing thunder. I could see Wes saying something to me but I couldn’t hear him. I smiled and pointed at my ears and shook my head. I turned to face him to try to read his lips and he kind of shrugged at me and lifted himself up on one elbow and leaned down and that was when it happened.

  I felt his lips touch mine and felt his soft breath on my face. The train rumbled on and on, each car passing overhead with a kind of drumming and sometimes the whine of metal against metal. He didn’t pull away and neither did I so he moved over closer and slipped his leg across my thighs so his body was over me and I was flat on my back. He leaned in so I could feel him against my thigh. What I felt at that moment confused and also excited me. I felt like I had some kind of power I’d never felt before and when his tongue touched mine, my brain went kind of wild with thoughts and feelings all jumbled together.

  Neither one of us pulled away so he kissed me a little harder, and then I opened my mouth and that seemed to make him go a little crazy because he rolled over on top of me and placed his hands on either side of my face, holding it in place and kissed me and kissed me until I had to gasp for breath, and then he pulled back and looked at my eyes as if searching for the answer to some hidden question, and the train finally clattered off into the distance.

  But the silence that followed was full of another kind of sound because my ears were ringing and I could feel blood pounding in my temples.

  Wes didn’t say anything but he reached down and started to unbutton my sweater.

  “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “I just want to touch you. You’re so wonderful and pretty. I’m crazy about you. I want you to know that. I want us to be a couple. For the rest of the year. Will you?”

  I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t expected this. Not any of it. Well may
be I thought he might try to kiss me. But not this much. Not this fast. Not this . . .

  His hand had found my right breast. With the other he fumbled with the rest of the buttons of my sweater. He had to use both hands to finish and when the sweater was completely unbuttoned, he peeled it back and then reached behind me to unhook my bra. It was then I started to feel panicky.

  “Wes,” I said. My voice sounded shaky.

  He got my bra unhooked and pulled it down off my shoulders. How did he know how to do all this, I would think later, but at that moment I had no ability to think. I felt as if I’d been swallowed by the river and it was pulling me along at its will.

  Now he was touching my breasts and when he leaned down and put his lips around one of my nipples, I thought I would evaporate like a drop of rain in the sun. And all I could think was that I had to know. I just had to.

  “Wes,” I whispered because now there was only the sound of a soft breeze rustling the leaves and the gurgling river way down below us.

  He stopped and raised his head. His lids looked heavy and I’d never seen anyone with that particular expression before, like someone who was groggy with sleep but heavy with . . . what? Wanting.

  “Yes,” he said and moved up to kiss me again, which he did, slowly and softly but with a kind of urgency that made me squirm under his weight.

  “Have you been up here with other girls? Last year maybe?”

  “No,” he said. “Never. Why?”

  “Why do you think?”

  He smiled and kissed me again. “I love kissing you,” he said. “I’ve never been up here with any girls before.”

  “Then how do you know so much about . . .” I stopped because it suddenly sounded silly, what I was asking. I felt like a baby. But it wasn’t like I had any experience with boys. Oh, I’d been kissed before. Even done other stuff. But not like this. It never felt like this before. And those boys all seemed to fumble around a lot, like they were looking for something and didn’t know where or how to find it.

  He let out a little laugh, which I hadn’t expected. Then he reached out and stroked my face with his fingertips, which made me want him to kiss me again.