by Diane Hoh
“I got every class I wanted,” Linda said happily. “Pretty easy schedule, too, with plenty of time for swim practice and meets.”
“My schedule isn’t too bad, either,” Jon said. “After all, my major is parties, sports, and … women.” He grinned at Cath, who looked away, embarrassed.
The trek from school to Nightingale Hall on such a beautiful day took only about ten minutes. Cars full of students passed them, on their way to the long, silver diner called Burgers Etc., a popular place for gathering after classes. Halfway between the campus and town, on the highway, it provided quick and easy access to good food, good music, and fun.
But the residents of Nightingale Hall wanted to get home and drop off their books before deciding how to spend the rest of the day. And Jess was planning to call Mrs. Coates’s friend, hoping to convince her that they could manage on their own. So far, they were doing okay, although the kitchen was still a disaster from breakfast.
She was relieved to learn that Madeline Carthew wasn’t any more eager to join them at Nightingale Hall than they were to have her. Her tone of voice upon receiving the invitation indicated she would rather undergo oral surgery.
“Of course I’d love to help,” she said nervously when she’d told Jess she’d been expecting her call. “Isobel is my dear friend, and I know my duty when I see it. But oh my, all that rock music and young people running in and out of the house would be so bad for my nerves. I’m not all that well myself, you know. And,” she added hastily, “it isn’t as if you need a babysitter. My goodness, you’re all high school graduates, practically adults.”
Practically? Jess grinned. It sounded like they weren’t going to have a live-in babysitter, after all.
“But I do take my duty to my friends seriously …”
Darn!
“… so I promised Isobel I would look in on all of you from time to time. And you must promise me that you will call me the very second you need anything.” Pause. “Anything at all, dear.”
Jess was still grinning when she hung up.
That taken care of, she went to her room and emptied her backpack onto the bed.
Picking up her new books one at a time, she began leafing through them, enjoying the feel of the soft, dog-eared pages, the “used” smell of them, trying to imagine a face behind every name written on each frontispiece. Someone named Susan Braun had owned her math book. What would a Susan Braun look like? Tall and thin? Intelligent face, with wire-rimmed glasses? Pretty, with a nice smile? Someone who actually understood the intricate-looking equations in the middle of the book?
There were two names in her history book. Craig J. Winters, III, which sounded to Jess like tons and tons of money, probably all handed down by Craig J. Winters the first and second. And Tom Wilson, a nice, simple, ordinary name that told her nothing except that she probably would like someone who wrote his name “Tom” instead of the more formal “Thomas.”
She opened her English Lit book.
And sucked in her breath as she read the name.
Written in a delicate, precise longhand, on the right-hand corner at the top of the page, was the name, Giselle McKendrick.
And underneath that, in case Jess should have any doubts about which Giselle this might be, were the words, Nightingale Hall.
Chapter 7
JESS SAT IN SILENCE for several minutes, her fingers gingerly tracing the letters that spelled Giselle McKendrick’s name.
Then, giving herself a stern shake, she murmured, “I’m being ridiculous. Of course Giselle bought books at this college. She was a student here.”
But … wasn’t it incredibly weird that she, Jess, out of hundreds of freshmen, had bought the English Lit book previously owned by the only girl at Salem University who had … died … the preceding spring?
Not to mention the fact that she was living in the same girl’s lilac-flowered bedroom and sleeping in her lilac-sheeted bed?
“I could trade this book in,” she told the empty room. “All freshmen use this book. Someone who hasn’t heard the rumors about Nightingale Hall or doesn’t recognize Giselle’s name would trade with me.” She slapped the book’s cover shut.
“I could avoid that page,” she said aloud. But she knew that wasn’t the answer. Giselle’s name might be written only on that one page, but Giselle’s eyes had focused on many pages, her fingers had tap-tapped on others while she tried to concentrate, and the book itself had probably nestled cozily inside Giselle’s backpack during her trips to and from campus.
“I can’t deal with this,” she said to herself. “First thing Monday morning, I find someone who’s never heard of Nightingale Hall or Giselle McKendrick and I dump this book!”
With that decision made, she put the books aside and went downstairs to the bright and sunny kitchen.
She made some order out of the chaos and put soup on the stove to heat.
Dinner, which everyone helped pull together, was fun. The excitement of the day kept everyone from complaining about the blackened hot dogs and lukewarm vegetable soup. No one cared. Even Jon ate without complaint.
But when Cath began talking about the classes she’d registered for and all the work she already had to do, Jon cried, “Puh-leeze! Can we not talk about classes and assignments and depressing stuff like that? I’ll lose my appetite.” He said this as he reached for his fourth hot dog.
“Who’s up for exploring the local hangouts?” Jess asked.
Almost everyone enthusiastically agreed with her suggestion.
Only Milo dissented. “Count me out,” he said crankily. “Waste of time. I’d rather go night-fishing. Haven’t tried the creek yet.” He stood up, running a hand through his unruly beige hair. “Everyone and his brother will be out running around town tonight. I hate crowds. Besides, I’d rather commune with nature.”
It was obvious he’d made up his mind. They let him go with no further argument.
The disappointment on Linda’s round, pink face was quickly replaced by a dreamy look of admiration.
She’s seeing the soul of a poet in Milo, Jess thought, her amusement mixed with concern for Linda. He didn’t seem at all interested, and she didn’t seem very thick-skinned.
Their attempts at cleanup were halfhearted. They were all anxious to begin exploring the town. Grateful for paper plates and cups and feeling only a little guilty about cluttering up some distant landfill, Jess ran upstairs to change her clothes.
She dressed in jeans and the gray Salem sweatshirt she had purchased that day at the bookstore. Her guilt over the added expense of the shirt was not as easily dismissed as her ecological guilt over the paper plates. She knew she shouldn’t have spent the money.
But everyone else had bought one, except, of course, Milo. And something had come over her there in the crowded bookstore. With the load of college textbooks in her arms, she had been seized suddenly by a fierce, overwhelming need to claim the bookstore, the university, the classmates surrounding her, as her own. Her place. Her new life. And it seemed to her that wearing the soft, thick gray sweatshirt with the Salem University seal on the front would help her do that.
Satisfied that the sweatshirt fit exactly right—not too skimpy, not too baggy—she ran lightly down the stairs, determined to have fun on this, her first night as a duly registered college student.
And they did have fun. Even quiet, intense Cath, looking exceptionally pretty in a lacy white blouse and jeans, laughed at Jon’s corny jokes and cracked a few of her own.
Pennsylvania Avenue teemed with college students. They spilled out of restaurants, diners, and shops. The avenue running parallel to the peaceful river became a bumper-to-bumper ribbon of honking cars crammed with shouting, laughing passengers, their radios set at full volume.
“Good thing we walked,” Jon said as the group ambled along the crowded avenue. “Much as I miss my Beemer, there’s no way I’d sandwich it into that traffic.”
Jess liked the idea that a fifteen-minute walk in one direction bro
ught them straight into town, while a ten-minute walk in the opposite direction took them straight to campus. Nightingale Hall might not be a castle, but it was well-located.
Cath groaned at the crowd, but Jess was excited, eager to join in. They decided to try a place called Duffy’s first. It was overflowing with students, and looked like fun. Inside, loud music played and students stood around in clusters, listening to the music and checking each other out. Some were playing pool or video games.
When Jess spotted Trucker ambling through the throng alone, his usual coveralls replaced by jeans and a deep blue T-shirt, she invited him to join their group. “You know your way around town better than we do,” she said, ignoring Cath’s expression of distaste.
“But he’s the handyman!” Cath whispered as a smiling Trucker joined them. “He isn’t even a student!”
“Yeah, I am,” he said amiably, overhearing her. He seemed unruffled by her remarks. His blue eyes, Jess noticed, had tiny flecks of green in them, the color of seawater. “Two night courses. Registered this morning.” He grinned. “I figure, at this pace, I’ll be crippled with arthritis by the time I get my degree. But it’s better than not going at all.”
“Good for you,” Ian applauded, and Jess nodded agreement.
Then Ian spotted a photo booth in one corner, and he urged Jess inside.
“Oh, I hate these things, Ian!” she protested, pulling back. “The pictures always look like I should have a prison number scrawled across the bottom.”
But he refused to let go of her hand. “C’mon, Jess, we need a record of what we looked like on our first day at college.”
“Go on, Jess,” Linda urged with an impish grin. “Jon and Cath and I will go next.” She flushed, remembering Trucker and added lamely, “And Trucker.”
“Not me,” he said, moving aside. “I’d break the camera.”
No, he wouldn’t, Jess thought. Without that stupid baseball cap he always wears, he’s really good-looking.
The thought surprised her.
“C’mon,” Ian said. He pulled Jess inside the booth and closed the black curtain around them.
When he was seated, she sat on his lap, since there was nowhere else to sit. Although Ian sat perfectly still for his picture and smiled into the camera, Jess stuck out her tongue, crossed her eyes, and covered her face with her hands, peering out devilishly from between her splayed fingers. When Ian yelled at her to cut it out, she said, “Oh, what’s the difference? They’re going to be terrible, anyway.”
But they weren’t. Outside the booth, Jess grabbed the thin strip of photos from Ian’s hands. “Let me see!” Jon and Cath and Linda clustered around her. “I guarantee you,” she said jokingly as she held up the strip to inspect it, “I will look so awful …”
Then her voice trailed off and a puzzled silence fell over the group as they all looked down at the picture in Jess’s hand. Trucker moved forward to see why they weren’t exploding in laughter.
“I don’t get it,” Jess said slowly, peering more closely at the film strip. “Ian?”
They all stared silently at the pictures in Jess’s hand. They stared at Ian, smiling, and at Jess, her tongue out in one picture, her eyes crossed in another, her face hidden behind her hands in the bottom two shots.
And they stared at the clouded but visible image of a girl with long, pale hair and a painfully sad expression on a very pretty face, looking solemnly into the camera from behind Ian and Jess.
Only two people had gone into the photo booth.
But there were three people in the pictures.
Chapter 8
“WHO IS THAT?” LINDA was the first to ask. Jon followed up with, “I didn’t see anyone else go into that booth with you.”
“No one did.” Jess’s eyes met Ian’s. “Right? It was just us, you and me.”
Ian shrugged. “Double exposure. Ruined our pictures! Want to try it again?”
“Double exposure?” Doubt sounded in Jess’s voice. “In a booth?”
“Sure. Someone … this girl …” Ian tapped the filmstrip, “went in ahead of us. Paid her dollar, got her pictures, and left. But the film must not have advanced automatically. So it took our pictures right on top of hers. That’s why her image is kind of cloudy.” Ian turned to Jon. “You guys better not try it. The film’s probably still stuck. Don’t waste your money.”
Since one of Ian’s hobbies was photography and Jess had never owned a camera, she would have felt silly arguing with him about the pictures. He seemed so positive. And what other explanation could there be?
Taking her hand in his, the pictures forgotten, Ian led her toward the room with the pool tables.
But Jess couldn’t dismiss the odd occurrence so quickly. That girl … the fuzzy image hovering in their pictures … she looked so sad. Freshman blues? First time away from home, hadn’t made any friends yet … was that all the sadness in her eyes meant? Probably.
Still … would someone who felt like that go to an arcade? Alone? And have pictures taken, also alone, in a photo booth?
I don’t think so, Jess told herself. That wasn’t the kind of thing you did when you were miserable. What you did then was go home and hide in bed with the covers over your head.
Her companions, laughing hilariously at one of Jon’s jokes, had already forgotten the pictures.
Jess tried to do the same. But several times during the rest of the evening, Jess found herself searching the crowd for any sign of a pretty girl with long, pale hair and a sad face.
Telling herself she was in danger of spoiling a perfectly good time, she forced the skinny strip of photos out of her mind.
Later, on the way home in the bed of Trucker’s brown pick-up truck, she listened absent-mindedly as Jon cheerfully described how he’d once been dumped by the prettiest girl in school.
“She sent me a tape of that song about so many ways to leave your lover. Remember that one?”
Nods all around. The balmy early September warmth wrapped its arms around them, ruffled their hair.
“Well, she sent a note along with the tape,” Jon continued. “All it said was, ‘Get the idea?’” He nodded in chagrin. “I got it, all right. I don’t have to be hit over the head with an AK-47.”
“Weren’t you mad?” Linda wanted to know. “Sounds kind of mean to me. If somebody dumped me like that, I’d be furious.”
Jon shook his head. “Nah. I thought it was kind of clever. Very creative girl,” he added, admiration in his voice. “And drop-dead gorgeous. Blonde hair, robin’s egg blue eyes …”
Jess thought she heard regret in the words. Maybe Jon was only joking to hide his hurt. She was suddenly ashamed of how quickly she’d judged him. Here he was, poking fun at himself, letting everyone know he’d been dumped. Not many guys would do that. And at the same time, he seemed to be admitting that he’d once had strong feelings for someone. Maybe he wasn’t as shallow as she’d thought.
Contrite, Jess beamed a sincerely friendly smile in Jon’s direction.
But he was concentrating all of his attention on Cath, who, now that the evening of fun was almost over, had reverted back to her quiet reserve.
They would make a gorgeous couple, Jess thought. If Cath ever let Jon get close enough.
When they arrived at Nightingale Hall, Jess joined the others foraging for food in the night-darkened and now chilly kitchen. The windows behind the sink, sun filled during the day, reflected at night only an eerie, empty blackness. No golden rays warmed the tired linoleum flooring and the small round wooden table and chairs and the stark-white appliances.
Jess shivered. As she walked past the cellar door, it flew open, sending out a mass of cold air from the gloomy underbelly of the house. Jess, gasping in surprise, was reminded of the wave of frigid air that greeted her whenever she entered her room. Maybe she’d been right about its source. This air felt the same.
Closing the door and latching it, she joined the hungry group analyzing the refrigerator’s contents. Trucker
handed her a carton of ice cream. Glancing toward the cellar door, he said, “I keep forgetting to replace that latch. Door swings open all the time.”
“It’s cold down there.” She remembered what she’d meant to ask him. “Could that air be leaking into my room, maybe from the chimney? It’s colder in the room than it is out in the hall.”
“Maybe. I’ll check it out.”
“Thanks, Trucker.”
She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “The air from the cellar smells moldy.” She grinned. “There aren’t any bodies buried down there, are there?” Then, remembering Giselle, she flushed with sudden shame.
Trucker seemed unperturbed. “Not as far as I know. Just in case, you can keep the door up here latched. When I work down there, I’ll use the outside cellar doors.”
She knew the doors he referred to. They were old-fashioned wooden panels slanted into the ground above stone steps leading down into the cellar. Her Wisconsin grandparents had the same arrangement.
But their cellar smelled better.
By the time they’d all eaten and thoroughly dissected their first day at college, fatigue had settled in and they were all ready to call it a day.
Jess hesitated only for a second or two in the doorway to her room. Was she going to need flannel pajamas to sleep?
She was. The room hadn’t warmed up at all.
Get used to it, she told herself. It’s no big deal.
Exhausted, she slept like a long-distance runner after a big race.
The following week passed in a blur of new faces, new classes, new routines. The work, Jess found, was harder than in high school, but a lot more interesting. So many books to read, so many papers to write, all involving hours of research. German assignments to translate, math exercises to labor over. The math, she decided, was designed to weed out the weak from the strong. “If you can actually do this stuff,” she told Ian as they studied in the first-floor library at Nightingale Hall, “they let you stay in school and get a degree, which, if you can do this stuff, you probably don’t even need.”
Cath nodded. “And if you can’t do it,” she grumbled, her head bent over a book, “they send you home, and your parents disown you and kick you out of the house to wander through town the rest of your life carrying all of your belongings in a shopping bag.”
