What We Hide

by Marthe Jocelyn

  I laughed. “I never thought of you as the poetry-reciting type.”

  “One of my hidden talents,” said Brenda. “Learned at Ill Hall.”

  We crept back, feet getting bloody cold on the stone floor.

  “Oi!” Penelope whispered urgently from partway up the stairs. “Hairy Mary on the prowl! Percy made a racket so she’s trailing him to Kipling. Kirsten’s gone up. Come on!”

  Barely swallowing laughter, we tore upward, completely breathless on the Austen landing, peering over the railing to the dark depths below. All quiet. Brenda crept back into the dorm, but Pen and I settled our bums on the top step, not ready for the night to end.

  “Hot gossip out of Brontë,” said Penelope. “Oona got off with Nico again! According to her, anyway. Can you imagine? After all that remorse about betraying Sarah. It’s just too foul.”

  “Speaking of betrayal …,” I said.

  “It’s nothing,” said Penelope. “Your brother and me. Don’t turn it into drama.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” I said. “I was wondering about Kirsten. She was a bit chilly tonight.” With good reason, seemed to me.

  Penelope did that shrugging thing, lifting her hair and letting it settle in rippling waves. “She’ll forgive me eventually. She always does. I truly didn’t mean …”

  Was it that easy? Would Pen be so forgiving if given the chance? Was it trusting, or blind, to assume that a friendship would go on even when the truth came out?

  “I have to tell you something,” I whispered. We were side by side, snug on the step, so I didn’t actually have to look Pen in the eye.

  “Matt is not my boyfriend.” There. I’d said it. “When you asked me, that first day, I said yes, because I … I think I wish that he was … Because I love him. But he’s not my boyfriend. That was a lie.”

  “Surprise, surprise.”

  “That’s it? No evil comment?”

  “I’ll think of something. Before you leave.” She slipped off a sock, scratched an ankle. “We’re all hiding something, you know.”

  “What if I don’t leave? What if I … tell my parents I want to stay?”

  “That would be … grand.” Grand means “grand.” “Is it scary? Having Matt over there?”

  “Scary as hell,” I said.

  Tap, tap, tap … Hairy Mary’s shoes clicked and echoed on the lower stairs. We scrambled for the Austen dorm.

  My bed was still covered in neatly folded piles of rags. I shoveled them into the empty trunk, not minding how they landed. I wasn’t leaving. One semester wasn’t enough. I’d ring my parents tomorrow, after I told Tom the plan.

  He would write to Matt. He would pass his exams. We would go home for Christmas and send a huge care package to Vietnam. Peanut butter, Star Trek comics, jelly beans …

  We would both come back to school. Tom not stoned, but straight. I’d make him. And me, straight too, no lies.

  I’d pack a ton of regular clothes. Bell-bottom jeans. A peasant blouse. A miniskirt.

  I brushed the lint off my pillow, peeled the checklist from inside the lid of my trunk. What you arrive with is never what you take home anyway.

  I crawled under the flannel sheet and gray wool blanket. The first few minutes in bed were always freezing. I would bring a duvet too, after the break. I lay for a long time, my cheek in a perfect hollow of the pillow, listening to the others breathing, letting myself get warm.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to Martha Slaughter, Hannah Jocelyn, Michele Spirn, and especially Catherine Nichol, for early input.

  Thanks also to the short story workshop of Paulette Bates Alden as part of the Key West Literary Seminar, and to the Access Copyright Foundation for funding my attendance there.

  About the Author

  MARTHE JOCELYN is the author of several award-winning novels and has also written and illustrated picture books. Her novels for Wendy Lamb Books include Folly, How It Happened in Peach Hill, and Would You. She lives in Stratford, Ontario, Canada. Visit her at marthejocelyn.com and sneakyart.com.