Paula Morris (4 page)

She felt the same way about the girls as she did the teachers --
nobody was awful, but nobody was particularly friendly. Or maybe that was unfair:
Maybe it was Rebecca

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who didn't feel very friendly. Back in New York, she was used to
having a large group of friends, many of whom she'd known for years. The
thought of starting all over again in a new place wasn't very appealing,
especially as she'd only be here for a while.

Luckily, the principal had commissioned two other tenth-graders
from her homeroom to eat lunch with her, so Rebecca didn't have to sit by
herself. Temple Mead's lunchroom, with its corniced ceiling and shining
floorboards, looked more like a ballroom than a cafeteria, though it had the
same long skinny tables and beaten-up plastic chairs as Stuyvesant. Amy and
Jessica, the girls looking after her, showed Rebecca where to pick up food, and
then led her to a table near the window.

"Y'all have a lunchroom like this in New York?" Jessica
asked her. She was a redhead with gold-rimmed glasses, and sometimes it was
hard to tell if she was speaking or just giggling. Rebecca nodded, sipping from
her bottle of iced tea.

"I'd love to go there," sighed Amy. She was Jessica's
best friend, a skinny girl whose blazer looked two sizes too big. They'd been
in the same class every year since they were six years old, they told Rebecca
while they were standing in line. "Sometimes we drive to Houston to go
shopping, but I wish we could go to New York."

Amy and Jessica had the same strange accent as everyone else
Rebecca had met so far, and it wasn't at all drawly and Southern in the way
she'd been expecting. It was true that they said "y'all," but she was
surprised to hear that people in New Orleans sounded more like New Yorkers than
hayseeds.

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"We're going to Dallas at Thanksgiving, so my mother can get
her dresses for the balls," Jessica giggled. "The balls?"
"Yeah, you know."

Rebecca shrugged. None of the mothers she knew in New York went to
balls -- but then, none of them lived in white-columned mansions, either.

"During the season," Amy explained, putting down her
grilled cheese sandwich. "Carnival. Mardi Gras."

"I thought that was all parades and stuff," said
Rebecca, trying to think of the few things she knew about New Orleans.

Amy and Jessica exchanged bewildered glances.

"There are way more balls than parades," Jessica said.
Her mouth twitched into a nervous smile. "And everyone here -- all their
fathers belong to a krewe."

"Like a rowing crew?"

"No!" they said in unison. Jessica slapped a hand over
her mouth to stifle an eruption of giggles.

"Krewe with a
k,"
Amy explained, enunciating
carefully, as though Rebecca was slow in the head. "A krewe is like a
club, a private club. Each krewe organizes its own parade during Carnival, and
throws a huge ball afterward."

"The ball's the most important thing," Jessica agreed.
"The old-line krewes -- their balls are really exclusive. By invitation
only. That's where the daughters and granddaughters of krewe members make their
debuts. All the krewes wear costumes -- and masks to disguise their identities.
It's amazing."

Rebecca tried to look interested, but talk of masked old men and
debutante balls made her feel even more out of

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place here. She didn't even know things like this still went on in
America, and she couldn't really visualize them. All she could think of was
Zorro and maybe the Ku Klux Klan dropping into a Jane Austen movie.

"The newer krewes
sell
tickets to their balls,"
Amy whispered, her eyes wide, as though she was communicating a shocking
secret.

"We'll explain everything to you," tittered Jessica. She
carefully licked the thin coat of ketchup off a french fry. "Don't
worry."

"There's so much you need to know," Amy said, shaking
her head. "About how things are done here, and what's important. School
stuff as well."

"Like, we're not allowed on the back gallery during classes
or in the side yard at any time unless we have gym. Or to sit on the front
steps, ever," Jessica told her.

"Or to leave the school grounds during lunch unless we have
written permission."

"And whatever you do, don't run along the street when you're
wearing your school uniform. They hate that. We're supposed to comport
ourselves as young ladies at all times."

"Young ladies," agreed Amy, her mouth full of sandwich,
and both girls started giggling again. But Rebecca got the feeling they weren't
laughing
at
the rules, exactly. They just laughed whenever they couldn't
think of anything else to say.

Rebecca tried her best to smile back at them, but her heart was
sinking. She didn't want to comport herself like a young lady or sit giggling
with Jessica and Amy at lunchtime; Mardi Gras parades might be fun, but she
didn't care one iota about the exclusive men's clubs that ran them. She missed

30

her friends back home. And however much the Stuyvesant girls liked
to complain about the boys at school -- about how loud they were, and how they
were only interested in boring things like baseball and Xbox -- Rebecca kind of
missed having those boys around.

"We have a formal dance every spring," Jessica was
telling her, gesturing with another french fry. "You have to go with a boy
from St. Simeon's ..."

"You
have
to," agreed Amy. "Don't even think
about going with a boy from another school. It's social death."

"What if you don't know any of the boys at St.
Simeon's?" Rebecca couldn't help asking. Jessica and Amy stared at her.

"Well, usually your family knows his family," said
Jessica, half swallowing her simpering laugh. "Or your brother or cousin
or someone introduces you to a guy there. We could find someone for you, maybe.
Someone who doesn't have a date already. Like Toby Sutton!"

Amy burst out laughing, and Jessica joined in; they were rocking
back and forth, almost in tears. Rebecca didn't know what was so hilarious.

"Sorry," Amy managed to choke. She lowered her voice.
"It's just ... it's just that Toby Sutton is this really ugly, mean
boy."

"Sssshhhh!" Jessica warned her.

"You
brought him up!"

"He's Marianne Sutton's brother," Jessica whispered.
"But he's not like her at all -- she's real sweet. But he was almost
expelled from St. Simeon's last year."

"Why?"

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"They say he tried to set the school library on fire,"
hissed Amy.

"You don't know that for sure!" Jessica hissed back,
nervously glancing around the room.

"And then the Suttons had to donate
half a million dollars
to the library restoration fund, so he could get let back into
school."

"Really?"

"That's what I heard. Anyway, I'm sure we can find someone
better to take you to the Spring Dance. Though it
is
the social event of
the year. Apart from Helena Bowman's Christmas party, that is. Not that you'll
get invited to that!"

They both started tittering again.

"I think I saw Helena Bowman this morning," Rebecca told
them, trying not to be annoyed by their private jokes. "Is she tall, with
dark hair?"

Jessica gave a long, solemn nod.

"She's dark and Marianne is blonde. They're both juniors. And
best friends."

"Helena's more beautiful," said Amy.

"Marianne's nicer," muttered Jessica, but Amy ignored her.

"Helena lives in the best house. It's one of the biggest and
oldest in the Garden District. All the tour buses stop there. Her ancestors
were, like, one of the first families to live here. And her father is in
Septimus."

Rebecca must have looked as puzzled as she felt, because both
girls started talking at once, explaining that Septimus was one of the old-line
carnival krewes and that their parade

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was one of the most spectacular every year. It even had a unique
route, looping back along the river and curling up toward the Garden District,
rather than ending downtown. The year after the storm they didn't hold a
parade, but since then Septimus parades had been bigger and more spectacular
than ever. They were planning a huge one this winter, the Friday before Mardi
Gras.

"Helena's ancestors founded the krewe right after the Civil
War," Jessica whispered, as though she was passing on classified
information. "Only the oldest and richest families in this area are
members."

That counted out Aunt Claudia, Rebecca thought. She wasn't rich,
Aurelia's father was some Cuban who'd disappeared before he ever saw his
daughter -- or got around to marrying Aunt Claudia -- and the little house on
Sixth Street had only been in her family since the I940s, when the Garden
District was pretty run-down and the smaller houses, at any rate, were going
cheap.

"So you've
been to Helena's party?" she asked. Amy
looked crestfallen, and Jessica gave a nervous giggle that turned into a
hiccup.

"We're not in with -- you know, Them," she explained.

"That's what everyone calls Helena and her friends,"
whispered Amy. "Them."

"Why?" asked Rebecca, pushing her plate away.

"They don't have the same rules as the rest of us," said
Jessica. "They kind of get special treatment -- better than the seniors,
even."

"Like being allowed to arrive late?" Rebecca thought of
Helena, strolling in this morning after the bell had rung.

33

"Yeah." Jessica nodded. "And after the storm, when
the whole school evacuated to Houston for a semester, and we all had to go to
classes there, Helena didn't have to show up. Someone said her family went to
their place in Aspen instead."

"Make sure you don't annoy Helena," said Amy, raising
her eyebrows. "Or Marianne."

"How could I annoy them?" Rebecca asked. This was a
strange warning -- Helena and Marianne were a year older, so that meant they
wouldn't be in any of her classes. And somehow she doubted that Aunt Claudia
moved in the same lofty social circles as "Them." In fact, she
doubted that Aunt Claudia moved in any sort of social circle at all, apart from
the circle of people who sat in deck chairs around Jackson Square, telling
fortunes or selling souvenir watercolors.

"You're sort of, you know, an outsider," said Jessica,
with a sympathetic shrug of her shoulders. "You might not know the right
thing to do or say when you're around them."

"The
right
thing?"

"Just -- if they talk to you, be real polite," advised
Amy, leaning over her tray as though she didn't want anyone else to hear: Rebecca
had to snatch at her arm to stop Amy from dipping one sleeve into some ketchup.
"They could make a lot of trouble for you if they don't like you."

Rebecca said nothing, but she thought this was kind of ridiculous.
She wasn't going to be intimidated by two snooty juniors. And what trouble
could they make for her? Not invite her to their boring Christmas party? Keep
her away from the lame-sounding boys of St. Simeon's?

"You don't have to worry about me," she told Amy and

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Jessica, and gave them a false cheerful grin. They both looked
relieved -- probably for their own sakes, she decided later. If Rebecca was
going to be some kind of social pariah, they didn't want to be dragged down
with her. And even though this was just her first day, Rebecca had a niggling
feeling that she wasn't going to fit in very easily here at Temple Mead and
that Jessica and Amy would start avoiding her the second they realized this as
well.

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***

CHAPTER FOUR

***

BY THE END OF THE DAY, REBECCA FELT WORN' out and dispirited. The
layout of the school was confusing: It seemed to be a maze of locked doors,
roped-off staircases, and dark hallways that led nowhere in particular. Aurelia
had all her classes in the more modern building next door, so she wasn't around
to help point Rebecca in the right direction.

The rain had dwindled to an intermittent drizzle. Rebecca waited
for Aurelia on the steps outside, relieved when she saw her little
"cousin" bouncing toward her, another girl -- blonde and grinning --
in tow. If only Aurelia were older: She and Rebecca could hang out at school.
But there was quite a division between what was called the junior and the
senior school at Temple Mead, and Rebecca was realizing that they were never
going to see each other during the day.

"This is Claire," Aurelia announced breathlessly.
"She lives on Third Street. Her house is, like, three times as big as
ours."

"But everything in it is so boring," Claire complained
as

36

they all wandered toward the main gate. "You have all that
cool stuff, like the monkey skull and the dried bat."