The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls (8 page)

Yet I did not have as much to put at risk as other Yonahlossee girls. I saw this now. My family was never in society pages; my mistake could not have ruined any of my father’s business deals. I had only risked my family’s connections to each other.

“I can see the boys,” Sissy whispered.

I whispered, too. “They won’t bite.” We were almost at the Castle, and the boys stood in a line, their backs facing the windows. They were dressed in light-colored summer suits and bow ties, like they were playing dress-up with their fathers’ clothes. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen Sam or Georgie in a suit, even though my parents had given one to Georgie for his last birthday. They’d said he’d be applying to college soon; this was when that still seemed possible.

Sissy giggled. She was giddy tonight, and I was glad for the distraction, glad not to think of Georgie and the suit he had not yet worn, at least not in my presence.

The staircase to the Castle was narrow, only three girls could fit on it at a time. Mary Abbott, her hair pinned back in a high, old-fashioned bun, joined us on the bottom step. Sissy and I linked arms. I offered my left to Mary Abbott, who clasped my hand instead.

“Your hand is cold,” Mary Abbott said. Her voice was higher than it normally was, her eyes wide.

“Yours is damp.” It felt like a dead, wet thing in mine.

“Will you find a beau tonight, Mary Abbott?” Sissy asked, teasing. Sissy’s dress was pale green. Its square neckline was embroidered in iridescent silver, which seemed to illuminate Sissy’s long, slender neck. Her hair had been curled that afternoon, like mine, but unlike mine her hair wouldn’t hold curls. Eva had powdered all our faces, save Mary Abbott’s, and Sissy’s light freckles had disappeared. She had painted our lips with gloss, too, but very subtly, so Mrs. Holmes wouldn’t notice. Paint was forbidden, but this was apparently one of Yonahlossee’s more bendable rules, since most of the girls I saw tonight looked a little brighter than they usually did, their features lit. Surely Mrs. Holmes noticed. She wasn’t stupid. You had to pick your battles, I supposed.

Sissy wore a strand of pearls clasped by a bright ruby, and a turquoise ring, the stone as big as a nickel, flanked by two round diamonds. She wore her ruby earrings, too; they matched the necklace. I’d never seen anyone, not even my mother, wear such grand jewelry. She was so thin that the ornate jewels seemed to wear her—her everyday necklace, the diamond-studded horseshoe, suited her better—but still, Sissy, if not beautiful, was nearly incandescent tonight. Her wide-set eyes—any wider, and she would have looked odd—emphasized her otherworldly quality. She looked like one of the fairies from
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
.

Sissy had startled Mary Abbott. “None of us will. We’re not old enough.”

“How old do we have to be?” I asked.

“Old enough to want one,” Mary Abbott said, and dropped my hand, giving it a final squeeze that was hard enough to make me wince. Then she sped ahead, hiked her too-long dress up to her calves and took the stairs two at a time until she was stuck behind another threesome of girls. I looked at Sissy.

“She’s odd.”

“Don’t be unkind,” she said, “it doesn’t suit you.”

I was surprised, wanted to ask Sissy what she meant, but we had almost reached the top of the stairs, and we were nervous. The gas lights at the door burned, like they always did, morning and night, though during the day you could hardly see them. Then the door was opened by Mr. Holmes, who smiled at us. He was opening the door for each set of girls, then letting it close again, then swinging it open—when really, he should have just propped the door open, like it was when we filed in for our meals and classes.

Though that would have ruined the effect, we would have been able to see in advance.

Our dining hall had been transformed. The Yonahlossee garden must have been robbed of all its flowers. They were everywhere, as far as a girl or boy could see. In vases, arranged by color: clusters of bloodred, burnt orange, pale yellow, electric pink, pure white, flecked cream. The smaller, heirloom roses, which bloomed in dense clumps, had been woven into a thick rope that dangled from the ceiling, high enough that we could not reach it, not even our tallest girl. I’d never seen so many flowers out of a garden. My mother always thought it a shame to cut them, and when she did she never arranged her flowers according to a single color, like this. The harsh electric lighting had been switched off, for tonight; instead, huge silver candelabras held candles as thick as my forearm. The candelabras themselves were taller than I was, beautiful in the way that a weapon was beautiful: I would stay away from them, lest one of their otherworldly flames, as big as a fist, catch my dress on fire.

A group of gray-haired men was seated at the opposite end of the dining hall, partially obscured by an Oriental folding screen. Perhaps they weren’t supposed to look at us. They sat at attention on their stools, each with an instrument: the band.

The boys stood in their perfect line, stretched from one end of the dining hall to the other, distinguished only by the random sparkle from a wayward gem when it caught the light, while the girls messily clumped opposite them. I wondered if the boys had flasks hidden in their pockets, like Eva said they would. I knew from morning announcements that Mrs. Holmes was a vocal prohibitionist: drink was evil and immoral. Miss Brooks stood near them, as if to stop an errant boy before he made it to the other side. Miss Brooks led us on our bird-watching and botany walks in the afternoons and taught history during the school year, and though she seemed dull she was nice. I liked her, at least compared to Miss Lee, who watched everyone like a hawk.

Docey and another maid served us punch out of a giant crystal bowl. I inclined my head to Docey, who didn’t acknowledge me. A formal serving outfit, like the kind that the maids in hotels wore, had replaced her normal uniform: a starched black pinafore, a crisp white blouse underneath.

“Docey’s dressed up,” I whispered to Sissy when we both had our punch.

“Look,” Sissy said, “no, don’t look, they’ll see.”

This was the first time I had seen Sissy nervous. And it was the closest I had ever been to a group of boys. I knew what they expected of us. I also knew what we were supposed to expect from them, which was very different—to be led in handfuls of dances, twirled around the room underneath the watchful eyes of adults. We wanted a certain handsome boy to take a fancy to us, to become half of a pair for a night. And then, maybe most of all, we wanted them to leave, so that we could pine away.

I didn’t answer Sissy. I was nervous, too, but for a different reason. Silly as this sounds, I had never been around a boy I wasn’t related to. Surely Mother and Father hadn’t known that there would be a dance, with a busload of boys in attendance.

Henny and Jettie and another senior, Martha Ladue, entered the dining hall, and something about Henny looked strange, and it was a second before I realized that her mole had been powdered over. Martha was the most beautiful girl at camp. She looked like Louise Brooks, except prettier, calmer.

Sissy nudged me. Leona was at the door, dressed in a dull gray silk, a diamond-and-pearl choker around her throat. Everyone watched her, it was impossible not to, for Leona was the type of girl who commanded a room’s attention; she was tall, almost six feet, and her white hair hung down to her waist, which was a style for younger girls. I wondered if it had ever been cut.

Mr. Holmes called us to attention at that moment. He stood at the head of the room then, Mrs. Holmes stood next to him, a corsage of a striped cream-and-red rose on her wrist. Mr. Holmes towered over his wife, as slender as she was plump. She wore the same pearl earrings, the old-fashioned skirt that fell to the floor, that she did every day.

“Let the dance commence,” Mr. Holmes said, gesturing to the band, which struck up a song. We fanned out so that a boy could approach us definitively, without our having to wonder if he was really after our cabinmate, our best friend. The boys rushed toward us; I took a step back, impulsively, bumping Leona.

“Pardon me.”

“Pardon accepted,” she said; I forgot to worry about the boys and instead peered up at Leona, who stared ahead, probably hoping that a tall boy would ask her to dance. She was even taller when you were close to her. I looked down and saw that her shoes were flat, and dyed silver to match her dress. The rest of us wore heels when we dressed up. I supposed she was rich enough to have any type of shoe made, in any color she wanted.

“Thea.” I looked up, surprised by the sound of my name. I hadn’t thought Leona knew who I was. “Someone wants you,” Leona said impatiently, and I turned to face a skinny, pale boy.

“May I have the pleasure of this dance?” he asked, and I accepted his arm, realizing as we walked that a slow song was playing, which meant I would have to get close to this boy. His voice was unsteady. I looked back to Leona as I was escorted to the dance floor. She was watching, which satisfied me for some reason.

“Thea, pleased to meet you,” I said, nodding my head since I couldn’t curtsy, not while we were walking. I hoped I was remembering all my manners.

“Harry, pleased to meet you,” he said.

Before I knew it we were dancing, caught up in the flock. I recognized the song—“Carolina Moon”—even absent the words. It was one of Mother’s favorite songs, and it seemed foolish, now, that I had just thought the melody was pretty, had never connected it to a place. Here I was, in Carolina, dancing to its slow, sad anthem.

“Where’s your home?” I asked.

“Mainly here,” he answered, after a pause. He did not dance particularly well. He led, but barely. And yet he smelled like Sam, and Georgie; I had forgotten the smell of boys, which was so different—sharper, more pungent—from the smell of girls.

“And when you’re not here?”

“Louisiana. My family’s in the lumber business.” He was eager to please, Harry. His answers were questions—Mainly here? Louisiana? The lumber business?

There were boys I would have swooned over here—there was a tall, black-haired boy, in a pale blue jacket, and Sissy had snagged a handsome redhead—but Harry was not one of them. Molly, the first- year from my table, twirled by, her knotty hair combed. Even the youngest of us danced. Sissy had told me these dances were progressive; before the Holmeses, each girl was assigned a boy whom she danced with the entire night. He would escort her to the Castle, her white satin dancing shoes carefully tucked under his arm. There had been members of the board—Sissy’s grandfather, for one—who had fought hard against the change, who thought that Yonahlossee dances should model themselves on the old, prewar debutante balls.

When the waltz ended, I curtsied, Harry bowed, and I excused myself to the refreshment table. I accepted another cup of punch from Docey, who met my eyes briefly.

I felt a hand cup my elbow; for an instant I thought it was a boy, and I blushed, but then I turned and saw Sissy.

“Done already?” she asked.

“A little parched.” I lifted my half-empty punch cup. “You’re not dancing?”

“Did you see the boy I was dancing with?” I nodded. “Boone. I like him.” She lowered her voice. “I
really
like him.”

I felt a strange pang of jealousy. We stood for a second, lulled into a trance by the music. I studied my punch, which was blue, strangely—almost black. Swollen blackberries bobbed on the surface, which the younger girls had picked yesterday with Mrs. Holmes during elocution class. My mother’s citrus sherbet punch, an old family recipe, was light pink, tasted cold and sweet and creamy, only slightly tangy.

Sissy broke the silence. “I saw you talking to Leona.”

“Not really. For a second. She knew my name.”

“I’m surprised. I thought she only knew her horse’s name.”

“You don’t like her?” I asked.

Sissy shrugged impatiently. “It doesn’t matter, with Leona. Like her or hate her, she doesn’t give a whit about anybody but her horse. She’s so rich, Thea.” She looked at me. “She can do anything she wants. She doesn’t have to care about anybody.”

In fact, though Sissy claimed Leona and Martha Ladue were the richest girls here, I knew Sissy was wealthy, too. Everyone did. And her family’s fortune wasn’t new, like Leona’s; it had lost that ugly sheen. Eva told me the funds to build the new riding rings had been donated by Sissy’s grandfather; Sissy’s mother and aunt were alumnae, and Sissy’s father and grandfather sat on the camp’s governing board.

Yet pretending your family wasn’t wealthy, as Sissy did—this seemed to be part of the game. Sissy played this game so beautifully, moved so easily and naturally through Yonahlossee, was able to effortlessly wind her way through its hierarchies. She knew who was on scholarship (ten girls every year, including our own Mary Abbott), who was smart (she said I’d earned the reputation as a smart girl, which both flattered and unnerved me), and who was related (so many of the girls were cousins). She knew who might be sent away soon, because of her father’s financial problems, despite Mr. Holmes’s assurances that the country’s situation was improving (Victoria’s position at the camp was growing shakier by the moment). She knew who mattered, who didn’t, though she was kind to both the former and the latter. The Kentucky girls, for instance, didn’t matter, were hillbillies, though I didn’t see why. Molly looked like all the other first-years; take away the Atlanta girls’ stylish hair, remove the Memphis girls’ gold lockets, emblazoned with their initials, and we all looked the same.

Sissy’s blue eyes were earnest and perfectly round. A child’s eyes. She had chosen me, out of all these girls. I was so grateful. When I left here, I would remember her always. Perhaps we would even visit.

I understood, suddenly, how lonely Mother must have been in Emathla, with only our aunt to call a friend. And I was angry that she had not ever allowed me my own, that she had not ever let anyone else in.

The waltzes continued. I danced with three more boys; one complimented my copper hair—he called it that, copper—and another’s hands were so wet and slimy they felt like snakes. After we were finished, I excused myself and resolved not to dance again for the rest of the evening. I retired to the chairs set up for this purpose—I had seen earlier that boys could not, or would not, approach a sitting girl—and chatted with Henny, who cheerfully criticized girls’ dresses. I let myself daydream, imagined my father would walk through at any moment—after this dance, before this one—no, now, in the middle of this interminable waltz, he wouldn’t care about interrupting us: he would want to get to me too badly. Maybe my brother would come—then all the girls could see how handsome he was—or maybe all three of them, Father, Mother, Sam, and I would forgive them right away, be done with Yonahlossee forever.