They entered the Jonathan Edwards common room, warm air closing over them in a gust. Winter light slatted over the leather couches in watery squares—all of it a coy, falsely humble prelude to the soaring rafters and stone alcoves of the dining hall.
Beside her, Mercy laughed. “I only see you smile like that when we’re going to eat.”
It was true. If Beinecke was Darlington’s temple, then the dining hall was where Alex worshipped daily. At the squat in Van Nuys, they’d lived on Taco Bell and Subway when they were flush, cereal—sometimes dry, sometimes soaked in soda if she got desperate—when they were broke. She’d steal a bag of hot dog buns whenever they were invited to barbecues at Eitan’s place so they had something to put peanut butter on, and once she’d tried to eat Loki’s dry kibble, but her teeth couldn’t manage it. Even when she’d lived with her mom, it had been all frozen food, boil-in-a-bag rice dishes, then weird shakes and nutrition bars after Mira got suckered into selling Herbalife. Alex had brought protein pudding mix to school for weeks.
The idea that there could be hot food just waiting for her three times a day was still shocking. But it made no difference what she ate or how much of it; it was as if her body, starved for so long, was ravenous now. Every hour her stomach would growl, chiming like the Harkness bells. Alex always took two sandwiches with her for the day and a stack of chocolate chip cookies wrapped in a napkin. The supply of food in her backpack was like a security blanket. If this all ended, if it all got taken away, she wouldn’t go hungry for at least a couple of days.
“It’s a good thing you work out so much,” Mercy noted as Alex shoveled granola into her mouth. Except, of course, she didn’t and eventually her metabolism would stop cooperating, but she just didn’t care. “Do you think it’s too much to wear a skirt to Omega Meltdown tomorrow night?”
“You’re still committed to this frat thing?” Omega Meltdown was part of Mercy’s Five Party Plan to get her and Alex to be more social.
“Some of us don’t have a hot cousin to take us interesting places, so until I’m offered a higher caliber of party, yes. This isn’t high school. We don’t have to be the losers waiting to get invited out. I’ve wasted too many good outfits on you.”
“Okay, I’ll wear a skirt if you wear a skirt,” Alex said. “Also… I’m going to need to borrow a skirt.” No one dressed up for frat parties, but if Mercy wanted to look cute for a bunch of guys in hazmat suits, then that was what they would do. “You should wear those boots you have with all the laces. I’m going back for seconds.”
The basso belladonna kicked in just as she was stacking peanut butter pancakes onto her tray, and she drew in a sharp breath as she came wide awake. It felt a little like someone cracking an ice-cold egg on the nape of your neck. Of course, it was at that moment that Professor Belbalm waved her over from her table below the leaded windows in the corner of the dining room, her sleek white hair gleaming like a seal’s head breaching a wave.
“Fuck,” Alex said under her breath, and then cringed when Belbalm’s mouth quirked as if she’d heard her.
“Gimme a minute,” she told Mercy, and set down her tray at their table.
Marguerite Belbalm was French but spoke flawless English. Her hair was snow white and fell in a smooth, severe bob that looked like it had been carved from bone and set carefully on her head like a helmet, so little did it move. She wore asymmetrical black garments that hung in supremely chic folds, and she had a stillness that made Alex twitch. Alex had been in awe of her from the first glimpse of her slender, immaculate form at the Jonathan Edwards orientation, since the first whiff of her peppery perfume. She was a women’s studies professor, the head of JE College, and one of the youngest people to ever achieve tenure. Alex didn’t know exactly what tenure implied or if “young” meant thirty or forty or fifty. Belbalm might have been any of those, depending on the light. Right now, with the basso belladonna in Alex’s system, Belbalm looked a dewy thirty and the light pinging off her white hair glittered like tiny shooting stars.
“Hi,” Alex said, hovering behind one of the wooden chairs.
“Alexandra,” Belbalm said, resting her chin on her folded hands. She always got Alex’s name wrong, and Alex never corrected her. Admitting her name was Galaxy to this woman was unthinkable. “I know you’re breakfasting with your friend, but I need to steal you away.” Breakfasting had to be the classiest verb Alex had ever heard. Right up there with summering. “You have a moment?” Her questions never sounded like questions. “You’ll come to the office, yes? So that we can talk.”
“Of course.” Alex said, when what she really wanted to ask was, Am I in trouble? When Alex was put on academic probation at the end of her first semester, Belbalm had given her the news sitting in her elegantly appointed office, three of Alex’s papers laid out before her: one on The Right Stuff, for her sociology class on organizational disasters; one on Elizabeth Bishop’s “Late Air,” a poem she’d chosen for its meager length, only to realize she had nothing to say about it and couldn’t even use up space with nice long quotes; and one for her class on Swift, which she’d thought would be fun because of Gulliver’s Travels. As it turned out, the Gulliver’s Travels she’d read had been for children and nothing like the impenetrable original.
At the time, Belbalm had smoothed her hand over the typed pages and gently said that Alex should have disclosed her learning disability. “You’re dyslexic, yes?”
“Yes,” Alex had lied, because she needed some reason for how very far behind everyone else she was. Alex had the sense she should be ashamed of failing to correct Belbalm, but she’d take all the help she could get.
So now what? They were too early in the semester for Alex to have screwed up all over again.
Belbalm winked and gave Alex’s hand a squeeze. “It’s nothing terrible. You needn’t look quite so much like you’re ready to flee.” Her fingers were cool and bony, hard as marble; a single large stone glinted dark gray on her ring finger. Alex knew she was staring, but the drug in her system had made the ring a mountain, an altar, a planet in orbit. “I prefer singular pieces,” Belbalm said. “Simplicity, hmm?”
Alex nodded, tearing her eyes away. She was wearing a pair of three-sets-for-five-dollars earrings that she’d boosted from the racks at Claire’s in the Fashion Square Mall. Simplicity.
“Come,” Belbalm said, rising and waving one elegant hand.
“Let me just get my bag,” said Alex. She returned to Mercy and jammed a pancake into her mouth, chewing frantically.
“Did you see this?” Mercy said, turning her phone to Alex. “Some New Haven girl got killed last night. In front of Payne Whitney. You must have walked right by the crime scene this morning!”
“Damn,” said Alex, casting cursory eyes over the screen of Mercy’s phone. “I saw the lights. I just thought there was a car accident.”
“So scary. She was only nineteen.” Mercy rubbed her arms. “What does La Belle Belbalm want? I thought we were going to edit your paper.”
The world glittered. She felt awake, able to do anything. Mercy was being generous and Alex wanted to work with her before the buzz began to fade, but there was nothing she could do about it.
“Belbalm has time now and I need to talk to her about my schedule. I’ll meet you back in the room?”
That bitch can lie like she’s breathing, Len had once said of Alex. He’d said a lot of things before he died.
Alex trailed the professor out of the dining hall and across the courtyard to her office. She felt shitty leaving Mercy behind. Mercy was from a wealthy suburb of Chicago. Her parents were both professors, and she’d written some kind of crazy paper that had impressed even Darlington. She and Alex had nothing in common. But they’d both been the kid with nobody to sit next to in the cafeteria and Mercy hadn’t laughed when Alex had mispronounced Goethe. Around her and Lauren, it was easier to pretend to be the person she was supposed to be here. Still, if La Belle Belbalm demanded your presence, you didn’t argue.