Forbidden French

St. John’s is a campus overflowing with ivy and stone and carefully trimmed boxwoods, and its traditions date back a hundred years. The girls play field hockey, the boys row and fence. There’s a stable of horses for those who choose to play polo, and every year during homecoming week, there’s a lacrosse game between current students and alumni. The buildings are ancient, creaky, and dark. There’s a draft in winter time and an enduring heat in the summer. The architecture is of another era, not exactly intuitive. I’ve been lost here before, more than once. I took a turn down the music hall and ended up in the kitchens. A cook shooed me away with a ladle.

In the center of campus is the main lawn, where the boys’ and girls’ dorms face each other, separated by a few yards of grass. I’m up on the fourth floor, in a room on the corner with a roommate who despises the very air I breathe. She’d rather I keep quiet, or better yet, not exist at all.

She’s called her friends into our room this afternoon. They’re talking as if I’m not here, even though I’m perched on my bed, working ahead on some pre-algebra homework.

“I can’t believe how big my boobs are now,” Blythe says, admiring her body in the full-length mirror mounted to her closet door. She’s only wearing a bra and underwear.

“I’m insanely jealous.” Nellie sighs. “But there’s hope for me still. My mom says she didn’t get boobs until she turned fourteen.”

“God, that’s forever. Here, I have a good push-up bra that should help until then.”

I have no need for push-up bras. My body is changing in spite of my internal protests.

Like a weed sprouting through cracks in concrete, puberty seems hellbent on having its way with me. Fortunately, it’s easy for me to hide my burgeoning body beneath my school uniform. My arms and legs are still spindly thin. With a sweater on, I look younger than thirteen even. I’m glad—I’m in no hurry to grow up.

Blythe and her friends, on the other hand, would love nothing more than to pass for twenty-five. She’s tearing through her hanging clothes, searching for the sexiest thing she’s got so she can take a selfie and make sure her ex-boyfriend sees it. She should have no trouble finding an outfit that meets that requirement.

Blythe’s closet is overflowing, though none of it can be worn out and about on campus. We’re allowed to wear whatever we want on the weekends as long as we’re going off campus, but even those clothes have to fit within certain dress codes. However, if you’re eating in a St. John’s dining hall or studying in one of the libraries, even if it’s midnight on a Saturday, you have to be in uniform.

I don’t have any “weekend” clothes.

I have three pairs of Chanel ballet flats, all the same style in navy, black, and nude. I’m allowed a pair of tennis shoes only for tennis, a pair of riding boots only for riding, and one pair of sandals. My school uniform is altered by my grandmother’s personal tailor. Every morning before class, I tuck my crisp white button-down shirt into my knee-length plaid skirt. On top, I wear the school’s cashmere cardigan. I own enough of everything that I can send it all out for laundering once a week and still find another hanging in wait in my closet.

I wear my thick dark brown hair down and pin straight, even in summer. Though most girls have abandoned it, I still wear the coordinating plaid headband every once in a while to appease my grandmother. She’s not here on campus, but she has loyal spies everywhere. I was shocked when I was speaking to her on the phone last year and she told me she didn’t think it was ladylike to keep my hair up in a messy bun every day for class.

I didn’t bother asking how she knew. The Davenports are a legacy family here at St. John’s, and my grandmother is on the board of regents. She has regular phone calls with various members of faculty including the headmaster and lead administrator. I wouldn’t even put it past her to have someone posted here, watching me at all times. Their full-time job is to report my hairstyles and whether I had jam or butter on my toast that morning. Today she’s done a ponytail, and I’m sorry to report, but she switched it up and chose cream cheese today. For that, they’re likely paid over six figures, plus benefits. It makes me laugh to consider it. The absurdity of this life gets the better of me sometimes.

I look over to see Lavinia eyeing me curiously, but not in a nice way. It’s more like how she would inspect someone who’s escaped the looney bin. In her mind, I should be kept behind glass, observed from a safe distance.

Unfortunately, she’s not alone. I hear the whispers about me around St. John’s. I could set them straight. I’m not a witch, you idiots—or a ghost, for that matter. Just because my hair is dark and my eyes are an eerie pale green…just because I’m quiet and shy…just because I keep to myself…people fill in the blanks with the very worst. My mother would insist that I correct them. Set them straight and scratch your way out of this torment. Fight like hell, kid. She was fiery like that. She’d never allow anyone to walk all over her. It’s a constant war, remembering and imagining what she would want me to do while balancing the very real advice from my grandmother, the woman I’m wholly dependent on now.

It’s important to keep your calm. Decorum above all else. Girls should be polite and modest, timid and quiet. Speak only when spoken to.

In other words, smack yourself in the head with a rock and pretend you’re living back in the 1800s. Women’s suffrage movement? Yeah, it never happened.

I stare back at Lavinia, wishing I were bold enough to call her out.

What?

What is so interesting over here?

Blythe sighs when she notices our little standoff. “Lavinia, don’t bother. You’ll only encourage her.”

Encourage me to what? Stand up for myself? Not likely.

I might think rebellious thoughts from time to time, might dabble in the idea of telling them all to go fuck themselves. I might sneak off into the woods to get a glimpse of Emmett Mercier, but at the end of the day, I’m still Elaine Davenport, all-around good girl, rule follower, straight-A student. Oh yeah, and depressed.

I’m not actually sure if I have clinical depression. That would require a diagnosis, and I won’t be getting one of those anytime soon because I won’t be visiting a counselor anytime soon. Sure, I lost both my parents earlier this year in tragic ways and sure, it’s been a bleak landscape inside my head lately, but my grandmother thinks I need to keep a stiff upper lip. Whatever that means.

Only the strange thing is, I’m not all that sad. I’m just…exhausted. Exhausted by the idea of dealing with girls like Blythe. Exhausted by the thought of trying to meet my grandmother’s expectations. Exhausted by the routine of St. John’s in general. I’m thinner than I should be because I’d rather stay away from the dining hall during meals to avoid the stares. I bought a rice cooker the last time I went into town and I use it to make food every now and then, especially when I’m desperate. To further avoid everyone, I study in a corner of the library that’s rarely used. So what if there’s poor lighting and a few spider families that fight me for the territory? I make do.

But the real secret, the embarrassing truth about what has kept me afloat this year is that I use Emmett Mercier the way some people use alcohol and drugs. I’ve built him up in my head. The way you can count on a favorite meal, a favorite book…Emmett is my reverie.