Robert got Alex to help him pull the trunk and suitcases out, while Janet and Meredith went to get her room assignment. The smiling young man she got her dorm keys from told her where the building was and how to get there. And then the four of them set out to find her dorm, with Alex and Robert carrying the trunk.
As soon as they reached Lathrop House, Janet pointed to her own freshman hall across from it, as Robert and Alex headed into the building and struggled up the stairs. Her room was on the second floor, so they didn’t have far to go, and as they walked into the room, they saw that half of it was decorated in pink, and there was a teddy bear sitting on a pink bedspread on the bed. The other half of the room was bare, waiting for Meredith to unpack her things, and she was suddenly nervous about the girl she’d be rooming with. What if they hated each other?
Janet got out the keys to the trunk when Alex and their father set it down, while Merrie sat down on the bed and looked carefully around the room. Beyond the window, she could see the campus, it looked venerable and distinguished with handsome old trees. She could hear women’s voices everywhere, in the halls, in the other rooms, on the stairs, and outside as they stood beneath Merrie’s windows, and suddenly everything she’d brought with her seemed wrong. All the decorative items she’d packed were bright red. Her bedspread, some throw pillows, and even her typewriter all clashed with the powder pink of her roommate’s childlike treasures. Meredith’s choices were bolder, just like her points of view.
Meredith unpacked photographs of her family first, all in red frames, including a photograph of her grandfather in his robes when he’d been sworn into the Supreme Court, and several of her parents and Alex, and one of Anna and her two little girls in Germany. The photograph was a way of bringing a piece of her German life here.
She and her mother hung her clothes in the small closet, while Robert put a small record player under the desk with her Frank Sinatra records. They put the red rug down, spread the bedspread on the bed with the pillows, and put the posters over her bed with tape. One was a photograph of a German castle, and the other was a movie poster of Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina, which she had seen that summer and loved. Her roommate had posters of Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, and Judy Garland over her bed, so they had all the current movie and singing stars covered.
Within an hour, the room was set up, Meredith was unpacked, and there had been no sign of her roommate yet. They were about to leave the room when she came sailing in, breathless from running up the stairs, and smiled at Merrie. She was a pretty blonde with a long pageboy, and was much better looking than her pictures, with a startlingly good figure for a young girl, and a heavy southern accent when she greeted everyone.
“Hi, I’m Betty. I’m sorry I wasn’t here to welcome you. We went to the cafeteria to get some lunch,” she explained. “My parents just left.” She clapped her hands excitedly when she saw the record player. “I didn’t think I’d have room for one.” She smiled at Alex, who was fascinated by her. She was wearing a tight pink sweater and a slim gray skirt, with the saddle shoes that all the girls seemed to be wearing, except Merrie.
“We were just going to take a walk,” Meredith explained shyly, somewhat bowled over by her effusive roommate. “My mother wants to take a look, for old times’ sake.”
“So did mine. She met my dad while she was going here. She dropped out after freshman year and they got married. And then I came along.” She beamed at them, as Meredith tried not to stare at her voluptuous chest. She looked like a movie star. None of the girls at Marymount had looked like that. The nuns forced them to be much more restrained. “See you when you get back,” she said, as they gathered up their things to leave. “Maybe we can listen to some of your music then,” she said, as she took a pack of cigarettes out of her purse and a pink ashtray out of a drawer and set it down on her desk. “I hope you don’t mind if I smoke.” She looked very sophisticated as she lit up.
“No, it’s fine,” Meredith said, somewhat stunned by her. She had a lot of personality, and seemed warm and friendly and very southern and was anything but shy. “See you in a while.”
Meredith followed her family down the stairs, glancing at the other girls moving in or going back down the stairs in pairs with their new roommates. She couldn’t imagine being close to someone like Betty. She was very different from the girls Meredith knew at school, and seemed a lot older and more glamorous. She had noticed that Betty was wearing makeup, and all Meredith had brought was a single pink lipstick, which was the only one she owned. Betty looked like the kind of girl that boys would be crazy over, and Meredith suspected she’d be engaged by Christmas, or the end of freshman year, like her mother. Meredith never knew what to say to girls like her. She had nothing in common with them and felt awkward when she compared herself to them. For a minute, she wished she had gone shopping with her mother, as Janet had suggested. She’d bought a few new sweaters, but mostly brought comfortable old clothes.
They walked around the campus until her mother had seen everything she wanted to, and then they hugged Meredith. She waved as they drove away, and she wandered back to her dorm, feeling lost and lonely, wondering what she was doing there. She felt like the ugly duckling in the midst of a flock of glamour girls. She noticed a thin, pale girl with her blond hair in a long braid sitting by herself on a bench as Meredith went back to Lathrop House. Their eyes met for a moment, and the girl smiled, and Meredith wondered if she felt as out of place as she did. She was wearing a simple pleated skirt, a dark sweater, and loafers with navy knee socks. She looked like the girls Meredith had known in Germany, more serious and subdued than the students here, and she seemed more European.
When Meredith went back to her room, she found Betty and three other girls listening to her Frank Sinatra records. The album covers were on the bed, along with a Nat King Cole record she really liked, and Buddy Holly.
“Is this okay with you?” Betty asked over her shoulder, Meredith said it was, and sat down on her bed to listen too. The girls left a little while later, and didn’t ask Meredith to join them. They seemed to already have plans, and one of them said to Betty that there was a mixer planned that weekend with the freshman boys from West Point. They all squealed with excitement at the news, and Meredith felt like an outcast before she even started.
She skipped dinner that night and stayed in her room, and it was right before curfew when Betty came back. She disappeared to the bathroom with her bathrobe and makeup case, and came back with her hair in pin curls. Meredith went to get ready for bed then, and when she returned Betty was reading a movie magazine with Grace Kelly on the cover. She’d been in two movies that year, The Country Girl, and Rear Window with Jimmy Stewart. Meredith had seen Rear Window with a friend from school, and had loved it. Betty showed her photographs in the magazine of Grace Kelly on the Riviera with Cary Grant, filming a new movie that summer, and gave it to Meredith to read when she was finished. The two girls didn’t seem to have much in common, but Meredith tried not to be daunted by her. Betty was wearing a frilly nightgown, and lit another cigarette as she lay on the bed. Meredith was wearing a faded flannel nightgown she’d had since Germany and still liked, even though the cuffs were frayed and it was a little small.