“Name?” the girl demands, looking down at the clipboard.
Her boyfriend gets up and saunters toward the door, pulling a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his nylon shorts.
“Carly,” I say, my voice scrabbling upward at the end as if it’s trying to hang on to a ledge. “Carly Schiller.”
“Welcome to Gorman University, Carly Schiller,” she says, flat and bored like she’s reading from a script. “I’m Samantha, your resident advisor. Looks like you’re on the second floor, with”—Samantha motions to a girl who just came down the stairs—“Hadley!”
The girl is gorgeous, with glowing pale skin and corn-silk blond hair pulled into a low ponytail. I’m suddenly aware of how flushed and shiny my face must be, how heavy my clothes feel with sweat, while her retro sundress—the same shade of blue as her eyes—looks fresh and breezy, perfect as her cat-eye liner. I bet my own black eyeliner is all smeared. I shouldn’t have bothered with it this morning, but I wanted to look… I don’t know. Like someone else.
“Meet your new roommate,” Samantha says. “Carly, this is—”
“Allison Hadley.”
Allison sticks her hand out for me to shake. Her nails are shiny, painted bright red, and there’s something sophisticated, almost grandiose, about the way she carries herself. It reminds me of the actresses in the 1940s movies my mom loves. Allison says her name like I should know it already.
“Where’s the rest of your stuff?” she asks.
I look helplessly at my two shabby bags, slumped against each other on the floor. “This is everything.”
Allison tilts her head, perfect ponytail swishing. “You didn’t bring a fan or anything?”
I shake my head.
“That’s okay,” she says. “I’ve got a couple, and I’ve had them all on full blast since this morning, so it’s slightly less sweltering up there. Here, let me help you with that.”
“Oh, no, you don’t have to—” I start, but she’s already lifting my suitcase, carrying it toward the stairs. I catch up with her, hoisting the duffel onto my shoulder.
The curving wooden banister is grand, but the steps are covered in the same dingy carpet as the entryway, strips of duct tape stuck over worn-down patches on the treads. Upstairs, the music is louder, syncopated beats vibrating the walls.
Allison stops on the landing, letting the suitcase drop. “Damn, girl. What did you pack in here?”
I’m hoping I’m too red-faced already for my blush to register. “Just… books. A lot of books. Sorry. I can—”
“It’s okay, you’re saving me a trip to the gym.” She continues down the hall, dragging my suitcase behind her like it’s a disobedient dog. “Bathroom’s there,” she tells me, gesturing with a point of her chin. “And this is us.”
The door is propped ajar, and Allison bumps it the rest of the way open with her hip. She’s already moved in to the right half of the room; the bed is made with a red-and-black comforter, and there’s a row of Broadway musical posters—Wicked, Rent, Phantom of the Opera—hanging above it. As she promised, there are multiple fans, all switched on high: two slowly oscillating between the beds, and a box fan stuck in the window, blowing stagnant air out through the ivy.
“If you don’t like that side,” she says, “we can switch. I just took the same one I had last year.”
“No, it’s… this side is fine.” I set the duffel down on the bare mattress. “Wait, you’re not a freshman?”
“Sophomore,” she says, sitting cross-legged on her own bed so her skirt drapes over her knees. “My roommate from last year transferred to Penn.”
“Hey, Allie, you ready—”
A boy walks right into the room like he lives here too. Once he sees me, though, he stops, suddenly awkward.
“Oh, hey,” he says. “Sorry. You must be—”
“This is my new roommate, Carly.” Allison gestures between us with a dramatic roll of her wrist. “Carly, this is Wes.”
Wes is slightly built, with narrow shoulders and brown hair that flops over his forehead, skimming the edges of his wire-rim glasses. He must be her boyfriend. Although she didn’t introduce him that way, and he’s not quite the type I would have pictured her with. I mean, I only met her a few minutes ago, so I don’t really know her, let alone her taste in guys. But I can tell just by looking at Wes that he’s like me: a fade-into-the-background person. Whereas Allison… she shines like a spotlight’s pointed on her.
“Nice to meet you, Carly,” Wes says, before turning his attention right back to Allison. “Did you still want to—”
“Yes!” She springs up off the bed. “Yes, sorry, I lost track of the time, but I am ready!”
Allison slips on some sandals and grabs a lanyard holding her keys and Gorman ID. She doesn’t look back at me, but Wes does, pausing in the doorway to cast one sidelong glance my way before following Allison out.
The low roar of the fans makes it seem like the room is breathing. My parents are probably only a few miles away, heading west on Route 422, but I feel like I’m on a separate planet, finally free.
I can be happy here. I know I can.
3 SCARLETT
“Don’t kill me.”
I swivel around in my chair. Dr. Andrew Torres stands on the conference room threshold, holding up his chipped Shakespearean insults mug with a guilty smile.
“I took the last of the coffee,” he says.
I salute him with the cup of dark roast I picked up at the library coffee cart on my way to work. “I’ve got it covered.”
He laughs and slides into the seat on my right. “You always do.”
After taking my leave of Tyler’s corpse, I still had time for an abbreviated version of my morning routine. Shower, mascara, lipstick, hair styled into soft waves. But I had to grab breakfast on the go. I’m always starving after a kill, even the ones that don’t require physical exertion. I finished my cranberry muffin before I even made it across the Oak Grove to Miller Hall.
I was one of the first to arrive for the staff meeting. The rest of the faculty are filing in now, chatting amongst themselves, but none of them acknowledge me. Drew is the only coworker with whom I have anything approaching a friendship, and that’s because he finds the rest of the English faculty almost as tedious as I do.
“How was your summer?” Drew asks, as we both flip to fresh pages in our notebooks. He’s used the same plain narrow-ruled style as long as I’ve known him, buying a new one to commemorate the start of each semester. “I hope you didn’t spend the whole time working on that fellowship application and studiously avoiding fun.”
“Not the whole time,” I say. “Thank you again for the letter of recommendation.”
Drew waves me off. “Your work speaks for itself. If they don’t choose you, they’re idiots.”
He’s the one who told me about the Women’s Academy fellowship in the first place. The academy is a private archive, dedicated to preserving the work of lesser-known female writers. They recently obtained a collection of previously undiscovered letters from Viola Vance, the turn-of-the-century poet who’s been the main subject of my scholarly research for the past several years. Whoever wins the fellowship will have exclusive access to the letters for twelve months, as well as a flat around the corner from the archive in London.