Momentarily stunned, completely exhausted, something in me finally clicked, and I pulled in the rest and closed the door.
“Oh… I don’t know what I was thinkin’. I should have made up your bed for you. I guess I’ve just been lookin’ at that empty thing for so long, it didn’t even occur to me. Here, let’s do it together. We’ll get it done in a jiffy.”
I was caught up in the whirlwind that was Buffy and mechanically followed her lead. I pulled what I absolutely needed from the largest suitcase, changed into my sleepshirt, and went in to brush my teeth. The bright, bluish lights banking the medicine cabinet drowned my complexion, giving me shadow and a hollow, sallow look. “Oh, Lord,” I said aloud.
She knew what I meant. “Don’t you worry. You’ve been traveling, and no one expects a girl to look her best after all that. Wash your armpits and your face and call it good. We’ll sort out the rest in the morning.”
That embarrassed me, and I sniffed my pits. She was right. I took care of things, snapped off the light, and found my way to my bunk in the darkness.
“We’re under lights out,” she whispered. “Better get some sleep. That bell comes early.”
My mattress was rigid and narrow, but I could have slept on a bed of thorns that night. The second my head hit the pancake-thin pillow the school provided, I was out like a light.
Buffy was right. That bell did come early. It was also ear-splitting loud. I’d never heard it before, so it stopped my heart. “What the hell?”
The next thing I heard was a bevy of giggles, and I turned to see Buffy, her pillow shoved beneath her rosy cheek as she watched me.
“Oh, you haven’t lived until you wake up with a hangover. Then you will know what real pain is.”
She threw back her covers and slid her feet into puffy pink slippers, padding into the bathroom and shutting the door behind her. I wanted to shower but was intimidated by Miss Amelia’s warning of tardiness and decided once Buffy got out, I’d top off the stinkiest places and get dressed for breakfast.
I went over to the window and slowly parted the slats on the shutter. What I saw was breathtakingly beautiful. It was like a postcard. White-capped peaks in every direction, somehow both severe and whimsical, and you couldn’t see a soul. There wasn’t even the trail of an airplane across the amazonite blue canopy sky.
In that moment, I forever fell in love with the mountains that surrounded it. None of the brutality that came after would tarnish that.
“Your turn,” she said as she scuffled back out, leaving the door open as steam billowed out behind her. “There should still be plenty of water if you don’t run it too long,” she added. She opened the drawers of a narrow dresser next to her bed.
I looked and didn’t see a second one. “Are we supposed to share the dresser?”
She stopped for a moment, her brows drawing together. She looked toward me and said, “Oh, I guess so. I’ve been alone so long I forgot. Do you really need it? I mean, I have it all full.”
It wasn’t worth the argument. I was not a clotheshorse and could easily fit what I had into my closet and maybe use my suitcase for the off-season things. “No,” I shook my head. “I can get along without it.”
She gave me a satisfied grin, displaying matching dimples in her cheeks I hadn’t noticed the night before. She looked like one of those overly dressed, frilly dolls grandmothers collected and then left in their boxes because they stayed more valuable that way.
“You’d better hurry. Erin and Poppy always get the best seats.”
“Erin and Poppy?”
Buffy shifted the zipper of her skirt around to the back where it belonged and patted her hips. “Yes, ma’am. Wait until you meet them. They are an experience, that’s for sure.”
I didn’t have time to stand around and discuss the personalities of two girls I had yet to even meet. I grabbed my things and went into the bathroom to get dressed. There was barely any hot water, no matter what Buffy had said, but I made do and vowed that I would come to the room early that night and get a long, super-hot shower before I went to bed.
Once we were both finally done, Buffy opened the door and stood back. It reminded me of going to a rodeo with Dad on a trip to Tulsa when I was ten. The Brahma bull was released from the chute with a cowboy on his back. Everyone jumped to stay out of the way, and the cowboy always got creamed.
The hallway was already teeming with students, shoving past each other, hustling to make breakfast. I was the cowboy. The bull awaited. I took a breath, pulled my bag over one shoulder, and got ready to ride that Brahma hard.