Chapter 4 2004
Gaines Academy had been founded nearly a hundred years before I started going there, and my great-grandfather had graduated with the first class.
Four generations later, it was a sprawling campus with a dozen buildings that offered “traditional Christian education, elite athletics, and renowned college prep.” Two hundred of America’s most privileged children attended, and suddenly I was one of them.
I wished I’d been better prepared for what to expect.
When we arrived, Ms. Bamford, the director, greeted me and Profe and showed us around.
Ms. Bamford was pretty in the manner of a person who spent a lot of time making herself pretty.
She wore a fitted brown down coat and black leather boots.
Her eyes were lined and shaded. Her chin-length black hair was curled.
Her lips and nails were deep crimson. And her teeth, when she smiled, were very, very white.
The campus reminded me of the University of Minnesota.
The two-story brick buildings had rows of exactly spaced rectangular windows, and surrounding them were woods of spindly birch and pine.
There was the main school building, which was where the classrooms and cafeteria were, a large gymnasium, and primary- and secondary-school dorms for the boys and the girls.
On the steps of the primary girls’ dorm, we were greeted by a woman the opposite of Ms. Bamford in every way. Plump and makeup-less, she had stick-straight gray hair and small birdlike eyes, and she wore baggy black pants and a baggier thick gray wool coat.
“This is Ms. Michaels. She is one of the house parents,” Ms. Bamford said.
I held out my hand as Profe had taught me. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Well, aren’t you a polite little thing?” Ms. Michaels said as she shook it.
She and Profe shook hands as well.
“I’ll leave you to it,” Ms. Bamford said and pivoted away, her beige wool skirt swishing with her steps and her boots click-clacking on the sidewalk.
“I’ll take it from here,” Ms. Michaels said to Profe. “I’m afraid no boys are allowed past this point. Vivien’s suitcases are in her room, and I promise to take good care of her.”
Fear rushed through me, not believing her.
Up to that point, it hadn’t felt real. It was just me and Profe taking a tour of a pretty campus.
I looked at Profe, and he looked like he didn’t believe her as well, his expression stricken.
And it was clear he wished he could do something to stop me from following her into the building but didn’t know how.
Leveling his eyes on mine, in Spanish, he said, “Be brave, Cielo. Tomorrow is a new day, and the world will reset and be different than it is today. You will be home again soon, and we will return to seeing what wonders each day holds.”
He bent down on one knee, and I clung to him as he hugged me.
“Be good,” he said, then forced me to release him.
With no choice, I followed Ms. Michaels up the steps. When I reached the door, I craned my head back. Profe was still on the walkway, his sad eyes watching, and already I missed him, though he was standing right there.
We walked inside, and Ms. Michaels led me up a wide flight of stairs to the second floor, then down a long corridor to a room with four beds, two dressers, four desks, and three girls who startled when we walked in.
Two stared wide eyed from where they sat on their beds, iPods beside them and earbuds plugged in their ears.
The third, a thin blond with large blue eyes, stood from her chair at one of the desks and sized me up.
Her eyes lingered on my nevus, and her mouth skewed to the side as if deciding what to think of it.
“Heddy, Abby, Michelle,” Ms. Michaels said. “This is Vivien, your new roommate.”
I extended my hand to the blond. “It’s nice to meet you.”
The girl ignored it and, eyes still fixed curiously on my face, said, “You don’t look old enough to be in second grade.”
I felt the other girls watching, gauging how they should react based on what the girl in front of me did.
“Heddy,” Ms. Michaels said, warning in her voice.
“My birthday’s in a couple of months,” I said in a sly attempt to avoid the truth, which was that I wasn’t old enough.
I was only six, almost seven, and should have been in first grade.
But Gaines didn’t have a first grade, and when Ms. Bamford explained that to Mother, her response was, “Vivien’s plenty smart enough to be in second grade. She’ll be fine.”
Heddy squinted, then walked past me and out the door, and Abby and Michelle got up and followed. My chest tightened, and I did my best not to cry.
“The bottom three drawers of the dresser beside your bed are yours.” Ms. Michaels nodded to the dresser and bed on the right. “Do you need help unpacking?”
“No, thank you.”
Looking relieved, she offered a tight smile and left.
I opened my suitcase and unpacked the uniforms Boodo and I had bought the week before. As I was finishing, a bell blared that made my heart skip several beats. Through the open door, I watched as girls streamed down the hallway toward the stairs.
I stood watching, feeling bewildered, my tears dangerously close to escaping.
Swallowing them back, I took a deep breath and followed.
I passed Ms. Michaels, who was in a glass-walled office with her back to the hall, her ankles crossed on the desk as she watched The Simpsons on a television mounted on the far wall.
I hurried after the others, only realizing I should have grabbed my coat and snow boots from the mud hall after I stepped from the building and the cold slammed into me.
It was early January, and the temperature was below freezing.
Snow pelted me as I followed the hazy figures in front of me toward the main building.
By the time I made it inside, I was shivering violently.
A girl sitting on a bench, pulling off her boots, looked up. She was older, perhaps nine. Tilting her head curiously as she took in my nevus, she asked, “New?”
I nodded.
“Caf’s that way.” She jerked her head left.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She flashed a smile, which made me feel a little better about things.
That was until I got to the cafeteria.
I’d never been to a cafeteria and, up to that point, had rarely eaten anywhere other than Kendall House or Blue House.
Profe or Boodo usually made my meals, and I ate at the kitchen table, unless it was family-dinner night at Blue House with everyone balancing paper plates on their laps and sitting wherever they could find room or when Mother was home and she and I ate at the dining room table.
But this was a giant room with two dozen long tables filled end to end with strangers.
I didn’t know how they got the trays or food and didn’t have a clue where I was supposed to sit.
The snow in my hair was melting, and my hair hung wet in my face.
I was still trembling from the cold, and I could feel everyone looking at me.
My heart was clattering around in my chest, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
Pivoting, I whirled and raced back the way I’d come, passing the girl who had smiled at me, and her friends.
Ms. Michaels didn’t notice as I ran past her in her glassed-walled office.
Teeth chattering and stomach growling, I crawled beneath the covers, turned toward the wall, and cried. I missed Boodo. I missed Profe. I hadn’t even made it through the first day, and already all I wanted was to go home.