Possessions Read Free

door that said, MARGOT EHRLENBACH, PHD, HEADMISTRESS, Dr. Ehrlenbach opened it herself and invited me to sit down. The office was freezing—even colder than outside—and I was glad I had opted for my high-tops instead of my flip flops. The room was completely bare except for a large cherrywood desk, a bookcase containing a dozen or so thick leather-bound books, her padded leather chair, two upholstered (dark green) chairs in front of it, and some framed watercolor sketches of the Marlwood grounds.
    “So. Lindsay,” Margot Ehrlenbach said unto me.
    My cousin’s boyfriend had dubbed her “Maggot” during the endless family debates we’d had about whether it would drive me even crazier to go away to boarding school. I wondered if she kept her office so cold to keep herself from decomposing. I knew she was on the elderly side, but there were no wrinkles on her sharp-featured face. She was wearing an incredible amount of makeup; maybe she had troweled it into all her lines, like grout. Her skin was pulled so tightly she couldn’t have smiled if she’d wanted to.
    And after seeing me, she obviously didn’t want to. I had thought I was all that—proud of my anti-fashion statement: high-tops, tattered jeans, my mom’s ratty UCSD sweatshirt, no makeup. And the hair that would not die—my black curls flowing like bubbles over my shoulders, contained—not tamed—by a plain tortoiseshell headband. But it wasn’t happening.
    “You’ve arrived,” she continued, in a tone that said We won’t make a mistake like that again .
    I had assumed my first stop would be my room, and I had planned to change into a less ragged pair of jeans and maybe even a sweater and Jason’s peacoat to meet my headmistress. Instead, Dr. Ehrlenbach’s eye-sweep up and down drove home the point that I had blown my first impression, and the silence in the room hung there like a meat cleaver over my head.
    “And you’re ready to get to work,” she said icily, continuing the pleasantries. “Because you have a lot of catching up to do.”
    “Yeah, I mean yes. Ma’am,” I replied.
    She could smile, thinly, and arch a brow, doing both as she handed me a schedule, a map, and some syllabi, and then told me all my books had been delivered to my room with the rest of my things.
    She said “things” like my things were things . Things that should not be there. Things that were suspect, and probably infected. Then she went on to remind me that my roommate was going above and beyond, because everyone else in my dorm had a single, and Julie Statin had actually offered to share with me.
    I smiled and at some point I completely fuzzed out and lost track, which is what happens to people with anxiety problems. So I smiled harder and felt sweat icing over my clavicles, and wondered if it was really so bad back home in San Diego.
    Big problem: it was.
    “So we’ll check back in with each other in a week, yes?” she concluded.
    “Yes, yes, that would be so . . . yes,” I bumbled. I could feel the clock ticking. On your mark, get set. I had seven days to prove myself.
    I could see both our reflections on Dr. Ehrlenbach’s desk; the room was so cold I could see my breath, too. Each “yes” was like a hiss of steam.
    “Then you may go,” she said, each word distinct, as if I were either an idiot or couldn’t speak English.
    She placed her hands on her desk. I swore she had put makeup on them and I tried very hard not to stare. No rings. I was wearing a ring on my thumb. I wondered if that made me look like I was in a gang or something.
    I got to my feet, my nerves making me awkward. Or maybe I was just naturally awkward. She cocked her head and I had a crazy (bad word choice, maybe . . . “unsettling”) moment where I thought she was going to tell me that she’d changed her mind and I couldn’t stay. I knew she had protested my admission, and someone on the board had overruled her. I’d heard my stepmom, CJ, talking about it on the phone. I