Viola in Reel Life Read Free

have ever heard. It’s all choppy and she uses her hands a lot. However, Mr. and Mrs. Carreras are very pleased that Trish is trying. I watch as she skillfully puts yet another set of parents at ease. They must learn that in resident advisor training. “I’ll be right back,” Trish says and skips out of the room.
    “Wow.” Marisol watches her go.
    “I call her Trish Starbucks. She has more pep than a Venti latte.”
    “She seems nice.”
    “Oh yeah, she’s buckets of nice.”
    Mr. and Mrs. Carreras look at each other, confused.
    “Forgive me. I’m from New York. I’m a little wry,” I explain.
    Marisol speaks to her parents in Spanish, and they laugh really hard. Marisol turns to me. “My parents think you’re funny.”
    “You know what I always say…”
    “No. What?” Marisol asks as she unzips her duffel.
    “If you can make parents laugh, you can probably get them to buy you a car when you’re sixteen.”
    Marisol smiles. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
    Mrs. Carreras opens a box and lifts out new pale blue sheets and a white cotton waffle blanket. Then she pulls out a quilt, which she places with care on the desk nearby.
    I’ve never seen a person make a bed as quickly as Mrs. Carreras. I guess she mastered it in nursing. They have to make beds with people already in them, so they get good at it. When Mrs. C unfurls the quilt to go on top of the perfectly unwrinkled sheets and blanket, I try not to cringe.
    “My mom made the quilt.” Marisol forces a smile.
    The quilt is babyish (the worst), with swatches of memorabilia sewn together. Things like pieces ofMarisol’s first baby blanket, a triangle of red wool from her band uniform, messages written with permanent marker on pieces of satin—which Mrs. Carreras points out with way too much pride. It wouldn’t help to turn it over because the underside is just bright orange fleece. The quilt says homemade like one of those crocheted toilet paper holders at my great-aunt Barb’s in Schenectady. Our room is officially uncool—me with the blah beige and now Marisol with the homemade quilt of many colors. We’re doomed.
    “I’m back!” Trish says from the door, where she tapes Marisol’s head to one of the clouds. It’s as bad as the picture of me. Great, we’re going to be the quad with the ugly girls and the ugly bedding. “Something the matter, Viola?”
    “Can we redo the pictures? We really suck.”
    Trish squints up at the pictures. “You think so?”
    “I look all sad and Marisol is just blurry.”
    Trish looks hurt.
    “I mean, it’s not the photography at all—you did a great job—we just need to comb our hair and put on some concealer or something. I look really red.”
    “You were crying,” Trish reasons.
    “Yeah.” Great, she just told everybody that I’m on the ledge of insanity because I cried when my parents left.Why don’t I just curl up under Marisol’s baby quilt and sob some more?
    “I’ll try not to cry when my parents leave,” Marisol says supportively.
    “You do whatever you need to do,” I tell her, and I mean it. Marisol looks at me with relief, grateful for a little support.
    Trish goes back to her room for the camera while Mr. and Mrs. Carreras say good-bye to me. Marisol takes their hands and leads them out into the hallway. I hope she’ll be brave because I feel like an idiot that I wasn’t.

TWO
    OKAY, LIKE, SEVEN TRIES LATER, TRISH FINALLY GETS a decent picture of me for the door. It only took three tries with Marisol but she’s photogenic, so even a total yutz with a camera, like Trish, couldn’t mess it up.
    Trish taped our new pictures on the clouds already so it’s two down and two to go for Quad 11.
    While I find Trish annoying, I do admire her ability to get things done quickly. You barely have your bags down around here and she’s already got the door decorated. Maybe some of her follow-through will rub off on me, as I’m the Great Procrastinator. I don’t know why, but I put off