LITMIR.BIZ

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funeral. Bel noticed that. She noticed that Grandma didn’t seem to like Mom much, based on how she talked about her. Grandma, being such a blue blood, maybe hadn’t been happy about her son marrying a girl from the wrong side of the tracks. Bel’s parents had met in college, at an event honoring the Enright family for endowing a major scholarship. Mom was one of the scholarship recipients. That’s how different their situations were. John Brooks Enright was there representing his rich family, and Eva Lopez was there to say a required thank-you. But opposites attract. They fell in love.

      When Dad died, Mom moved the twins back to California, and they didn’t see Grandma again, or even talk to her on the phone. She sent checks on their birthday; that was it. After the funeral, when Grandma took them to a restaurant and offered to have the girls come live with her, Bel confronted her. Why hadn’t Grandma come to see them all those years? Wouldn’t you know, she claimed it was all Mom’s fault, that she’d tried to visit, but was told she wasn’t welcome. Bel didn’t believe it for a minute, and afterward, she told Rose so. But Rose thought maybe Grandma was telling the truth. And besides, what choice did they have? Grandma was the only one willing to take them in.

      At the end of May, a week and a half after Mom died, the twins went east to live with their grandmother in her big house in Connecticut. Grandma let them keep one painting each to hang in their rooms, but everything else went to Goodwill. They got on the plane with just one suitcase. Grandma would buy them new clothes better suited to life in a cold climate. It turned out that Grandma was very, very rich; something their mother had never told them. Rose thought they’d won the lottery. But to Bel, it all felt wrong. The Mercedes, the big house with its echoing rooms and elaborate décor, the housekeeper who came every day but barely spoke. She tried to settle in, to get used to the strange new circumstances. Maybe eventually she would have succeeded. But then the rug got pulled out from under them all over again when Grandma announced that she was shipping the twins off to boarding school come September.

      Boarding school was something rich people did, but to Bel, it just seemed cold. Not only would they go to some pretentious prep school, but they would live there, and come home only for holidays. The whole idea was the brainchild of Warren Adams, Grandma’s silver-haired, silver-tongued boyfriend. Warren was a lot like Grandma: good-looking, dressed fancy all the time, talked with an upper-crusty accent. Bel didn’t trust him. Warren claimed he was merely Grandma’s lawyer, but if that was true, why did he hang around her house so much? He said he’d been a close friend of Grandpa’s, but then why was he moving in on Grandpa’s wife? And he insisted that boarding school was the best place for the twins, but Bel suspected that Warren wanted them out of the way, so he could have Grandma and her money to himself. Rose didn’t care. She didn’t care if Warren wanted them gone, or even if Grandma did. Odell Academy was one of the top schools in the country, and Rose wanted to go there. She was ambitious like that, and Bel was too depressed to argue. They applied, they got in, and now the day of reckoning had arrived.

      That morning, Grandma woke them early. They packed their fabulous new belongings into the Mercedes and drove the three hours from Connecticut to Odell Academy in New Hampshire, where they drove through imposing brick-andiron gates onto a lush, green campus. Beautiful as it was, Bel felt like she was going to prison.

      “Isn’t it lovely?” her grandmother said with a sigh. “I remember bringing your father here.”

      In the back seat, Bel fought tears. But she could see Rose sitting next to Grandma in the front, staring out the window, awestruck.

      “It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen,” Rose said reverently.

      They drove past perfectly manicured lawns, following signs to registration at the Alumni Gym. The gym parking lot was full of luxury cars with plates from New York and Connecticut and Massachusetts. The gym itself was housed in a grand marble building that looked like a palace. It made Bel miss her humble high school gym back in California, with its scarred floor and grimy lockers. She missed her old friends, the beach, their little apartment. Most of all, she missed her mother. A tear escaped and ran down her cheek.

      “I want to go home,” she blurted.

      Grandma met her eyes in the rearview mirror, looking alarmed.

      “Isabel, dear, we’ve been over this. Odell is one of the top schools in the country.”

      “I know I can’t go back to California. Just let me come home with you, Grandma. I’ll go to the public school. You’ll save so much money. Please.”

      “It’s not about the money, darling. Odell is a family tradition. Your father and grandfather went here.”

      Why did Grandma think that would matter to her? She’d never met her grandfather, and barely remembered her father. It was Mom who raised them. Mom had gone to public school, and she was the most intelligent and wonderful person Bel had ever known.

      Rose reached across the seat and squeezed Bel’s hand. “Belly, you’re just nervous,” Rose said, using her childhood nickname. “First-day jitters. It’ll be okay. I’m here. We’re in this together.”

      Bel tried to take comfort in that. It was true, she had her twin. Even if they were different, and didn’t always see eye-to-eye, Rose was family. Bel nodded, and swiped a hand across her eyes.

      “Okay.”

      Bel took a deep breath, and the three of them got out of the car. Inside, the Alumni Gym wasn’t just a gym, but an entire athletic complex, complete with an Olympic-size swimming pool and indoor tennis courts. Registration tables had been set up on the basketball court, a cavernous space surrounded by bleachers and flooded with light from tall windows. Bright blue banners crowded the walls, trumpeting Odell’s many championships against other prep schools. The room vibrated with voices and laughter, as kids and their parents greeted and hugged. Rose and Bel were coming in as sophomores, which meant that most kids in their grade knew each other already, but Bel tried not to care. Look at them—all stuffy and preppy, in head-to-toe Vineyard Vines. Who needed them? There must be other, cooler kids here somewhere. Kids like her friends back home, who smoked weed and surfed and let their hair grow wild. She and Rose had moved in such different crowds. Rose was a good girl. She got perfect grades, and did Model UN and stocked shelves at the food pantry. Her friends were dweebs like her—Bel meant that in a kind way. She loved her sister. Still, she wouldn’t be surprised if Rose fit right in at this stuck-up school.

      The twins picked up their registration packets, which included dorm assignments, class schedules, IDs, and a campus map. Bel and Rose had been assigned to the same dorm, Moreland Hall.

      Grandma studied their placement forms, nodding approvingly. “They usually separate siblings, but I requested that they keep you together, because of your loss. I’m so glad they listened.”

      They got back into the car and followed the map to Moreland Hall. As they drove up to the turnaround behind the dorm, a group of pretty girls, with long hair and long legs and wearing matching blue Odell T-shirts, waved signs that read: WELCOME HOME MORELAND GIRLS! Home. As if this place could ever be that for Bel. The dorm was vast and built of dark brick, with arches and turrets and mullioned windows. Like a haunted house. It gave Bel the creeps. But she’d promised to try, and she would.

      The twins got out of the car. One of the T-shirted girls stepped forward. She was blond and perfect-looking, but when she flipped her hair, Bel caught the unmistakable tang of cigarette smoke, which piqued her interest. Smoking was against the rules here, supposedly. But maybe not everyone followed the stupid rules.

      “Hey, I’m Darcy Madden,” the girl said. “We’re the senior welcome committee. So, welcome, I guess.”

      “Hi, Darcy! I’m Rose Enright, and this is my twin sister, Bel,” Rose said, stepping forward and smiling eagerly.

      Darcy rolled her eyes.

      “Right, the orphan twins,” Darcy said. “I heard all about you. It’s a scam, right? You don’t even look like twins to me. Bel’s got black hair and Rose has, hmm, what would you call that? Dirty blond?”

      “We’re definitely

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