Seven twenty on Monday morning and mist clung to the Old Village, creeping up from the harbor, forming a white scrim that hovered over the ground, blurring all the hard lines. Abby pulled onto Pierates Cruze and rolled to a stop in front of Gretchen’s house, singing along to Phil Collins because nothing put her in a better mood. In the back seat was a tray of rice krispie treats to give Gretchen a soft landing after the hard weekend.
Gretchen usually waited for Abby on the street, but this morning there was only Good Dog Max. He’d tipped over Dr. Bennett’s garbage can and was up to his shoulders in trash. When Abby put on the parking brake he started and spun around, standing stiff-legged, staring at the Dust Bunny until she opened her door, at which point he leapt over the white trash bags, caught his front legs, and face-planted into them. Abby ran to the front door while he flailed around.
Instead of a sleepy Gretchen ready for her Diet Coke infusion, the glass door unsealed and Mrs. Lang stood there in her housecoat.
“Gretchen won’t be coming to school today,” she said.
“Can I go up?” Abby asked.
She heard a rumble as Gretchen avalanched down the stairs, dressed for school, bookbag over one shoulder. “Let’s go,” she said.
“You hardly slept,” Mrs. Lang said, grabbing Gretchen’s bookbag and dragging her to a halt. “I’m the mother and I say you’re staying home.”
“Get OFF me,” Gretchen yelled, twisting away.
Abby’s skin felt hot and clammy. Their fighting always embarrassed her. She never knew how to make it clear whose side she was on.
“Tell her, Abby,” Gretchen said. “It’s vital to my education that I go.”
Mrs. Lang looked in Abby’s direction, forcing Abby to stumble over her words.
“Well,” she said. “Um . . .”
Mrs. Lang’s face fell.
“Oh, Max,” she said.
Abby looked behind her. Good Dog Max had trotted up the path and was staring at the three of them as if he’d never seen them before. A stained Maxipad was stuck to his muzzle.
“Gross,” Abby said, laughing. She grabbed Max’s collar and pulled him toward the door.
“No, Abby!” Mrs. Lang said. “He’s covered in yuck.” She took hold of the collar, and in the confusion Gretchen slipped from her grip and broke for the Dust Bunny, dragging Abby along in her wake.
“Bye, Mom,” she called over her shoulder.
Mrs. Lang looked up.
“Gretchen—” she said, but by then they were at the end of the driveway.
Dr. Bennett was squatting by his garbage cans; he looked up as they ran by.
“Keep that dern dog out of my yard,” he said. “I’ve got my air rifle.”
“Morning, Dr. Bennett,” Gretchen said with a wave as the two of them slammed into the Dust Bunny and Abby pulled out.
“Why didn’t you call last night?” Abby asked.
“I was on the phone with Andy,” Gretchen said.
She handed Abby two sweaty quarters and reached between the seats to pull out the Diet Coke that Abby always brought her.
Abby was annoyed. Gretchen had come back from Bible camp talking about nothing but Andy, her great summer love. Andy was so cool. Andy was so studly. Andy was so living in Florida and Gretchen was so going to go visit him. By the first week of July she’d forgotten about him, and Abby assumed it was over. Now here he was again.
“Great,” Abby said.
She hated that she sounded sour, so she put on a smile and cocked her head like she was interested. Abby hadn’t seen any pictures of Andy (“Andy says that taking pictures is like clinging to the past,” Gretchen said, sighing) and she hadn’t talked to him on the phone (“I’m writing him letters,” Gretchen crooned. “They’re so much more meaningful.”), but Abby could picture him perfectly. He was a gimpy hunchback with one eyebrow and braces. Maybe headgear.
“He’s done acid before,” Gretchen said. “And he told me that the thing in my bathtub was totally normal. A lot of people have had that happen, so I’m not Syd Barrett.”
Abby was gripping the steering wheel so hard her fingers ached.
“I told you it was fine,” she said, smiling.
Gretchen leaned forward, rifled through Abby’s tapes, and popped in their awesome summer mix. By the time they roared into the student parking lot in a cloud of white dust, they were both screaming along with Bonnie Tyler, having Total Eclipses of the Heart. Abby cruised into an empty space at the far end, put the Dust Bunny in park, and yanked the emergency brake. They were facing the sports fields that led to the headmaster’s house, where five of the stray dogs that made their home in the marsh were chasing one another through the mist.
“Ready for AA?” Abby asked Gretchen.
Gretchen flinched, then turned to check the backseat.
“I’m having flashbacks,” Gretchen said.
“What?” Abby said.
“Someone keeps touching the back of my neck,” Gretchen said. “It kept me up all night.”
“Wowzers,” Abby said. “You have turned into Syd Barrett.”
Gretchen flipped her the bird.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go to AA.”
They got out of the Dust Bunny and headed into school. On the way, Abby brushed her hand against the back of Gretchen’s neck and Gretchen jumped.
“Stop,” she said. “You wouldn’t like it if I did it to you.”
Albemarle Academy sat at the end of Albemarle Pointe on the Ashley River, bordered by marsh on two sides and by the Crescent subdivision on the third. Albemarle was expensive and intensive, and everyone who went there thought they were better than everyone else in Charleston.
“Uh-oh,” Gretchen said.
She nodded ahead and Abby looked as they crossed Albemarle Road, which separated the student parking lot and the sports fields from the school buildings. That enormous wall of meat, Coach Toole, was crossing in the opposite direction, wearing obscenely tight weightlifting pants.
“Ladies,” he said, nodding as he passed.
“Coach,” Gretchen said, swinging her bookbag around and reaching inside. “You want some nuts? My mom gave me a bag.”
“No, thanks,” he said, still walking. “I’ve got my own nuts.”
The two girls looked at each other, incredulous, and then ran away laughing, racing up the sidewalk by the drop-off lanes where Trey Sumter, already behind on his homework this early in the year, was sitting on the bench by the flagpole, begging them as they passed. “Did y’all do those earth science questions?”
“Igneous rock, Trey,” Gretchen said. “It’s always igneous rock.”
Then Abby and Gretchen turned the corner into the breezeway, with the front office on one side and the glass doors leading into the upper school hallway on the other, the vast green Lawn spread out before them, the bell tower rising on the other side, and they were in the thick of it, surrounded by the student body of Albemarle Academy.
“Oh, God, spare me,” Gretchen said. “We’re all so pathetic.”
They were the children of doctors and lawyers and bank presidents, and their parents owned boats and horses, plantations in the country and beach houses on Seabrook, and they lived in gracious homes in Mt. Pleasant or in historic houses downtown. And every single one of them was exactly the same.
The Albemarle student handbook was the Bible, and the dress code was clear: you dressed like your parents. The kids saved their big hair, big colors, and big shoulderpads for the weekends. During the week the dress code was all New England prep academy. The girls dressed like “young ladies,” the boys like “young gentlemen” and if you didn’t know what that meant, then you didn’t belong at Albemarle.