“Morning,” he said, and then frowned. “Everyone all right?”
“Yes.” Alexander speared a sausage on the end of his fork, a little violently. “Just considering starting our own leper colony down at the Castle.”
“They do stare, don’t they?” Colin said, glancing around as if he’d just noticed the wide berth everyone was giving our table.
“Voyeuristic little shits,” Alexander said, and bit the sausage in half, teeth snapping down like a guillotine. “What brings you into exile with the rest of us?”
Colin held up a familiar envelope, small and square, a black splash of Frederick’s writing on the front. “We’ve been given R and J assignments,” he said. “Thought you’d like to know.”
“Oh?” Alexander twisted around his chair, glancing across the room to the wall where all our mailboxes were.
“Want me to grab them?”
“No, that’s all right.” Meredith pushed her chair back and threw her napkin down in her seat. “I need another coffee. I’ll go.”
She left the table, and as she crossed the room people drifted automatically out of her way, like they were afraid her misfortune might be contagious. I felt a little snag of anger or anxiety (I couldn’t tell the two apart anymore; after Richard’s death they were somehow indistinguishable), tore a piece of bacon in half, and proceeded to crumble it into oblivion. I didn’t realize I was ignoring everyone else until Filippa said loudly, “Oliver?”
“What?”
“You’re torturing your bacon.”
“Sorry, I’m not hungry. I’ll see you guys in class.”
I stood and carried my plate to the kitchen. I dumped it in the bin without bothering to scrape it off and went back out again. Meredith was still picking through the mailboxes, collecting our letters. I glared at a table of language students who were watching her until they bent their heads over their breakfasts again, whispering fiercely in Greek.
“Meredith,” I said, when I was close enough that only she would hear me.
She looked up, eyes flicking dispassionately across my face before she turned back to the mailboxes. “Yes?”
“Look,” I said, without hesitating. My annoyance with the rest of the student body had somehow made me bolder than usual. “I’m sorry about the other night, and I’m sorry about Thanksgiving. I’ll be the first one to admit I don’t know what we’re doing here. But I want to figure it out.”
She stopped rifling through the mailboxes, her hand perched on the edge of the one labeled Stirling, Wren. Right next to it was Richard’s mailbox, empty. They hadn’t removed his name. I forced myself to ignore it and look at Meredith. Her expression was inscrutable, but at least she was listening to me.
“Why don’t we go get a drink or something?” I asked, leaning a little closer. “Just us. I can’t think straight with everyone watching like we’re a reality show.”
She folded her arms, said skeptically, “Like a date?”
I wasn’t sure what the right answer was. “I guess. I don’t know. We’ll figure it out when we get there.”
Her face softened, and I was startled all over again by how pretty she was.
“All right. We’ll get a drink.” She put a pair of envelopes in my hand and left me alone by the mailboxes, staring dumbly after her. It was a moment or two before I realized the language students were gawping at me in her absence. I sighed, pretended not to see them, and opened my first envelope. The script on the front was long and loopy, not at all like Frederick’s compact, tilted scribble. A blue silk ribbon had been fixed to the back with a wax seal bearing the Dellecher coat of arms. I slid my finger underneath it and flicked it open. The note was short, and the same as it had been the last three years except for the date.
You are cordially invited to the annual
CHRISTMAS MASQUE
Please arrive in the Josephine Dellecher Ballroom between 8 and 9 p.m. on the evening of
Saturday, 20th December.
Masks and formal attire are required.
The second envelope was smaller, less ornate. I tore it open, quickly scanned the writing inside.
Please be in the ballroom at 8:45 p.m. on December 20th.
Come prepared for Act I, Scenes 1, 2, 4, and 5; Act II, Scene 4; and Act III, Scene 1.
You will be playing BENVOLIO.
Please report to the costume shop at 12:30 p.m. on December 15th for a fitting.
Please report to the rehearsal hall at 3 p.m. on December 16th for combat choreography.
Do not discuss this with your peers.
I left the refectory without going back to our table. Colin had taken my seat. All of their envelopes were open, and they took turns glancing at one another, wondering whose note from Frederick said what. For the first time, I decided I didn’t really want to know.
SCENE 14
Our winter-term schedule was so chaotic that it was five days before Meredith and I found a free minute to sneak away from the Castle. James and Wren and Filippa were locked in their various rooms—likely learning lines; we hardly had enough time to do them justice—and Alexander had disappeared early in the evening (probably, I thought, with Colin, though I kept this hypothesis to myself). What with R and J and work to do on our midterm speeches, we were all unusually high-strung. The idea of a quiet drink was wonderfully appealing, but even as I held the door to the bar for Meredith to precede me, I wasn’t sure either one of us really had the time.
I had expected the place to be mostly empty, considering the day (Sunday) and the amount of work we all had to do before the twentieth (staggering). But the Bore’s Head was surprisingly crowded, our usual table commandeered by a gaggle of philosophy students who were arguing loudly about the significance of Euclid of Megara’s cross-dressing habit.
“What are they all doing out?” I asked, as Meredith led me to a small table on the opposite side of the room. “Don’t they have homework?”