—
DAY LOOKED FROM face to face. Marie might get on with Thalia; they both favored grave formality and never letting a single hair fall out of place, though Marie’s Zaire French accent and her tendency to wear jackets over her shoulders without putting her arms in the sleeves gave her attitude more impact than Thalia’s. The society was too small to have a leader, but if they’d had one, Marie would’ve been it. Sometimes, when Marie and Willa spoke together in French, glancing around as they did so, Day felt that they were disparaging her mode of dress, but Ed had reassured her that that was just how people who could only speak English naturally responded to fluent French speakers. Ed, named after Edwina Currie, was much easier to get to know. You could chat to her about anything. If she didn’t understand a reference you made she just said so. Rare, very rare for anyone Day had met at Cambridge to admit to gaps in their understanding . . . but Ed would ask to hear more. This puckish, boyish young woman was black like Marie and a Londoner like Willa, but, as she put it herself, “a different kind of black, and a different kind of London”—it was hard to picture a time, place, or opportunity other than university and the Homely Wench Society for the likes of Ed, Willa, and Marie to find out that they really got on. For one thing all three had a tendency to assume that everybody else was joking all the time and responded accordingly—Willa with breezy levity, Marie with frank disappointment, Ed with various micro-expressions, semi-smiles, really, that made you want to laugh too, even if you really did mean what you’d just said.
—
THEO AND HILDE, on the other hand, didn’t think anybody was joking about anything unless they were explicitly told so. Theodora Ackner, Nebraska’s finest, was still disconcerted by Europe’s ghosts. Hilde, Ed, and Grainne could no longer hear them, but the ghosts seemed to wake up again around Theo, since she actively listened for them. Lisbon, Paris, and Vienna were tough places for her, beauties clotted with blood. Hilde refused to accompany Theo to Oslo. “About a quarter of my family lives there, Theodora. Let me know these things in my own way.”
—
AND THEN THERE was Grainne Molloy, who had lobbied to be recorded in the annals of the Homely Wench Society as “the irrepressible” Grainne Molloy, unsuccessfully, since, as Hilde pointed out: “Sometimes you are repressible, though.” While Grainne did truly lose her temper several times a day, that frenetic energy of hers occasionally served to obscure another trait: the cool and calculated collection of incriminating anecdotes.
—
THE NEWEST HOMELY WENCH was half in love with every single one of her fellow Wenches, but she wasn’t sure what she, Dayang, brought to the mix. She’d been a member for just over three months and hadn’t had an idea for an article or a group activity yet. She snapped the group photos so she wouldn’t have to see physical proof of her being odd man out. Maybe she could do something toward recruitment; a few of her friends from college and faculty had seemed interested when she mentioned the Wenches.
—
FLORDELIZA, the youngest Wench, their first-year, arrived late. As expected. “Afternoon, ladies!” She grabbed a handful of biscuits and flopped down onto Day’s bed. She’d been growing out a side Mohawk since the summer, so her front hair was still much longer than it was at the back. Her clothes were crumpled and she’d clearly slept without removing her eyeliner; Day had barely noted this before Flor announced that she had a tale of shame to tell. But also a tale of possibility.
“Go,” Theo commanded from the window seat; she’d arranged Day’s curtains about her so that they resembled a voluminous toga.
“OK, first of all, you’re not allowed to judge me . . .”
“We’re all friends here,” Marie said, sternly.
Flordeliza revealed that a member of the Bettencourt Society was into Yorkshire Filipinas. “Or maybe just into this?” She pointed at herself.
“Oh God,” Grainne shouted. “Oh God, Flordeliza, what did you do?”
—