Chapter 1

Rule #1: Keep a low profile.

Aunt Beatrix and I are new here.

New state = Massachusetts.

New town = Darby Cove.

New school = Darby Prep.

And this is what I have learned so far…it rains. Like, all the time. In the month Bea and I have lived here, we’ve seen all kinds of precipitation: warm and steamy, cold and spiky; soft, sharp, sideways; in fat clumps and pitter-pat drips. If this is autumn in the Bay State, I think I’ll have drowned by the time April showers descend.

The town is nestled in the crook of the arm of and if you don’t think the looks like an appendage, try squinting at a map and you’ll notice the resemblance. Now imagine a speck of a village – a freckle on the state’s arm – tucked into that elbow. That’s Darby Cove. Where it rains. All the time. Eskimos and their 400 words for snow haven’t got a thing on Darby Cove’s varieties of rain.

Bea is new because she’s the most recent addition to the English department at Darby Prep and I’m new because I go wherever Bea goes. There’s nothing like changing schools for your last year of high school to shake up your world.

Yippee for me. If I’m lucky, I’ll manage to make one decent friend before I graduate and then…then what? No idea. I really do admire the kids who have had their lives planned out since they were ten years old. When I was ten, I was…well, let’s say I was busy with something. But it certainly wasn’t planning my career.

To an outsider, isn’t any different from . They’re both undersized states, the kinds of places tourists like to visit and snap photos of multi-hued trees, maybe schuss down a mountain or two. The states are staunchly democratic and littered with liberal arts colleges with picturesque campuses. But to me, they are as dissimilar as night and day.

was where I was raised, where I went to school for eleven years (a parochial school called Sisters of Mercy but whatever, it was mine), where I learned to ride a bike and drive Bea’s Volvo.

Bea calls a tabula rasa but to me it feels harsh and a little cruel, like a spinster who’s been rejected for most of her life and has made it her mission to enjoin other people in her pain. It feels bitter.

Did I mention that it rains here? All the time?

I asked Beatrix the other day, “If this place is a blank slate, does that mean I’m free to reinvent myself as someone way cooler than myself?” She frowned and went back to dunking an Earl Grey teabag into a cup of honey-sweetened water.

A classy “no” but a “no” nevertheless.

The answer is always no.

Rule #2: Remain in control at all times.

Academically, Darby Prep is superior to my old Sisters of Mercy. The school has a class in just about every subject (Myths in Arabic Literature? Sign me up! Social Mores of ? Bring it!), athletic facilities the Red Sox and Celtics would envy, and architecture that draws its own tourists to the campus. I think – I think – Sisters of Mercy had a soccer field.

The point of Sisters, though, was not to dazzle college admissions departments with the bells and whistles of a fancy private education. It was to train young minds to become obedient and God-fearing. The Sisters instilled thoughtfulness and generosity and kindness in their students through discipline and rigorous self-control. In other words, it was the perfect place for me and Bea.

Since fifth grade, Beatrix and I have meditated together every day. The three C’s, that’s Bea and me: calm, cool, collected. I have rarely seen my aunt get riled up about anything, not even when one of her students complained to Sister Catherine that Bea had given her a poor grade because she was a girl. As if Beatrix would ever do such a thing!

While my own meditation skills are less-than-stellar, I have to admit they have helped me when I’ve felt my heart begin to race and my emotions flutter. Knock on wood: nothing bad has happened in a while.

Rule #3: No touching.

I have the utmost respect for my aunt. She took me in when I was a baby and no one wanted me. She has cared for me, day in and day out, for seventeen years. She has only asked of me the simplest adherence to her few rules, what she prefers to term 'guidelines.'

“I’m not your mother,” she reminds me when, on the rare occasion, I attempt to defy her 'guidelines.' “I can’t tell you what to do. I can merely suggest...”

Long pause.

“…based on the vast experience I have had with you and your mother, which others, including yourself, Calliope, do not possess.”

How do I argue with that? So when Bea says no touchy, that means hands to self, avoid skin-to-skin contact, keep your distance. It also means, for obvious reasons, no boys.

My greatest hope is that I get a decent roommate for the year. My ideal? Someone who’s kind of like me, who likes books and movies, who studies but isn’t a workaholic, who doesn’t think owning a store full of clothes is something to aspire to.

But it would also be nice if she isn’t at all like me: outgoing, outspoken, maybe even a little popular.

I imagine us hanging out in our room, talking late into the night about cute boys until our neighbors complain and our house mother knocks on the door. I can see us in the quad, sprawled on side-by-side benches as we read silently, perhaps breaking the quiet with a passage or two read aloud for inspiration or a laugh. Maybe she’ll be into dances and parties and invite me to come along. Maybe she’ll introduce me to her brother, who’s handsome and looking for a girlfriend like me who has, you know, issues. Maybe…let’s just stop with the fantasies for now.