Of course he thought it was fine; he wasn’t the one who had to take the exam. I blew a wisp of hair from my face before beginning to unpack. While we worked, Dustin taught me tidbits of French. “La pelle,” he said, handing me a shovel. “Les pièces,” he continued, handing me a bag of coins with the rest of my Monitor supplies. “La vie.” Life. “La mort.” Death. He unpacked my old philosophy books from Miss LaBarge’s class, and glanced out the window. The sun was setting behind the buildings. “Éphémère.” And after dusting off my bookshelf one last time, he said, “Cri de coeur,” and hugged me good-bye, hurrying back to the airport to catch his flight home. After he left, I looked it up in my French dictionary. It meant a cry of the heart.
That evening I skipped dinner and spent the rest of the night alone in my room. I only ventured out once to carry my trash to the bins, but ended up getting lost in the maze of hallways as I tried to find my way back to my room. I ended up in a side hall that looked just like mine, except that the room number was 21, and the name on the door read ANYA PINSKY. It was ajar, revealing a messy clutter of boxes and clothes, the room half decorated with tall glass candles and colorful charms. A girl with hair dyed a dark, unnatural red was holding a bundle of linens and having an argument with an older man in what sounded like Russian. When she saw me looking in, she squinted at me and then walked to the door and shut it.
The door beside it was painted shut with so many layers that I could barely see the seam of the wall. BROOM CLOSET, it read.
I tried to retrace my steps, making a few wrong turns until I finally found my door. Shutting myself inside, I sat on my bed and listened through the walls to the girls walking down the hall, speaking to each other in French. I didn’t know who they were or what they were saying; I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to know. They lived in a different world than I did. I could tell by the way they were laughing, by the fact that they could laugh.
Just as I was falling asleep, I heard the toilet flush from the shared bathroom, and sat up. “Eleanor?” I said, staring at the other side of the dark room before realizing that I was alone. If Dustin were here, he would tell me the word in French. Turning on the light, I picked up the pocket dictionary he’d left for me. “Alone” had eight entries. “Seul. Isolé. Séparé. Écarté. Solitaire. Singulier. Sans aide. Perdu.” Which kind was I? Left behind by my parents, by Miss LaBarge. Separated from Dante. Isolated from the people around me. Lost.
I was closing the book when the phone rang. Startled, I jumped.
“Renée?” a hushed voice said as I held the receiver to my ear.
“Eleanor?” I said, a little louder than I had intended, and then repeated, “Eleanor?”
I heard a breath on the other line. “It’s really you,” she said, uncharacteristically monotone.
“It’s really you,” I repeated, leaning against the wall. She must have been back at Gottfried, calling me from the room we used to share. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages.”
“I know,” Eleanor said, her voice duller than I remembered.
“And your postcards—I don’t know how I would have gotten through the summer without them.”
“Well, it gave me something to do. My mom was driving me insane all summer. Anyway, how is it over there?”
I sighed.
“Same here at Gottfried,” she said. “They’ve been calling each of us in to be questioned. About Miss LaBarge’s death.” Her voice didn’t waver when she said Miss LaBarge’s name, as if she were talking about a stranger rather than our philosophy professor.
“Questioned?”
“They know she was killed by a group of Undead, and want to see if any of us have information. I went in this morning. Your grandfather kept asking me if I had been contacted recently by a group of Undead.”
“By a group of Undead? What does that mean? What group?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “He wouldn’t say anything more specific. I was hoping you might know.”
“I have no idea,” I said, tracing the stitching on my comforter. “How is your mom doing?” I asked, thinking of the photograph I’d found in Miss LaBarge’s cottage.
“She’s fine, I think,” Eleanor said, though she sounded confused. “The same as always. Why?”
“I thought she was friends with Miss LaBarge.”
“Why would you think that?” Eleanor said. “She met her for the first time last year.”
“What?” I said, sitting upright. “But I went to Miss LaBarge’s cottage with my grandfather and found a photograph of her with your mom and mine when they were our age. It was framed in her bedroom. And I saw her at the funeral.”
Eleanor paused. “Are you sure it was my mom in the photo? Every time I mentioned Miss LaBarge at home, she always forgot her name or messed it up, calling her DuFarge or something. I’m certain she’d never met her before in her life.”
I frowned. “Well, I’m certain it was her in the photo. Unless your mom has a sister?”
“No. She’s an only child.”
I coiled the telephone cord around my finger, remembering the way Eleanor’s mom had looked sitting alone on the deck of the boat. Why would she have lied about knowing Miss LaBarge?
“Have you heard from Dante?” I asked, breaking the long pause.
“No.” She cleared her throat. “He hasn’t sent me anything since your birthday. I’m sorry.” I knew she meant it, but she sounded devoid of empathy.