The Chocolate Money by Ashley Prentice Norton Page B

silver-and-gold pen from Tiffany. Has it engraved with my initials. I plan to save it for exams. She also hands me a large check for tuition and airfare, and a wad of traveler’s checks to cover expenses for the whole year. It makes me feel independent. And sad.
    After three months in France with Cécile, I fly directly from Paris to Boston. I take a cab to campus, about forty-five minutes away. Most new students arrive with their parents. I worry people will feel sorry for me, coming alone; will wonder about the cab. But the driver takes me right to the front gates of campus and pulls away before anyone can notice.
    I have one small bag. A Louis Vuitton duffel I bought on rue Georges V. Babs hates LV. Thinks it’s tacky to have logos stamped everywhere. Makes you look like you’re trying too hard to prove you can afford something expensive. But I like the bag. It’s completely incongruous with the things the other kids bring. Trunks filled with new sheets, down comforters, flannel PJs, stereos. My duffel, I hope, makes me look cool. Like I have purposely opted out of such teenage clutter. Chose to bring a few pants and tops from agnès b. and Petit Bateau because that’s what I like. But the truth is that I don’t have a clue what you’re supposed to wear at boarding school. I don’t know anything about the bluchers, rag socks, flannel pajamas that the others have. I didn’t have the catalogs to order them from. I do bring the silver medallion of my father’s that Babs gave me. I have yet to try to find him, but maybe I will now that I am at Cardiss. Who knows. It will change things between me and Babs and I’m not sure I am ready for that.
    I check out the map of campus that’s just past the front gate. According to my acceptance packet, I’m not assigned to a dorm but instead to a house called Bright. The idea is appealing: a small cluster of girls living in a real house with one female faculty member, generally a younger woman without a spouse or kids. Just starting her tenure at the school. The problem with the houses is that, unlike the dorms, they have a small number of students living in them, between four and six per house. Less margin for social errors.
    Bright House is a two-minute walk from the front gate. I find it easily. It is white, two-storied, with black shutters. The front door is propped open. Just a screen door divides the inside from the outside. I walk into a living room that looks like it belongs in a tired B & B: dilapidated couches, worn shag carpeting, and a TV. There is a woman standing in the middle of the room tapping a clipboard with a pen and, as I soon find out, waiting for me.
    Miss McSoren, whose power over me is also explained in my acceptance packet, scribbles something on the paper attached to her clipboard. She looks about twenty-seven and has short brown hair. I know instantly (the rigid way she holds the clipboard?) that she will never have any children. She sports a khaki skirt, open-back clogs, and a pink-striped oxford shirt that has been ironed. She wears small crescent-shaped earrings. No makeup.
    I expect her to smile but she approaches me briskly and sticks out her hand. Firm, businesslike.
    “Bettina, you’re the last to arrive.”
    It’s just after three. I thought we had all day to get there.
    “Sorry,” I mumble.
    “I’m Miss McSoren. Head of Bright House. I also teach French and coach field hockey.”
    I want to like her, but I don’t. I know Miss McSoren has probably learned French at some all-women’s college and spent her junior year abroad in some provincial town like Rennes. I bet she can expertly navigate all of Molière and Camus but has never bothered with
Paris Match,
my favorite mag. I know Babs would laugh at her, and this makes me want to too.
    One of my French teachers at Chicago Day, Madame Coutu, wore blouses so sheer we could see her nipples, the skin of her back. Our fifth-grade class was shocked and embarrassed. Babs was thrilled. Now