When they returned to their dorm room around 11 o’clock, Fern and Vipsania found their suitemates—the two girls they shared a bathroom with—busy unpacking. The first one they met was Lyra Villarías, a thin girl with a long, pointed face and very straight hair that fell well below her shoulders. She spoke in a didactic, authoritative manner that reminded Fern a little of Sister Athanasia, if the nun had ventured a casual opinion on everything she saw and had a tendency to mumble to herself in Spanish whenever it became clear that no one was listening to her. Her brother Lorenzo, who was a junior and lived across the way in Grayling Hall, was helping her move in—though Fern noticed that Lyra’s version of “moving in” seemed mainly to involve bossing her soft-spoken brother around while he did all the work. He introduced himself to Fern and Vipsania somewhat apologetically, like he knew exactly what they were in for with his sister as a suitemate.
Lyra’s roommate was Cassia Slaughter, who like Fern was attending Marbrose Catholic on a scholarship—in Cassia’s case, for lacrosse. She was a stocky African American girl with strong shoulders and a square jaw. Cassia was less talkative than Lyra, though no less opinionated.
“When they said ‘Catholic school,’ I didn’t know they meant straight out of the Middle Ages,” said Cassia, looking around at the room’s Gothic trimmings.
“It’s not terribly authentic,” said Lyra. “But I guess it has a certain charm. Although, if it were up to me…”
Fern didn’t stay to hear Lyra’s lecture on the finer points of Neo-Gothic architecture. All that walking had made her hungry, so when Vipsania suggested they head over to the cafeteria, Fern raised no objections. By now the campus was swarming with returning students and their parents, many of them lugging suitcases or instruments or lacrosse equipment. Fern felt the usual self-consciousness of a new student at a new school, but she kept in step with her roommate and held her head high, and no one took any particular notice of her.
The cafeteria in McClanahan Hall was crowded with upperclassmen who had already moved rooms at the end of last semester and had less to unload. To Fern, who was used to public school cafeteria food, the dining hall’s offerings were as varied as they were delicious, although Vipsania assured her the quality would decline significantly once the parents and donors were safely off campus.
“Then I’ll be sure to enjoy it while it lasts,” said Fern as they sat down at an empty table. They both crossed themselves, then started to eat. Fern wasn’t exactly a stickler for proper table manners, but she was surprised by just how ravenously Vipsania was scarfing down her food now that there were no teachers to be scandalized by it. Neither of them had said anything for about three minutes when Fern decided to broach the topic that she’d been longing to hear about all morning.
“Miss Stott said you could tell me more about the important families of Marbrose City.”
Vipsania stopped in the middle of practically swallowing a meatball sandwich whole, wiped her mouth, and smiled mischievously.
“I could. Not sure if Miss Stott would like what I said, though.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning Marbrose City is rotten,” said Vipsania. “And the ‘great families’ are the worst of the bunch. Take mine. All my family’s money—even from our so-called ‘legitimate’ business—comes from crooked contracts with the city. Y’know, like fixed bids for construction jobs—if nobody else makes an offer, you can charge whatever you want. Montagnese Construction has never earned a single honest dime. And that doesn’t even count all the stuff the newspapers call ‘racketeering.’ The old family fortune was made by rum running during Prohibition, and when that was over, they switched to even nastier stuff—like coke. There are loads of mafia kids at this school, and it’s the same story for all of them. If your dad has money and his name ends with a vowel you pronounce, odds are he’s killed someone.”
Fern, whose last name had ended with a vowel you pronounced until her grandfather changed the “i” to a “y” at Ellis Island, frowned.
“I’m serious,” said Vipsania, leaning over the table. “There’s no point in getting touchy, Fernie. I’m not saying every Sicilian is a mobster—just the ones that can afford to send their kids here.”
Fern’s jaw involuntarily tensed at the name “Fernie,” which nobody had ever dared to call her before. Vipsania mistook her annoyance for skepticism.
“Look,” said Vipsania. “I’ll prove it to you. Watch this.”
She turned around in her seat and scanned the cafeteria, squinting at the faces of the upperclassmen. Finally, her eyes fell on someone at the far end of the dining hall, and she practically licked her lips.
“Okay, so see that table over there?”
Fern had to crane her neck a little, but she saw the one Vipsania was pointing at.
“Those guys are all on the varsity lacrosse team. The females are their groupies. See the kid sitting closest to us with the black hair? That’s Charlie Lupo. His dad is ‘Angie the Wolf’ Lupo, one of the caporegimes over in the Fen. The brunette beside him is Caroline Aurelio—her grandfather is Carmine Aurelio, Angelo Lupo’s counterpart on the east end of the Fen, and also my great uncle’s consiglieri. He’s a serious mafia bigshot.”
Carmine Aurelio. Fern recognized it as the name she’d half-overheard Mikhail using to scare off the Polish mob. It was also the name of the man Father Rohrbach had been meeting with—the reason he was late to dinner the night before. Vipsania continued.
“The cute black boy sitting across from her is Archer Ambrosius. And believe me, it pains me to say this, but his dad is Saul Ambrosius IV, heir apparent to the Ambrosius crime family in Norbury. His family’s money comes from drugs, smuggling, and protection. It’s the same for all of them.”
“So, the children of all the criminals are sitting together,” said Fern stubbornly. “What does that prove?”
“Plenty. See the kid sitting next to Archer Ambrosius? The handsome one with broad shoulders and a punchable face? That is Adrian Comstock, captain of the lacrosse team. His family owns the Comstock Brewery, the biggest manufacturer of cheap beer on the Great Lakes. They like to tell everyone they were legitimate during Prohibition, but it’s baloney. Almost all of the alcohol they made for ‘industrial uses’ ended up in the swill my great-grandfather sold in his speakeasies—and people died from drinking that stuff. The girl who’s whispering in his ear is Minnie Lothian—you know, like the luxury cars. The boy at the far end of the table is Tommy Snead. His daddy makes the steel and concrete that my dad uses to rip off the city. It’s all one big nest of rats. The ‘great families’ are nothing but the city’s most successful murderers and swindlers. Nobody in this school has their hands clean.”
“What about our suitemates?” said Fern.
Vipsania shrugged.
“I guess they’re alright. I think Lyra’s dad is a chemist or something. Nothing too nefarious. Cassia’s from the Fen—I can tell by just looking at her. This could be a way out for her, if she plays her cards right. Bet you anything she’ll keep head down.”
“So there are exceptions.”
Vipsania cracked a slight smile.
“Well, you seem to be one,” she said. She went back to devouring her meatball sandwich. Fern glanced around at the students sitting nearby. Surely they couldn’t all be as “rotten” as Vipsania seemed to think. And besides, she hadn’t really gotten the answer she cared about the most.
Vipsania hadn’t said anything about Dean Calvert.
“Brace yourself,” said Vipsania out of nowhere. “One extra-snotty alpha bitch coming our way.”
Fern raised an inquisitive eyebrow, but before she could ask Vipsania to explain herself, they were joined at their table by an older girl with the same aquiline nose and dark eyes as Vipsania—though otherwise they couldn’t have been more different.
“Hi, Lucilla,” said Vipsania with a scowl. “You better behave yourself—I’ve got a friend with me.”
Lucilla looked Fern over in one quick glance, formed a judgment, then offered her hand.
“Lucilla Montagnese,” said the girl, and Fern noticed that she pronounced her last name differently than her sister, substituting the more Americanized “neez” for the properly Italian “nay-zay.”
“Fern Kubelsky,” said Fern, shaking her hand.
“She’s a Rothko Scholar,” said Vipsania. “So there’s no room for being snobby.”
“I wasn’t being snobby,” said Lucilla coldly. She turned back to her sister, taking in her choker and her arm warmers and her black fingernails with a critical eye. “Vip, I thought I told you to stop dressing like… that when you started high school.”
“You did tell me. I just didn’t listen.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Lucilla sighed. She looked over at Fern. “Don’t let her poison you against the school. Not everything Vipsania says is trustworthy.”
“Did you just come over here to criticize me?” said Vipsania irritably. “You can do that any time—I’m sure it’s more fun when your friends are around."
“No,” said Lucilla. “I came to let you know you forgot some of your school books at home, and Mama sent them with me. They’re in my room. Just… get them before tomorrow. I need the space.”
“I’ll get them,” Vipsania mumbled.
“Good, That’s all, then. Nice to meet you, uh—.”
“Fern Kubelsky,” said Fern.
“Right. Fern. I’ll see you around. It’s a small campus.”
And with that, she was gone. Vipsania watched her walk away with an expression of undisguised loathing.
“Well, now you’ve met Lucilla. Be careful of her. Believe it or not, she’s one of the most popular females on campus. Student government, soccer team, orchestra, 3.96 GPA… not a Rothko Scholar, though. I bet that really eats her up. Speaking of which…”
Vipsania looked down at her empty plate.
“Shall we head back to the dorms?” Fern suggested.
“Probably. Convocation is at 1:30, but we’ve got a little time. C’mon.”
On their way back to the dorms, Fern and Vipsania passed Dean walking the other direction all on his own. His eyes were fixed on the ground, and his hands were stuffed in the pockets of his leather jacket, even though it had turned out to be an unusually bright and warm day for late August.
“Hi Dean!” called Vipsania. Dean glanced at them, but kept walking in silence. Vipsania snickered.
“I don’t think he likes talking,” said Fern, a little annoyed with her roommate.
“Well, he needs to learn to talk,” said Vipsania. “He is absolutely gorgeous. Woof. A guy like that has no right not to have an equally attractive female in his life.”
“And that’s going to be you?” asked Fern.
“Maybe,” smirked Vipsania. “You wouldn’t mind if it was you, though, would you?”
“That’s… ridiculous,” said Fern, so unconvincingly that she wasn’t sure why she bothered. “I am not here to find a boyfriend.”
“A rich boyfriend,” said Vipsania. “You know he inherited, like, 50 million dollars when his parents died, right? Or are you too pure to notice that he’s loaded?”
Fern stopped in her tracks, causing her roommate to do the same.
“I had no idea he was rich,” said Fern adamantly. “I mean… that rich. Weren’t you the one who was supposed to tell me those things?”
Vipsania chuckled a little at the serious expression on Fern’s face, but shrugged as if to grant her point.
“Fine. You had no idea. You just thought he was cute.”
“I didn’t say that,” said Fern.
“But I bet it’s true,” said Vipsania with a wink. “Hmm. Let’s see. Where to begin. Hey, you wanna sit down over there?”
She pointed to a stone bench shaded by a small tree that stood in the garden between the dormitories and the convent, which Fern later learned was called Fausta Commons. Reluctantly, Fern agreed, and they sat down together—Vipsania propping her feet rather irreverently on a statue of Francis of Assisi.
“So,” she began, “Dean is a Calvert. They’re probably the city’s oldest family—I mean, you can see how ancient Windy Place is. I think they started as fur traders, and their bank account kept getting bigger along with Marbrose City. Like a lot of rich old families, the Calverts have plenty of nasty skeletons in the closet. They made millions selling opium in China, and gouging on military supplies during the Civil War. ‘Iron Bill’ Calvert, who wasn’t exactly the black sheep of the family, went out west and slaughtered his way through just about every tribe on the Great Plains, and there’s still an armory named after him out in the Fen. It wasn’t until the 1910s that the Calverts got into pharmaceuticals, or ‘miracle drugs’ as they called it back then. Who knows how that happened. They funded a lot of Richard Galt’s research—you know who he is, right?—and built Calvert Tower around the same time. That’s…”
“That one over there,” said Fern, pointing to the soaring slab of gray limestone that Miss Stott had pointed out to her the day before.
“Correct,” said Vipsania, smiling slyly. “Well, they moved out of Windy Place and into Calvert Tower, and they’ve been there ever since. Swankiest penthouse in Marbrose City, and I would know—my great uncle owns number two.”
There was a pause in the conversation as two senior boys passed by with leather instrument cases tucked under their arms. It gave Fern a moment to brood a little over what Vipsania had told her.
“You make it sound like he comes from a bad family,” she said once the boys had gone.
“I mean, I guess it wasn’t all bad. Windy Place was part of the underground railroad—there are still tunnels under the school to prove it. And I know people really liked Dean’s mom. She wasn’t really a Calvert, obviously, but she married into the family. After Dean’s dad bumped her off, everybody was—.”
“Excuse me?”
“Dean’s dad,” said Vipsania, apparently surprised by Fern’s undisguised horror. “He shot Dean’s mom in the head, then did the same job on himself. That was… nine years ago, I think? Biggest scandal in Marbrose history—and that’s saying something. Dean’s been on his own ever since.”
“He doesn’t have any other family?”
Vipsania shrugged.
“Guess not. Things happened—murders, suicides, illnesses, mysterious disappearances, all that good stuff—and now Dean’s the last twig clinging to the Calvert family tree. That’s why it’s such a big deal that he’s finally back in Marbrose.”
Fern suddenly realized that she’d been picking absent-mindedly at her fingernails, and quickly folded her hands in her lap. She had been honest when she told Vipsania that it hadn’t even occurred to her that Dean Calvert was rich. Well, she knew it intellectually, but that wasn’t the kind of thing she was used to thinking about. To her, Dean was just a boy—a person, she quickly corrected herself. A person who was returning to a place that held nothing but painful memories. No wonder he’d hesitated on the threshold of his family’s ancestral home—even if it had never been home to him. Fern tried to convince herself she was merely concerned for him as a fellow student and Rothko Scholar. But that feeling of wanting to be close to him was still there. Even Vipsania’s horror stories about his family hadn’t scared Fern off.
Quite the opposite.
“C’mon,” said Vipsania, pretending to check an invisible watch on her wrist. “Convocation is in, like, ten minutes. We better run if we wanna get good seats—I don’t wanna sit up front.”
She sprang to her feet and gave a long, cat-like stretch.
“Ugh, this is gonna be so boring,” she groaned. “Almost makes me want classes to start.”
Fern didn’t say anything, but she got up and followed Vipsania across campus towards the Cochran Hall auditorium, where convocation was being held. Fern wasn’t sure if she liked her roommate—at least, she didn’t care for her cynical attitude about the school, and she was suspicious of her motives in painting such a gloomy picture of Marbrose and its wealthy families. Hadn’t she all but admitted that she also found Dean attractive? Fern remembered Lucilla’s warning that Vipsania wasn’t to be trusted. As they joined the crowds of students and parents pushing their way into the auditorium, Fern resolved to form her own opinion about Marbrose Catholic.
For the first time in her life, there was no one else she felt she could trust.