Page 139 - What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

boys and girls they’d brought along. But she could also picture the looks that

some of the diners would give other diners, the words that’d be murmured when
the subject of evaluation left the room. Really . . . her? Or Nice, nice. Both
possibilities made her feel weary. With boys there was a fundamental
assumption that they had a right to be there—not always, but more often than
not. With girls, Why her? came up so quickly.
“I can see you believe you lot are new and improved, but to have this dinner
where each of you brings one person to show off to the others . . .”

“Isn’t that what all socializing’s like when you’re in a relationship?” Hercules
asked, resting his chin on her palm. This boy.
“Yes, well, I don’t know about that—”
“Never had a boyfriend? Girlfriend?”
She took her hand back, stood on tiptoe, and whispered into his ear: “Ask

someone else.”
“You’ll be jealous,” Hercules whispered back.
Day waved him away and climbed the last few steps to her door. “I won’t.
Goodnight, Herc.”
He cupped his hands around his mouth and walked backward down the stairs,
calling out: “You like me. She likes me. She doesn’t know why and she can’t
believe it, but Dayang Sharif likes me!”

—

THE HOMELY Wench Society’s final meeting of Lent term was held in Flordeliza
Castillo’s room at Trinity. Plans for a trip to Neuschwanstein Castle had been
finalized and there was no real business left to discuss, so Dvořák’s The Noon
Witch was playing, Grainne was sitting on the windowsill puffing away at an

electronic cigarette with a face mask on (“A ghost! A well-moisturized ghost!”),
Flor was lying with her head in Day’s lap having Orlando Furioso read to her,
Ed and Marie were mixing drinks, and Theo carried Grainne’s to the window
and then back to Flor’s desk as Grainne’s smoke went down the wrong way and
she staggered over to Ed, sputtering: “Bettencourters incoming . . . Bettencourter
invasion!”
Flor must have been in on it. Must have. Her room wasn’t easy to find. As a

matter of fact, who’s to say that the events of that historic afternoon weren’t the
culmination of a scheme Flor and Barney had hatched between them way back
in September?