Doreen Read Online Free PDF Page B

was that she needed to say.
    â€œThat’s about my brother, right? Isn’t that why you became friends with me? I thought it was some sort of revenge thing against Ad-rock.”
    â€œNo. Maybe a little, at first. Anyway, I knew you before I knew him.”
    â€œAt the campus tour? You were hardly interested in being my friend.”
    â€œYou don’t know that. Plus, Ad-rock and I are ancient history. If I only wanted to be friends with you to get back at him, I would have cut off ties after he graduated.”
    â€œI guess.”
    â€œBiz, I have to associate with those other girls, the Chandler types. Otherwise I wouldn’t . . . it’s hard to explain, I just have to. But I don’t hang out with you because I have to, I do it because I want to.”
    â€œWhy? We have nothing in common.”
    Heidi could not understand why Biz was bringing all this up now. “Let me ask you this, why do you hang out with me?”
    Biz looked over at Heidi. “I don’t know. I guess because you’re here.” Heidi laughed. “What? What’s so funny?”
    â€œNothing, nothing. Look, Biz, you’re smart and I’m smart. Intelligence makes a person interesting. You are incapable of being manipulated, you are malice-free, and most importantly, you are not boring. Which, I may add, gives you a giant lead over your dimwitted brother, who is about as fascinating as oatmeal. Okay?”
    â€œYeah. Okay. You’re not boring, either,” Biz said. She yawned and lay back on her pillow.
    â€œStop it. I’m gonna cry.”
    â€œAnd Doreen? What about her?”
    Heidi looked up at the white ceiling. “Doreen is a blank canvas. What could be less boring than that? Anyway, there’s something about her I can’t quite put my finger on.”
    â€œI know what you mean,” said Biz. “She’s always had it. A kind of quality, like she understands what you’re thinking and feeling. She’s really sensitive, I think. It probably accounts for the bullying.”
    â€œHuh,” said Heidi. “I’m sure you’re right.”
    â€œOf course I am. Anyway . . .” Soon enough, Biz was snoring.

    Heidi still couldn’t sleep. In the common room, she wrapped herself in a cashmere throw and looked out onto the empty quad. She thought about her own first day at Chandler Academy. Heidi had not been so different from Doreen then. She was prettier, better groomed, but she was a transfer student, too. And even though she grew up a few miles from the private elementary schools where the Manhattan contingent of Chandler had learned their ABCs, it may as well have been another planet. She remembered distinctly the feeling of being lost, like she’d gotten off the bus a stop too early.
    But unlike Doreen, she had prepared for the moment. He’d groomed her for it. He taught her how to talk, how to walk, how to present herself as a person who belonged. And after everything she’d risked to get into the school, she made sure to appear perfectly at home from day one. She thought of herself at the campus tour on her first day, how nervous she was in her painstakingly chosen outfit, a slight smile on her face that she hoped made her appear dignified and at ease. She stood tall. She moved with grace.
    All of this was lost on Biz. Charged with leading Heidi on a fifteen-minute tour of the campus, Biz had been too full of information and enthusiasm about the wonderful academic resources at Chandler to keep it under forty-five.
    But Heidi had more pressing items on her agenda than rare book collections and jazz ensembles. So when the tour was finally over and Biz asked at last if she had any questions, Heidi found herself asking if she happened to know Addison Gibbons. They stood at the edge of campus, near the field house. It was an innocuous question, Heidi thought, and she did a decent job of asking it without betraying the stakes