Prep School

September 3, 1914.

Braithwaite Academy loomed over the town of Rearden like castle. It sat high on a hill, dominating the foliage below with its stoney exterior and old-world buttresses. Long ago, it was the estate of a wealthy Dutchman. He’d built his manor for himself and his mistress, Hanneke Rier. In the cold walls, the Dutchman and Hanneke could trade the prowling eyes and responsibilities of New Amsterdam for sensual privacy. This was a truth unacknowledged by Braithwaite Academy; they ignored this narrative as it did not fit into their mission of “creating the finest young women from the most curious girls.” The only reason I knew this story was because Hanneke’s embroidery decorated the library; administrators prayed that none of the girls ever wondered about the artist. Perhaps I was the only one who had, but I doubt that sincerely. These girls at Braithwaite were so sharp, nothing went unnoticed– ever. We must have all known. It must have been another unspoken fact of Braithwaite.

The first time I laid eyes on Braithwaite was during the summer of my thirteenth year. My mother and father had grown tired of the sticky city air and wanted to escape to the countryside for the afternoon. They had dressed my brother and I up in our finest clothes and taken us to Union Station, where we’d boarded a train bound for the cooler hamlets of the Hudson Valley. Rearden had been the fifth stop, about thirty minutes outside of Manhattan. But long before the train stopped, you could see Braithwaite’s steeples piercing the air. My eyes locked it on, consumed by this stone stick among the wood. After a while, my mother had asked me what I was looking at. 

“Ah, Braithwaite Academy,” she said when I responded. “I know Braithwaite.” She would not explain what she meant for years to come. 

My father scrunched his eyebrows. “What’s Braithwaite?”

“It’s a school for girls– a boarding school.”

My eyes grew wide with a mixture of horror and astonishment. I knew boarding schools. I’d read Frances Hodgson Burnett before! I knew all about the glitzy girls, strict headmistresses, and mushy meals. Oh, yes– I knew boarding schools. They sounded nothing like any education I knew, and so, naturally, I revered them despite all of the warnings littered throughout Sara Crewe’s story.

My mother must have noticed my excitement. “It’s a grand old place! Gorgeous and intelligent, the girls even more so. I can’t imagine what it’s like to attend.” She rose her eyebrows. “Can you?”

“I very much can!” I told her. And they all laughed.

The train journeyed past Rearden, and us with it. We rode it for another fifteen minutes before getting off at a town closest to a river for a picnic and swim. While holding a towel up for me to change into my swimming costume behind, my mother asked, “You’d like to go to Braithwaite, wouldn’t you Ginny?”

“Yes, I would. Very much so.” I knew nothing about it but already my heart was set on it. That’s the way I am: headstrong and confident, boldest when I know nothing about what I am getting myself into. If I had known perhaps about what awaited me at Braithwaite, I would have thought twice before running into my mother’s arms after she said, “We’ll make it happen, darling.”

Three years later, at fifteen years old, I sat in the headmistress’s office. With thick tapestries and dark wood panelling, the room reeked of stale potential; it felt like a place succeeding in prestige and not exactly in rigor or post-graduate achievement. The muskiness radiating from the walls laminated an aggressively manly presence at an all-female institution. Though only women were in the room, I felt suddenly self-conscious and ashamed, more so as I was menstruating and needed a place to change my pad. 

My mother sat beside me in a matching leather chair. She was a tall woman, but there were at least three inches between the top of her head and the chair’s back. She looked perhaps more diminutive than me in the headmistress’s office; though I suspect that was only because she did not hold an acceptance letter in her hands. 

We sat in silence for three minutes before the headmistress introduced herself. “I am Madame Louise Murgenbitch, the headmistress of Braithwaite Academy.”

“Good morning Madame Morninbitch,” I smiled.

Louise Murgenbitch’s face broke from her stony expression to express disapproval. “MWAER-genbitch. Not Morgen. Not Mornin. MWAER-gen.”

“Ah!” My mother replied. “MUER-genbitch.”

“No, MWAER-genbitch,” she shook her head and sighed; it was not worth teaching us anymore. “It’s Dutch.”

I ’d come to learn most things around here were Dutch. If they were not directly Dutch, they were made for those who could be Dutch. Hence, the height of the chairs.

“I graduated from Braithwaite in ’82.” 

She rose her eyebrow and stared directly at me as she spoke, “This was back when all of the students were required to submit a pedigree proving their American ancestry stretched back to at least before the 1750s."

I grinned because, if I didn’t, I would have scowled. This question had not been eradicated from the application; it was now marked with an asterisk denoting its status as optional but preferred. I could count on one hand the number of family members in the United States; I had written this on my application because I believe that if you cannot answer a question correctly as least do it with moxie. “And, oh the places you’ve gone since then.”

She did not catch my sarcasm, once again feeling very Dutch. “I have been to Florida– twice.”

“I reckon your family would be very proud of you,” my mother replied. 

“Have you been to Florida?

  No, I had not been to Florida. I hardly ever left Manhattan. My grandparents immigrated across a whole goddamn ocean just so that I could stay in one place. They had wanted to be in Manhattan so terribly, it felt dishonorable for me to travel very far.

I did not feel like discussing my thoughts about travel and immigration with Madame Louise Murgenbitch, so I asked if we could move on to discuss the pressing issue at hand– what awaited me at Braithwaite. Most girls arrived at Murgenbitch at thirteen, but I was joining them at fifteen. I was greatly concerned with what my late arrival meant in terms of friendship, classes, and room assignments. Florida was not even a dot in the back of my mind.

“Of course,” Madame Murgenbitch muttered. She brushed a piece of gray hair out of her face; it revealed a curved scar beside her ear. “You, Virginia Ricci, attended P.S 23 in Manhattan, right?”

I nodded.

She picked up my application as if to triple check. “I see,” she humphed. There was so much about me she could not believe, and I did not blame her. There was no one like me at Braithwaite. Now, this fills me with a great sense of self-satisfaction at my achievements, but, at 15, I wanted nothing more than to cloak myself in one of Madame Murgenbitch’s tapestries and let its pretentiousness seep into me. “The academics in city public schools pale in comparison to what our girls experience at Braithwaite.” 

My mother huffed. “I’d like to meet your sources. Ginny disappears into her homework for hours! Never seen anything like it.”

“You are impressed with your daughter, Mrs. Ricci?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Not so much as a grin crossed her face or levity tickled her tone. I was her pride, her joy; she’d be a fool not to worship me! Her face contorted. Sharp, eager eyes locked on Madame Murgenbitch.

Madame Murgenbitch squirmed in her seat. “I must admit, Mrs. Ricci, I, too, am very impressed with your daughter. Most of our students are not from the city with working class parents.”

I smiled so tightly, my nerves tore. I began to shake and grasped the leather cushion for support, eating away at the dark fold of the fabric with my fingernails. Why was my presence here so remarkable? Why must she constantly note my differences as though they were my failings? I cannot help where I came from and only have so much control over where I go. With what little sense of agency I have, I ’d chosen to come here– to a place that could not fathom the most basic pillars of my history, saw my upbringing as an oddity, and wanted me to know my incongruence within these walls. What did this choice say about me? 

Drunk on these questions, I snapped, “Madame Murgenbitch, you should not be impressed with me. You should be impressed with your school– with Braithwaite. You should be in awe that your antiquated institution still attracts the brightest and brilliantest girls around, even when the place doesn’t seem particularly enthusiastic about them. Truly, with Braithwaite’s attitude and age, the numbers you have today impress me.”

Madame Murgenbitch’s lip quavered. She looked as pathetic as a stray dog begging for scraps in an alley, yet I pitied her not. My own courage consumed me. I had never known the pleasure of casting verbal daggers before.

My mother cast me a daunting look. If we were alone, she would have laughed and cheered for me. Instead, she drew her hand to her chest in farcical horror. “Virginia Ricci!” She cried. “Apologize.”

“No, no!” Murgenbitch stamped her foot. Her voice went unheard against the stomp of her boot against the floor. It was not until the vibrations settled that I understand she was not angry but rather ashamed of herself. “I spoke too much of your family and not enough of you, Miss Virginia. I hinted at your family’s history– Italian immigrant father, an orphaned mother, working parents, inadequate education– as though that was the problem with you. Speaking frankly, Miss Virginia and Mrs. Ricci, I had a horrid sense when reading over this application. I thought if I asked more about your past, I ’d sort it out. I see my error now. The problem is not what is written on this paper. What sent my insides quaking was you, Virginia Ricci. You– your personality, your audacity, your short-sightedness. It’s all there!” She dropped my application as if it was a piece of garbage.

I held my breath like a swimmer underwater.

“I won’t send you away,” she shook her head. “I can’t. Not at this point. I should have…If you fail any of your classes this semester, you will leave immediately. For now, your room is in Alston Hall. 13. You are dismissed,” Murgenbitch cut her harshness with a butterknife, smoothing its sweet contents across her goodbye to my mother. “Lovely to meet you, Mrs. Ricci.

My mother merely smiled. She escorted me out of the room. We began our hunt for Alston Hall across the stoney campus. This proved a very anticlimactic quest as Alston Hall was directly across the courtyard from the main building. We entered Alston Hall under the watchful eyes of a gargoyle. We made our way through chestnut-colored halls dotted with doors painted peacock blue. Room 13 was up two flights of stairs.

The room showed its age in various ways; my mother’s head scratched the ceiling, the wallpaper peeled at the corners, and the floor creaked under our weight. It looked much the same as every apartment south of 14th Street– cheap and faded, absolutely abhorrent if found anywhere else. It was a perfect rectangle. As a corner room, it had two windows; one faced the roaming gold treetops and the other glared down at the courtyard. Two twin beds stretched out in front of me; the room was so tight there was barely enough space to walk between them and the wall. The closest bed to the door was neatly made, the father was crumpled like forgotten love letters. My mother and I stood in the doorway for a few moments, breathing through the mustiness of the room. How cold did this room get in the winter? Was there space under my the bed for my bag? It was fastened from the same fabric as a carpet, soft enough to fold but was it too bulky?

Rumpling sounded. There was a great crash. A door snarled open. 

My mother reached for my hand. Like a child, she whispered, “Ghost.”

The sound had come from an unseen closet. A girl, not a ghost, tumbled from the hinges. I looked at my mother like she was a fool, though, in hindsight, I was the greater fool. If I had known about the girl’s quiet footfalls, invisible hands, and omnipresent eyes, I would have agreed with my mother. She was a ghost.

“Oh hello!” She waved. “Are you my new roommate?” 

“I suppose.”

She looked at my mother and grinned like the devil. “And is this your sister?”

“No,” my mother was not amused. My mother was exceptionally beautiful, and constantly told so; tall and blonde, thin in way that emanated wealth rather than desperation. To be called a mother shriveled with wisdom and worry would have pleased her much more. My mother extended her hand and properly introduced herself properly. “Selina Ricci, her mother.”

“Naomie Blythe, her roommate.” Naomie gave me a second glance. “Who is ‘her’?”

I extended my hand. “Virginia– Ginny.”

“Oh, I do love that,” Naomie responded. She floated away to her bed, shimmying through the cracks lithe as a ballerina. She dangled slim fingers in the direction of the made bed. “That’s yours.” She settled onto the crumpled bedsheets and sighed. “I’ll help you unpack, if you would like.”

Naomie was beautiful. She looked like the daughter my mother should have had– blonde and elegantly frail, with light eyes that flurried daintily. I expected my mother would’ve been thrilled to see that my roommate was the spitting image of herself. I thought she’d be assuaged by the thought that I could never escape the blonde and beautiful type no matter where I went. But rather, she seem disturbed. I enthusiastically nodded and embraced her offer, but my mother pulled me tighter. She swiped my back in front us like a shield. 

“No thank you, Naomie. We can manage between the two of us.”

“Hmm,” Naomie spread out, settling further into her rumpled bedsheets. 

I set my bag down on my bed and began to remove my folded possessions. My mother took them in her hands, frantically scanning the room for my space.

“There’s space in the closet,” Naomie gestured. Her eyes were closed; how did she know we’d been looking?

My mother walked over to the closet. There was not space. She shrugged and began to move Naomie’s clothes out of the way. I ran over to her, my eyes wide with horror. How could my mother so half-heartedly push another’s things out of the way? 

“She’d do the same to you,” my mother’s quiet warning ran down my ear like vinegar. It burned and sizzled.

We worked together, hanging, folding, and placing clothes. As my mother held the last item of clothing in her hands, she pulled my closed and whispered, “Are you sure you want to do this? Are you sure you want to stay here?”

Blind with confidence, I told her absolutely. I recall pulling the clothes from her hand and hanging them up myself as her hesitance irritated me. If I had known that in two years time, Naomie and I would be lying in the exact same beds with blood on our hands, my heart torn apart, and a baby in her belly, I would have told my mother to take me right back to Manhattan with her.