Pilgrims Don't Wear Pink (2 page)

“I, um, love your cat posters,” I said, trying again. I didn't love them. They were beyond hideous. There were cats all over the walls in Ashling's third of the room. One read
HANG IN THERE
! and had a tiny white kitten clinging to a branch. The other said
FRIENDS
and showed two kittens sharing a milk shake. And then there was a series of big-eyed kittens in flower pots staring at me. Creepy.

“Thanks. I love cats.” Victory! She spoke, and this time it was only moderately hostile. “Do you have a cat?”

“Well, no. But I do really love animals. At home, in Minnesota, we have two dogs. Beagles. They're really cute. They're like part of the family; my mom's totally nuts about them. She keeps trying to get my dad to help her shoot them for the Hound Holiday Fun Photo Contest and stuff, because she says she needs him to run the tungsten light, but he has this thing against putting animals in sweaters, so . . .”

I trailed off as I caught sight of Ashling. Clearly, I'd made a fatal error in choosing the opposite side in the eternal dog vs. cat debate. The stare I received was so cold, I could feel icicles forming on my ears. Ashling picked up a book, pulled out her bookmark that read, I kid you not, “Cats Are Little People in Furry Suits!,” and started reading. The door to communication had been slammed shut. Fine. At least I had tried. I started building a shoe tower at the bottom of my closet.

“Why do you have so many shoes?” Ashling arched an eyebrow over the top of her book, which appeared to be a Sisters of the Quilt Amish romance. I imagined it probably involved a lot of repression and meaningful glances beneath bonnets. Ashling, however, had clearly not gone the Amish route and decided to shun me, as the silent treatment had been short-lived.

“Well, you need a pair of shoes to go with every outfit.” I balanced a pair of gladiator-inspired gold sandals on top of some cream ballet flats.

“
I
have a pair of shoes to go with every outfit.”

“You do?” The bottom of her closet looked pretty empty to me.

“I don't know what you need all those for. You only need two pairs. Tevas. Sneakers. They go with everything.”

I couldn't formulate a response. She did not seriously just say “Tevas” to me. Ashling returned to reading. Maybe Dev was right. Maybe I couldn't do this. If everyone in Camden Harbor thought Tevas were all-occasion footwear, I'd have to steal a canoe and paddle to New York. I'd reach the Hudson eventually, right?

“Hi.” Someone else entered the room. Our third roommate, I surmised. “I'm Suze.” She pushed her glasses up on her nose and stuck out her hand. “The Research and Curatorial intern.” She sort of looked like a librarian, but not in a bad way—in a cool, sort of Velma from
Scooby-Doo
in plastic-framed glasses way.

“I'm Libby.” I took her hand and smiled. “The Education and Interpretation intern.”

“
I'm
the
real
Interpretation intern,” Ashling piped up. The cat bookmark was back in and the book was closed. “Education and Interpretation is basically just babysitting the camp kids. Not
real
Historical Interpretation, like me,” she sniffed.

“Ummm . . . okay,” I said.

“Let me show you.” Ashling motioned me over. “Suze has already seen this, but I think
you
could really learn something.”

Suze raised her eyebrows and nodded, like I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Which I didn't. Ashling pulled a giant book out from under her bed. She patted the space next to her and I sat down. The cover read “My Historical Interpretation Scrapbook” in puffy letters and featured a black-and-white photo of a frowning Ashling in eighteenth-century dress.

“I am Susannah Fennyweather, the daughter of a whaler, and an aspiring suffragette,” she explained.

“Suffragette? Aren't you like a hundred and twenty years early for that?” I asked. The term
suffragette
hadn't been coined until like 1906.

“I am a woman ahead of my times.” No kidding. She was so ahead of her times, she might as well have been a cyborg. She flipped a page. It was a seemingly endless series of Ashling dressed as Susannah Fennyweather: in a garden, under a tree, with a parasol, by the water, at a ball, in the snow, on horseback, drinking tea, opening presents, eating a biscuit . . .

“Have you seen the rest of the house?” Suze asked, stopping the parade of Susannah Fennyweathers. Thank God.

“Just this little room.” Just this tiny annex of Satan's kingdom.

“I know it's a bit cramped.” Suze shrugged. “This is usually a double, apparently, but they had to force a triple due to budget issues. I hope you don't mind that I took the built-in shelving over my bed.”

I looked. It was less space than my closet half. “Don't mind at all,” I answered truthfully.

“Libby couldn't have fit all her really important things like
shoes
in there,” Ashling remarked snidely, still gazing at her Susannah Fennyweather portraiture.

“Why don't I show you around?” Suze suggested.

“Please,” I said gratefully.

We stepped over the threshold from one set of warped wooden floorboards to another. Once upon a time, it must have been a beautiful house. Now, however, it could have used a bit of work. The paint was peeling on the whitewashed wooden clapboards outside, and the floor was so uneven you had to watch your step to avoid face-planting.

“Do you know when the house was built, Suze?” I asked. “It looks sort of Greek Revival—1830s?”

“Good eye,” she said approvingly. “It was built in 1833 by Josiah Helms, a prosperous local merchant, and, like you said, neoclassically inspired.”

The Greek Revival is really cool. Dev would probably say
cool
is a relative term here, but whatever. Following archaeological discoveries in the eighteenth century, ancient Greece suddenly became awesome—just like a couple of years ago when everybody started wearing leggings and decided the '80s were back, you know? All these archaeologists-architects came back from seeing Greece and started building things in the classical tradition, but with a new twist (neoclassical, get it?), and soon everybody wanted in. In America Thomas Jefferson pushed it big time—which is why so many of the buildings in D.C. look like Greek temples. Because the Greeks had basically invented democracy, Americans saw themselves as Ancient Greece, Part Two, once America broke away from England to become a democratic country. Greek Revival architecture became a symbol of the new democracy, of national pride—a uniting force for our brand-new country. That Thomas Jefferson was no fool. Plus, he was a super-sassy redhead.

We passed through the skinny hallway into the living room. There was a large, sagging striped couch sprouting stuffing, a lopsided bookshelf, and an ancient TV.

“Believe it or not, we get cable,” Suze said, pointing to the TV.

“That is hard to believe.” It looked like the last thing that TV had broadcast was the moon landing.

I walked over to examine the room's sole decorative object: an oil painting of an ancient, rain-soaked mariner at the helm of a schooner. He was dressed like the guy on the fish sticks box but had the general demeanor of Captain Ahab. I had never seen an oil painting look quite so pissed off.

“The ‘library' is something else too,” Suze added.

I bent down to look in the crooked book shelves under Captain Ahab. Seven different maritime histories,
Knotcraft: The Practical and Entertaining Art of Knot Tying,
an illustrated children's version of the collected works of Robert Louis Stevenson,
Joy of Cooking,
a handful of romance novels boasting shirtless Fabios,
Betty Crocker Cookie Book,
and
Horton Hears a Who!.

“So . . . lots of summer fun tying knots and baking cookies?”

Suze shook her head. “I wouldn't bet on the cookies. Check out the kitchen.”

I followed her through the open door frame, narrowly avoiding a piece of hanging lintel. The kitchen was filthy and beyond cluttered with the oddest assortment of kitchen appliances I'd ever seen. There was a crepe pan, six soufflé ramekins, and an apple peeler, yet no spoons. Mysterious bottles and boxes of nonperishable food items spilled out of the cabinets, over the counters, and onto the oven. A few alphabet magnets decorated the once white refrigerator.

The kitchen was already occupied, by a boy sitting at the hefty wooden table with a bag of radishes and a tub of hummus. I was seriously beginning to think I'd passed Rod Serling somewhere and had now entered the Twilight Zone. You think you know what tall is, until you see a six-foot-seven gangly teenager with a huge 'fro unfold himself from a kitchen chair.

“I'm Neil.” He extended the longest arm I'd ever seen to shake my hand. “I'm here to film a documentary on the last living lighthouse keepers. And to abuse my unlimited kayaking privileges.”

“Cool.” I smiled.

“Neil lives upstairs, with two marine biologists,” Suze explained.

“What are you here for?” he asked.

“I'm the Education and Interpretation intern.”

“She's not real Interpretation!” Ashling yelled from the other room.

“The walls have ears,” Suze whispered fearfully, darting paranoid glances around the room.

“She's just a camp counselor!” Ashling yelled again.

“Technically true.” I gritted my teeth. “I'm in charge of Girls of Long Ago Camp.”

“Nothing wrong with camp counseling.” Neil nodded, Adam's apple bobbing. “What's Girls of Long Ago Camp?”

“Eight- to ten-year-old girls learn open-hearth cooking, needlework, soap making, candle making, spinning . . . domestic arts. Basically they do all the things eight- to ten-year-old girls would have done two centuries ago, give or take,” I explained.

“You know how to do that stuff?” he asked, reaching back to dip a radish in the hummus and pop it in his mouth. It crunched loudly.

“Some of it.” I shrugged. “The rest, they're gonna train me, supposedly. I mean, my favorite area is American social history, specifically women's studies, so I know what it all is, in theory. Hopefully the practical application shouldn't be too hard.”

“I don't have to bother with practical application.” Suze grinned. “That's why I'm a research librarian. I'll be up to my ears in all the maritime folklore a girl could wish for,” she finished dreamily.

“Radish, ladies?” Neil polished off another one.

“Umm, no thanks,” I demurred. “I should finish unpacking. But it was really nice to meet you.” Odd snack choices aside, he seemed nice enough.

“You too. The marine biologists are out collecting samples, but I'm sure you'll meet them later.”

“Right.” Suze and I nodded and headed out, leaving Neil to his radishes.

“It's gonna be weird, living with a boy,” she whispered as we left the kitchen. “Having him around all day.”

“Oh, I don't know, he'll be upstairs. It probably won't be that weird,” I mused.

“I've been at the same all-girls school since kindergarten,” she confided. “This may already be the most time I've ever spent with a guy our age.”

“Yikes,” I blurted out, without thinking. “Oh my God.” I blushed. “I didn't mean that! I'm so sorry, I wasn't thinking; it just sort of popped out . . .”

“It's okay.” She laughed. “Unusual, I know. I'm like the last unicorn.”

“I'm leaving for orientation,” Ashling yelled. “NOW!”

“Keep your pants on,” I said. “We should probably go with her, right?” I asked Suze.

She nodded.

“Oookay.” I sighed reluctantly. “Let me just get my sunglasses.”

Ashling was clipping on a fanny pack in the bedroom as I pulled a pair of giant white sunglasses out of the purse I'd left on my bed.

“You're wearing . . . that?” Ashling asked.

“Um . . . yes?” I hadn't meant for it to come out like a question, but it did. I had planned a special nautically inspired outfit for my first day—an adorable seersucker strapless button-down top, cuffed-hem linen shorts, striped canvas ballet flats, and the pièce de résistance, a silver anchor necklace.

“Hoo boy.” Ashling huffed. Clearly, I had made a sartorial error in her expert eyes. I wondered idly if she would have outright strangled me with said silver necklace if I'd gone with my original plan and worn espadrilles. Ashling stormed out, Suze and I following in her wake.

The screen door slammed shut, wobbled on its hinges for a moment, but somehow managed to stay in the door frame, seemingly only through sheer force of will. It was a beautiful day, and the heat hit me like a tangible force as we stepped out into the sunshine.

“It's humid here, isn't it?” My curly hair was rapidly expanding into Afro-tastic proportions. I tried to pat it down, but that only made it redouble its efforts to defy gravity.

“You look like a lion.”

“Thanks, Ashling.”

Ashling criticizing my hair was kind of like Jenna Jameson condemning premarital sex. Suze shook her close-cropped head, warning me not to start anything. We plodded down the sidewalk.

“The museum is this way, the way we're going, and the beach and downtown area are in the other direction,” Ashling explained like a bored tour guide. “You exit the house, walk for five minutes either left or right, and you hit a destination.
“Anyone”—s
he looked at me—“should be able to figure that out.”

“Mmm.”
I nodded.
What
was going on here? I had never met someone who disliked me so much, so quickly! I mean, I don't want to sound stuck-up, but usually people like me! I had always gotten “plays well with others” on my report card back at Eunice Norton Elementary. I had thought that I was just not an interpersonal-conflict kind of girl. But right now it looked like this was shaping up to be an interpersonal conflict on the level of Batman and the Joker.