So Into You [The Jane Austen Academy Series #2] (2 page)

"Yes, Headmistress Berg?"

"We must speak straightaway in my office."

"Ellie’s not taking appointments at this time," Emma said as she rose to full height and angled in front of Ellie. "Would you call back tomorrow during normal business hours?"

"Very amusing, dear, but this matter is between me and Miss Dvorak."

"Of course, Headmistress," Ellie said.

She saw Lizzie abandon a forlorn Dante and charge her way toward their picnic blanket. Which meant there would be a scene. Ellie did
not
want a scene. "I’ll come by right after the picnic."

"I’m afraid this matter requires immediate attention."

"What’s going on?" Lizzie demanded, having reached them at the apple tree.

"Nothing," Ellie said.

"That’s not true," Emma said. "Headmistress Berg wants to speak to Ellie—alone—now."

Ellie felt every eye in the courtyard burning into her back. She knew—just knew—that Edward had joined them. A quick glance in the distance proved her right. Edward stood midway down the steps from the boys’ residence hall, his hand on the railing, a frown on his face.

Even with a frown, Edward was the cutest guy on campus. Mussy brown hair. Dark brown eyes with lashes so sweeping she could practically count every one from across the quad. And he was looking her way.

She threw her friends a wide-eyed plea not to freak out. "This will take a moment. I’ll be right back."

Only instead of heeding it, Lizzie crossed her arms and joined Emma in blocking her from Bergie. "Whatever Headmistress Berg wants to say, she can say in front of all of us."

"You don’t mind, do you, Ellie?" Emma asked.

Ellie forced a deep breath. She knew they meant well, but they knew how much drama embarrassed her.

Ellie hated scenes. Hated when her parents charged into a restaurant to complain about their inhumane animal products (even though she was a vegetarian). Hated how they accosted strangers for wearing mink coats (even though she agreed it was barbaric). Hated how they lectured complete strangers on their life choices (even if she thought they were often correct). For people who insisted on accepting the universe, they were also very keen on making others accept their idea of what was right.

Just the way Emma and Lizzie were doing.

"You guys, really, it’s no big deal," Ellie said.

But Emma and Lizzie planted their feet.

Ellie knew the only thing to do was give in. "You’re right. I would tell you, anyway. Go ahead, Headmistress Berg. Whatever you want to tell me, you can say in front of them."

Bergie glanced from Ellie to Lizzie to Emma. Resignation softened her shoulders. "I suppose you’ll want your friends with you." She held out an envelope that she’d been hiding behind her back. "Your tuition hasn’t been paid. You have one week to vacate the Jane Austen Academy premises."

Ellie meant to reach for the envelope, but a buzzing in her ears obscured her senses—sight, sound, touch—it all seemed to disappear. Her hands fell helplessly to her sides and the envelope flittered to the grass.

* * *

Ellie made a beeline for her room—or more specifically, her laptop. Her long legs maneuvered through the maze of students as she tiptoed around the picnic blankets. Emma and Lizzie were not so fortunate and struggled to keep up.

"Ellie—Ellie—Ellie!" Emma was barking. "Where are you going?"

"To pay the Jasta bill."

"With money from a job I don’t know about?"

"With her parents’ money," Lizzie explained. "They’re always forgetting to pay bills."

Which left Ellie to pay them. Left Ellie to make excuses on their behalf. Left Ellie to be the one red-faced and ashamed.

She’d covered for them so many times, it shouldn’t embarrass her any more, but it did.

She supposed she could wait until after the picnic, but knew she wouldn’t enjoy the event until the matter had been resolved.

"Do you think anyone overheard?" Ellie asked, resisting the urge to chew the inside of her cheek.

"
Everyone
overheard!" Emma said. "Everyone was listening."

"Not everyone." Lizzie shot Emma a hard look.

Ellie pushed open her door, pulled her laptop off the desk and rested it on her knees as she sat cross-legged on her bed.

"Can you try to catch my mom on chat?" Ellie asked. "Just to let her know?"

Lizzie sat at Emma’s desk in front of her computer. "I’ll ping her."

Ellie logged into her parents’ bank account. She knew the username and password since she often had to pay an electric bill or send in their rent check when they left for a yoga retreat without making arrangements.

Only what she saw didn’t make sense.

She reloaded the page.

And reloaded it again.

This was impossible.

"Have they answered yet?" she asked Lizzie, her voice sharp.

"Not yet."

"How can you be so calm?" Emma cried as her boots wore a soft path into the thin, beige carpet.

"This is just an inconvenience," Lizzie said, having been through this before when Ellie’s parents forgot to pay her phone bill.

"It’s more than
inconvenient
that Ellie is being kicked out of school."

"She’s not—as soon as Ellie transfers the tuition, she won’t be on Bergie’s blacklist."

"This is a disaster." Emma glanced out the picture window to the courtyard where their classmates sipped cider and nibbled cookies. "I have a bad feeling. This is more than just Ellie’s parents being forgetful."

"We don’t know that for sure," Lizzie said with scorn. "We don’t have all the facts."

Ellie tried to smile at Lizzie’s optimism. Even though Lizzie had quit the student newspaper as an act of protest against Headmistress Berg, she couldn’t shake her journalistic instincts. Ellie wondered what her instincts would say about the impossibility she saw in her parents’ bank account.

"The
fact
," Emma said, "is that Ellie’s parents didn’t pay her tuition."

"Ellie’s parents are always forgetting to pay for things. They’re forgetful about details."

"Tuition isn’t a detail." Emma pressed her lips into a thin, hard line. "Ellie, do you think they’ll wire payment before next Friday? You know Bergie. If they’re even a second late, she’ll throw you out to prove a point."

"Emma’s right," Lizzie said, sounding shocked to find them in agreement.

Ellie chewed her cheek hard. "Anything from my parents?"

"Maybe we should shoot them an email," Lizzie said.

Ellie shook her head. "I need to speak to them." She scrolled through two months of bank statement history. "Now." There had to be a reason for what she saw.

Or what she didn’t see.

Which was money.

There was no money in her parents’ bank account. Not a single penny.

Instead, there was a mysterious withdrawal several weeks ago that had drained the balance. "Any answer yet?" she asked Lizzie again, careful to swallow the hitch in her voice. There was no need to panic. Panic never solved anything.

She took a deep, cleansing breath just like her mother recommended in stressful situations. Breathing in from the left nostril and out through the right. It didn’t help.

"Nothing from them . . . no, wait . . . here, your mom’s on." Lizzie pushed back the chair and stepped aside.

Ellie jumped off the bed and slipped into the seat. Her fingers shook as tilted the monitor up.

Her mother came into view. Her long, sun-bleached blonde hair was swept into a messy ponytail and she wore nothing over her pink and purple sports bra. Ellie knew this meant she had come from yoga practice.
Clothes obscure the body’s intention,
her mother always said. While Ellie tried to play like she was cool with it, she was embarrassed that her mother couldn’t wear a shirt around strangers.

"
Namaste,
Ellie," her mother said. "Is that Lizzie and Emma with you?
Namaste
, girls."

"
Namaste
," Lizzie and Emma echoed. Ellie felt their fingers curled on the back of the chair behind her shoulders.

"I hope you’re not studying too hard. Just remember—in the words of spiritualist Mr. Glass, take a moment now to breathe in the holy present."

"Mom," Ellie interrupted before her mother could go into some long, existential rant, "I need to talk to you about something."

"Sure, honey." Her mother paused and her head dipped closer to the screen. "Will it be all of you?"

Ellie turned around to Emma hovering over her right shoulder and Lizzie over her left. "Could we have a second?"

"Yeah, totally." Lizzie squeezed her shoulder.

"Are you sure?" Emma asked. "We can stay if you need us."

"She knows that," Lizzie said. "Don’t you, Ellie?"

"What?" Ellie shook her head. "Oh, yeah, of course. But now I need a sec with my mom."

"Come on, Emma." Lizzie hitched her head toward the door. "You can wait in my room."

"We’ll be just across the hall," Emma said as Lizzie pulled her away. "If you need anything."

Lizzie rolled her eyes as she stuffed Emma into the hall and shut the door.

Ellie swung around to face her mother on the monitor.

"You’re giving me a fright, Ellie," her mother said. "Your friend makes it seem like you’re sick."

"Emma overreacts sometimes, is all," Ellie said with a shrug. "But . . . I do have something big to talk to you about. Is Dad there?"

"He’s still at the studio, but we could wait."

"No, no waiting. Our headmistress just approached me. She said there was a problem with the tuition." Ellie watched carefully as her mother’s gaze shifted to her lap. "So I checked the bank account."

"Ellie!" Her mother’s hand flew to her heart. "There was no need for that."

"I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a mistake before I called."

"Maybe we
should
wait for your father."

"They want me out by next Friday, Mom. That’s seven days. You have to tell me what’s going on."

"It’s
good
news." A tentative smile stretched into a wide grin across her mother’s face. "It’s wonderful news."

Her mom’s energy was infectious even from two hundred miles away, and Ellie found herself smiling back at her. "What’s the news?"

"You’re not going to be
alone
anymore."

Not be
alone
? She thought of Lizzie and Emma and even Edward. "But I’m not alone."

"Well of course, dear. None of us is really
alone
—as Desikashar says, yoga exists because we are all linked."

"Mom." A single word, a stern tone, to keep her mom’s mind from wandering. "What does this have to do with my tuition?"

"Your father wanted to be here when we told you." She waved her hands by her ears in excitement. "We finally adopted!"

"A baby?" The blurted word felt strange on her lips.

"Goodness, Ellie, what else would we adopt? Yes! A baby! You know we’ve been trying since before you were born and there was always that talk of how we didn’t have steady enough jobs and the studio was always in danger of bankruptcy and we worried that we wanted the baby too much, that we weren’t accepting our path and you know how we feel about wanting too much, the universe won’t reward you so—"

That buzz started again in Ellie’s brain. One that made her feel faint and fuzzy because her mom was going on and on about a baby. Going on and on the way Ellie was accused of going on and on when she was in a chatty mood only nothing her mother was saying made sense. How could her parents adopt a baby? They could barely care for themselves!

Oh sure, they took good care of their minds and bodies the way yoga instructors did, and they were the best when it came to being hands-off and trusting her (which was really just trusting the universe, they insisted). But when it came to paying bills and showing up on time, they were nowhere to be found. It was one of the reasons why boarding school was so perfect.

"—we received an opportunity to help open a new yoga studio and that’s when it all fell into place. That’s when the universe told us it was time."

"A new yoga studio got you a baby?" Ellie must have misheard.

"Our application for the adoption came through because the yoga studio is in the same city as the baby—in Guatemala."

"You’re helping open a yoga studio in Guatemala?" Ellie repeated, as if it would force the words to make sense.

"We did debate merely
opening
a studio there. But then we asked ourselves, was that the best demonstration of our intention?"

"What intention?" Ellie asked, trying to keep up with her mother’s logic.