Free The Wood of Suicides by Laura Elizabeth Woollett Page B

first paragraph when he called me to the desk, under the surveillance of eleven open textbooks, eleven lowered heads.
    Mr. Steadman was sitting back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head and legs in the figure-four position that The Conclusive Book of Body Language had taught me was a crotch-display. His dark eyes were twinkling. Though he didn’t smile, he seemed on the verge of doing so. I was looking down at my oxfords, one arm slung across my body to clutch the other, when he spoke.
    “You are obviously very intelligent, but that doesn’t mean you can get away with missing out on class time. It isn’t fair to the other students. Or to me.”
    He was smiling by then. The whole thing was a joke to him, as it was to me. Why didn’t he extend the joke, give me a detention? It was within his rights; nay, it was his duty! Instead, he merely extended his hand, reached for my wrist unexpectedly. He circled its frailty with ease between his thumb and forefinger, while drawing up the sleeve of my gray knit with his three remaining digits. Without explanation, he turned my knobby wrist around in his fingers, exposing its pale underbelly. We both stared down for a moment. Another moment . . . my heart suspended in time.
    “You should wear a watch,” he said.
    And at that, he let me go.

    I HAD been dreading the dance at Trinity since our day trip to San Rafael. Soon enough, it was upon us. Leaving him on the lawn that Friday afternoon, I couldn’t have been farther from where I wanted to be.
    The next day was a flurry of preparations for everyone but me. I hadn’t made an appointment at the salon, as my friends had. Instead, I spent the afternoon in my arbor, reading Paradise Lost and deluding myself that I felt nothing of the October chill, creeping over my bare limbs. An hour before the dance, I put on my flapperish funeral dress, a light layer of cosmetics, and some black high heels. These raised me two whole inches above my usual five foot eight. I arrived at Amanda’s dorm room with thirty minutes to spare. Her face fell when she saw me. “Laurel! But, Laurel, you’re hardly dressed!”
    She ushered me into her bedroom in a confusion of perfume and costume jewelry. Her face was made and her hair high, but she was only wearing a skimpy robe. I could see the flesh-colored bra cupping her breasts, which were the size and shape of ripe mangoes. “Where’s Marcelle?” I asked, for something to say.
    “Marcy? Who knows. Probably still doing her makeup. Quick, sit down. Let’s see what I can do with you.”
    I averted my eyes as she leaned over me, breasts joggling, piling further creams and powders onto my modest efforts and making conversation like a hairdresser. Within a quarter of an hour, my face had a snide, provocative look and my hair was as high as her own. She held alternate pairs of earrings up to my face and asked, “Which ones?” I plumped for the plainer.
    In a few minutes, Marcelle was scrabbling outside the door like a stray cat. “ Merde . Laurel, can you let Marcy in?” Amanda said, shedding her robe and reaching, fully fleshed, for the orangey-red, gold-brocaded gown that hung outside her wardrobe.
    “Laurel! You look like a model!” Marcelle herself was wearing turquoise. With all her cosmetics, she looked as disarmingly overdone as a child beauty queen.
    “Marcy! So. Hot.” Amanda smooched her lips from across the room. She was still struggling with her dress. “ Merde , I forgot how hard this is to do up. Oh, double merde, these shoes are already pinching. . . !”

    T HE T RINITY boys proved, predictably, to be an abhorrent bunch. Seamus Head, who took Amanda’s arm walking into the ballroom, was a tall, well-fleshed Alpha male with militantly cropped hair—her obvious mate, and as unappealing to me as a mountain gorilla. Flynn Radley, Marcelle’s date, was arguably even worse, with the shaggy red hair and low nasal bridge of a Neanderthal, and eyes somewhere to the side of his