"Are you all right?" she asked softly.

"Yes," I said.

"What happened?"

I shook my head. I couldn't get myself to talk about it, and she understood. Instead, I dove into my homework and began studying for upcoming exams in math and science. I dreaded facing Gisselle's biting questions and remarks later. I don't know whether she was just trying to show she wasn't interested in the things I did or whether she really didn't care, but neither at lunch nor at dinner did she inquire about my visit at the plantation. She looked like she was still smarting over the fact that my punishment had been mitigated.

Actually, we had a very quiet Sunday night. Jacki, Katie, and Vicki left the dorm to go to the school library, which was open until nine, and Gisselle and Samantha spent most of their time in their room or out in the lobby, watching television and talking to girls from the other quads.

I soaked in a hot bath and then went to bed early. Before I fell asleep, Abby asked me again what it was Louis had wanted. I took a deep breath before I replied.

"Mostly to apologize for his behavior the last time," I told her. I didn't even know how to begin telling her about the things he told me concerning his relationship with his mother and father.

"Are you going back there to visit him?"

"I don't want to," I admitted. "I feel sorry for him—I really do—but there are more dark turns and swamp holes in that plantation house than there are in the bayou. Being rich and coming from a distinguished family background doesn't guarantee happiness, Abby. In fact, it might make happiness harder to find because you have to live up to all that expectation."

Abby agreed and then she wished for something.

"I wish my parents would stop trying to hide the truth and keep people from knowing I'm descended from a Haitian woman. I'm a quadroon, and there's no sense pretending otherwise. I think we'd all be happier being who we are."

"We all would," I said.

Louis didn't call or contact me the next day, but on Tuesday, Mrs. Penny brought me a letter that Louis had had delivered to the dorm. She stood in the doorway of my room for a few moments, hoping I would open it in her presence, I suppose, but I simply thanked her and put it aside. My fingers trembled when I opened it later.

Dear Ruby,

I just wanted to scribble out this note to thank you for coming to see me again after I had been so unpleasant to you the first time. I was surprised when I woke up in my room hours after you had apparently left and found myself alone. I don't even remember what I did or said prior to your leaving, but I hope it wasn't anything that upset you. Naturally, I hope you will visit with me again.

And now for a piece of exciting news. Yesterday I woke up and for the first time saw a hazy light. I can't see anything really, but I can suddenly distinguish between light and shadows. It might not sound like much to someone with sight, but to me it's almost a miracle. Grandmother is excited about it too, and so is my doctor, who wants me to spend time in an institute for the legally blind. I'm not ready to leave home and do that and I have continued instead with my periodic doctor's visits at the house. So if you so decide, I will be here and can see you almost any time you wish. I would like that very much. I hope you enjoy the song I wrote for you.

With deepest regards,

Louis

I put the note in with my box of letters I had received from Paul and from Beau. Then I sat down and wrote a short note expressing my happiness for Louis and hope that his sight was really returning. I made no specific mention about another visit but instead made a vague promise to see him again soon. Mrs. Penny said she would see to it that my letter was delivered promptly.

About midweek, the excitement over our first social, the Halloween dance, began building. It was practically the only subject the girls wanted to discuss at dinner. I was surprised to learn that costumes weren't permitted. Abby and I were discussing it when we saw Vicki sitting in the lounge, reading a biography of Andrew Jackson. We asked her about the prohibition. Annoyed with the interruption, she looked up from her reading and shifted her glasses back on the bridge of her nose.

"Because some of the costumes girls chose to wear at past Halloween dances were deemed inappropriate dress, it was decided there wouldn't be any costume ball as such," she explained.

"Oh, too bad," I said, just imagining some of the costumes Miss Stevens and I could have created. I had remained after school all week to help Miss Stevens, who had been given the assignment to decorate the gymnasium. We drew and cut out pumpkins and witches, goblins and ghosts. On Saturday, she and I and some members of the school's social committee would put everything up in the gymnasium, along with crepe paper streamers, Japanese lanterns, and tons of tinsel.

"So then what should we wear?" Abby asked Vicki.

"You can wear what you want, but I'll warn you that anyone whose clothes are too sexy or too revealing will be stopped at the gym door."

"Really?"

"Yes. Mrs. Ironwood stands off to the side and either nods or shakes her head when we enter, and then the teacher on duty, usually Mrs. Brennan or Miss Weller, our librarian, admits or refuses to admit you. If you're refused admittance, you have to go back to your dorm and change into something considered more appropriate.

"Inappropriate dress includes anything that reveals even a smidgen of cleavage, a skirt that shows your knees, or a blouse or sweater that is too tight around your bosom. One time last year a girl was sent back because she wore a blouse too thin. It revealed the outline of her bra."

"Why don't we just dress in our uniforms and forget it," Abby suggested with disgust. "Or is that considered a costume?"

"Some girls do wear their uniforms."

"You're kidding?" I said. "To a dance?"

Vicki shrugged, and I wondered if she hadn't been one to have worn her uniform.

"What is the dance like?" Abby asked.

"The boys gather on one side of the gym and we on the other. Just before or just after the music starts, they cross and ask us to dance. They must ask properly, of course."

"Of course," I said. She smirked.

"Didn't you read the section in the handbook concerning the proper behavior at school socials?" she asked us. "Naturally, smoking or drinking anything alcoholic is strictly forbidden, but there is also an acceptable and unacceptable way to dance. It specifically says that there should be a clear inch or so between you and the boy when you're on the dance floor."

"I didn't read that," Abby said.

"It's in there. Check the footnotes."

"Footnotes!" I moaned and then laughed. "What are they afraid will happen on a dance floor?"

"I don't know," Vicki said, "but that's the rule. You're not supposed to leave the gym with a boy alone either, but a lot of girls get around that by leaving separately and then meeting someplace outside," Vicki said. "Anyway, the dance lasts two and a half hours exactly, after which Mrs. Ironwood announces it has come to an end and stops the music. The boys are told to board their bus and the girls are told to return to their dorms. Some girls escort the boys they've met to the bus, but Mrs. Ironwood is out there watching to see how they say goodbye. Passionate kissing is strictly forbidden, and if she should catch a girl permitting a boy's hands to wander, that girl will get a note about it and some demerits, which might prohibit her from attending the next social."

"Mrs. Ironwood should come to one of the fais dodos in the bayou," I whispered to Abby, who laughed.

Vicki frowned.

"Anyway," she concluded, "the refreshments are usually very good."

"Sounds like . . . loads of fun," Abby said, and we giggled so much that Vicki went back to her reading.

But despite the rules and restrictions and the promise of being followed by Mrs. Ironwood's eagle eyes and the eyes of other teachers on duty, excitement over the social continued to build all week long.

Gisselle, who was normally bitter about the fact that she couldn't get up and dance, was quite enthusiastic about all this party preparation. Her devoted followers gathered around her more often and more closely to listen to her experienced advice about boy-girl relations. She obviously enjoyed tutoring them in the ways of a coquette, describing the things she did to tease and torment and draw a boy's attention. On Thursday and Friday night, she actually sat in the lounge and instructed Jacki, Samantha, and Katie on how to walk, turn their shoulders, flutter their eyelashes, and how to find ways to brush their bosoms against the arms and chests of the boys they fancied. Vicki stood in her doorway scowling, but listening and observing like someone who wished she could enter a forbidden world; while Abby and I kept off to the side, smiling but saying nothing to bring on one of Gisselle's nasty tirades.

Then on Saturday morning, just before I went off to help set up the decorations, Gisselle surprised me by wheeling into our room to talk to Abby. Samantha was at her side.

"It's none of my business, I know, but you really ought to wear your hair down and pin the sides up so that more of your forehead and face are visible. We all voted and agree you are the prettiest, Abby," she said. "You have the best chance to be chosen queen of the dance tonight, and that would make us all very proud."

For a moment Abby was speechless. She looked at me and I looked back, smiling and shaking my head: What was my sister up to now? I wondered.

"Here," she said, offering Abby a white silk ribbon. "This would look perfect in your ebony hair."

Hesitantly, Abby took the ribbon. She studied it for a moment, as if she expected it would explode in her hands, but it was nothing more than a pretty silk ribbon.

"Are you going to wear something blue or pink?" Gisselle followed.

"I was thinking of my dark blue dress. It's one that definitely meets the skirt-length requirement," she added, laughing.

"Nice choice," Gisselle said. "What about you, Ruby?"

"I thought I'd wear the Kelly green."

"Then so will I. We'll be real twins on Saturday night," she added. "Why don't we all go over to the gymnasium together and enter as a unified quad?"

Abby and I looked at each other again, suspicion and surprise still in both our faces.

"Okay," I said.

"Oh," Gisselle said after she had started to turn her wheelchair. "I almost forgot. Susan Peck has been telling her brother about Abby. He's very anxious to see and meet her," she added. "You remember everyone talking about Jonathan Peck, how they all drool over him every time Rosedown is brought to Greenwood for a social."

"Susan?" Abby said. "I don't think she's said a word to me since I've been here."

"She's shy," Gisselle explained. "But Jonathan's not," she added with a wink. We watched her turn her chair and then waited as Samantha took over and wheeled her out.

"What was all that about?" Abby asked.

"Don't ask me. My sister is more mysterious than an owl peering out from behind Spanish moss in the swamp. You never know what you'll find until you drift by, and by then it's usually too late."

Abby laughed.

"Nice ribbon, though," she said, then tied it in her hair and gazed at herself in the mirror. "I think I will wear it."

As the day wore on, the air of excitement became contagious. Girls from all the quads were coming around to see each other, show off a new dress, pair of shoes, bracelet, and necklace, or just talk about hairstyles and makeup. At the socials the Greenwood girls were permitted to indulge in makeup, as long as they didn't go overboard and, as the handbooks said, "appear clownish."

Gisselle and Samantha's room took on more importance as the girls from the other quads paid visits, as if to pay homage to someone whom everyone now accepted as the most experienced girl in the dorm. Despite her handicap, Gisselle sat back confidently and arrogantly in her chair and approved and disapproved garments, hairstyles, even makeup, as if she had been in charge of costumes and makeup at some Hollywood studio all her life.

"This is a school full of social retards," she whispered to me later when we met in the hallway. "One girl thought an orgasm had something to do with mining zinc. Get it? Oregasm."

I had to laugh. In a way I was happy Gisselle was really enjoying herself. I had feared that as the social between Greenwood and Rosedown drew closer and closer, she would become more and more depressed and bitter; but the exact opposite had happened, and I felt relief. I myself wasn't looking to find a new boyfriend or anything, but I was eagerly anticipating the distraction the dance would provide. What I was really looking forward to, of course, was Beau's arrival the following weekend. I was determined not to do anything to endanger that visit, a visit I had been anticipating for so long.