I shook my head. “They’re twins.”
“Aha,” Lydia said. “Then it doesn’t mean he’s for sure a player.”
I made a vague noise in the back of my throat, privately resolving to ask my brother Jasper about the precise connotations of the term, since he was the most au courant member of the family when it came to slang. Although fairly certain I got the gist, I’d been wrong about such things before. (In my defense, “twerking” did sound like a rude gesture involving teeth.)
“Wait a sec.” Arden studied me intently. “You’re talking about the twins who put on the plays?”
I nodded.
“They were in my brother Morrison’s year! He had a huge crush on one of them, Allie or something—”
“Addie.”
“Yes!” She slapped the table with her palm. “I used to hear about them all the time. Super smart and artsy, which is completely Morrison’s jam. Apparently one of them came to school in thigh-high boots—”
“Part of a costume,” I said quickly. “For Baardvaark. That’s the name of their troupe. All Shakespeare, all the time.”
“Isn’t this great?” Arden squeezed Terry’s wrist. “You’re getting so much background info. She just transferred from Sacred Heart, so I’m helping her get up to speed.” The last part was clearly for my benefit. “It’s hard when you don’t know many people.”
I tried to smile as though I had a vague and largely theoretical understanding of such a predicament, but the result must have looked more like a grimace.
“Freshman year is awesome,” Arden assured me. “Totally low-stakes. I miss those days. It’s not like tenth grade, when everyone expects you to have it all figured out. Seriously, can we talk about the SAT after I get my license? One thing at a time, people.”
“I’m actually a sophomore.”
“Hey!” Arden shoved me in the shoulder. “Us too. How come I haven’t seen you before? Did you just move here?”
She seemed so intrigued I was loath to disappoint her. “I’ve lived in Millville all my life. I just haven’t gone to public school until this year.”
“Homeschooled?” asked Lydia.
“No. Though my school was in a house—on campus.” My head tipped in the direction of the college. “It was run by a bunch of grad students from the School of Education. Sort of an experimental research program, until they shut it down.”
This description seemed to give them pause.
“Not because there was anything weird going on,” I said quickly. “It was mostly unstructured time and talking about your feelings.”
“Sounds very evolved,” Arden said.
I shook my head. “Our feelings about whatever pedagogical method they were using that week. But on the plus side, we got to do a lot of independent study. Reading and such.”
“So that’s how you know so much,” Arden mused.
“Mostly about nineteenth-century novels. That was my area of concentration.”
“Yeah, but there’s so much wisdom in books.” Arden tapped her forehead. “And you have it all up there, ready and waiting.Superuseful.”
“Oh boy,” Lydia sighed. “Here we go.”
“What?” Arden was the picture of wounded innocence.
“You sure you want to jump on this bandwagon? I’m still traumatized from when you made me KonMari my underwear.”
“I’m just saying it’s interesting, is all.”
Interesting. I savored the word.
“Did any of your friends come over from your old school?” Terry asked.
