Read Possessions for Free Online Page A

that Lakewood Preparatory Academy for Young Men was located on the other side of the lake. Three things were forbidden on Marlwood soil: cheating, drugs and alcohol, and boys. I thought about the Lincoln Bedroom at the White House. I could totally believe that Mandy had stayed there. I wasn’t so sure about the part with her brother, Miles. It boggled my mind.
    I looked around the room at the beautiful furnishings. On one of the sofas, I spotted a skein of amazing yarn, soft enough to be butter, in shades that ranged from silky white streaked with crinkle-leaf brown to burnished gourd to deep burgundy. My knitter’s fingers longed to touch it.
    Lara reappeared with a silver tray bordered with silver rose-buds, containing four glasses of red wine. She set the tray down on a table kind of like the nightstand in my dorm room. She grabbed a glass. Then she walked to the panorama window and took a long, thoughtful swallow as she stared at the darkness.
    “It’s cold out,” she said. “Foggy. Maybe we should call it off.”
    Call what off? I wondered.
    Mandy didn’t respond. She handed me a glass and got one for herself. Clinking glasses with me, she said, “Cheers.” She sipped. “We have a little thing to do tonight. In fact, we should get to it.”
    I went on red alert. A little thing? I glanced at Kiyoko, who left the mantel and walked toward the hall tree, loaded with coats and jackets.
    “Lara’s right,” Mandy said. “It’s cold out. Kiyoko, get Linz a jacket, too.”
    Linz.
    Kiyoko nodded to show she’d heard, piling outerwear in her arms, including a large black leather jacket. Mandy said, “Ha ha, Kiyoko.”
    “It was the first thing I saw,” Kiyoko said. “You never wear it anyway.”
    Mandy considered. “I guess it’s okay.”
    Then Kiyoko bent down and slung on a sleek navy blue backpack with Kiyoko embroidered on the back.
    “What’s going on?” I asked, as Kiyoko handed me the black leather jacket without making eye contact. I had never felt anything so luxurious in my life—well-worn leather, lined with satin.
    “It’s going to be fun,” Mandy said.
    I stood my ground. “Tell me what we’re doing.”
    “Kiyoko has something to do,” Mandy said. Her smile was kind and reassuring.
    “I didn’t check with Mandy before I scheduled our movie. We’ll see it soon. I promise,” Kiyoko told me. Her face was pale and she touched the corner of her mouth—a nervous habit, I realized.
    “Come on, Linz, we want you to be with us,” Mandy said, and I could feel the warmth radiating off her. She had charisma; I’d give her that. I tried to remind myself that she was exactly the kind of girl I should stay away from, but there was something about her . . . something I couldn’t explain, that urged me to give her a chance.
    Maybe they could get in trouble, but I was there on scholarship. I couldn’t risk getting caught doing . . . “a little thing”—at least, not if it was against school rules. So I got ready to give them a “thanks anyway” speech as we all picked up our wine-glasses—I hadn’t touched mine—and walked down a hall and into the kitchen.
    Lara grabbed the wine bottle beside a stainless steel refrigerator, unslung her mannish jacket from the back of a barstool at the white-and-green tiled breakfast bar, and slipped it on. Lara brought the bottle with us as we tiptoed out the kitchen door and down a path covered with pea gravel, Mandy and Lara first, then Kiyoko, then me. Kiyoko looked over her shoulder at me, put her index finger to her mouth, and pointed to a room jutting from beside the kitchen. Lights were on. I heard a TV.
    “Housemother,” she whispered.
    “We think she’s deaf,” Mandy said, her nose crinkling with pleasure as we scurried past their building.
    “I haven’t even seen mine yet—I think my dorm mates killed her,” I shot back.
    She snickered.
    Our shoes crunched over the gravel as we walked down a slope, then onto another blacktop path lined