One & Only

Chapter Two

TWO

The summer after high school graduation, I traveled away from home for the first time. Along with several hundred other teens, I’d received an invitation to spend three weeks studying at a science camp at Cornell. Three survey classes taught by real professors, space in the dorms, food in the dining hall—and all of it paid for by a grant for gifted and talented high school students who planned a career in the science and technology fields. Mom and I only had to cover spending money and airfare, and I had the Siemens money for that.

When I boarded the plane, I felt freer than I ever had in my life. We hadn’t had to ask my father for a single cent to pay for this trip, and that meant I didn’t need his permission to take it. I wasn’t sure what to expect from Cornell. High school had been neither the best nor the most traumatic experience teen movies had made it out to be. I had friends—a group of us had even gotten together and rented our own limo for a girls’ group to prom. I’d participated in the occasional slumber party my friend Sylvia would organize at her sister’s cramped apartment. But aside from Sylvia, I knew the girls I hung out with in high school weren’t lifelong friends. It was hard to make close friends when your whole life was a secret. And I’d never had a boyfriend or anything. I was “that science girl” to most of the kids in my class. But here, we were all the science ones. That was the point.

My roommate, Cristina, was a Puerto Rican biology major from Brooklyn. She had curly hair and eyelids painted to look like peacock tailfeathers. “Dermatology or plastic surgery,” she said to me as soon as we exchanged names. “You?”

“Bioengineering?” I asked rather than said.

Her peacock eyes widened in appreciation. “Hardcore.”

I shrugged, as self-conscious as I’d ever been at those science fair presentations. “Well, I think there’s a lot science has done to wreck life. Maybe we can score some points for the good guys, too.”

“Look at you, all noble,” she said, smiling. “And here I’m just out to make people pretty.”

Cristina, I learned, was a lot more than eyeliner. She’d been a New York City Science Scholar, and her field of study was skin grafts for burn victims. But the makeup was no joke either. She’d worked for two years at a MAC counter in some department store in Manhattan she was shocked I didn’t know the name of. She was also staying at Cornell come fall. “In-state tuition, baby.”

“Yeah, I’m going to a state school, too.” It just wasn’t also an Ivy.

This was how most of the introductory conversations with the other campers went throughout orientation. We all had to report on what we were studying, what project had brought us here, what we were going to do with our futures, and where we were going to college. It seemed like everyone was headed off to Harvard or MIT or CalTech. I even heard a few Cantons in the mix. My practical, sensible side kept me from concocting an elaborate lie that I was going to Oxford, which turned out for the best, since I met a budding physicist who actually was. I retreated to the buffet.

“Good choice,” said a voice as I was picking through the cheese plate.

“I’m sorry?” I turned around.

His eyes were blue and framed by glasses rimmed in gunmetal gray. His hair was black and flopped down over his brow just a shade too far. “The cheese. It’s an artisinal kind from the School of Agriculture here.”

“Oh,” I said, looking down at the white cubes on my plate. “Well, eat local, right?”

“Absolutely. Smaller footprint, et cetera.” He held out his hand. “I’m Dylan Kingsley.”