Newton Neighbors (New England Trilogy) by Suzy Duffy Read Free Book Online Page B

dormitory. She didn’t mind too much, especially as Ely was determined to flaunt the rules from the get-go.  
    Ely Briskin was like nobody Jessie had ever met before. Her broad Southern drawl made her sound so laid-back and chilled out, except when she got excited. Then she raised the pitch of her voice so much it sounded almost comical, but Jessie soon discovered Ely was not to be underestimated. She explained to Jessie that she had taken the scenic route to Wiswall College. Jessie learned her roommate had flunked out of three colleges already. That was why she was a little older than the average freshman. Ely said she didn’t like socializing with the younger girls, so she was very happy to be with Jessie and able to hang with the postgrad set.  
    Ely’s dark brown hair was long and straight, and she kept it tied back in a ponytail. Her style was casual, but whether she wore jeans or dresses, she always had her leather cowboy boots on. They were the same color as her hair and suited her Southern accent and self-contained attitude.  
    Ely said her parents had coerced her into coming to college up north because they thought her horizons were too narrow. She loved the South and thought Northerners were stiff and serious. “The partyin’s a case in point,” Ely said on their first night together. “Not enough of it goin’ on up here. What’s with that? We only got one life—we gotta live it.” She spoke with conviction.  
    Jessie hadn’t met anyone from South Carolina before, and she loved the singsong way they spoke. Ely reminded her of an older version of Miley Cyrus before she cut and colored her hair, but she didn’t say it, thinking it would sound gauche.  
    “What is this we’re drinking?” she asked on that very first night together. Jessie took a sip of the clear liquid Ely had given her.  
    “Moonshine. Good shit, huh?”
    Somehow Jessie managed to get her bed made up, but her clothes remained unpacked because four cups of Ely’s home brew combined with one transatlantic flight was enough to induce an eight-hour coma.
    It was a good lesson for Jessie. Ely was a fun girl, and it looked like she would be a terrific roommate, but Jessie needed to watch how much she partied with her new friend. Her body was just not designed to ingest moonshine. She was more of a glass-of-wine type of girl, but most of all she was there to study. If her master’s was good enough, she knew she’d land herself a great job and that would help out a lot at home.
    The weeks after that first night zoomed by, and Jessie was soon well settled. She wasn’t surprised when Ely found a boyfriend on the football team. He was from North Carolina. “A whole state away from home,” Ely had said, to prove she was broadening her horizons. Jessie loved Josh from the moment she met him. He was basically a male version of Ely—bigger, of course—with the same dark brown hair and adorable Southern drawl. He had cowboy boots, too.
    “You’re perfect together,” Jessie said one night.
    “He has a friend.” Ely sang this, then hugged herself and started making kissing noises.
    Jessie laughed. “Ely, you have the subtlety of a snowplow! I’m here to study and then I’m going home.”
    “Well hell, Jessie, that don’t mean you can’t have no fun along the way, sunshine.” Then she used her mantra. “We only got one life.”

    When she finally climbed the four flights of stairs, Jessie was relieved that Ely was home now. She needed to vent.
    “Thank God you’re here. You would not believe what happened to me tonight,” she said, shaking off her coat.
    “That good?” Ely tapped her tablet screen to pause the movie she was watching. “Tell me all about your first night babysitting.” She was lying on her bed, propped up by a mountain of Carolina cotton-covered pillows. “Are American kids that different from British ones? Did you get real brats? You know, it ain’t called Snootin’ Newton for nothing. They’re all