[Nice. If you make the door itself invisible so we can just walk through, then you won't even have to wait till the place is empty, if you're invisible.]

[So we can't throw things through?] Bella asks. [If other things go only when we walk through? Also, what if we trip near it?]

[Do you want to be able to throw things through?] he inquires, but he edits his intention accordingly, and also stipulates that only-passing-through-when-meant-to applies to themselves as well as to what they are bringing or carrying.

[Might be useful if I wanted to surreptitiously stash something without disappearing myself. Otherwise, looks fine, long as "stuff" includes sound and breezes and such.]

[Yeah? Like, if you really want to shout through the magic door, you can, and if you don't, you won't.]

[Cool. Go for it.]

[Very nice,] Bella approves. [Now if you don't feel like telling them your mom and Hilary don't need to know that you're probably going to be visiting me all the time.]

[Janine, my roommate-to-be, isn't here yet that I know of. I've got my room set up and a parking permit for my bike and I met the RA and now I'm hanging out pretending to mess around on my laptop in the hall lounge.]

[Aww. I don't know why that's cute, but it totally is.]

[I can't imagine why that would be cute either,] Bella laughs. [What are you planning to do with yourself while I settle in here?]

[Why was the back door left open?] Bella wonders.

[Ask Hilary; it's her kitchen.]

[I can't ask Hilary, I'm in Stanford and have no way to know that the door was open. Don't you have air conditioning? Is she even there? Are you being burgled?]

[Well, ask her why the door was left standing open like that, then.]

[Do you care enough about that answer for me to fly out of the house, un-invisible, walk back up to the door, and ask why it's open?]

[Bah. Nevermind. It's going to bug me, though.]

Bella introduces herself to various new neighbors in the lounge as they wander in and out. She makes a point to learn all their names.

"Do you want some help with that?" Bella calls, closing her computer and tucking it into her bag and getting up. Being helpful is a good way to be positively remembered, and this is part of her project, and she is starting today. "Where are you headed?"

"Oh—thank you," she says, looking up from where she has been gazing determinedly at the floor and flashing a tentative smile. "Room 314."

"Oh, you must be Janine. I'm Bella," says Bella, helping herself to half of Janine's stuff and heading for the room. "What're the packing peanuts for?"

"Guess so," says Bella, amused. She opens the door with her foot. "Home sweet home. Beanbag chairs don't come... assembled?"

"I've never assembled a beanbag chair before either. It looks like it's going to be really enormous," says Bella. She plops the stuff gently on the floor of the room.

"Sure, why not." Bella seeks a zipper, and finds one, and unzips it. "I'll hold, you pour?"

"Works for me!" says Janine. She picks up one of the big packages and waits to tear it open until Bella has the beanbag chair in a more receptive state.

Bella holds the mouth of the shell and says, "And, go."

"Okay!" says Janine, and she does that.

"No!" she says. "Clothes. And several clever storage options in the event that there is not enough room for my clothes. There is never enough room for my clothes," she confides.

"You can use some of my closet space if you need it. I don't have many clothes myself," Bella says. "I got all the way here with all my stuff on my motorcycle."

"You have a motorcycle," Janine observes, repeats, and/or confirms. "That's cool. What kind?"

"It's a custom kind. I named it Tegu, though, so I guess it's a Tegu."

"Where did you get a custom kind of motorcycle?" inquires Janine.

"It was a present from my boyfriend" ([I have decided to just refer to you as my boyfriend to random people,] she informs Alice) "after he came into some money. He got it made by some guy on the Internet, I think."

Bella flops into the beanbag chair. "I approve," she announces.

Janine applauds.

Bella laughs. "So what classes are you taking?" she asks, in the time-honored tradition of College Students Making Conversation.

"Calculus and linear algebra and symbolic logic and physics and electrical engineering," she says. "Because I am going to be an electrical engineer!"

"Nice. I'm still undeclared. Taking a bunch of things with 'introduction to' in their names," Bella chuckles.

"Well, I am also taking a bunch of things with 'introduction to' in their names," says Janine, "because it is my first year and that is how that works. The symbolic logic course is second year, though!"

"I'm in Bio and Calc and Operating Systems and Politics, and I guess I get credits for orchestra too, but not for soccer."

"Gosh, you're busy," says Janine. "What do you play? In the orchestra, I mean, soccer... is soccer."

"Flute," says Bella, picking up the case off her desk.

"Oh." Janine observes the flute. "So that is what a flute case looks like. And now I know!"

Bella laughs. "What about you, what do you do apart from academic stuff?"

"Alienate my peers with accidental displays of frightening intellect," says Janine. "And drop things."

Bella tilts her head. "Well, I don't think you're particularly scary or alienating. Maybe a top-tier college will be a better environment for your intellect. Also, dropping things, not a hobby - have you hobbies?"

"You say that only because you have not seen the frequency with which I drop things," Janine asserts. "I also read science fiction novels with embarrassing slowness."

"I used to be really clumsy until a car crash knocked something back where it belonged in my ear," Bella volunteers. "I don't think we should try anything like that for you, though."

"No that would be a bad idea," Janine agrees. "Please do not crash any cars into or near me."

"Don't have a car," Bella says, winking. "Have a motorcycle."

"Please do not crash your custom motorcycle into or near me!" she amends.

"I won't, I promise," Bella says, crossing her heart.

"Thank you! I can see we are going to get along," says Janine.

"That's good. It'd suck to not get along with my roommate," Bella says.

"Yes it would!" agrees Janine.

"Anything else you could use help unpacking?" Bella asks.

"Hmm," says Janine. "If you would like to help me find somewhere to put my books and then put them there, you are welcome to do that and I would appreciate it very much!"

"The books are here," says Janine, with a demonstrative gesture to one of the four duffel bags now open on her bed. It does indeed contain a long row of neatly stacked books. She accepts the box and starts tranferring books from one container to the other.

Bella helps. "Lotta books. I'm more of a library book person myself. That and the Internet."

"They are comfort objects," Janine explains. "So is the internet, for that matter, but differently."

Bella nods. "Anything in here you particularly recommend? I've always been more of an I-actually-read-the-assignments-for-English-class girl but perhaps I should branch out."

"Well, I do not know which ones you would like," Janine says reasonably, "because I do not know you very well!"

"Fair enough. Some people recommend the same thing to everybody, but I'm not in a hurry to pick through your book collection," chuckles Bella.

"If you would like to read some of them later, you may, but please ask me before you borrow any," says Janine.

"Sure, no problem."

"Any other things I should keep in mind if we're going to be sharing this itty bitty living space?"

"Well," says Janine. The cheer in her voice fades a little, and the nervousness in her posture takes an uptick. "You checked the box on the residence questionnaire that says you are comfortable having a transgender roommate, right?"

"Yeah?"

"That is good," says Janine, "because I am. I would prefer if you did not mention it to anyone unless you are sure they already know, because not everyone on our floor checked that box."

Janine relaxes a little. "Okay, good."

"Do I need to do anything else besides not-tell, like, I don't know, conspicuously loan you tampons in front of people? Because I would like warning before being called upon to do that."

She quirks a smile. "No. Thank you."

"Okay then." Bella stretches her arms after placing the last book. "I don't think I'm too hard to live with. Ask if you wanna borrow something, don't play heavy metal at four in the morning, that sort of thing."

"Those are reasonable guidelines to which I will happily adhere!"

"Yes, I had heard a rumour to that effect," says Janine. "I think I will spend the intervening time unpacking my clothes."

Bella sets up her laptop and goes through the rigmarole necessary to get on the school Internet, and watches clothes march out of Janine's bags.

"Is this going to turn into one of those sitcom plots where you decide my wardrobe is too small and you have to take me shopping?" Bella asks.

"It will not turn into one of those! If you had as much clothing as me, neither of us would have enough space for it!" she says reasonably.

Bella laughs. "Good, then. Because I've never gotten the appeal of shopping."

"It is not the process I enjoy so much as the results," says Janine.

"I do like having nice clothes, but three pairs of nice jeans and a handful of shirts and one rocking set of motorcycle riding leathers does it for me. Plus, you know, socks, underwear, the boring kind."

"I enjoy variety," says Janine. "I think I would have a very hard time living on three pairs of jeans and a handful of shirts. Even with a rocking set of motorcycle leathers."

"I also have a dress," Bella adds. "I've only worn it once, months ago - my boyfriend made it for me to wear to a dance. I almost forgot about it."

"Your boyfriend sounds very generous," Janine comments. "What's his name?"

"If I ever meet him I will ask which name he would rather I use," concludes Janine.

"Sounds like a plan. He's not going to be around much for the first week or so, so I can settle in, but after that he'll probably visit a lot; I imagine you'll see him around."

"For some reason," Janine says thoughtfully, "your descriptions of him lead me to picture him with pointy ears and sparkly butterfly wings, making mischief and pollinating flowers."

"Maybe," Bella says. "Quite probably. I'll give you a dollar if you find neater-weirder, at any rate."

"I will keep an eye out," Janine says gravely.

Bella grins. "I'm not sure I know where the place we're supposed to fetch our IDs and orientation packets is. Want to come with me to look for it now so we don't show up fifteen minutes late and wait a year in line?"

"Yes!" says Janine, with another, smaller smile.

Bella sticks around, because there is a food court here and she wishes to be informed about it, but presently she too returns to their room, by another route so she can see more of the campus. She is equipped with a burrito at this time.

Janine is still absorbed in the introductory literature. She doesn't look up from her spot on the bed when Bella enters.

Bella doesn't bug her; she toes off her sneakers under the bed and reads her packet and eats her burrito.

Eventually, out of nowhere, Janine says: "Your boyfriend is very good at making dresses."

"Wouldn't have worn it in public if he weren't," agrees Bella.

"Does he do it frequently, or was that a unique event?"

"He made one for himself, too," Bella says. "He's toyed with the idea of being a designer. Why, want a custom dress?"

"I suspect that I do," says Janine.

"Lemme call him up and see if he wants to expand his dressmaking activities," Bella says, and she pulls out her actual phone and actually calls Alice.

"Hi!" says Alice, from his bedroom in the stupidly huge house. "What's up?"

"My roommate got a look at the little black dress. She wants to know if you'd make her stuff, too. For that matter I could imagine you being popular among people here in general. Want?"

"Ooh. Very want!" he says. "I probably won't make 'em for everybody, though. Will that piss people off and do you care?"

"If you mean you don't want to be deluged in orders, the solution to that is called 'raising your prices until you have the amount of business you want'," Bella says. "If you mean you want to refuse to make dresses for certain individuals you take a random dislike to, that will piss people off and I will care a little."

"I mean I won't make a dress for somebody I don't wanna make a dress for," he says. "Maybe 'cause I don't like them, maybe 'cause I just can't think of anything good."

"Oh. In that case it's called 'being eccentric and requiring the muse to command you' or something like that," says Bella. "That will only piss off annoying people and I will not care."

"Awesome. In that case, you can pimp out my sewing machine all you want."

"Spiffy. What shall I quote as a ballpark figure when asked?"

"Pick something you think they can afford," he says. "I don't actually care about making money."

"I know you don't, but there's that 'deluge of orders' problem - there are more than enough people here to keep you working twenty-four hours a day if you charge only what you spend on materials." [What you spend on materials. And we don't want anyone wondering where you get such cheap fabric or how you can make so many clothes as a one-person operation.] "How does a round hundred sound?"

"Yeah, sounds great," he says. And also: "I love you."

"He doesn't care about making money," Bella says. "Like, at all."

"In that case it is unsurprisingly affordable!"

Bella laughs. "Yes. So think about what you want, and I can tell him."

"I will do that," Janine says happily.