Isabella is beautiful and popular. Her best friend, Bridget, keeps quietly to the fringes of their Connecticut Catholic school, watching everything and everyone, but most especially Isabella. In 1957, when the girls graduate, they land coveted spots at a prestigious art history school on the grounds of a silent convent in northern Italy. There, free of the town that will always see her and her Egyptian mother as outsiders, Bridget discovers she can reinvent herself as anyone she desires . . . perhaps even someone Isabella could desire in return. But Bridget begins to suspect Isabella is keeping a secret from her, one that will change the course of their lives forever.