by Alison Grey
“Are you serious?” I whirled around. “Over pantyhose? You’d take my trip away from me? Daddy? Are you listening to this?”
My father sighed. He continued to stare out the window as he spoke.
“Just do what your mama says, sweetheart.” He looked at me now. “It clearly means something to her.”
My cheeks turned red and it was my mother’s turn to smirk.
“You’re ridiculous,” I spat as I kicked off the sandals.
I was furious. Even now, at twenty-two and a college graduate all except for the piece of paper, I couldn’t escape my mother’s childish pursuits and aims. She didn’t care about the hose, not really.
She just wanted to prove she could still control me. Even over the smallest of things.
Fifty-Seven
AMANDA
Being around the Cobb family reminded me that sometimes it was better to have no family than the kind of family you couldn’t stand to be around.
Hollis’s parents left after the pantyhose debacle and we were left alone to get ready.
“Finally, some peace!” Hollis yelled from the inside of the bathroom. She had a curling iron wrapped around a thick lock of her golden hair.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.
“Jesus Christ who is it now?” Hollis yelped and she kicked the bathroom door closed, leaving me to answer whoever was knocking.
I opened the door and there stood Olivia. She had her gown in her arms, her mortarboard on top of it.
“Can I come in?” she asked, sheepishly.
“Sure…” I replied. “Warning though, Hollis is in a mood. You might want to come back later.”
“Who’s here?” Hollis opened the door again and came out to see who had popped in. Her hair was gorgeous, a halo of perfect, curled tendrils. “Oh. Olivia. Wonderful.”
“I know; you don’t want to see me.” Olivia put her gown down on top of my desk, which slightly irked me. She always acted like her presence and by extension her stuff was welcome anywhere she wanted to place it. “I hate that we’re fighting now, of all times. Can we have a truce, just for today? It’s… it’s graduation day. And we’ve been through so much together. I’d just love to maybe forget about what’s going on and just enjoy the day.”
“Let me guess, you don’t want Mommy and Daddy to find out their perfect little daughter doesn’t have any friends anymore?” Hollis walked toward her, and I could have sworn Olivia was shaking.
“It’s not that.” Olivia shook her head. “I just don’t want to have any tension today. You’re rid of me now. Just let me have this one last day to spend with my friends.”
I’d never seen Olivia look so pitiful. She looked so tiny and sad. I couldn’t help but feel a little bit sorry for her, despite all the shit she’d pulled with each of us.
“Olivia, at this point, I’m so exhausted by you, that I really don’t care,” Hollis retorted. “I have my own problems. It’s whatever. I’m not going to cause a scene at commencement or anything.”
It wasn’t really a truce, but it was the closest thing Olivia would ever get to one with Hollis.
So, she smiled, the same smile that had charmed us when we’d first met her.
“Great.” Olivia looked at me with gratitude in her eyes. “I’ll see y’all at the ceremony.”
And with that, she was gone.
Fifty-Eight
SHERIDAN
We’d all gathered together in front of the library where commencement would take place.
I couldn’t help but tear up when I saw all of us in our black gowns and mortarboards. It had been both a long and short four years together and it suddenly hit me, we’d never be together this much ever again. Not for the rest of our (hopefully) very long lives.
There’s something about being twenty-two years old and on the cusp of beginning your adult life. It’s such an exciting time. I was newly engaged with a bachelor’s degree and parents who were alive.
If I’d known what life would like a mere 24 hours later, I wouldn’t have even believed it. Not for anything in the world.
* * *
All our parents were taking turns capturing pictures of us, our arms around each other.
“Make a silly face!” Mama said. I’d never seen her so happy.
“Now a serious one!” Brooke’s mom said.
We obliged, happily.
Out of nowhere, Olivia approached us as our parents sat down. I hadn’t seen her in quite a while, and she looked different. Her hair was longer and a shade darker, and she’d gained the tiniest bit of weight.
“Hey, Liv,” I said, stepping forward to give her a hug.
Amanda and Hollis just stared at us. Brooke gave her a hug too.
“Are your parents here?” Brooke asked. Olivia nodded, but didn’t point them out in the crowd.
It was just another weird thing about Olivia to add to the list. Did her parents even exist?
“Olivia!” Hollis’s mom was up now, her camera in hand. “I’m glad you’re here, I need a picture of all five of you!”
“Mom it’s enough!” Hollis moaned.
Olivia looked delighted though, and the whole thing was just so awkward.
But we accommodated Mrs. Cobb’s request, like the polite Martha Jefferson women we were.
It was one photo of all five of us, arms around each other.
No one knew then that it would be the last photo Olivia Barron would ever take.
Fifty-Nine
BROOKE
Once the last member of our class, Melanie Zins, heard her name called and walked across the stage, we basked in a final round of applause and we were dismissed into the “real world.”
At the time, none of us had a clue just how quickly everything would become very real.
Our commencement address was given by a poet from Cambodia who had no ties to the school or even the Commonwealth of Virginia that any of us could ascertain. When she’d been announced a few weeks out, Sheridan found a poetry anthology in the school library that had some of her stuff in it, translated from her native Khmer.
She was a strong feminist voice, writing about the fight against an oppressive government, violence that spilled over into her country from the Vietnam War, and about strictly defined, inflexible gender roles in her native culture.
We were all excited to hear her speak, and we expected everyone else to be inspired and moved by her. Instead, it became quickly apparent that while her prose had rightfully attracted the attention of the Martha Jefferson administration, nobody had bothered to actually hear her speak.
From the moment she opened her mouth and we heard her virtually unintelligible attempt at English, we found ourselves looking at each other as if we expected Ashton Kutcher to jump on stage at any moment.
One of our guilty pleasures senior year was a new MTV show called “Punk’d.” We were sure the poet’s thick accent was put on, a prank, and the four of us started scanning for hidden cameras.
The snickering laughter and bewildered looks in the audience made me cringe, and I wished somebody would pull her off stage and let somebody read a few of her works aloud and be done with it.
Alas, Ashton Kutcher wasn’t in Staunton.
She received a warm round of applause from the crowd, and her appearance, if it was intended to draw attention to her work, succeeded in selling at least three copies of her most popular book. Hollis bought hardcovers for Amanda, Sheridan, and me for Christmas that year.
After the ceremony ended, and we had yet another round of pictures and well-wishes with family and friends, the four of us headed to the main ballroom at The Brentmore to fulfill a long-standing Martha Jefferson tradition; the graduation reception. Financed by a group of wealthy alumnae, only graduates from the current class were invited; no boyfriends or family. Your name was either on the list or it wasn’t, and the only way to get there was to be a 2003 Martha Jefferson College graduate. Not even Hollis’s parents could finagle their way inside.
> It was a catered event that included every college student’s favorite two words: open bar.
Some of the girls left the graduation ceremony to be with their families, and mine certainly tried to get me to skip the “decadent festivity,” as my father referred to it, but I was steadfast – I wasn’t going to miss out on one final night in Staunton with Amanda, Hollis, and Sheridan.
If only my folks had been more insistent.
Sixty
HOLLIS
The second we threw our caps into the air, I had only two things on my mind: get rid of the stupid pantyhose my mother made me wear, and then get over to The Brentmore and get as drunk as possible.
As soon as my mother was out of sight, I ducked into the first bathroom I found, which turned out to be one of the rare men’s rooms on campus, and peeled off the detestable pantyhose, leaving them purposely hanging over the side of the trash can just to make the next guy to go in there, hopefully one of our stuffy older professors, recoil in shock at how brazenly slutty Martha Jefferson ladies had become. Sex in the bathroom right after…or during… commencement exercises? Scandalous!
Free of my encumbernment, I met my friends outside. The smile on my face drew questions, and when I explained, everyone laughed.
We crossed the street to The Brentmore with our arms linked, four abreast, fairly skipping into the lobby.
We made our way to the ballroom, where our names were checked off the list and we went inside. Our graduating class numbered 168, and it seemed all but a handful of them had chosen to attend the reception.
We stuck together as we moved through the crowd, a tight-knit, impenetrable quartet. Old grudges and petty jealousies were left behind, and hugs were exchanged by virtually everyone in the room.
There was nothing left to prove, no more competition for grades or guys, nothing but happiness spiced with a note of melancholy.
Badger sisters discussed future plans, some going to grad school, others entering the workforce, and a truly fortunate few heading off to Europe or Australia to begin a few months, a year, or lifetime of “finding themselves” on Daddy’s dime.
One girl none of us knew well, Kimber Falk, had her future decided for her, and it was one none of us envied. She was eight months along as she waddled across stage to accept her diploma, having gotten knocked up at a party at James Madison back in the Fall. Her future included diapers; lots and lots of diapers.
But she was there at the reception, skipping the alcohol, but socializing, eating, dancing, laughing, and glowing. I watched her a while when she stopped by the next table, and there was something so beautiful and pure about her, the way she moved and the way everyone tentatively touched her tummy to feel for kicks, then squealed in delight when the baby moved.
It made me wonder which of us had babies in our future. Brooke and Sheridan, almost certainly. I had no plans to “settle down,” but I supposed that eventually the right guy might come long. I could see Amanda as a mother, but she seemed destined for something big, something none of us could quite figure, but she was too pretty a bird not to soar at some point.
Even Wendi and her little band of sycophants were tolerable that night, cordial and friendly. Almost everyone at the reception had a camera of some sort, and the tables even had disposables like at a wedding reception. A pale, skinny girl with long, straight, dark hair and a beak for a nose named Caroline had taken things a step further and was following Wendi around with a camcorder as if she were Wendi’s personal documentarian. I only knew Caroline through Wendi and because we were both smokers and huddled together outside to get our nicotine fixes on cold Staunton nights. I didn’t recall ever having a class with her in our entire four years. Or even seeing her on campus, apart from Wendi. Maybe she was so skinny if she turned sideways she was rendered invisible?
Sheridan and I wound up alone together at the table with the remains of dinner, trying to decide if our waistlines could survive a trip to the chocolate fountain in the corner, when the one person in our entire class who I somehow hadn’t seen all evening plopped down between us in the chair where Brooke had been sitting.
“Hey, y’all,” she said.
“Hello, Olivia,” Sheridan replied. I gave her a half-hearted little wave.
“I’m heading back to the bar, want anything?” I asked Sheridan. I needed another drink, or twenty, if I was going to deal with Olivia’s bullshit.
“Hollis, I really need to talk to you… maybe Sheridan can get the drinks?” Olivia suggested.
I rolled my eyes and sighed.
“Sure. Whatever. Why should I get to enjoy my graduation reception?” I asked, rhetorically. “Sheridan, I need tequila. I don’t care what kind, I just have a feeling I’m going to need lots of it.”
Sheridan gave me a thumbs up and went off in search of more alcohol. I caught Amanda’s eye across the room, and she made a face when she noticed Olivia at the table. I’d lost track of Brooke when she’d wandered off to chat with a few of her fellow social work grads.
“Ok, you have my undivided attention. Since you’re here, you evidently took care of your obligations with the school. Is saying ‘you’re welcome’ the right protocol even when the person blackmailing you hasn’t said thank you?”
“Sorry, thank you,” Olivia said quietly. “I told you, I was desperate. I didn’t like doing it, but it was the only way.”
“Cut the bullshit,” I replied, stabbing a cluster of bacon bits in my salad with a fork and popping them into my mouth. “You already crashed our pictures earlier, what else do you want?”
“This isn’t easy for me,” Olivia claimed, “But again, I don’t have any other options. You guys all have plans, I heard Brooke was going to George Mason and you have law school or whatever, like, life is set for the four of you, right?”
“Nothing is set, Olivia. Those of use continuing in school will be working our asses off. Just like those of us getting jobs, starting careers. That’s how the world works. It’s the same with every girl in here, except maybe Kimber. She has a whole different set of challenges ahead.”
Olivia stared at our pregnant classmate and I could almost see the wheels turning in her scam artist’s mind. Perhaps a fake pregnancy was in her future?
I looked around for Sheridan. I needed that drink.
“Well, anyway, yeah, you guys all have things set up for the next year and beyond. I just… I don’t. I don’t have the advantages any of you have.”
I interrupted her, then and there. “Advantages? What advantage does Amanda have? She has no money, no family, just her brains and her drive and she applied to a bunch of places just like everybody else.”
“That’s just it. I have something lined up. But it’s in California.”
“Here we go again, let me guess, you’re replacing Jennifer Aniston on Friends? Or playing Tom Cruise’s love interest in next summer’s blockbuster? You’re so full of shit, Olivia.”
Olivia recoiled a bit. When I confronted her on her lies, it scared her. I was the one among us who I think saw completely through her.
“Regardless of what you believe or don’t believe, I have things lined up in California. Some people are just born to be stars, you know? All I lack is the means to get there and get set up. That’s where you come in.”
“Oh, hell no. I am so finished with you and your schemes. You’re not getting any more money out of me. Forget it.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Olivia responded. “Sorry for Brooke, that is. Did you know her parents are staying at the Econo Lodge? Well, they are. And the night manager there, Terry, is a friend of mine. He has an envelope that’s going under their door tonight unless he hears differently from me. And Hollis, you know what’s in that envelope, right? Imagine them waking up to that tomorrow morning.”
I was seething. Despite the crowd of people mingling around us, I was strongly considering wringing Olivia’s neck right then and there. Squeezing her throat in my hands until her head popped like a balloon.
“Fuck. You.” I spat the words at her. “You evil, conniving bitch. You care that little for Brooke after years of living together and us accepting you and loving and sharing with you that you’re willing to ruin her life and her parents lives for money? For money you’ll burn through in a month and come back looking for more? What the hell is wrong with you?” I grabbed a glass with the remains of Amanda’s rum and coke in it and downed it in one shot. Gross, but I needed it. I wanted to scream at her.
“It’s barely anything to your family. An afternoon shopping at the mall. Just figure it out, or Brooke’s parents will get their present and you’ll be responsible for-”
Olivia was cut off by a voice over her left shoulder.
“What about my parents, Olivia?”
Sixty-One
SHERIDAN
I arrived back at our table a step behind Brooke. From the look on Hollis’s face, I could tell she was pissed. She’d been getting progressively louder throughout her conversation with Olivia.
“What about my parents, Olivia?” Brooke asked from behind our ex-roommate. I was on the other side of Olivia with my hands filled with glasses.
“Oh, I was just saying your parents looked so happy at graduation, that’s all, Brooke. You look great, by the way,” Olivia said. “Have you lost weight?”
Hollis stared daggers through Olivia.
“No, I heard you as I walked up, you said something about a present and Hollis would be responsible, right?” Brooke asked. She tried to smile through her confusion.