by Mary Adkins
“See? That was a wholesome thing to say.”
“Fuck off.”
“Even your ‘fuck off’ is wholesome.”
I turned away, and when I turned back, he was staring into his computer screen at the tulips, curled-up cats, and snails.
“I just love that it’s, like, nature’s secret code for beauty,” he said. He turned back to face me. “Just because you’re wholesome doesn’t mean you aren’t beautiful,” he said.
Beautiful. No one had ever called me beautiful before. A warm sensation rose through my chest and neck.
“You haven’t said anything about my legs,” I said, glancing down at my bare skin, splayed out on his bed.
“I figured,” he said carefully, “you would tell me about them when you’re ready.”
I had studied his legs, of course, as I did everyone’s. They were slender and muscled under a layer of blond fuzz—the illusion of hair, a haze. His skin was sort of translucent, like a shade or two of pigment got left out of his genome by accident.
“Cool,” I said and smiled.
I really thought I was going to be okay. I really did.
11
Bea
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 9–MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 11
“Something you love!” Chris’s voice as he called out the prompt sounded small, and Bea wondered if the people in the back of the auditorium could hear him. The space was twice as large, if not larger, than the black box theater where she’d first seen the team perform two weekends earlier. Doughnuts! Bea heard. Harry Potter! Ariana Grande! The Obamas!
“France!” Chris announced. “France is the word.” As he turned, he glanced only briefly at Bea. As promised, she stepped forward. She’d been struck by an idea in the shower that morning—she would tell a story about Lorn’s family rather than her own. As luck would have it, “France” immediately summoned a memory. She took the center of the stage and inhaled.
“A few years ago, I was in Paris on vacation with my friend’s family. My friend’s dad doesn’t speak great French—by that I mean he speaks really bad French. My friend and I had both studied French for years, and his wife spoke a little, but he was determined to practice without our help. Every restaurant we’d go to, he’d order, and we weren’t allowed to correct him, because he wanted to see if he could—quote—communicate.
“‘The goal is just to communicate,’” she said, imitating Lorn’s father’s deep, domineering voice, “‘which is much easier than people realize. You don’t even need grammar. We make it way too hard on ourselves.’ This reasoning led him to conclude that he more or less ‘spoke’ five languages—because if he gestured enough, eventually someone would figure out what he was trying to say.”
Snickers peppered the room.
“One night we were eating, and he decided he wanted more clams. He didn’t know the word for clams, so he just kept saying ‘beaucoup!’ and flailing his arms. The server looked at him kind of funny, which we were used to by this point. We just figured that, yet again, the server was thinking, Why does this man seem to think that by staring at me so intently that his eyes look ready to pop, I’ll eventually understand him?
“The next night we were joined for dinner by a French acquaintance of his. This time, when he started yelling ‘beaucoup!’ and flailing his arms, his friend covered her mouth like she was about to spit out her wine and grabbed his arm. Apparently his pronunciation of the word—‘beau cul’—means ‘nice ass.’
“Throughout Paris, he’d been yelling at waiters and waitresses, ‘Nice ass! NICE! ASS!’”
A loose applause accompanied Bea’s walk back to the line as Lesley dashed past, launching a scene in which she played a clam stuck shut.
THE SHOW WAS a thrill. During the final ovation, Bea felt proud, elated, afire—the sense of possibility that took hold when she did improv! The world felt as if it were waiting, ready for her to spin it into fun, into delight. All she wanted to do was spin from now on.
Standing outside the auditorium and waiting for the others to head over to Russell’s dorm room for the after-party, she felt lazy with happiness.
“Hey, there,” a voice said. She turned. A boy with puffy hair stood smoking a cigarette.
“Hi,” she said.
“You’re funny,” he said.
“Thanks,” she said.
“You’re the funniest. You and the other girl.”
“Bea!” Early called out, waving as she made her way through the stream of students trickling out of the building. “You were awesome!” Her roommate dove into Bea for a hug.
In the same moment, a girl in a green T-shirt and cutoffs appeared behind the boy, and it took him a moment to notice her.
“You were amazing,” the girl said to Bea. As she and the boy turned to go, Bea noticed the girl’s legs, which were covered in scars.
How sad, she thought. Not the scars themselves but whatever had caused them—it was obvious that it had been something painful.
THEY STATIONED THEMSELVES around Russell’s room, which was located in one of the “independent” upper-class dorm buildings, as they were called to distinguish them from the Greek ones. The twelve of them sprawled across two bunks, a dingy shag rug, a black leather desk chair and a futon Russell said he’d inherited from a previous occupant.
Chris sat next to Bea on the floor, a fact she assumed was coincidental until, three hours in, during a round of Fuck, Marry, Kill, he chose to fuck her and marry Todd. As her beer consumption climbed, Bea became aware that perhaps, possibly, her consonants were slipping out from under her, just as Lesley and Todd stood and announced they were going to a bar if anyone wanted to join.
“I should go home,” Bea said, standing, a bit wobbly. It was her first night drinking at Carter, and she could tell it was time to call it a night. Besides, she didn’t have a fake ID.
“Me too,” said Chris.
The group trickled into the quad, with Todd and Lesley leading the way to the bar and the others scattering in the direction of their rooms. Turning to face her, Chris offered to walk Bea home.
“I’m on South Campus, remember?” she said. “Plus, I’m a feminist.”
It was a dumb joke, but she was drunk. Drunk, she tried to forgive herself for it.
“You can walk me home then,” Chris said as Bea fumbled in her bag for her phone. Before she found it, he had stepped forward and placed a hand on her hip. His breath was warm on her nose. He asked if he could kiss her.
“Okay,” she said quietly.
His lips were muscular, more so than she expected, and his mustache tickled less than she would have thought. She closed her eyes and kissed back as her own hand drifted up to his neck. It was prickly, his skin cold. She pulled back.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing. I should go home.” She dug again for her phone, found it, and checked the time. “It’s almost two.”
“All right,” he said. “I can at least walk you to the bus stop.”
“No,” she said quickly. “I’m good.”
“Got it,” he said, not unkindly but as if he’d received the message. “Goodnight, Bea.” He gave her a disappointed half grin before turning and jogging off. She could tell she’d hurt his feelings, but it wasn’t as if she’d had a choice; her revulsion had been instant and unequivocal.
Why had she allowed him to kiss her in the first place? Dammit, Bea, she cursed herself as she crossed the dewy quad in the dark, making her way to the bus stop. Now it would be awkward forever.
On the ride across campus, she ceased thinking about Chris and let her thoughts return to the night’s show, how much fun it had been. By the time she reached her room to find Early deep in sleep, snoring loudly, her buzz had lost its edge, and she’d caught a second wind.
As had become her regular routine many nights, she signed into Facebook to pull up Lester Bertrand’s profile. This time she didn’t just browse through the photos.
Was it the alcohol coursing through her
that made her do it? Her pride at having performed—well—for a crowd of her peers? Not just her peers, but her older peers? The puffy-haired boy who had called her the funniest?
Add friend, she clicked. The text in the box disappeared, and “Pending” appeared in its place. To the throaty sounds of Early’s snores, she stared at the letters on her screen until they began to blur. Alone, it was too weird, the friend request. Without explanation, without introduction, it wouldn’t be strange for him to find this bizarre, even if he did know about her.
She clicked “Message” and began to type.
Dear Lester,
I know that you and my mother, Phaedra, worked together at Brigham in the ’90s. I don’t know if you are aware, but she passed away three years ago.
For a long time now I have wondered if you and I are related. In other words, if you may be my father. Therefore, I wanted to introduce myself. If not, please disregard this message.
I hope all is well. You have a very cute son.
Sincerely,
Bea Powers
TWO DAYS LATER, on Monday, Bea still hadn’t received a response to her late-night message, but she did awake to two emails from Carter faculty—one from her academic adviser, a squirrely man named Dr. Toast (Dr. Toast!) with whom she’d had to meet briefly so that he could approve her course schedule. His email reminded her to schedule at least two “check-ins” with him before the end of the semester. But it was the other email she’d been waiting for. It was from the coordinator of the Justice Scholars Program: she’d been assigned her first case as a student advocate.
At the student advocacy training on the previous Saturday, she and her classmates had been lectured by a woman in her thirties in a coral blouse and cream pencil skirt with sand-colored patent heels, a corporate-looking ensemble that outed her as a Carter outsider. She’d presented via PowerPoint, dwelling interminably on a slide that read, in block letters: ADVOCATE: Both a verb AND a noun! One called to AID. SUPPORT.
Over the course of the three-hour training, the trainer had repeatedly stressed the breadth of the word’s application:
“You aren’t the support in judicial matters,” the skirted woman had said over and over. “You are the support around judicial matters. Being a party to a case is lonely, even isolating for students. Often they’re hesitant to talk to their friends about their case out of embarrassment, shame, or simply wanting to retain privacy. The process itself can also be confusing and disorienting, as clear as we try to be about what they can expect. You are there as an emotional support and a source of information and guidance. Think of it this way—if they don’t know whom to talk to or what to do? That’s where you come in.”
The email directed Bea to report to the student affairs office at her earliest convenience to receive the case file. As she made her way to Dean Arroyo’s office on her way to physics lab, she spotted Veronique and Simone, a third-year Justice Scholar, walking toward her.
“Hi, Bea,” Veronique said. Bea noted that both were holding manila folders. “Are you going to pick up your case, too?”
“Yeah,” Bea said. “Do we all have cases already?” It seemed early in the year for there to be so many.
“The three of us do, at least,” Veronique said, “although mine apparently is a carryover from the summer session.” Veronique explained that two summer students had removed a temporary gargoyle from the façade of the new dorm going up on the southeast quad. It was found in the gardens in a sun hat next to a cooler of Corona. “I’m not telling you anything that isn’t all over social media,” she added. “They posted the whole thing in real time.”
“What’s a temporary gargoyle?” Bea asked.
“A gargoyle that’s not permanent? I don’t know.” Veronique’s laugh was raspy. “I think it was made of plaster or something. The weirder part is, these gargoyles are supposed to look like the donors who paid for the building. Like making a monster version of your face is a compliment? Talk about a terrible idea.”
Bea had found herself wanting Veronique to like her. Veronique reminded her a little bit of Lorn—the nonchalance, the air of not caring what others thought. Bea had wondered if she and Veronique might even become best friends. But if “V” had any interest in a friendship with Bea, she wasn’t showing it.
“How about you, what’s your case?” Bea asked, turning to Simone, who smiled politely. She’d met Simone only briefly at the program’s meet and greet.
“I probably shouldn’t talk about it,” she said. “Not without permission.”
“Of course,” Bea said, embarrassed to have asked but also embarrassed for Simone, whose tone was unnecessarily condescending, smacking of sugary self-righteousness.
Moments later, she entered Dean Arroyo’s office, where an administrative assistant handed her a folder with her name on it. Bea took it from her and managed to make it just outside the building before she couldn’t resist opening it.
After reading some technical exposition about not assigning advocates and students of the same class year in order to avoid conflicts, yada yada, she reached the important part—two allegations of sexual misconduct. She wasn’t provided the name of the complainant yet—a female second-year student—only the name of the respondent, her assigned student. He was a fourth-year, and she was to reach out to him as soon as possible.
Bea took in a breath and held it.
Fuck.
These days Bea fell into the camp of believing any woman who said she’d been sexually assaulted. She’d spent enough hours at Porter’s—both in class and out—discussing #MeToo to know where she stood.
A sexual assault had to be her first case?
She stood and began to walk in the direction of Science Row, the suite of science buildings that ran along the back side of Main Campus. She was already late for lab, but she wasn’t thinking about physics. As she drifted, case file in hand and her bag hanging on her shoulder, Bea found herself thinking about Samantha Pilch, who dropped out of Porter’s in eighth grade after telling them all—not the adults, but just her peers—that the soccer coach, Coach Reed, had groped her. He was in his twenties, cute, and occasionally flirty, doing things like patting their butts or pinching their waistlines. They’d enjoyed it, frankly. A bunch of them had crushes on him, including Bea, if only because he was the only male approximating their age within walking distance.
So when Samantha said he’d grabbed her breasts and tried to take off her jersey one Sunday after their game, their fourteen-year-old reactions tended toward suspicion. They wondered aloud about her motives in telling them about it. Was she hoping to make the rest of them envious?
It wasn’t until she didn’t return for ninth grade that the incident had truly begun to bother Bea, when she started to wonder if she’d responded appropriately by listening but then moving on, changing nothing about her own behavior or treatment of Coach Reed. Coach Reed had remained at Porter’s for a couple more years. By Bea’s senior year, he was gone, and with the more mature perspective of an eighteen-year-old, she saw him in a different light. He was a faculty member, an adult. He shouldn’t even have been flirting with them.
But she also believed in due process.
Two ideas.
She reached the physics building and checked the time—she was now twelve minutes late, but she spotted a bench a short distance away and headed for it. She dropped her bag onto the grass and took a seat. She’d never called Dr. Friedman on his cell before, and she had no idea if he’d pick up.
As the phone rang, she felt pathetic; how quickly her excitement over the two-ideas notion had crumbled. Her first case, and she was already reluctant.
Dr. Friedman picked up after the first ring. She cut to the chase.
“I got my first case. It’s a sexual assault,” she said.
In the background she could hear horns honking and the wail of a distant siren.
“How do you feel about that?” he asked, as she noticed she could also hear his quick footsteps on the pav
ement.
“Uncomfortable,” she said. “More uncomfortable than I expected.”
“One second,” he said. For several seconds, she could only hear city noises and shuffling. “Okay, back,” he said. “I just texted you a photo. Let me know when you get it.”
Just then her phone chimed, and there it was: a photo of a snapshot of a chubby kid taken before the days of digital photography.
“Got it?” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
“That’s me,” he said.
She laughed. “Okay.”
“That was after I did the Atkins diet for an entire year and spent the summer at fat camp.”
She waited for him to say more. What did this have to do with her case?
“I was overweight until I was thirty. It was a huge source of insecurity for me. One of my first clients was a man who thought it was funny to make fun of my weight every time I saw him. He called me the biggest loser. That’s just one example. I’ve had clients call me all kinds of awful names. Tell me I’m worse than the prosecutor. That I’m an idiot and not smart enough to be their lawyer. That they’d rather the devil represent them than me. That I’m worse than Donald Trump.”
Bea chuckled. This time, she heard him chuckle too.
“Meanwhile, there I am, working my ass off for them! Late nights, weekends. . . . I’m working for people who don’t blink twice before insulting me. One guy fired me four times. Four times!”
“How?” Bea asked.
“Well, usually he’d rehire me about an hour later or the next day. But every time he assured me that it was only out of desperation. What am I getting at here? You have to remove your personal feelings from the case. That includes your personal feelings about its substance. Your biases. Your own fears. Your own triggers. You, Bea Powers, cannot allow what a client throws at you to affect you, because if you do, well, you’d only end up doing your best for people you like. And that wouldn’t be very equitable, would it?”
“Okay,” she said. It made sense.
“I’m not scolding or correcting you,” he said. “So please—no reason to sound dejected. This is hard stuff. You’re just starting it. You only learn by doing. I have to head into class. We can chat more next week. Hang in there. And, Bea,” Dr. Friedman said, “remember—each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve done.”