Privilege

by Mary Adkins

  “Fine. I should have filed. Is there really nothing I can do at this point? Can we not reduce this at all?”

  “Sweetheart, I wish I could help. But you gotta file and pay taxes if you work. Everyone does. And I hate to be the bearer of more bad news, but this bill is only from the federal government. Once the state eventually catches on, you’re going to get a bill from them, too.”

  STAYJA LET THE espresso canister drop into the sink with a crash and then slammed the blender pitcher into it as well, ignoring the student buried in a book who started and glanced over at the noise. She felt the urge to break something, to throw the heavy aluminum ice scoop through the window of the café. She leaned onto her elbows on the counter and covered her face with her hands.

  So there was no way she’d be able to resume classes in the spring. Or probably summer or even fall. This bill had just set her back years.

  Stayja wasn’t a spiritual person; she hadn’t been raised to be. Donna’s take that “I don’t trust anyone who needs something to happen to my soul” had always sounded right to her.

  But standing there in the café, that damn tax bill tormenting her from her bag in the cabinet, she found herself bidding someone, anyone, who might be listening for help.

  I can’t do it anymore. Please.

  Very plainly, a word popped into her brain, as if someone had spoken it aloud.

  Gibson.

  After Tyler’s suggestion that she apply for the medical linkage program, she’d spent several days half-entertaining the idea. She’d been flattered by it, but it seemed outrageous in many ways, unconquerable, even the basics: the seventy-five-dollar application fee, never mind the cost of attendance. Moving.

  Moving. She couldn’t leave her mother, so even if she were to be admitted and figured out how to pay for it, Donna would have to come along. Donna did love the beach, though, and Gibson was on the coast. Still, Donna would never want to leave Adrienne. Then again, Donna and Adrienne weren’t currently speaking.

  Whenever she thought of a reason not to apply, it seemed to be followed by a conflicting consideration. Of course, she couldn’t afford it—now less than ever. But if she became a doctor, she could pay back her student loans.

  If you’re going to take out a loan, take out one for nursing school.

  But the nagging, the tugging at her.

  Did she even have a shot at being admitted? There was no way she would be. Then again, she’d made all As in all of her science classes so far, and the program advertised itself as being open to students transitioning from two-year programs. As Tyler had pointed out, the first phase of the application process required only an essay and an unofficial transcript.

  And there was this: that she’d never shaken that conversation she’d had with Tyler during one of their early nights together, in which he’d unwittingly implied that she was poor because she made the kind of decisions poor people make.

  He hadn’t meant it to come across that way, but was it true?

  16

  Annie

  SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21–SUNDAY, OCTOBER 22

  “I guess I just mean, what’s the goal of therapy?” I was seated across from Loretta on a Thursday, the second of our two forty-five-minute sessions for the week. I’d decided to bring up the frequency of our sessions—what was the point?—not because I had any problem with meeting so often (since I was a student, it didn’t cost anything, and because I had no interest in a social life, I had the time), but because I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be doing in it. I didn’t know if I was doing therapy right. I’d just show up and talk.

  Truthfully, I liked it. Loretta was the only person I could really talk to. I was finding it increasingly difficult to relate to Matty. I wondered if it had to do with his air, however subtle, of self-satisfaction at having been right about Tyler. It wasn’t anything in particular that he said—it just wafted off him, leaving me to wonder if the whole thing had been my fault. Unlike Matty, I had failed to recognize Tyler’s true nature when I should have. As for my other friends, there weren’t really any I felt close enough to talk with about what had happened.

  And so I talked to Loretta.

  Still, I grew impatient, frustrated by the lack of concrete takeaways generated during our sessions. I brought this up—what was our goal in meeting so often? Like a good therapist, she threw it back at me—what did I think the goal was?

  “I don’t know,” I said. “To ‘get over’ my rape?” I quoted the air with my fingers.

  She smiled kindly. “I am guessing you know that’s absurd and that’s why you put air quotes around it like that.”

  I conceded this with a slight smile.

  “The rape as a traumatic experience is a part of you now. It’s something you will carry with you for the rest of your life. It may always make you sad. Or it may trigger new feelings as time goes on. Your relationship to it may evolve, just as relationships with people do. For now, I think the step is realizing this—there will be no ‘getting over’ it.”

  We sat listening to the air conditioner humming. I appreciated that Loretta—and it seemed only Loretta—said it the way she did, that she called it rape. She didn’t say “what happened to you” like Caroline, or “the thing” like Matty, or “the assault” like Dean Sharon. Were people afraid that by calling it what it was, they’d somehow alert me to that fact? As if I didn’t already know?

  “How does that make you feel?” she asked after a long silence.

  “Rage,” I said.

  THE PARENTS’ WEEKEND CONCERT was the best we’d sounded since I’d joined orchestra at the beginning of my first year, and afterward I accepted the orange daffodils Matty’s mom had brought for me and thanked her and his dad for coming to hear our performance.

  “Matt told us your parents couldn’t make it, and we’re so sorry they weren’t able to hear this incredible concert. Truly a treat,” she said, lightly touching my arm. She smelled like perfume, which my own mom never wore. I’d wound up asking my parents not to come up, insisting on it by claiming that I was way too busy preparing for midterms to have time for them. To my surprise, especially after I hadn’t gone home for fall break, they had agreed to respect my wishes.

  “Where is Matty?” I asked her.

  “He had to run out halfway through the concert for some deadline or story—you know how he is with the paper. We’re heading back after we grab some lunch. Wonderful to see you, Annie. Have you lost weight?”

  I resisted the temptation to make a joke—a perk of rape is a decrease in appetite! Then I realized Matty hadn’t told his parents, and I was grateful.

  “Annie!” a voice called. I turned to find Diana Yeager, Danny’s mother, rushing toward me. Behind her was Danny, my former bassoon student, looking taller and with more pimples. I was surprised to see them both, since they had moved to Tennessee in July. “Hi!”

  She hugged me and stepped aside so that Danny and I could embrace. He shyly leaned in for a side hug and then stepped back in a hurry. He was notably taller.

  “We came down for the weekend. Danny is dying to go to Carter now because of you. Aren’t you, Danny?”

  He blushed and looked away as Matty’s mother gave me a small wave and disappeared.

  “Your former pupil is here!” Juan-Pablo said, approaching. “I hope you enjoyed the concert,” he said to the Yeagers.

  “Absolutely!” she said. “Annie was fantastic. Wasn’t she, Danny?”

  Danny mumbled a yes.

  “I was telling her Danny is dying to come here now after hearing how much she loves it. Is college still treating you well, Annie? How is your year so far?”

  “It’s good,” I said, aware of how high my voice had jumped in pitch.

  “Diana, would you like to meet the vice provost?” Juan-Pablo said, placing an arm on her shoulder to escort her away.

  Juan-Pablo, always protecting me without either of us having to spell out anything. It nearly made me tear up.

  AS I HEADED
back to my room, my long cotton orchestra dress did little to shield my shrunken body against the crisp late October wind. Upon entering the dorm, I recognized their legs first: my mother’s red clogs and black ankle pants, my father’s brown Clarks, and Matty’s blue Vans. They were seated facing each other on opposite couches in the common room, their upper bodies hidden by both sides of the wall. My mother leaned forward at the sound of the door opening.

  “Hey,” I said, walking over. “You came.”

  “Sweetheart,” said my mom, rising to put her arms around me, her face sunken with concern. “I hope it’s okay.”

  “Of course it’s okay,” I said. Matty was staring at the floor.

  “How was the concert?” my mom asked.

  “Good. I mean, you could have come if you were going to be here anyway.” I was surprised how normal I was acting, the most normal I’d acted in weeks. Maybe it was that I was still in performance mode. Or maybe I wanted to perform normalcy to spare them the pain I knew they’d feel if they knew the truth.

  “I told them to come because I’m worried about you, Annie,” said Matty feverishly. “I’m sorry if you think I betrayed you, but you sleep all the time. You seem depressed.”

  So this was how this was going to happen—an intervention in the common room of my dorm.

  “We should go to my room,” I said, turning. “I need to tell you something.”

  IT FELT AS if it took forever and no time. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, it was over, but at first no one said anything or moved. When they did speak, they asked questions I hated answering. Why didn’t I tell them sooner? Had I needed a lawyer? Did I need one now? Why had the investigation been over so quickly? There was rehashing that I didn’t feel in the mood for but endured. My dad and Matty both mostly stayed quiet, though I could tell how difficult my dad was finding the conversation by the way his chest was visibly expanding and contracting in his golf shirt. That, and the fact that his face had flushed burgundy.

  “I am going to talk to the dean,” he said, his jaw clenched. “This is unacceptable.”

  “Dad, please don’t. Please.” Outside my first-floor window, which was cracked open, a stream of parents and younger siblings passed in a frenzy of green-and-white Carter gear, coming from the football game, a swirl of foam “Number 1” hands, dinky pompoms, and camping equipment used for tailgating. “I don’t want you to do that. I just want it to be over,” I said.

  His eyes darted around the room.

  “I promise,” I said as my voice cracked, “I am okay. I promise. I am twenty years old. I can handle it.”

  “I can’t not say something,” he said finally. “I can’t.” My mother was gripping her knees, a maze of purple pressing against the thin skin of her hands.

  “Fine,” I said, exhausted. “Say something.”

  “Oh, Annie,” my mother said. “This is very hard. This is unimaginably hard.” I wasn’t sure whether she was speaking for herself or for me, and I didn’t ask her to clarify.

  WE SPENT THE next twenty-four hours of Parents’ Weekend pretending things were normal while the fact that I’d been raped accompanied us like an annoying fifth person we collectively—and unsuccessfully—were attempting to ignore. Matty came along for all of it, which I presumed to be his self-imposed penance for summoning my parents. That afternoon, we went to see the Eighteenth-Century European Women Painters exhibit at the Carter art museum. My dad, an art history buff, rose out of his brooding long enough to lecture us on what he remembered about the painters, all of whom seemed to have been successful only because at some point Marie Antoinette recognized their talent, including Anne Vallayer-Coster, whose 1773 Portrait of a Violinist drew my mother’s attention.

  “Look, Annie, it’s you.”

  The girl, expressionless, gazed down at a score in her lap. In her right hand, she gripped a violin in a way no one would ever hold that instrument.

  The panel to the right of the painting read: She draws us into the intimate world of the model: an inexpert violinist who has broken off her musical exercises and is lost in thought.

  “If the violin were a bassoon, I mean,” she said.

  Her comment made no sense, because I wasn’t inexpert at the bassoon, so I didn’t say anything back.

  When Matty proposed going to the family-friendly show performed by the campus improv team, I was so grateful that I almost forgave him. A show meant we wouldn’t have to make conversation.

  Then, as we waited in the buzzing auditorium for it to start, two girls near us in the audience began loudly discussing the campus news item of the weekend—a student running on the Carter running trail had been groped by a stranger. The story had been especially hyped in the newspaper, given that it happened at the start of Parents’ Weekend, and the administration was responding by promising swift and dramatic action—more blue emergency phones along the trail and throughout campus and even temporary security personnel to monitor the path. Dean Sharon had been quoted encouraging students to run in pairs. As I’d read the initial article, the irony of the college’s response had been irritating enough that I’d set the paper aside and pushed the story out of my mind. Now my family sat, not speaking, as the students in the row in front of us made it impossible to avoid.

  “Like, who gropes? What does groping get you? I mean, like, I get that it’s basically just a power move, like toxic masculinity baby steps, but it just feels so silly almost.”

  “Maybe things only ended where they did because she got away,” the other student said.

  Suddenly, my mom was lunging toward me and her hands were cupping my ears.

  “Mom!” I yelled, yanking her hands off my head.

  “Don’t listen!” she whispered.

  “Mom!” I said again. “Stop it. God.”

  In my periphery I saw Matty cover his mouth to stifle a giggle, and as the lights dimmed and the applause rose to drown out the girls’ voices, I did find I was relieved to have avoided hearing more. The room sank into darkness, and I closed my eyes. Don’t fall asleep, Annie, I told myself. I was certain I’d start snoring.

  But sleep was impossible. The stage lights flew on to deafening cheers as the team ran out onto the stage. I watched, half paying attention, half fighting my heavy eyelids.

  During intermission, Matty whispered, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking when I suggested this show.”

  “What?” I asked, confused.

  “You came to an improv show with him,” he said.

  That had been so different and so long ago. Once again, I had the sensation of being deeply misunderstood. Just as people thought the word rape might trigger me, Matty thought improv might as well? How? By making me remember what had happened to me? I thought about what happened to me constantly. I didn’t need an improv show to remind me.

  “Oh,” I said. “Yeah, no worries.”

  On the walk back to my dorm, my mother surprised me by asking, “You didn’t like it?”

  “I did,” I said. “Why?”

  “You didn’t laugh at all,” she said.

  “I didn’t?” I asked.

  “Maybe you did, and I didn’t hear it,” she said, turning away.

  By the time we were having Sunday morning breakfast at Lloyd’s, my dad’s favorite diner because of the coffee you can serve yourself while you wait for a table, I was desperate for my parents to leave. Their sulking over my rape had become insufferable. I had nothing left with which to buoy my own spirit, never mind my parents’.

  We said goodbye in the parking lot of the diner. As soon as their Volvo disappeared over the crest of Main Street, Matty and I spoke at the same time.

  “I know you’re mad at me,” he said. Before I could answer, he said, “But I have an idea.”

  17

  Bea

  LATE SEPTEMBER–MID-OCTOBER

  “College is treating you well!” The Birches’ pilot, a bald, potbellied man named Steve, opened his arms for a hug. He took her bag and opened the hatch a
t the front of the plane to store it as Bea climbed the narrow stairs into Lorn’s family’s Gulfstream. It was the Wednesday afternoon of fall break, and she was bound for Connecticut, where she’d spend the next five days. Lorn’s parents, Audrey and Barry, would be there, of course, and as a last-minute surprise, so would Lorn, even though it wasn’t Vassar’s fall break yet. She was going to miss two classes so they could spend a few days together.

  “Music?” Steve asked as the plane began to roll down the tarmac.

  “I’m okay with whatever you want,” Bea said. It was the third time she’d ridden on their plane but the first time without at least one of them present, and she was still a bit in awe of the soft, plush seats and her own casual distance from the cockpit.

  A text arrived from Audrey: SEE YOU SOON! TEXT ME WHEN YOU LAND

  “Stevie Wonder it is, then,” he said as soul music filled the small space.

  She was surprised when they said they’d send the plane for her, but Audrey had explained that Steve was flying back north after dropping off a colleague of Barry’s in Atlanta and could “swing by.” As they took off, Bea swallowed hard to pop her ears, her thoughts returning to the afternoon. She’d received her physics mid-term grade: a D. When she saw it on the screen of her laptop, she was dumbfounded. She’d never made lower than a B+ in any course or on any test that she could remember. A D! It was appalling, terrible, thrilling.

  After Early’s mugging had preempted her visit to her adviser’s office to drop Physics, she’d never actually gone to meet with him. To get a D—a D!—was humiliating, but she’d also discovered a kind of strange delight about it, a pleasure in realizing that her actions had consequences. Was this what it felt like to be a rebel, to fail at something and not attempt to salvage it?

  Looking out over the sheet of white clouds beneath them in the sky, she remembered once seeing a cresting wave, frozen, during Christmas break in the Hamptons. The cold air had captured it at the moment of its peaking. It was white and frothy, full of movement but somehow also perfectly still.