Dr. Atwood looked out the window onto the pristine quad. A vine of wisteria was draped across her thick pane, and the purple buds were beginning to bloom.
She winced after taking a sip of cold coffee and looked back to me.
“Also, I just want to know this: are the campus health-clinic employees and security employees aware of the definition and policy for student-to-student assaults? And if they are, are they encouraged to report the crimes?”
Dr. Atwood took a deep breath. I suspected that she was adept at dodging bullets, and I watched her scan the pile of files on her desk before responding.
“If what happened to you is true, I am sorry, Miss Piper. I have rarely heard of such an incident at an institution like ours. Consider your case extremely rare, because that’s exactly what it is. While I find it admirable that you want to help your fellow students, I can assure you that this is not a common occurrence at Nathaniel Buxton University.”
I was about to thank her for her time and forget the whole matter. Maybe Dr. Atwood was right. It would be just like me, I thought, to be the only one in the world to have such a freak thing happen to her.
Push on, I heard that third voice say. The one that Mr. Lewis spoke of in Mere Christianity—not the conscience that wants to do right or the lazy side that wants to forget about it all and relax. But the third voice—the one that whispers.
Suddenly it came to me, and I said, “May I conduct a campus survey to find out if anyone else has been sexually assaulted?”
The glare on Dr. Atwood’s face assured me I was disrupting her afternoon.
“I don’t think that would be a good idea, Miss Piper. Your viewpoint would be subjective, and there is simply no need for a survey since no one else has brought this matter to my attention. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to prepare for a meeting with President Schaeffer.”
I marched over to the library with my disk, sat down at the computer, and put my final touches on a poem for Dr. Dirkas.
Honor Code
You’re sent packing
if you fib
at NBU—
I’ve known
four
convicted
of such crimes
here.
But you can assault,
defile,
maim
a fellow classmate’s
heart
and no one
so much as says
“boo.”
I had left the dean’s office in a cloud of frustration and defeat, but as the weeks passed, I let it go, thinking, Well, I tried. Maybe my role had been to be a flag raiser. One of several voices who would eventually convince Dr. Atwood and the college to strengthen their policy against this brand of campus crime.
It was two weeks before finals and the last summer break before my senior year, and I had to get planning for my future. I was looking forward to spending the summer in Williamstown with Randy. I was going to study for the GRE and hang out with the Pelzers and Shannon. Harriet was going to come down for the month of August after her internship on the set of The Comedy of Errors at the Shakespeare in Central Park production.
Also, at Professor Dirkas’s encouragement, I wanted to pursue an MFA in poetry, and I would spend a good part of my summer filling out the applications and creating a fresh portfolio to send to the graduate schools in the fall. Randy had sent me the information about the University of South Carolina graduate program, and it actually looked pretty impressive since they’d hired Julia Rodriquez, a Pulitzer prize–winning poet from the Dominican Republic. And Josiah Dirkas said that one of his favorite American poets, Donald Halstead, was taking a three-year stint there as writer-in-residence.
One afternoon when I was lounging on the dorm piazza, I read an anonymous letter to the editor in the student paper about a student’s rape experience. The student was a senior, and her offender had graduated a year ago. She had kept the rape a secret for two years, but she suddenly wanted to speak out.
What’s going on? I thought as I read the words twice over. Goose bumps were forming on my arms as the last mountain chill before summer swept through the piazza.
I was on my way to call Frankie and ask him about this, but I stopped short of dialing his extension.
Wait, I thought I heard the third voice say, and that’s just what I did for the next week until I heard the thump of the newspaper at my dorm-room door. I opened it to find two additional anonymous letters to the editor about similar sexual assault experiences on campus.
One went:
After admittedly drinking one too many gin and tonics the night of the Heritage Ball last year, my date (who was actually a gentleman) locked me in the room of his off-campus house and went down to the river for the bonfire. While he was gone, I became vaguely conscious of someone else in the room, and I woke up some time later to find his roommate on top of me, having his way. I called his name and told him to get off, but I was weak and weary and he knew it. He climbed out of the window when it was over, and when I woke up the next morning and confronted him, he said I was delusional. I know what happened to me. The physical evidence existed. He’s avoided me ever since.
The other went:
I was attacked by my lab partner in a study room in the library. It was a Wednesday night around 1:00 a.m., and he dropped by with a cup of coffee and a fantasy I did not share. He locked the door— did I mention he’s a good-sized rugby player and I’m just under five feet and 100 pounds? No one heard the desk topple over or my repeated calls for help.
“I’m not the only one,” I said to Ruthie that night at the dining hall as I slapped the paper down in front of her salad bowl.
The next day Dr. Atwood met me in my dorm room and accused me of starting the whole thing. Several strands of the dean’s hair had fallen down and were framing her face with frizzy wisps.
“It wasn’t me,” I said. “I haven’t even sent my story in.”
Dr. Atwood didn’t believe me, and neither Frankie nor the senior editor of the paper were giving out any names to her.
“You could be in violation of the honor code if you aren’t honest with me,” she said, nervously tapping the rolled-up newspaper against the palm of her hand.
“I know that,” I said. “I’m telling the truth.”
“According to the records at the dean of Undergraduate Studies, Miss Piper, we gave you a second chance to work off your scholarship due to your poor academic performance your freshman and sophomore years. I would caution a student who is on unsteady academic ground against causing trouble when she still has another year to go before obtaining her degree.”
“So that’s a threat?” I said.
“You are overstepping your boundaries, young lady,” Dr. Atwood said as she tucked the newspaper under her arm and turned to walk down the hall toward the spring sunlight that was sifting through the screen door.
“And you are looking the other way,” I said to her.
She turned and raced back to me, working her bony jaw back and forth. “The Princeton Review is on their way to do an updated study about the campus, and I implore you to keep the lid on this.”
I nodded twice out of fear and reflex, then watched as she turned and walked briskly down the corridor, making eye contact with the freshmen who were lingering in their doorways.
The next week the paper didn’t publish any letters on the subject, and I still bit my tongue and didn’t ask Frankie about it.
Not only was it the end of my junior year, but it was also the end of my term as a dorm counselor. I wanted to do the best I could by the girls the last few weeks before finals, so I edited their English papers and invited them to my room most midnights for a much-needed study break that consisted of chocolate-covered coffee beans and Saturday Night Live reruns I’d taped over the last few months.
The sixteen freshmen on my hall were turning out all right. They were all going to move forward to their sophomore year in one piece.
No one had so much
as failed a class.
I was looking toward life after NBU now. Toward my thesis and graduate school, and I asked God to guide me about Randy and my folks.
I still had my St. Christopher medal that Juliabelle had given me, and I kept it in my backpack so my fingers would rub up against it every time I fished for a pencil or computer disk.
“This busty cheerleader is totally after Randy,” Georgianne had called to tell me.
She and Peach still went to the Gamecock games, and Peach was helping to landscape Randy’s lot on Pawleys.
A small twinge of jealousy caught in my throat, but I didn’t have much right to keep tabs on him.
“I’m three hundred miles away,” I said. “It’s out of my hands. But I’ll be home for the summer in a few weeks.”
“I’ll keep you updated,” she said.
“All right. So how’s Baby Peach?”
“Talking up a storm.”
“Give him a squeeze for me.”
“I will.”
“So what does this cheerleader look like again?”
“You can’t get home too soon, Adelaide. Let’s leave it at that.”
On the Saturday night of the alumni weekend (just days before finals and the close of spring term), as Ruthie and I were in the dorm-hall kitchen waiting for our ramen noodles to go limp so we could have a little brainpower as we studied for our Advanced French final, I received a frantic call from Peño, my feisty Tupelo freshman, who was on her second date with a Kappa Nu senior.
Her words were slurred, and it took me a moment to understand her.
“Adelaide, I’m at the Kappa Nu house, and I’m fading. He must’ve slipped something into my drink. Please come get me . . .” Then the phone line went dead.
“Call Dr. Atwood at home and ask her to meet me at the Kappa Nu house,” I hollered to Ruthie as I ran to my room to put on my shoes. “And call campus security too.”
“Okay,” Ruthie said as she picked up the phone and waited for the operator.
I bolted through the quad and down the hill to the grand fraternity houses where drunken alums and students were scattered about the green lawns.
Be with her, I prayed.
When I got to the KN house, there was a live band and music blaring out the windows. The floorboards were pulsing to the drumbeat in the foyer. Several tipsy graduates and students danced clumsily everywhere. All I knew about Cecelia’s date was that his name was Kevin and that he was a senior.
“Where’s Kevin’s room?” I said to a freshman boy, who pointed in the direction of the stairs and slurred, “Attic.”
Just as I was racing up the stairs, I looked back to see Dr. Atwood in an NBU sweatshirt and jeans and a security guard on her heels.
They were both looking around for me amid the drunken haze of the party.
“Dr. Atwood,” I called down to her, “attic. Follow me.”
We raced up to the third floor, where I knocked hard on a locked door before the security guard took a hammer from the fire extinguisher window in the hallway and broke open the door.
“What the—,” a boy’s voice screamed as we raced up the stairs.
When we reached the top, we found Cecelia completely unconscious on a couch, covered haphazardly by a blanket.
The boy was in his boxers, and he was shielding his eyes from the security guard’s light.
“Get dressed and come with me, young man,” the security guard said as I hustled to Cecelia’s side and took note of the blood streaming from her nose. I covered her up tightly with an NBU-crested blanket and looked up at Dr. Atwood, who was radioing for an ambulance on the security guard’s walkie-talkie.
As the boy was bending over in the corner to put his jeans on, I bolted across the room and pushed him from the back with all my might. He flipped over and landed with his feet on top of a crate that served as a coffee table, and two glass mugs of beer wobbled before spilling over, drenching his pants.
Before I knew it, I had leaped on top of him and was hitting his face and chest with my fists.
“You predator!” I screamed as he shielded his face from my swings and said, “Huh?”
“How could you do this to her?”
Dr. Atwood and the security pulled me off him just as my nails were going for his eyes.
“Let’s catch our breath, Miss Piper,” Dr. Atwood said as she pulled me close and directed the security guard to handcuff the student. And I wept with rage on her stiff shoulder as she softened for a moment and stroked my hair while the steady bass from the music below made the wooden slats of the attic floor shift like an after-tremor of an earthquake.
Cecelia came to in the local emergency room, where a blood sample with traces of Rohypnol had confirmed that she’d been slipped a kind of date rape drug sometime during the night. She looked to me when the doctor asked if she would consent to the administration of a Physical Evidence Recovery procedure. Though she was still groggy, her anger was already building, and no matter how humiliating it was, she wanted to obtain the evidence of this crime.
“Yes,” she said as the doctor explained the invasive and painful procedure.
Then she turned to me and reached out her arm.
I scooted toward her and locked our elbows as the nurse began to prepare the kit, and I whispered into Cecelia’s ear, “I’m so sorry, Peño.”
The examination was horrendous, but Cecelia bit her lip and squeezed my hand as the tears rolled down her cheeks.
Dr. Atwood was out in the hallway, pacing. She had phoned President Schaeffer and was waiting for his callback. When the nurse walked out of the exam room with her sealed bags of evidence, I saw Dr. Atwood catch a glimpse of Cecelia on the examining table. Her face was gray, and she was staring at a spot on the ceiling where a leak had left a ring.
Ruthie met us at the hospital with a change of clothes since Cecelia had to leave her jeans and shirt behind as evidence.
“The hospital will hold them for a month before discarding them,” a local police officer told Peño. “During that time you can decide whether or not to press charges.”
Cecelia nodded as she slipped on a pair of my khakis and a sweatshirt.
Dr. Atwood was on the phone with President Schaeffer, recounting what had happened.
“I want an adjudication hearing,” Peño said to Dr. Atwood as we walked out of the exam room and into the hospital hallway.
Dr. Atwood nodded in agreement and helped us into the security guard’s car.
By this time it was 4:30 a.m., and even the fraternity houses had turned off their lights to get some rest before the bright light of Sunday morning pierced through their windows.
As Cecelia slowly made her way out of the car, I watched Dr.
Atwood pull up to President Schaeffer’s house on the hill behind our dorm. His lights were already on, and he was sitting on his porch steps.
“I don’t know if . . .” Cecelia’s words trailed off as she hobbled up the stairs and into the dorm.
An early rising sparrow was warming up its voice, and the first hints of daylight were spreading up and over the mountains in a blanket of violet blue.
I grabbed her elbow and said, “I’ll help.”
18
Change of Plans
“Freshman Cecelia Honeycutt Files for Adjudication in Sexual Assault Case Against Senior Kevin Youngblood”
Story by Frankie Wells
I spotted the headline on the front page of the university paper as I walked across the quad on the way to my French final. A couple of boys were sitting on the rocking chairs, reading the article as their golden retriever knelt between them. The canine was cupping a tattered tennis ball in his mouth in hopes that any moment his master would put down the news and play a game of fetch.
After my exam, I raced over to the student center to grab a copy of the paper, then sat down on the grassy knoll beneath Ruthie’s tree and read about my courageous hall mate’s pending case. Frankie is right on target, I thought as I read the arti
cle, which explained the weak policy in place for such a procedure and contemplated the number of victims who never sought justice because there was no clear path by which to seek it.
Dr. Atwood had finally changed her tune after witnessing firsthand the aftermath of Cecelia’s attack, and midway through the article, Frankie quoted her as saying, “We now understand that we need to have a hard line on assault procedures on campus, and we will take measures this summer to make sure that a victim can seek justice and that an offender may have a fair trial. We pledge to meet this issue head-on.”
“Good for you, Josephine,” I whispered as Ruthie’s elm tree left an intricate pattern of leaf and fruit shadows across my paper.
Peño’s bravery astounded me.
“He messed with the wrong person,” she had said to me one night after the reporter called. “And you know what? I think I’m not the first one this has happened to.”
“You’re right,” I had said before pouring her a cup of coffee and sharing my own story with her.
Now, as the students roamed to and from their finals, Dr. Atwood was walking toward me, her square heels sinking into the grass on the knoll.
“Miss Piper, I need to speak with you,” she said, yards away, as she straightened her dark suit jacket. She was so official-looking and determined. Like a banker on speed. Before I could get to my feet, she sat down beside me beneath Ruthie’s tree, and the pendulous branches cast shadows on her suit and hosiery. “I’d like you to change your summer plans,” she said, looking me in the eye.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Whatever you had going on this summer, I’d like you to reconsider. I need a student representative to stay here and serve as a campus voice and consultant as we rewrite our policy on sexual assault. I remember how confidently you handled that reporter your freshman year despite my protest, and now I want to use you to benefit NBU’s reputation.”
You could have pushed me over with the point of a palm frond. My heart started to pound. How the tables could turn so quickly. One minute Dr. Atwood wouldn’t give me the time of day; now she wanted me to serve as her trusted student voice as she combated campus assault.
Adelaide Piper Page 26