by Lori Ostlund
Bernice disliked Frost. She had told Aaron so repeatedly over the years, but that night she told him again, noting that her aversion had been heightened by the fact that her teachers all seemed to find his poetry compelling and insightful and not at all trite, despite its overt symbolism, decipherable even by a group of uninterested fifth graders, for fifth grade was the year they had been introduced to poetry, a poem a month chosen by their teacher. “ ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ was our November poem,” Bernice continued, though this too she had told him before. “We had one month in which to recite it from memory in front of the class, without errors or excessive prompting. Three more Frost poems were similarly imprinted in my brain over the next seven years. So it was that, at eighteen, I stood in the clearing, contemplating a road not taken, and there was nothing I could do about it. It was the only language I had to describe this unfamiliar feeling known as optimism.” She paused to take a bite of lefse.
“The ‘clearing’ appeared courtesy of the newly hired guidance counselor. Matthew Brisk was his name. He was the first person who seemed not to notice my size. He didn’t smirk when I turned sideways to fit through the doorway of his office, didn’t hold his breath when I lowered myself onto the flimsy folding chair across from his desk. Instead, he talked to me about something called My Future. He spoke with full-on exclamation points. ‘Your grades are stupendous! What a transcript! You have so many options with grades like this!’ With the same enthusiasm, he asked, ‘How about clubs? Are you much of a joiner?’
“Well, the merging and mingling and coming together of people had never interested me, though I could not say so to Matthew Brisk. You see, from that very first meeting, I felt a shameful need to mold myself to his vision of me, so I said I had belonged to FHA, which was true. I had joined my sophomore year at the coaxing of the club advisor, a dull woman with firm orders to breathe life into the organization. I did not tell Matthew Brisk that after I joined, someone crossed out the word ‘Homemakers’ on the sign above the meeting room, changing it to read ‘Future Hogs of America,’ or that I quit just three weeks later after my fellow ‘homemakers’ filled my chocolate cake with grape bubblegum as it baked in the oven during our meeting.
“I filled out the applications that Matthew Brisk gave me and took the SAT exam, which I enjoyed because it was rife with archaic vocabulary words and obscure second meanings, words like husband, which I certainly had no interest in as a noun, despite my brief membership in FHA, but found rather attractive as a verb. When I began receiving acceptance letters, I took them to Matthew Brisk, who slapped me on the back and said, ‘Nice work!’ I chose Moorhead State and informed them I would be attending in the fall. Only later did it occur to me that I had been fooled, that Matthew Brisk, with his exclamation points, had no insight into my future at all.”
Bernice paused to eat two more rolls of lefse. When she resumed the story, she leaped ahead to the point five weeks into her first quarter, when she hitched a ride back to Mortonville with Karl Nelson, a college sophomore who returned home every weekend. “He had spent his high school years working to attain even a modicum of popularity and was not willing to begin all over again,” Bernice explained. “He retained a girlfriend here, a semipopular girl who was a senior, and together they attended sporting events, at which Karl received more attention as a college man than he ever had during high school.”
“Did Karl Nelson tell you this?” Aaron asked. Karl Nelson owned an accounting business that catered to farmers, with whom he had often held meetings at the café, so, of course, Aaron knew him, but not in the way that Bernice described him, with the emotional depth and motivations of a character in a book. He knew him simply as a man who talked to farmers about depreciation and yield and never consumed more than two cups of coffee at a sitting because coffee made him “jumpy.”
“Of course not,” Bernice said. “He drove with his transistor radio pressed against his ear the whole time. The only time we spoke was when we stopped in Fergus Falls for gas. While it was pumping, he leaned in and said, ‘Ten bucks,’ which was the amount I had offered when I called him the night before, an amount I knew would ensure a ride. I spread two fives on his car seat, which was unpleasantly warm from his buttocks, though I’m certain neither of us wanted the greater unpleasantness of touching hands as we exchanged money. I had contacted him because I knew of his weekly trips home from my mother, who brought them up each time she called. Until the day I came back for good, I had not made a single visit home. I told no one that I was coming, not even my parents, but when they saw me hoisting my belongings out of his trunk, they deduced that I was home to stay, that I had attempted the road less traveled and failed.” She stopped speaking, as though she had reached the end of a recitation.
“And then you stayed in your room studying Spanish?” Aaron asked, referring to the conversation they had had several years earlier.
“Yes,” Bernice said. He could tell that she was pleased he remembered. “In high school we were obligated to study German, which never appealed to me, but I took to Spanish immediately, in part because I liked the professor, Dr. Baratto. He was Italian, he told us the first day of class, and in Italian his name meant ‘barter,’ but in Spanish it meant ‘cheap.’ ‘When I go to Mexico,’ he said, ‘everyone thinks, Here comes that stingy guy.’ The whole class laughed. I thought, then, about the way people had always overstressed the first syllable of my name, HOG-a-dorn, and about how I’d never met an Italian before and now I was learning Spanish from one. From that very first day, I knew that college was the thing for me.”
Bernice yawned, letting him know that the story was over. Perhaps she had simply looked at her watch and seen that her mother would be home soon—indeed, she walked through the door humming “Silent Night” five minutes later—but Aaron was sure that Bernice had chosen that specific spot to stop, as if she had gone away to this magical place called college and never returned.
16
* * *
Aaron would later wonder whether Bernice had sensed something about him that he had not yet allowed himself to see, namely that his reasons for not desiring her body had nothing to do with her body itself. He did know that she did not want him to leave Mortonville, but he suspected that this had nothing to do with love or sexual desire.
On the night of his eighteenth birthday, she told him the end of the story, presenting it like a gift. First, though, Mrs. Hagedorn had cooked him a special dinner, lamb chops, his favorite. After supper, she brought out a cake with eighteen candles, and all three of them sang. They gave him gifts: a tie from Mrs. Hagedorn because he would need one for graduation; from Bernice, a book called Jude the Obscure that she had read in college and enjoyed and that he read but found not at all enjoyable because in it three children hanged themselves to lessen the burden on their parents; and a fishing pole that Rudy had made by sinking two large nails at either end of a piece of wood and wrapping a line back and forth around them.
The last birthday that Aaron had celebrated was his tenth because his mother had come to believe that celebrations should be reserved for actual accomplishments, and she said there was no achievement in being born. Each time she said this, he tried hard not to think about the party that she had made for him when he turned five, how she had blown up a whole bag of balloons while he was napping and he had found her lying on the floor of the living room, light-headed from the endeavor. He’d lain down beside her, and she told him that he’d been born during a snowstorm. His father had driven her to the hospital in the squad car, the lights flashing. “You were nearly born right there in the backseat. Your father was a nervous wreck,” she said. “I’ll never forget it, driving through all that whiteness, and then, at the end of it all, there you were.” When his mother, the one she became after the parade, said that there was no accomplishment in being born, he went up to his room and cried because he knew she had forgotten about the snowstorm.
Aaron ate three pieces of cake and tried to
look pleased instead of uncomfortable with the attention. Afterward, Mrs. Hagedorn went to her bedroom to talk on the telephone and watch television and Rudy went across town to the liquor store. Aaron sat at the kitchen table, where he studied most nights because the light was best there. He had a math test the next day. Soon, Bernice appeared. “I’ll tell you the story of why I left school,” she said, “but you must not ask any questions, not while I’m talking, not after I’ve finished. In fact, we must never speak of it. Those are my conditions.”
He was on the cusp of a B+ in his math class, had worked hard to get there, but he could not tell Bernice that a test was more important than her story. He thought that maybe she was testing him also. He stood up and followed her into the living room.
“You understand the rules?” she asked.
“I understand.”
“And you want to hear the story?” She needed him to say it.
“I really want to hear it,” he said. This was true. He lay down on his side, as usual, so that he could watch her as she spoke.
“Don’t look at me while I’m talking,” she said. “I need you to listen.”
He did not argue with her. He just rolled onto his back and stared at the spackled white ceiling. “I’m listening,” he said, and she began to talk.
“My roommate’s name was Gladys Moore. I was sent her address by the housing department, a standard practice allowing future roommates to exchange information about themselves. While I was still considering whether to make contact, Gladys Moore wrote to me. The letter was on onionskin paper, though she’d clearly composed it with a piece of lined notebook paper beneath. Her handwriting replicated perfectly the cursive we’d been taught in the second grade, right down to the odd capital Gs and Fs and Ss that nobody ever uses, and I thought then that Gladys Moore and I would get along just fine. The gist of the letter was that she would be bringing a toaster, which I would be welcome to use. It would be a two-slicer. I remember thinking the tone apologetic. She added that if I felt uncomfortable sharing a toaster with a stranger, she would use the left slot, I the right. She would not mind this at all. She signed the letter God Bless You, followed by Sincerely and Your Roommate, and finally her full name. I wrote back two days later, having debated whether to mention my size, which I decided against. I said only that a toaster would be useful and that I would bring an iron, which we would consider the room iron. I signed it Sincerely, Bernice.
“The next month, my mother drove me to school. She was slow about everything that day—getting into the car to leave, driving, choosing a parking spot—so by the time we checked into my dorm, it was nine o’clock. As we walked down the hallway, we passed open doors revealing rooms that already looked lived in, beds made, posters on the walls, girls lounging in sets of four and five. I knocked on my door as a courtesy, but when there was no response, I went in. It was clear that Gladys Moore had not yet arrived. My mother was suddenly in a hurry to leave, nervous to be driving home so late, which I felt obligated to point out was entirely her fault. We argued briefly, and she left.
“I chose the bed nearest the door, away from the window, believing the window bed to be more desirable. It was a gesture. I had not brought much—a large suitcase of clothes, my typewriter, two boxes containing sheets and towels, toiletries, a dictionary, the aforementioned iron, and snacks. It was eleven when I finished unpacking. Gladys Moore still had not arrived, and the front desk was closed by then, which meant she would not be coming that night, so I shut off the light and went to bed.
“I awoke to find the room lit by the dim glow from the hallway light, three people standing over me, mother, father, daughter, all of them tall and very thin, like a family of flag poles. I sat up, and they jumped, as one, backward. ‘Heavens,’ said Gladys Moore’s mother, and Gladys Moore, who was holding a toaster, the toaster, said, ‘I’m Gladys Moore,’ and her father said, ‘Oh, you’re up. We were trying not to disturb you,’ and he turned on the overhead light. I glanced at my watch. It was one o’clock.
“I thought it improper to get out of bed wearing just a nightgown, more improper than not helping, so I lay under my covers while they carried Gladys’s things in and her mother made up her bed. ‘I left you the window,’ I pointed out, and Gladys said, ‘That’s fine,’ like she was reassuring me. When they were finished, her father said, ‘I guess I wouldn’t mind a slice of toast before we get on the road, Mother,’ and Gladys’s mother, who had obviously done the packing, located the bread and margarine and a butter knife. She made us each a slice, bringing mine to me in bed, and we ate our toast without speaking, me propped up in my tiny new bed, the three of them standing and chewing.
“ ‘Okay, then, you’ve got everything?’ asked her father, and Gladys said she did, and her parents went over and stood in the doorway to say good-bye, no hugging, just three people with their hands raised like they were taking an oath.
“ ‘Sorry we woke you,’ said Gladys after they’d gone. She turned away from me to remove her shirt and bra and pull on her nightshirt, and then she turned back and said, ‘We actually got here at six, but I felt a little nervous, so my mother got the key, and we went out to supper. We’ve been sitting in the car praying.’
“I would learn that Gladys Moore was like this, apologetic in a way that made her overly disclosing. I said that I’d arrived late also. I mentioned again that I’d left her the bed by the window, and this time she said, ‘Don’t worry about it,’ like she realized that reassuring me was not enough and forgiveness was in order. She shut off the light and made her way back to the bed by the window. I heard her knees tap the ground as she knelt, the rushed murmur of praying, the whisper of my name. She got into bed and fell asleep, but I lay awake for hours, feeling alone and lonely and frightened.”
Bernice paused. Aaron wanted to ask whether she had felt the usual loneliness that comes with new surroundings, or whether it had been something more, something related to the intimacy of sharing a small space with a stranger and hearing that stranger pray for her in the dark. Later, it occurred to him that she had paused precisely at that moment so that he could ask, for when it came down to it, that was what people needed, almost more than sex or love—the reassurance that others wanted to understand them and their fears. He understood this as an adult, but only because of Walter, who had set out to learn everything about him. What a heady feeling that had been, Walter quizzing him on every detail of his life and Aaron answering, flattered and too inexperienced to know how to reciprocate. Eventually—it had taken years—Walter’s questions had stopped seeming flattering and started to seem like one more form of control, especially as Walter continued to offer little in return. Their conversations began to resemble a board game, the details of their lives like play money, both of them trying to get around the board without having his dollars end up in the other’s stack.
But that night in the Hagedorns’ living room, he had still been a boy who believed that what people said they wanted from you and what they wanted were the same thing, so he had lain on the sofa listening to Mrs. Hagedorn snore in her bedroom, her television on, while he waited for Bernice to continue. And at last, she had.
“Gladys Moore and I developed a routine. I got up early and left for my first class, and when I came back at ten, she would be running out the door and I would have two hours alone in the room. I’d unhook my bra and flop on the bed to read. Once, I clipped my toenails. Usually, I made toast, two slices with margarine because I did not like the dining hall in the morning. A few weeks passed, during which Gladys Moore and I did not become close, not the way that other roommates appeared to. I preferred this. She spent her time either doing homework or holding Bible study with several other girls. They met in the lounge so that everyone could see them poring over their Bibles because they liked the attention, though Gladys was different. I once asked her what they did at these meetings, my motive purely conversational, and she said, ‘Oh, Bernice, you should join us. We’re discussing scripture.’ Sh
e didn’t seem to get that people sometimes asked questions simply to grease the wheels of social discourse.
“Occasionally, after we turned off the lights at night, we talked for a few minutes in the dark about our families and the towns we had come from and what we hoped to do with our lives. Gladys Moore came from a town just across the North Dakota border, the kind of place that most of us were from, a small farming community. Her parents raised pigs, and she said that what she liked most about going to college was leaving the smell of the pig farm behind. She had very specific goals. She wanted to marry a pastor and live in a town like the one she had come from, where she planned to teach third grade. I’d never cared for children, nor had I considered that I might one day marry, but that was fine because I did not want us to have too much in common. It made living together in such close quarters easier, I thought. Still, there was something comforting about lying in bed, one of us talking while the other listened until she fell asleep.
“One morning when Gladys Moore came back from class, I was listening to the radio, and she demanded that I shut it off. I did. She said that she had been listening to the radio once, rock music, which was forbidden in their house, and the DJ began speaking directly to her, in words that only she could understand. ‘I knew it was Satan,’ she told me in a whisper. ‘It was just what my parents had warned me about, all of these tricks he would use to get to me.’