“You mean the money I wasted by fucking up at school? You mean that money. How about the fact that this whole thing is fucked up? You and me, and your stupid-ass roommate, Eliza. Don’t you see what a waste the entire system is? Nobody here knows what they’re doing. Semiotics and women’s studies. None of that changes anything, just gives a few pretentious assholes jobs. Then they lord this prestige over a bunch of stupid kids who’ve done nothing but listen politely and play by the rules their whole lives. Oh, maybe they dare to wear fishnets or all black or not wash their moldy-ass hair so their mommies get upset and cry. That’s it. Brown is bullshit. I’m not saying I’m any better, or it’s better in Cambridge. Seriously, I’m the worst, since I couldn’t even play the game. It’s a nice game, if you can play it.”
Jan looked at her toes. She’d had a pedicure in September, but now the orange polish only partially covered each nail. She couldn’t deny the absurdity of her life. A lot of what they did was ridiculous. Even in class, there was stuff that was hard to understand to begin with and even harder to fit into whatever it was her real life was supposed to be about. Did it really matter that people bought stainless steel appliances? What did it matter how many neglected novels by early twentieth-century female writers she read?
“Maybe we should be joining Teach for America. Or Habitat for Humanity, or one of those other groups. Maybe you’re right to drop out. Maybe the rest of us are being robotic.” Jan got up and started to pace the room. Ever since she’d gotten to Brown she’d felt mediocre, middle of the road—any of those descriptions for girls like her—girls who were pretty on a good day, but never beautiful, girls who were certainly smart, but never brilliant; thoughtful, but not radical. What was she meant for? What she was didn’t seem to matter when she was surrounded by people like Eliza. Eliza was neither beautiful nor brilliant, but she thought she was doing something. She was committed.
“I’m sorry,” Jan said finally. “I’ve been dealing with all the same stuff you’re talking about. But I’ve pushed it down, and kept working and going out, and pushing all these questions away. I only look like I’m doing okay, Adam. But I’m right there with you.”
Adam put down his bag and shook his head. He walked over to Jan and put his arms around her. His touch felt light, noncommittal. “No,” he said. “You aren’t having the same thoughts I’m having. But that’s okay. You should keep doing what you’re doing. You’re meant for college. Don’t worry. You’ll do whatever you want to do.” He put his bag on his shoulder. His eyes filled with tears and for a moment she thought he might cry. “I’m actually really surprised you don’t see it yourself, Jan. I think, if things were right between us, you would.”
“See what? See that you’re freaking out at school? You don’t know what you’re doing there? See what, asshole?” She was shocked by the sound of her own voice. She could not recall ever calling anyone an asshole to their face before, and she dropped her head in instant regret.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. His voice was flat. His eyes dull, expressionless. “You’d see that I don’t give a fuck.”
“About what? About me? About us?” Jan heard the alarm in her own voice and it made her heart beat faster.
“You don’t see it, Jan, because to you all this feels like something. To me, I don’t feel it. I can’t understand why you can’t tell how empty it is.”
“You mean at home, when we planned this—you being nearby and everything? You didn’t feel anything then? You were only going along with it?” Jan’s whole body stiffened. It wasn’t fair, what he was doing now. It couldn’t be true. Even if he felt that way now, how could he take back everything they had been? How could he take back holding hands in the hallway, or sitting close on a park bench, or losing their virginity together?
“I don’t know, Jan, what does it matter? I remember being happy. I mean, we were having sex. We were close. But that was high school. Doesn’t it seem so long ago to you? And like we were all playing at something? None of that stuff matters now.” He smiled faintly, as if his anger had run down like an out-of-gas engine. He reached over and took Jan’s face in his hands. “I’m sorry. It’s that everything feels like that to me now. You. School. I need to go back to New York for a while. I’m going to try to do something, get a job or something, and see what happens.”
“Are you sure? Maybe you should go back to Cambridge. Find someone you can talk to?”
“No. I can’t.” Adam shook his head, and for a moment Jan thought he might change his mind, might take her in his arms and lie down with her on the bed, let her hold him, and tell him how everything was going to work out, how he was just stressed out. “No,” Adam said. “I already cleaned my shit out and UPS’d everything home. I already got my train ticket. One way.”
Once the door shut behind him, Jan sat up straight on her bed and stared at the space that Adam had occupied. He had known. He had known all weekend what he was going to do, and yet he’d gone through the motions with her. He’d already dropped out. He was on his way to New York. He had stopped in Providence on his way. Jan had difficulty catching her breath.
It had really been quite a show he’d put on for her—quite a performance. He had made it seem like it was all happening in the present and that it involved her, and what happened at the party, but in fact it had all already occurred. He’d already dropped out. He had made his decision, who knew how many weeks before, thinking about things that could not have had anything to do with her. Then he let her take him around town, buy the wine, drink in the loft party, and even take mushrooms together. Jan had not made Adam depressed on their ’shroom trip. He’d been depressed when he came to Providence. He had come to Providence to break up with her.
Jan sat on her bed, leaning against a pillow. Her body felt strangely light. The room, itself, seemed brighter without Adam in it. It was hard to believe they had really broken up. Jan felt tired. Her mouth was dry. Of course, there had been the ’shrooms, and now she had some sort of ’shroom hangover. She shut her eyes. Her phone buzzed from across the room but she could not rouse herself to see who it was.
12
The Monday after James Jamison’s party was rainy and cold. Melanie was thankful for the miserable weather. It made her almost forget the true reason for her reluctance to get out of bed. Melanie was not one to fear the opinions of others, or to fret much over her social position. Rose Dyer was a small school and Melanie had been attending it with more or less the same group of kids since she was six years old. It was no secret that it was she, Melanie, who was often intimidating to the other girls, and not because she was one of those mean girls, like Lani Elliot, either, the kind who gets pulled into the principal’s office because of the nasty things she’s written in a bathroom stall. Melanie never really did anything to anyone. But Melanie never held back her opinion, either. If she was assigned to work in a group with someone useless, like Michelle Barnell, Melanie might roll her eyes. She might call her Barfnell, on occasion. But she didn’t put much effort into these behaviors. It wasn’t like she went home and went on the internet looking for pictures of hogs or hippos and posted them on Barfnell’s wall. That sort of thing was for losers who didn’t have better things to do with their time.
Normally, since Erika had moved into Jan’s old room, Melanie relished her time alone in her own room. She had decorated her new daybed with little sequined pillows from Urban Outfitters. She’d gotten Mom to paint a cool accent wall—a sort of lavender color, on one side. And she had a view of the river. She loved lying in bed and looking out at the river and the lights of Jersey City as she fell asleep. She could see into hundreds of apartments in Battery Park City from her bed, and it was amusing to see how people lived. So many people did amazing things without even thinking to pull down the shades. There was Mostly Naked Yoga Girl, who did her sun salutations in just her panties. There was the dude almost directly across from her who sat in his living room in his boxers watching TV with his hairy belly hanging out for all t
o see. They didn’t care. They were comfortable with themselves. These people didn’t care what anyone thought of them.
The problem was that in this particular instance Melanie did care what people thought. She felt that if other people would stay out of it, she could keep her cool, and maybe forget everything that had happened Halloween night. But how could she forget if her own sister wouldn’t stop staring at her? How could she forget when the rumors that were bound to spread were agonizingly true?
Someone who knew her had definitely seen her at the party, and knew what had happened, or at least knew that she’d been very, very drunk. Whoever it was had posted a video on Instagram and tagged her in it. The real clip was of a reality TV star staggering around in high heels, with her skirt hiked up so her panties showed. Obviously, no one would think that was actually her. Still, it wasn’t a good sign, and when Melanie first saw the tag she’d felt a sudden surge of nausea and powered down her phone so she wouldn’t have to look at it. She briefly considered dropping the phone out her bedroom window and pretending it had been an accident, but then she’d reconsidered. She was pretty sure no one had seen her in the room with the bear rug, except her sister and her friends. She had to go to school; she couldn’t succumb to panic.
Of course, Melanie’s biggest immediate problem was Gerald. As she chose her outfit she considered how she might act toward him. Should she shun him, or act like nothing happened? She pulled on a pair of baggy jeans and a tight-fitting off-white sweater. The sweater looked cool with the multistrand gold and silver necklace Mom had gotten her from some new accessories designer who was looking for her to plug her new line. Then she pulled on her tan motorcycle boots. They were from last year, but Melanie loved them. It was the first time all fall she’d taken them out. It was a good day for biker boots—rainy, cold—and she needed what they provided: an edge, a feeling of solidity.
“I made you two eggs this morning, hon. You ate almost nothing all day yesterday, so I thought you’d be hungry.” Mom placed the plate in front of her—whole-grain toast and scrambled eggs. Erika was already eating a bowl of oatmeal. She had her hair up in a disgusting, messy ponytail and she was munching away, chewing with her mouth open. Erika was the most bizarre person on earth. That she was her sister, and that she was now privy to her awful secret, sent a shudder down Melanie’s spine.
“Do you have to eat like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like a cow? Keep your mouth shut,” Melanie said, then, pausing for emphasis, “I mean when you chew.” Melanie hadn’t even meant to threaten Erika with this double-meaning insult, it had just popped out. She had a certain genius, she thought, with this sort of thing, an odd intuitive power that told her exactly what words to use to get what she wanted from people.
She couldn’t help that she had this power. She only hoped it would work as well as usual with Erika. Erika was stubborn and self-righteous, and that could work against even Melanie’s bullying.
“Mel, we need to get something straight here. It was a big exhausting weekend for everyone. And we need to calm ourselves, okay? I am not going to make a big deal out of the fact that you were obviously feeling wretched yesterday, and I assume that was because there was drinking going on at the party. I’m not an idiot. But the reason I wanted you guys out together on Halloween is that it’s safer that way. For sisters to give each other support. So let’s just remember that? Whatever your differences, you’re sisters.” Mom looked tired. Her face looked thinner than usual, and she was wearing her stupid reading glasses perched at the end of her nose, which made her look owlish and old. Melanie felt a sudden disgust for her mother, for her glasses, her frown lines, her fading prettiness. But at almost the same moment, she felt a pang of remorse, of pity. Mom was getting old, and with Dad gone, she was as alone as anyone. As Melanie herself. This aloneness made her mother seem more her equal, even as it seemed to age her.
“Sorry,” Melanie muttered contritely. “But maybe you can tell Erika to chew like a human being?”
Melanie made it her business to leave the house fifteen minutes earlier than Erika would. The last thing she wanted to do was take the subway with Erika. God knew Erika would try to initiate some conversation about what happened. That was to be avoided at all costs.
A few kids were hanging out in front of school, but not many. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, but most people had migrated to the cafeteria or to their homerooms. Students were encouraged at Dyer to hang out in the classrooms during their downtimes, and to chat with teachers. The whole atmosphere was chill, with kids eating lunch in classrooms, and asking for help whenever they wanted. In a way it didn’t matter, though. Teachers were teachers, even if kids greeted them by saying “Wassup?”
Melanie trudged up the steps and pulled open the heavy glass door of the school’s front entrance. There was no one in the lobby but the receptionist and a couple of teachers she didn’t know. It had been a good call to get there early, so she didn’t walk into the building with a whole crush of people. Once she saw Jess and went to her first couple of classes, the queasiness in her stomach would go away. She shouldn’t have eaten those eggs, though. She’d wolfed them down to get on Mom’s good side, since she knew she was being a bitch. She didn’t want to add to Mom’s worrying, or to let Erika get the upper hand at home.
When Melanie walked into room 307, only Gerald and Ray were already there. Ray was off in the corner, by the scrawny row of plants that nobody ever watered. Ray was a nobody—practically invisible, with sand-colored hair that was eerily the precise color of his eyes. But who had yellow eyes? It was one of those strange Ray qualities. In order to appear so perfectly indistinct, nature had evolved for him a unique shade of eye color. Ray, naturally, didn’t look up when Melanie entered the room. He was too absorbed in whatever loser game he was playing on his iPhone. Gerald, on the other hand, was sitting there, as if he’d been waiting for her. He looked pretty bad, as though his hangover had lasted through to a second day. His hair was lank, and falling into his eyes. His forehead was covered with tiny red zits and he was wearing a faded gray Rose Dyer High soccer team T-shirt, stretched out at the neck and arms. Did he always look this shitty? Melanie wondered. As soon as he saw her, Gerald’s face brightened into a taut, exaggerated friendliness. With a rehearsed-seeming formality, he stood up and walked over to Melanie’s table.
“Can we talk?” he asked softly, his eyes cast downward. “Just for a sec?” Melanie was so taken aback she hardly knew what to do. She’d expected Gerald to behave oddly, but not like this. She hadn’t expected that softness in his features, his obvious distress. He was wearing their shared disaster on his sleeve. His nervousness was so clear even a stranger, even a clueless teacher, would be able to tell there was something happening between them. Melanie felt herself flush. “No,” she said. “I’ve got to finish my math.” She took out her math book and began reworking a problem she had completed, hangover and all, on Sunday. To her surprise, Gerald didn’t take the hint.
He stood there, drumming his fingers on her notebook. He pushed his hair out of his eyes. Melanie had never really looked at Gerald’s face before, or maybe he’d never looked quite this way. His hair had gotten long—it came down over his ears and drifted in front of his eyes. His eyes were narrow, a light blue, not unattractive exactly, but there was something a bit rodent-like about his whole appearance.
Like a rodent, he was where he didn’t belong.
They’d been friends a long time, and she had never really given him much thought. If she had to describe him, she’d have said he was reliable. Maybe a bit of a doormat. The sort of guy who had simply, conveniently, comfortingly, always been there. But this Gerald who stood drumming his fingers on her math notebook was not the same Gerald who’d come to her ninth birthday party and had given her all his extra tokens at Dave & Buster’s. This wasn’t the Gerald who’d let her ride his skateboard over to Jess’s house while he jogged along beside her. This Gerald didn’t seem to hear he
r.
“How about after school? I’ve got a newspaper meeting at three, but maybe after that we could hang out, maybe walk over to the river?” Gerald looked down as he spoke. There was a certain weakness in his voice.
“Nope. I’ve got this project for English lit and I’m going to fail if I don’t work for about ten hours straight on it. I’m not even done with the stupid book yet. Jane Eyre. Why is this book famous?” Gerald shook his head slowly, confirming he knew less than she did about Jane Eyre.
Everything Melanie said was true. She really was skipping play practice to go home and work. Not that her part really mattered. Lady Macduff. She had one scene and then she died. But that’s what you got when you were a sophomore.
But the whole truth was that she couldn’t wait to go home, to go home and get away from Gerald, to avoid Jess and her concerned glances. If everyone else would only forget the whole thing, she could forget and then it would be as if nothing ever happened.
But what was really annoying was Gerald in his stinking, stupid T-shirt, being super-obvious, being an idiot again, not leaving her side, giving her a headache. Why couldn’t he just go?
“All right,” he finally said. “I’ll call you later.” Oh God, Melanie thought. To say what? The only good news to come her way was when her mother said they were all going to Providence the following Saturday and Sunday for family weekend at Brown. Melanie needed to get out of town. She didn’t care where, or even that she’d have to spend the weekend with Erika, who was practically her absolute worst enemy.
13
Mom had been a nightmare, as she always was about traveling, yelling at Melanie and Erika to get packed as soon as they walked in the door from school. Whenever they went anywhere, Mom transformed into a madwoman. Then, at Penn Station, they joined a horde of people at the Amtrak gate who looked like they’d been cast for one of those zombie apocalypse movies—one guy carrying a filthy leather backpack and an equally filthy leather-bound notebook nearly knocked Melanie unconscious on the escalator just by breathing on her. His breath stank of pure alcohol, fumes that made her recall all too clearly her own post-Halloween hangover, the feeling that her entire body was suffused with whatever your body produced when trying to rid itself of the poison, alcohol. She scrunched up her nose and searched over her shoulder for her mother and Erika. She did not want to end up alone in a seat for four hours next to a drunk creeper.
The Word for Yes Page 9