My Deliberate Mistake

by Claire Svendsen

  “That’s just great,” I mutter under my breath.

  I wind down the window and the dog launches over me. For a moment it’s all paws and fur, then he’s squashing me as he strains to stick his big head out as far as he can. I try and push him off but it’s useless. Turning onto the highway the truck picks up speed, rattling and shaking like it’s about to fall apart at any moment. Once I’m used to the smell and weight of the dog, I find his soft body against mine comforting. I lay my face against his fur, listening to his breath as he pants in the hot air.

  “Charlie does that to people,” Noah says.

  “What?”

  “Makes them like him through brute force.”

  “Like dog, like owner?” I ask.

  I catch him stealing a glance at me out of the corner of his eye.

  “I guess.”

  “Well, Charlie’s got you beat. You’re rude and obnoxious.”

  “Takes one to know one,” Julia whispers.

  “You think I haven’t heard that before?” He starts to laugh. “It doesn’t matter. I always win them over in the end.”

  I bet he does. Part of me still likes him despite the fact that I think he’s a jerk. Or maybe I just like his dog, I can’t be sure.

  “So how long have you been here?”

  “At the college? I’ve been hanging around a couple of days but I live close by so I’m not staying on campus. Can’t afford it.”

  He smiles like he doesn’t care and I almost believe him.

  “My old man’s a drunk,” he adds. “And a gambler. The college money my Grandparents left me is now circulating around the Vegas casinos.”

  “Nice,” I say. “You don’t seem too bothered.”

  “Yeah well, you win some, you lose some.”

  Must be nice to have an attitude like that but I can’t afford it. I need the scholarship and if I have to stab Noah in the back to do so, I will. Only it dawns on me that Noah and I probably aren’t going to be the only ones here who desperately need it. The confidence I’ve come with starts to slowly drain away.

  “It’s going to be a blood bath,” Julia whispers.

  “I know,” I say.

  Noah turns his head and looks at me quizzically.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  6.

  “Is it always this hot here?” I moan.

  My back has stuck to the seat and Charlie’s fur coats my skin like the down of a brown, smelly duck. Of course it doesn’t seem to bother Noah. He has his arm out the window, singing to some mindless country song on the radio. Despite the drunken father and missing college fund, he doesn’t seem to have a care in the world.

  “It’s usually hotter,” he says.

  “What? You’re kidding, right?”

  “You’ve never been to Florida?”

  “No.” I don’t add that I’ve never been anywhere.

  “You’re in for a real treat,” he smiles again.

  By now I know that’s his sarcastic smile. I wait for the reason I’m in for such a treat. I mean surely nothing could top rude cowboys, stinky dogs and beat to hell trucks. Could it?

  He points out the dirty windshield. “You see those clouds in the distance?”

  Giant plumes of purple and gray spiral up on the horizon, the air around them turning a sickly yellow as the sun filters through.

  “An hour or two from now you won’t be able to see your fist in front of your face for rain. And lightening? Just don’t take a shower or you may end up a little crispy.”

  I swallow uneasily. “What else?”

  “Bugs the size of dinner plates, mosquitoes, alligators, snakes,” he counts them off on his fingers. “And yeah, it’s God damned hot.”

  “How can you stand it?”

  He shrugs. “Not much choice I guess. You get used to anything after a while.”

  I think of Julia and know he’s right. Charlie licks my face with his tongue as I squeeze him a little closer. Maybe if my parents had bought me a dog, things would have turned out differently.

  “You forgot hurricanes,” I say.

  He wrinkles his face. “They’re more hype than anything else. Usually they just swoop up the coast or into the gulf. The natives make sure they have enough gas for their grill and generator while the tourists run around freaking out.”

  I think about the hurricanes I’ve seen on television and the damage they’ve done. They don’t seem like nothing to me.

  “Isn’t there one heading towards Florida now?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. Whatever.”

  I figure if Noah isn’t too worried then I shouldn’t be either. Besides, I have bigger fish to fry like nailing this scholarship so I shut up until we turn down a narrow street lined with old oaks.

  “There it is,” Noah points. “Victoria College.”

  We’ve been driving for ages down straight roads with no names that go on for miles. They’ll be no walking to the corner store to buy snacks or midnight runs for coffee. Now I envy Noah and his rust bucket truck. He has freedom. I can only see the walls of Victoria College closing in on me like a prison.

  We turn into a driveway. The large iron gates are propped open, attached to a winding brick wall that seems to go on forever and then disappears into a jungle of trees and shrubs. The building is huge, sprawling out across manicured acres like a sleeping giant. Lumbering old oak trees dot the green landscape, their branches laden with Spanish moss. It swings in the breeze like drying laundry. Stone statues glare at us as we pass. One is a child, a little naked girl who points at the sky with an accusing finger.

  “Cursing the heavens?” I say under my breath.

  “Yeah, she probably wants her clothes back,” Noah laughs.

  “I can’t believe this place is a college. It should be a museum or something.”

  “It was, once. Three hurricanes later and there was no State money left to put the crumbling ruins back together.”

  “Hey, I thought you said hurricanes weren’t a big deal here.”

  He’s quiet for a moment. “That year was a fluke. It’ll never happen again.”

  A fluke? My stomach turns over uneasily. I don’t believe in flukes, coincidence or random shit happening for no reason. Neither does Julia.

  “So what, after these fluke hurricanes they turned it into a college to make money?”

  “Tuition fees are expensive you know. Besides it was that or a nut house but I heard the State wasn’t too keen to have a bunch of loony’s running around the place. Bad for the tourist industry, you know? I mean, people still like to come here and admire the architecture. They have a tour on the weekends that people pay to go on. No one wants to pay to see crazies eating the wallpaper and running around naked.”

  I don’t tell Noah that I’ve actually been in the nut house and not once have I seen people eating the wallpaper or running around naked. But I guess I have seen a lot of other stuff, things normal people like to pretend doesn’t exist in their safe, cookie cutter world so I don’t say anything because I know he’s right. Sane people don’t like to think about crazy people. It fucks with their heads.

  “He’ll find out the truth about you eventually,” Julia sings in my ear.

  But he won’t. No one will. That thing I said before, about falling in love? I know it can’t happen now. I look at Noah and I see that love or lust or whatever I want to feel will only drive me crazy. Big Sally says I can’t handle intimate relationships. I think maybe she’s right. I need to focus on my work and nothing else. Love is just another distraction I can do without.

  7.

  Noah drives around the back, following a winding path flanked by drooping palm trees. I'm still straining to see the architecture of the massive building. It's like a Gothic castle, fabulous in a depressingly creepy sort of way. In the distance thunder rumbles.

  “It's getting closer,” Noah says. “We made it just in time.”

  “Yeah, just in time before my stuff gets soaked in the bed o
f your damn truck.”

  I smile sweetly as he opens his mouth to reply and jump out as soon as the truck pulls to a stop. Charlie is out and spinning around my ankles. Noah grabs a tennis ball from the bed of the truck and tosses it into the bushes. The dog runs off with his tail wagging.

  My suitcase didn't blow away but I still have to brush leaves and dirt off it. Good thing the bag is black, like the mood settling over me. Out of the truck the building is far more menacing than I imagined it would be. A chill runs down my spine despite the warm, muggy air.

  “You okay?” Noah asks.

  “Fine.”

  “This is a bad place,” Julia says. “You should leave. No, actually you should stay. This is going to be awesome.”

  When Julia says I should stay, that’s when I know I should get far away from here but I can't leave. I need this scholarship. It's my lifeline, without it I'll die. Julia knows that. I ignore her.

  “This way.”

  Noah strides off leaving Charlie rustling around in the shrubbery. I trail behind his blue plaid shirt, heart pounding wildly. The door opens with a groan and suddenly we're inside. It's dark and cold with marble floors and the smell of old wood and furniture polish thick in the air. I follow him down a narrow hall and then we're thrust into the light. In the foyer there are columns and tapestries, huge tables holding massive candles and a hush in the air so thick it’s palpable.

  “Holy shit,” I whisper.

  “I told you it was impressive.”

  “You're sure this is the right place?”

  “Damn sure,” he grins. “But the living quarters are nothing like this and the classrooms are pretty sparse too. Guess they don't want hooligans like us pinching the antiques.”

  He points off to a hallway blocked by a red velvet rope strung between two gold stands.

  “That's where most of the good stuff is, where the tourists go off on their tours.”

  “What’s through there?”

  He shrugs. “Don’t know, never been. Not exactly impressed by old bowls and rickety beds royalty once slept in if you know what I mean.”

  “But you're an artist,” I say. “How can you not appreciate that stuff?”

  “I'm a modern artist,” he says. “Metal work mostly. I don't do old time artsy stuff. Do you?”

  He looks at me as my face starts to blush. I think of the paintings in my portfolio, the thick oils and rich colors depicting people in the throes of death. Maybe he hasn't seen my art after all. As usual Julia was lying when she said he was intimidated by me.

  “I just paint stuff,” I say and leave it at that.

  “Whatever,” he says, not seeming to care.

  A crack of thunder makes it through the thick walls and rumbles down the hallway. Through the windows I see the first fat drops of rain. Noah points down a hall in the opposite direction from the tourist one.

  “The rooms are down that way. I'd better go and find Charlie before he gets drenched.”

  “See you later then,” I say.

  “Tomorrow,” he says. “I'll be back tomorrow for the first class. See you then.” He turns and walks away but then looks back over his shoulder with a wicked smile. “I can't wait to see your paintings.”

  I feel horrible. Someone from the college must have liked them for me to have been accepted but now I realize most of the kids here will be working on modern art. I hadn't given much thought to my outdated technique but now I'm afraid my stuff won't be good enough. I feel sick but maybe that's just because I haven't eaten anything since the peanut butter and jelly sandwich and that was hours ago. I follow the hallway and hope that maybe they'll be feeding us soon or that my remaining sandwiches haven’t been too squished after rolling around in the back of Noah's clapped out truck.

  The hallway is narrow and the paintings on the walls close in on me. Like mine they are oil portraits, women in huge dresses with children or dogs perched at their feet. I wonder how long they had to sit like that, their forced smiles turning stern as hour after hour, day after day crawled by. In one a small child is crying, his tears immortalized forever by the opaque blue oil the artist used. The mother has her hand on the boys shoulder as if to comfort him but he’s looking away from her, scared and frightened by something beyond the corner of the canvas.

  Great, two minutes here and I’m already imagining monsters lurking in the shadows. Big Sally wouldn’t be impressed. Paranoid delusions are pretty high on the list of things that get you jacked off to Hillcrest.

  8.

  I follow the sound of voices to the end of the long hallway with the creepy paintings. At the door I freeze, not sure if I want to go in and face the people I’ll be spending my summer with. I like to be alone. Forced socializing gives me the hives. Big Sally says it's something I need to work on but she still didn’t think this summer would be good for me. I know she has reservations about me being on my own without a support system and she’d rather spend time mending the relationship between me and my parents. She thinks the bond has been stretched, not broken. I know better. She even suggested they come along to some of my sessions but that didn’t turn out so well. They think I'm the problem, that it's always been me and that they are innocent bystanders. Big Sally says that until they admit to being part of the problem, we just have to keep working on me. And by working on I mean figuring out what new weird and wonderful medication she can put me on and then noting the side effects in her notebook. Like the time my pee turned blue. She found that fascinating. Me? Not so much.

  The laughter behind the closed door escalates. It's now or never. I take a deep breath and count to ten. Then I let it out slowly. I don’t really feel any better but I turn the door handle anyway and step into the room. It's white with two large windows at the end. For a moment I’m blinded by the stark light.

  “Fresh meat!” someone calls out and everyone laughs.

  “Be nice to the new girl,” someone else says. “Just because you got here first, doesn't mean you're the boss of everyone, Mike.”

  “That's what you think.”

  As my eyes adjust to the light I see people lounging on three couches set around a low table. Three girls sit with their feet propped up and some boys have taken over one of the couches, sprawling onto the floor amid a tangle of wires and game controllers. Their attention has momentarily been pulled away from the television screen where two soldiers battle to the death. I know they are taking me in, assessing if the new girl is a threat to their already established hierarchy. Obviously they think not as their bored eyes flick over me and then back to their game.

  “Give it up, Mike. You're in way over your head.”

  The blond one nudges the guy with the crew cut sitting next to him and they go back to the game. Compared to Noah, it feels like I’ve stepped into preschool. I long for his cowboy boots, his smelly dog and his country boy logic. No wonder he’s not staying here. I don’t know how I am going to take it. I’m frozen. I literally can’t move my legs. I can’t open my mouth because I’m pretty sure no words will come out and I'll look like a goldfish someone has taken out of its bowl, gasping for air and about to die.

  Finally one of the girls comes to my rescue. She walks up and takes my arm.

  “Hi! I’m Emily. Come on, I'll show you the dorms.”

  She walks fast and talks even faster, a finger twirling her blonde hair as she does.

  Away from the room of staring people I finally find my voice. “How long have you been here?”

  “Since yesterday. The parents dropped me off on their way down to the Keys.”

  “Cool,” I say.

  “Not really. They're getting a divorce but they haven't told my little brother yet. They're hoping all the swimming and jet skiing will soften the blow.”

  I can’t think of anything appropriate to say so end up saying nothing.

  “What about you? Parents still together?”

  “Yes. Unfortunately.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “T
hey don't like each other. I don't know why they stay together.”

  Except that’s a lie. I know they stay together because of me. Divorce isn’t good for mentally unstable children. Every shrink I’ve ever been to has told them that but I bet they’ll split when I’ve gone.

  “Brothers or sisters?” she asks casually.

  Breath catches in my throat. No matter how many times someone asks me and how many times I lie, this is the one that always gets me. I clench my fist and feel the nails cut into my hand.

  “No.”

  “You're lucky,” Emily carries on, oblivious to my hesitation. “My brother is the devil incarnate. I can't wait until I go off to college and leave the little jerk behind. Do you know what he did to me? He stole one of my thongs and took it to school to show his friends. They raised it up the flagpole. Can you believe it? Little prick.”

  As Emily goes on and on about her home life and her annoying brother, I start to breathe again. I can tell she's one of those people who love the sound of their own voice way too much. A few nods here and a well timed yes or no there and I'm sure she'll go on for hours and think she's had a wonderful conversation. I've had friends like her before. They're the best kind. They require very little participation. Finally, after several winding hallways and staircases we arrive at the dorms. They are little more than old servant’s quarters.

  “It's two to a room I'm afraid.”

  She opens the door to a room that can only be described as a glorified broom closet. One bunk bed is shoved against the wall next to a tiny window. Someone else’s stuff is already piled on the top bunk.

  “Looks like you'll have to take the bottom.”

  I glare at Emily. “Is there no democracy here?”

  The look on her face tells me she’s taken back by my attitude but she doesn’t know I’ve been in the psych ward. It’s not the first time I’ve had to fight for the top bunk. So far I’ve never lost.

  “It's not me. I'm already bunking with Natalie. You’re in here with Norma.” She leans in closer and whispers, “She's weird. I’d let her have it if I were you.”