Without Annette

by Jane B. Mason

  I raced down the sidewalk and hurdled a pile of sooty snow, the word wait-listed repeating itself in my mind. I had no idea what it really meant. How many people were on the wait-list? How many got in? And what would we do if she didn’t get in?

  Breathless and a little sweaty, I pulled open the Andersons’ front door, only to stop short. Shannon was coming toward me from the kitchen, her green eyes narrowed and her mouth set in a straight line. I could smell the gin on her breath.

  “You again,” she said, weaving just enough to make the ice cubes in her lowball clink. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Annette sitting on the living room sofa, holding her letter and staring at the floor. “Annette isn’t going anywhere—that boarding school of yours doesn’t want her.”

  Shannon didn’t mince words—especially the cruel ones. I forced myself to swallow my anger and walked over to Annette, gently tugging the letter out of her hand. If we’d been alone, I would have reached out an arm or given her a kiss, but under the circumstances, it was best to keep a careful distance.

  Dear Miss Anderson,

  The Admissions Committee has carefully reviewed your application …

  Blah, blah, blah.

  … because we have more qualified applicants than spaces …

  Yadda, yadda, yadda.

  … we have placed your name on our waiting list. Your position is fifth.

  Blah, blah, blah.

  If you are still interested in attending Brookwood this fall, please let our Admissions Office know as soon as possible.

  Blah, yadda, blah.

  “They don’t want her,” Shannon repeated, sinking heavily into the faded armchair by the fireplace. “Not that I blame them.” She paused to take a sip. “Am I the only one around here who saw this one coming?”

  Annette’s eyelids fluttered closed and I heard her exhale with almost inaudible raggedness. I leaned a tiny bit closer and pressed my knee against hers, wishing I could put a protective bubble around her—around us. Something her mother couldn’t penetrate. Or burst.

  “That’s not what the letter says,” I said, keeping my voice calm. I’d had years of practice. “It says they don’t have space for every qualified applicant.”

  Shannon swirled her cubes and eyed her daughter on the couch. “She’s not qualified.”

  Annette’s dad came in from the kitchen, wiping his hands on the apron Annette had given him for Father’s Day several years before. The words King of the Kitchen had mostly worn off, but you could still see the gold crown in the middle. His skin seemed stretched over the bones of his face, his thinning hair unusually messy. “Of course she’s qualified—it’s just a matter of numbers.”

  “And she’s fifth,” I added. That was probably pretty good—there were maybe thirty names on that list. She’d get in, in the end. She had to get in.

  Annette’s eyes were focused on the nail polish stain we’d made on the carpet years before, during our makeover phase. Her body oozed defeat.

  “I’m not going without her,” I said.

  “Oh yes, you are,” Shannon pronounced with utter clarity (it was still pretty early—she was probably only on drink number two).

  Annette turned to me. Her green eyes—the color of birch leaves just unfurled—glistened with sadness. “You have to go,” she said, half pleading and half resigned. “If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t even know about Brookwood.” She bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling, and I squelched my urge to lean in and kiss it. “I really wanted to go,” she added in a whisper.

  “You’re not going anywhere but that god-awful Virginia Falls High.”

  I watched Annette’s shoulders sag forward, watched the last ray of hope disappear from her eyes, and steeled myself. I didn’t usually go up against Shannon—especially when she was drinking. But she had Annette in a cage, and I held the key in my hand. I hadn’t gotten it into the lock yet, but I was close. Oh so close. If I said nothing and Annette stayed in Virginia Falls, it would be like dropping the key on the ground, like walking away from Annette when she was still behind bars.

  Which would rip my heart out.

  “This isn’t a rejection,” I said, fixing my eyes on Shannon, and then Michael. “She’s fifth. The other people on that list probably applied to a bunch of schools. If Annette tells them she really wants to go, she’ll get in. That’s how it works.”

  Was that how it worked? I had absolutely no idea, but it sounded reasonable.

  “You think?” I could see a sliver of light in Annette’s eyes—sunlight on spring leaves.

  “I know.” I reached for her hand. “You are going to Brookwood Academy this fall. We are going.”

  Shannon opened her mouth to say something, but Michael beat her to it. “Well, then. I believe you girls had better let Brookwood know that Annette is still highly interested,” he said, avoiding his wife’s death stare.

  It was all I could do not to leap off the couch and throw my arms around him. Annette’s father wasn’t exactly a pillar of familial strength—this was a rare showing of some major backbone.

  Shannon stared at him in a kind of stupor (maybe it was drink number three), and I thanked him profusely with my eyes as Annette and I got to our feet and hurried toward the stairs and Annette’s laptop. We did, indeed, have a letter to write.

  The sound of voices drifting in through the open bathroom window filtered into my daydream, and I realized I’d been sitting on the toilet so long my butt was starting to ache. And also that I had a reply from Annette. When did that come in?

  Going on campus tour w roomie—will come get u 4 Vespers. Xo.

  Was she already unpacked? Knowing Annette, this was entirely possible. The girl took organization to a whole new level.

  I stood up and washed my hands, wiping my wet palms on my sweater since my capris were still covered in dog hair and there wasn’t a towel in sight. In front of the mirror, I noticed that my hair was even more riotous than usual due to the eight-hour trek, making my head look like a sheep in need of a shearing. And thanks to my ridiculously pale skin I had bags under my eyes. I looked like a zombie, and didn’t feel much better.

  I had a sudden urge to turn the water on full blast, strip down, and take a scalding-hot shower. But I didn’t have a towel or a bar of soap—they were, along with everything else I’d brought with me, in the next room along with a black-clad stranger. A stranger who barely had two words for a classmate she obviously knew, much less some freaky-looking girl from out of state whom she had never laid eyes on.

  I let out a sigh. I’d wanted to come to Brookwood and here I was—here we were. Annette was safe from her mother, probably already unpacked and definitely touring the campus. Me? I was sitting in a bathroom having a pity party.

  That’s not going to do you a lick of good, Josephine, said my grandmother’s voice, and, again, she was right. I gave myself a stern look in the mirror on her behalf. Then I finger-combed my tangled curls, squared my shoulders, and opened the door. “Ready or not,” I murmured. “Here I come.”

  “You are truly fortunate to be here,” Headmaster Thornfeld said from the carved podium at center stage. The entire student body was gathered in the auditorium, seated in red velvet-upholstered chairs that curved gracefully to match the unusual shape of the hall. “For every one of you sitting in this room, a dozen were turned away. Some of you have just arrived, while others have been here for a year or two. We expect the exceptional from all of you, equally.”

  Is he serious? I tried to imagine Principal Hansen giving a speech like this at Virginia Falls High and almost laughed out loud. VF High was a big public school, the only high school in town. Even the mascot—the lumberjack—was big. But exceptional? Definitely not.

  “We take our motto,” the headmaster went on, “ ‘Achievement, Honor, Respect,’ seriously at Brookwood.”

  “What a load of bull,” a boy behind me said with a snicker. Newcomb, his name was. Or Newhall. An N name. I was in a row of Ls, next to someone
named Oscar Lord and smack-dab in the middle of my class, the mids. I’d learned from the website that lower mids were freshmen, mids were sophomores, and upper mids were juniors. Seniors, it turned out, were just seniors.

  The mids essentially occupied the rear third of the auditorium, because there weren’t that many lower mids (freshmen) and they only needed three rows in the back. The seniors and upper mids were up front, and in that order. Annette and I had found our seats before Vespers started, so I knew she was three rows in front of me, off to the left. Penn and Roxanne, the only other students I actually knew (if you can call a two-minute conversation knowing), were somewhere in the sea of students behind me.

  I tried to focus on what Headmaster Thornfeld was saying but was suddenly finding it hard to keep my eyes open.

  “The Honor Code is the backbone of our educational and social community.” Thornfeld’s balding head looked a little fuzzy. My eyelids drooped. “Your signature on the contract is your personal pledge to abide by its …”

  I just need to close them for a minute. I slipped down in my chair.

  “… rigorous class schedule … academic expectations … students who do not … put on probation …”

  Something jabbed me in the ribs.

  “Quit it!” I heard myself say in the screechy voice I generally reserved for my three brothers when they were being extra annoying.

  “You were snoring,” Oscar whispered in my ear.

  My eyes shot open and I bolted upright. Half the row behind me snickered, and several people in H through J turned around just in time to see me wipe the drool from my chin. Annette’s eyes scolded, then softened into a look of bemusement.

  I pushed my back against the velvet seat, focusing intently on the stage and pretending that nothing unusual had happened.

  “Just a little narcoleptic,” I mumbled. Oscar chuckled and tugged at his collar.

  The headmaster had been replaced by a boy in a blue blazer and red necktie who was explaining the importance of student government at Brookwood.

  “Head Monitor William Spencer,” Oscar whispered. “Total geek.”

  I had no idea if this was an insult or a compliment, so I didn’t respond. The boy on the stage was tall and lean and looked a lot like everyone else in the room. Or at least like every other male person in the room …

  Did they look the same because they were dressed alike? This was Vespers—a coat-and-tie assembly that took place four evenings a week, on the nights that students had sit-down dinner. Both were semiformal, which was why I was surrounded by boys in khakis, blue blazers, button-down shirts, and ties (mostly red and either striped or dotted with miniature animals—I’d noticed a lot of bears, in particular). The girls’ outfits were more varied—dresses and skirts and sweaters and blouses, with a unifying theme: the pearl necklace. Some were graduated, some multi-strand, and still others were partially gold chains (aka, I would learn, add-a-pearl necklaces). I fingered my gold chain with its opal pendant—a gift from Annette on my thirteenth birthday—and listened to the boy onstage.

  William Spencer spoke with an impressive combination of enthusiasm and confidence, as if he’d been addressing huge groups of people since he was in kindergarten. He explained that the formal dinner seating was assigned, and students who had not already done so should consult the list in the foyer outside the main dining hall. “So without further ado …”

  Without further ado? I thought as conversations broke out all around me. I considered thanking my alarm clock, but he was yakking it up with some boys from row J.

  Exiting the auditorium was like exiting a completely full airplane with multiple exits, so I knew almost immediately that my plan to wait for Annette was doomed. Out in the hall, things were no better—I was quickly swept up in the mob of students moving down the long, stone-arched corridor.

  At least I don’t have to worry about finding the dining room, I thought.

  “Feeling rested?”

  I turned and saw Penn, the boy who’d brought up my suitcases, grinning at me. He was wearing one of those ties with the bears on it.

  “Don’t worry,” he consoled me, seeing my expression. “You’re not the first Brookwood student to fall asleep on Thornfeld’s auditory watch. The guy is notoriously long-winded.”

  “Was I loud?” I ventured.

  “Like a sumo wrestler.”

  “Uff-da.”

  Penn stared at me. “What was that?”

  I flushed. Uff-da was one of those weird Minnesotan expressions I swore I’d never use but somehow did, anyway. It basically meant you were overloaded and so close to speechless that something as dumb as uff-da was all you could get out. “Um, nothing.”

  He eyed me warily. “Well, it wasn’t that bad. I’m pretty sure the seniors didn’t even hear you.”

  “That’s a relief.” I was still mortified, but also reassured that Penn thought my inadvertent performance was more funny than offensive.

  “Do you know where your hot seat is for your inaugural Brookwood banquet?”

  “My what?” I replied, feeling a vague sense of panic.

  “Relax, Josie Little,” he said. “Where are you sitting at dinner?”

  I let out my breath. “Table 37, but I’m not exactly sure where the dining hall is. We never made it here to see the school—it’s all new.”

  “We?” Penn inquired.

  “My … friend and me,” I replied. “Annette. We’re from the Midwest and applied toge—”

  “Penn-y,” a broad-shouldered boy called, approaching from behind and thumping Penn, hard, on the back. I watched the boys engage in a complicated wrestling embrace without halting their forward progress. Weirdly impressive.

  “Hank-est,” Penn replied. “How was it?”

  “Excellent,” Hank (was it Hank?) replied. He had blond hair and a round face with a square, cleft chin. “France was a highlight—I fully recommend Parisian women.”

  “You dog.”

  I was ambling along behind them when Penn turned back to me. “Hank Jeffrey, meet Josie Little,” he said, waving a hand in my direction. “She’s from …”

  He looked at me with one eye closed, and I saw that his other eye was green-brown.

  “Minnesota,” I finished.

  “I was gonna go with Wisconsin,” Penn admitted.

  “I’m no cheesehead.”

  “Ahhh, but you are, quite apparently, a football fan.”

  I held my hands in the air. “Guilty, but not necessarily by choice. I have three brothers and a dad, and since it’s often below zero for weeks on end, we’re forced to entertain ourselves indoors on the weekends …”

  “I can think of some indoor entertainment,” Hank mused, the edges of his mouth curving upward in a smirk.

  I’d stepped right into that one, and I blushed as I considered indoor entertainment with Annette. Way better than football, no question.

  “Below zero? Dang, that’s cold,” Penn said with a sympathetic shiver. “How do you deal with that?”

  “A lotta layers.”

  Up ahead, the hall herd was breaking up as some students made their way into the dining room while others checked the list. Hank peeled off, and I followed Penn toward a sea of white tablecloths and china.

  “The Brookwood dining hall, like a long-lost friend … or enemy,” he said, spreading his arms. “See you later, Subzero,” he added, cracking a smile as he moved away.

  “See you,” I replied distractedly as I scanned the tables for numbers. A small bronze-colored plaque sat in the center of each table, several of which were already filling up. I searched the room, looking for table 37, and instead found Annette standing next to her roommate at table 19.

  I felt a pang of envy as I watched the two girls bend their heads together. Annette looked happy, and had clearly landed a roommate, a friend, and a tour guide in the space of a few hours.

  That’s what she does—she fits in, I reminded myself as the noise in the dining room rose to a din. All aroun
d me, students were laughing and talking, and I felt as though I’d walked into a party several hours late, when everyone else was already having a good time. And then, cutting through the sound came the ring of a little bell—a signal that everyone was supposed to take a seat.

  Thirty-seven, a tiny voice said in my brain. My feet moved, taking me to the other side of the room, where I found my table and slipped into the last empty chair. No sooner had I sat down than a faculty member, a sharp-eyed woman with short, salt-and-pepper hair, told me I had to get up.

  “You’re in one of the waiters’ seats,” she explained, looking over the top of her glasses. “You and Mr. Jeffrey are tasked with bringing food to our table.” She gestured palm up to the boy who’d just been wrestling with Penn in the hall, then to a long buffet table covered with platters of food, on the other side of the room.

  The meal, surprisingly, looked delicious. Roast chicken with potatoes and carrots, rolls, and a green salad. “I got the fowl and tubers, you grab the carbs and roughage.” Hank pointed with his chin to the other end of the table.

  “Got it.” I grabbed a basket of rolls and a wooden salad bowl off the buffet and followed him back to our table, where we set everything down near the salt-and-pepper professor. She served herself, then passed everything to her right. By the time the chicken platter got to me, only thighs remained, just like at home, where I was perpetually eating my brothers’ leftovers. Out of the blue I felt an ache so sharp it was as if I was being squeezed and pierced at the same time, as if a giant had reached in from through the ceiling and grabbed me around the chest. It was all I could do to choose one of the remaining chicken thighs and pass the platter along, and I was still reeling when the vegetables arrived. I served myself and tried to breathe, tried to hide the fact that I was losing it.

  I was just getting a grasp on a normal inhale/exhale pattern, when Salt-and-Pepper cleared her throat. “I am Carol Blackburn, classics professor,” she said. “I have been at Brookwood for seventeen years. We have three new students seated here, and I think it would be nice to go around the table and introduce ourselves. Tell us who you are, where you are from, and something surprising about yourself. Erica, you may start us off.”