Without Annette

by Jane B. Mason

Roxanne screwed the cap back on the bottle and buried it in her bag. “Drinking rule number one,” she said. “Two shots is generally the limit, especially on school nights. You can do two shots and still function well enough to walk past Lola No, do your schoolwork, and not make a total ass of yourself at post-study-hall Scene.” She pulled a box of Altoids out of her pocket, flipped open the lid, and extended it to me. “Rule number two. No drinking if you do not have a method for disguising the alcohol on your breath. After extensive research that lasted my entire lower-mid year, I recommend Altoids, three of them, eating them one at a time, and dissolving, not chewing, though sometimes you will be in a hurry and chewing will be necessary.”

  I complied, even though Altoids were too strong for me—I was a Pep O Mint Life Savers kind of girl. As the first mint dissolved in my mouth, I felt the booze slipping into my bloodstream, making everything a little hazy. For the first time all day, I felt myself relax. Plus, I was no longer shivering.

  Roxanne slid the box of Altoids back into her pocket. “Do you talk?”

  I laughed, because at home everyone wondered if I was capable of shutting up. And, to be honest, sometimes I wasn’t. Which was one of the reasons I didn’t really want to start talking.

  “Listen, I wasn’t kidding before,” she went on. “Brookwood can really suck sometimes. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that weakness is universally frowned upon—even more than weirdness—so whatever you do, don’t look vulnerable. Especially not to the Soleets.”

  “The what?”

  “Soleets. The Social Elites. They’re sporty and rich and beautiful and, for the most part, so busy thinking about themselves they don’t give a rat’s ass about anyone else. There are a lot of them around here, so watch out.”

  My mind flashed to the Scene after dinner, and I knew instantly that Becca was a Soleet.

  “They make me feel inside out,” I blurted.

  I heard Roxanne exhale slowly. “Exactly,” she agreed. “Inside out and upside down.”

  I had just stepped out of the shower and was wrapping my hair in a towel when Annette burst into the bathroom.

  “Where were you?” she demanded. “I texted you like ten times and practically got busted for having my phone in public—totally against the rules. Josie, you missed it!”

  A brief flash of happiness—she’d missed me!—was followed by a free fall into annoyance. Didn’t she realize how hurt I’d been when she brushed me off in the main hall?

  “My phone died,” I said, yanking the towel off my head and wrapping it around my torso, as if a rectangular piece of cotton terry cloth would protect me, would make me less vulnerable. She raised an eyebrow, silently reminding me that we’d been naked together countless times.

  “I went on a walk.”

  “But you got picked!” she said. “They told your life story!”

  “My what?”

  “Your life story. Becca says they pick three new students every year and do a little slide show about them. You know, so people can get a snapshot of some of the kids who’re new at Brookwood. And they picked you!”

  What the … ? I suddenly remembered what Hank told me after dinner—that Orientation was especially painful for an unlucky few. Only I’d had no idea what that meant, or that I was one of those few. Uff-da.

  I steadied myself on the old-fashioned radiator. I already felt like I had a sign around my neck saying “I’m not like any of you people.” Did I really need a slide show, too? “What did they say?” I asked, slumping onto the toilet.

  Annette could see my worry and crouched down to my level. “It’s all right, Jo. It was nothing too embarrassing, and your baby pictures were adorable. Your mom did a great job picking them out.”

  “My mom?”

  “Of course. Where else would they get baby pictures of you?” Her fingers rested on my forearm. “She did an awesome job, too. The only one Becca said she’d have edited out was the one from two years ago of you with your face covered in birthday cake. She said it seemed kind of …”

  I bolted to my feet, knocking the plastic cup of toothbrushes off the sink and sending them to the floor with a hollow clatter. My thirteenth birthday party had a carnival theme, complete with a cake-eating contest in which I beat all three of my brothers and emerged victorious. I did not need Rebecca Ryder to tell me how ridiculous I’d looked!

  Annette calmly gathered the toothbrushes and set the cup down on the edge of the sink. “Josie, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I’m fine,” I murmured, pulling back slightly. For some reason, I didn’t want to tell her how hard the last several hours had been, how uncertain I was feeling.

  “Well, that’s clearly not true.” Annette was gazing at me, not letting me off the hook.

  I shivered and shrugged simultaneously. “I just got a little cold on my walk.”

  The corners of her mouth tugged into a smile. “Oh, is that all?” She stepped closer. “I can fix that.” She let go of my hand and found the small of my back, nudging me closer until our breasts were touching. Then she leaned in and kissed me.

  I felt her soft lips settle onto mine and tilted my head, opening my mouth slightly and breathing her in. She smelled like Pert shampoo and strawberry and everything that was good, that was familiar. As I reached my arms around her shoulders, the whole day began to disappear. Why had I been so upset again?

  Annette leaned the length of her body into mine, pressing me against the wall and kissing me a little harder. I gave in to everything then—to her lips, her tongue, her body, until I forgot where I was. Then Annette’s hand was on my breast and my towel was slipping and I suddenly remembered exactly where we were, and everything that had happened that day, and was starting to cry. Only this time, Annette was here, kissing me—my cheeks, my chin, my eyelids. And then she reached for my hand and kissed that.

  “It’s going to be okay,” she told me as she retrieved my towel from the floor and wrapped it around me, tucking the flap next to my armpit. We’d reversed our usual roles—I’d gone from pep talker to pep listener—and I felt like a little kid as she pulled me into a hug. “You said it yourself. They’re going to love us.”

  I tried to shake off my uncertainty and just be here and be happy, to think of nothing but Pert shampoo and Annette and kissing.

  And then Roxanne opened the door.

  “Oh!” Annette said in surprise, stepping away so quickly you’d have thought I was made of molten lava.

  I straightened and made sure my towel was covering but couldn’t quite manage to offer an excuse. And anyway, what was the point? I already knew Roxanne well enough to know that she wouldn’t believe some half-baked lie, and at the moment, I wasn’t particularly interested in hiding my relationship with Annette anyway. Which, admittedly, wasn’t entirely fair since I’d actually been the one to suggest we keep our relationship under wraps for the first few days.

  It was our last Saturday night in Virginia Falls. Annette rolled over, throwing an arm across my chest and tucking her head against my shoulder. During the day, she was the calm one, moving through life as if it had been scripted and she’d been rehearsing for years. At night, though, she thrashed around like a wild pony, tangling the sheets and our limbs.

  “Josie? Are you asleep?” she whispered, wriggling closer.

  “No.”

  I heard her exhale, and knew what she was thinking before she spoke again. “I’m kind of freaking out.” Her voice had that nervous edge—the one that emerged when Shannon got nasty after drinking too much. She rolled over to face me and I glanced at my clock—it was one thirty a.m.

  Neither of us said anything for a long time, and I could feel Annette’s heartbeat through her pajama top, hear her breathing in the dark. I slid down, wrapping my arms around her waist.

  “It’ll be fine,” I said. “It’s not like Brookwood is a foreign country. I think they even speak English …”

  She let out a whoop and I smiled into her collarbone, loving
how her laughter could suddenly erupt from her belly. I lifted my head to find her lips, her warm, minty breath on my face.

  I loved kissing Annette. Her lips were fuller than mine and so, so soft. She opened her mouth and I pulled her closer, my palm against the curve of her waist. I was starting to drift when, just like that, we weren’t kissing anymore.

  “What if they don’t like us?” I couldn’t see her face in the darkness, but heard the worry in her voice loud and clear. “What if they’re weird about girls who like girls?”

  “You think they’re lesbophobic?” I asked, trying to make her smile. That word had always seemed funny to me.

  “Josie, I’m serious. We have no idea what it’s like there.”

  I’d thought about this, of course, and wasn’t surprised that she had, too. “We don’t have to broadcast that we’re a couple,” I said reasonably. “We can keep it quiet at first.”

  “You’d be okay with that?”

  “Sure. We’ll be roommates, and still a couple—just not public about it for the first week or two. We’ll break in those Brookwood lesbophobics easy.”

  “They still might not like us.”

  “Annette, they’re going to love us. Well, you at least. Everyone adores you. Plus, you’re smart and funny and not a total dog …”

  She pinched me, hard, on the butt.

  “Hey!”

  “You deserved that.”

  “I think you broke the skin.”

  “You still deserved it.”

  I could taste the remnants of her hint-o-mint lip balm on my own lips and kissed her again, quickly this time. “I forgive you.”

  “Really?” she asked.

  “Of course. You’re impossible to stay mad at.”

  “I mean about them liking us.” She was whispering again, the anxious edge resurfacing. Having Shannon for a mother had seriously eroded Annette’s self-esteem.

  I sat up on my elbow. “Annette Anderson, where is your confidence? You are a fabulous human being, and everyone at Brookwood Academy will see that the minute we step foot onto that campus.”

  I watched her face shift into a smile, felt her shoulders relax. I snuggled back down and she curled into me, draping an arm over the edge of the bed. “You always know exactly how to make me feel better, Josie,” she said, turning to kiss my cheek. “I swear I’d be lost without you.”

  “Um, we were just talking,” Annette babbled to Roxanne. Then she seemed to remember her manners, because she stepped forward and held out a hand. “I’m Annette, Annette Anderson.”

  Roxanne raised an eyebrow and shook, but didn’t point out the obvious fact that talking was clearly not all we were doing. Then she grabbed a tube of moisturizer off the shelf above the sink. “No problem, girls,” she said lightly. “A little female powwow is always a good thing. And I totally should have knocked. But for future reference, this door has a lock.” She slipped out the door and closed it behind her.

  Annette steadied herself against the pedestal sink. “I’m totally not ready for this.”

  I knew exactly how she felt. “It’s ridiculously overwhelming, isn’t it?” But as the question came out of my mouth, I couldn’t help but wonder if she was talking about what I was talking about—making a life halfway across the country from our friends and families and everything we knew—or about being ourselves, a couple, in front of people who didn’t know us.

  “Overwhelming, yes,” Annette agreed, leaning fully against the sink and looking tired for the first time since we’d arrived. “It’s like being on a roller coaster.” Her eyes softened. “I’m sorry about what happened in the main hall, Josie. I didn’t mean to hurt you. But I didn’t want to offend them, either. We’re not in Virginia Falls anymore—we can’t just go off by ourselves whenever we feel like it.”

  “We can’t?” I half joked. I knew she was right—or at least partly right—but didn’t want to admit it.

  Annette shook her head. “No. And anyway, why would we want to? We moved halfway across the country to go to school here, and this place is incredible.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Did you know they have sixty-seven clubs and organizations? I was thinking of doing filmmaking, or maybe baking. What are you going to try?” Annette was filling my silence with her excitement, which only seemed to drain whatever fumes of energy I had left. I hadn’t even considered extracurricular activities. We’d only been here for ten hours!

  “I’m not sure yet,” I admitted. “Can we decide later?” I pulled my pajama bottoms off a hook and slipped them on. “I’m about to fall over.”

  Annette gazed at me with a “you can’t avoid deciding forever” look, which I almost did avoid by pulling my tank top over my head—but didn’t protest. She half smiled and tilted herself forward, giving me a quick kiss on the lips. “Okay, later, then. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I watched her disappear out the door with a wave to Roxanne, remembering with a pang that I thought we’d be roommates, that we’d be falling asleep whispering in the dark. Instead, we were both bunking with virtual strangers.

  Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough.

  Oh jeez, I thought, gazing at the handout on the table in front of me. Until that moment, I’d had no idea that a single sheet of plain white 8-1/2 × 11 paper could be capable of striking terror into my heart. And yet there it was, the syllabus for mid English, staring up at me and making me feel like it was my first day of classes in a new school, I didn’t know anyone, and my family and friends were extremely far away.

  Oh, wait, that was actually true.

  To begin with, the type on the syllabus was so small I could hardly read it. But that was clearly necessary if Mr., um, Professor Drake was going to fit it all on one piece of paper—even if he used both sides. Second, it was filled with a painstakingly detailed, well-thought-out plan for the entire year, during which I would apparently be writing innumerate (his word) essays and engaging in both debates and recitations (also his word).

  Frankly, it was all a little much for seven forty-five on a Monday morning … especially since I’d overslept and hadn’t had a single sip of coffee, much less my usual cup. And since every other English class syllabus I’d seen was barely thought out and fit easily on an index card.

  The class was small—eleven students—less than a third the size of my freshman English class at VF High. Brookwood prided itself on its small class size, which sounded great in theory but at the moment felt more like a choke hold.

  Penn was at one end of the oval table, Becca right across from me. She fingered her add-a-pearl necklace, looking very sure of herself. I was starting to suspect that she always looked like that. Next to her sat Patrick Mahoney, from table 37. His eyes kept darting to the syllabus and he was beaming as though he’d just been handed the keys to his dad’s Mercedes.

  Professor Drake, dressed in a tweed blazer and a red patterned bow tie, stood at the front of the room, gazing out at us over the top of his tortoiseshell glasses. “The goal of this class is to turn you into thoughtful human beings who are capable of reading, writing, and discussing literature both analytically and critically,” he stated. “Not an easy task, I assure you, but there we have it.”

  He wrote four words on the board and proceeded to define each one out loud and in detail, as if he were some sort of oral human dictionary.

  “Emotion, noun, an excitement of feeling that is separate from reason or knowledge.

  “Logic, noun, the science or art of exact reason or formal thought.

  “Are you with me?” He paused in his definition spouting and looked over his shoulder, catching my eye and making me wonder if I looked as slow as I felt.

  “Rhetoric, noun, the art of persuasion in composition or speaking, often without conviction or sincerity.”

  I eyed Becca, who I already sensed was some kind of rhetorical genius.

  “And finally, authenticity, noun, the quality of being authentic,” and then, “authentic, adjective, of ap
proved authority; true, trustworthy, credible.

  “These are the primary tools we will use to discuss our readings,” Professor Drake said. “I suggest you get to know them intimately so that you are able to form opinions about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of everything you read and write.”

  No pressure, I thought, remembering with a sinking feeling that Brookwood held classes six days a week. I looked to the clock for comfort, but found none. It was only 8:19.

  Professor Drake plowed through the next thirty-one minutes at warp whiteboard-writing speed, then gave us our first assignment. Read two poems: “The Wood-Pile” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” by Robert Frost. But that was not all.

  “I’d like you to come to class with detailed notes on whether or not you found these selections to be effective or ineffective, and why or why not based on two of the four components we’ve just discussed. And please try to sound like the intelligent creatures the admissions committee believes you to be. I don’t want to be bored to tears for the next nine months, and neither do you.”

  He caught my eye then, and nodded slightly, as if he knew I could do it. And in the space of a single forty-five-minute class, I had reconsidered everything I knew about English class. I’d never had a teacher who (1) operated under the assumption that his students would do what he asked, (2) assumed I was really smart, or (3) expected me to use my brain pretty much all the time.

  Not sure how to respond, I nodded back before shoving my books into my backpack and getting to my weary feet. The academic part of Brookwood appeared to be authentic, at least.

  “He’s not as tough as he seems,” Penn said as we filed into the hall. “He just likes big words and tiny bow ties.”

  “And essays,” I added, remembering the syllabus.

  “That too,” Penn admitted. “What’s next for you?”

  “Algebra Two. Professor Roth.”

  “Male or female?”

  I hesitated.

  “There are two Roths.”

  “Oh. Female, I think.”