by Danica Avet
Thankfully, I appeared to be the only person who thought his behavior was strange. Then I learned he doesn’t date. At all. He just has sex and only with non-band students.
I shake my head and push open the door to my floor. He’s exactly like the boys at home, the ones who chase after a girl until they get what they want and then move on to the next without a single thought to her feelings. Although that behavior seemed to extend only to me and my sisters. I can’t even count how many times I had to comfort Delia when one of the boys from town broke her heart. Or how many times I had to do the same for Mama.
Praying Lucille, Maggie Mae, Jeanie Marie, and Ruby escape the same fate, I push open my door and stop in my tracks. When I left this morning, everything was nice and neat. I grew up in a trailer, sharing my room with two of my sisters until I moved to LaSalle, so I have this thing about tidiness. It’s not quite OCD, but it’s close.
So to see clothes strewn about, boxes and cases littering the floor, my fingers twitch with the need to pick up. Except it’s not my stuff. I’ve been in the dorms since last week and I’ve anxiously awaited the arrival of my new roommate. Now though, I’m rethinking my warm welcome.
The door to the bathroom we’ll be sharing with the girls in the next room opens and a girl emerges. She’s stunning with pitch black hair, yellow-gold eyes, and a Mae West figure. The black on black on black clothes she wears don’t detract from her prettiness, nor do the various piercings in her face. One through her eyebrow, another through one of her thin nostrils, and yet another through her lip. She’s got thick black bands on her wrists, almost like arm warmers but much shorter. They make her look militant, as though she might be hiding razor blades in them just in case she wants to cut someone to pieces. I’ve seen girls dressed like her on television and a few back in school, but she somehow manages to scare me more than any of them did.
She’s not quite what I was expecting when I thought of my future roommate, but bolstered by the budding friendship with Nessie, Becca, and Lena, I push my small-town reservations aside and open my mouth. But any greeting I planned to give her freezes on my lips when she takes one look at me and curls her lip, her eerie gaze flicking over me with contempt.
I glance at her bed where the card I’d made when I first moved in is shredded into little pink, glittery pieces. I made it by hand, painstakingly using my best handwriting to welcome my new roommate in the hopes it would make her feel at home. And now it’s scattered all over her covers and the floor.
Okay then, maybe she’s not into glitter and greeting cards. Mustering all of my beauty pageant training—smiling even when my shoes pinch or I was sicker than a dog—I beam at her. “Hi, I’m Jolene Pickering. I’m so glad to meet you.”
She was hostile before, but it’s as though hearing me speak set her off because her yellow eyes narrow on me with dislike. “Well, fuck me,” she sneers. “You’re my roommate?”
“Y-Yes,” I say slowly, still trying to keep my smile in place. “Where are you from? I moved here from Pepper Ridge, Georgia.”
It doesn’t seem possible, but her lip curls even higher, baring her white teeth. “Fucking great, I get to room with motherfucking Trailer Trash Barbie from Bumfuck, Georgia,” she snarls under her breath. Stressing my home state with a horrible imitation of my drawl.
I’m not sure if she meant for me to hear that or not, but my smile crashes. I feel it happen. “I-I’m sorry?”
She grimaces and pushes past me to the boxes. “Stupid fucking rules,” she mutters. “I could rent an apartment, but no, I’m a freshman so I have to stay in the dorms and get stuck with the President of the Ho Club.” She finally turns to me. “Look, we’re stuck with each other unless you want to request a room reassignment—which I suggest you do before the semester starts because I’m not about to deal with your fake sugar-wouldn’t-melt-in-your-mouth bullshit. But this is my shit,” she says with a wave of her arm across the room. “Don’t touch it, don’t look at it, and don’t ask about it. In fact, don’t smile, talk, or look at me. If you do that, then we’ll get along well enough that I won’t have to smother you in your sleep. Got it?”
Eyeing the angriest, rudest girl I’ve ever met in my life, I nod like a dumb sheep. Because what else am I going to do? I love this room. I have a place for all of my things and a wonderful view of the common area and park. I don’t want to leave and I can tell she isn’t going to either.
“Good,” she mutters. “Now stop fucking looking at me. You’re making my skin crawl.”
I avert my gaze, looking at how her things are scattered on my side of the room. I have five sisters. Five. I’ve had to learn how to set my boundaries and fight for them. But they’re my sisters and regardless how much we fought, you can’t kill family. At least that’s what Mama always said. Besides, they wouldn’t truly hurt me. Well, physically at least. They’re meaner than rattlesnakes when they want to be, which is often. This girl though, I could see her with a switchblade in one hand and a baseball bat in the other with the sole intention of taking me out.
Biting my lip, I scoot through the boxes and bags to my side of the room. There’s a welcome packet on my bed that isn’t mine, but before she snatches it up with a growl, I read ‘Kimber Mosch’ written on the folder. Pretty name. Scary girl. And she’s my roommate until the end of the semester.
Even though I just spent six hours on the field and another two hours in the music annex practicing, I spin around and leave the room. You can never have too much practice, right? Maybe Kimber’s sour, angry attitude will turn out to be a good thing? Because there’s no way I’ll stay in there with her, which means it looks like I’ll be practicing my trumpet until my lips bleed.
So much for college being a fresh start. There’s a drummer who looked at me like trash and now I have a roommate who treats me like trash. It’s like being in Pepper Ridge all over again.
Isn’t that just a fine how d’ya do?
Jolene
December 20
Tauzin Hall
I don’t always make good decisions. The number of boyfriends I’ve had since I turned thirteen is a great indication of that, but I try to. I honestly try to think through every scenario before I do something that will negatively impact my life.
Take moving to Louisiana to attend Sauvage State University. That was a decision I mulled over for three years. You know, once I realized every boy in Pepper Ridge thought that because I’m a Pickering girl that I’m easy. In hindsight, I can’t say that I blame them for the misconception. Billy, Ray, Derick, Cody, and Bobby John had gotten into my panties easily enough. There were a few other boys as well, but it wasn’t until Allen broke my heart, I realized I needed to do something different.
Mind you, it wasn’t like I threw myself at them or anything. I dated each one of them for weeks, sometimes months, before we took it to the next level. My mistake was in thinking because they claimed to love me, it meant they wanted to keep me. As soon as they got what they wanted from me, they were gone faster than a scalded haint, leaving me looking like a fool for believing them. The saddest part is it took me a while to catch on because I didn’t want to think they would use me like that. You know, because I loved them.
But those boys actually did me a favor by treating me like some shady lady. They made me see that if I didn’t leave Pepper Ridge, I’d fall to the Pickering Curse. Oh it isn’t an actual curse, not like something a witch cast on the women in my family, but it’s how I think of our inability to keep the men we love. There’s just something wrong with the females in our family and it’s gone back as far as my great-great-grandmother whose fiancé left her at the altar with a bun in the oven.
I don’t want that kind of life for myself, so when I saw Allen taking Crystal Cunningham out the day after we had sex, I decided to think about life away from Pepper Ridge. I’ve always been good at music. It’s one of the few positives about myself that I can come up with. Being pretty may have won me beauty pageants and Mama some extra spendi
ng money, but all it’s ever done is left me with a lot of bad memories and broken hearted. Music though, is something that belongs to me and me alone. And it got me thinking hard about my future.
I could stay in Pepper Ridge and let every boy with a charming smile and a smooth tongue sweet talk me into doing something stupid, into becoming like Mama or Delia, or I could leave and make something of myself. I don’t have huge aspirations. It’s not like I’m planning to set the world on fire. I just want to have a purpose, and music is the vehicle for my future.
So I practiced a lot. I tried out for honor bands and competitions. I practiced more and I started looking at schools with music scholarships. At first, Georgia State seemed like the perfect choice. It wasn’t that far away and it had a good music program. But it’s also where a lot of kids from Colby County were intending to go. Now, I might not know every teenager in the entire county, but they’ve heard of my family and I didn’t want to go through the same thing in college that I did at home. That’s when I looked outside Georgia and found Sauvage State University.
The music program is top notch, the school is located in a smallish town, and they offer several different scholarships. Even better, Sauvage State is seven hundred miles away from Pepper Ridge.
Best decision I ever made was to apply and audition for one of those scholarships. It doesn’t cover all of my tuition and board, but between the scholarship and the federal grant I have, I’m able to live and enjoy school. No one here knows me as Jolene Pickering of the White Trash Pickerings. Here I’m just Jolene Pickering, trumpet player, and Music Education major.
I have friends. Real friends who don’t cut me down, talk about me behind my back, or think I’m out to steal their boyfriends because of the way I look. Even better, Becca, Nessie, and Lena are more like sisters than friends. Other than my music and being away from the prejudices I faced in Pepper Ridge, they’re the best part of being in college.
Although I should include Josef in that, shouldn’t I? I mean, we’ve been dating for almost four months and I love him. But he’s part of the reason I’m sitting in this practice room staring at nothing and thinking about things I try not to dwell on. Because there’s a decision to be made, one I don’t want to make, but I have no choice but to think about it.
Glancing down at the letter I received from Dr. Klauss, my heart catches with excitement, anticipation, and fear. I’ve read it at least fifty times since I got it two weeks ago, but I can’t help but read it again.
Dear Ms. Pickering,
It has been a pleasure teaching you this semester. After speaking with several of your instructors, it’s clear you have the drive, commitment, and talent to thrive in our music program. You have far exceeded all expectations we have of you, and as such, I am extending a personal invitation to you to audition for the Spartan Jazz Ensemble.
Auditions take place Wednesday, December 28th at 3:00 p.m. in Tauzin Auditorium.
If you are interested in participating, please call Ms. Candies in the Music Department to pick up the audition packet and information on musical selections.
I hope to see you at auditions.
Happy Holidays,
Dr. Mark Klauss
Director of Music
The words blur in front of my eyes and I carefully refold the letter before putting it on the music stand in front of me. I did call Ms. Candies and I picked up my audition packet. I never thought an opportunity like this would come my way, especially since I’m a freshman and Music 323 is an upper classman course. Ms. Candies told me if I made the ensemble, I’d have to get special permission from the Dean of Arts and Sciences, but that it wouldn’t be a problem with Dr. Klauss’s blessing.
The problem I have isn’t the music selection, or even fear of not making the ensemble. I’ve been playing Louis Armstrong songs since I picked up my battered Yamaha at age ten. I don’t get stage fright; kind of hard to be in beauty pageants if you do.
No, my problem is Josef Dunai, my boyfriend.
It’s only been a couple of weeks since I started practicing for the auditions and it’s already causing trouble with Josef. It’s really the first real roadblock we’ve had since we started dating in August. But I guess that’s due to the semester officially being over. With the break, he feels I should be spending more time with him, not less. And part of me understands that and even agrees with him.
But this is the opportunity of a lifetime. I’ve heard that there’s a list of at least a hundred students who want in the ensemble and I was personally invited to audition. That’s not something to sneeze at, yet it’s putting a heavy strain on my first real relationship.
I pinch the bridge of my nose and try to think. What it boils down to is whether music is more important to me than Josef. At least that’s what his text from forty-five minutes ago said. Do I love him more than I love the thought of trying out for Jazz Ensemble?
Sucking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly, I force myself to relax and make a mental list.
I’m a Music Education major. Jazz Ensemble isn’t a required class, but I do need to start stockpiling electives. The classes take place after Music 150, which is symphonic band, or marching band during football season. That means I won’t get out of school until after five every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. No biggie, I only work a few hours here and there in the library and they’re flexible. But not only do we have practice after Music 150, but Ensemble also practices at 8:30 every Tuesday and Thursday.
Then there are performances: all basketball games—three of which are out of state that the ensemble gets to travel to—two shows during Music Appreciation Week, the Spring Graduation dinner, and several ‘to be announced’ concerts.
It’s a lot on top of my already heavy course load. I took eighteen hours in the fall and worried about falling behind. The spring semester looks to be just as loaded and that’s without Jazz Ensemble.
Plus, there’s Josef. Sweet, artistic, sensitive Josef with his big brown eyes, curly brown hair, and wiry body. He says I’m his muse and considering how many times he’s photographed and painted me, I believe him. I never thought someone like him would be interested in someone like me. I mean, he’s a Hungarian artist with a natural sophistication that shows any time he talks about art. He’s seen things in person I’ve only seen when I use Google. And he chose me. He loves me.
Is he really asking too much? The semester’s over. There’s only a short four-week window before classes start up again and instead of being with him, I’ve been holed up in Tauzin Hall, practicing for the auditions.
My phone buzzes with a new text, as though Josef knows I’m thinking about him, about us.
Tuesday
5:35 p.m.
Josef: I cannot do this, Jolene. I am here. You are there. We should be together, but we are not. This is not how I thought we would spend our holidays.
I squeeze my eyes shut as though doing so will take the text, and the message written between the lines, away. But it doesn’t. It never does, not even when it’s something so horrible, it can only be something from a true life crime novel. Or when it’s your own memories stalking and haunting you. I’ve learned in my eighteen years of life, that unless you meet things head-on, eyes wide open and watchful, you’re in for a nasty surprise.
And my nasty surprise is Josef breaking up with me because I want to try out for Jazz Ensemble. If I were Becca Cherry—my very outspoken, fiery tempered friend—I’d say something very unladylike and audition whether Josef likes it or not. But I’m not Becca. I’m Jolene Pickering and I’m terrified of being alone.
Now that I know what it feels like to be a part of a couple, I don’t want it to go away. Sure, I’ve dated other guys, but as I said before, they only stayed with me long enough to roll in the hay before they dropped me. And it isn’t like we went anywhere we could be seen. I was their dirty little secret. The girl they took to the Ridge which our hometown was named after. The one they never introduced to their friends or family, or
even acknowledged at school.
Josef holds my hand when we’re in public. We’ve gone to galleries and museums together, to some school functions. He doesn’t treat me like a side piece that only gets taken out when it’s time to play.
And all he’s asking of me is my time.
Biting my lip because it’s Decision Time, I eye the letter, then my phone. I can graduate with a degree in Music Education without Jazz Ensemble. I can take a number of different lecture classes to replace the credits for Music 323.
I can’t replace Josef so easily.
Resolutely lifting my phone, I tap out my response.
5:42 p.m.
Jolene: I’ll be at your apartment in thirty minutes. Love you.
There. It’s done. I should feel liberated, but my heart feels heavier than ever and even though I know it’s a bad idea, I put my phone down and pick up my battered Yamaha. It’s probably the ugliest, most beat up trumpet in the entire band, but it’s been there for me longer than anyone else and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Lifting it to my lips, I close my eyes—not to hide from my troubles, but to let them pour out of me through Louis Armstrong’s “St. James Infirmary”. It’s not an upbeat song. If anything, it’s almost a dirge, but at this moment it feels like the perfect medium to express my heartbreak.
Levi
“That was fun,” Carla says with a giggle as she straightens her skirt.
Wrapping the used condom in a random piece of paper, I chuck it in the trash and tuck my dick away. “Yeah,” I tell her easily because she’s right. It was fun. Just what I needed to loosen up so I can finish practicing. “I’m glad you stopped by.”
“I’ve always wanted to do it in one of the school buildings,” she continues to chatter as she fluffs her hair.
I shoot her a smile and fix my shirt. “Glad to be of service,” I tell her with a small bow.