UI 101

by M. K. Claeys

  “I don’t remember your admissions letter saying that there were going to be boys living on your floor,” she commented.

  At that moment, a dripping wet boy clad in only a towel stepped out into the hall and started yelling to his friends to wait for him before they left. Somehow, I don’t think that helped my situation, even though the guy was really cute and I could tell my mom thought so, too, by the way she refused to look at him.

  I winked at her. “They’re not boys, Mom. Just really clever cross-dressers.”

  “Not funny, Ryn. I just hope they’re not going to keep you up all night with their yelling. What does Brian think about all this, you being surrounded by half-naked boys while he stays at home and goes to community college?”

  I had the grace to look ashamed of myself. “Brian doesn’t really know, Mom. And he doesn’t need to, either,” I added pointedly.

  She gave me a skeptical eye.

  “It would just worry him, and there’s nothing to be worried about,” I insisted. “Really! I’ll be fine—look, here’s me! Room 510, right next to the stairwell—an easy escape route from all the scary boys. Knock and see if my roommate’s here yet, will you?”

  She knocked. I waited with my breath held, pushing my sweaty bangs out of my eyes. We opened the door to a completely empty room. As we pushed the cart in, I got my first glimpse of the cardboard box I would be calling my home for the next eight months. The walls were rough and a nasty, faded yellow color that I assumed must have, once upon a time, been white. The bunk bed looked as though it had been slept on by at least three thousand other people, not to mention what other million unmentionable happenings had taken place in and on it. I was glad I’d left my black light at home. Then I saw the futon. It was more of a couch with a pull-out single mattress, but a luxury commodity when compared to the other pieces of crap furniture in the room. And if the want ads in the lobby by the elevators were any indication, not every room had the privilege of having one.

  The mattress part of the futon couch was covered by a nasty, brown wool, industrial-type cover, rough and pilled with age. It was probably older than several of the ties in my skirt, but that could be remedied. It was nothing covering it with a fitted sheet couldn’t fix. The radiator underneath the window hissed and rattled with a strange, clinking noise that almost sounded like some student’s long-forgotten illegal hamster had lodged inside and was running about. The window above it was nice, but the metal sill would need some serious cushioning if I was going to sit up there and read or study. Wait a minute. Is that a crack?

  I followed the crack in the plaster on the wall by the window up to the ceiling where it stopped as it ran into the huge fluorescent light that took up its entire center. The light and the crack together divided the room almost exactly in two. Maybe I could string up Christmas lights and try to camouflage the fact that my dorm room’s foundation was falling apart. Lots and lots of Christmas lights.

  “Well, sweetie, what do you think?”

  I smiled grimly at her. “Well, it could be worse, right? I mean, it’s going to be like living in a refrigerator box with another person crammed in, but still, it’s not so bad.”

  “That’s my girl. Let’s unpack the cart together here in the middle, and then I’ll go get another load while you put everything where you want it.”

  And this was why I loved my mother. She knew that if she even tried to put something away, I would just want it somewhere else, so she let me do it myself.

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  “You’re welcome, baby. I’m so proud of you, all grown up like this. Dad and I both are.”

  “I know, Mom. I love you too.”

  She left the cart, and I started placing things around the room where I wanted them. First, I turned my desk so it was perpendicular to the window, making it so that when I sat at it, I could have my own little cubby space between it and the wall. I put my iMac and box full of accessories on top. I could organize that all later. I threw all my bedding in a heap on the bottom bunk but didn’t make it up. I had no idea on my new roomie’s sleeping preference, and I didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot by taking the bottom bunk if she had a gimp leg and couldn’t climb ladders or something. Plugging my cell phone charger into the outlet by the dresser, I turned around and faced what had to be no bigger than my closet at home, and yet I was expected to share it with another person. To make things more bearable, I picked the side of the closet that didn’t have the door opening right into it. I needed all the space I could get.

  I sighed and began to unpack my clothes. I was glad my mom had suggested leaving everything on hangers while in transit—all I needed to do was just toss them on the rack. The dresser came next.

  Wait. Only one dresser with six drawers for two people? And not just any two people, two teenage girls. If this chica had anywhere near as much stuff as I did, we were screwed! I pointed out the problem to my mom when she returned with the next and even bigger laundry cartload of stuff.

  “Well, honey, it’s not like we live far away. You can always leave your winter clothes with us and come get them once it’s colder outside,” she suggested.

  I couldn’t breathe. How could she do this to me? How could I possibly decide between my wool plaid pants and my summer plaid trousers?

  “Or,” she said loudly over my hyperventilating, “you can put all your winter things in the cupboard space above the closet and swap out as needed.” She indicated the large storage compartment I had missed. “You can just hope that your roommate packed her extra stuff in bins and can put them underneath the futon and bunk bed. That way you each have equal space.”

  “Mom, you’re brilliant!”

  “I know, sweetie. That’s why you bring me to these places.”

  After that, the unpacking went smoothly. While I finished in the room, I had my mom put down the floor and bath mats in the bathroom, as well as wheel my three-drawer storage cart full of bath products to the side of the toilet, because I absolutely couldn’t bear to see what was now my travesty of a bathroom any sooner than I had to.

  There was a knock at the door. Was it my new roommate? No, just Dad.

  “Dad!” I cried, giving him a hug. “You made it! I’m starving! What are those?”

  My dad held out a beautiful bouquet of lilies—my favorite flowers—complete with vase. “Yes, my darling selfless daughter, I’m here. Brian met me at home before I left and asked me to bring you these.”

  “Aw, that was nice,” Mom said, taking the flowers and arranging them in the center of the window seat. She handed me the accompanying card. “Brian’s such a thoughtful young man.”

  I opened the card and read: “Ryn—I hope you love Illington as much as I love you. I know you’ll rock! Love, Brian.” I hugged the card to my chest and smiled. I guessed all was forgiven about him not helping me move in.

  “Are you ready for sushi?” Dad asked.

  Was I ever? I taped my new dry-erase board to the door to leave a message for my roommate in case she showed up while we were gone. I hoped she liked sushi. Maybe I’d bring her back a California roll…if I didn’t eat it on the way back.

  3

  Mitzy

  Boxes surrounded me. My room was literally filled with them. If unpacking everything took as long as it did to box it all up, boxes would surround me for weeks, especially since Mama and Papa wouldn’t be there to help me with everything. Not with all the tours they had scheduled and the time it would take them to get back home.

  “Mama,” I asked, as we loaded the last of my things into the Jeep, “do you think I’m ready for this? College, I mean. Do you think I can do it?”

  My mama set the last box in and shut the trunk. She wiped the sweat off her brow, smoothed her sunBrianss, and pulled me in for a hug. “Mitzy, baby, you know there’s nothing you can’t do. Don’t you ever let your nerves keep you from your goals, sugar. You know great-great-Grandmamma Jameson wouldn’t like that. We Jameson women have never let anyone stand
in our way when it comes to what we want or what’s right. And your Grandmamma Callaway was no pushover either, so you’ve got strong women backing you up on both sides.”

  “I know, Mama. Grandmamma didn’t let anything get in her way, that’s for sure.”

  “And neither should you, sugar. You know your papa and I are just a phone call away, okay? Day or night, baby, Mama’s always here for you.”

  “I know, Mama. Thanks.”

  We strolled back up the walkway to the front porch where Bobby, my older brother, was waiting for us.

  “Jeep all packed?” he asked, mussing my hair. My big brother was the only one who could upset my hair and get away with it.

  “All packed, Bobby.” I wrapped an arm around his waist.

  “Well then,” said Mama, holding the door for us and ushering us inside, “let’s have lunch and get on our way!”

  She’d fixed all my favorites for me on my last day at home. Fried chicken, potato salad, mixed peas and carrots, corn on the cob, and fresh-squeezed lemonade. Mama never failed to set an exquisite table, even without company.

  “Now what brought my baby sister to go so far away to college?” asked Bobby, for what seemed like the millionth time, as he passed the potato salad to Emma and Caroline, our younger sisters.

  “They’ve got a better history program than Tennessee State,” I answered, putting a cob of corn onto my youngest brother Billy’s plate and helping him shove the holders into the ends. “That, and I think studying things like the American Civil War without a Southern influence or bias will be good for me.”

  The family nodded, and all seven of us tucked into our food.

  My family was a classic setting of steps-and-stairs. Bobby was the oldest at twenty, then myself at eighteen, Emma and Caroline next at sixteen and fourteen, respectively, and last Billy, the not-so-much-of-a-baby-anymore at twelve.

  “Now, Tennessee State isn’t so bad,” said Papa, refilling his glass of lemonade. “I’m rather fond of it, myself.”

  We laughed. Everyone knew how much Papa loved his alma mater—he talked about his glory days all the time.

  “But, Mitz, honey,” he continued, “if this is what you want, though, don’t let your old dad stop you, even though you’re breaking his heart by not even giving State a shot.”

  I smiled at him. I loved my papa, and I loved how he’d tried for weeks to convince me to enroll at Tennessee State University, but to no avail. I’d had my heart set on Illington since my U.S. History teacher had told me about it—UI was her alma mater—when I was fourteen, and nothing, not even my Papa, was going to get in my way of a PhD in United States history. Although a minor in French wouldn’t be bad to add to my resume.

  “I won’t, Papa. And once I get my doctorate, maybe I’ll think about becoming a professor there.

  “Dr. Callaway,” sighed Mama wistfully. “Now there’s something I could get used to hearing.” She gave Bobby a glare that any sensible Callaway would quail under—at least, any Callaway who wasn’t my brother, Bobby.

  “Mama, we’ve already talked about this. Just because my biology professor suggested I apply to med school does not mean it’s something I want to do. I like agriculture. I like animals and being outside. Besides,” he added, “if I ran off to study human anatomy at Princeton or whatever, who would help you out here at the farm?”

  “I would!” piped up Billy, wiping the butter from his chin with the back of his hand. “Mama gave me a garden. I can help her.”

  “I know, Bill. Your garden is looking great, too,” Bobby lied.

  Caroline and Emma suppressed snorts into their lemonade tumblers.

  See, the truth is, as much as I love my baby brother, even though he hates it when I call him that, Billy couldn’t tell a weed from a rosebush if it were to slap him in the face. He tends all the green things in his garden just the same—with tender love and devotion and far too much fertilizer. It honestly looks more like a compost heap than anything else, but we just don’t have the heart to tell him.

  “You could always come work for Microsoft with me,” Papa offered. “You know we’re always looking for interns.”

  Bobby grimaced. “No thanks, Pop. Office jobs just aren’t for me.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Mitzy,” said my mama. “Emma and Caroline are getting pretty good at opening up the tours now, and they’re finally starting to understand the concept of a vacuum. You just concentrate on that doctorate, all right, sugar? We’ll be fine.”

  I sincerely hoped she was right.

  Later we drove the three hundred or so miles together in the Jeep, Bobby and I, and Mama and Papa followed behind us in the Trailblazer. That night we were staying at Aunty Jo and Uncle Mark’s, my mama’s youngest sister and brother-in-law who lived an hour south of Illington and the university. I was glad Papa had thought to break up the drive. I was exhausted by the time we got there. It would be nice to have a familiar bed to sleep in and only a little over an hour in the car tomorrow before I finally moved in.

  Aunty Jo was an amazingly hospitable woman. She showed us all around the new kitchen they just had installed and insisted on not letting us do a thing while she cooked dinner. We had homemade apple and cherry pie mixed together for dessert—my favorite. After that we all sat at the kitchen table and played spades while we drank coffee. I love my family, and my extended family is even better because I hardly ever see them, and so it’s so nice to just sit and catch up. I couldn’t believe I was leaving home. What could have possibly possessed me to do it?

  Just think about your doctorate, I told myself. Think of all the wonderful classes you’ll get to take, all the amazing people you’ll meet. My roommate—I get to have a roommate!—we can stay up late together and watch movies and eat popcorn in bed, something Mama never let me do. We can decorate together and make friends together… Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.

  I slept late the next morning—eight thirty. I couldn’t believe they’d let me sleep so late, and I told Mama so as I helped her wash up the breakfast dishes.

  “You needed your rest, sugar. Who knows how late you’ll be up tonight with all the new kids in your residence hall? Now, hand me that spoon, and Aunty Jo and I will make you some cookies to take with you.”

  I handed her the spoon and walked out of the kitchen to find Bobby and Papa on the back porch with Uncle Mark.

  “So how’s our college girl doing?” asked Uncle Mark, giving me a hug. “You must be excited!”

  I shrugged. “I guess so. I think I’ll be more excited once I get there. The fact that I’m going away to school hasn’t really sunk in yet.”

  “It will soon enough,” said Uncle Mark wisely. “You’ll be home for Christmas and wanting to go back before you know it.”

  “You really think so?”

  “Sure. That’s how I was. I couldn’t wait to get out of that madhouse and back to the sanity of the dormitory. My mother drove me nuts, asking all sorts of questions and checking up on me all the time. I felt like I was in a cage once I got back home.”

  I was still skeptical. “Is it really that different?”

  “You’ll see, Mitzy,” said my papa as he scraped the grill. “Every college is different, and you’ll make an experience all your own. You could probably go anywhere and once you got there it would be hard to imagine going anywhere else.”

  “I reckon you’ve got a point. So what’s for lunch?” I asked, changing the subject so I wouldn’t start to worry about all the things I was facing that day—like leaving home for the first time in my life.

  “Barbecue,” said Bobby, “obviously. Would the Callaways do anything else?”

  I grinned. “Nope. Can I have my burger cooked medium, please?”

  “Sure, honey. Anything you want,” said Papa. “Today’s your day.”

  Today was my day. It rang through my head later as I helped set the picnic table outside. Today was my day. If today was my day, why wasn’t I more excited?

  As we pil
ed into the cars again after our early barbecue picnic, my aunty Jo gave me enough food to last clear through October.

  “Really, this is great and I’m thankful and all, but when will I eat canned peaches?”

  “Well, you just never know, and besides I canned far too many for Uncle Mark and I to eat ourselves. Here, take some of these granola bars with you, too. For classes and study groups and whatnot.”

  I smiled gratefully. Maybe there would be a donation box for the needy in the residence hall, and I could put any extras in there.

  “Take care now, Mitzy!” called Uncle Mark.

  “I will, Uncle Mark. Thank you!”

  “And make sure you give us a call if you need a weekend away,” reminded Aunty Jo for what must have been the fiftieth time. “We’ll be glad to come get you, and bring a friend with you too, if you’re inclined! The more the merrier!”

  My Aunty Jo and Uncle Mark were some of the most generous people alive.

  “Not too much longer, Mitz,” said Bobby, as we pulled off the freeway.

  I gulped. “No. Not too much longer.”

  “You okay with this? You know you can tell me, sis. I’m always here for you.”

  “I know. Thanks. I’m just a little nervous is all.”

  Bobby nodded. “I would be, too. But you’ll be great. If anyone can make it so far away from home, it’s you. Everyone will love you—they always do.”

  “I hope so,” I mumbled. “But…”

  “But what?”

  I hesitated. If I spoke up, there would be no turning back. But who better to confess all to than my big brother? He had never judged me in the past, and I didn’t see why he would start now.

  “What if they don’t? What if they don’t like me? What if everyone thinks I’m awful or nasty or mean or conceited?”

  Bobby thought for a minute. “Well, are you?”

  “Am I what?”

  “Any of those things?” Bobby checked his blind spot before changing lanes. “Are you awful or nasty or mean or conceited?”

  I thought hard. “No. I don’t think so, anyway. I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt. I know how to share. I keep my things neat. I don’t yell at people or be sarcastic or say rude things. Well, except to Jaykob Mitchell my freshman year because he kept trying to look up my skirt.”