After the Leaves Fall

by Nicole Baart

  “I’ll worry anyway,” she murmured.

  When we hugged I could feel the tears in her shoulders, but her eyes were clear and her voice steady.

  It was my plan to be brave and independent, but the night before classes started—when my notebooks were bought and my backpack ready for the morning, and when the lie that hung between me and Becca threatened to ruin everything that I had worked so hard for—I hauled out my prepaid calling card and, after entering seemingly endless codes, dialed the number that my fingers knew by heart.

  Grandma answered on the very first ring. “Hello?” she said expectantly.

  “Hi, Grandma, it’s me.”

  There was a little exhale on the other end of the phone line, and it communicated the relief she felt at hearing my voice. I love you and I miss you and I pray for you every day all flooded their way through the line, and I found myself wishing I could say something half as eloquent as her expressive sigh.

  In the end, I didn’t say anything more, and she jumped in. “How are you doing, honey?”

  I started to say, “Fine,” but she kept right on going.

  “Do you like your roommate? Are classes hard? When are you coming home?”

  I laughed and after a moment she did too.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I promised myself I wouldn’t be so overbearing.”

  “You’re not,” I assured her, somewhat guiltily loving the fact that she missed me so much.

  We were silent for a minute, each waiting for the other to speak. We both started at the same time. And stopped. Silence.

  “What—?”

  “How—?”

  “Go ahead,” I said quickly.

  “No, you first,” she responded.

  Because I didn’t want to do this all night, I started to talk. I cheerfully told her about Becca and our tiny room, orientation, and my overloaded schedule. It was nice to just talk and to hear the familiar little noises of her surprise, approval, and concern. But it was also somewhat empty. I was telling her all the whats of my life without any of the whys or hows.

  It reminded me of the travel journal my dad kept when we went on an elaborate vacation for my twelfth birthday. I teased him about it relentlessly because it seemed so pointless to me—it was nothing more than a list of dates and places. December 10: Epcot Center. Ate in Mexico on the Plaza of Nations. Watched the fireworks. There was no feeling, no reaction to what we had seen or anecdotes to reveal telling little snippets of our time in Orlando. Dad told me all of that stuff was forever locked in his memory—the journal was just a way of jogging it.

  I was giving Grandma the travel-journal version of my life, and she had no point of reference to flesh it out and give it life. She didn’t have the memories to go along with my narration, and she had no idea how I felt about any of the particulars that I was so dutifully recounting. It was a lonely feeling.

  I thought about telling her more, about letting her in on some of the confusion and doubt so I didn’t have to carry it all myself, but I didn’t know how. So I kept listing the facts. If she found our conversation shallow, she didn’t say.

  Just before we hung up, she asked the expected questions about money, my health, and whether or not the food in the cafeteria was edible and at least marginally nutritious. And then, with the slightest deepening of her voice, she asked, “How are you really doing?”

  If she noticed my slim pause, she didn’t press me, and when I answered her with a considerably too bright “Fine,” she let it go at that.

  “I love you, Grandma,” I said. “Maybe I’ll come home next weekend.”

  “Oh, that would be so nice!” she gushed, then quickly tacked on, “But you do whatever you want to do.”

  I couldn’t help smiling. “Okay.”

  “Anyway, I love you, too. Be careful, have fun, and—oh yeah, I almost forgot! Would you be open to a visitor this Saturday?”

  I didn’t really like the idea of her driving the entire four-hour round trip alone, but on Saturday mornings she baked the cinnamon rolls that she had made from scratch on Friday night, and as much as I knew I should say no, the thought of a warm hug and a fresh-baked cinnamon roll were just too tempting to pass up.

  “I’d love company,” I said sincerely.

  “Good. We’ll talk to you soon.”

  “Yup.”

  “I’ll be praying for your first classes tomorrow!” she said cheerfully, slipping in the reminder because it was a part of her language.

  I didn’t really know how to respond to that. The thought of what was to come momentarily dwarfed any misgivings I had about Becca and my embellished mother. Although I clung to the phone as if it were a lifeline, I couldn’t say a word.

  When Grandma finally broke the silence and said a gentle good-bye, I mumbled something back, then held the receiver pressed to my face until I heard the dial tone.

  Entry Level

  THE LECTURE HALL was already packed by the time I squeezed my way through the crowds in the halls. The building where I’d just finished my first psychology class was across campus from the sprawling science building that housed the engineering college, and I had sprinted the last eighth of a mile. I had already had two classes, and they had both been part of my liberal arts requirements.

  Becca and I had the same block of Philosophy 101 and had walked to class together this morning at quarter to eight. Following another of her sister’s tenets—even though she vehemently attacked Claire for every bit of shared wisdom—Becca rolled out of bed ten minutes before we left and did little more than throw a sweatshirt over the tank top she slept in and brush her teeth. She didn’t even bother to put jeans on, opting instead to sport her pastel-plaid pajama pants paired attractively with flip-flops. Apparently the girl who got gorgeous for orientation had already been replaced by a more authentic version of Becca.

  “Don’t you look spiffy,” she teased when I returned from the bathroom to wake her up.

  I had gone for my shower early, deciding that making a good impression was more important to me than appearing like a seasoned veteran. And I wasn’t alone in my intent. Getting up earlier than normal hadn’t secured me a warm shower, but it did put me in the bathroom at the same time as a happy, chattering group of girls crowded around the mirrors and giggling.

  One of those girls was finished getting ready and offered to curl the ends of my hair while I did my makeup. It was a completely foreign and intensely girlish gesture, but I said that I would really appreciate it because I didn’t want a refusal of her offer to come off like a refusal of her. So I stood stiffly, feeling oddly naked, and listened to her prattle on about a messy breakup with her boyfriend back in Ohio while she worked magic on my hair. The result was, I made a kind of friend and I looked prettier than I probably ever had in all my eighteen years. It made me feel a little taller than I was, like the earth was slightly farther below than it had been before. It was a heady feeling.

  Walking to class with Becca diminished everything a bit—partly because I got the strange feeling that she resented my new pink sweater and my softly curled hair, and partly because I felt conspicuous beside someone who was so comfortable in her own skin that she was willing to roll out of bed and half stumble to her very first college class. I wondered if her obvious self-confidence made my insecurities glaringly transparent: the shy, little, unattractive me shining blindingly through the first-day-of-class veneer.

  By the time we chose our spots in the two-hundred-seat lecture hall, I had seen enough to realize that no one had the time to notice me. Becca, in her sleep-attired glory, got the occasional laugh and thumbs-up as we made our way to H-117, but I fell uninterestingly into the wallflower category on a campus that was full of Bohemian princesses, ink-stained goths, and trendy piercings in places that made me cringe. When an honest-to-goodness cowboy walked by—cowboy boots, Stetson, and even the infamous Wranglers—I relaxed enough to enjoy the walk and even allowed a secret smile to cross my face as I let anticipation run up and down my
spine.

  It didn’t take long for the excitement to wear off.

  The philosophy professor was a diminutive man with a voice to match. Even from the middle of the auditorium, I had to strain to hear his voice as he trailed off, left sentences hanging, and spoke mostly to himself behind half-closed eyes. He asked us impossible questions like, “What is real?” and “What is existence?” which he didn’t expect us to answer and didn’t answer for us. By the time he started in on Plato’s allegory of the cave, I was so far beyond lost I had stopped trying to take notes.

  As I glanced back over the five pages of barely decipherable nonsense I had scribbled, Becca leaned over to whisper, “He’s just introducing the syllabus. You don’t have to take notes.”

  Psychology was marginally better. Becca had a different class, and losing her beside me made the air slightly more breathable. Without her unwelcome insights and patronizing vibe I felt more like me, but the class itself was heavy and oppressive and no less depressing than philosophy had been. The registrar had informed me that I needed to have one psych class to meet all the necessary requirements for graduation. Since it didn’t matter what kind of psychology and since the majority of my classes were locked in because I needed them for my program, I got stuck with the only available class that fit into my schedule: abnormal psychology. Not only was the class morbid—sexual predators had their very own section on the syllabus—it was also filled with upperclassmen who obviously knew each other and even knew the prof. Two girls actually had a conversation over my lap as we waited for the class to begin.

  After a long morning of watching my expectations turn to disappointments, I approached the engineering college with more than a little trepidation. “Regular” college courses had proven themselves to be more than a mouthful, and now I was entering territory that was little more than a naive ambition to me.

  Grandma had asked me before I left, “Why engineering?” Although I had given her some pat, planned answer, I had thought to myself, Because it’s as far away from me as I can get.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t have the grades. I did. It wasn’t that I didn’t have a love for math and science. I had that, too. But to say that I had some deep-seated, all-compelling desire to be an engineer would be a blatant lie. I didn’t want to be an engineer any more than I wanted to be a nurse or a teacher or a gas station attendant. I had no idea what I wanted to be. But to pick something and stick with it—particularly something high and unattainable and admirable—that gave me purpose and direction. It gave me a sense of destination. I had no intention of failing. But I hadn’t planned on college being another world.

  And if college itself was another world, the famous college of engineering at Brighton was a separate universe.

  The science building was intimidating enough—three stories of glass-fronted gray brick with greenhouses and enormous labs and corridors ripe with unidentifiable scents of earth and chemicals. As I climbed the steps to the second floor and followed the signs to the engineering department in the far-west cluster, I wished I could tuck into one of the brightly lit chemistry labs and hide, taking everything in tiny swallows instead of all at once. My course list said I had statics in room 224, and I had only a faint concept of what statics even was.

  Even more daunting was the fact that the dense crowds of students were thinning out and changing. There was less diversity of dress and demeanor. There was less teasing and laughter. There were fewer girls and those that I did see did not have their hair so prettily curled as mine. Everyone seemed to know where they were going, and they looked at me as if I could be nothing but obviously lost.

  That’s probably why when I finally arrived, still mildly breathless and undeniably exhausted, the lecture hall was almost full. I paused in the doorway, feeling discouraged and exposed. I checked my watch. Class wasn’t supposed to start for another seven minutes. What was everyone doing here already?

  “You here for statics?”

  I glanced to my left, trying to locate the source of the query.

  “You in the pink, are you looking for statics?”

  He was sitting in the last row of chairs, a short row with only four seats because the platform for the slide projector jutted out beside it. He was handsome in a sort of severe way—his eyes were a penetrating blue and his features chiseled—and looked to be in his midtwenties. I couldn’t tell from the curl of his lip if he was smiling or sneering at me, but it was obvious he was on the verge of thinking I was deaf and dumb.

  “Yes,” I said quickly, meeting his gaze. “I’m here for statics.”

  He looked a little surprised but managed an almost-genuine smile as he slid out of his chair and moved over one. “You’d better take a seat. There aren’t many left.”

  “Thanks,” I said slowly, descending two steps into the theater and depositing my stuff beside him.

  He was silent for a few moments as I unzipped pockets on my bag and extracted mechanical pencils, yellow engineering graph paper, and a graphing calculator big enough to take up more than its share of space on my already overstuffed desktop. I could feel him watching me.

  Finally, when all was out and arranged in front of me, he said, “You don’t really need all that today.” There was amusement in his voice. “We’re just going over the syllabus.”

  On any other day I wouldn’t have minded being the object of his entertainment, but not today. I bristled. “I like being prepared,” I said icily.

  He caught my tone and immediately tried to smooth my ruffled feathers. “Hey, look, I’m not trying to tease you. I just thought I’d let you know.”

  “A little late,” I shot back, disgusted that he had saved his comments until after my bag was unpacked.

  “Yeah,” he said with a wry laugh. “I’m a bit of a jerk that way.”

  Because it was the last thing I expected him to say, I stole a look at him out of the corner of my eye.

  He was smiling at me, and when he caught my gaze, he extended his hand. “I’m Patrick, but everyone calls me Parker. Sorry I held my advice until it was no longer needed.”

  I waited a second, then gave him my hand. He squeezed mine and let go. “Is Parker your last name?” I asked.

  “No, it’s the name of the town where I’m from.” He shook his head. “It’s not even a speck on a map. When I was a freshman everyone kept asking where I was from. … I guess I was saying Parker so much some people thought it was my name. What can I say? It stuck.” We were silent for a moment, and then he tapped the corner of my desk with his fingertips. “You didn’t tell me your name.”

  “Julia DeSmit,” I said. “But I’d prefer it if you didn’t call me DeSmit.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” he commented, and though his face was solemn, there was a twinkle in his eye.

  A bit confused, I turned from him and tried to take stock of my fellow classmates. The room, which held just over a hundred people at my estimation, was nearly packed. The students were mostly guys, and although I hated to stereotype, knowing that I had been the object of many misplaced labels myself, I had to admit they made up a bit of a different demographic than the other two classes I had just come from.

  “Pretty geeky, eh?”

  I jumped, startled that my thoughts were so transparent. “Uh …” I couldn’t think of a single intelligent way to respond.

  “Don’t worry. We all know it,” Parker said glibly. “Geekdom is a small price to pay for the letters that we’ll get to put behind our names.” He shrugged. “Brilliance has its price.”

  I forced a little laugh because I didn’t know if he was joking or serious, but I felt I had to respond somehow. “Is that a prerequisite?” I asked. “Must one be oblivious to the rest of the world to be an engineer? Sounds pretty ridiculous to me.”

  Parker sighed. “Julia, Julia. There’s so much you have to learn. . . .”

  I didn’t like his condescending tone. Scanning the room, I tried to locate the professor. Shouldn’t class be starting by now
? I had hoped to make new friends in college, but between Becca, who seemed uninterested in pursuing a friendship with me, and Parker, who was completely incomprehensible and even a little weird, I hadn’t come across many viable options. I didn’t even remember the name of the girl who had so generously curled my hair.

  Apparently Parker wasn’t picking up on my cues because he was talking again. “You don’t really fit into this crowd, do you, Julia?”

  Whether he was trying to flirt with me or provoke me, I couldn’t tell. But I also couldn’t sit beside him for the remainder of a one-hour lecture and be rude, so although I wanted to ignore him, I said, “What do you mean?”

  Taking my response as interest, Parker leaned forward and put his elbow on my desk, resting his chin on his fist so that our heads were side by side. Six inches was too close for my comfort, and I tried to scoot away imperceptibly. “Look around you,” he said, pointing his finger around the room. “How many women do you see?”

  I counted a few heads with long hair but lost count when one of the girls turned her head and revealed that she was a he. Likewise, a guy with a crew cut turned out to be female. Or male. I couldn’t quite tell.

  “Two dozen?” I finally answered.

  “A little more than that,” Parker acknowledged. “Statistically speaking, women in the field of engineering are steadily gaining ground, but Brighton is one of those prehistoric little pockets where men still dominate this sphere.” He again directed my attention to the people below us. “Now, tell me how many of those lovely ladies are … well …lovely.”

  “What?” I sputtered, totally thrown off guard. “What are you talking about?”

  Parker looked straight at me. “We’re adults. We can say it like it is.” He paused, and for the first time since we met, I believed that what he was about to say was, at the very least, his version of the truth. “People looked at you weird as you walked into this room because A, you’re a girl and B, you’re attractive.”

  It was a word that I wasn’t sure had ever been used to describe me before. I blushed so red my ears felt like they were on fire. The fact that I knew Parker meant what he said only deepened my embarrassment.