by Lucy Keating
“So, how is it all going?” Dean Hammer says with both brows raised, the most enthusiastic I’ve seen him yet, as he sits down across from me in a leather armchair in his office. I realize this is actually the perfect place for me to be right now, in my heartbroken and jaded state. With someone whose own natural demeanor mimics my current internal apathy. Sometimes people with too much enthusiasm make me wonder: Are they actually that excited, or are they acting excited in the hopes that it will make them feel that way? That whole “Smile and you’ll feel happy” thing.
Like crap, I want to say.
“Pretty well,” I reply instead. If you say “pretty good” in my house you practically go without dinner. You are not good, you are well! I can hear my father correcting me as though he were standing at his lectern.
“I’ve checked in with a few of your teachers, and they say the same.” The dean nods. “Mr. Levy in particular is a fan.”
This actually does elicit a small smile from my lips. Levy may be fulfilling some kind of Dead Poets Society fantasy, but he’s smart, I’d give him that. I want him to feel the same way about me.
“So now comes the next step,” Dean Hammer says. “I didn’t want to throw this on you right away, but we need to set you up to talk with our college counselor. All the other juniors got assigned one at the end of their sophomore year.”
“One?” I say. “You have more than one college counselor?”
Dean Hammer nods solemnly again. “Another Bennett benefit,” he says like he’s advertising car insurance he doesn’t believe in. “We actually have four. Most of them are at capacity, but not to worry, I found just the one for you. She had a little space.”
As I approach Delilah Weatherbee’s office, I can tell immediately that, like me, she does not belong. For one thing, her office isn’t even in the administrative wing. It’s in the attic of the creative arts center, and I have to push past fashion mannequins and forgotten sculptures and broken easels to even knock. Also, it smells like incense, and the sound of New Age flute music is whistling from beneath the door.
Delilah opens it almost instantly. “Alice,” is all she says, her face glowing and rosy and tilted to one side, her arms stretched wide. I understand almost too late that I am supposed to embrace her. Which I do, and she smells like patchouli. She pushes me away but, still gripping my shoulders, whispers, “Welcome.”
Delilah ushers me in, all effortless beach waves and bare feet, her long linen skirt trailing on the floor. “Have a seat,” she says, nodding to the corner as she pours some tea. I look over, but there are no chairs. Then I notice the floor pillows.
“So,” Delilah says when we are seated cross-legged, facing each other, each clutching a small mug of fragrant green tea. “Who is Alice Rowe?”
“I don’t think I understand the question,” I say.
“Exactly,” Delilah says, which only confuses me more. “I know you met with Dean Hammer and discussed your academics. Good work, by the way.” She gives my knee a squeeze. “But now I want to ask you: What else?”
“What else what?” I ask.
“What else is there to Alice? What are your interests? What clubs have you joined? Who have you been hanging out with? You see, Bennett is a great school, but in order to make you a good candidate for college, we really need to cultivate a sense of self. I like to encourage my students to practice a certain kind of mindfulness. Taking time, paying attention to your likes and dislikes, your behavioral tendencies, to help you figure out who you are.”
I don’t think she really wants to hear my answer to who I am hanging out with, because currently it’s Oliver, the school’s biggest troublemaker; my father, a middle-aged neuroscientist; Jerry, a geriatric bulldog; and golden boy Max Wolfe, but only in an subconscious state. It also strikes me as amusing that she and Dean Hammer could be so very different and yet very much the same. This is not far from asking me what I want on my tombstone.
“Um, I think I must have missed the signup deadline for clubs?” I try. “I hadn’t really thought about it …”
Delilah studies me, her head nodding over and over. Her stare makes me uncomfortable, so I glance out the window, and that’s when I see Sergio and Brunilda, watching me from a tree outside. Sergio lifts a wing, salutes me, and they both fly off.
What in the—? Am I asleep? I blink a few times.
“Well, what did you do at your old school?” Delilah is asking.
Explored. Visited the museums. Played chess with some old guys in Central Park. Tried to keep Jerry from eating the ducks in the pond, at which I had only a ninety-eight percent success rate.
“I spent a lot of time outside,” I say. And then instantly realize it sounds like I do a lot of drugs.
“That’s helpful!” Delilah says. “What about the orienteering society? They organize weekly camping trips, hikes up local mountains …”
My eyes go wide with horror. “Not that kind of outside. I grew up in New York City.”
Delilah raises her eyebrows. “How very cosmopolitan!” she says. Then she reaches into the bookshelf next to us and pulls down a giant stack of fliers. “Here, why don’t you review some of these. They might give you some ideas.”
“Can I just take them with me and decide later?” I ask.
Can I just take them with me and throw them out? I think.
Delilah smiles knowingly. “I’d prefer if you picked three before leaving my office today. I promise you will find something you’ll like. We have over forty clubs and societies here at Bennett.”
I glance down at the fliers, and the first one I see says, “Amateur Juggling Coalition.”
“I’m sure I will,” I say, flipping the page immediately. “Eventually.”
12
Please Choose an Orb
IN ANOTHER ONE of her infrequent letters from Africa, my mother described a German explorer who, in 1878, wrote about being led by a tribe called the Mkodo through the Madagascar jungle. The explorer claimed he watched a giant pineapple-shaped tree strangle and then ingest a woman, its tendrils wrapping themselves around her body while its huge leaves slowly folded over her like some sick cocoon or, in my imagination, some horror movie from the fifties with poor set design. The entire story, the tribe that led him, and the explorer himself were later deemed a fraud, but that didn’t stop others from still suspecting the killer plant’s existence.
At the moment, while I sit on a bench within the Bennett Academy greenhouse, a beautiful run-down building composed entirely of glass walls and a green metal skeletal structure, I am willing to admit that I am one of those people. Because in the corner of the greenhouse farthest from the main entrance is a plant that doesn’t just appear to be looking at me; it also looks like it might try to bite me if I get too close. As I watch, I actually think I see it lean closer to sniff the hand of a girl standing next to it in a purple skirt, like Jerry sniffs a treat he’s about to devour. But when I look again, it hasn’t moved, and the girl is unharmed.
I really tried everything to avoid coming here. I don’t think I have so much as watered a flower in my entire life. But Delilah told me that joining the bocce team wasn’t enough, and my attempt to join SASM yesterday—Students Against Social Media—didn’t go very well.
At the first meeting we went around the circle introducing ourselves, and when I told them my name, a girl named Gigi typed something aggressively on a laptop.
“Alice Rowe, formerly of Manhattan?” Gigi asked.
“That’s correct,” I answered.
“I see here you have a Facebook account.” She looked up at me over the top of her sleek silver glasses. “Is it active?”
“I never go on it,” I said.
“And what about Instagram?” she asked. “JerrysWorld?”
“Does that really count?” I answered, suddenly feeling a little hot. I’d taken chemistry exams easier than this. “It’s just photos … I really like photography.”
“So do I,” Gigi said. “But I don’t n
eed the whole world to ‘like’ my photography to feel a sense of satisfaction and belonging.” When she said the word like, she took her pointer finger and jabbed it into the air in front of her, as though poking an invisible heart icon on an invisible Instagram feed.
“I don’t use it that much …” I try.
“So you did not post a photo just this morning of a bulldog lying in a pile of leaves?” she asked.
“He was really excited about the first day of fall,” I say, a little more defensively this time.
“And the Spotify? I see you have over one hundred followers.”
Needless to say, it was suggested to me that I not return to Students Against Social Media.
“Okay guys,” a guy named Parker says now, standing up and facing the handful of students that are seated around the shelves of plants and potting soil. He’s wearing a short-sleeved plaid shirt, those strange sneakers that have individual spaces for your toes, and is screwing on the cap to a Nalgene bottle with a sticker on it that says, MAY THE FOREST BE WITH YOU. “Really psyched to see such an excellent turnout for the Terrarium Club. I’m going to assume you all know what a terrarium is, but in case not, it’s basically a small-scale ecosystem within a container. Just plants, no animals or reptiles of any kind. We’ll begin with closed terrariums, where sunlight and the closed environment are used to circulate water to be self-sustaining, and move on to open terrariums toward the end of the semester, which focus primarily on plants like succulents, which require drier air.”
“I have a question,” someone says, and I recognize the nasal tone and poor voice modulation immediately. “Could we actually start with open? I want to make a desert vacation home for my lizard, Socrates, and I’d like to give it to him for his birthday in November.” Jeremiah pushes his glasses up further on his face and blinks a few times.
“Jeremiah, what did I just say?” Parker replies, his patience already waning. “Terrariums are meant to be independent ecosystems. They aren’t meant to house creatures.”
“You’re not the boss of me,” Jeremiah says matter-of-factly. I wonder if Jeremiah gets beaten up every day.
“Sorry I’m late,” Celeste says as she hustles through the doorway, and Parker’s face changes from annoyance to deer-in-headlights in a matter of seconds. “I was coming back from third period when I found this injured baby squirrel on the side of the path. I brought it to Mrs. Hakes, and she’s going to nurse it back to health. You should see its tiny cast!” She throws her leather bag down by a turquoise planter and plops her butt casually on the dirty floor, crossing her legs. “What did I miss?”
I study Celeste, wearing perfectly distressed jeans, embellished boots, and the kind of T-shirt that looks like a hand-me-down but was actually purchased for at least fifty bucks, and wonder if, like Sleeping Beauty, she is dressed by a band of merry bluebirds every morning. Except these would be merry hipster bluebirds with tiny fedoras and vests. And Max would be her prince.
Ugh.
I’m not the only one staring. So are Parker, Jeremiah, and the handful of other students in the room, because just my luck, Celeste seems capable of actually producing a near-celebrity reaction. She glances around, smiling at everyone. Then she looks at me. I freeze, wondering what’s coming next. A watchful stare? A look that says, Stay away from my boyfriend, dream-freak?
“Oh, hey!” Celeste calls out with a wave.
I smile feebly and am startled to see her turn next to Jeremiah, of all people. Aren’t people like them supposed to mutually loathe each other? “Hey, Jer,” Celeste says. “How’s Socrates?”
Jeremiah glares at Parker. “Homeless.”
Parker rolls his eyes. “Forget it. And it’s no problem, Celeste. I was just explaining what we’ll be up to for the rest of the semester. We’ll start by building a basic, small-scale terrarium today, just something easy, and then I’m going to ask you guys to actually cultivate your own plants, because I have a surprise …” He bites his bottom lip as he rocks on his heels a bit, trying hard to contain his excitement. “I spoke with Dean Hammer this morning, and, with work on the new science center being finished soon, he has commissioned us for a project—a large-scale succulent wall!” Parker holds his hands out like ta-da! and everyone oohs and aahs, and I try to Google succulent wall on my phone without anyone noticing.
“Now, if you’ll all please choose a glass orb and grab a bag of rocks and soil from the back table, I can begin the terrarium demonstration,” Parker says.
Once we’ve retrieved our materials, Celeste comes to take a seat with me at one of the workstations. “How’s it going?” she asks. “Dean Hammer got you down?”
I look up at her. “How did you know?”
Celeste giggles. “Because I was new last year. Let me guess. Potential and opportunity?” I nod slowly, and she puts a hand on my forearm and says, “Don’t worry, soon there will be someone else for him to mold into the perfect Bennett candidate. Just hang in there.”
I’m beginning to get it, why people react to her the way they do. I mean, she’s dating the guy I’ve been in love with my whole life. I should hate her … but for some reason I don’t.
“Thanks,” I say, then lean in closer. “By the way, what’s a succulent wall?”
Celeste pulls out a blue sketchbook covered in ink drawings and opens to a page with pasted photos. They’re of beautiful murals on the sides of buildings, but made entirely out of cactus-like plants, in shades of purple and green and gray-blue. Bordering the images are sketches of flowers and vines, long tendrils reaching from one page to another.
“Cool,” I say, and I mean it.
“They are pretty cool.” Celeste nods, putting her sketchbook away. “So, why did you pick this club if you didn’t even know what a succulent was?” she asks. It’s not accusatory; it’s interested.
“Honestly? Mrs. Weatherbee told me I had to choose three clubs, and this was one of the first I saw.” I shrug. “How about you?”
“My parents have a farm about forty-five minutes outside town,” Celeste says. “That’s where we live. I’ve had my own garden since I was practically old enough to carry a watering can. And I’m pretty into design … it just seemed like kind of a cool comingling of the two.”
I study Celeste’s gorgeous olive skin and her earnest, deep brown eyes, and I realize with only mild dismay that she is, like, the coolest of cool. And more importantly, she’s nice. The idea of her and Max forming some superhuman dynamic duo is easier to picture than I’d like to admit.
“So, I feel like we should talk about something,” Celeste says as she removes some soil from a bag and puts a thin layer in the base of her orb. I follow her lead, my hand jerking involuntarily and spilling some on the table. Celeste doesn’t even comment on it. Here it comes. Has Max told her something?
“It’s about Max,” she says, giving a shy smile.
Oh God. I put down my bag of potting soil. “You don’t need to worry—” I start to say.
“No, no, let me finish,” Celeste says. “I just feel like he gave you a really dumb impression on the quad the first day of school. Oliver just brings out a … pretty unattractive side of him.”
“Oh?” I say, relieved that this isn’t about me. “Why?”
“They used to be friends a few years back, but then they started to grow apart. It’s kind of a long story, but Max was different then. More reserved.”
I run my tongue along the inside of my bottom teeth, something to distract my mouth from saying I know. That he told me all about it last week, right before he broke my heart. But explaining to Celeste that Max and I were hanging out would require me to also explain where, and I am definitely not getting into CDD with her. It’s the only thing I share with him that’s just ours … besides the dreams, of course. And if she ever shows up in one of those, I will resolve to never fall asleep again.
Celeste is still explaining the history. “Anyway, one day he started to change. He started to focus more on school, joined the
soccer team—which, turns out, he’s really good at!” She laughs like it’s the craziest thing ever, like, Oh, that Max, isn’t he a hoot? and I force myself to laugh, too. It comes out more like a chest cough. “And then he got a whole different group of friends … I don’t think Oliver was very happy about that. And Max was disappointed that Oliver didn’t want him to be happy.”
“Wow.” I feel like I’m reading a story where Oliver and Max are fictional characters. I’ve never even heard of the book, but Celeste knows it all. And she’s really nice. And I am a horrible person for even entertaining the idea that her boyfriend should be mine.
Except he was mine first, whispers a tiny voice in the back of my mind.
“Anyway,” Celeste says. “I know I’m talking your ear off. I just didn’t want you to get the wrong impression of Max. He’s actually great, once you get to know him.”
Is this really happening? Celeste is giving me advice about a guy I’ve known longer than she’s been able to spell her own name? But the irony is that she’s kind of right. I’m beginning to realize that maybe I never knew him. Not entirely anyway. And that dreams and reality are far from the same.
13
Welcome to the Bat Cave
“HEY, ALICE!” I hear Celeste call out after Terrarium Club, just as I’m unlocking Frank to head home. It’s moments like these when I really wish I had my earbuds in and could peel out of the parking lot and never look back like I hadn’t heard her at all. I’m exhausted. Between the dean and Delilah and Celeste, there’s a lot I need to process. But my earbuds are, as always, tangled in an impossible knot at the bottom of my bag.
“Hey!” I say, turning and putting on my biggest smile.
“I have kind of a big favor,” Celeste asks, biting her lip as she walks over to me. “Is there any chance I can come to your house before the party tonight? You must live nearby if you biked here, right? It’s just that I live pretty far outside the city, and I don’t really want to go out and back. It could be kind of fun! We could get ready together and I could give you the lowdown on who will be there …”