by Cora Brent
Even though some features of this new situation were less than ideal, I was very glad to be finally living on campus. For one thing it was far more convenient to roll out of bed and stumble to class instead of inching through local traffic and then battling for a prime parking spot.
I grabbed my phone and searched through music, turning the volume way up when I found some good old fashioned classic rock. With The Doors keeping me company, I flipped up my laptop lid and got serious. Even though we were only a few weeks into the new semester I had several major papers to tackle in economics and international business.
At age twenty-five my road had been a bit bumpier and longer than most of the students who surrounded me but I’d gotten here and that’s what counted. Seven years ago I’d limped out of my vanishing Midwestern hometown as a broken hearted teenager with nothing but six hundred dollars borrowed from my mother and an old Honda Civic that was in dire need of some serious mechanical intervention. At the time I wasn’t sure what I had in mind. I just needed to find a new start. I ended up in Pittsburgh, living with my cousin Taylor and working double shifts at minimum wage jobs as I tried to forget the boy who had crushed my heart. For a while I felt like I was drowning. But when I resurfaced something important had hardened in me.
“Now you can go to art school, Cess.”
That’s what he’d said to me the day I shoved my belongings into black Hefty bags as I bit my tongue until I tasted blood. I couldn’t stand to let him see me cry. He’d uttered those words like he figured I might be grateful after what he’d done. I wasn’t grateful.
And I didn’t end up going to art school after all. Like a few other things it was always a useless dream. After three years in Pittsburgh I wasn’t getting anywhere by working shit jobs and shivering through the long winters. My best friend Antha had just graduated from college and was living in Phoenix. Between her stubborn pleas and all her pictures of sunshine and palm trees she convinced me that I ought to try life in a warmer climate. Even though I liked Phoenix, the entry level job market wasn’t much better than it had been in Pittsburgh. One morning I woke up and realized I hadn’t picked up a paintbrush for six months and somehow that was just fine with me. The creative euphoria that had been with me since I was a child had darkened and I was tired. I didn’t want to struggle forever. When Antha got married I felt a renewed sense of determination and enrolled in the business program at Central Arizona University.
Mostly I was proud of how hard I’d worked, how far I’d come. But sometimes when my mind wandered to dark corners I couldn’t help but feel like I’d lost something I couldn’t even put a name to. Maybe it was just because a piece of my heart had died the day I drove out of Hickeyville, Ohio.
The soft knock on my door jarred me out of my brooding thoughts. Sometimes I ignored the knocks at my door and I considered ignoring this one. Then I recalled yesterday’s Resident Advisor meeting and how the Campus Housing Director told us to think of our residents as little brothers and sisters. I’d never had any brothers or sisters of my own but what kind of person would I be if I left some sniffling kid out there to fend for herself?
Maura was on the other side of the door. She lived at the far end of the first floor hallway, habitually twisted her hair around one finger and always wore turquoise cowboy boots even when it was a hundred and ten degrees outside. She struck me as a nice enough girl though and she managed a watery smile when I invited her in.
Maura unwound her finger from her brown curly hair, sank down into the cheap beanbag chair I’d picked up last week from Goodwill and stared at her boots. After a few minutes of gentle prodding she started to talk.
Maura was homesick. She missed her high school. She missed her friends. She missed her upper crust Dallas suburb. She even missed her older brother, a bad tempered drummer who huffed paint and slept in the bathtub. Maura had been crying every night for the past week. Adding insult to injury, Maura’s roommate, Jamie, had been inviting one of the ‘TFH’ boys to their room every night.
I bobbed my head in sympathy and said things like, “It will get better, I promise.”
But then I had to stop her and ask what a TFH was because I had no idea and it might be an important part of the story.
Maura started twisting her hair again. “Oh, that means Third Floor Hottie.”
“What?”
“Third Floor Hottie.” She sat up straight and let out a groan. “OHMYGOD, have you seen the guys on the third floor?”
I tried to remember. “I don’t think so.”
“Well you totally need to check them out. The guy Jamie’s been hooking up with is named Dean. Or Alex. I forget.”
I’d been too busy to pay much attention to who was living on the third floor but I did know the third floor RA. Just yesterday I ran into her on the Panda Express line down at the Union and we shared a table for lunch. Her name was Dorritt and she was full of long legs and blonde sparkle. Dorritt talked a lot and didn’t hold back on details. Details like the number of times she’s fucked her next door neighbor since orientation week and how his dick always tastes like orange soda.
I didn’t have much to say to Dorritt because I wasn’t sure I approved of screwing around with people you’re supposed to be ‘advising’. That just seemed like crossing the line. Buy hey, it was Dorritt’s life and Dorritt’s conscience and everyone around here was technically an adult. So I just bobbed my head at Dorritt’s colorful tales and tried to imagine why a dick might be orange soda flavored. Then I had decided I’d rather not know.
As Maura continued to sniffle I said some kind, comforting things, but my mind started wandering a little. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to take a stroll up to the third floor to see what’s around, if only for inspiration. After all, the only intimacy I was familiar with these days involved batteries and solitude. It had been a long time since I let myself get broadsided by lust. Unfortunately I remembered exactly what I was missing. And I ached for it.
Reflexively I glanced at my left hand, where my wedding ring used to sit. I squeezed my fingers into a fist. I used to play a game with myself, to see how long I could go without thinking of him. Somehow it never managed to be more than a whole day. Usually the images were fleeting, or the vague ache of old emotions instead of clear pictures.
Then there were other times I could see us together as if our entire relationship was something I’d watched in a movie. Sometimes it seemed unreal even to me, although I distinctly remembered being eighteen. Such a volatile age. Most people had their heads up their asses at age eighteen. I know I did.
Still, I had a lot of sympathy for these kids. Kids like Maura. I could understand them better than I’d like to.
Maura made a noise that sounded like water struggling through a half clogged drain. When I offered her a tissue box she accepted a tissue gladly.
“Sorry,” she said and blew her nose. “Ah, now I can breathe again. It smells like peaches in here.”
“Lemon,” I said and pushed a wastebasket her way.
She dropped the crumpled pink tissue inside. “Cecily’s a pretty name. My best friend in sixth grade was named Cecilia so it’s kind of the same thing. She moved to New Orleans and I heard she ran away in tenth grade. Everyone always called her Cici. Do people call you that?”
“Nope. I’ve never really had a nickname.”
“I love you so much, Cess.”
He was the only one who had ever called me Cess but I didn’t see the point in bringing that up. It would just open up a whole rusted can of worms that were currently in a coma and buried a mile underground.
Maura shrugged. “Well, it’s a pretty name anyway. I’ve always hated my name. Did you say at orientation that you’re a junior?”
“Yes,” I said. “And I’m enrolled in a concurrent MBA program.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “I’m not sure what I’m going to major in yet. What are you going to do when you graduate?”
I shrugged. “Hopefully something that involves shuffl
ing money in the downtown financial district in exchange for a decent paycheck.”
“Oh.” She seemed confused, almost disappointed. “Is that what you always wanted to do?”
Nope. Not even close. Reality wasn’t turning out to be located in the same hemisphere as my dreams. Dreams are fine for youth. Adulthood requires practicality. However, Maura didn’t need to explore that kind of headache tonight.
“It’s pretty close,” I lied.
Maura began twirling her hair again as she looked me up and down. “How old are you, Cecily? Twenty one or something?”
“I was once,” I told her with a smile. “Now I’m twenty five.”
Something flickered in Maura’s eyes when she heard my age. I could probably have guessed what she was thinking. She was eighteen. She couldn’t imagine what the passage of seven years will mean. Seven years ago she was a middle school kid, probably trying on her first training bra. She was probably thinking about the difference between then and now, wondering what in the hell was going to happen in the space of time between where she is and where I am. I wouldn’t blame her for wondering that.
But all she said was, “Cool.”
Maura hung around for a little while longer. She talked about how she might want to major in psychology even though her parents wanted her to major in political science. She talked about the boy she dated her last year in high school and how she didn’t realize that she never liked him very much until they split up the day after graduation. He was going to school in Boston. They didn’t keep in touch.
I kept her talking because it seemed to help her. I wanted to help all of them if I could.
Except maybe the elusive penis artist who’d decorated my door. Seriously, fuck that guy.
By the time Maura heaved herself out of the beanbag chair she was actually cheerful. “You’re the best,” she said. “Thanks for listening to all my whining and crap.”
I held the door open for her. “Anytime,” I said.
She smiled. “You’re lucky that you have everything figured out already. I wish I did.”
I shook my head with a laugh. “I wouldn’t say I’ve got everything figured out, but I’ll always listen if you need me to.”
Maura got two steps out the door, turned around and waved, then nearly collided with some kid who was breaking a few rules by riding a skateboard down the narrow corridor while he smoked a cigarette.
“Sorry,” he said to Maura and she giggled.
The guy swept his curly hair out of his eyes and gave me a sheepish grin as he hurriedly snuffed the cigarette out and pushed the mess into his pocket. I tried to level him with a stern glare but I wasn’t really good at stern glares. He relaxed when he realized he wasn’t about to get lectured or written up and started checking out Maura.
The two of them forgot about me and started a ‘Hey, what’s up?’ sort of conversation as they drifted in the opposite direction. I was glad that they looked happy to see each other but I really hoped I wouldn’t encounter in them in the study lounge later doing something gross.
As I lingered there in the hallway and stared fondly after the pair of freshmen I felt almost parental. It wasn’t really a bad way to feel.
All those warm, fuzzy feelings were interrupted when I was smacked in the head by something that felt like a rock.
“Oh, shit!” yelled some guy with a silver golf club in his hand and a thin brunette clinging to his waist. “Fuck, I’m sorry!”
I reached down and picked up the golf ball that had beaned me in the back of the head. I didn’t recognize the guy or the girl who were both now wrestling noisily for control of the golf club.
“Gimme the stick,” demanded the girl as she laughed and played grabby hands all over the place, including in regions that weren’t anywhere near the golf club.
“Ask nicely,” laughed the boy as he held the club just out of her reach.
“Actually,” I grumbled. “I really think you ought to put that thing away before your line drives claim another victim.”
The girl turned around and scowled at me for spoiling the fun. Even though they didn’t live on my floor I couldn’t really kick them out. But I could order them to stop handing out concussions.
The two of them just kind of stood there gaping at me so I bent down and rolled the golf ball their way as a half hearted peace offering.
“Please,” I said, hoping I wouldn’t need to use stronger language.
The boy bent down, retrieved the golf ball, then gathered up the girl and his manners.
“Of course,” he said, “I’m really sorry.” The white-toothed smile he flashed was probably used to melting hearts and dropping panties. In fact something stuttered inside of me for a quick second but only because that smile and his shock of dark, nearly black hair reminded me of someone else.
Once the two would-be golfers were out of sight I returned to my room, added a few more drops of lemon essential oil to my diffuser and curled up with environmental economics once more.
I couldn’t concentrate. After an hour I had waded through about two paragraphs and after pinching my own arm for the fourth time I gave up and closed the lid of my laptop. I drummed my fingers on the surface and listened to the echoes in the hallway. It was only Thursday night but the restless anticipation of the weekend had already begun. Sometimes, in quiet moments like this, I wished I had more in common with the wide-eyed eighteen-year-olds who were dealing with their first dose of independence. I wished all the possibilities in life were still unknown and unexplored, that I still kept a certain priceless optimism in my heart.
I wished I didn’t know what it was like to lose everything.
“You’re not old, Cecily,” I said to the empty room. That was true. I wasn’t old in years. But I still felt like something precious was gone, something I remembered having once.
A nearby scream ripped me away from my worries. It seemed I’d heard that scream in the back of my mind, like a vague siren, but now it was much closer.
I ran into the hallway just as Saffron from Portland unleashed another painful howl. She was curled up in the arms of a hulking brute in a gray t-shirt, her pain-pinched face and purple hair the only things visible from where I stood. It didn’t seem like she was trying to get away from the guy who was carrying her so I assumed he wasn’t some wicked abductor of purple-haired girls. Since he was facing the opposite direction all I could see was his backside. Frankly I would have stopped and taken a long, appreciative look if it weren’t for all the screaming.
“Holy shit, it fucking hurts,” Saffron cried as curious faces started to pop out of doors. Saffron gestured wildly. “Oh god, Percocet, Vicodin, someone help, please!”
All of a sudden I noticed how gingerly Saffron was being carried. I also saw her feet. They looked strange; very swollen and vaguely purple.
“She jumped off the balcony,” explained a voice at my back. Saffron’s roommate, Maya, stepped up and took a casual bite of an apple. “She didn’t quite make it to the pool. Obviously.”
“Obviously,” I said, wincing over the mental image.
Yucca Hall had once been a cheap motel across the street from the university’s main campus. As the school grew, it swallowed up surrounding buildings, including the old motel, which was remodeled into student housing. There was a small balcony that jutted out on the far end of the third floor and overlooked the pool. Despite the wide stretch of concrete that needed to be cleared, the kids liked to jump into the water from there. From what I’d heard the kids usually jumped when they were drunk out of their stupid skulls so maybe there was something to that old saying that god watches over drunks and fools. At any rate, there hadn’t been any casualties of balcony diving. At least until tonight.
Saffron had stopped pleading for painkillers and was just sobbing wordlessly as she clutched her savior’s cotton t-shirt.
A somber crowd had gathered and a few of the girls reached for Saffron to comfort her. Since the hospital was only a few miles down the
road I figured the best plan would be to drive her there myself rather than wait for an ambulance. Hopefully the guy who held her would be willing to carry to her to my car.
“Hold on, Saffron,” I called. “It’s going to be okay. Let me get my keys and I’ll drive you to the ER.”
I dashed into my room and grabbed my purse. When I returned, Saffron’s brawny protector had turned around.
He stared at me at me. Then he smiled.
I dropped my purse and blinked. Then I blinked again and rubbed my eyes furiously.
When I looked again he hadn’t disappeared, which was odd, because it wasn’t even slightly possible for him to be there in the first place.
But that smile…
I’d known it so well once, that flawless design of full lips and perfect teeth that still had the power to do strange things to me.
“Damn,” I whispered.
“Hello to you too, Cess,” he said in that deep, sexy voice that had used to get me worked up within two syllables. “It’s been a hell of a long time.”
I just gawked at him. Dimly I wondered whether all ex-husbands always made such stupid cliché comments when they decided to crawl out of the woodwork and land in Arizona.
There was no way to know. After all, I only had one ex-husband and this was the first time he’d materialized in seven years.
A hell of a long time.
So inadequate and so true.
It had been a very long time since the two of us were close enough to look each other in the eye.
“Branson Hickey,” I said weakly, allowing the nearest wall to give me a little support as I leaned against it. The act of speaking his name had sapped a little too much of my strength away. “Yes, it’s been a long time.”
CHAPTER TWO
Cecily