The Little Woods

by McCormick Templeman

  I had just left the library and was about to walk around the corner and through the hallway outside the Prexy classrooms when I heard something that made me stop short. It was Helen’s voice, but there was something wrong with it. There was a strange note to it that made me hang back. Gone was her typical nonchalance, and in its place were a pulsating anger and, if I wasn’t mistaken, fear.

  “I know because Cally told me,” she hissed. “I’m not going to tell you again. You can’t trust anyone. Not Asta, not Cally—especially not Cally. I’m serious. You have to listen to me and do what I say. I’m not joking around here.”

  The next thing I knew, Noel came around the corner, her face flushed, her cheeks smudged with eyeliner and tears. She didn’t see me, and I ducked into the library and leaned against the wall, trying to think over the beating of my heart. What was going on? When I’d steadied myself, I headed back through the library and out the front entrance, but when I got to the dorm, I saw Jack waiting on the lawn outside my room.

  He waved the note at me.

  “Um, Wood?” he said. “What the hell is this?”

  “I really don’t have time to talk right now,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, make time, okay?” he said, his face flushed with anger.

  I sighed and motioned for him to walk with me. “Not here, okay? Come on.”

  I couldn’t have this discussion in public, so I led him behind the music classrooms. He didn’t speak while we walked, but once we’d stopped, he looked at me with wounded eyes and slapped the note with the side of his hand.

  “This is a joke, right?” he said.

  I shook my head, afraid of what I was saying, what I was doing. “I still want to be friends.”

  “Friends? After the other night? Christ, Wood, I thought you were going to break up with Alex. I thought things were going to be different.”

  My heart was racing, and in one deft motion, my brain disconnected itself from my heart. Because the truth was I didn’t know how to be with someone else—not with someone who would need things from me, someone who would ask me for promises. I couldn’t do that. I was terrified of loving Jack. I was terrified of wanting him to stay.

  “I know about your little secret,” I said. “I saw you and Pigeon down by the mailboxes.”

  “What? So?”

  “You had your hand on her back.”

  “You think I’m seeing Paloma? That’s ridiculous. She’s my friend. She’s a good kid, but I swear to you, there is zero going on between us.”

  I knew he was probably telling the truth, but I also knew that I had to end things.

  “Look, Jack, seriously. You are one of my best friends. It’s just that I choose Alex.”

  “What?” he said, his voice too loud, fear in his eyes. “Why?”

  “I don’t have to give you my reasons, Jack. Sorry. That’s just my choice.”

  He opened his mouth, then closed it. He furrowed his brow and pointed at me, then shook his head. “So that’s how it is, then? You’re serious?”

  I nodded.

  “Fine, Wood. Then good luck with that.” He turned on his heel and started up the path.

  “I still want to be friends,” I called, but he didn’t turn around again.

  I avoided talking to Helen that night. I didn’t understand what I’d overheard, but I knew I didn’t like it, and I knew there was no way I could ask Noel about it. She would do what Helen wanted, and for some reason Helen didn’t want her talking to me.

  What was it with this place? It seemed like the whole school was nothing more than a collection of terrible secrets. Maybe that was just what happened when you put a bunch of adolescents and young teachers together, overworked everyone, and trapped them on campus. Maybe everyone went a little crazy, and bad decisions, and the secrets they generated, were the inevitable outcome.

  The next morning in English, Jack made a big deal of sitting across the room from me, and when Sophie came in, she chose to sit with him, not me. I kept my head down and doodled. Fortunately, Ms. Harlow left me alone.

  Chemistry was strange without Mr. Reilly. Dr. Harrison was substituting, and the whole of his pedagogy seemed to consist of reading aloud the steps of our experiment and then cowering at his desk as if he expected something to explode. Jack switched partners on me and was now paired with Cara Svitt, because apparently the prospect of sharing a Bunsen burner with me was too odious. He also made a big display of laughing with her, presumably to show how she was just the best chem partner ever. It made me want to puke.

  To make matters worse, my new partner was Shelly Cates, and she had all the personality of a taxidermied otter. What was wrong with everybody? Asta was a psycho, Ms. Harlow hated me for some mysterious reason, Helen was talking shit behind my back, and Jack was running around touching every girl in sight, which, honestly, kind of made me want to stab myself in the eye with a micropipette.

  I was first out of the room when the bell rang. Anger made me hungry, and I didn’t want to have to stand in line to get a hot lunch. I’d have to eat quickly if I wanted to finish my math homework, because my free period was to be spent with the school counselor. It was going to take all my willpower not to beat the poor woman to death with her sand tray.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  DURING OUR AFTERNOON WALK, I regaled Noel with tales of my free period spent with Gibby, the counselor, an anemic scarab of a woman who quoted extensively from Chicken Soup for the Soul, took a minimum of twelve packets of Sweet’N Low in her coffee, and, despite my being sent to her for grief counseling, promptly diagnosed me with anorexia nervosa.

  I had been forced to make a wellness collage and had spent half an hour cutting phallic shapes out of a magazine and pretending not to know what I was doing. Gibby had seemed happily troubled by the final product and told me we were making great progress.

  But throughout the walk, Noel remained quiet, and strangely distant and unappreciative of my Gibby jokes. I assumed this was Helen’s doing. When we went to sign in, Ms. Sjursen looked at me and shook her finger.

  “Noel, dear, you haven’t signed in properly.”

  “What?” I said. “Are you talking to me?”

  “Your name’s Noel, isn’t it?” she chastised.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “No it isn’t. She’s Noel.”

  Ms. Sjursen raised a hand to her mouth. For a moment she was confused, but then her confusion bled into irritation, and she snapped at Noel. “Well, then you have made a mark outside of the box, and you know how I feel about marks outside of boxes.”

  I stood there a moment, watching Noel appease Ms. Sjursen, and I realized this wasn’t the first time she’d mistaken us.

  “Noel,” I said as we walked back to the dorms. “There’s something kind of weird I need to talk to you about.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. A while back someone left a package with Ms. Sjursen. She gave it to me, but now I’m wondering if maybe she meant to give it to you.”

  Noel stopped in her tracks and stared at me. “What was in the package?”

  “This weird box. It was a puzzle box.”

  Noel laughed her same easy laughter, but just for a second, I thought she’d gone too pale.

  “A puzzle box? I don’t even know what that is. I’m sure it was for you. Ms. Sjursen’s batty, but she’s right about people a good sixty-five percent of the time.”

  She started walking off to her dorm.

  “Wait, don’t you want to see it?” I called after her.

  Turning and smiling, she shook her head. “Like I said, I don’t even know what a puzzle box is. I’m sure it was meant for you. I’ll see you at dinner, okay?”

  But I didn’t see Noel at dinner. I ate alone; I had lasagna and garlic bread, but it was hard to find my appetite. I needed to talk to Sophie. I wanted to tell her what I’d overheard Helen saying to Noel about me and Asta. I had no idea what to make of any of it, but I was pretty sure Sophie would have some solid theories. I was ju
st leaving the dining hall and walking across to her dorm when she caught my arm.

  “We need to talk,” she said, a hint of anger in her voice.

  “Yeah?” I disengaged my arm from hers. “What’s up?”

  “Come with me,” she said, and spinning on her heel, she marched up the stairwell toward her room. Inside, she waited for me with arms crossed, glaring. I took a seat on her bed and she closed the door behind me.

  “Cally.” She shook her head. “Cally, how could you? I know you’re going through some terrible stuff, but that doesn’t excuse you. How could you stab me in the back like this?”

  “What’s going on? I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

  “What do you think I’m talking about? Were you ever going to tell me? I had to hear it from Jack?”

  I searched my mind. “This is about Jack?”

  “Of course it’s about Jack. It’s always about Jack.”

  The way Sophie stared at me made my muscles tense up. I looked at her, and I knew I had done something wrong, something irrevocable, but I had no idea what it was.

  “I’m sorry. I know you’re mad, but seriously, I don’t understand why.”

  “You don’t understand why? Oh, well, I’m just so sorry, poor little Cally is bewildered. How adorable. Well, screw you.”

  “What did I do?”

  “I had to hear it from Jack? I had to hear from Jack that you guys have been seeing each other—that you slept together? I have to deal with Jack coming to me, crying to me about it? What the hell, Cally, how could you do this to me?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, trying desperately to find some kind of footing, some road map to tell me what to do, how to salvage things. “I know I should have told you, but we had to keep it secret. Jack wanted to. If it had been up to me, I’d have told you.”

  “It’s not about that,” she said, her eyes wide with pain. “It’s not about telling me.”

  “Then what’s it about?”

  “It’s about doing it, Cally. You weren’t supposed to do it. You should have known.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Why do you fucking think? Isn’t it obvious? Isn’t it painfully obvious to everyone in the entire fucking school that I’m in love with him?”

  I stared at her, my energy slowly draining away. I should have known. On some level I should have known. The way she and Jack were together wasn’t normal. There was more to their friendship than I’d been willing to admit. And all along I’d felt like an intruder. I’d felt like an intruder because I was one.

  “Sophie, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. You said he wasn’t your boyfriend that first day.”

  “Well, you should have known. You should have known.”

  I sat there, cold and numbness spreading across my brow. I couldn’t lose Sophie. I’d be lost without her. I’d never had a friend like her before, and now I’d destroyed it.

  “Please, Sophie. I’m sorry. Please don’t make a big deal out of this.”

  “It is a big deal.”

  “It doesn’t have to be.”

  “It does. Do you know how long I’ve waited around for my chance? Do you know how long he’s been seeing Courtney? And I’ve waited the whole time, dying inside whenever he’d talk about her, and then you come along and slip right in there. Whoop, she’s out, Cally’s in, just like that. It’s not fucking fair.”

  “Okay, but … wait. Courtney? Who’s Courtney?”

  Sophie leaned against the door, a smile playing on her lips, her eyes moist with the tears she refused to unleash.

  “Oh, you didn’t know about her?”

  “Sophie, who’s Courtney?”

  “She’s Jack’s girlfriend. His real girlfriend—since the beginning of sophomore year.”

  “Courtney?” My mind searched all the possibilities. There was a freshman named Courtney Vance, but that didn’t make sense. “Who’s Courtney?” And then I suddenly understood. “Ms. Harlow?” I gasped, knowing I was right.

  She smiled, and she looked beautiful standing there, exacting her revenge.

  “Gross,” I breathed, but even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t exactly gross. More like weird and sad, and as I thought about it, I found myself growing increasingly jealous. Ms. Harlow was like twenty, fresh out of Harvard, pretty as could be, and lonely. Jack truly had been living the dream. “But … but he was like fifteen.”

  “Sixteen when it started.”

  Suddenly I felt sick. My head was pounding. I was angry at Sophie, angry at Jack, angry at stupid Ms. Harlow and her movie-star ringlets. As far as I was concerned, they could all piss off. I stormed out of the room and slammed Sophie’s door behind me. I headed out into the early evening, down and through the bank of mailboxes.

  I passed a sophomore girl, one I’d never cared for, and just then, she let out a crazy scream when she peered into one of the boxes. It was like a call to prayer, and people started popping up here and there, filtering.

  “Oh my God,” the girl wailed, unbridled joy infusing her tremulous alto. “Tanner didn’t even get into Berkeley.”

  “The UC’s are here!” someone else screamed, and then everything went insane. Seniors pushed each other aside, diving for their mailboxes, pulling out envelopes big and small, and depending on the envelopes’ sizes, they issued little cries of despair or relief. And around them, like predators, circled juniors, sophomores, even freshmen who were delighting in the news of rejections and shouting it out for each other to hear. Brody clutched a rejection letter from Yale. He stood staring at it as if his will alone could change its contents while two freshman girls who had previously worshiped him snickered and turned away in disgust. This was what Helen had been talking about. College acceptance week was a bloodbath. I had to get out of there. I practically ran back to my room.

  I was so upset that I almost screamed when I ran into Helen in the dorm bathroom.

  “Christ, you scared the crap out of me,” she said, holding a hand to her chest.

  We stared at each other, silent, and she cocked her head to one side.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. Sort of. The scene at the mailboxes was terrible.”

  “Oh,” she sighed. “Are rejections here?”

  “Yeah. It’s ridiculous. You’d think people would let them have some privacy.”

  But Helen just stared at me. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just so, I don’t know, mean.”

  “I’m gonna go check it out,” she said. “I was heading up to the rec for Sno Balls anyway. Do you want anything? My treat.”

  “Yeah, I guess. Um, ramen,” I said, and headed back to my room.

  During study hours I found myself completely unable to concentrate. I couldn’t stop seething. Ms. Harlow? Jack had been seeing Ms. Harlow all this time. Ms. Harlow, all perfect with her peasant shirts and her belly ring. And then there was Sophie, who’d known all along. Sophie, my closest friend, who was no longer my friend at all because I was not a psychic mind reader.

  By eight-fifteen I couldn’t take it anymore. It was like something inside me was burning. I had to get outside. I had to move around. I closed my book and headed out the glass door.

  And then I did something I hadn’t anticipated. I walked over to Freddy’s room and bought one of her lollipops off her. She didn’t know what to make of me, but she was happy to oblige. Then I went over the side of the hill and I sat by myself, looking into the night sky, quietly licking my lollipop. I sat there until in-dorm time, and while I did, I told myself I was okay. I told myself that everything was going to be all right. I told myself all the things I couldn’t wait for someone else to tell me.

  When the bell rang, I stowed the lollipop in my pocket and headed back to my room. Luckily, Helen was in the bathroom when I got back, so there was no witness as I fumbled on my pajamas. When I was dressed, I climbed under my covers and turned out my light. I was asleep before Helen got back from the bathroom.

  The next morning
my mouth felt like it had been packed full of cotton, and my head and body felt heavy and strange from excessive sleep. I headed up to the dining hall early, hungry as hell, but feeling uncharacteristically happy. Alex was leaving just as I entered. He smiled at me.

  “You’re up early.”

  I looked at my watch. “Kind of.”

  “Well, you’re up early for you.”

  “I’ll give you that,” I said, laughing.

  “Whoa, look who’s in a good mood.”

  My brain deliciously foggy, I just kept smiling, delighting in tiny details, like the way the early-morning sun was lighting up the tips of the grass blades.

  “Yeah.”

  “Hey,” he said, looking a little too much like a peacock. “I got into Yale.”

  “Oh, hey, congratulations. Are you going to go?” I asked, my mind falling back to Brody clutching his letter.

  “Yeah.” He smiled. “My brother’s going to be a junior there next year. We’re going to tear it up.”

  He’d never told me he had a brother. Or maybe I’d just never listened. I didn’t want to risk seeming like a total dick, so I just nodded and smiled some more.

  “So, prom,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  “Prom’s in three weeks.”

  “There’s a prom?”

  He laughed, an edge to his voice. “Of course there is. God, you are always so checked out about stuff like that. It’s like you’re not even a real girl. Whatever. Anyway, I figured we’re going together, but I thought I’d remind you. I know you’re not good at the romantic stuff.”

  “Oh,” I said, nodding too much, still smiling. “Do I need, like, a dress or something?”

  “Yeah, Wood. People typically wear dresses. I mean, the girls.”

  “I don’t think I have anything.”

  “Borrow something. It looks to me like everyone just passes their dresses around year to year. I’m sure someone will lend you something.”