Stowe Away

by Blythe Rippon

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  OTHER BOOKS BY BLYTHE RIPPON

  Barring Complications

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Stowe Away is a story very close to my heart. While my first novel, Barring Complications, was about great people doing great things, Stowe Away is about a young woman with an immense capacity for greatness who must confront—and find happiness in—the reality of a normal, even mundane life. Most of us do this. Most of us are full of amazing talents and insights, and we live out quiet yet beautiful lives with our families and friends, touching people on a small but profoundly significant scale.

  My thanks go to MK, the first friend to read this and provide support alongside probing questions. Cindy provided useful feedback on beginning chapters. I’m grateful for Angie, my writing partner who read multiple drafts, offering layers of comments and suggestions; I’m so glad we have each other. To Jill—my Christina, my Meredith—thanks for reading, commenting, and always making me laugh. Michelle Aguilar is a great editor to work with: she has an excellent eye for arc and character. I cannot imagine a better publisher to work with than Astrid Ohletz, who not only guides my writing but also doubles as my book-club partner.

  My parents-in-law have been wonderful supporters of my writing. I’m so fortunate to have two parents who love me and have always been my heroes. My sons are utterly fascinating to me, and I can’t believe I get to live with them and help them become the best versions of themselves. My wife is brilliant, generous, and clever; I love her when we’re doing great things together, and I love her when we’re doing simple things like walking down the street holding hands.

  DEDICATION

  To my parents: You’ve taken such amazing care of me. I will always take care of you.

  PROLOGUE

  After

  It’s a bizarre thing to mourn a life lost when the person in question is still living, and Samantha Latham was mourning two.

  The fact that her sense of loss—the loss of the life she had worked so hard to make for herself—felt commensurate with the physical loss her mother was living every day since being hospitalized, made Sam feel small and petty, but she couldn’t seem to stop. From the time she was twelve, she had designed a clear and specific future for herself, and only minor variations had altered that vision in the intervening decade. Now, she didn’t have it in her to imagine tomorrow. It wasn’t worth her time, really, since tomorrow would be the same as today.

  Her mother snored softly in the living room, dozing in her easy chair. Seated at the kitchen table, a glass of orange juice and a piece of toast in front of her, Sam opened the Stowe Circular, a mind-numbingly dull local publication whose pedestrian concerns had frustrated her as a high school student even before she had left Vermont for grander pastures. Now that circumstances had forced her to return to Stowe, she didn’t have the stomach to read the most cutting-edge medical research or science journals or anything else that reminded her of the life she could no longer access. So, sighing for probably the hundredth time that morning, she read the Stowe Circular cover to cover.

  Apart from a single cover article of national news—Obama had won the North Carolina primary the day before but was edged out by Clinton in Indiana—the contributions to the paper were singularly focused on local gossip, and there was actually an article about a cat stuck in a tree. A lengthy piece detailed the talents of the high school baseball team. Mrs. King’s class at the middle school would be taking a field trip to tour the Ben and Jerry’s factory next Wednesday. The board of Fletcher Allen Hospital in Burlington was holding a fundraiser for a new wing dedicated to palliative care. She sighed heavily at the last one; she would probably be giving that institution large sums of money soon enough.

  The newspaper at Stowe High School, which, naturally, she had edited her senior year, boasted more robust offerings; or at least it had under her guidance. She had made no efforts to keep abreast of the goings-on at her alma mater after leaving Stowe for Yale.

  As she closed the paper, the pages not quite returning to their original tight creases, her mother’s cat brushed against her shin, purring softly. “You want food, Aphrodite?” Sam asked, reaching down to stroke the white Persian underneath her chin. Of course the cat wanted food. Aphrodite knew exactly what she wanted and exactly how to get it. Sam envied her. These days, there was only fog, and a wish for clarity that itself seemed to dim like the light in her mother’s eyes.

  Growing up in Stowe, most of the people who knew her had told her she was the smartest person they had ever met. A perfect score on the ACT and SAT in sixth grade will win someone a certain amount of respect, coupled with a not-insignificant amount of fear. Now, vast swaths of things she didn’t know stretched out on all sides, and she had no idea where to turn.

  Instinct, or habit, made her reach for her cell phone. But bringing up the only number she could imagine calling also brought up a bitterness she couldn’t swallow, and she slammed the phone down onto the table. People can be a lot like drugs, she thought; the first step to overcoming addiction is admitting you have a problem. And her problems with Natalie were too dense and fraught to wade through now.

  When Eva moaned gently in the other room, Sam fixed a weary smile on her face and headed toward her mother’s frail form.

  PART I

  Before

  FRESHMAN YEAR, YALE:

  FALL 2003

  Over the top of a leather-bound notebook, Sam watched while her roommate Tracy primped. In fifteen minutes they had a residential hall meeting for incoming freshman, and Tracy had been getting ready for the past hour; Sam had been rolling her eyes for about as long. How could anyone spend that much time on eye makeup? She tried to focus on the first draft of a poem she was writing, but the unattractive faces Tracy made as she used an eyelash curler kept distracting her.

  Her writing had stalled, and, for lack of anything better to do, Sam mused on how to calculate the mathematical function that would generate the same perfect parabola that Tracy seemed to demand of her eyebrows. Sam had played differential calculus games in her head since learning how to graph equations in ninth grade.

  No mathematical equation would produce the bizarre pattern on Tracy’s too-short dress.

  Sam glanced around the two-room double she shared but wasn’t allowed to decorate. When they first met, both of them hauling boxes and sweating, Tracy had made no effort to hide her disdain at Sam’s baggy jeans and T-shirt that read, Let’s eat, Grandma. Let’s eat Grandma. Punctuation saves lives.

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll handle the wall art,” Tracy had said, leaving no room for argument. Framed posters of classic movies hung in their common room, and Klimt’s “The Kiss” hung in their bedroom. Sam would have chosen the periodic table for the common room and Frida Kahlo for the bedroom, but what did she know? Her mother was only the premiere artist of a small town in Vermont.

  When Tracy was finally satisfied with her smoky eyes, she turned to Sam and issued a terse, “coming?” Sam rolled her eyes and hopped off the bed.

  They walked into the common room of Yale’s Trumbull College, which showcased an impressive display of collegiate gothic architecture—stained glass windows, dark wood wainscoting, couches and chairs of soft brown leather that looked like they belonged in a CEO’s office, a fireplace, and leather-bound books lining built-in shelves. The room seemed to single-handedly represent everything Sam had ever imagined about an Ivy-League college.

  The chairs and couches had been moved into a circle and were half-filled with other freshman. Once Tracy started flirting with a tall, tanned boy who looked like he belon
ged on the cover of GQ, Sam supposed her roommate would ignore her for the duration of the meeting. Tracy seemed singularly put out to be sharing living space with someone who cared so little about fashion.

  Sam selected the chair farthest from the door, opened her notebook, and resumed writing, ignoring the jitters bouncing around her stomach. Students trickled in slowly, typically in pairs, which Sam guessed meant roommates. She glanced up occasionally to note newcomers, but was happy that her writing enabled her to avoid awkward introductions and small talk. The leather of the chair next to her squeaked as another student shifted in his seat, and Sam took solace in the fact that most of her classmates seemed as nervous as she was. If their attire gave anything away, they were for the most part preppy, sporty, or outdoorsy. So she was surprised to see a blonde girl enter wearing ripped jeans, scuffed cowboy boots, and a belt with a horseshoe buckle. Silver and turquoise jewelry stood in stark contrast to a black tank. She was alone and took a seat opposite Sam, gazing at her with open curiosity.

  Sam blinked and dropped her eyes back to her writing. She didn’t really expect to be able to concentrate on poetry in a common room filled with anxious freshman, but neither did she expect that her stomach would suddenly feel like a piano string strung too tightly, its pitch not quite matching up with its appropriate tuning. When she stole another look at those sharp green eyes, she discovered they were no longer studying her but were scanning the room. Whatever it was that made Sam’s stomach sink, she told herself it wasn’t disappointment.

  Her new Residential Advisor headed to the middle of the room and said in a commanding voice, “Welcome to Yale, everyone. I’m Dustin Davis, a senior here in Yale’s best residential college, Trumbull. I’m also a freshman advisor. I’ve met some of you individually as you were moving in, but I wanted to say in a more formal setting that I’m always here for you if you have questions or need someone to talk to. I’m an artist, and I’m pretty much always painting or sculpting something. So feel free to stop by my room any time, day or night. I’m really looking forward to getting to know you all better, especially since it’s rare that freshman get to live in Trumbull—most of the residential colleges are too small to accommodate freshman and they live in Old Campus. So, the sixteen of you are really lucky.”

  Sam certainly felt lucky—Trumbull was closer to Science Hill than Old Campus.

  Dustin continued: “Um, also one of the best things about college, to me, is meeting new people and having engaging conversations in the classroom, or in the laundry room. You’re all here because you’re smart and interesting. So, you know, with that in mind, how about we go around the room, and you each can say a little bit about yourself.”

  Sam typically struggled with remembering people, so she made a point to repeat names in her head and study the faces with which they corresponded, surreptitiously counting people using sweaty fingers pressed against her jeans. Some girl named Claire who came in late said she hadn’t decided on a major yet, but definitely wanted to join an a cappella group. There was a boy named Dan—no, Doug?—whose parents ran an animal sanctuary in Montana. As they went around the circle, Sam practiced in her head what she would say when it was her turn, and she waited with a twinge of impatience to hear how the girl with the belt buckle and arresting eyes would introduce herself.

  “I’m Natalie Romano.” The cowboy-chic girl crossed her legs, and Sam may have dreamed it, but she seemed to speak straight to Sam. “I’m from San Francisco, and I think I’m majoring in psychology. Or archeology.” She turned to the a cappella girl: “Hey roomie, I sing too, so we should talk.” She paused a moment, then asked Dustin, “That piano over there. Can we play it?”

  Sam glanced over her shoulder and noticed a black grand piano in the corner, the perfect accent to an already-perfect Ivy League room. Of course she played, Sam thought. Piano players, in Sam’s mind, were possessed of a unique combination of romance and rationality. It had been a seductive amalgam for Sam once in high school—not that that particular crush had gone anywhere. Sam had been the only out lesbian in her school—for all she knew, she was the only actual lesbian in Stowe. Just another reason she had been impatient to get out of that place. She’d tried to convince her parents to let her skip a grade—or more—but they’d informed her that emotional development was as important as intellectual and insisted she remain with students her own age.

  “Sure, help yourself. Just not if student groups are holding meetings here, okay?” Dustin said.

  Introductions continued, with Sam’s roommate Tracy bragging that her dad had an Academy Award. A cute boy whose name Sam forgot immediately offered to teach anyone who was interested how to swing dance, and a gangly one named Angelo confessed his love for science fiction. A cross-country runner shared the requisite personal details and then excused herself, saying, “Since I’m doing ten miles at six a.m., I guess I’d better hop to. Or, well. How would you say that without ending it in a preposition? Um…”

  Sam’s mouth started moving before she could stop it. “The sentence structure you are seeking would be ‘hop to I had better.’ Contemporary linguists agree, however, that placing prepositions at the end of sentences is perfectly legitimate. Still, a precocious grammarian might try simply to rephrase the troublesome clause, such that ‘to’ isn’t even present in the sentence. You could just say ‘I had better get going.’”

  When Sam stopped, she could feel the whole room staring at her. She swallowed. “I’m Sam. I’m from Stowe, Vermont. I write poetry, especially sonnets. I’m double-majoring in chemistry and biomedical engineering.” Willing the heat from her cheeks, she glanced up to find Natalie Romano smiling at her, while everyone else turned their attention to the boy seated on Sam’s left.

  Much to her relief, the rest of the meeting passed uneventfully, and afterwards, while Natalie chatted with the girl named Claire about the various personalities of different a cappella groups, Sam quietly slipped out the heavy wooden door.

  No one had ever accused Sam of being a dreamer, but she did like to stargaze. Liked it so much, in fact, that her father Jack had given her a high-end telescope when she was named high school valedictorian. Intent on graduating Yale with honors and preparing herself for an illustrious career as a doctor, Sam didn’t allow herself much in the way of extracurricular activities. But it was a clear September night, and she was already a week ahead in her reading, so she gathered up her telescope and notebook and headed to the Trumbull courtyard.

  The cool evening breeze was a welcome change from the stale air in her dorm room. Being outside with her telescope reminded her of home, and she could almost hear father’s oft-repeated instructions talking her through the process of fitting parts together. She was still focusing the scope when she heard voices coming from the entryway next to hers. Willing herself to concentrate on the night sky, Sam caught snippets of a conversation between Natalie and Claire, who were evidently headed to a cappella rehearsal. As she crouched down to adjust the telescope’s legs, she could faintly hear them discussing the songs they expected to sing later. Claire said something about an upcoming essay for European history.

  Sam tried not to eavesdrop, but as they passed her, Natalie’s voice grew louder, and she suspected that Natalie wanted to be overheard. “So have you met Sam? She seems really clever, and I think she’d be fun to get to know.” They continued past her, and Sam stood up, watching their backs recede.

  She was about to turn back to her telescope when Natalie glanced over her shoulder. The soft light in the courtyard flickered across her cheek, and Sam couldn’t be sure, but she thought Natalie winked.

  The night sky stretched on forever, and even with an impressively powerful telescope, she could never hope to penetrate its depths. Night skies, she decided, had a lot in common with the subtle tones of Natalie’s rich voice and the kaleidoscope of greens in her eyes.

  There was nothing particularly special about Natalie—except to Sam,
everything about her was special. Sam drowned in Natalie’s easy smile, the melody of her laughter, and the flash in her eyes when they lighted upon Sam’s. Natalie matched Sam’s five-foot-seven height, and they were both lithe, bordering on skinny. But Natalie lived in her body with the ease and grace of someone who probably took ballet as a child. Sam was more comfortable relating real-life events to quotations from classic literature or reducing life’s patterns to their underlying molecular structure. Where Sam was pale, Natalie’s skin had a warmer hue, and despite her foggy Bay Area origins, she always appeared as though she’d just come in from a sunny beach. Her layered, dirty blonde hair begged to be tousled. Sam was smitten, and they’d never even had a real conversation.

  Two weeks later, Sam got her first opportunity when she received an invitation from Natalie and Claire for a screening of Casablanca in their room. The e-mail was addressed to all the freshmen in the Residential College group, and Sam was torn between jealousy and relief that so many other people would be present the first time she’d be in Natalie’s room.

  When Sam walked in, the first to arrive, she was face to face with Natalie, alone together for the first time. God, how could she be this crazy about someone she barely knew? And what on earth could she even say to someone she’d thought about so much—fantasized about so much? It was like she’d bypassed actual getting-to-know-you conversation and they were already on intimate terms.

  She needed to rewind. Hoping to create space between her emotions and the situation, she glanced around the room and was surprised to find framed portraits of Shakespeare, Austen, Poe, and Angelou hanging on the walls of the common room. Natalie stared at her, gauging her reaction. “You certainly have eclectic literary taste,” Sam said.