CHAPTER 7
The drive to the Treadwell campus from New York City took four hours. It was a balmy, windy day in September, with a cloudless blue sky above us on the highway. We drove with the top up on Danko’s black Audi S5 Cabriolet convertible because Mom complained that it was too windy on the highway. I had foolishly packed my iPod into one of my suitcases, which had been stowed in the trunk, so I was being forced against my will to endure the 90’s rock station that Danko and Mom preferred.
I had passed the test, unbelievably enough. Technically, I had failed. My overall score was an 82%, and an 85% was the requirement for admission. But through some inexplicable miracle, I had only gotten seven problems wrong out of one hundred in the math section. My worst performance had been in history, not surprisingly, since it was the one section for which I hadn’t bothered studying. What had really saved my hide was the essay. In prepping me for the test, Kristijan had told me to just write in whatever style I felt I’d do best in, whatever the topic. If I had a hard time writing down three main points and structuring my essay around an introductory statement and a conclusion, it was a waste of time to even bother attempting that approach. He told me I should just write a poem, or a rap, or a short story, or limerick, for Pete’s sake, whatever I thought I could handle well.
The topic had been Individualism: What I will contribute to the diverse community at the Treadwell Preparatory Academy. As my eyes had grazed the assignment topic, my pencil had hovered in the air just centimeters above the paper for almost five minutes before I wrote a word. Contribute? I felt like there was nothing in the world of value that I could contribute to anything. Surely there was nothing I could add to the world of the private school that any other current student couldn’t do better than I could. And really, what could I possibly offer? I didn’t have any talents that I was aware of; I wasn’t artistic like Kristijan or Christie, wasn’t especially fashionable without Bijoux’s advice, couldn’t play any musical instruments like Taylor, wasn’t a stellar student like Jessica Johanessen.
So rather than writing an essay boasting about all of the skills I could offer the Treadwell community (which basically would have been an elaborate lie), I wrote a short story about a girl who was always overlooked. The sun shined on everyone but her, because she was always standing in the center of the crowd, and everyone else around her was blocking the rays from reaching her. She had never even heard the sound of her own voice because the voices of everyone surrounding her drowned hers out. All that the girl wanted for herself was to be able to push her way out of the crowd, open her mouth, and hear her own voice ring out. I ended the story with the girl seeing a space ahead between two people, one she thought she might be able to push through, so she was charging forward, inhaling deeply, and preparing herself to release a mighty scream.
I had read it over when Adrienne had announced there were only two minutes left for my essay portion, and my spirit had sunk. It was nothing even close to what the school had asked for, but every word felt like it had truly come from my heart. I didn’t know what I was good at, or could even be good at, because no one had ever taken much of an interest in the stuff I did unless it was stuff that merited a punishment. Rereading it, I felt convinced that I had bombed the test. I was immediately filled with panicky regret, wishing I could have my forty minutes back and start again. I should have just made up a bunch of garbage about wanting to do charity work, make long-lasting friendships, and influence others with my unfaltering academic work ethic. I should have lied; that was what fancy schools wanted. Sugar-coated lies.
So I jotted some notes along the side of the page on an impulse explaining that I knew my response wasn’t really what they were looking for and that I was sorry, but that it was honest and maybe honesty was the best thing I could bring to their community. What I wanted at Treadwell was a chance to figure out my potential. I would never, ever discover my own worth at home, living in my sister’s shadow, with Danko’s bitter darkness engulfing me every day.
Amazingly, even though I had tanked in the history section, the dean of the school had telephoned my mother personally the following Monday to tell her that my essay had moved her to tears and that she felt strongly that I would be a welcomed addition to the student body. A breath of fresh air. Mom had called me from her office to tell me that I had been admitted and could arrive for dormitory assignment the next week. When she had told me what Dean Fontana had said about my essay, I could tell that she was genuinely surprised that I had impressed anyone with my ability to do anything. Thankfully it sounded like the dean hadn’t told my mom what I had written about. That would have just been too embarrassing to explain. I was sure my mom felt like I was always needy for attention and acting out to get it; I don’t think she could have understood that I truly felt neglected.
When I had found out that I had been admitted and could be on campus in just six short days, my reaction was to lay face-down on my bed and shake with sobs. I was almost free. I had set out to do something seemingly impossible and had actually succeeded. It didn’t seem real.
“So, you got into Taylor Beauforte’s fancy school,” Bijoux had told me one night before I was set to leave for school, when we were on the Lower East Side together eating dumplings. She stuffed an entire pork dumpling into her mouth and chewed it. Tobin rolled his eyes at her piggishness. He was growing on me. Unlike all of Bijoux’s previous boyfriends, he was genuinely funny and didn’t seem to mind when I tagged along with them to dinner. He had his own sisters back at home in whatever Midwestern state in which he had grown up.
“Yeah, I did,” I bragged. “Jealous much?”
“Why would I be jealous of that? I’d rather die than be back in an all girls’ school, wearing some hideous uniform and having to listen to blah blah blah about poetic metrics,” Bijoux said, stabbing another dumpling with a fork and dunking it in hoisin sauce.
“You mean, poetic meter,” I corrected her.
Tobin and I shared a smirk at my sister’s ignorance.
“Whatever,” she said, waving off its importance. “All of it. I hate all of it. Now you’re going to think you’re all special and smart.”
Actually, I already kind of did.
So there we were, driving together like a happy family with all of my most important possessions in the trunk of Danko’s car. Even Rufus my stuffed dog was coming with me. In my mind, I was moving out for good. I didn’t want to leave any practical items behind that I might need one day or miss enough to venture back to the apartment on East 73rd Street to retrieve. Bijoux had taken me shopping with her Amex card to buy me a new comforter, new sheets (the dorm at Treadwell only had full-sized mattresses, which was kind of shocking because I’d had a queen-sized bed my whole life), new underwear and some spiral notebooks and pens. It kind of hurt my feelings that Bijoux had initiated the shopping trip and not Mom, but then again, that was at the heart of my problems. Mom was having a hard time with Bijoux moving out into her apartment downtown. My move to boarding school was something I was sure she viewed as a relief that would reduce stress in her life, not as a cue to her indicating that her baby was no longer a baby.
As we crossed the state line into Western Massachusetts, one of Pound’s songs came on the radio and my mom immediately pressed a button on the dashboard to switch radio stations to one of Danko’s other satellite channels. I wasn’t sure if it was because the music of my dad’s band brought back bad memories for her, or because she knew it irked Danko.
He had been in a very mysterious mood since my mom had proudly told him about my admission to Treadwell. On Saturday morning when Mom was at Spin class he had drifted into the kitchen and had stood across from where I sat at the table, eating cereal. Finally he had said, “So, you’re going to boarding school.”
“Yep,” I replied, refusing to make eye contact with him.
He just stood there, watching me slurp my milk. I slowed down the pace of my eating, not wanting to pour myself more cereal while being obs
erved by him, and not wanting to run out of cereal and have to get up from the table. We were home alone other than two cleaning ladies from the service that came each day.
“Well,” he said sternly after what felt like a few minutes had passed. “That might be for the best.”
I wasn’t happy that he was accompanying me and Mom to Treadwell that Monday morning. I had wanted the campus to be a safe zone for myself, completely free of his presence. But if allowing him to drop me off was what it was going to take for me to get to campus, that was an unavoidable compromise. I just bristled when Mom tried to make me feel grateful for him taking the day off from work to join us.
“It’s very thoughtful of Danko to offer to drive you up to your new school,” she had told me the night before, lingering in the doorway to my bedroom as I was sitting on one of my suitcases, trying to zip it closed. She was not-so-subtly trying to suggest that I owed him a thank-you.
“Sure is,” I said, my sarcasm probably lost on her. I wasn’t thanking him for anything.
Now that we were on our way toward the campus, I was hardly filled with relief at having passed the test and gained entrance. Instead, I was brimming with fear that at any second, this could all be snatched away from me. I hadn’t overlooked the fact that getting into Treadwell was one feat. Staying and not getting kicked out was going to be quite another. Now that I’d managed to pull my act together for two solid weeks and actually learn some stuff, it was more than a little scary to imagine keeping up that act on an ongoing basis. Maybe I was more like my sister than I wanted to admit. Maybe I was going to be way out of my league and be made to look and feel like an absolute fool.
The Treadwell Academy campus emerged from the forest on the side of the rural highway unexpectedly. After miles of trees, suddenly there was a stone wall, and then a private drive with a very distinguished-looking sign bearing the name of the school. My limbs were tingling with excitement mixed with anxiety. I hadn’t had any way of getting in touch with Taylor Beauforte before my arrival, since we had never exchanged phone numbers or email addresses. I felt a little weird even contacting her on Friendbook, because it would have been beyond awkward if she had denied my Buddy request. There was even a possibility that she didn’t go to school there anymore, given all of the insanity going on with my dad’s band since the last time I had seen her. Since her dad was in rehab and she had presumably spent the rest of the summer with her stepmom in New Jersey, I wasn’t positive that she had even returned to school. And if she had, I could no longer deny the possibility that she wouldn’t be too happy to see me again.
Danko followed the signs along the private wooded drive until the trees ceased and suddenly the campus in its full splendor was before me. The school basically put all of my previous schools to shame in its Edwardian Tudor grandeur. The main academic buildings were arranged around a wide square expanse of landscaped grass with brick paths running through it. Flower beds of marigolds and dusty miller surrounded the base of each building; and in front of one, a landscaping crew was patting down soil, presumably having just planted the autumn arrangements. Two of the large buildings had majestic porticos at their bases, shielding the first floor windows from incoming sun. The campus was suspiciously devoid of students, and then I realized that was because it was ten in the morning and presumably everyone was in class.
We parked in a lot in front of one of the smaller buildings beyond the main square. A brass placard on the brick wall gave the building’s name as Ellicott Hall. I was eager to send Mom and Danko back on their way to New York and was dismayed that they were going to follow me in and meet everyone. Earlier that morning when we had loaded up the car, I had imagined that they would literally pull over along the side of the road in front of the school and leave me there with my suitcases. Now that we had finally arrived after so many weeks of my plotting, I just couldn’t wait for them to get lost allow me to begin my future in peace.
“Good morning, you must be the Andordevics,” a petite middle-aged Asian woman wearing stylish glasses and a floral-print sheath dress greeted us in the busy front office.
“They’re the Andordevics,” I corrected her. “I am a Norfleet.”
“Yes, Betsey,” the woman said, clearly having been expecting us. “We’re so glad to have you join us. Melissa is going to provide you with your room assignment, and then Renee will assist you in registering for your classes.”
I smiled politely and we were led down a carpeted hallway toward an office where a young blond woman, maybe in her early thirties, was sitting at a desk covered in paperwork.
“Hi, you must be Betsey!” she said, standing to wave at me, Mom, and Danko.
Mom and Danko were mostly, thankfully, quiet in Melissa’s office as she pulled up my residential information on her computer. While we sat waiting, through the blinds on Melissa’s office windows I saw students begin to filter out of buildings and cross the green square. They carried stylish canvas bags, armloads of books, and expensive handbags. I felt antsy seeing them going about their busy Monday morning schedules. For the first time since the afternoon I’d been kicked out of Pershing I actually felt like I was missing out on something important by not being in school. Sophomore year was moving on without me, and sitting in Melissa’s cherry potpourri-scented office, I was highly aware of the potential negative consequences of my three weeks of laziness.
“Let’s see,” Melissa said. She wore on one arm a wild assortment of gold bangles, and from her earlobes dangled a pair of Moroccan-inspired gold earrings. Her dress was a respectable beige linen number cinched at the waist with a wide leather woven belt, and I was observing that by comparison to the staff at the Pershing School, the administrative staff at Treadwell was significantly cooler and younger. “You’re placed at Colgate. I’m going to send your resident assistant, Lauren Glover, a text message, and she can meet up with you to introduce you to your roommate after Dean Fontana gives you a campus tour. Our dormitories are arranged to foster collegiality among each graduating class, and to reduce the possibility of older students ganging up on younger students. We have two freshmen dorms, Rutherford Hall and our new facility, Skillman Hall. Colgate is our largest facility, exclusively for sophomores. Many of our juniors and seniors opt to live in the suites and townhouses around the perimeter of campus because those living arrangements have larger common areas and kitchenettes, but for those who don’t, we also have Hartford Hall, a standard dorm for upperclassmen.”
I felt Mom’s hand on my back, giving me a little pat, and I flinched. I didn’t especially want to be touched while we were there. I had gotten dressed hastily that morning, choosing the most preppy outfit I owned other than my uniforms from the Pershing School; a white cashmere short-sleeved sweater and a navy wool skirt that was itching me. Preppy wasn’t really my thing. I was relieved that my Treadwell uniforms had been pre-ordered and were hopefully waiting for me in the campus mailroom, wherever that was.
“So, dormitory rules,” Melissa began, pulling out a blue folder for me with my name on a label affixed to its front. “Each dorm, including the townhouses for juniors and seniors, has a general manager and resident assistants who reside on the premises. We are very strict about curfew, visitor policies and weekend leaves. First and foremost, male visitors are not permitted to campus without permission being obtained by both your parents in writing and the administrative office at least forty-eight hours in advance. That includes visits from brothers and male relatives, and no male visitors are permitted to stay overnight in our dormitory residences.”
Melissa looked up as if expecting appreciative nods from Mom and Danko on the topic of Treadwell’s staunch anti-boy policies, but they were both stonefaced and probably not even listening. In all of my years of school-switching, Mom had never actually invested this much time attending in-person meetings to get me registered. Most of my school registrations had been handled hastily over the phone, probably by one of Mom’s assistants, with one of our drivers depositing me at the
front door of the school in whatever new uniform had been purchased to meet the new dress code. Hearing that Danko couldn’t just show up on campus to visit me whenever he wanted was sweet, secret music to my ears.
“If you’re planning to leave campus on a weekend, you have to obtain permission from the resident assistant on the floor of your dorm before noon that day or from this office, and report back into campus before six o’clock unless you’ve gained permission to be off-campus for the night. There’s a form available here in the front office called the Campus Leave form, and you can also download it from our student portal online. And don’t worry; R.A.’s are required to remain on campus on weekends.”
“Curfew begins at ten o’clock each night, seven days a week, and what that means is that by ten o’clock you are required to be in your own dorm room, and low noise level rules apply. Resident assistants and dormitory general managers do spot checks from room to room nightly to ensure that everyone is where they should be. We perform fire safety exit drills once a month so that residents are always prepared for an emergency.”
By that point, Mom was smiling psychotically, as if all of this was gospel to her, even though if I could have cracked open her head to take a better look at her thoughts, they probably were all about fine fragrance and skin care. Danko looked as if he had been carved out of marble, as he always looked.
Melissa continued, “Our code of conduct requires all students to respect the personal space, lifestyle choices and possessions of other students at all times. Sometimes questions arise among students as to whether or not they are following the code of conduct if they are concerned about the physical or mental health of another student and confide in school administration. Just so you know, that is absolutely in line with our code of conduct. If you witness another student engaging in unhealthy behavior, we consider it your responsibility to inform school administrators, and naturally, we keep everything confidential.”
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