Blending Out

by Priyanka Bagrodia

  CHAPTER 14

  FEBRUARY 2019

  Pass. Pass. Pass. Pass. Pass.

  Harvard graded on a curve as follows: fail, low pass, pass, honors, and dean’s scholar. Only a very unlucky few, if any, got fails. The majority of students, around seventy percent, received some type of pass with the rest getting some type of honors. In the pass bucket, most got regular passes, though a handful of students got low passes should the professor choose to give them out.

  In the honors bucket, most got regular honors, though a handful of students got awarded dean’s scholar.

  Ryley had prepared herself, almost lazily, for one or two honors—in shorthand, Hs—as a worst-case scenario. She was used to others knowing much more than she did through the course of the term and then suddenly, having everything come together at the end, as she pulled late night after late night. Awakened out of her hibernation earlier than usual by Professor Kilmer’s call-out, a large part of her had almost thought she might get a dean’s scholar or two.

  She had made plans to get lunch with David today, but she canceled, claiming illness. He would probably guess she’d not done as well as she’d hoped but there was nothing to be done for it. At least, to belie suspicion, she did look physically ill. She’d been unable to sleep; whenever she closed her eyes, all she could see were the passes (Ps) circling around her in a ring. She thought she’d read it wrong the first two times. The dean of Career Services had said one H was average and most students could eke out one by skillfully prioritizing a class or two. She’d been arrogant, delusional, and somehow dropped into being below average.

  She was finally broken from her on-again, off-again stupor by the sound of her alarm going off. She had known to give herself a ten-minute alarm or she’d never rally for class.

  She threw on a thick jacket that made her look like the Michelin tire mascot (except her marshmallow padding was black) and yanked on long calf-length snow boots, aggressively shoving her feet in to get through the narrow ankle bit of the shoe on the first try. All she did was get her feet stuck and give herself hefty bruises. Eventually, five calming breaths later, she figured it out.

  When she exited her building and stepped into the courtyard, she couldn’t control the preemptive shiver that went down her spine. People had been posting Instagram Stories all morning about the “winter wonderland” that was Boston, but she knew it was all a façade—a mass societal delusion to make the cold more bearable.

  She plodded her way to campus, clomping along like a horse. They had a new set of five classes for the spring semester, but at least only the professors were new and she was with her Section, the same set of students from the first semester, for the majority of them. She’d stupidly been in the student lounge last night when the grades announcement came out and had witnessed enough jagged crying spells—timed, with an alarm, to last no longer than ten minutes because even emotional breakdowns were scheduled in law school—that she knew many were nursing the same sort of disappointment. She would rather not trade sorrow. She’d carry on alone.

  As she swung open the door to the main law school building, she felt a body fall into step alongside her own and half-turned her head to see Cassidy. They were on undeniably and unfortunately good terms and Ryley was forced to take her headphones out. After Cassidy had so clearly highlighted the fact that she thought all Indians were fundamentally and undeniably connected by color of skin alone, no matter how different their personalities, the two hadn’t much talked; however, during Thanksgiving break, Cassidy had ended up texting Ryley a couple of links to music videos she thought Ryley would like. Since Cassidy had never watched a music video in her life, Ryley had taken the olive branch for what it was.

  Ryley finished shoving her headphones into her pocket and looked over at Cassidy again to see her sporting a beaming smile. It was the sort of beaming smile Cassidy undeniably practiced in front of the mirror for the inevitable time she was proclaimed Justice of the Supreme Court. Ryley offered a sure smile back as Cassidy carefully evaluated her expression.

  Finally, Cassidy asked, “And how are we today? You look a bit under the weather.” When Cassidy was truly feeling herself, she’d sometimes adopt the lofty tone of an eighty-year-old debutante.

  “I’m good, but yeah, I think a little sick,” Ryley said. Good to plant the seeds now.

  “Got it. Let me know if I can get you anything! I’m feeling so good! You know, just super happy today.”

  Ryley wondered if Cassidy would be like this all morning, making clear to the entire class just how good of a mood she was in. Ryley stayed silent.

  Cassidy continued speaking, unbothered. “Excited for this semester? Heard we got a full bench of hard-asses.”

  Ryley forced herself to respond with a similarly light and breezy tone. “Ha, yes. It’ll be interesting. At least we’re no longer sparkling new.” She pointed to a random student walking ahead with a rather long face, his backpack bulging with what were likely brand-new casebooks. “I’m sure he came in bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and look at him now: broken down by the world and One-L.”

  Cassidy laughed loudly, too jovially for the rather average quality of Ryley’s “joke,” and said, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

  They entered the classroom as Cassidy spoke and Ryley turned to her and said something nonsensical in response. She wanted a distraction, wary of the way in which she felt numerous pairs of eyes rest on and evaluate her. She kept a small, even smile on her face and after not paying attention to whatever response Cassidy gave to her nonsense, made a beeline for her seat. Only after falling into her assigned seat did she quickly look up to scan the classroom. It was mostly full. She had cut it extremely close on purpose; students usually liked sliding in at the two- to three-minute mark, providing themselves with just enough time to get settled and engage in superficial small talk without providing too much time to make apparent their small talk only spanned the same four topics. Ryley only had enough in her to last up to the minute mark so she had planned accordingly.

  Next to her, she heard Sophie and David three seats down switch from weather (“Oh, it’s so dreary out, isn’t it? I should invest in a vitamin D lamp”) to workload (“These readings took forever. I just ended up going online to read an outline”) to law school scandal (“Did you hear that Section Three had to bring in a mediator?”) and finish up with general tiredness, stress, and anxiety (“Another day here. How do you think I’m doing?”).

  David was unusually relaxed and laidback. Normally, he was rereading his notes right before class, but now, he paid Sophie an impressive amount of attention as she vented her need for a break. He’d most certainly done well. Ryley would pretend she was in a rush to get to her next class and hold off speaking to David until tomorrow; she’d rather not go through with him what she just went through with Cassidy.

  One of their new professors for the semester called the class to order, his low rolling baritone effortlessly carrying over the noise. “All right, class, I know some of you are feeling thrilled right now, and others are feeling not so great. But everyone can’t get honors, and for some people, it just takes longer to get things right, so don’t give up. I got all passes first semester and then I built myself up. Your life is not over. You will live another day.”

  Cassidy and a couple of others smiled in response to his pep talk. Many kept their faces blank.

  As he began lecturing, Ryley forced herself to pay attention, taking diligent notes throughout although a large part of her wanted to stick it to them and give up trying entirely. Academics had been her cornerstone. Academic excellence was the one area she’d thought she could take her sense of belonging for granted, where she didn’t have to bend to the way others did things. Ryley kept her pencil steady, reminding herself that everyone was observing each other, looking to see who was beaten down, and who was staring morosely down at their paper instead of paying attention.

  At one point in the class, she felt the professor’s ey
es rest on hers briefly and her heart rate picked up by habit, but he almost seemed to look through her as he skipped on to the next student. She recognized and felt in every fiber of her body the complete non-importance she would have in this man’s life. He would continue to train his focus on his publications and his eloquent theories of legal history and perhaps the random bright student in which he found a mind rivaling his own. She was just a cog in the wheel of students passing in and out of his classroom. Here was someone who had no expectations of her and it was almost freeing that she wouldn’t be able to let him down. If she wasn’t on the path to making something of herself to begin with, then she hadn’t fallen off that path with an academic performance that had summarily knocked her out of the running for being any sort of legal savant.

  As soon as class wrapped up, Ryley was out of her seat and heading toward the door, prepared to say she had to run home before her next class if anyone stopped her. No one did. David half held up his hand, but Ryley just pointed at her watch, and although Mark gave her a smile, he didn’t make any effort to step away from his conversation with Cassidy, who continued speaking without pause. Ryley was relieved.

  Unfortunately, she still had an awkward fifteen minutes before her elective class started and it was taking place in a room located only one floor up, so she decided to make a quick run to the cafeteria for lack of anything better to do. Walking briskly through the corridor, she managed to narrowly avoid running into Professor Kilmer, who had just walked through the doors of the building. He had his standard giant whiteboard full of cutouts of students’ faces clasped firmly under one arm.

  “Ryley! How are you?” He stopped walking to face her.

  “Good, good.” Then after looking over her shoulder to make sure no one she knew was nearby, she asked, “Um, can I come see you about my exam?”

  “Yes, of course. Why don’t you come to my office tomorrow morning at nine?”

  “Okay, yes, sure. Thank you.” Eager to finish the conversation, she took a step back, saying, “I’ll see you then.” After turning around and taking a few more steps, she suddenly realized how rude she’d been and horrified, she said, “Wow, I was rude. How are you? Is your semester off to a good start? Are you enjoying the first snowfall? Or maybe you’re used to the snow and can see that it just sucks.” She felt unhinged.

  He gave her a slight smile. “I’m good. I’ll see you tomorrow.” And then, to save her from herself, he began walking confidently (and rapidly) away.

  Ryley let out a huff and decided to skip the cafeteria and head up to the second floor for her next class. She could hear her classmates’ voices and knew she’d be caught in a giant pack of them if she stayed anywhere on the ground floor. Taking the stairs rapidly, she decided to kill some time in the bathroom, guaranteed a solitude she wouldn’t likely get in the cafeteria.

  After five minutes of sitting on the toilet seat cover and clicking through a couple more Instagram Stories containing artsy pictures of snow, Ryley lugged herself over to the conference hall hosting the Negotiation Workshop, her elective class. It was a large class. Around 120 people had signed up, so it made sense that their first introduction to the course took place in a giant conference room. They’d rolled in plain brown tables with eight black metal chairs arranged neatly around each one. The room had crimson carpeting, crimson drapes, and wood-paneled walls. It was a mirror image and across the hall from the room that had held their orientation.

  Going from table to table, she finally found her name tag slightly off to the side and settled into her chair gratefully, heaving a sigh. She was still one of the first ones there, so she pulled out her phone again. She clicked through a couple of spam emails before getting bored and deciding to leave her inbox count at 1,520. It was a lost cause.

  “Well, look who it is.” Ryley jerked her head up to see Olivia standing across from her.

  Ryley let out a snort of amusement, unable to help herself. Naturally, for the one class in which there was the potential for overlap with other class years, she would overlap with Olivia. And naturally, Olivia would be assigned to her table.

  “What’s up?” Ryley asked.

  “Nothing much. I’m still feeling things out and trying to decide which classes I should stay in for the semester.”

  Olivia settled back into her chair, propping her feet up on the seat in between them. Olivia wasn’t wearing snow boots, just plain black booties that paired well with her dual-colored turtleneck sweater. Although Olivia must’ve had a time getting to school in those shoes, Ryley was easily jealous of her entire outfit. Quite frankly, Ryley could see she’d been envious of Olivia’s dress sense all along, which broadcast how much Olivia didn’t care what other people thought. Ryley could use a bit of that mentality right now.

  Ryley considered urging Olivia to stay in the class in case this was one of the ones about to get the axe but then decided they didn’t have that sort of relationship, so she stayed quiet and nodded instead. Olivia stayed quiet too, so Ryley turned back to her phone, feeling still more tense and wanting something to break a silence that felt more loaded than it should have.

  When Harrison showed up out of the blue and plopped down at the table with them, Ryley only barely managed to keep her face and tone neutral. “Harrison?” If Ryley hadn’t seen Olivia walking by herself enough times in passing, she would have thought they never spent any time apart.

  “Hey, Rye Bread. Mom didn’t tell me you were taking this class.” He shot Olivia a casual smile of hello as he spoke.

  “Well, it’s not like she has my schedule memorized. I don’t tell her everything.”

  He loudly scoffed, but Ryley continued, undeterred. “Harrison, I raved about this course nonstop after I visited for Admitted Students Weekend. Obviously I was going to take it. Why are you taking it?”

  “Olivia was talking about it and saying how excited she was, so I decided to try it.”

  “Of course.” Her words only came out slightly snarky. Olivia just smiled in response.

  “Anyway, I’m going to go back to my table. But before I leave, Ryley, I’m having a pregame for Winter Formal if you want to come. You can bring a couple of friends…and your boyfriend.” Harrison paused hesitantly on the word boyfriend, as if he wasn’t sure if he should make Ryley aware of how much their mom talked about one to the other.

  Ryley started nodding instinctively. She’d already decided it was high time to at least superficially move on from the grudge she’d been nursing for almost ten years at this point, and right now, she wanted to be around family. She wanted the grounding his presence would provide her.

  Seeing her immediately nod, Harrison continued in a more confident, enthusiastic tone. “Awesome! Genie’s coming to town! And for real this time, so she’ll be there.”

  “Oh, it’ll be great to finally meet her.” Ryley was curious to see if Genie was as perfect as Harrison made her out to be. Her mom would be thrilled that someone in the family was finally meeting Genie. In fact, she would be thrilled Ryley and Harrison were even hanging out in the first place. She’d long ago given up on forcing them together after she’d gotten their individual sincere assurances that even though “the like was gone, the love was still there” (Ryley had coined that phrase). Indeed, Ryley should call her mom right after class. They hadn’t talked for three whole days; she was probably worried that her daughter’s rather rare lack of communication was a result of Ryley being run over by a car.

  Olivia chimed in, “Fantastic. I can’t wait to meet the girl who has my friend consistently pining and moony-eyed for her.” It was time to move on from pondering Olivia and Harrison’s potential romantic entanglement. Ryley snorted even as a sheepish grin snuck across Harrison’s face.

  “Okay! I’m excited. I’ll see you both later.” With that farewell, Harrison walked away.

  Their table began to fill up with other students, and shortly thereafter, the negotiation professors began their introduction to the course, explaining the rules
for the first exercise. Once the professors had finished speaking, people immediately began proposing possible courses of action.

  Ryley, however, was taking a bit longer than the others to understand the introductions and stayed quiet. She couldn’t think clearly, feeling pressured to perform and prove herself academically in a way she hadn’t before.

  Olivia naturally took a leadership role, unapologetic in organizing a plan of action for the eight of them, but she was nice and patient with Ryley. She showed the side of herself that had come out at the Harvard-Yale Game, singling Ryley out and asking her what she thought even though a majority of the table had already spoken. Ryley could see why Harrison liked her as much as he did.

  As the exercise progressed, Ryley let herself focus on Olivia and the way she ignored other students’ groans as she asked Ryley for her opinion on something that had already been decided. And for a moment, Ryley stopped worrying about how everyone would react if they found out she was a failure after she’d tried so hard to do nothing but be a success in other people’s eyes.

  CHAPTER 15

  FEBRUARY 2019

  “Hi, Professor. Thanks for meeting with me,” Ryley said, distinctly feeling her sense of inferiority vis-à-vis him, made explicit by the contrast between his intimidating, plush office chair and her simple, hardbacked metal one.

  “Yes, happy to do so.” As he leaned back into his chair, wisps of white hair waved hello to her before settling gently down onto his crown once more. His fingers were steepled and his shoulders relaxed. Of course he was at ease—his intelligence was not on the line here. She looked beyond him to gather her thoughts. His office was bare but for a bookcase bursting with thick legal tomes, a couple of Hallmark-perfect family pictures laid out on his desk, and a potted plant in the corner.