My Dark Vanessa

by Kate Elizabeth Russell

  Staring at the screen, I try to gauge what she knows. Taylor’s Facebook post has been up for three days now, and though Mom isn’t connected with anyone from Browick, the post has been shared so widely. Besides, she’s online all the time these days, endlessly liking, sharing, and getting into fights with conservative trolls. She easily could have seen it.

  I minimize the text and bring up Facebook: 2.3k shares, 7.9k likes. Last night, Taylor posted a public status update:

  BELIEVE WOMEN.

  2000

  Turning onto the two-lane highway that takes us to Norumbega, Mom says, “I really want you to get out there this year.”

  It’s the start of my sophomore year of high school, dorm move-in day, and this drive is Mom’s last chance to hold me to promises before Browick swallows me whole and her access to me is limited to phone calls and school breaks. Last year, she worried boarding school might make me wild, so she made me promise not to drink or have sex. This year, she wants me to promise I’ll make new friends, which feels exponentially more insulting, maybe even cruel. My falling-out with Jenny was five months ago, but it’s still raw. The mere phrase “new friends” twists my stomach; the idea feels like betrayal.

  “I just don’t want you sitting alone in your room day and night,” she says. “Is that so bad?”

  “If I were home, all I’d do is sit in my room.”

  “But you’re not at home. Isn’t that the point? I remember you saying something about a ‘social fabric’ when you convinced us to let you come here.”

  I press myself into the passenger seat, wishing my body could sink into it entirely so I wouldn’t have to listen to her use my own words against me. A year and a half ago, when a Browick representative came to my eighth grade class and played a recruitment video featuring a manicured campus bathed in golden light and I started the process of convincing my parents to let me apply, I made a twenty-point list entitled “Reasons Why Browick Is Better Than Public School.” One of the points was the “social fabric” of the school, along with the college acceptance rate among graduates, the number of AP course offerings, things I’d picked up from the brochure. In the end, I needed only two points to convince my parents: I earned a scholarship so it wouldn’t cost them money, and the Columbine shooting happened. We spent days watching CNN, the looped clips of kids running for their lives. When I said, “Something like Columbine would never happen at Browick,” my parents exchanged a look, like I’d vocalized what they’d already been thinking.

  “You moped all summer,” Mom says. “Now it’s time to shake it off, move on with your life.”

  I mumble, “That isn’t true,” but it is. If I wasn’t spaced out in front of the television, I was sprawled in the hammock with my headphones on, listening to songs guaranteed to make me cry. Mom says dwelling in your feelings is no way to live, that there will always be something to be upset about and the secret to a happy life is not to let yourself be dragged down into negativity. She doesn’t understand how satisfying sadness can be; hours spent rocking in the hammock with Fiona Apple in my ears make me feel better than happy.

  In the car, I shut my eyes. “I wish Dad had come so you wouldn’t talk to me like this.”

  “He’d tell you the same thing.”

  “Yeah, but he’d be nicer about it.”

  Even with my eyes closed, I can see everything that passes by the windows. It’s only my second year at Browick, but we’ve made this drive at least a dozen times. There are the dairy farms and rolling foothills of western Maine, general stores advertising cold beer and live bait, farmhouses with sagging roofs, collections of rusted car scraps in yards of waist-high grass and goldenrod. Once you enter Norumbega, it becomes beautiful—the perfect downtown, the bakery, the bookstore, the Italian restaurant, the head shop, the public library, and the hilltop Browick campus, gleaming white clapboard and brick.

  Mom turns the car into the main entrance. The big browick school sign is decorated with maroon and white balloons for move-in day, and the narrow campus roads are crammed with cars, overstuffed SUVs parked haphazardly, parents and new students wandering around, gazing up at the buildings. Mom sits forward, hunched over the steering wheel, and the air between us tightens as the car lurches forward, then halts, lurches again.

  “You’re a smart, interesting kid,” she says. “You should have a big group of friends. Don’t get sucked into spending all your time with just one person.”

  Her words are harsher than she probably means them to be, but I snap at her anyway. “Jenny wasn’t just some person. She was my roommate.” I say the word as though the significance of the relationship should be obvious—its disorienting closeness, how it could sometimes turn the world beyond the shared room muted and pale—but Mom doesn’t get it. She never lived in a dorm, never went to college, let alone boarding school.

  “Roommate or not,” she says, “you could’ve had other friends. Focusing on a single person isn’t the healthiest, that’s all I’m saying.”

  In front of us, the line of cars splits as we approach the campus green. Mom flips on the left blinker, then the right. “Which way am I going here?”

  Sighing, I point to the left.

  Gould is a small dorm, really just a house, with eight rooms and one dorm parent apartment. Last year I drew a low number in the housing lottery, so I was able to get a single, rare for a sophomore. It takes Mom and me four trips to move in all my stuff: two suitcases of clothes, a box of books, extra pillows and bedsheets and a quilt she made of old T-shirts I’d outgrown, a pedestal fan we set up to oscillate in the center of the room.

  While we unpack, people pass by the open door—parents, students, someone’s younger brother who sprints up and down the hallway until he trips and starts to wail. At one point, Mom goes to the bathroom and I hear her say hello in her fake-polite voice, then another mother’s voice says hello back. I stop stacking books on the shelf above my desk to listen. Squinting, I try to place the voice—Mrs. Murphy, Jenny’s mom.

  Mom comes back into the room, pulls the door shut. “Getting kind of noisy out there,” she says.

  Sliding books onto the shelf, I ask, “Was that Jenny’s mom?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Did you see Jenny?”

  Mom nods but doesn’t elaborate. For a while, we unpack in silence. As we make the bed, pulling the fitted sheet over the pin-striped mattress, I say, “Honestly, I feel sorry for her.”

  I like how it sounds, but of course it’s a lie. Just last night, I spent an hour scrutinizing myself in my bedroom mirror, trying to see myself as Jenny would, wondering if she’d notice my hair lightened from Sun In, the new hoops in my ears.

  Mom says nothing as she lifts the quilt out of a plastic tote. I know she’s worried I’ll backtrack, end up heartbroken again.

  “Even if she tried to be friends with me now,” I say, “I wouldn’t waste my time.”

  Mom smiles thinly, smoothing the quilt over the bed. “Is she still dating that boy?” She means Tom Hudson, Jenny’s boyfriend, the catalyst for the falling-out. I shrug like I don’t know, but I do. Of course I do. All summer I checked Jenny’s AOL profile and her relationship status never changed from “Taken.” They’re still together.

  Before she leaves, Mom gives me four twenties and makes me promise to call home every Sunday. “No forgetting,” she instructs. “And you’re coming home for Dad’s birthday.” She hugs me so hard it hurts my bones.

  “I can’t breathe.”

  “Sorry, sorry.” She puts on her sunglasses to hide her teary eyes. On her way out of the dorm room, she points a finger at me. “Be good to yourself. And be social.”

  I wave her off. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” From my doorway, I watch her walk down the hallway, disappear into the stairwell, and then she’s gone. Standing there, I hear two approaching voices, the bright echoing laughter of mother and daughter. I duck into the safety of my room as they appear, Jenny and her mother. I catch only a glimpse, just long enough to see that
her hair is shorter and she’s wearing a dress I remember hanging in her closet all last year but never saw her wear.

  Lying back on my bed, I let my eyes wander the room and listen to the goodbyes in the hallway, the sniffles and quiet cries. I think back to a year ago, moving into the freshman dorm, the first night of staying up late with Jenny while the Smiths and Bikini Kill played from her boom box, bands I’d never heard of but pretended to know because I was scared to out myself as a loser, a bumpkin. I worried if I did, she wouldn’t like me anymore. During those first few days at Browick, I wrote in my journal, The thing I love most about being here is that I get to meet people like Jenny. She is so freaking COOL and just being around her is teaching me how to be cool, too! I’d since torn out that entry, thrown it away. The sight of it made my face burn with shame.

  The dorm parent in Gould is Ms. Thompson, the new Spanish teacher, fresh out of college. During the first night meeting in the common room, she brings colored markers and paper plates for us to make name tags for our doors. The other girls in the dorm are upperclassmen, Jenny and I the only sophomores. We give each other plenty of space, sitting on opposite ends of the table. Jenny hunches over as she makes her name tag, her brown bobbed hair falling against her cheeks. When she comes up for air and to switch markers, her eyes skim over me as though I don’t even register.

  “Before you go back to your rooms, go ahead and take one of these,” Ms. Thompson says. She holds open a plastic bag. At first, I think it is candy, then see it’s a pile of silver whistles.

  “Chances are you won’t ever need to use these,” she says, “but it’s good to have one, just in case.”

  “Why would we need a whistle?” Jenny asks.

  “Oh, you know, just a campus safety measure.” Ms. Thompson smiles so wide I can tell she’s uncomfortable.

  “But we didn’t get these last year.”

  “It’s in case someone tries to rape you,” Deanna Perkins says. “You blow the whistle to make him stop.” She brings a whistle to her lips and blows hard. The sound rings through the hallway, so satisfyingly loud we all have to try.

  Ms. Thompson attempts to talk over the din. “Ok, ok.” She laughs. “I guess it’s good to make sure they work.”

  “Would this seriously stop someone if he wanted to rape you?” Jenny asks.

  “Nothing can stop a rapist,” Lucy Summers says.

  “That’s not true,” Ms. Thompson says. “And these aren’t ‘rape’ whistles. They’re a general safety tool. If you’re ever feeling uncomfortable on campus, you just blow.”

  “Do the boys get whistles?” I ask.

  Lucy and Deanna roll their eyes. “Why would boys need a whistle?” Deanna asks. “Use your brain.”

  At that Jenny laughs loud, as though Lucy and Deanna weren’t just rolling their eyes at her.

  It’s the first day of classes and the campus is bustling, clapboard buildings with their windows thrown open, the staff parking lots full. At breakfast I drink black tea while perched at the end of a long Shaker-style table, my stomach too knotted to eat. My eyes dart around the cathedral-ceilinged dining hall, taking in new faces and the changes in familiar ones. I notice everything about everyone—that Margo Atherton parts her hair on the left to hide her lazy right eye, that Jeremy Rice steals a banana from the dining hall every single morning. Even before Tom Hudson started going out with Jenny, before there was a reason to care about anything he did, I’d noticed the exact rotation of band T-shirts he wore under his button-downs. It’s both creepy and out of my control, this ability I have to notice so much about other people when I’m positive no one notices anything at all about me.

  The convocation speech is held after breakfast and before first period, basically a pep talk meant to propel us into the new school year. As we file in, the auditorium is all warm wood and red velvet curtains, sunlight streaming in and setting the curved rows of chairs aglow. For the first few minutes of the assembly, while the headmaster, Mrs. Giles, goes over school codes and policies, her salt-and-pepper bob tucked behind her ears and chronically shaky voice warbling out across the room, everyone looks fresh-faced and brand new. But by the time she steps offstage, the room is stuffy and foreheads have begun to jewel with sweat. A couple rows back somebody groans, “How long is this going to take?” Mrs. Antonova throws a glare over her shoulder. Beside me, Anna Shapiro fans her face with her hands. A breeze drifts in through the open windows and stirs the bottom hem of the drawn velvet curtains.

  Then across the stage strides Mr. Strane, head of the English department, a teacher I recognize but have never had, never spoken to. He has wavy black hair and a black beard, glasses that reflect a glare so you can’t see his eyes, but the first thing I notice about him—the first thing anyone must notice—is his size. He’s not fat but big, broad, and so tall that his shoulders hunch as though his body wants to apologize for taking up so much space.

  Standing at the podium, he has to tip the mic up as far as it will go. As he starts to speak, the sun glinting off his glasses, I reach into my backpack and check my schedule. There, my last class of the day: Honors American Lit with Mr. Strane.

  “This morning I see young people on the cusp of great things.” His words boom from the speakers, everything pronounced so clearly it’s almost uncomfortable to hear: long vowels, hard consonants, like being lulled to sleep only to be jerked awake. What he says boils down to the same clichéd stuff—reach for the stars, who cares if you fall short, maybe you’ll land on the moon—but he’s a good speaker and somehow makes it seem profound.

  “This academic year, resolve never to stop striving to be your best possible selves,” he says. “Challenge yourselves to make Browick a better place. Leave your mark.” He reaches then into his back pocket, pulls out a red bandanna, and uses it to wipe his forehead, revealing a dark sweat stain seeping out from his armpit.

  “I’ve been a teacher at Browick for thirteen years,” he says, “and in those thirteen years, I’ve witnessed countless acts of courage from students at this school.”

  I shift in my seat, aware of my own sweat on the backs of my knees and in the crooks of my elbows, and try to imagine what he means by acts of courage.

  My fall semester schedule is Honors French, Honors Biology, AP World History, Geometry (the non-math-genius kind; even Mrs. Antonova calls it “geometry for dummies”), an elective called U.S. Politics and Media where we watch CNN and talk about the upcoming presidential election, and Honors American Literature. On the first day, I crisscross campus from class to class, weighed down with books, the workload increase from freshman to sophomore year immediately apparent. As the day wears on and each teacher warns of the challenges that lie ahead, the homework and exams and accelerated, sometimes breakneck pace—because this isn’t an ordinary school and we aren’t ordinary young people; as exceptional young people, we should embrace difficulties, should thrive on them—an exhaustion sets in. By the middle of the day, I’m struggling to keep my head up, so rather than eating during lunch, I sneak back to Gould, curl up in my bed, and cry. If it’s going to be this hard, I wonder, why even bother? That’s a bad attitude to have, especially on the first day, and it makes me wonder what I’m doing at Browick in the first place, why they gave me a scholarship, why they thought I was smart enough to be here. It’s a spiral I’ve traveled before, and every time I arrive at the same conclusion: that there’s probably something wrong with me, an inherent weakness that manifests as laziness, a fear of hard work. Besides, hardly anyone else at Browick seems to struggle like I do. They move from class to class knowing every answer, always prepared. They make it look easy.

  When I get to American lit, the last class of the day, the first thing I notice is that Mr. Strane has changed his shirt since the convocation speech. He stands at the front of the room leaning against a chalkboard, arms folded over his chest, looking even bigger than he appeared onstage. There are ten of us in the class, including Jenny and Tom, and as we enter the room Mr. Strane’
s eyes follow us, like he’s sizing us up. When Jenny comes in, I’m already sitting at the seminar table a couple seats away from Tom. His face lights up at the sight of her, and he motions for her to sit in the empty chair between us—he’s oblivious, doesn’t understand why that is absolutely out of the question. Gripping her backpack straps, Jenny gives him a terse smile.

  “Let’s sit on this side instead,” she says, meaning the opposite side, meaning away from me. “It’s better over here.”

  Her eyes skim past me the way they did at the dorm meeting. In a way it seems silly, putting all this effort into pretending an entire friendship never existed.

  When the bell rings to signal the start of class, Mr. Strane doesn’t move. He waits for us to fall into silence before speaking. “I assume you all know each other,” he says, “but I don’t think I know all of you.”

  He moves to the head of the seminar table and calls on us at random, asking our names and where we’re from. Some of us he asks other questions—do we have any siblings; where’s the farthest we’ve ever traveled; if we could choose a new name for ourselves, what would it be? He asks Jenny at what age she first fell in love and a blush takes over her whole face. Beside her, Tom turns red, too.

  When it’s my turn to introduce myself, I say, “My name’s Vanessa Wye and I’m not really from anywhere.”

  Mr. Strane sits back in his chair. “Vanessa Wye, not really from anywhere.”

  I laugh out of nerves, from hearing how stupid my words sound when repeated back to me. “I mean, it’s a place but not really a town. It doesn’t have a name. They just call it Township Twenty-Nine.”

  “Here in Maine? Out on that down east highway?” he asks. “I know exactly where that is. There’s a lake out that way that has a lovely name, Whale-something.”

  I blink in surprise. “Whalesback Lake. We live right on it. We’re the only year-round house.” As I speak, an odd pang hits my heart. I hardly ever feel homesick at Browick, but maybe that’s because no one ever knows where I’m from.