An Uncommon Education (17 page)

“Bullshit,” Jen spread her hands on the table. “When Essex was president, she got a call every November 1st from the dean. They had an arrangement.”

“Yale Law isn’t interested in making arrangements with progressive female administrators, Jen.”

Jen smirked, refusing the bait, “She was the president of Wellesley for twelve years. Of course she had an in. The dean worshipped at her feet.”

“Yeah, well, she’s gone.” This last statement sounded oddly cutting; the silence that followed it charged. We had just lost a well-loved president, Ann Peabody Essex, to a coed university with a fancy basketball team. It was as if she had broken up with us collectively. I felt the loss even though she left months before I had arrived. We had a promising interim president, but there was something somber and suspiciously paced about her initiation, the tone in the great halls and festivities somewhat like a high-wire act begun just after an acrobat has fallen.

“Well, I guess my application’s out.” Heather’s voice was barely audible. Beth looked at her for the first time since Jen had sat down, her dark face drawn, frowning.

“You applied, too?” I squeaked. It was the wrong thing to say.

Heather shrugged. “It’s just law school, I guess,” she said.

“No one’s heard from Harvard or Stanford,” Beth said quickly, sharply. Her expression was tense, aggressive.

“I gotta go,” Jen stood up. “Sorry, Heather. I didn’t know you were in the pool.” Heather grimaced, as though this was one of the worst things Jen could have said. Jen smoothed her skirt, the heavy fabric obeying her palms unlike anything I owned. “See you in econ, Beth.” She walked off.

I felt I should say something, that had I known what was to happen I would never have sat down. Heather’s face was flushed. She looked at me, wryly. “Just don’t let them talk you into this shit,” she said to me. “I never wanted law school in the first place, but apparently I’ve got potential.”

“I probably won’t major in English,” I said. “I’m premed.”

“You can do both,” Beth said, not looking at me, still watching Heather. She pulled her mouth in until it puckered. “You do have potential,” she told her friend. “You also have potential in academia.”

“Yeah, but lawyers make money,” Heather sighed. “Professors make less than forty a year. I know”—she held up her hand, preventing Beth from saying anything—“they’re respected.” She stood up. “I have to review my notes before class. Nice to meet you,” she said to me. “Good luck.”

Beth watched her go. “Yale was her first choice. It shouldn’t have been, but . . .” she was still looking away, in the direction her friend had gone. “My last boyfriend went to Yale. He was a prick,” she smiled at me. “Of course, most guys under forty are pricks, but he excelled at it.”

“My dad did some work once for someone who went to Hastings,” I offered. “In San Francisco,” I chirped, my voice false even in my own ears. “He said it was really great.”

“Wellesley girls don’t go to Hastings, hon.” The melon was almost gone. She had a cup of coffee beside it that she’d downed earlier in a few long sips. Now she toyed with the mug, its ugly stains. “If you’re not in the top three, you don’t talk about where you go. You just pray for a good internship the first year.” She set her coffee cup firmly on her tray, then looked at me. “You going to be okay here alone?” she asked.

I was taken by surprise. What she said felt like a kindness I hadn’t been expecting. I nodded, mutely, my throat closing. “First year’s hard,” she said. “Second will be better. Good luck.” She stood up and walked off.

Thirteen

T
he rest of that first year at Wellesley passed as a montage of classes and work. I had been placed on a backup list for the tennis team but was never called. My self-imposed workload prevented me from running much, and the more I studied the more I began to feel like only an intellect, a mind so removed from the concerns of the body that it could only be bothered with the most basic of needs. I ran when I could, but the activity began to feel less like an outlet and more like a requirement.

I spent the summer at home but I volunteered at the Brigham for as many hours as they would have me. Frequently, taking the T home at dusk or later, I would sit and watch the sights outside pass and pass, forgetting what time it was, or that it was summer at all. My mother was doing no better, and my father did his best to let me escape from the house. Avoiding them felt much easier than sticking around to face my apparent inability to affect any change whatsoever at home. When I returned for my sophomore year in the fall, I wondered if I had ever really been away.

Amy had convinced me to sign up with her as a resident assistant so we could share one of the much larger doubles offered to residence staff. She seemed to take it as a given that we would room together again, despite the fact that our friendship hadn’t grown much beyond an uneasy companionship. But I think she stuck with me because she didn’t know how to make new friends, either. So many Wellesley students seemed to be lacking the ability to have an easygoing engagement with the world; I suspected that many of us had not fit in where other young women might have. It would take a while before most of us could see what we needed in the others.

I was sure that between my wariness and Amy’s brusqueness we would never be invited to join the residence committee, but they must not have had many applicants that year. Our new room faced the lake again but was nearly twice the size of the earlier one, and on the second floor. That entire year we had all of three students come to seek our help, all concerned about their grades.

Most of my coursework was predetermined by my premed focus, but I was encouraged by my advisor to branch out in my remaining selections. Professor Sanders, my first-year writing instructor, had applauded my thorough dissection of texts and recommended me for Professor Pope’s Shakespeare class; I signed up for it in the fall semester. The class was fast-paced and engaging, and for the first time in a while I began to love not just what I was being taught but also the pleasure of learning it. Professor Pope was contrary and opinionated, shunned contemporary literature, and seemed altogether to be genuinely himself. I warmed to him immediately and felt I produced my best paper yet for an assignment due late in the semester: an interpretation of
Measure for Measure
in which I suggested that the disguised Duke was not only subversive but also, because I was young and arrogant, that he was more culpable than the outwardly corrupt Angelo. Professor Pope disagreed. He gave my paper a grade of “B double minus.” I was hurt and defensive, and sought out time during his office hours to review it with him.

He had a tattered poster of the Globe on one wall and a window that took up the entirety of the one facing it, so that someone looking in from the outside would immediately see the great theater. He was a very small man, and older than I realized when face-to-face with him. The stiff brown tweeds he wore were more like a kind of armor than professional dress; they seemed to literally support him, as if he might collapse at night when they were removed.

“It’s an outlandish proposition,” he declared with a grin, “one I’ve never encountered in all my years of teaching and scholarship. Not because it’s brilliant”—he leaned against his desk, facing me, neither one of us sat—“but because it’s unfounded, outrageous. Angelo is one of Shakespeare’s worst. You simply cannot compare the Duke’s mild weaknesses to a man who tries to blackmail a nun.” He was holding my paper as he spoke but not looking at it.

“But the Duke lets Angelo threaten Isabel without interfering,” I said. His office was overheated and I hadn’t taken off my jacket. I wondered if he could see my discomfort. “He won’t come out of disguise to chastise him. And he knows better. Isn’t that nearly as bad, or even worse?”

“Oh, he’s a shady character, all right”—Professor Pope seemed so delighted he nearly laughed. He was clearly fueled by disagreement, the opportunity to share more of the encyclopedic knowledge that saturated his thinking. “But you’ve got nothing to support your argument in this paper. The play does not indicate that the failure to intervene is worse than the threat of rape and the unwillingness to provide clemency for an innocent life. A scholar must always rely on the text, Ms. Feinstein. Otherwise she puts herself on a sinking ship.”

“I thought I had,” I said.

“You did not,” he said. Still standing, he crossed his feet at the ankles. “Your examples are weak, your arguments poor.” He was right. I had hoped to impress him with my creativity, but I knew in the back of my mind that I had probably reached too far. I felt a flush overtaking my face. “I should have given you a lower grade, but your attempt amused me.” His smile softened into something more sympathetic. I wondered how many students cried in his office. I could think of nothing worse at that moment than being one of them.

“Don’t feel bad about the double minus.” I realized I had been quiet for some time when I heard his voice again. “I once gave a student a B with seventeen minuses.” He was still smiling. I looked up and actually laughed, a small bark that rang through his office. He looked at me quizzically, and in an instant I was back to being terrified I might cry.

“Okay,” I said. I began to pack my bag quickly.

“Don’t worry about a rewrite,” he said. “You can’t salvage this.” He tossed my paper onto the desk beside him. “Just focus on the text on the final exam, and we’ll see what you come up with. If your comments in class are any indication, you can read well.” He tried to give me an encouraging smile, but it came off more like a smirk. “Good luck, Ms. Feinstein.”

“Thanks,” I muttered. I stumbled out, holding my breath, willing the tears to stop. Something within me was unraveling, some security I needed, but I couldn’t bring myself to face it and know what it was. Another woman was waiting outside his office, Jenna Lieberman, someone I’d eyed as a possible friend for a while; she seemed smart and unaffected. She smiled at me. I kept my head down and brushed past her, the tears coming as I rushed outside, the realization that I’d snubbed her bringing on a fresh wave of humiliation.

My bag was heavy but I dragged it past my dorm and down to the lake. It was forecasted to be the coldest winter in fourteen years. Early October had brought two frosts, and the lake had frozen over midway through the semester. The leaves had changed brilliantly and quickly, and only a few trees had anything on them but the brown and bare remnants of fall.

Lake Waban is an area attraction, a place known to many who live nearby and popular with walkers. But in the sudden cold it was nearly abandoned. I made my way through a grove, too upset to find a real trail, stomping through the trees until I came to the main path at the lake’s edge. I dropped my bag, not caring if anyone found it, not thinking anyone would. I set out as quickly as I could, flattening the frozen and dead branches underneath my feet. I didn’t look up as I walked. Two women were ahead of me on the path. I wanted them out of the way, tried not to hear their voices. I walked behind them for nearly a quarter of a mile until the cold air began to hurt my ears and hands. It had been too long since I moved that quickly, and it felt good, like that night after Teddy left when I ran down the streets just to be running. I wished I had stopped to change my shoes.

I don’t know what made me look up when I did, but this is what I saw: one of the women still on the path, the other about fifteen feet out onto the frozen surface of the lake. I stopped as if I’d walked into a stone wall, my mind suddenly refusing to make sense of what I was seeing. The woman still on the path had her mouth open; she looked fixed to the spot, as if afraid that the sound of her voice alone would break the ice beneath the other’s feet. I shouted, the sound coming from me before I realized I had made it.

Both women turned their heads. The woman on the ice smiled at me, then turned back and took another step. The other woman finally yelled, a sound more like a wild cry than language. Her voice faded as the ice began to crack, a whip across the lake. The woman on the ice crouched down, trying to lower her center of gravity as the surface shifted under her feet. In an instant she was underwater.

I froze, I don’t know for how long, but I couldn’t move. Then I started running. I don’t know how quickly I reached them.

The other girl was already tearing through the undergrowth beneath our feet. “Find a branch, a stick, something.” We were both already looking, our hands frantic and fumbling. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, holy shit”—the other girl released a stream of profanity while we hunted, time moving in unbearable slowness and speed. I found a long, unwieldy branch buried beneath the wet leaves and began to pull at it. She was suddenly at my side, both of us yanking hard. The woman in the water had surfaced twice but hadn’t made a sound. It was too terrible to look in her direction, like seeing the headlights on a train from the tracks.

“Let me,” the other breathed as we freed the stick. She vaulted toward the ice, launching the branch out in front of her. “Get on your stomach,” I called, running to catch up to her. “I’ll hold your feet.” “Grab it!” she called out to the girl in the ice, though there was no head above water.

A minute later the woman resurfaced and grabbed for the branch, but it was crooked at one end, and the angle at which it hovered over her head made me fear it could push her back down. Somehow she got a hold of it.

The instant she did we pulled as hard as we could.

I don’t know what would have happened next if each of us hadn’t been holding on to our ends as tightly as we were. Somehow we managed to pull her up. As soon as her torso was out of the water her friend threw the branch aside and grabbed her under the arms as I pulled with her back toward the shore. The ice underneath us there was mockingly opaque. We hoisted what felt like dead weight to the bank. The frozen woman scratched her way onto the dirt once we got her close but was unable to stand once there. “Get her up, get her up,” her friend chanted. I tried to help, but her body felt heavy and cold; I told myself it was only ice and wet clothes and shock.