Easy (4 page)

Fifteen minutes
after I emailed him, my inbox dinged. He’d replied, in the same formal tone I’d
chosen after switching back and forth between using his first or last name in
the address, finally deciding on
Mr. Maxfield
.

Ms. Wallace,

Dr. Heller has informed me of your need to catch up in macro and the project you’ll
need to complete in order to replace the midterm grade. Since he’s approved you
to do this work, there’s no need to share the reason why you’ve fallen so far
behind with me. I’m employed as a tutor, so this falls under my job
description.

We can meet on campus, preferably in the library, to discuss the project. It’s
detailed, and will require a great deal of outside research on your part. I’ve
been instructed by Dr. Heller as to the level of assistance I should provide.
Basically, he wants to see what you can do, alone. I’ll be available for
general questions, of course.

My group tutoring sessions are MWTh from 1-2:00, but those cover current material.
I assume you’ll need more assistance comprehending the material you missed over
the past two weeks. Let me know the times you’re available to meet for
individual tutoring sessions and we’ll coordinate from there.

LM

I clenched my jaw.
Though perfectly polite, the tone of his email reeked of condescension… until his
signature at the very end:
LM
. Was he being friendly, or casual, or ridiculing
my attempt to sound like a serious, mature student? I’d alluded to the breakup
in my email, hoping he wouldn’t want or ask for details. Now I felt as though
he’d not only eschewed learning the particulars, but he thought less of me for
letting a relationship crisis affect my academic life.

I read his email
again and got even madder. So he thought I was too dumb to comprehend the
course material on my own?

Mr. Maxfield,

I can’t attend your sessions because I have art history MW 1-2:30, and I tutor at
the middle school on Thursday afternoons. I live on campus and am available to
meet late afternoons Monday/Wednesday, and most evenings. I’m also free on
weekends when I’m not tutoring.

I’ve begun reading the course material on GDP, CPI, and inflation, and I’m working
on the review questions at the end of chapter 9. If you want to meet to pass on
the project requirements, I’m sure I can catch up on the regular coursework on
my own.

Jacqueline

I pressed send and
felt superior for all of about twenty seconds. In actuality, I’d barely glanced
at chapter 9. So far, it looked less like comprehensible supply and demand
charts, and more like gibberish with dollar signs and confusing shifts tossed
in for fun. As for GDP and CPI, I knew what those acronyms signified… Sort of.

Oh, God. I’d just
haughtily dismissed the tutor provided by my professor—the professor who wasn’t
obligated to give me a second chance, but had.

When my email
dinged again, I swallowed before clicking over to it. A new message from Landon
Maxfield was at the top of my inbox.

Jacqueline,

If you prefer to catch up on your own, that’s your prerogative, of course. I’ll
gather the information on the project and we can meet, say, Wednesday just
after 2:00?

LM

PS What do you tutor?

His reply didn’t seem angry. He was civil. Nice, even. I was so emotional lately that I couldn’t
judge anything clearly.

Landon,

I teach private lessons to orchestra students—middle and high school—on the upright
bass. I just remembered I agreed to assist in transporting two of my students’
instruments to a program this Wednesday afternoon. (I drive a truck, to
accommodate transport of my own instrument, and now I’m constantly inundated
with requests to move large musical instruments, sofas, mattresses...)

Are you free any evening? Or Saturday?

JW

I’d been playing the upright bass since I was ten. In fourth grade, one of the orchestra’s two bass players had a pee wee football collision the second weekend of school, resulting in a snapped collarbone. Our orchestra teacher, Mrs. Peabody, had looked out over the vast sea of violin players and pleaded for someone to switch. “Anyone?” she’d squeaked. When no one else volunteered, I raised my hand.

Even the
half-sized instrument dwarfed me back then; I’d needed a step-stool to play it,
a fact that had provided my orchestra classmates with endless amusement. The
ridicule didn’t stop at school.

“Honey, isn’t that
an
odd
choice of instrument for a girl to play?” my mother asked. Still
petulant over my rejection of learning piano—her instrument of choice—in favor
of the violin, she was immediately unsupportive of my new preference.

“Yes.” I glared at
my mother and she rolled her eyes. She’d never lost her disdain of the
instrument I came to love to play for the way it grounded and directed the rest
of the orchestra. I also loved the disbelief on the faces of fellow contestants
at regional competitions, their surety that I wasn’t as good as they were
because of my gender—and the way I proved that I was
better
.

By the time I was
fifteen, I’d reached my full five-and-a-half-foot stature and could perform
with a three-quarter sized instrument, no height adjustment needed, though it
was a close thing.

For the past year,
I’d been giving lessons to local students—all of them boys—each of them some
version of smug and impertinent until they heard me play.

Jacqueline,

Upright bass? Interesting.

I’m busy in the evenings this week, and most weekends as well. I don’t want you to
lose time on this, so I’ll send you the project information later tonight, and
we can discuss it over email until we can sync our schedules. Will that work
for you?

LM

PS – I’ll keep you in mind if I buy a large appliance or need to move.

Landon,

Thank you, yes—that would be great. (Re: sending the project information, I mean, not
your brazen resolution to use me for my truck’s hauling capacity. You’re no
better than my friends! They dodge U-Haul rentals and delivery fees, and I get
paid in beer.)

JW

Jacqueline,

I’ll send the project specifics when I get home, and we can discuss.

The barter system is just primitive economics at work, you know. (And are you old enough for beer?)

LM

Landon,

Far be it from me to knock an effective use of prehistoric economics. And I suppose
friends who pay in beer are better than friends who don’t pay at all. (Re: my
age—I don’t believe the job description of Economics Tutor makes you privy to
that sort of personal information.)

JW

Jacqueline,

Touché. I’ll just have to trust you not to get me arrested for supplying alcohol to minors.

You’re right—impoverished, auto-lacking college students like myself should respect tried-and-true methods of transport negotiations.

LM

I smiled at his candid
admission of being carless, my face falling when I contrasted it with the sense
of self-importance Kennedy got from his car. Right before we graduated, his
parents gave his two-year-old Mustang to his sixteen-year-old brother, who’d
wrecked his Jeep the weekend before. As an early graduation gift, they replaced
Kennedy’s Mustang with the brand new BMW—sleek and black, with every available
upgrade, including plush leather seats and a stereo system I could hear from a
block away.

Dammit
. I
had to stop linking every single thing that happened to me with Kennedy. Realization
dawned then, that he was still my default. Over the past three years, we’d
become each other’s habit. And though he’d broken his habit of me when he
walked away, I’d not broken my habit of him. I was still tethering him to my
present, to my future. The truth was, he now belonged only to my past, and it
was time I began to accept it, as much as it hurt to do so.

***

As soon as we hit campus freshman
year, Kennedy had pledged his father’s fraternity. Despite my boyfriend’s need
for cliquish affiliation, I’d never shared that aspiration. He didn’t seem to
mind when I said I preferred not to rush any sororities, as long as I supported
his future-politician need for brotherhood. He told me once he sort of liked
that I was a GDI girlfriend.

“A GDI? What’s that?”

He’d laughed and
said, “It means you’re goddamned independent.”

When he walked out
of my room almost three weeks ago, it hadn’t occurred to me that he was taking
my carefully cultivated social circle with him. Minus my relationship with
Kennedy, I had no automatic invitation to Greek parties or events, though Chaz
and Erin could invite me to some stuff since I fell under the heading of
acceptable things to bring to any party: alcohol and girls.

Awesome. I’d gone from
an independent girlfriend to party paraphernalia.

Running into
clusters of my former friends was uncomfortable at best. Just outside the main
library, tables of frat boys sold coffee, juice and pastries every morning for
a week to raise money for leadership training. Armed with portable grills,
Tri-Delts camped out in tents on their lawn to showcase the plight of the homeless.
(I suggested to Erin that most homeless people are unlikely to own portable Coleman
grills and REI camping gear, and she snorted and said, “Yeah, I pointed that
out. My warning fell on deaf ears.”)

I couldn’t leave
my dorm and walk in any direction without passing people with whom I’d had
uncomplicated relationships just days before. Now their eyes shifted away when I
walked by, though some still smiled or waved before pretending to be deep in
conversation with someone else. Even fewer called out, “Hi, Jackie.” I didn’t tell
them I was no longer using that name.

At first, Erin insisted
that the snubs were in my head, but after two weeks, she reluctantly concurred.
“People feel the need to choose sides when a relationship splits—it’s human
nature,” she said, her second-year psych classes kicking in. “Still.
Cowards
.”
I appreciated that she was willing to ignore her detached analysis in support
of me.

It didn’t surprise
me that practically everyone chose Kennedy. He was one of them, after all. He
was the outgoing, charming, future world leader. I was the quiet, cute but
somewhat odd girlfriend… After the breakup, I became just a non-Greek
undergrad—to everyone but Erin.

Tuesday, we passed
the reigning campus power-couple—Katie was president of Erin’s sorority and D.J.
was vice president of Kennedy’s fraternity. “Hi, Erin!
Great
outfit,”
Katie said, as though I wasn’t there. D.J. tipped his chin and smiled at Erin,
his eyes flicking over me, but he didn’t acknowledge my existence any more than
his girlfriend had.

“Thanks!” Erin
responded. “Fuckheads,” she muttered right after, linking her arm through mine.

When I’d moved
into my dorm room over a year ago, I’d been horrified to find myself with a
roommate who embodied the sorority girl stereotype. Erin had already claimed
the bed nearest the window. Above her headboard, she’d fastened shiny blue and
gold high school pom-poms to a huge cutout spelling “ERIN” which was coated in
gold glitter. Surrounding the giant gilded letters were posters covered in
photos of cheerleader events and homecomings with hulking football players.

As I stood gaping
at her light-reflective side of our tiny room, she’d bounced through the door. “Oh,
hi! You must be Jacqueline! I’m Erin!”

Diplomatically, I hadn’t
voiced the
no shit
comment that popped into my head.

“Since you weren’t
here, I chose a bed—I hope you don’t mind! I’m almost done unpacking, so I can
help you.” Wearing a university T-shirt that almost exactly matched her upswept
coppery hair, she picked up my heaviest bag and swung it onto the bed. “I attached
a whiteboard to the door so we can leave messages to each other—my mom’s idea,
actually, but it sounded like a usable suggestion, don’t you think?”

I blinked at her,
mumbling, “Uh-huh,” as she unzipped my bag and started removing the belongings
I’d brought from home. There had to be some mistake. I’d filled out a lengthy
roommate attribute preference sheet, and this girl appeared to have
not one
of those desired qualities. I’d basically described myself: a quiet, studious
bookworm who would go to bed at a decent hour. A non-partier who wouldn’t bring
a parade of boys through our room, or make it the floor headquarters for beer
pong.

“It’s Jackie,
actually,” I’d said to her.

“Jackie—so cute! I
do like Jacqueline, though, I have to admit. So classy. You’re lucky, you can
choose! I’m sort of stuck with Erin. Good thing I like it, huh? Okay, Jackie,
where should we hang this poster of—who is this?”

I’d glanced at the
poster in her hands—the likeness of one of my favorite singers, who also played
the upright bass. “Esperanza Spalding.”

“Never heard of
her. But she’s cute!” She’d grabbed a handful of tacks and hopped up on my bed
to press the poster against the wall. “How ‘bout here?”

Erin and I had
come a long way in fifteen months.

Chapter 4

Arriving a minute before econ began
Wednesday morning, the last thing I expected to see was Kennedy, leaning on the
wall outside the classroom, exchanging phone numbers with a Zeta pledge. Giggling
after snapping a picture of herself, she handed his phone back. He did the
same, grinning down at her.

He would never smile at me like that again.

I didn’t realize I
was frozen in place until a classmate shouldered into me, knocking my heavy backpack
from my shoulder. “’Scuse me,” he grumbled, his tone more
Get out of the way
than
Sorry I ran into you
.