Lessons in Love (7 page)

Then there’s THE NEW RULES THAT ARE GOOD:

• Extended parietal hours (this is highlighted in the reissued handbook as though it’s a major coup on the students’ part — however, the giant “extension” is exactly one-half hour. Instead of vacating opposite gender dorm rooms at nine pm you can stay until — gasp — nine-thirty! But then again, a lot can happen in thirty minutes.
  
• Increased community service. Hadley makes sure each student does a certain amount of hours, but this year the boarding population has to work together on a project that varies by dorm. We have a meeting tonight to make suggestions as to Fruckner’s focus. I’m all for it.
  
• Bishop House swap. It’s not just equality, it’s an influx of boys down to our sector. Not that I care from a potential suitor perspective (read: Charlie Addison is plenty for me), but Mary Lancaster’s psyched because her boyfriend, Carlton is now her neighbor.
  
• Bishop House swap reverse — the girls of Bishop are now on main campus.
  
• Exams are no longer prior to Winter break, so they don’t hang over your head at Thanksgiving. I predict this will lead to a non-productive, social, fun few weeks post-turkey and pre-Menorah (or whatever your choice of seasonal bush). Then again, it could lead to complete disaster in terms of re-entry in January.
  

I draw a long arrow from the last point on my Good list to that end of the Bad list, then begin a doodle that’s short-lived; little cursive lowercase ‘e’s all linked together. I miss Charlie. I don’t want to pout about being apart, but I wish we weren’t; that we could do the cross-campus couple shuffle. The CCCS takes its form in hand-holding on the way to lunch, leaf-fights in the fall, snowball tosses in the winter, hallway canoodling (note to self: add canoodling to list of words I dislike), and general gooey displays of affection. Like my love of cotton candy, I’m realizing that though I’m a pragmatic person, and have no desire to get it on in public, I do relish the thought of having my boyfriend closeby.

I look up from my line of fake cursive and check on Dalton Himmelman just to see what he’s been doing to fill the time. He’s not looking outside or asleep, rather he’s got a number two pencil (are there any other kinds? Of course, but they never get mentioned) in his mouth and a composition book open in front of him. He doesn’t catch me watching him, which I’m glad about — if for no other reason than I can’t explain my slight fascination with him other than the fact of Jacob. Dalton takes the pencil from his lips, twirls it like a Lilliputian baton and then writes furiously for about twenty seconds. He’s still writing, his sandy hair suspended from his forehead, when his eyes shift up and lock on mine. I figure he’ll glare at me or look away, but he just smiles at me while his left hand keeps moving across the page. I wish I knew what words link on his paper to form whatever thoughts are in his head — no wonder Chili has a sudden and deep crush on him. He’s that kind of guy — the guy in a movie who’d be the hot best friend, the character they don’t explore but whom you can’t shake off when the lights come on at the theatre.

Thinking of Chili makes me doodle her name now on my pad. I stop short of making hearts or stars above the two ‘i’s in her name because it seems so typical of high school doodles. She and I walked to campus together this morning, silent at first, and then all of a sudden talking through bites of a breakfast bar (her) and seven grain toast (me). Overlapping, we both said we were sorry and then wondered why we were apologizing.

“Maybe because I could have intervened and gotten it so you and I were roommates. Now you’re stuck with La Pirate.”

Chili turns to me, her first day of school new orange v-neck bright against her dark skin. “Let’s face it — probably you wouldn’t have been able to change anything and — quite possibly you could’ve made it worse.”

I chewed the crusts of the bread — my favorite part — and stopped to shake a pebble out of my flip-flop. On the way to main campus there’s a gravel driveway leading to a huge cemetery, the kind with old, tilting gravestones. The place either looks poetic and nearly picturesque in that Ye Olde New England way, or else totally creepy. “How could it be worse?”

Chili looked at me, polishing off the last of her bar. “You and LP could be together. Hey, she might take pity on me —”

“Or try to convert you to her wicked ways.”

“But with you she’d have been out for blood right away.”

We stared at each other before she went off to the main assembly and I went toward the senior gathering. I don’t really think she’ll be turned into one of Lindsay’s drones, but I guess you never know. And I like that she and I are both protective of each other. “You’re sweet, anyway,” I said.

“Just get me Dalton Himmelman’s attention and we’re even,” Chili grinned and with a flick on my arm — she’s big into flicking as a form of greeting and departure — she was off.

So I’d made amends about the rooming fiasco, but what about Dalton? You can’t exactly demand someone take notice of another human being. But I guess I could try. Jacob and I are supposed to be resuming our multi-layered friendship; I like him, he likes me, he hooks up with Lindsay Parrish while I’m in London, now I’m taken, we never get together, that sort of thing. So maybe that’s my in with Dalton. Maybe this week, after any sense of newness has worn off and we’re back to business at Hadley.

The bell rings and I realize that my first period of senior year is over. Never again will have another first period of the year here. Finally, the solid understanding of how fleeting each day is gets to me. That feeling other girls had with the ribbon ceremony last night fills me up until I want to scream, THIS IS IT! Everything now is a countdown.

My thoughts must show on my face, or else Dalton Himmelman can read minds. Beside me in the doorway, he doesn’t touch me but bites his lower lip and studies my eyes. “You okay, Bukowski?”

Everyone calls me Love. I’m not one of those girls — whatever breed they are — who gets called by their surname. And I don’t play sports, so I never really hear my last name as a point of reference other than an attendance sheet, which prep schools don’t have (they don’t need to with a student-teacher ratio of 12:1 max). I look at Dalton, about to feed him a line —yeah, I’m fine — but he says more instead. “Kind of intense, right?” He looks at me as the rush of students swell the hallway. “The starting and ending of things at the same time?”

I nod at him, amazed at the perfection of how he summed it up, and before I know it, we’re sucked into the wave of bodies, both going our separate ways.

By the end of the week I’ve been promoted from false-freshman.

“I’m finally a senior!” I say to Chris and Chili on the way to lunch. The entryway to the dining hall is packed — it always is on fresh fish Fridays. Students are queued up for the catch of the day prepared any way they like — pan-seared, fried, baked, or breaded.

“Oh, I’m already baked,” Trevor Mason says to the lunch lady. Chili, Chris and I chuckle, taking in his standard Visine-clear eyes and wastoid physique. He and his stoner crew move as one loose-limbed unit, paving the way for us.

“Pan-seared,” Chris orders when it’s his turn. Chili and I nod.

“So, what’s it like to be a freshman all over again?” Chris asks.

“I’m done with that — so smart I breezed through to seniordom in less than a week.” I smile, thinking back to that first day and how I’d been stuck sticking to my Class IV schedule. When I complained, the registrar informed me that if I didn’t attend the classes on my printout, I would be issued cuts. “It was insane, though. It makes me curious how all those colleges can keep track of all those applications — how the world doesn’t just screw things up all the time.”

“Oh,” Chili says, snagging napkins for us as we head toward the seating area. “I think they do — only, this time it affected you, so you notice.”

We sit at the end of one of the communal tables, leaning in close to talk, like we did over the summer. In my bag are notes and too many assignments, as well as postcards from Gala — my mother. She’d promised to send one every day, and so far, she has. Sometimes they’re funny, filled with observations about what’s around her, and other times they don’t say all that much, more like the stamp and scalloped edges are meant to remind she’s out there, this roaming presence in my life.

My brown tray touches Chris’s orange one, while Chili removes her plates from the tray and begins to eat like she’s in a restaurant. The table is rectangular, light wood that’s been recently shellacked. At the far end are a group of sophomores who take notice of us but keep to themselves. “That’s true,” I say, forking up a bite of salmon. “Maybe you only pay attention to errors when they’re directed at you.”

Chris eats and gives me a look as a couple of the sophomores glance our way. Chili looks at me and then at Chris. “What? What’d I do?”

“Nothing,” Chris says. “It’s just…” He waits for me to fill in, but I don’t want to poke at Chili on her first week. She visited last year enough to know the ropes, but she’s still fresh-faced and easily bruised. “It’s only…Love and I were talking…”

“You were talking about me?” Chili asks.

“No,” I say right away. “No — not like that.” I bite a roll pleading a full mouth so Chris has to do this.

“We adore you, right?” Chris gives Chili his puppy look, all sweet-faced and wide-eyed. “But you…we’re graduating this year.”

“With any luck,” I add.

“And then I’ll be left with no one, blah blah blah,” Chili says, intervening for us. “Don’t you guys think I know all this? It’s not my fault if I gel best with older people.”

“You make us sound geriatric,” I say. Across the dining hall I see Jacob, and then wonder how it is at this distance, with his generic dark blue t-shirt, even from the back, that I can know it’s him. Girls are more easily spotted — the hair, the clothing. Guys blend more; yet I can detect his still-tanned neck, the lank curls that have grown just a little longer since summer.

“Thanks for trying to protect me,” Chili looks at me, “Again. But seriously, I can handle it. I’m sure I’ll meet people in my classes. I just haven’t yet.”

“It’s been a week,” Chris says as though by that time she should have been well-ensconced in the sophomore ways.

“When I was a sophomore, I was really good friends with Lila Lawrence,” I say, not to defend Chili but just as a reminder to myself and to Chris.

“And when she graduated you were all sad — it sucks when your friends leave you stranded.” He finished eating and stands up. “Look, Chils, all I’m saying is — get out there and see what happens. It’s cool to live like a senior, but when it comes down to it, you’re not.” He smiles at us, semi-unaware of how harsh he sounded. “I have a GAS meeting.”

“Looking for a few good men?” Chili asks, putting a brave face forward.

“Always,” Chris says, then he pauses. “Or just one.”

I watch him walk to the clearing center where you unload your tray of trash, utensils, and plates. “Notice how he just happened to clear when Haverford’s there,” I say, deflecting potential tension by turning the conversation back to a reliable topic like Chris’s lovelife.

“If he wants my brother,” Chili says, “He’s being a dumb-ass about getting him.”

My habit of packing up my tray before clearing has come back in full force. My garbage is crumpled together, my utensils already upended in my water glass for easy unloading. Maybe this method is abnormal or maybe it’s just part of my fiddling instincts (not the instrument — that I can’t play — but I can twist, shred, or play with any objects left in front of me). I wonder if Mary was able to partake of fresh fish Friday, what with the seven — count them — seven Slim Jims she scarfed down instead of breakfast, cortesy of Charlie, who sent them as a care package with a note saying he’d loved eating them when he was a boarder. Sweet, though slightly misguided due to the fact that I don’t eat things that claim to be meat but aren’t — a fact I told him this summer.

I check my watch. Right now, Charlie is probably strolling by the Charles River, pondering whatever it is you ponder in college (the meaning of life? Beer? Your awesome high school girlfriend?).

“You think Chris is really up for a relationship or jus the chase?” Chili asks.

“Chris needs to get his priorities straight,” I say. “It’s one thing to want someone, but another thing altogether to sacrifice yourself to get them.”

Chili throws up her hands. “Look, Haverford’s no saint. He dealt with years of crap being varsity and closeted, and it’s my belief that sometimes he turns all that pent up denial and frustration on people he cares about.”

“Like Chris?” I ask. Even though I don’t necessarily abide by Chris’s cheating behavior, I still get the emotion behind it. When you want someone, it’s hard to turn that intensity off — even if you’re hurting yourself and someone else (in this case Ben Weiss) in the process. I begin to tear my napkin into halves and then quarters.

“Have and Ben could break up tomorrow or they could last through college. Who can tell?” Chili tugs at her hair and looks down the table at the group of her classmates dispersing towards the frozen yogurt center. By junior year, the daily urge to eat fro-yo subsides and the need to perfect the ideal wrap sandwich comes out. What senior year will bring food-wise is still open for discussion. “I’m gonna head out.” She doesn’t say
with them
, but I can tell from her body language she’s ready to infiltrate the class III masses. “I’ll see you at home?” she asks.

“Right,” I nod at her, and only in my mind do I add,
not that Fruckner’s home by any means.
Home is where my dad is — Fruckner’s where my homework is. All twelve hours of it. Hadley’s esteemed faculty have taken no time in assigning an overload which for me translates into chapters of reading, two papers to write this weekend when I was hoping to be carefree with Charlie, science data to collect, not to mention finalizing my college applications. A huge load will be lifted from my brain and chest when I hand all of those envelopes over to the post office. It’s so easy to forget that a week ago today I was on the Vineyard, still surrounded by the best that summer has to offer, and now I’m heavy-headed with work and woes.