Principles of Love (4 page)

“I’ll have the pound-and-a-halfer, boiled,” my dad orders.

“Corn on the cob, potato salad, regular salad, and the blue fish,” I say and hand over my red plastic menu. We’re sitting at wooden picnic tables that overlook the harbor, enjoying our Last Night of Summer dinner and feeding the seagulls that dart and land. “Don’t crap on me,” I say to one that’s too close. Dad laughs.

“What’s Cordelia like?” Dad asks, but before I answer he continues. “Nice? Someone you like? Anyway, there’ll be lots of new kids to meet tomorrow. And some great musical talents on campus, I hear.” This is Dad’s Hadley Hall pitch for me — he’s trying to sell me on all the private school life has to offer.

Dad drums the table and I reach over, like Mable said my mother had done, and press my hand down so he’ll stop. My father says nothing but I know he registers the gesture.

When the food’s set down on the table, I use the small pad of butter to slick the corn and start eating. “My opening address tomorrow is about
change
,” Dad says with dramatic emphasis. I wonder if he’s thinking about the hand-drumming or my mother. Or just his lobster. Or me.

“Yeah?” I ask. “Like adaptation change?”

“I suppose,” he says. “I like the idea that we all start off one place in life and wind up somewhere else. But how when you’re in it — in the day to day — you can’t really feel the morphing process.”

“I totally know what you mean.” I tell him about how the French say
Plus ca change, plus c’est le meme chose
, which I’m sure he knows — but he seems happy to know my two week exchange program in Paris this past July at least garnered some vocab.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. I watch my single dad eat his lobster. He cracks the claws and dips them in melted butter. Out on the harbor, boats rock against the tide, squeaking their bumpers on the docks and pilings. In the movie version of this (hell, I’d take the
Dawson’s Creek
or
OC
version), a boat would pull up, and I’d never have to deal with high school. I’d just sail off into the dark water. But the reality is this: summer’s over and as of tomorrow, school’s in session.

In back of the round theatre on campus and the first library, Maus Hall (local moniker = Eek! Hall) is the huge expanse of green that begins North campus. Perched way to the back of this, on top of the hill near Whitcomb, is the quaint stone chapel. Clusters of us, the Hadley Hall students, the supposedly brainy elite, head towards the sound of ringing bells like cattle. I watch the blue blazered youth (me included) and feel like a girl in a prep school movie. This of course makes me know exactly whom I would play if I were in fact cast in such a film — since there are only four girl-types ever portrayed.

There’s the standard pretty girl role (examples = Molly Ringwald in
The Breakfast Club
or Jennifer Love Hewitt in
She’s All That
), the pretty girl’s best friend — who is decidedly less pretty, but cool enough (examples Sarah Jessica Parker in
Footloose
or Maggie Gyllenhaal in
Mona Lisa Smile
— the BF of the PG is either super-nice and winds up with the quasi-loser guy in the movie, like Seth Green, or the BF of the PG is kind of slutty and betrays her BF). Then there’s the classic UG, the Ugly Girl, who is of course, gorgeous underneath her shaggy frizz of hair and baggy clothes (examples = Ally Sheedy in
The Breakfast Club
or that girl from
The Princess Diaries
) — she winds up with the stud at the end, thanks to her now lycra-infused dress and eyeliner — and thus swaps roles and becomes the PG.

And then, there’s me. I am the lesser-dealt with cliché of girldom; the friend-girl. No, that’s not a brush with dyslexia. Friend-girl as opposed to girlfriend. The best example being Mary Stuart Masterson in
Some Kind of Wonderful
. Like Watts in what happens to be one of my favorite viewing experiences ever, I am the girl who is most likely to become friends with the hot guy while pining for him in the secrecy of her journal/song lyrics/blog. Maybe I have a way of putting guys at ease, or maybe I’m so non-appealing sexually that our conversations end up being actually good rather than mere flirtations — but either way, being the FG is a blessing and a curse. I get the closeness, the proximity that people long for with far-off crushes. But I also get the heartache of knowing what I’m missing — all the while being too scared or dumb or supportive (supportive=sorting out Hot Guy’s relationship troubles while wishing he’d notice me gazing at him) to act on anything.

So this is what I’m thinking about on the way to the opening day chapel ceremony.

“What’s up? What’re you thinking about?” Cordelia asks. She’s my unofficial chaperone for this event.

“Nothing,” I shake my head. “Just that it’s pretty here.” This, while being dishonest, is certainly a shorter answer, and true to some extent. Everywhere I look, smiling faces and summer-streaked hair abound. Healthy, toned students, distinguished faculty members, all amble up the hill and into the cavernous arched doorway to settle into pews. Dotting the back wall are symbols from a plethora of religions, informing us yet again, that this is a non-denominational place of worship, that all are welcome. All are welcome provided they are smart enough or wealthy enough or connected enough to get into Hadley Hall in the first place. I am too snide for opening day.

“Welcome,” the first of several blonde-turned-grey women to speak says. Cordelia whispers everyone’s role or name to me — head of the trustees, English Chair, History Chair who happens to be Cordelia’s mother, until finally my father is introduced and Cordelia says, “That’s your dad. Principal Bukowski.”

“Yeah, I got that, thanks,” I smirk at her. Probably because he’s my dad first and my principal second, I actually listen to the speech, to the words about truth and striving not to just fit in, to blend, but to dare for greatness, even if being different is harder. As my father leans into the dark oak podium, he clears his throat and gets ready for the closing remarks. I listened to him practice while I attempted (in vain I might add) to script a song of my own. I sat poised with pen in hand, but wrote nothing. Now, my dad has rewritten his speech — apparently stealing (stealing = borrowing with honor) my French expression from our dinner last night. He comes out from behind the podium and talks about how change can be daunting, but in the end, a good thing — and that the more we change the more we stay true to ourselves. Students applaud and stand up, immediately filing outside into the still-warm air for a brief social pit stop prior to rushing to first period.

There’s clearly a system, an order to life here that I just don’t know yet. How everyone knew to leave by the back door and lounge on the stone steps, draping their jackets over their shoulders like a Polo ad, how it’s clear who the upper classmen are, and who the freshman are, painfully green and nervous, keeping their blazers not only on but buttoned.

Cordelia pulls me by the cuff out the back door and over to the side steps where a jumble of people, some who I recognize from the Drunken Twister debacle, mill around.

“This is Love,” Cordelia says to no one in particular. I feel like I’m on display for the group. Various nods and hellos, and then, just as I’m about to feel seamlessly integrated and semi-part of something, a tap on my shoulder produces an instant hush of the mingle-chatter. I look to see my father standing behind me, doing the I’m-a-fun-Principal thing, smiling and saying “Hey” rather than “Hi” to the students near me. Cordelia raises her eyebrows. One ruddy-cheeked cute boy nudges the one next to him.

“Hi, Love,” Dad says. “Mind if I steal her away for a few minutes?” It’s as if he’s cutting in on the dance floor, but no one cares. I let my dad direct me to the faculty hoard, who stands with coffee cups and briefcases, talking about diversity and Dante, and — already — exams. Exams that lest we think are right around the corner and thus warrant being spoken of — aren’t administered until late fall.

When I free myself from this-is-my-daughter-dom, the first period bells are chiming away, playing the school hymn “Green, though yet it may be” — no clue as to what that means yet, except that some old rich guy who was in the class of 1801 or something and gave a shitload of cash to the school decided “green” would make a good school song. And so it is.

And so it is ringing and chiming as students flurry to their classes and I start to pick up the pace because I have math first and don’t know where it is. Or where my schedule printout is that contains vital info such as the name of the buildings where my classes are, my student ID number, my name, my brain, my life. I wind up booking it over North Campus, past Whitcomb, home of the hottie, and back to my house where I’ve cleverly left the schedule on the kitchen table, directly under my ring of orange juice. Out the door, I run towards main campus and stop only when I reach the front of Maus Hall. Eek! (Eek=Oh my non-denominational God!) my schedule conveniently tells me I was supposed to be in Rollinson Hall for math eight minutes ago, and yet conveniently denies any map or plans as to where I might find said building out of the sixty some-odd brick and ivy structures on Hadley Hall grounds.

“Excuse me,” I say to the nearest person. “Do you know where Rollinson Hall is?”

“I’m a freshman,” the kid says, shrugging a sorry and walks off.

“Excuse me,” I say to the next person — a girl in a twin set with a tan so evenly distributed, it’s got to be a mist-on. “Do you now where math classes are held? Rollinson Hall?”

She pauses on her cell phone and looks at me. “Math?”

Yes, I want to say, as in arithmetic, simple or complex equations, reckoning of inequality in numerical form, but instead I just cut to my already infamous chase, “Rollinson Hall.”

She mutters into her tiny phone and says, “Probably that way — go to the basement of the rectangular building there — and look in the lab.”

Suddenly, I have visions of myself being on Hadley Hall Survivor, where I have to outwit and outplay the preppy masses, using my wits as my guide. In this ridiculous vain, I set off to the building where tan phone girl pointed to, and take the stairs two at a time.

In the basement, the air is cool, the walls thick concrete, decorated with student art and murals. I search for signs of mathematical life — but find only a sculpture gallery (Note to self: naked male sculptures of people currently enrolled at Hadley Hall = sexy and disturbing at the same time), a huge auditorium presumably where Friday Films! are shown, and then a blue metal door marked “Lab.” Finally. I open it up, prepared with my “I’m new/sorry I’m late” excuse already forming on my lips, but when I get inside, there’s just tables and paper cutters and black and white prints and another doorway marked “Lab 2.” Now I really feel like I’m on a surreal game show and decide to just open the next door to see if a dragon or faded pop star will pop out and explain the rules to me.

But instead I hear, “Didn’t you see the developing light was on? Close the door, quick.”

My eyes take a minute to adjust to the dark, and when they do, I can make out a tall figure in the corner.

“I’m looking for Rollinson Hall,” I say.

“Robinson,” the guy says.

“No, Rollinson,” I say. I step closer towards him, watching him slip a large piece of white paper into a shallow tray. While I wait for him, an image seeps onto the once-blank paper. Ah, I may be slightly slow, but at least I know where the photo lab is now. Not that I take photo. Not that I’ll be allowed on campus if I get expelled for cutting classes on the first day. “Sorry — Rollinson?” I ask again. My voice goes up, too girly, and I annoy myself.

The guy flips his hair up and I see that he is no other than hottie himself. He comes over to me and speaks slowly, like I’m an exchange student. He points a finger into his chest, “Me Robinson.”

“Oh, your name is Robinson.” My name is Loser, I think but don’t utter.

“Yes, Robinson Hall — how can I help you?”

If the room wasn’t dark, he’d see my red face and red hair, my whole self a blend of embarrassment. “I thought you were my math building.”

Even in the dim lighting I can see his mouth twist — half smile, half dumbstruck by my weird comment. I start to back out of the room. “Sorry to bother you.”

I’m back at the door of the naked man sculpture gallery when he — Robinson — reappears and says, “Hey, wait up. You must be late for Trig with Thomspon — which means you’re in trouble. I’ll walk you over.”

Oh my God! Is what I’m thinking when he actually starts to accompany me to class, but what I say is, “Great tee-shirt.” Smooth, Love, smooth. Robinson’s got an old General Public shirt on, the one with the eyes and weird wing logo.

Robinson glances down to remind himself what garb he threw on this morning. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” I say and then, “I really like ‘So Hot You’re Cool.” It’s my favorite song on that disc. Another gift from Mable.

“I don’t actually know their music,” Robinson says, semi-admitting lameness. “A friend in New York gave this to me.” From his voice I can tell he means a girl, but I don’t ask for details, and he doesn’t offer any up either.

Short from carrying my books in a satchel, Robinson’s escort service (I wish) proves to be very gentlemanly and helpful. It’s the first time he’s been mistaken for the math building, despite the only two-letter difference in spelling. But the error is in my favor, I feel, as he deposits me at the threshold to Trig and actually shakes my hand. Skin on skin contact. I try not to melt into the floor or blush or barf. For now, I’m successful.

“Thanks for being my personal map,” I say, leaning up against the wall, wishing the world would fade into the background and Robinson and I would have all day to talk.

“Sure thing,” he says, slicking the hair out of his eyes. His white shirt is untucked and stained on the sides. He notices me notice this. “The curse of photo fluids. I have a habit of wiping my hands on my shirts — shouldn’t wear white, I guess.”

The door opens and a slim, brown-bobbed lady appears with her arms folded against her non-existent boobs. “If you’re done socializing, I have some trigonometry to explain,” she eyes me up and down as if inspecting for turds. “If it’s not too much trouble.”