by Cassie Beebe
“She said… ‘I always wondered why somebody doesn’t do something about that. Then I realized, I was somebody.’”
She held the gaze of each student for a brief moment, letting the words sink in. By the time her eyes reached Jacob’s, the quote had begun to resonate deep within him, and she gave him a small smile, like she could see it.
“Thank you all for being here this morning,” she said, dismissing the students to their next workshop.
Callie checked the front page of her binder for the next class on the list.
“Okay, so we have History next,” she said.
Her words fell on deaf ears, however, as Jacob stared ahead at the list of topics Professor Stein planned to go over in her course.
Poverty. Addiction. Abuse. Childhood trauma. Mental illness.
Jacob had personal experience with every subject on the board. He stared at the list, at all of the darkness in his life scrawled out on a white board, encompassed in one single course. The words of the Lily Tomlin quote repeated in his mind, and he thought about how many times he had wished for someone to do something about those things on that list.
“Jacob?” Callie interrupted his thoughts, and he looked up at her as she inched out the door and glanced anxiously at her watch. “Are you coming?”
“Oh. Yeah, sure,” he said, following her to the door.
The professor was waiting there, and she gave him a gentle handshake with her delicate fingers and thanked him for being there.
Jacob attended the rest of the classes on Callie’s list, but through all of the subjects, his mind kept drifting back to that first class with Professor Stein. It wasn’t a word jumping off of a page, but the stirring within him was what he had been waiting for. It was intrigue, at the very least, and while it couldn’t quite be labeled this way yet, it was something he could foresee growing into passion. The words “someone should do something about that” that had echoed in his mind since his childhood, were slowly being replaced with the truth of Lily Tomlin’s statement: I am somebody. So, do something.
All he ever wanted, growing up, was to make a better life for his sister. If he could give other kids like her – like him – a better future, if he could be the Sarah Parker in their life, the light, the hand to hold and walk them out of darkness, that would certainly be a life well-lived.
If he believed in such a thing, he thought that Maggie would be smiling down at him for choosing such a path, and that gave him the extra boost of confidence he needed to make the decision. He would set up a meeting with his Admissions Counselor the next morning and have his major changed from Undetermined to Social Work, and he would get all of the information he needed on what classes he had to take to get his degree in four years and begin a career in helping kids like him and his sister – kids born into an environment of fear, who felt they had no hope in overcoming their situation. He would give them that hope.
All of the other introduction workshops went in one ear and out the other, but he sat alongside Callie anyway, dreaming of a new future. Between two meetings, he asked her if he could borrow her notes from the Social Work lecture, and he spend the rest of the day studying the list of career options Callie had meticulously copied from the board. He even took some notes of his own, jotting down the ones that sounded promising, so he could look them up online some other time.
By the end of Callie’s self-made tour of the school catalog, Jacob had narrowed down his daydreaming to one clear path. All he knew was that he wanted to help children in homes like his. It was a broad category, and he had no idea what the logistics of that would look like, but for the time being, he was riding the high of finally having a plan for his future.
He had been out of Bellevue for a few months, and he had already made new friends, settled into a home-of-sorts in the dorms, developed good rapport with his new therapist, landed a stable job to cover his non-school-related essentials, and now he had chosen a major of study. He couldn’t help the smile on his face as he and Callie walked out of their last class.
“So, I’ll see you tonight?” he asked as they approached a fork in the path, one side leading to the gym and the other to the dorm buildings.
“Hm?” Callie muttered, still holding her binder open in front of her, jotting down a few notes from the Engineering class they just attended.
“The bonfire,” Jacob explained. “You said you guys would be there.”
A couple walked up the path from the gym, heading toward them, and Jacob placed two hands on Callie’s shoulders, moving her out of their way.
She looked up from her notes then and said, “Oh, sorry,” closing her binder. “Um… oh! Right, the bonfire!” she exclaimed, the words finally registering in her busy brain. “Yeah, we’ll be there.”
Jacob smirked at her. “Good. I’ll see you then.”
She gave him a wave over her shoulder as she made her way back to the gym, no doubt to introduce herself to the other professors at the booths before the Fair closed, he thought – despite the fact that she had already decided years ago that she wanted to be a nurse, and had never once wavered on that decision. He had to admit, he admired her diligence. Callie never seemed to do anything halfway, which was precisely where he saw the Maggie in her.
After a quick bite in the cafeteria, once he was back in his room, Jacob decided to squeeze in a few hours of homework before the bonfire that evening. He thought the professors would take midterms and Thanksgiving break into consideration when dishing out the homework assignments, but for many classes, the load was just as heavy as usual.
After successfully completing the written portion of his Oral Communications presentation and finishing up an essay he had been working on for the past week for World Literature, he gave a quick call to Al to remind him of his absence that evening. He had been gracious enough to give Jacob the night off for the bonfire, after his niece had pulled out the puppy-dog pout.
Jenna knocked on his door a while later to walk with him to the party, and it was already in full-swing by the time they made it through the field to the pond at ten o’clock. He quickly located Callie by the drink station. She was alone, which likely meant that Angela was off somewhere on the makeshift dance floor with Brandon.
“Hey,” Jacob greeted as he and Jenna approached.
“Oh, hey,” Callie smiled, happy to have some company among the wallflowers.
Jenna poured herself a drink of mystery punch, taking a whiff before testing out a sip.
“Did you nerds have fun in your classes today?” she asked with a smirk over her cup.
Callie looked a bit stung, but Jacob laughed and said, “She’s just kidding.”
“Oh,” Callie replied with a small chuckle.
“And yeah, actually, we did,” Jacob replied to Jenna. “In fact… I mean, I don’t wanna jinx it, but I think I might have figured out what I’m doing with my life.”
“Oh yeah?” Jenna raised her eyebrows, impressed. “And what’s that?”
“Social work,” Callie answered, and they both looked at her. She looked up from her cup with a blush, as if she hadn’t meant to say that out loud. “I’m just… assuming that’s what you meant. I mean, you couldn’t stop talking about it all day.”
Jacob laughed at himself. “I didn’t realize I talked about it that much.” More accurately, he didn’t realize Callie was capable of listening to him rant over her focus on her notes and her strict schedule.
She smiled. “It’s okay. It just means you care too much,” she said, repeating what he had said about her passion for her studies at his job-celebration dinner.
“Social work, huh?” Jenna interjected. “What drew you to that?”
Jacob thought again about the list of topics on the board, how the collection of them all summed up his life perfectly. “I guess I just want to help people,” he said.
Jenna appraised him with a warm smile. “How noble of you,” she teased, but he could tell she meant it.
As was typical for
these college parties, there was little to do but drink and dance, neither of which appealed to Jacob. But in spite of his protest, Jenna dragged him along to a game of beer pong, offering to be his designated drinker when he informed her that he doesn’t drink. His opponent objected to the deal, initially, but once he heard that Jacob had never played the game, he accepted their offer. From the smirk on his face as he looked Jenna over, it seemed he was won-over by the idea of seeing her get smashed.
As predicted, Jacob did terribly at the game. It took him a few rounds to even quite understand how it worked, but even when he did, he just didn’t have the technique. Callie watched from the sidelines, laughing each time he failed and Jenna whined about having to drink. It wasn’t the alcohol that bothered her, but the fact that it was warm beer holding all the germs of a well-used ping pong ball. She cringed at each cup, and their opponents laughed, clearly pleased with their decision to accept the game.
Once Jacob had been thoroughly defeated, they headed back to their spot by the drink table, and Jacob apologized to Jenna for being so bad at the game.
“You know, normally I would be against the idea of getting a girl drunk,” he chuckled.
“Oh, please,” she rolled her eyes. “A few cups of beer ain’t doin’ nothing to this gut of steel.” She slapped a hand against her stomach, then promptly stumbled over a tree root.
Jacob and Callie laughed, and Jenna righted herself, putting up her hands in defense.
“That meant nothing! That was the tree’s fault!” she shouted over the loud music, pointing accusingly at the branches above them.
That made them laugh harder, and Jenna rolled her eyes at them.
When they approached the drink table, it appeared that someone had gone all-out in their celebration of the end of midterms, because half a dozen bottles of hard liquor had been added to the mix.
Jenna looked through the options with interest.
“Oh, hey!” she exclaimed, turning excitedly to Jacob. “Do you want a blowjob?”
The words repeated in his mind several times as he stared at her blankly. He knew they must have meant something other than what he thought they meant, but his brain wasn’t able to process the thought.
“Uh… I… what do you…,” he stuttered.
Thankfully, Callie came to his rescue, trying to stifle her giggling. “It’s a drink,” she informed him with a blush.
It took a moment for that to sink in through his confusion, but when it did, he let out a massive breath that had been trapped in his lungs in his frozen-state.
“Oh! Oh, oh, okay,” he nodded. “I see.”
Callie laughed harder, and Jenna was completely oblivious to the misunderstanding.
“It’s one of, like, three drinks that I can make, and they actually have all the stuff for it,” she smiled, grabbing three plastic shot glasses from the stack beside the bottles.
“Oh, well, I don’t drink, so…,” Jacob repeated.
“Oh, right, duh,” Jenna shook her head at herself. “You literally just told me that. Callie, you want one?”
“Um,” she paused, considering. “Sure. Why not?”
“That’s what I like to hear!” Jenna exclaimed over the increasing sound of the music, already pouring brown liquid into two tiny cups.
“Hey, guys!”
They all turned around, greeted by Angela and Brandon calling to them, hand-in-hand and sweaty from dancing.
“Get in here!” Angela yelled, waving them toward the crowd of people by the portable speakers. “Cal, come on!”
Callie bit her lip, appraising the crowd.
Jenna was already downing her shot and following them into the mosh pit, handing Callie her shot on the way past her.
With a shy grin, Callie looked up at Jacob and said, “I’ll go if you go.”
He could see the glint of hope hiding behind her trepidation, and he cursed himself for being so easily persuaded. She clearly wanted to dance, but she would never do it without an extra push. Jacob, on the other hand, had absolutely no desire to dance, but he did have the desire to see Callie let loose and have fun.
With a sigh, he grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the crowd, pausing for her to set her untouched shot back on the table.
It was as loud and uncomfortable as Jacob had expected, packed into the group of swaying bodies like a sardine, but the bright grin on Callie’s face made it all worth it. She jumped around with Angela and Brandon, and Jacob turned his attention back to Jenna.
She was looking at him with a wry smirk on her face, standing still among the swaying and jumping around her.
“What?” he asked, stepping forward to hear her response.
Someone bumped him in the back, pushing him into her. He tried to step back again, but she pulled herself up on her toes by his shirt to speak in his ear.
“That was really nice of you,” she said, settling back on her feet and nodding toward Callie, who was still laughing and doing some wiggly motion with her arms.
He looked at the people dancing around him, feeling like a fish out of water. Jenna reached for his hands, taking them in hers and leading him into some form of swing.
He laughed as she twirled herself with his hand. All he had to do was stand in the middle of the crowd, giving her free reign over his arm movements, and she danced around him in motions far too old-fashioned to match the modern music blaring from the speakers.
When a slightly less boisterous song came on, she moved his hesitant palm to her waist and placed hers on his shoulder, concentrating hard on their feet as she tried to remember the steps of a waltz.
He looked around them at all of the bumping, grinding bodies, laughing at the absurdity of their proper dance form in the midst of it all. The energy was high, and the music pumped through his veins. Time slowed down, zeroed-in on that moment, in which everything was as it should be and he couldn’t help but smile.
Jenna’s expression was focused as she looked down at their feet, testing out a few steps until the movement felt right. Her deep, maroon lips were pursed as she concentrated, counting steps in her head, and the dim light of the fire reflected off of the white sparkles just above her cheeks.
Someone brushed past them again, pushing Jenna forward. Jacob’s right hand clenched more tightly around her waist to steady her, squeezing the rough sequins of her dress. He looked down at her attire, realizing she was wearing the same dress and jacket she was wearing the night she fell asleep in his room. Looking back to her face, he decided he preferred her this way: bright, alert, color in her cheeks from laughing at her dancing mishaps each time she got the steps wrong.
“You look nice,” he muttered without thought.
She looked up at him. “What?” she said loudly, barely audible over the sound of the music.
“Oh. I, uh…,” he paused, unsure of himself now that he was conscious of what he was saying. “I said you look nice,” he finished, raising his voice enough for her to hear. “I like the sparkles.” He tapped her cheek with the index finger of the hand that was resting in hers, and it went red under his brief touch.
Her smile turned coy. “Thanks,” she said, looking down at his chest to avoid his gaze. “I like this,” she said, tugging on the collar of his flannel shirt.
“I know. That’s why I wore it,” he said, remembering getting dressed that morning and thinking of her compliment last time he had worn that shirt. It brings out your eyes, she’d said.
She smiled again.
A new, much more rowdy song rang out from the speakers, and they dropped their hands.
“Come on, baby, like this!” Angela shouted over the music to Callie, backing up against Brandon and shaking her backside against his front.
Callie laughed nervously with a fierce blush and yelled back, “I am so not doing that!”
Jenna laughed at the exchange.
“I don’t even think my butt can move that fast,” Callie replied, testing it out with a couple shakes in Angela’s direction.
She was right, but Angela “woo-ed” loudly anyway, cheering her on.
The song must have been a popular one, because more people had decided to join the mob. Sweaty bodies were pressed in on every side, and Jacob’s already racing heart began to pound harder in his chest now that dancing with Jenna was no longer distracting him from the crowd. He could feel the beginnings of an anxiety attack brewing, and he froze, trying to get his breathing under full control before the panic took over.
In for four, hold for four –
“Hey,” Jenna grabbed his arm, interrupting his thoughts.
He broke out of his haze and looked at her concerned expression.
She appraised his tense stance for a moment and said. “You wanna go somewhere else?”
He nodded eagerly, and she took his hand, dragging him through the crowd.
HE TOOK IN THE fresh air, not bothering to count his breaths anymore.
Jenna let go of his hand and plopped down on the grass, lying on her back and kicking off her boots in one fluid motion.
“I come out here sometimes when I can’t sleep,” she said. “To look at the stars.”
Jacob followed her gaze to the sky.
“It’s one of the reasons I love this place so much,” she said.
He took a seat beside her, leaning back against the soft pillow of dewy grass.
“What are the other reasons?”
“Hm…,” she thought for a moment. “Well, for one, Uncle Al.”
“Of course.”
“Of course,” she smiled. After a few minutes, she said, “The air. It feels cleaner here.”
Jacob instinctively took a breath. “The weather’s not half-bad either, if you don’t mind the cold.”
“Mmm, true. And it’s got that small-town feel, but it’s still big enough to have, like, actual stores.”
“And restaurants,” he added.
“And a movie theater.”
They went on like that for a while, listing the things they loved about the town until they ran out of things to say. After that, they lay on the grass in comfortable silence, examining the stars as the party started to wind down.
