by Lola West
As if on cue, I heard a key jingle in the lock, and then I didn’t need to peer at Chrystal’s photos because she was standing right in front of me. She was little, not more than five feet tall and really just small. It looked like she was coming back from the gym because she was carrying her purse and a water bottle, and she was wearing black leggings and a yellow sports bra. Her blond hair was in a high, tight ponytail with a blue bow. Despite her appearance, I highly doubted that she’d actually exercised because she had a face of full of perfectly coiffed, made to look natural makeup. You can’t really exercise and still have perfect makeup. It’s not possible. When you exercise you get hot and you sweat, and in that state make up melts, at least a little. At the very least, you would rub off your lip gloss while swigging water to quench your thirst, but Chrystal’s lipstick was flawless. It was like when you see an actress in a movie wake up. No one wakes up with lipstick on, because to do that you’d have to go to bed with lipstick on and then you’d have pink or red smears all over your pillows, but regularly women in movies somehow defy this reality and flutter their eyes open to greet the sun’s rays with glossy lips.
Perhaps because she looked like a cheerleader, I expected a cheery hello, but Chrystal eyed me with suspicion. “What are you doing?”
I took a second to assess what she was asking me. I considered what she was looking at as if I were a fly on the wall and quickly came to the conclusion that while I was clearly looking at her wall o’Chrystal when she walked in, she had hung photos and stuff on her wall where anyone who entered the room could see them so looking did not qualify as snooping or creeping or anything odd. I decided it was best to try to storm past her irritation. I smiled. “Just checking out your wall; it’s um… detailed.” She looked at me hard and I added, “I’m your roommate.”
Her face didn’t soften at all. “You seem too old. What year are you?”
“Um…” I was startled by her bluntness and it didn’t get by me that she hadn’t even thought about introducing herself or asking my name. “I’m a junior. A transfer.”
“A-mazing,” she huffed and threw her purse and her water bottle down on the desk on her side of the room.
I didn’t know what to do, so I tried to reboot the exchange we were having. “I’m sorry, did I do something to offend you?” I crossed toward her and extended my hand. “Can we start over? Hi, I’m Lua.”
She took my hand, but there was nothing considerate about her response. “Chrystal. I’m a freshman, I’ve already been here for like two weeks. Sorry if I’m like super bitchy, but it kind of feels like it’s an imposition that you're here, like you’re invading my room. Plus, we clearly don’t have anything in common.” Her voice started to flutter like she was going to cry. “Like this isn't even your first year of college. I was just hoping for a roommate who could be my like maid of honor someday. You know, someone like me, and…” She gestured toward me. “I mean look at what you’re wearing; there is no way we’re going to travel in the same circles.”
Admittedly, she was worse than expected, and I wanted to hate her for so many reasons. She was blunt, superficial, and super judgy. There literally seemed to be nothing to like about her. I mean I was wearing jeans, sneakers, and a t-shirt. I’d intentionally tried to look nondescript because I wasn’t sure what assumptions went with what look in the collegiate world, and I wanted to try to control people’s perceptions for a split second, learn the lay of the land before I got pigeonholed. Clearly, that attempt failed. Also, while I was pretty certain that I was never going to be Chrystal’s maid of honor, I would have bet a hundred dollars that she was better prepared for her first year of college than I was for my third year, but I wasn’t going to let her in on that detail. Her emotional outburst was super selfish, and like she said bitchy, but still I kind of felt sorry for her because I knew what it meant to have your expectations shattered, even if they were stupid expectations.
Community with Chrystal seemed out of the question, but I wanted us to live peacefully together, so I swallowed my pride and remained calm. “Okay, um, how about we get to know each other a little and maybe set some ground rules so that this whole living together thing can work out in our favor, even if it’s not exactly what you were hoping for.”
Chrystal sighed. “Fine.” I turned and sat on my bed. She did the same, and then she crossed her arms over her chest, clearly waiting for me to instigate a conversation. So I did.
“What’s your major? I asked.
“Poli-sci.”
“Cool. That’s awesome.” I was actually surprised; for a second I thought maybe she was more than I’d assumed. Drew was more than I assumed. So maybe I needed to stop assuming. I smiled. “I’m interested in politics too, social justice, really. Do you want to go into politics?”
“I want to marry a politician.”
Wow. Forget that last thought. Assuming is fine. Moving on.
“Where are you from?”
She rolled her eyes, “I don’t have time for this.” She stood up, crossed to her dresser, and said, “I have to get ready for a party, so let me summarize for you. You seem pleasant enough. So we’ll be fine. Not friends, but fine. I’ll respect your side of the room and you’ll respect mine. My time at Hamilton needs precision. I am also going to make the friends of a lifetime, the right friends.” She paused and looked at me as if to say you are not one of them. “I’m pretty, I’m smart enough, and I want a big life. Hamilton is filled with DC brats, I’m gonna snare one, a Conner Carrington or a Drew Scott.”
Wow, again. A fucking nightmare. I was sitting with my hands on my knees and I could literally feel the tension tightening my grip. I managed to say, “A Drew Scott, huh?”
Her face relaxed, and she smiled. She wanted to talk about Drew, awesome. Not.
“Yes. Drew is a perfect candidate. I would ground him, sure, he’s had a tough summer, what with all that drug nonsense, but a pretty all-American girl on his arm will make him seem solid to the voting public, as if he’s growing up and moving beyond his recklessness.”
How did she not recognize me? Was it really possible to be that myopic, to watch news casts about Drew and me and never really see me at all? If she didn’t know, I wasn’t going to tell her.
“Have you met him?” I asked, feeling tortured. I wanted her to say no, and I was suddenly panicked because it was just dawning on me that I had no control over Drew’s desire. Drew and I were nothing. I couldn’t stop him from being with other women. I had no idea how I hadn’t thought of that. The idea of walking past him and seeing his arm draped over another woman’s shoulders made my stomach quake. It felt like it would take actual control to not scratch his love interest’s eyes out. In other words, in a split second I’d gone from not liking Chrystal all that much to quite possibly wanting her to endure an excruciatingly painful and bloody injury. Leave it to Drew to bring out the brutal animal in me.
“I haven’t…” She shuffled through her drawers looking for the clothes she wanted to wear. Relief flooded my chest. Finding what she was looking for, she stood and faced me again. “… but I’ve heard things.”
I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t have this conversation with this girl. I couldn’t listen to her tell me that Drew liked sugar cookies or that he was a man-whore or that he favored blonds or skinny girls or anything else. I didn't want to know. Desperate to escape, I glanced at my watch like I had to be somewhere and jumped up.
“Oh, Jesus,” I grumbled, trying to sound panicked for all the right reasons. “Sorry, I have an appointment at my work-study.” In an hour, but whatever. “Can we finish this chat later?” I smiled, a big, wide smile and hoped I didn’t look totally crazy.
“No need.” Chrystal looked at me. Her eyes narrowed and for a second I thought she might have realized that I was the girl who had been pitted against Drew all summer, but maybe not. She picked up her shower caddie and pulled her towel and a terry robe off a hook on the back of her closet door. We both headed to the door of the roo
m. Chrystal paused before turning the doorknob, and she didn’t look at me when she said, “Sorry if I came off as a real ass. I just… I have goals, that’s all.” She paused and then added, “My life is private. I need it to stay that way.” She wanted it to seem like these words were an afterthought, but I got the feeling that as long as I kept Chrystal’s life to myself, she’d respect me and mine.
Hamilton College isn’t big. It’s a small liberal arts college with 1500 students; its 80 acres nestled in a small town, shadowed by a small mountain in New England. I wanted small. I thought a big university would terrify me. I also picked Hamilton for reasons that were akin to Chrystal’s, although not the same. I wanted to be with the DC brats. In the future, when fighting for social justice and standing next to politicians and law makers who would try to portray me as that ‘wack job’ from some ‘crazy hippie’ commune, I wanted them to have eaten in the same cafeteria as me, had the same professors, read the same textbooks. I wanted them to know that we knew the same things, that I was like them, that I had studied with them and more importantly studied them, and I still believed that all people deserved respect and equal treatment.
Plus, Hamilton was beautiful, grassy knolls, big sweeping trees, mums in the fall, daffodils and tulips in the spring. The buildings were a mixture of architectural styles. The dorms, the student center, and some new science buildings were grand modern dames with lots of metal and glass, but the majority of the campus structures were very Victorian. My classes were located in these Gothic brick monstrosities with green roofs and arching paned glass windows. Buildings that screamed romance in the daylight and danger when the moon rose. These were buildings that seemed like vampires and other horrifyingly seductive sorcery could easily call home. In addition to the hallowed halls and revival gothic archways and columns, scattered about campus were a handful of smaller gingerbread wood frame buildings, complete with porches that featured ornate balusters and brackets, decorative gables, and candy-colored paint jobs.
My work-study was located in one of the gingerbread buildings. It was a three-story, pale-blue building with navy and white trim. It had a tower and turret feeling to me, but I only knew the bare minimum when it came to Victorian architecture. Suffice it to say that the little girl in me questioned if Goldilocks and the three bears would tumble out the door of the Hamilton S.A.F.E. Center, a community safe space that functioned as a haven for acceptance and diversity education. S.A.F.E. stood for Safety and Acceptance for Everyone. Basically, it was a social justice catchall. You could go there because you wanted to talk about sexuality and needed sex ed advice, because you were suffering from depression and needed help finding help, or to discuss definitions of physical abuse or sexual harassment, or just because you wanted a place to hang out where you didn’t have to try to fit in. Whatever you were was perfect. S.A.F.E. was a place where students could find answers to questions of all kinds and help connecting to the resources they needed. It was a perfect place for me. I had applied to work there the minute I was accepted to Hamilton, and luckily, they hired me.
After leaving Chrystal, I headed straight to S.A.F.E. I figured that it was okay to be early because I could look around. I climbed the front steps slowly, taking in the architectural details of the building. I looked longingly at the swing that was on the porch and hoped that this place would be where I found like minds, friends with whom I’d want to spend hours swinging and laughing. And then finally, I pulled open the front door, half reading the many announcements that were taped to its glass pane.
I was still looking at the announcements and making my way through the door when a woman’s voice seemed to sigh, squeal, and beg all at the same time. “Oh my God, please tell me you're a new work-study because I cannot stand to glue and glitter one more rainbow-colored ‘Jesus had two dads and he turned out fine’ sign by myself.”
I turned and caught my first glimpse of Raina, S.A.F.E.’s student leader. She was tall, taller than most women, like five foot nine, I think, and she was breathtaking, awe-inducing like art, only with a dash of punky retro tattoo. She rimmed her eyes in thick black liner. Her hair was long, vibrant loose waves that she dyed mint green. She had her nose pierced and a stud piercing just above and to the left of her upper lip, reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe’s famous birthmark. She was wearing a white men’s undershirt, a black bra, and denim overalls that were covered in paint and glue and other bits of craftiness. A tattoo on her shoulder in Courier font read, This is What a Feminist Looks Like. No doubt. I wanted to be her friend.
I walked toward her, saying, “I usually go for ‘Some people are gay. Get over it.’ Or ‘Hate is the real abomination.’”
She smiled at me. “Well, I’ve already done one that says, ‘Hell must be Fabulous’ so as long as you don’t do that, we’re in business.”
I stuck out my hand in introduction. “Lua.”
She shook it, a big smile on her face. “Right. Commune-Girl. We are psyched to have you. What an amazing way to grow up.” It was the first time anyone outside of the thrive had spoken of my upbringing kindly. I was practically in love with her. She dropped my hand and signaled to herself. “Raina. Straight out of the suburbs, not nearly as cool.” And then, pointing and winking at me, she said, “You’re early. I like that in a work-study.”
Without thinking, I responded sarcastically, “Don’t get used to it.”
She smirked, almost laughing. “Ooh… Snarky and honest. I like that even better.”
Over the next two hours Raina showed me around S.A.F.E., which she referred to as “our space.” Inside the building was nothing like the outside. It was much more casual. There were storage spaces and empty big rooms that they used for events. There were quiet rooms like you might find in a library where peer counselors could go if they thought a discussion they were having wasn’t for prying ears. There was a room that Raina called the STD closet because so many people snuck in there to make out. There was a kitchen. And then there were three lounges, all with tattered couches and mismatched chairs. Hung everywhere were photos of students, smiling picketing, dressing in drag, dancing, laughing, BBQing. Some of the photos looked current, others were older, going all the way back to yellow-tinged photos with rounded corners that featured people in bellbottoms and tie-dye. There was also a lot of homemade art and old picket signs tacked to the walls. It was lived in and warm. I loved it.
In addition to my tour, Raina also told me about what my job would entail. Basically, first I had to complete the S.A.F.E. training, a day-long orientation on peer counseling and the complexity of being the person who made the call whether a situation required a referral to a specialist, like a therapist, a rape counselor, a doctor, or a cop, or if it was just a run-of-the-mill question in need of an answer. The orientation also included some basic theoretical ideas about gender and stuff, which Raina felt I’d already be familiar with, and I loved that she thought I was savvy about that stuff. After completing the orientation, I would be required to spend a certain number of weekly hours manning the center which basically entailed talking to walk-ins and answering the hotline. I was also required to develop, plan, and execute educational and activist programing on a S.A.F.E. oriented topic every semester and provide support for the programming developed by the other students that worked at S.A.F.E. Oh and according to Raina, sometimes there was paperwork and other “shit.” It was all a little overwhelming, but it seemed like exactly what I needed—a safe place, a place where I could make friends who would most likely have nothing to do with Drew Scott.
21
Drew
Katie knew something was up. I could see it on her face. She was sitting sideways in a leather armchair, staring across the room at me, her intense brow furrow in full effect. We were in the basement of my frat house, which the brothers called the den of fucking procrastinations, aka the DFP. We were rich kids, so this wasn’t some vomit-infested dump. This was a game room of epic proportions. The room was huge. In one corner there was a shiny wood bar
and a stainless-steel fridge, marked beverages only. Another corner was filled with a circle of dark leather couches facing an eighty-inch flat screen television that was connected to every game console known to man, including a collection of retro units, like the original Nintendo and an Atari. The rest of the space was filled by pool tables, a high-end mahogany poker table, a foosball game, two ping-pong tables, a serious collection of dartboards, and the pièce de résistance, a playboy pinball machine. We didn’t fuck around.
Even though it was the afternoon, Pete and Conner were still in their sweats playing Mario Kart. They were raucous and enjoying themselves. Hollering at the screen. Katie’s armchair was to Pete’s left, and I was on a couch opposite her on Conner’s right. Standing behind Conner and Pete were two pledges, in khaki shorts and baby-blue polo shirts, heads tucked, hands clasped behind their backs. They were silent service pledges, their job was to follow around whatever brother they were assigned to and respond on request. They almost never spoke. They just acted in response to their assigned brother’s needs. So, if Pete were to say, “Gee, I’d really like a stick of gum,” or a cigarette or a beer or my room cleaned or a condom or whatever, then the pledge would either produce the item from his pocket or he would turn, exit the room, and move to acquire that item or do the desired thing and return in less than thirty minutes. Failure to return in the allotted timeframe resulted in ridiculous tasks, like memorizing all the ingredients in men’s One A Day vitamins or wearing a Raggedy Andy costume to class or sitting in the fireplace in the main hall of the fraternity house, waving your arms and making crackling noises, pretending to be a fire. Conner ran his silent service pledge ragged. At this point the dude wore a backpack with all kinds of random shit in it, in hopes that he could please Conner instantly. Pete just used his for things he actually wanted like Taco Bell and shit.
