Psych Major Syndrome

by Alicia Thompson

  More than eighty-five percent of Stiles’s student body is vegetarian, so part of me wanted to convince Ami to stay a carnivore. We were a dying breed (who also contribute to the premature death of other animals…so, yes, I see the irony). But another part of me couldn’t blame her, since the meat options in the student union sucked. Most colleges had students lobbying for more fruits and vegetables. We had meat-eaters camping out in front of our salad bar, shouting, “If it’s red and bleeding, it’s what we should be eating!”

  “You realize that if you become a vegetarian, you can’t have the chicken quesadilla at Taco Bell anymore,” I said.

  Ami paused. “Well, then, I’ll give up red meat.”

  “No double cheeseburgers,” I pointed out.

  “Hell.” Ami popped a piece of chicken in her mouth. “What’s the point?”

  “Oh my God,” I said.

  “I know, but I like fast food,” Ami said, “in all its greasy glory. You said it yourself—all that trans fat crap is just propaganda anyway, invented by—”

  “No,” I said. “Not that. Sydney Belcher is walking toward us. I think she’s going to sit with us.”

  “Who is Sydney Belcher?” Ami glanced over her shoulder

  “She’s a senior psych major,” I hissed, “and stop looking!”

  Just then Sydney reached our table, a scarily purposeful gleam in her eye. “Hey, Leigh,” she said.

  Sydney is not just another psych major. She’s the psych major, and she also happens to be my TA for Intro Psych. It’s not even that she’s that great a student. Yeah, she was president of the Psychology Club, but I heard that the last club-sponsored event was two years ago, when they rented Kinsey and played it in the teaching auditorium. Sydney’s also presented at more major conferences than most professors, but everyone knows she just goes so she can flirt with graduate students. Still, she’s incredibly intimidating. I only interacted with this girl out of fear and the kind of awed respect you might give a person of God.

  “Who’s your friend?” Sydney asked, pulling out the chair beside me and giving me a wide smile. I breathed a little sigh of relief. It was always hard to figure out which end of the bipolar spectrum you were going to get with her. I started to introduce Ami, but Sydney cut me off.

  “So, what are you doing for your final project in Intro Psych?”

  Sydney was staring at me expectantly, and my mind raced furiously to figure out what to say. When was that due? I thought we had until the week of final exams to turn it in, but maybe there was something I didn’t know.

  “Um,” I said, “adjective usage in Internet personals.” Briefly I considered the possibility that everyone else had already turned in their final projects. Should I have already finished?

  “Great,” she said. “Well, I’d like to get all of my students together. You know, for kind of a study group type of thing. Are you in?”

  I would rather have my cuticles cut again. I’m not much for group stuff to begin with, but with Sydney acting as moderator, this particular group had trouble written all over it. “Sure,” I said, and then something compelled me to add, “in fact, I was just thinking how cool it would be if someone set up something like that.”

  Sydney just blinked at me. “Well, it’ll be fairly small. Just me, you, Joanna, Ellen, and Jenny. You know Joanna, Ellen, and Jenny…right?”

  I had only interacted with Sydney a handful of times, and yet I saw right through her. This was classic Sydney—she’ll reintroduce you to people as though you’re completely incapable of knowing anyone without her influence. She does this even when it’s a small school and the people in question are in my year. No doubt in a few weeks she’ll be introducing me to Ami. Oh, Leigh, do you know Ami? She’s studying to be an art major. Isn’t that awesome?

  Talk about Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

  “Yes, I know them,” I said, and smiled through gritted teeth. “Actually, just last week Joanna and I went surfing together.”

  Sydney arched her overplucked eyebrows. “You surf?”

  No, but I knew Joanna did. Joanna was the quintessential California girl, all tanned skin and bleached hair, her conversation liberally peppered with words like bodacious and radical. I think I even saw her Rollerblade once. In reality, my experience with her was limited to the time I borrowed her pen.

  “Sure, I surf all the time. When the waves are right, of course,” I added, with a toss of my head that indicated that a surfer of my caliber had to be very discriminating about waves. “I would love to get together with Joanna, Jenny, and Ellen. It’s such a shame about Ellen and her fiancé, though.”

  Sydney leaned in, an avaricious gleam in her eyes. “What happened?” she asked, practically salivating.

  It’s common knowledge that Ellen’s fiancé is a complete bastard, and that they’d be broken up by now if Ellen didn’t have this control-freak need to keep up appearances. So I felt pretty safe dangling that particular gossipy bit for Sydney. Surely something was going on with Ellen and her fiancé, even if I didn’t happen to be privy to the salacious details.

  I glanced around as though scanning the area. “I probably shouldn’t say,” I murmured regretfully. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ami hide a smile behind her hand.

  For a second it felt satisfying, like popping a pimple, but I should have known better than to mess with Sydney. Not finding satisfaction discussing Ellen’s love life, she turned to mine. “You’re still with your high school boyfriend, right? Andrew something?”

  Cautiously, I nodded. “For over a year now,” I said, the response almost automatic. Oh, how long have you two been together? —For over a year now. “Andrew Wieland. He’s a philosophy major.”

  “Wow,” Sydney breathed the requisite follow-up, although her tone was unimpressed. “Yeah, I think I met him once. He just seemed so…” She trailed off, twirling her fingers with their overly long fingernails as she searched for a word.

  “So…what?”

  “Dry,” she finished. “Although I’m sure you’re perfect for each other.” So apparently I’m dry, too, now. “Does he room with Nathan McGuire?”

  “Yes,” I replied tersely. This was the part of going to a small school that nobody tells you about. Sure, you can walk anywhere on campus in less than ten minutes, and yeah, it’s nice that classes are no bigger than thirty students. But everyone knows everything about everyone. It’s like a huge game of telephone, or a sewing circle.

  She fluttered her lashes, spidery with mascara. “For a freshman, he is fine,” she gushed.

  “I suppose he is,” I bristled. “If you like that sort of thing.”

  That sort of thing being dark hair, green eyes, and a tall, muscled leanness that could rival any teen heartthrob. I’ve seen him shirtless, remember. But he’s got the social skills of a weird, math-obsessed two-year-old.

  “Well, I think he’s hot,” Sydney reiterated, in case I was somehow confused the first time. “Is it true that his dad died a couple years ago?”

  I was surprised, but I didn’t want to show it. “Um, yeah. I think so.”

  Sydney made a face that could’ve just as easily been “that’s interesting” as “that’s too bad,” and then she flipped her long, dyed-black hair before flicking a glance at her expensive designer watch. “I’d love to stay and chat, Leigh, but I’ve got a meeting for that research project on mating rituals in California sea lions.” She laughed, a high-pitched sound that rang in my ears like tinnitus. “How do I end up doing all this stuff?”

  You volunteer for it, Sydney.

  “I’ll keep you posted about the group,” Sydney said, already dismissing me as she rose, smoothing her too-short skirt. “And you keep me posted about Nathan.”

  Yeah, I’ll let you know when he decides to have a lobotomy. I grinned at the thought, not caring if Sydney thought it was for her. “Sure will.”

  Sydney strode off like a high-heeled stork, her chin thrust in the air. Sydney wears heels with everything—je
ans, shorts, especially miniskirts. The worst part is that she obviously doesn’t know how to walk in them, since she never bends her knees and instead uses her arms to propel her, pumping at her sides like a determined power walker. Her head is craned forward like an overeager giraffe, and somehow she manages to thrust her chest (truly her pride and joy) out at the same time. Put together, it makes her look very, very funny.

  “That’s sad about Nathan’s dad, if it’s true,” Ami said after Sydney had gone. “And Sydney’s right—he is kind of fine.”

  “Shut up,” I said, but I was smiling. In some sick way, I really enjoy people like Sydney. She’s like a walking case study. For what, I have no idea, but it’s fun to try to figure it out.

  CIRCADIAN RHYTHMS: Our most familiar endogenous circadian rhythm controls wakefulness and sleepiness.

  I CAME home that evening to find an e-mail waiting from Dr. Justus, my history professor. If it were up to me, I would never take a nonpsychology class in my entire four years, but apparently there’s something called “well-roundedness” that they encourage here. Plus, I can’t technically enroll in any other psychology classes until I pass Intro Psych, and there’s no way Dr. Harland would let me sign a contract for one class.

  The e-mail was addressed to me by my full name, as though I might confuse the e-mail sent to my inbox with one for another Leigh.

  LEIGH NOLAN,

  YOU WERE MISSED IN CLASS TODAY. PLEASE NOTE, HOWEVER, THAT YOUR ABSENCE DOES NOT EXEMPT YOU FROM TURNING IN THE CRITICAL ANALYSIS PAPER DUE MIDTERM. I’LL LOOK FOR IT IN MY BOX TOMORROW.

  JUSTUS.

  “Shit.” I stared at my computer screen in disbelief as Ami came up behind me, crunching chips loudly in my ear. “Remember how I skipped my history class because I didn’t do that paper?”

  “I thought you skipped because the dollar theater was showing Dirty Dancing.”

  “Well, yeah,” I said. That movie is genius. Everyone flips out over the “Nobody puts Baby in a corner” line, but my personal favorite is when Baby shouts out Johnny’s name in this superbreathy voice, and then has NOTHING to say. She just stands there, like an idiot. “But now apparently I’m supposed to have my critical analysis paper done and in Dr. Justus’s box by, like…tomorrow.”

  Ami leaned over my laptop, the chip-crunching silenced for a few moments while she scanned the e-mail. “What’s a critical analysis? Like a book report or something?”

  Every now and then I get annoyed with how little real work Ami does. She’s the only freshman I know who has two days off a week, and she’s announced on multiple occasions that her goal is to avoid writing a single paper or taking even one final exam while she’s in college. And she’s totally exploiting the contract system, since she found an adviser who would let her get away with a lot of dubious “tutorials.” It’s fine until moments like this, when I realize how little she knows about fundamental research skills. I mean, this is coming from a girl who thought MLA style was a fashion movement.

  “It’s basically just a critical paper,” I explained, “that analyzes people or events and their historical significance. At the beginning of the semester, we picked topics, and somehow I ended up with a paper on Albert Speer, the ‘good Nazi.’”

  “Who says he’s the good one?”

  “Nuremburg,” I said with a straight face.

  Ami nodded as though that made total sense. “And you’ve done…how many pages?”

  I grimaced at her.

  “Zero?” Ami’s eyebrows shot up. “You haven’t even started?”

  “I’ve done my research, if that’s what you mean,” I said, affronted. “But if you’re asking how much I’ve actually written…”

  Ami shook her head. “Weren’t you supposed to have been working on this for the past two months? I knew you were a procrastinator, but man.”

  I glanced back at the e-mail on the screen, the words burning into my retinas. Then I started typing.

  Dr. Justus, thank you for the reminder. Although I am eager to read your comments on my critical analysis, I unfortunately am out of town and thus can not drop it off in your box until next week.

  Ami coughed on a piece of chip. “What if he sees you around campus? I assume you’re not skipping the rest of your classes. What if he talks to one of the other professors? And you know he’ll just ask you to e-mail the paper to him.”

  Reluctantly I deleted the last sentence of my e-mail. As much as I hated to admit it, Ami was right. Rule number two of lying is to make it as airtight as possible. Which just goes back to rule number one: never get caught. That lie had too many holes in it to be a safe bet. My fingers rested over the keyboard as I thought, until finally I began typing again.

  Although I am eager to read your comments on my critical analysis, my computer has some sort of virus that has wiped out all of my documents. Campus computing is working on getting them back, but it’s uncertain right now if I will be able to recover them all.

  “Oh my God,” Ami groaned. “You are so ridiculous. What next, Leigh? Why not ‘a dog ate my homework’ or ‘I must have had the paper in my other backpack’?”

  Impatiently, I deleted the last few lines. “So, what do you suggest?”

  “I don’t know…why don’t you just e-mail Dr. Justus and tell him you’ll put it in his box tomorrow?”

  I swiveled to face her in my desk chair. “Oh, I get it,” I said excitedly. “And then by the time he gets back to me to tell me he never received it, I’ll act really confused and troubled and insist that I left it for him. By then, I’ll have written it, and I’ll just offer to give him another copy.”

  Ami put her hands on my shoulders, her inky black gaze holding my gray one. “Or you could just do it.”

  “Write it tonight?”

  “You don’t fool me for a second, Leigh. Every time you have any assignment to do, you do this. You obsessively research and outline and then, the night before, you freak out and start making up stupid excuses about why you didn’t do it or making plans to drop the class. But you always pull through, write a cutting five-page review of a book you didn’t read, and turn it in the next day. You’re like a machine.”

  I grinned at her. “I do thrive on this, don’t I?”

  “So much it makes me sick,” Ami said with a smile. “Now, get to work.”

  Ami can be encouraging when she wants to be, but inevitably her own lack of work drives her to become the biggest distraction. In the first hour I was working on my paper, she asked me if I wanted to go out for ice cream, walk down to check our mail, and paint her nails. Eventually I called Andrew. As expected, he was studying, too, and told me to come on over.

  “You can set up your laptop on the bed, if you want,” he said when I got there.

  I glanced around the room. Andrew’s twin-size bed was covered with laundry and papers, and there were stacks of library books on every conceivable surface. The floor wasn’t much cleaner, with half-packed boxes still strewn about.

  “Is there anywhere else I could work?” I asked doubtfully. Working while hunched over my laptop, dirty laundry piled up behind me so the headboard wouldn’t dig into my back, was hardly my ideal way of doing things.

  “You mean like the desk?” Andrew gestured pointedly to the papers scattered over its particle board surface, even covering half of his computer keyboard. “That’s kind of where I’m working, Leigh.”

  “I guess I’ll just work out in the common room or something.” I sighed, giving him a smile to let him know I was trying to make the best of it. “It’s probably better that we aren’t in the same room, anyway. Less distractions that way.”

  Andrew wrinkled his nose at me. “The coffee table is actually a little sticky right now—a little accident involving duck sauce.” His face brightened. “But hey, why don’t you just use Nathan’s room? He’s out for the night, and I’m sure he won’t mind.”

  Like that wouldn’t be weird. “I don’t know.…”

  But Andrew was already ushering me
out of his room and into Nathan’s. “Come on,” he said, “he won’t even know.”

  I had only ever seen a sliver of Nathan’s room through the open door before, and I have to admit, I was curious. The first thing that struck me was that it wasn’t as neat as I thought it would be. Not that it was a disaster, but in my mind, a math major with a stick up his ass should be at least a little OCD. But, like Andrew, Nathan had a pile of library books by his desk, stacked perilously high. He must have been in the middle of changing his guitar strings, because his guitar was lying, unstrung, on his bed, with coiled-up strings tossed carelessly next to it. And on the floor was a crumpled Velvet Underground T-shirt that I recognized as the one he had been wearing yesterday.

  “Are you sure that Nathan won’t need his room?” I asked.

  Andrew chuckled. “Yeah, I’m sure. Nathan’s got a hot date tonight. I wouldn’t be surprised if I don’t see him for the next week.”

  “Really? I didn’t know he was seeing anyone.”

  Andrew shrugged. “It’s relatively fresh. Remember Heather, the girl who spent orientation week drunk in the courtyard, yelling about how much she liked sex?” He didn’t wait for my response. “She’s Nathan’s hot date.”

  “Oh,” I said. There were a lot of Heathers (and not of the cool, dark-comedy movie kind), so that didn’t really narrow it down. A lot of girls had acted out a variation of the one-woman “I like sex” show. I’m all for women’s liberation, but…gross.

  “Anyway, if you need anything, just poke your head in my door.” Andrew leaned over to give me a quick kiss on the forehead. “Oh, but try not to do it too much—okay, hon? I can’t afford to get sidetracked right now.”

  With that, Andrew left, closing the door behind him. If it felt weird to be standing in Nathan’s room with Andrew, it felt even weirder to be standing there alone with the door closed. His walls were covered with posters of bands—most of whom I’d heard of, but a couple I hadn’t. Tom Waits, Gang of Four, the Velvet Underground…I peered closer to read the fine print on a Sex Pistols poster for the Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle.