It's Always the Husband

by Michele Campbell

  One afternoon toward the end of April, Aubrey was lying on the couch in the living room with the throw over her head when the doorbell of suite 402 rang. It was late in the day, and she was alone in the suite.

  “Abby Miller?” asked Chen Mei, the Whipple RA, when Aubrey opened the door.

  “Aubrey.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m Aubrey Miller.”

  “Here,” Chen Mei said, thrusting a clipboard at her. “Sign the paper, on the line. Then I can give you the letter.”

  “What letter?” Aubrey said.

  “Just sign.”

  Aubrey took the clipboard and read the paper attached to it. It was an acknowledgment that she’d received a Notice of Hearing Regarding Academic Probation from the Committee on Academic Standards. Her heart stopped.

  “What does this mean?” she asked Chen Mei.

  “You got ac pro. Either shape up, or they’ll kick you out.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t tell me. I don’t have any say. Sign it and take the letter,” Chen Mei said, holding out an envelope.

  Aubrey scribbled her name, and ripped open the envelope with shaking hands. The letter advised her that she had been placed on academic probation because her GPA after midterm examinations stood at 1.95. What midterm examinations? Time had gotten away from her. She’d missed tests. Aubrey felt nauseous. A hearing date was scheduled for the week after finals. If at the time of the hearing, her GPA was 2.50 or higher, she would be removed from academic probation. If it was between 2.00 and 2.50, she would be required to withdraw for a semester and complete a prescribed course of remedial instruction before reenrolling. If it was below 2.00, she would be expelled.

  Expelled. The word echoed in her mind. Aubrey staggered and grabbed the doorframe.

  “Oh my God, what do I do?”

  Chen Mei shrugged. “Study and see what happens. Maybe you make it, maybe not. Not everybody belongs here,” she said, and walked away.

  Aubrey slid down to a sitting position on the floor, too shocked to cry, and stared blankly into the dimly lit hallway with her hand over her mouth. Not everybody belongs here. Aubrey didn’t belong. She’d always known it. There it was in black and white on the paper she held in her hand, so everybody else could know it, too. She felt like she might throw up, and ran to the bathroom, but when she got there, she caught sight of herself in the mirror and stopped dead. Who was that girl, with the lank, dirty hair and paste-white skin? She moved closer, staring into her own eyes, looking for signs of life, but they were flat and colorless. Was she already dead? Had the moments under the blanket been more than pretend? She touched herself, and her skin was cold and clammy. Her face felt rigid, her skin stretched tight over her bones like a drum. She flicked her cheek with her finger and saw her whole face jump. When the pain felt good, she flicked harder. Suddenly she was slapping herself across the face with both hands, hard enough to leave angry red marks. She sank down against the bathtub, wailing. Whipple was an old building with thick walls, and nobody heard her cry. She could put the chain on the door, get in a warm bath, sharpen her penknife, draw it across her wrist, and …

  Of all the dangerous things Kate had turned Aubrey on to, suicide was the most intoxicating. You’d think a high-strung, sensitive girl like Aubrey would have read The Bell Jar in high school, and had time to inoculate herself against its siren song before coming to a soul-sucking place like Carlisle. But no, her first encounter was with Kate’s dog-eared copy, two weeks earlier, and the damage was done in two hours flat. She couldn’t manage to do any reading for class, but she’d read The Bell Jar five times since then, and listened over and over again to this one Tom Waits song, where he said the world wasn’t his home, he was just passing through. Words about death got stuck in her brain while everything else poured out. She was obsessed with the inscription on the inside cover of Kate’s copy of The Bell Jar. “M to K with ♥♥♥—We desire the things that will destroy us in the end.” Aubrey liked to sit and run her fingertip over the girlish handwriting, imagining Kate in her room at Odell, lying across her narrow bed, whispering to Maggie in her breathy voice. Kate gave the book to Aubrey the same night she told her Maggie’s story. In Kate’s telling, it was a romantic tale. Two young girls, closer than sisters, half crazy, at odds with the world, make a pact. They’d show everybody, make them sorry, and in death, they’d be together forever, young and beautiful. One kept her word. The other didn’t, and was left alone, mourning her friend and regretting her cowardice. But it wasn’t too late. Aubrey could step into Maggie’s place. They could still fulfill the promise. Aubrey wanted that—surely Kate wanted it, too. Aubrey was jealous of Maggie, a girl whom she’d never met, dead for years, who held this special place in Kate’s heart. She wanted that place for herself.

  Aubrey reached up, grabbed the hard, porcelain edge of the sink, and hauled herself to her feet. She saw the path now. A way to belong at Carlisle once and forever, to lock her fate to Kate’s. She would become a story they would tell for years to come.

  Once she saw the answer, there wasn’t a moment to waste. Kate had gone to Shecky’s to meet Lucas. Aubrey would find her and convince her. She had to: her plan made no sense without Kate. It shouldn’t be impossible. Kate was in a bad way herself these days. Her affair with Lucas was spiraling out of control. Griff had finally gotten fed up with her and kicked her off the trust-fund gravy train. Kate’s father seemed to know things about her behavior that he shouldn’t know. Kate believed her profs were spying on her for Keniston, and it made her paranoid and jumpy. She was depressed and sick of the world. All Aubrey needed to do was remind her there was a way out.

  Aubrey left a note on Jenny’s bed, right where it couldn’t be missed, along with the letter from the Committee on Academic Standards underneath. Let them know what they’d done to her. Let them see that she and Kate had won in the end, by taking matters into their own hands and settling their fate on their own terms. They might not print her picture in the brochure, but damn it, they wouldn’t forget her.

  17

  “This place is driving me crazy,” Lucas said, as they sat at the counter at Shecky’s Burger Shack, waiting for the food he’d ordered. It was a warm late-spring evening, perfect for dining al fresco on the lush lawns of Carlisle, and the burger joint buzzed with students ordering takeout. The festive atmosphere was at odds with the dejected look on Lucas’s face.

  “Shecky’s?” Kate asked, between sips of a vanilla milkshake.

  “No, not Shecky’s. Carlisle.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s like this sick social experiment. All these different types of kids. Rich, poor, black, white, smart, jocks, idiots, whack jobs. They throw us in the deep end and expect us to swim. If we drown, that’s actually a good thing as far as Carlisle is concerned. They winnow out the weak links.”

  “You can’t blame Carlisle for everybody’s problems. Look at me. I was fucked up before I ever walked through Briggs Gate.”

  Even a week or two ago, Lucas would have laughed at that comment, and leaned in for a vanilla-flavored kiss. They would have sat at the counter making out until the manager told them to knock it off or get a room. Now Lucas just stared at her sullenly. He had asked her to meet him here tonight because he had something to tell her. Another girl would worry that he planned to break up. But no guy had ever broken up with Kate Eastman before.

  “What was it you wanted to tell me?” she asked.

  He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Look, this term has been hard on me, what with my injury, facing up to the end of my athletic career.”

  “At least they’re not taking your money away.”

  “No, I mean, it’s an Ivy. The financial aid is mine to keep. But I told you before, hockey’s who I am. Without it, I don’t know what to do with myself.”

  “Babe, you need to relax, take your mind off it. I scored an eight-ball last night. We could go somewhere and snort it and fool around.”

&
nbsp; “I don’t want to get high, Kate. It just messes me up worse.”

  The skinny kid handed Lucas the bag with his food, giving them both a searching look. The kid bugged her. He was always watching.

  “Whatever, if that’s how you want to play it,” she said, trying not to sound too annoyed. But she was annoyed. From the start, Kate had been attracted to Lucas’s moodiness—the clouds in his eyes, the disappearing act he pulled when she wanted him most. Add the jocky looks and townie pedigree, and Lucas was her dreamboat small-town hunk. Most guys bored her fast, but Lucas stayed interesting. She hoped he wasn’t about to turn needy and draining. She had enough of that from crazy Aubrey, who was a basket case these days.

  “Look, it’s not just Carlisle getting me down,” Lucas said. “Ever since I’ve been with you, I’m doing too many drugs. I’m losing my grip.”

  Kate sighed irritably. “So don’t get high. It’s your choice. Don’t put it on me.”

  “I need a break, Kate.”

  “A break? Wait a minute, are you breaking up with me?” she asked in astonishment. The skinny kid, who’d been mopping the counter next to them with a limp rag, turned and stared.

  “Mind your business,” she hissed at him. “Why are you so obsessed with me? You’re like a goddamn Peeping Tom.”

  “Leave Timmy out of this. Let’s go somewhere we can talk,” Lucas said.

  “Fine! I hate this fucking place.”

  “Give me a minute.”

  The skinny kid had gone back to the cash register to take an order from some Omega Chi girls Kate knew. They were dressed to the nines, on the way to some party, stinking up the place with their clouds of perfume. They waved at Kate and she waved back, flashing a smile so fake it was like a death grimace. Kate reached into her pocket and pulled out the baggie she’d scored the night before from Rudy down the hall, who was from Corona and had mad connections. Lucas was acting weird and stressing her out. A little bump would smooth things over. She snorted it off her pinkie fingernail, sniffed hard, and relished the rush.

  Lucas walked over and had a brief conversation with the skinny kid, who reached into his pocket and handed Lucas his car keys.

  The Omega Chi girls made whooping noises as Kate walked out with Lucas.

  “Who’s the hottie, Eastman?” one of them yelled.

  “I recognize him. He’s a hockey player,” another one said.

  Kate let the door slam behind her. She saw the disgusted look on Lucas’s face. “Oh, please, I’m not like them,” she said.

  An old rusted-out Subaru was parked in the alley behind the restaurant. Lucas unlocked the passenger door and opened it for Kate. Wadded-up Sheckyburger wrappers littered the floor. The backseat was piled high with schoolbooks and sports equipment. The engine started with a whine that didn’t sound good, and Lucas pulled out of the alley onto Palliser Street, which ran parallel to College. He took a back route Kate was not familiar with. She didn’t know where they were going, and she didn’t care. She was pissed. Who the hell did this townie fucking nobody think he was, breaking up with Kate Eastman? She’d blown off Griff Rothenberg for this guy—Griff, with his house in St. Bart’s and his private jet, easy on the eyes to boot—and now Lucas had the audacity to dump her? No way. No fucking way. The coke made her feel like she could arrange the world how she wanted, and she wanted Lucas. She wasn’t done with him yet. Nope, not done with his mouth, his eyes, his body. She was hung up on the boy, and she was keeping him till she got tired of him. End of story.

  “Lucas, listen,” she said, soothingly. “You’re freaked out about not playing hockey. I get it. But this has nothing to do with me or what drugs I do. There’s no need to break up over this.”

  “I need to get my head straight, okay? I’m taking next year off. I’m gonna live at home and work for my uncle’s construction business. He needs somebody to help out with landscaping, and I need time away from this place, before it kills me.”

  “Wait, you’re taking a year off from Carlisle?”

  “Yes.”

  “To mow lawns?”

  “Yes, okay? So I’m beneath you, we can agree on that. I knew you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Stop with the victim routine. If I don’t understand, then explain it to me.”

  “You either get it or you don’t.”

  “Would you just try, for Chrissakes. This isn’t fair.”

  “I need time, okay? I’m in a bad place mentally, and I need to figure out why. Am I just messed up because of losing hockey? Is it this place? I mean, we can agree—we have agreed—that Carlisle sucks shit.”

  “Yes and no,” Kate allowed.

  “Okay, but then there’s this other possibility. Maybe—just maybe—you’re too much for me to handle. When I’m around you, I lose myself. I do things I wouldn’t normally do.”

  He glanced at her. She saw need and fear in his eyes, and she liked it. She put her hand on his thigh—it was hard and solid and alive—and felt him shiver.

  “Come on, babe, admit it,” she said, her voice full of come-hither promise. “You love what we do. You love every second. It’s not my fault that you’re obsessed with me.”

  She inched her hand further up his leg, and he leaned back, opening himself to her touch. When she got where she was going, he nearly ran off the road.

  “Stop it, I’ll crash,” he said, shaking her hand off as he righted the car.

  “Serve you right.”

  They retreated to their corners and took deep breaths.

  “Hey,” she said, “can we just forget all this angsty bullshit and go somewhere and screw? You don’t have to get high if you don’t want to. I won’t, even.”

  She didn’t need to, because she already was. The coke made her see things very clearly. Lucas could be managed, with words and with sex, like any man. They were speeding down the river road, fat bugs splatting on the windshield. The road looked familiar. She realized they’d been here before, in a different season.

  “Huh,” Kate said, grinning. “What do you know? This is the place we went to that night, right? When we listened to the ice on the river.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, all right.”

  Their crazy fling had started here. They would return to that deserted parking lot, and she would do things to him that would change his mind. Simple.

  But when they pulled into the gravel parking lot by the river, it was crowded. Kate shouldn’t have been surprised. Back then it had been pitch dark and below zero; now it was a sultry late-spring evening. Still, she was pissed off that strangers had invaded their special place. Kids ran around the parking lot screaming with excitement. A couple of teenagers pulled a canoe from the bed of a pickup truck. One of them waved to Lucas.

  “Who’s that?” she asked.

  “A bud from high school,” Lucas said.

  “So much for private. It’s a goddamn zoo.”

  “I know where we can go to be alone, but it’s kind of a walk,” Lucas said.

  “Fine. I have feet.”

  He leaned across her and rummaged in the glove compartment for a flashlight, which he stuck in the back pocket of his jeans. “Come on.”

  They exited the car, and Kate breathed in the scent of evergreens and mud. Everything felt so intense. The air rang with the sounds of frogs and crickets. The sun was a gassy yellow ball hanging low over the river. The day had been humid and lush, a first taste of summer, but here by the water, the air had an edge of chill. The temperature would plummet when the sun went down. At moments like this, Lucas seemed exotic to her. The boulevards of Paris were old hat to Kate, but a parking lot in the north woods was new, full of possibility. She would not let him go. Not when he filled her senses like this. Whatever it took to change his mind, she would do it—anything.

  Instead of following the signs to the sandy beach and boat launch, Lucas led her to a dirt path that hugged the riverbank. A notice at the trailhead warned, Trail not maintained. Proceed at your own risk, which delig
hted her. Kate wore flip-flops with her cutoffs and tank top, and ignored the brambles and pebbles that assaulted her feet as she clambered quickly up and over the trunk of a fallen tree at the path’s mouth. Lucas slipped ahead of her, holding back branches as they progressed so they wouldn’t spring back and hit her in the face. The path was narrow, crossed every few feet by the gnarled roots of giant evergreens. To their left, the forest was a dense wall. To their right, the ground dropped off steeply to the river. Kate looked down and the vertigo thrilled her. One wrong step and you’d tumble, rolling head over heels through sharp granite outcroppings and the broken-off spikes of tree stumps till you hit the steel-colored water forty feet below. Nothing like the threat of death to make you feel alive.

  After a few minutes, the path began to climb upward. Sweat trickled down Kate’s back, and Lucas’s T-shirt clung to his body. Kate’s eyes lingered on him as he walked ahead of her, to the point that she lost her footing and stumbled, catching herself before she tumbled down the cliff.

  Five minutes in, she asked how much longer.

  “Just a little ways.”

  “We’re all alone. Why not stop here?” she said. Beside the path, a fallen tree beckoned, perfectly horizontal and covered with cushiony moss. They could lay their clothes down and have the perfect bed. The sight of him was too much. She wanted him now, wanted to feel his smooth skin against hers as the humid afternoon cooled to dusk.

  “The old railroad bridge is just ahead.”

  “Oh. That place the kids jump off of? You told me about that.”

  “We can talk better there. It’s overgrown, and it makes a sort of shelter. Like a tree house. Come on.”

  They walked faster. The thought of that epic jump urged Kate on. That’s how she would win him back. They’d hold hands and step into the abyss together. Feel the rush of air as they fell through space, and the shock of the icy water when they hit. She wanted to come to the surface beside him, swim to the riverbank and peel his clothes off.

  Within a few minutes, the path curved sharply and opened onto a wide vista of the river. Kate’s breath caught at the sight of the ruined bridge. Two stone supports rose from murky water, holding up two wooden spans that had once joined in the middle, each surmounted by the spectral remains of an arch. The entire central portion of the bridge had collapsed away to nothing. Just empty air. A train trying to cross would cascade down into the water, car by car, and get swept away by the current. She could hear the powerful rush of water from way up here.