Dark Rooms

by Lili Anolik

  But how, I wonder, could he be working me? I’m about to turn his greatest fear into a reality. It’s possible, though, that he wants his greatest fear turned into a reality, is on a weird self-destructive trip. Who knows? Not me, that’s for sure. I’ve been pretending I know, careening from conviction to conviction like a human pinball, setting off every light and spark and bell, absolutely positive about one thing, then absolutely positive about another. But, the truth is, the only thing I’m absolutely positive about is that I don’t know anything at all.

  No, that’s a lie. I do know one thing. I know that I don’t want to go on that self-destructive trip with Mr. Tierney. Yes, it’s disconcerting that he was slipping Nica cryptic personal notes, evidence that there was something improper about their relationship, insufficient boundaries at the very least. Not evidence, though, that he killed her, which is all I care about at present. This isn’t to say I’m done with him, or the Millses, but I need more information before I proceed.

  I’m just getting to my feet when I hear the grinding of garage gears, smell a whiff of glue. I cock my head, see a pair of men’s work boots sticking out the bottom of the rising door. Mr. Mills. He must’ve been in there the whole time. I grab my bag, book it down the front path. By the time the door’s all the way up, I’m nearly across the street. Unable to resist, I turn around. Mr. Mills is standing at the top of the driveway in safety goggles and a paper mask. He looks like a monster in a creature-feature movie: half man, half insect.

  I turn back around, keep walking.

  I wake up the next morning depressed. Disgusted, too. The encounter with Mr. Tierney had yielded nothing but an ugly scene. No new suspects, no new leads. I half wish I’d gone ahead as planned yesterday, said to the Millses what I’d come to say. So what if I was being manipulated by Mr. Tierney, blundering into a situation I knew little about? Even if my actions were stupid, reckless, ill-informed and even iller-advised, at least they were that—actions. I’d be making something happen. Instead I’m back to where I was at the end of the conversation with Damon: trying to find out why Nica broke up with Jamie, not a clue as to how to go about it.

  The A/V Department is busy that day for the first time. I get a last-minute request for a screening from the Asian Culture Appreciation Society, which is meeting that afternoon. I’d set up for them during eighth only. Mr. Krueger wants to show the “always be closing” speech from Glengarry Glen Ross to his Introduction to Behavioral Economics class during eighth, and it isn’t until the period’s three-quarters over that he gives me the cue to hit play.

  I’m run-walking back to the A/V room to pick up another DVD player (Krueger asked me to leave the one I brought behind so he could show the speech to his Advanced Behavioral Economics class tomorrow) and a copy of Eat Drink Man Woman, trying to beat the chapel bell, tolling any minute now, when I realize I’m going to be late to Fargas no matter how much I hurry. I stop, pull my cell out of my bag to call Damon, tell him to cover for me. Right away, though, I get self-conscious. Cells are such a big time no-no at Chandler. Boarders are forbidden to have them; day students are forbidden to use them. If a day student is caught making or receiving a call during school hours, his phone isn’t just confiscated for the day, it’s confiscated for the semester. I’m staff now and the rules no longer apply to me, but I still feel like I’m doing something wrong. I kill the call before it goes through.

  As I’m tucking my phone back into my bag somebody yells my name. I turn, see Shep. He’s jogging toward me from the opposite side of the quad, blond hair bouncing, flip-flops making flat slapping sounds against the concrete. Watching him, I feel, in addition to the expected impatience, unexpected if not unfamiliar guilt. It takes me a second to trace its source: voice mails, the two he’d left that I’d never listened to.

  When he reaches me, he says, slightly out of breath, “Did you get my messages?”

  “I did, yeah. My cell, though, Shep”—my eyes wavering from his, dropping to the sunglasses dangling crookedly from the collar of his shirt—“it’s kind of messed up. It cuts out a lot.”

  “Luckily, I don’t put much trust in modern technology, which is why I also had a bunch of these printed.” He reaches into the pocket of his overalls, extracts a sheaf of bright yellow papers, holds them out to me like a bouquet of flowers.

  I pluck one. It reads:

  ATTENTION MEMBERS AND PROSPECTIVE MEMBERS OF THE OUTDOOR CLUB!

  The 7th annual meeting will be held THIS FRIDAY.

  Refreshments followed by a screening of surfer classic The Endless Summer.

  8 P.M. at Endicott House Cottage.

  Gnarly, dude!!!

  The Outdoor Club, of which Shep is founder and faculty sponsor, is exactly what it sounds like: a club for people who are into the outdoors. One Sunday a month club members travel by van to some picturesque New England spot and engage in an at-one-with-nature activity, biking or kayaking or, in the winter, skiing or snowshoeing. It used to be the only kids who belonged to it also belonged to FUCCU! (Friends of Urban Connecticut Conservation Unite!), Chandler’s environmental group, and Cheesed Off, Chandler’s vegetarian society; they wore hiking boots with every outfit, carried around tattered copies of The Prophet, and cared deeply about the fate of the Sumatran tiger. But in the last couple years, the club’s really caught on with the cool boarder crowd. Jamie and Ruben had both joined, Nica and Maddie along with them, and I’d never understood why. And then a breeze stirs, coming from behind Shep, sending a waft of patchouli-scented air my way, and suddenly I do. It wasn’t the natural world that attracted them, it was the natural high.

  Marijuana.

  I can’t know this for sure since when I was a student at Chandler I avoided situations in which Shep was likely to be present, and that certainly included any organization he might be head of. And since I also avoided situations in which Nica, Jamie, Maddie, and Ruben did drugs—well, not drugs drugs, pot mostly, a tab of acid every once in a while—because, though I always kept my face a careful blank whenever Jamie opened his Altoids tin or Ruben whipped out those small squares of what looked like origami paper wrapped in aluminum foil, Maddie claimed she could still feel my “narc eyes” on her, and they ruined her experience. I think I’m right, though. It’s not that tough to get loaded on campus, but it’s definitely easier off. And Shep’s the type who’d ask what the funny smell is, believe it when he’s told incense, preferring to imagine it’s his senses that are lying to him rather than his students. God, that explains Nica and the others’ weirdly indulgent attitude toward him, why they put up with his touchy-feely cluelessness. He’s a sucker. His touchy-feely cluelessness is the best part.

  Shep taps the flyer with his index finger. “I’m thinking of taking the club to Narragansett Bay the last weekend in September. Teach those landlubbers how to surf. I figured this movie would put them in the right frame of mind.”

  “Yeah, it should,” I say, eager for him to get to the point so we can wrap up this conversation and I can be on my way. “I’ve never seen it. I’ve heard good things, though.”

  “Well, you’ll see it on Friday at the club meeting, won’t you?”

  Putting it together, “Oh! You want me to run the movie for you? Like for work? For the A/V Department? That’s why you called?”

  “No, I want you to watch the movie, for you. And not for work. For, like, fun. I called to invite you. And, rewinding, you heard good things about the movie because it is good.”

  “Oh, it’s, um, really nice of you to think of me, Shep, but—”

  “Maddie’s going to be there. Jamie, too, probably. They’d like to see you.”

  My laugh doesn’t sound like my natural one. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

  “Of course they would. They’re your friends.”

  “They’re Nica’s friends.”

  “They’re yours, too, even if you don’t realize it. And they’re hurting the same way you are.”

  I feel a twitch of annoyance. I�
��m not one of his charges anymore, and my emotional well-being is no longer his responsibility or concern. Instead of reminding him of this fact, though, I let loose with another unnatural laugh. “Hurting?” I say. “I think Maddie’s more into inflicting pain than feeling it.”

  He doesn’t laugh with me. “I know it seems like that. But sometimes the harder a person pushes you away, the more the person actually wants to pull you close.”

  “Then Maddie must really want to pull me close. Like really really want to.”

  “Could be.”

  I snort. “Yeah, to put me in a choke hold maybe.”

  Shep gives me a pained look, shakes his head.

  Switching my tone to serious since that’s how he’s taking everything I say anyway, “The problem is, though, I’ve already sort of got plans that night.”

  “Got or sort of got.”

  “Got,” I say definitely.

  “So bring whoever you have plans with along.”

  “But don’t you already have a lot of people coming?” I say, trying not to sound as desperate as I feel. “Your place isn’t that big, is it?”

  “It’s big enough. And the more the merrier.” When I don’t respond, “Just tell me you’ll think about it.”

  I’m mad at myself. Had I listened to his messages, I’d have had an excuse polished and at the ready, wouldn’t be getting backed into a corner the way I am now. “Fine,” I say with a sigh. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Whew! Now don’t go getting all gung-ho on me.”

  He’s smiling widely and I give him a small one back, a small one that gets bigger, then turns into a laugh. And maybe it’s because I’ve finally figured him out, solved the mystery of his appeal for Nica and the rest, and so have the luxury of feeling sorry for him, but, for the first time I can remember, I feel genuine liking for him, too. “I’ll think about,” I say again.

  “Beautiful. That’s all I ask.”

  The chapel bell tolls and the two of us say our good-byes. Instead of continuing on my way to Burroughs, though, I reverse directions, head to the dorms. The Asian Culture Appreciation Society will have to wait till next week to watch its movie. As Shep and I were talking it had hit me: the option I’ve avoided so much as thinking about is, in fact, my only one. Maddie. After all, she was Nica’s closest friend, and if Nica had told anybody the reason for the breakup with Jamie, it would have been her. The trick will be in getting her to tell me. She’ll make me beg, really grovel, and once I’ve degraded myself will probably still withhold. But I have to try.

  Field hockey practice begins almost immediately after school. Maddie, though, I know, doesn’t like to change with the team in the locker, prefers the privacy of her dorm room. That gives me a twenty-minute window.

  Archibald House is set back from the street by a circular driveway and a cluster of yellow birch trees, and is grand-gracious in the manner of a southern plantation: white and sprawling with tall columns and windows, fluted pilasters, carved pediments, a portico you have to climb three steps to reach. I climb them and pull open the heavy mahogany doors, pausing on the threshold as my eyes adjust to the interior. It’s dim. Shabby, too, this building, like most of the others on campus, far more impressive on the outside.

  I cross the foyer to the common room, smelling it before I’m in it: Murphy Oil Soap and burnt popcorn and the beeswax used in lip gloss, all mixed with the musky, hothouse scent of girls ripening into women in close quarters. It’s empty. A Ouija board has been left out on the coffee table along with a York Peppermint Pattie wrapper, a leaky pen, a pack of tarot cards. I turn to the corkboard. In between a sign announcing the disappearance of a graphing calculator (“Whoever took it, please give it back. My financial aid package does not include help with supplies. Beth Gustowski”) and another announcing the launch of a David Foster Wallace fan club (“We’re calling ourselves The Mad Storks. If you need to ask, don’t bother showing up, you poseur”) is the room assignments sheet. Maddie’s in 107. A double.

  I start walking, eyes down in the unlikely event that I run into somebody I know. I don’t see a soul, though, until I turn onto Maddie’s hall. At the far end of it is Ruben. He’s sitting on the floor across from her door, twisting the knobs on a pocket-sized Etch-A-Sketch. Guess the two of them didn’t break up when he moved on to college after all. So much for her being interested in Jamie.

  Ruben’s eyes are glued to the screen of his toy, and I think I can escape without being spotted. I’ve just turned, taken my first tiptoey step, when his voice booms out, “Gracie!”

  I turn back. “Hey, Ruben,” I say, trying not to sound sheepish, like I’ve been busted.

  He lets the Etch-A-Sketch fall to his lap. “You got to pee or something?”

  “No.”

  “You sure?” Crossing his legs at the ankles, having fun, “Because you were moving like you had to pee, like you were going potty.”

  “Nope. Not going anywhere.”

  He pats the floor beside him. “Then take a load off. I could use the company.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, I drop down, though across from him rather than next to. He’s in the middle of a meal, I see. Chicken wings, the kind that sit under a heat lamp in the Hot Foods section of a convenience store, a bottle of chocolate Yoo-hoo propped against his thigh. Over the summer he’s grown himself a set of sideburns. Also, a potbelly, which hangs over the waistband of his sweatpants, as white and dimply as cottage cheese.

  “I heard you were back in town,” he says, picking up a wing dripping in buffalo sauce, inserting it in his mouth. When he takes it out again, it’s glistening bone. “You here to see Maddie?”

  My impulse is to lie, say it’s someone else I’m here to see, but I know he’ll ask who and at the moment I can’t think of a single person other than Maddie living in Archibald. “I am,” I say.

  He leers at me. “I bet you are. Want to get her all to yourself, huh?”

  “I guess.”

  “Looking for a little alone time, are you? A little alone time with Maddie and her field hockey stick, her great big long hard field hockey stick?”

  I yawn into my fist, letting him know that his leer, more or less automatic, bores me; his sex trash talk, too, also automatic. And for a while we sit there, the silence broken only by the sound of chewing and swallowing, the occasional belch.

  There’s a note on the dry erase board on the back of Maddie’s door. The handwriting belongs to Maddie.

  LB,

  If my mom calls I’m out and you don’t know where I am or when I’ll be back. Try not to take a message either.

  It takes me a second to figure out that LB is Charlotte Bontemps, Lottie to her friends, Maddie’s roommate, spent the previous year studying in Barcelona because she couldn’t, she said, deal with America anymore. I wonder if Maddie still has that Robert Mapplethorpe photo of Susan Sontag hanging above her bed, the one Nica bought her, or if she trashed it when she moved out of her dorm room last spring.

  Ruben interrupts my reverie, saying, “So, Grace, long time no. Why haven’t you been by to see me? I’m only at Trinity. Practically just down the street. Don’t tell me you kicked that sleeping problem of yours.”

  “As a matter of fact, I did.”

  “Did you try yoga like I suggested?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And it worked?”

  “Like a charm.”

  “No shit.”

  “Who knew, right? And here I thought I’d never—hey, Ruben, would you mind not staring at my breasts?”

  He looks up at me, takes the finger he was sucking the grease off out of his mouth. In a hurt tone, “I was just trying to read your T-shirt.”

  My shirt’s not a T. It’s a button-down, plain white.

  Wiping his hands on the front of his sweat suit, he says, “Really, I think it’s great you overcame your problem. Beat the odds and all that.”

  “Lucky for me I did. I was going broke.”

  “Sleeplessness is
expensive. For future reference, though, cash isn’t the only form of payment I accept.”

  I shake my head, less in disgust than wonder. “Jesus, you really are a creep.”

  “Hey, I’m a stud muffin, baby, take a bite,” he says, singsong. And then in a normal voice a few seconds later, “And for the record, I don’t make that offer to just anyone.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I don’t. You used to rub me hard the wrong way. Always sneaking looks at people to see what they thought of you. Did they like you? Did they think you were okay? Oh, boo hoo, boo hoo.” He shudders. “You haven’t been rubbing me the wrong way lately, though. Not in the last couple months. Want to know the two words I think when I look at you now? Not and bad. Ever since you started seeming kind of”—he pauses to take a swig of Yoo-hoo, work his tongue thoughtfully around his mouth—“defiled. Yeah, defiled.” Warming to his subject, “These days you slink around, too skinny and too pale, never smiling, like you’re hungover or crashing all the time. And you’ve got this look on your face—tight, but kind of loose, too—that girls get when they’re overfucked.”

  “Stop,” I say, deadpan. “I can’t take all the violin music.”

  “I’m not saying you are defiled and overfucked. I’m saying you seem defiled and overfucked. Anyway, I think it’s sweet that you’re here, taking care of your sister’s unfinished business. A sense of familial responsibility is so sadly lacking in people these days, don’t you find?”