Graduates in Wonderland

by Jessica Pan

  It was unspoken, but definitely understood, that I can’t hang out with or correspond with Callum again. Which might be hard as we have class together four days a week next semester, but as for actually cutting all ties with Callum, I don’t care about him anymore. Any hint of feeling that I had for him is dead. I know that I am to blame for all of this, but to me, Callum represents the walking demise of my relationship with Sam. He could never seem attractive to me again.

  I don’t know how I’m going to handle next semester in class, but at least I still have Sam. For now.

  Time for bed. Finals are next week. I can’t believe we’re almost twenty-­five. Life moves fast. Don’t be stupid like me.

  Love,

  Jess

  Four Months Later

  FEBRUARY 20

  Rachel to Jess

  Do you remember that summer after freshman year when we felt so grown-­up because we had summer jobs and snuck out to bars? And now here I am six years later, wearing a business suit, sitting on the Eurostar headed to Paris after a week in London, and writing thank-­you notes to the professors I talked to about PhD programs. We were such babies that summer, and now I’m suddenly one of those adults who seemed so old to us back then.

  All in all, I had two interviews with professors in London. And although I was nervous, I didn’t know how formal they would be or how much I would have to prepare. Therefore, I prepared nothing.

  For the first one, I visited a professor at King’s College, which is right by the river. The professor was Scottish (so I could barely understand him yet was inexplicably charmed by him). We had an informal conversation in his office about my project, but I’m not totally convinced that our interests align. I want to study movie stars and their interaction with history, and he wants to add the element of city space, which doesn’t really thrill me.

  Afterward, I went back to my hotel in South Kensington and drank tea and ate scones to feel like a native. I also found the best magazine in the world, Tatler, which has approximately five pictures of Prince Harry per page. For my birthday, please get me a subscription.

  For my second interview the following morning, a professor at University College London, Robert, arrived with a historian who he thought would make a good second reader for me. They both specialize in American film history. They played a little “good cop, bad cop” with me, but with posh English accents. (“Why women? Why Hollywood? Why the 1930s?” I resisted saying, “Because if you take those elements away, I have no thesis?”)

  I liked them a lot. Robert was so encouraging about my project, but there are a limited number of students he can take on, so it might not go anywhere. I’m supposed to hear back from both universities within six to eight weeks.

  It was strange to speak English to locals and have everyone understand me. I felt inconspicuous for the first time in over a year. London is so much bigger compared to Paris and it’s easy to feel invisible. In Paris, it always feels like everyone is examining you, and I’m not sure which one is more unsettling. But compared to Paris, London is gray and elegant and gritty.

  In less than two hours, I’ll be back in Paris, maybe for the last time in a while.

  Tonight, it’s back to apathetic teenagers—­it is prime SAT season and apparently every person ever, even in France, wants to go to Harvard. The teenagers actually get my jokes, probably because they can all speak English (most have slutty American mothers with a weakness for Frenchmen). They also check their cell phones and flirt with each other incessantly.

  I like the students who actually work hard, but some of them talk over me, refuse to take notes, and laugh at sly French jokes I usually don’t get. When I called one of them out on it today after class, she looked at me and said, “My parents make me come here. I just want to go to art school and then open up my own gallery in New York, so this doesn’t matter.” After my third day with girls like this, I want to hiss, “Well, it does matter a little. Just wait until everyone asks you about your SAT score at orientation and you have to say five.”

  There’s something unnerving about being so close to the life I was living as a seventeen-­year-­old. Have I changed at all? I remember my own dreamy beliefs about the incredible unknown, but I know the realities of going out into the world by yourself. They’re shiny (literally) and wide-­eyed, but I don’t envy the seventeen-­year-­olds who have yet to discover the truth about what happens when you find yourself in a new place without any of your friends or when the perfect boy closes the door on you forever. And that’s when I really see that they are seventeen and I’m twenty-­five. And that there is more than just the eight years between us.

  Despite my best efforts, though, I actually do regress into my teens sometimes. At American Prep, Josh and I go out behind the building at lunch to smoke cigarettes, which are still forbidden to us (him by his girlfriend, me by my promise to myself that I have quit).

  I see Josh nearly every day and he’s started to talk about the future, and has mentioned New York so many times I want to slap him with a fish (French style). I don’t want my favorite part of my work life to leave! I want to say: “Don’t you love it here? Couldn’t you wrap a white scarf around your neck and walk gallantly through the Paris wind for the rest of your life? Spend your days finding tea shops and tracking down antique maps to see the city as it was in the eighteenth century?”

  Even though I don’t know how much longer I’ll be in Paris, I can’t believe he would leave, but when I try to tell him, it comes out: “New York, Josh? Like, really?”

  See? Teenage talk. I’m back to saying “like” a hundred times a day.

  Another sign of regression is that I can’t help but look to astrology. I know. I know. I KNOW, JESS.

  Not like you care, but Josh is a Pisces, which means he is very kind and sensitive, but also goofy. He has picked up all kinds of French mannerisms, which he exaggerates to make me laugh—­like blowing out his cheeks when he doesn’t know the answer to something, or saying, “ehhhhh” instead of “ummmm.”

  But he’s taken.

  I know for sure now that I am not a teenager anymore because I realize that this great guy belongs to someone else, and I’m hoping that mine is still out there. Maybe in London.

  Love,

  Rach

  MARCH 1

  Jess to Rachel

  Teenage girl, I can forgive. Astrology queen? No. But my birth date dictates that I would say that, doesn’t it? The last time we argued about the validity of astrology, you told me that the defining trait of Aries is that we are assholes.

  Your potential move to London is very exciting. I told Sam that you were visiting his mother country and he told me to tell you to make sure you eat a bacon sandwich for him. Obviously, I am telling you this too late, but who cares. Who makes bacon the main ingredient in a sandwich?

  Do you think we’re going to be seventy-­five and still going on interviews? Still putting on stupid blazers and checking our teeth in hand mirrors before we walk into offices and justify our life’s work and choices in twenty minutes? And if so, when is it our turn to have the kind of interviews on Ellen where we can eat cupcakes and dance?

  School is back in session in Australia. I thought you should know that if there was any way to handle the Callum situation with dignity and grace, I did not find it. In class, I always make sure to sit by someone else and avoid Callum’s looks. I refuse to engage in conversation with him and I turn down social outings when I know he’ll be there.

  My system worked perfectly until yesterday, when I was walking across campus and I saw him walking toward me from fifty feet away. I...okay, I pretended like I did not see him and then turned left into the nearest building. But he had seen me, and he caught up with me.

  “Jess. I hate that you’re avoiding me. Can’t we still be friends?”

  he said.

  “I know. I’m sorry. I just...can’t. I al
most lost my boyfriend because of you. I know I was part of this too, but it’s over,” I said.

  And then, before he could say anything else, I left.

  I felt sick after this confrontation, but I don’t have any real regrets about it. I wonder if this is how guys who have ended things with me felt. Um, I am going to try not to think about that, actually.

  Sam is finally moving to Melbourne, so we will get to give our relationship a real chance. I tried calling you to let you know but you aren’t picking up! However, I have to sleep now—­I have been up all night writing assignments for my classes. This is the best kind of grad school, though, because it’s definitely more fun to turn in journalism pieces than to write academic essays. For my radio final assignment, I sat inside a computer lab in a basement for fifteen hours editing a radio segment about a punk band’s tour through Asia. And I kind of loved it the entire time.

  This work is so much more stimulating than writing about expat families and city sights in Beijing even though Melbourne is a peaceful, quiet, and relatively unexciting place in comparison. I also appreciate that I can run outside here without coughing up my lungs.

  I’m flying to Texas for Paige’s wedding at the end of the month. I’m going to be the worst maid of honor ever because I missed the bridal shower, engagement party, and bridal luncheon. I did not throw a bachelorette party. Basically, I have done nothing to get this job except put in a lot of hours of my childhood.

  Sam can’t accompany me to the wedding because he wants to save money and spend that time getting settled in Melbourne. But I wanted to test him out in Texas waters! See if anyone in my town could understand his English accent. Take him to classy burger joints called Buns Over Texas or show him that gas stations called Toot’n Totum really exist. Maybe make him drive a pickup truck.

  But mostly, I need someone like you or Paige, someone who really knows me, to meet him and size him up. I recently realized that it’s strange that no one close to me has met him.

  Is he even real? What if I made him up?

  Love,

  Jess

  MARCH 12

  Rachel to Jess

  So, Olivier just called and asked to get a drink tonight so he can get the keys to Sasha’s apartment (she and Marc are out of town and I’m taking in their mail). I wanted to find a way out of this, but he’s moving to a bigger apartment nearby and has lots of boxes that he needs to store in Sasha’s apartment between leases.

  Still, though. HATE HIM. Advice on how to act tonight during this exchange?

  MARCH 12

  Five minutes later

  Jess to Rachel

  Throw them in his face and say, “Have the fucking keys!” And then run away, in heels, so it makes a good noise on the ground.

  MARCH 12

  One minute later

  Jess to Rachel

  Sorry. Just rewatched a French film, with a super dramatic opera soundtrack. A very loud emotional movie. Put me in a melodramatic mood. My life definitely needs more opera music.

  MARCH 12

  One minute later

  Rachel to Jess

  Or I could just drop them on the ground in front of him and stand there until he picks them up. Cold. Only works if I have super confidence. Like a cruel ice queen.

  MARCH 12

  One minute later

  Jess to Rachel

  No, no, you really can’t be crazy! You have to just be normal. Not jokey and smiley, but not mean either. Just say something like, “Here ya go, how’s moving, oh yeah? Well, gotta go screw my Italian boyfriend, who I forgot to tell you about. Tick tock.”

  If you really say that, I will pay you thirty euros.

  MARCH 12

  Two minutes later

  Rachel to Jess

  Um, the cold ice-­queen thing was a joke! But the fact that you said that makes me think that you think I’m a little crazy.

  Tick tock? Stupid Australia.

  The worst thing is, I know when I see him, I’ll melt. I wish I could hold on to the hatred.

  MARCH 12

  One minute later

  Jess to Rachel

  Tick tock is not Australian! That was just some dismissive nonsense to say to confuse him.

  When you see Olivier, just pretend you are Audrey Hepburn and he is a flea. No, you are a powerful vampire and he is Bella. Wait, now you love him again. NO. I don’t know.

  You are YOU and he is Olivier the Loser, who will be remembered for absolutely nothing.

  Love,

  Jess

  P.S. Also, I need fashion advice! There are no bridesmaids dresses for Paige’s wedding. The wedding invitation says that the attire is “ranch formal.” Not really sure what this means. High heels with my overalls? I want to wear my most comfortable outfit, which is Levi’s, a plaid shirt, and a tiara.

  MARCH 14

  Rachel to Jess

  I’ve never been to a fancy party at a ranch. In fact, I did not know that those two things were compatible. What that means to me is full equestrian show gear. Please go wearing a black jacket, white collared shirt, riding pants, high boots, and a hard hat. Maybe a pair of pearl earrings.

  Every day I do an hour on the elliptical (one hour! Self-­improvement kick is official! BOOM!) while listening to an audiobook about Grace Kelly. And she, a Scorpio like me, almost backed out of her marriage when she found out that Prince Rainier was an incompatible Gemini.

  HA NOT ALONE IN MY CRAZY!

  Anyway, I gave Olivier his stupid keys. I tried to be calm and controlled, with just a touch of condescension. Slid them across the table. “Oh, how’s my life? It’s amazing. I’m having such an amazing time. Life is so amazing right now.”

  I’ve been spending my days with Josh, who is the polar opposite of ambiguous Olivier. Josh indulges me at my worst, and today we were sitting on the steps of an old church and I asked him why he came here in the first place.

  He said, “I came here to be Hemingway.”

  “You did?”

  “And to marry a French girl.”

  Oh.

  “So do you write?”

  “I keep a notebook,” he said. “I’ve got some ideas.”

  I have always placed adult Hemingway lovers who come to Paris as walking clichés, but when Josh talks about Hemingway’s life, I can tell he wants some kind of epic life, epic romance, epic adventures.

  I thought I did too, but the only thing is, I think it’s too late to have epic adventures in Paris now. It’s too polished. For epic, you need China (as you know), or India, or some place other than Western Europe. I would say this to Josh, but I think he already knows this. I also think he knows that he is too much of a real romantic to have the same kind of laissez-­faire attitude of the Lost Generation.

  The longer I’m in Paris and the more I think about leaving for London, I’m discovering that I love the sheer cinematic aspect of just living here. Paris is so movie-­like in its way, where every walk along the cobblestones, beneath the nineteenth-­century streetlamps, along the steep staircases, could all be taken from a romantic movie made in the 1890s or the 1950s or yesterday. All of it makes you feel part of something epic, in your own way.

  Of course, I actually spend so much of my time at the library watching old movies about Paris for the final stages of my degree. It’s the best homework in the world, but being tucked away in a corner watching classic movies set a block from my apartment can feel surreal. After I leave the library, I can see an imaginary red balloon floating over the city in the same way that I can see Gene Kelly dancing along the Seine.

  I haven’t spoken to a single person today, and wandering along the Seine all day has made me a little too dreamy. You would snap me out of it in a second, probably by pushing me into a river every time I start singing “La Vie en Rose” to myself.

  No word from the universities in London yet,
which is kind of good. Suddenly, I like not knowing. I like not having to be sure that I have to leave this all behind—­knowing that Paris is still my home, right now, at least.

  What is living with Sam like? It’s the first time that either of us has EVER lived with a boyfriend. Feels very serious suddenly.

  Love,

  Rach

  MARCH 22

  Jess to Rachel

  Whenever I imagined living with a guy, I also thought that it would feel really serious, but actually it’s just sort of a game where I try to mask or conquer weird habits. When someone’s suddenly just there all the time to witness you falling asleep in your jeans for a midday nap or only eating crackers all day because you felt too lazy to go get groceries—­suddenly you don’t want to do these things. Just the extra pair of eyes makes me act like a real person. Sometimes when I lived alone, I would have phases where I wore pajamas all day and had no outside contact. I basically did not feel like a person at all.

  I’ve always had this anxious fear of what would happen if a guy saw me at my worst—­hungover at 6 A.M. with dirty hair and panda eyes from the previous night’s mascara. But Sam and I are working through it together. So far, I don’t really care about how sweaty he is after playing soccer, and he doesn’t seem to mind panda eye too much.

  And after a while, it just gets too exhausting to pretend I look good all the time. Laziness eventually wins out over pride, and I figure it’s better he knows what he’s getting into sooner rather than later, but maybe I’m getting a little too comfortable too soon. I wore the same baggy T-shirt to bed five nights in a row and found it at the bottom of the laundry hamper when I got home today. I did not put it there.

  Before Sam moved in, I was worried because we skipped the whole casual dating thing and went right from fling to moving in together, which could have gone horribly wrong. But he’s easygoing and rarely grumpy, so, it’s actually going really well. Mostly, I can’t believe we get to spend every night together. There’s relief in finally having him here for good. All those terrible good-­byes that I had to dread and endure are gone.