Still, it got dark and Margaret hadn’t arrived. Our moms hugged us goodbye, wiping their tears but smiling bravely, and still, she hadn’t arrived. We had a dorm floor get-to-know-you ice cream social but no Margaret from Maine.
“Maybe she withdrew,” I said.
“I’ll bet she heard about The Naked Guy.”
But when we got back to our room, there she was.
She did not wear a turtleneck under a plaid coat. She wore a Bikini Kill T-shirt and an eyebrow ring. She had black hair with blond roots.
“I freaked you out, didn’t I?” she said, dumping an armload of clothes into her top dresser drawer. “So my parents think they’re punishing me by banishing me to California, because they hated my last boyfriend, but what they don’t know is I wanted to bail. Never date a bass player...”
She’d flown out from the East Coast alone, and her only contributions to our joint housekeeping were blackout curtains, an elephant-shaped bong she bought on Telegraph, and something she called a sploof—made out of a paper towel roll, stuffed with dryer sheets—that she breathed into to minimize the pot smell. (We called the sploof Laura Ingalls, because its towel cap, secured by a rubber band, looked like a bonnet.)
Maggie snored heavily and she drank heavily, she had no verbal filter, and she grabbed whichever of our three shower caddies caught her eye, even using our razors.
We adored her.
She couldn’t replace Eric. But our little dorm room began to feel like home.
7
Beat the Clock
Summer after freshman year
Letter No. 1
June 23, 1995
Dear Mrs. Haggermaker,
I hope this letter finds you well.
My first year of college is over and I’m on the bus heading home to our beloved Orange Park.
I learned so much in my courses this year, and as you’ll see from the attached transcript I earned a 3.9 GPA and made the dean’s list.
I was thrilled to secure a spot as a junior reporter for the student newspaper, where the senior editors have gone out of their way to mentor me. I cover campus beautification, an extremely high-profile beat for a freshman.
I’ve met dozens of fascinating new people at school, and especially enjoyed getting to know Margaret Estes, my roommate from Maine. She’s as sweet in person as she was in her introduction letter. Margaret is an excellent student who was in several of my freshman lectures. The two of us made a habit of meeting weekly for study sessions at a quiet café on campus. We helped each other prepare for upcoming exams, memorizing the Laffer Curve for Economics 101 and the stages of a black hole for Astronomy 10 in a rapid-fire drill we devised called Beat the Clock.
But of course my Orange Park friendships will always hold a special place in my heart. We may have graduated and dispersed, but the hometown bonds are unbreakable.
I’m looking forward to another productive summer writing for the Orange Park Courier, helping my mother in her garden, and getting an early start on next semester’s reading. As you can see from the attached syllabi, I will study the Iliad, The Canterbury Tales, and Beowulf next fall. I can’t wait.
I am, as always, deeply grateful for your generosity.
Sincerely,
Rebecca Reardon
I scanned the letter and added an exclamation point:
I will study the Iliad, The Canterbury Tales, and
Beowulf next fall. I can’t wait!
I sealed the letter inside its matching blue-and-gold envelope and looked out the window as the Greyhound groaned into the station.
My mom was trotting beside the bus. Looking up anxiously, hand visored over her eyes. She wasn’t pleased that I’d skipped my last class to come home a day early, though I’d explained that it was only office hours, for kids who hadn’t turned in their papers yet.
I’d told her three times that I’d catch a local bus home from the depot, but here she was, like a nervous pilot fish.
Three months of her hovering and hand-wringing. After my freedom in Berkeley, it wouldn’t be easy.
But I’d escape at the Courier. I was determined to write something important this summer. My “campus beautification” assignment at school (aka the custodial beat) hadn’t yielded much. Though I did have a grand time coasting around in a cart with the head maintenance guy, craggy-faced Albert Crenley. He played oldies radio and made me laugh, though he pretended to be surly. I helped him with his graffiti log, a clipboarded form on which we noted the hundreds of Fuck Yous and Berkeley Sucks Asses requiring erasure.
Unlike Serra and me, Albert wasn’t a graffiti fan; it just meant more work. He was especially peeved by the elegant black cat Serra and I had noticed our first week. It had appeared frequently spring semester, not just on the science building but all over campus. Albert was sure “frat punks” from Kappa Alpha Tau were behind it, but I’d interviewed them and didn’t think so. Someone was sending secret messages out into the void. I had to know what they were trying to say, what was so important—and seditious—they had to encode their words.
My section editor at the campus paper, a sophomore named Brent who wore ironic red bow ties, had grudgingly allowed me a single brief on the cat: Uptick in Campus Graffiti Concerns Maintenance Staff.
Everyone knew uptick and concerns meant Bullshit Story.
But one decent Courier clip this summer was my ticket out of the custodial beat. As long as I covered the basics—the July Fourth pet parade down Main and the newest Orange Julius franchise—Les had promised I could pursue any features I wanted.
I’d work hard and the summer would fly by.
* * *
The phone rang in our little U-shaped kitchen after dinner, while I was washing dishes and my mom, at my right elbow, was scooping ice cream.
“I’ll let the machine pick it up,” she said. “My girl’s home.”
This was a major rebellion for her; she always scurried obediently to the phone when it rang, though I’d bought her the Sony answering machine for Christmas with babysitting money four years ago.
A man’s voice boomed from the counter to our left, where the machine sat in the corner by the chipped yellow teapot that served as a utensil holder. “Becc. Les here. Sorry to break it to you so late but I’m stopping the presses. For good. Got an offer I couldn’t refuse, as they say. Well, you don’t need this piddly rag anyway...”
Fuck.
The ice cream scoop clattered to the counter and my mom sucked in her breath. “Oh, no... What will you... Shouldn’t you pick up? Honey?”
“Give me a buzz and let me know where to send your rec letter, doll. Real sorry.”
I stared out the window at the dark backyard. This wasn’t ideal.
My mom silently resumed dishing Häagen-Dazs Vanilla Swiss Almond into our bowls.
“Don’t worry,” I said, turning to smile at her. “I’ll get something else.”
“I’m not worried! Of course you will!” Scooping like a champ. And biting her upper lip so hard it whitened.
“I knew this might happen,” I lied. “He’s been struggling to get advertisers. I’ll drop off résumés tomorrow.”
“And you’ll have a job by noon, I’ll bet!” Now she sounded like a game show host. She secured the ice cream lid, bustled to the fridge. “I’m sure Mrs. Haggermaker will understand.”
A pause. “There’s nothing in my scholarship about working every summer,” I said evenly, picking up my bowl and spoon. “Not one word.”
“Of course not! You’ll just write her a little note about your change in plans, and I’m sure she’ll completely understand. I saw her in the elevator last week at the hospital, and she was so gracious, asking when you were coming home. I was flattered she even remembered me.”
“She’s not Queen Elizabeth.”
She stared at the fridge door
, hurt.
Be kind. I repeated it in my head whenever she got on my nerves. Then I always thought of the Blockbuster Video slogan—Be Kind. Rewind.
My mom had been so relieved when I won the scholarship. Early in senior year of high school, I’d seen the notebook in her desk drawer, tallying my college expenses. We both knew her $37,000 insurance coder level I salary from the hospital wouldn’t stretch far, and the numbers had practically vibrated with worry.
“I’m sorry, Mom. Just...don’t stress, okay?”
She turned and nodded.
“It’ll be fine.” I forced myself to eat a spoonful of ice cream.
“Well, I’m just tickled that you’re back,” she said. “Even though the job didn’t work out. I know I’m a poor substitute for Serra. You said she’s nannying in Berkeley?”
“Tahoe, for her art professor’s family. But they’re flying her down for Fourth of July week.” I’d met Yvonne Copeland in Serra’s studio. A tall, broad-shouldered woman with a child’s haircut—bright red hair cut into a pixie with unforgiving half-inch bangs. She always wore flowing black dresses and had a seemingly endless collection of pop art earrings. Serra called Yvonne’s style choices witchy-kitsch.
“How generous. And I want to hear all about Margaret. Your... What do they call it? Your study buddy.”
I nearly choked on a Swiss almond.
Maggie was on academic probation; Serra and I had never seen her go to class before noon.
Maggie and I did meet for Beat the Clock, though. As in the promotion at the Bear’s Lair, where pitchers of beer were $4 at four o’clock, $5 at five, and $6 at six. Brilliant marketing.
“Maggie’s a chemistry major. She’s taking summer session because she’s... To get a jump on next year’s courseload.”
“She sounds extremely conscientious.”
“She is. You’ll meet her sometime.”
“I’d love to. I’m sorry she couldn’t visit. Well, at least Eric will be home soon, so that’ll be nice for you. But of course, you and Eric must call each other all the time.”
“All the time.”
* * *
After she went to bed I wandered rooms like a nosy houseguest, examining the framed botanical prints in the sunken family room, finger-combing the fringe on the fuzzy red sofa afghan, turning the knobs on our decades-old intercom panel. Serra and Eric and I used to play that we were DJs on it.
The books on my bedroom shelf and the clothes in my closet seemed like someone else’s, like riches, and I couldn’t remember why they hadn’t made the cut when I’d packed last summer.
I picked up the framed picture of Eric and Serra and me after the Senior Awards ceremony. We were grinning into the sun with our arms flung around each other, clutching our prizes—me the Haggermaker, Serra her Artists’ Network certificate, Eric the Rotary Club’s bright medal.
You must call each other all the time.
Eric and I hadn’t spoken once. We’d emailed. But for every five hundred words I sent I got five back:
E—
When you stand at the top of the Campanile (that’s our gorgeous clock tower, the third tallest in the world) at noon, you can feel the bell concert sort of shimmering through your bones, like the tower’s going to crumble down. But it’s wonderful, and on a clear day, you can see all the way to the point of the Transamerica building in the City. (That’s San Francisco, by the way. They just call it the City here.) On a Clear Day, You Can See Tomorrow—isn’t that a movie we saw together once? About a clairvoyant?
I miss seeing movies with you. I miss you. I’d love to visit Rhode Island and check out all the theaters you’ve surely discovered. (Hello—tell me about them please!!) I’ll buy the popcorn. And the Milk Duds to melt in. K? I’ll scrounge $ for the flight somehow.
I hope you are happy and learning and having fun, and all those good things.
Eric’s answer:
We have a clock tower, too. Brick. Has design of fruit at the base.
As fall wore on and he didn’t warm, my messages cooled, too. I described my favorite late-night study spots—but not the pangs of loneliness that sometimes hit when I looked at the hundreds of strangers at other desks, hiding inside their headphones and squeaking away with their highlighters.
Eric mentioned movies he’d seen, but didn’t tell me if he’d gone alone or with a pack of friends or some girl.
I’d planned to work on him in person, over Thanksgiving. For weeks I’d rehearsed what to say when we saw each other in November, different ways to go back to how things used to be. Except Eric didn’t come home for Thanksgiving. And though Serra and I watched the Martha Stewart Thanksgiving Special twice, howling at her elaborate turkey centerpieces and stuck-up enunciation, underneath I’d been sad knowing I wouldn’t see Eric until Christmas.
But Eric didn’t come back to Orange Park for winter, either. He went to some friend’s house in Boston. And he ignored my offer to meet somewhere cheap for spring break.
See you this summer, I’d emailed in May. I’m the tall girl with glasses and shoulder-length brown hair. An Eric move, hiding my feelings in a joke.
* * *
At midnight I lay in my bed, wide-awake. It was too quiet; I was used to the constant hallway action in my dorm. I muffled my squawking modem under a pillow so I could email Serra and Maggie to bemoan my job loss. It had only been a day, but I already missed them.
I had this waiting for me:
From: [email protected]
Not coming home this summer after all. Internship with Tribeca film fest. P/T, but couldn’t pass up.
Eric
8
Focus
Late June 1995
Every day my first week back, I sat at my bedroom desk under the street-side window, trying to adhere to the schedules I printed neatly in the squares of my blotter calendar:
8:00 to 9:30: Beowulf reading
9:30 to 10:00: Beowulf paper brainstorming (min. one page!)
1:00 to 2:00: Beowulf paper outlines (rough)
It looked so reasonable, so achievable, contained in the blotter squares.
I sat in the chair during my prescribed times but made little progress. Maybe it was the footnotes or the impenetrable names that all sounded like someone hocking phlegm loogies: Wiglaf and Hrothgar and Hygelac. I couldn’t keep the horses straight from the humans.
Maybe it was me.
I’d always been so good at tuning everything out and focusing on the task at hand.
Time is passing. Will you? Focus!
But these days I stalled. I doodled. I drew a creature with the face of Scott Baio and the body of a wolf, my eyes drifting from my desk out my window. I hadn’t seen the blue vintage convertible or the little black BMW since I’d come home, and imagined their owners on vacation together, in Catalina or Mexico or some other fabulous place.
I began staying up until two and sleeping until noon, adjusting my blotter schedules accordingly. I spread tasks out, trying to give my days structure. I watered my mom’s plants or took the bus to the beach or watched TCM, lying on my side on the living room shag carpet, next to the air-conditioning vent.
I prepared elaborate dinners, taking the bus thirty-five miles to Shun Fat Supermarket in Garden Grove for pho noodles, or twenty-five miles to El Super in Santa Ana for queso fresco. My mom always dug into her meal appreciatively, no matter how burned or oversalted.
But the Thursday I wrote out trivia cards so we could learn about Italy while we ate manicotti with all-day, old-world tomato gravy, her voice quavered and the telltale vertical line above the bridge of her nose appeared.
“These...theme nights are lovely, Becc. But...” She shook her head, dabbing marinara from her lips with the cloth napkin I’d ironed and starched into a mini Leaning Tower of Pisa. “Never mind. I know you tried to find a job
. Forget I said anything.”
The next day I stared at the cellophane-wrapped package of index cards on which I was going to write France factoids to accompany our coq au vin. It was already 102 degrees at 11:00 a.m., and hot, winey stew was the last thing my mom would want after dragging herself across the broiling driveway. I didn’t even want coq au vin. Anyone sane would prefer a salad, or a Popsicle.
You’ve lost it, Becc.
I threw the chicken in the fridge, slammed the door, and went to the one movie playing in town.
* * *
I got one of the last seats, in the back row. The audience was mostly teenage boys, heckling each other across rows and chomping popcorn. They sounded like a bunch of grasshoppers destroying a wheat crop.
Batman Forever could have been a brilliant, subtle piece of filmmaking, but I wouldn’t know. The sound effects gave me too much of a headache to figure out the story, and I regretted heaping praise on the cutting-edge speaker system in my article.
I got up, whispering, “Excuse me,” to the boys between me and the aisle. They didn’t make it easy, didn’t angle their legs or jackknife their seats and dangle their butts down into the crevasse to give me room as adults would have.
I wandered across the street to the square, blinking at the bright sunlight. I’d wasted $4.75 to feel more restless than before the matinee. Next summer I’d start applying for jobs in January. I’d walk dogs or clean pools or—
“Rebecca!”
He was sitting on the rectangular brick bench that surrounded The Orange Tree, right in front of the plaque.
Him. Flip phone in his hand, sleeves rolled up, coffee cup at his hip.
“Were you on assignment?” He snapped his phone shut and slipped it in his shirt pocket.
“Assignment?”
He pointed behind me, at the theater. “I read your article last summer. I liked it, how you described the old lamps, the drinking fountains. I’d never noticed them.”
“Thank you.”
Summer Hours Page 6
