by Blake Nelson
But by then, summer’s almost over.
part eight
1
At the end of August, I begin packing and buying toiletries and getting ready to leave for the University of Massachusetts. It’s a weird place to tell people you’re going. It doesn’t exactly roll off your tongue.
On my last packing day, my mom surprises me with a cheesy hoodie that says umass on the front. It comes via FedEx. I guess she hasn’t noticed I’m not exactly a school-spirit type. I pretend to pack it anyway and then, when she’s not looking, I stuff it behind some old T-shirts in my closet.
On the big day, my parents take me to the airport and I watch out the window as we drive beside the long, manicured strip of grass. It makes you think, driving to the airport. It makes you wonder where you’ll go in life.
Inside the terminal I see other young people going to college. Many of them wear school names on their hoodies. I see one for Boston College, one for University of Washington, one for Arizona State.
“See? You should have worn your sweatshirt on the plane!” says my mother.
We arrive at the security checkpoint and my parents get weepy. They are happy for me, but also, deep in their hearts, probably terrified. They don’t know the police department in Massachusetts. They don’t know the sheriff’s office. They don’t know the number of the detox places, or the psych wards, or the names of any good doctors.
Who will they call if I don’t come home at night? How will they even know if I come home at all?
They are taking a big chance on this. We all are.
2
Ten hours later, I’m there, on campus, jet-lagged, bleary-eyed, wheeling my suitcase through the strange and sticky East Coast air.
UMass is a huge state school surrounded by a cluster of smaller elite colleges. That’s why I came here: because there’s an exchange program between these schools. If you go to UMass, you can also take classes at Smith and Amherst and get a taste of the academic big leagues.
I register and find my dorm. I meet my suite mates. Living with other people was my parents’ idea, for my own safety. My suite mates are two girls from Boston. They’re not what you’d call studious, and are mostly interested in boys and celebrities and reality TV shows. They get totally smashed every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and usually Sunday night, mostly at fraternity parties but also with old high school friends or oily-faced guys in Celtics jerseys, who show up in tricked-out Honda Civics.
I resolve to make the best of it, and once I’ve got my bearings I begin working the system. I go to the Dean of Students office, and after a couple dead ends, I find a woman named Marianne, who I sit with for an hour and spill out my whole story.
She totally understands and helps me strategize. She thinks I might be able to transfer if I really bust my ass in my first year. In the meantime she gets me special permission forms so I can take classes at the other schools.
The one class I really want to take is at Smith College. It’s a whole class just about Sylvia Plath. Plus, the professor, Sarah L. Slotnik, wrote a famous book about her that was an international bestseller.
Marianne totally helps me and figures out how to get me enrolled in this class spring semester. I’m so psyched. There’s just one small thing I have to do: Go find Professor Slotnik and get her permission to take the class.
3
I haven’t even been on the Smith campus yet when I set out to find Professor Slotnik. I take the shuttle bus that drives around to the different colleges.
I get off at Smith. I’m totally lost at first, but that’s okay, I have a half hour before Professor Slotnik’s office hours begin, so I walk around.
Smith is very posh, very elegant. The buildings are old and freshly painted and have real ivy on them, just like the pictures. There are walking paths, perfectly groomed, that weave through little stone courtyards and down to a lake at the bottom of the hill.
And the Smith girls: There is no mistaking them for the UMass girls. They seem to glow with intelligence and sophistication. They look like they’ve lived in Paris and Peru and all over the world. For them, going to Smith is not a dream come true; it’s a natural stop. It’s where they belong.
I check the books they carry under their arms. I look at what shoes they wear. I listen to how they talk. I swear to God, I’ve never felt like such an alien. I feel weirder here than I did at Spring Meadow.
But then I gather myself. I gotta meet with Professor Slotnik. I’m a little scared now, having seen the other Smith students. But I can do it. I feel pretty sure of myself.
I walk into the English Department. A woman at a desk tells me that Professor Slotnik will see me as soon as she can. I take a seat on a polished chair that is probably made of pure mahogany. The whole English Department looks like something out of Masterpiece Theater. Everything is dusted and vacuumed, and even the metal windowpanes shine like they’ve been polished by servants.
It’s all a little unnerving, but I try to use my fear to my advantage. I try to see myself as the underdog, the spunky outsider with a heart of gold who, if you give her a chance, will work her fingers to the bone.
Finally, the woman at the desk gestures to me that it’s my turn. I step cautiously to the door. I peek in. Professor Slotnik sits reading at her desk.
“Yes?” she says, looking up. “Can I help you?”
I open my mouth to speak but then nothing comes out. It’s because Professor Slotnik looks like a movie star. No, she looks better than a movie star. She has radiant blue eyes, full lips, strangely ageless skin. Her stylishly coifed hair is completely white but it doesn’t make her look old. It makes her look sexy.
“Yes?” she says with queenly reserve.
I start again. “Uh…yes. I just wanted…to ask you…”
“Please, come in.” She gestures at the chair across from her desk.
I come in. I sit. I try to gather my thoughts. But I can’t think of how to talk to her.
“What is it?” she asks me.
“I…uh…I want to take your course? The Sylvia Plath course?”
Sarah L. Slotnik stares at me. Her face is so perfectly formed, I feel unworthy to gaze upon it.
“And you’re a student here at Smith?”
“Uh…no. I’m at…UMass.”
“UMass?” she says, letting her surprise show. “Well, as you can understand, the course is for Smith students. They get first priority.”
“I know, but the thing is…I mean…that’s what —”
“If we had extra spots available, which we don’t, the Smith students on the waiting list would be first.”
“No, I know —” I say.
“All twenty spaces are taken,” she says, a strain in her voice, since I am now wasting her time. “And considering the waiting list is over a hundred names long, there’s absolutely nothing I can do.”
“But if I wanted to take it next year?” I stammer. “Could I sign up now?”
“Next year I will be on sabbatical in Vienna.”
But I read Sylvia Plath in rehab, I want to say. I’ve had a rough time. I’m different, I’m interesting, I’ve suffered!
“Now, if there’s nothing else,” she says, a growing coldness in her voice. “I need to finish here.”
“No…there’s nothing else.”
I get up and nearly walk into the wall on my way out. I lurch down the stairs and out the front of the building.
I was going to have lunch in the Smith student center but I decide against that. I go straight back to the shuttle bus stop and collapse on the bench.
When I get back to UMass, my suite mates are painting their toenails and watching Judge Judy.
Though it’s 3:30 in the afternoon, I get in my bed and pull my covers over me and turn and face the wall.
Then I notice my phone is beeping in my pack. It’s probably my parents; I told them about my “big meeting” with the Smith professor.
But it’s not. It’s a voice mail from Kirsten, of all p
eople. She wants to know if I’ve heard from Stewart.
Obviously, I have not.
I throw my phone in my backpack and roll back over.
“Whassamattah?” one of my roommates asks me, in her throaty Boston accent.
“Nothing,” I say.
4
Kirsten calls me again that night. I’m in the study area in the basement of the Student Union. I go outside to take the call.
“Hey, Kirsten,” I say. “What’s up?”
“I’m sorry to bother you,” she says. “But have you heard from Stewart by any chance?”
“No. Why?”
“He didn’t come home last night.”
I stand at the top of the stairs, looking down on the quad. “Did he say where he was going?” I ask.
“No. He didn’t say anything.”
I watch a gang of UMass students strolling by in their down vests. “Well, you know how guys are,” I say.
“Have you heard from him at all?” she asks.
“No. Not since last summer.”
“It’s just weird, is all. I got home from work and he wasn’t here, which isn’t that unusual. And then I eventually went to bed, thinking he’d come in…you know…at some point.”
“That’s weird.”
“Yeah, I get a little worried, you know. He isn’t at his sister’s.”
“Did you try his dad?”
“I don’t have his number. Do you?”
“No.”
“It’s probably nothing. He probably ran off somewhere. Maybe he went with those skater boys. How are things going for you? How’s school?”
“Okay.”
“Yeah. We’ve been doing pretty good. I thought we were anyway. Do you think Stewart…? Do you think he would just…leave?”
“I don’t know, Kirsten,” I say. “Anything’s possible.”
“I mean, I know our place is small and everything.…”
“I have no idea. I’m three thousand miles away.”
“Yeah, okay. Sorry to bother you.”
“That’s all right.”
5
Despite a not-so-great first month, UMass begins to grow on me. A film course that seemed lame at first starts to get fun when we watch Shampoo. I make friends with two girls from there and we hang out a little.
I also find an AA meeting where I meet a woman named Gina, who’s an Environmental Studies grad student. She’s goofy and fun and we end up driving into Boston a couple times and going to see this bluegrass band she knows. She becomes my new best friend, I guess. We spend hours together, driving around, going to AA meetings, complaining about men and school and whatever else we can think of.
Then, when the semester ends, Gina invites me to come stay with her in Northampton for a week before I go home for vacation. I sleep on her couch and have a great time. We both work for a couple days at Village Books, unpacking Christmas stock. I love the bookstore and the people there, and at one point the manager asks if I would want to work there part-time next semester. This makes me feel much better about things.
Maybe I don’t have to be a glamorous Smithie. Maybe I can just be my own person, living a bookstore life back east. That might be okay, I think.
6
I fly home for Christmas. My parents pick me up at the airport. They’re thrilled to see me. They study me, poke me, question me. I can see the wonder in their eyes. Look at her, she’s changed! It must be weird to be a parent.
The first couple days home, I don’t return any phone messages. There’s a lot of them too, messages from Martin and Emily and Tara Peterson and Kirsten and even one from Simon, who goes to Reed now. But I need a little decompression time. I just want to sleep and take baths and be with my parents.
But once Christmas is over, I call people back. I don’t call Kirsten, though. Or Stewart. Something is obviously up with them. Maybe they broke up. It’s not really any of my business.
Instead, I hang out with other returned college students. I hang out with Martin. He’s liking Stanford but he’s a little shell-shocked. He’s not the only genius in his world anymore.
We go to a party at Tara Peterson’s. She’s her usual annoying self. Grace shows up and acts like she’s the most important person at the party. Other people from Evergreen show up. It’s weird how people have altered themselves to fit into their different colleges.…
I call Simon and we have coffee. This is by far my most interesting social engagement. I tell him about UMass and my disastrous meeting with Professor Slotnik. He laughs at my story. “Think of it as initiation,” he says. “They can’t just let you into the club. They’ve got to humiliate you first.”
“But she was totally superior to me! In every way.”
“Those people who look so together. They’re as insecure as anyone. Maybe more so. You’re as smart as any of them.”
“No way am I as smart as her.”
“You totally are. Just wait. You’ll see.”
This makes me feel a little better. It makes me want to get back to school.
It also makes me like Simon. Not just for flattering me. But in general. He’s just cool. And he’s so easy to talk to.
I think I have a crush on him.
7
In January, I return to UMass and start my second semester. I’m a little smarter about classes this term, and manage to get into a good Russian Lit course.
As the semester proceeds, I get a second chance to hang out with Smith people, since one of Gina’s friends is an associate professor there and we end up at several Smith cocktail parties.
Best of all, I also take a highly recommended comparative religion class at Mount Holyoke, which is the exact scenario I wanted so badly: a small class of prissy, smart girls in pink sweaters, all worshipping at the feet of a pompous professor blathering on about himself. Why did I think this would make me happy? I do not know. It is sort of funny, though. And it gives me something to joke with Gina about.
When summer comes, Gina insists I come live with her and some other grad student friends in an old house in Northampton. I ask my parents and they are of course skeptical and worried, but I remind them: I am now nineteen. I have not been in trouble for three years. I don’t drink. I get good grades. I am basically a reasonable, responsible person.
They finally agree to it, and when school lets out, I move in with Gina. This turns out to be a fantastic summer. I work part-time at Village Books and spend the other time hanging out with Gina, going to parties and concerts and drinking iced teas in the humid summer nights.
My parents still want to see me, so I go home for a week at the end of August. No one’s around, though, so I don’t really see anyone. I call Simon and we go on a long hike one day. Otherwise I lay low.
part nine
1
And so it is that an entire year passes in which I do not see or hear from Stewart or Kirsten. I do think about the call from Kirsten sometimes. They must have broken up. Poor Kirsten. Poor anyone who fell too far in love with Stewart.
Not that my own boy situation is going any better. The first semester of my sophomore year becomes my “Time of the Bad Date.” It begins with three different guys asking me out in the first week of school. Michael, a senior who is very cute, turns out to be bland and smothering. Another guy, a fellow sophomore, is the guitarist in a band that turns out to be terrible and embarrassing. A third guy, who I meet at Village Books, is a cute computer guy. None of these work out, but I make out with the computer guy once, which reminds me how nice physical affection can be.
No sooner have I worked through these first three guys than new guys appear to take their place. It’s a little weird. I’ve never been popular before. Or whatever you call it when guys show up wherever you are, with that starry look in their eyes. But that’s what happens now. Maybe they were always there, and I didn’t notice. Or maybe I’m just not so toxic anymore. Maybe I’ve healed in some way I’m not aware of.
There’s one boy who I never mind h
earing from: Simon. He starts e-mailing me from Reed during fall term and we end up talking on the phone on a semi-regular basis. A real friendship develops, and he’s the first person I call when I go home to my parents for my sophomore winter break.
I meet him at Nordstrom for a coffee a couple days before Christmas. We sit in the upstairs café with the rich ladies and chatter happily about our college lives. He tells me about a big New Year’s party his friends are having. He wants me to come.
“You remember I don’t really drink, don’t you?” I say.
“That’s okay. I barely drink myself. Especially on New Year’s. I hate champagne.”
I smile when he says that. I like Simon so much. He always says the right thing. Could he become my first college boyfriend? Gina always tells me: “You’re gonna have to like somebody someday.”
Outside Nordstrom, we stand together on the sidewalk. It’s cold, with a few tiny wisps of snow in the air. There are Christmas wreaths hanging from the streetlights above us.
I put on my hat. Simon puts on his gloves. This is when I see a little gang of street kids standing across the street at Pioneer Square. One of them is Jeff Weed. I think it is. I can’t really tell. Another one also looks familiar. He’s tall, lanky, I can’t see his face but his stance, it reminds me of something.…
“It’ll be a great party,” Simon is saying. “And I really want you to meet my friends. You’re gonna love Josh and those guys.”
“It does sound like fun,” I say, distracted, watching the person across the street.
“So what do you think? Wanna go?”
I’m about to answer, but at that moment, the tall, lanky guy turns in our direction. That’s when I see who it is. The recognition hits me so hard it knocks the air out of my chest.
It’s Stewart.
For a moment our eyes lock across the street. We’re both so shocked and surprised we cannot look away. For one impossible moment, my heart leaps. I want to run to him, throw my arms around him.
