Pearl

by Deirdre Riordan Hall

  I stuff the pillow into the pillowcase, toss it on the bed, and step toward her. “Charmindy, are you OK?” I ask softly. I want to give her shoulder a squeeze, but I’m not sure what roommate etiquette is, since we’ve only just met.

  She discreetly wipes her eyes, but doesn’t look up from the book. “Yes, I’m fine. Preparing for another year.” Her voice is crisp and to the point.

  “How long have you been at Laurel Hill?”

  “I arrived as a freshman.” She twists her long, dark hair and clips it back, and then she meets me with sharp eyes. “If you’d like to know, I will be graduating cum laude and high honors. I will have early admission to any number of Ivy League schools, and I will become a doctor or something similarly honorable and well paying to impress and satisfy my family. Trophies, awards, and letters of recommendation are available upon request.”

  The words on my lips are That sucks, but they stay put, obediently retreating to my tongue, because more than anything, she intimidates me. Aside from being incredibly smart—obvious from all the accolades she recited, not to mention the awards and trophies her mother placed on her side of the room—the dark pools of her eyes, her long hair, and her refined features make her seem like she knows exactly what she’s doing, who she is, and, more importantly, why—causing me to come up clueless when I ask myself the same questions.

  I’m about to say something inane, but instead pull my chair next to her and ask about the artist in the book. She shakes her head, but then stops when her eyes land on the Frida Kahlo poster. She looks at me, perhaps assessing whether I’m a kindred spirit or if our kindred spirits are kindred spirits; they do look remarkably alike, and from what I saw in the book, their artistic aesthetic was similar. She flips open the pages.

  “Amrita preferred watercolor. Portraits. Pushing the limits of what was acceptable for a woman of her time. She was without apology for who she was. She didn’t yield to the pressures, she was just herself.”

  Charmindy mesmerizes me with stories about her favorite artist, about painting, and I’m about to ask her what art means to her, when a knock sounds on the door. Connie, the head of dorm, appears and asks how we’ve settled in.

  Charmindy’s cheeks quickly lose their pinkish hue from her impassioned description of Amrita and her work as she responds politely.

  Connie nods like she’s listening, except I’ve learned that being present in the room and hearing what someone says aren’t the same. “Tomorrow we have a dorm-wide icebreaker at eight a.m., followed by the Head of School Welcoming Ceremony, and then peer group and sports sign-ups in the afternoon. Best get off to bed, ladies. Lights-out.”

  Chapter 6

  I wake from a sound sleep to birds chirping and sun streaming through the window, like a perfect scene out of a fairy tale. I get up and settle on a combination of the outfits my cousin sent, a slate skirt with a thin red belt, topped with a navy-and-white-striped sweater, but I pull my denim jacket over it and my hair back into a ponytail, my straight blond bangs grazing my thick eyebrows. The head-of-school thing sounded important, but I already feel far out of my league. I swipe on my favorite matte red lipstick. The tube says it’s called Diva. I snagged it from JJ and save it for special occasions.

  I endure the icebreaker, meeting the rest of the girls in my dorm, and attend the assembly, where the entire school, including the faculty, represents a well-dressed Polo ad or something equally untouchable. I inhale the fresh feeling on campus, wealth and potential—like anything could happen by virtue of power, connections, bottomless bank accounts, and old money. Except Sorel, Pepper, and Grant stand off to the side, like a trio of renegades ready to cause an uprising.

  After lunch, I sneak off with Sorel, at her insistence, for a smoke. I mindlessly take a drag, willing myself not to cough.

  “So what brings you here, City Girl?” she asks.

  “How’d you know I was from—”

  She cuts me off with a big smile spreading across her burgundy-stained lips. “Grant told me. Or rather, I asked him what you guys talked about last night.”

  “When did you have a chance to talk to him? We’ve been in the same room and then the auditorium practically all day.”

  Her grin is mischievous. “Snuck to Pepper’s dorm after lights-out. He and Grant share. After you’re here for a year you can put in a roommate request. An arrangement easily made since Grant and Pepper won’t snitch on each other.”

  “You snuck out, really?” That seems like a quick ticket to expulsion and something on the top of her list of no-nos.

  “Like I said, you can do what you want, just don’t get caught,” Sorel says, puffing smoke out of her nose. “Since I’ve known Grant he’s always been kind of quiet. Except when you get beer in him.” She laughs privately. “He hasn’t had a girlfriend in a while. Don’t get me wrong, he’s not innocent. He’s hooked up.” She pauses, like she knows the punch line to a joke but I haven’t heard it yet, and then adds, “A lot.”

  My cheeks flush.

  She doesn’t spare my embarrassment but looks directly at me with inquiring eyes. “Just in case you wanted to know. We can go over there together, anytime, any night, you just say the word.”

  Grant’s blue eyes pop into my mind, but I didn’t come all this way only to end up kicked out and homeless again. I haven’t even been at Laurel Hill for twenty-four hours. I need to get back to campus and hang around with someone more savory, like Charmindy.

  Sitting haughtily on the giant rock like it’s a throne, with a cigarette in hand, Sorel reminds me of JJ, ever eager to dabble in the forbidden. The difference is Sorel’s protected from the consequences by her parents’ money. She takes a drag on the cigarette and exhales a large plume as if daring anyone to usurp her.

  “I better get back.”

  Sorel shrugs. “Suit yourself.”

  Without giving in to any more of Sorel’s proposed distractions, I fall into the rhythm of life at Laurel Hill: attending classes, studying, and selecting the cross-country team for my athletic requirement. When we do warm-up laps on the track, I spot Grant at soccer practice, weaving the ball between cones and shooting goals.

  To keep myself out of trouble’s way, and because Charmindy often frets about how involvement in activities adds polish to college applications, I join the graphic design club, meeting weekly. I learn how to use computer software, along with creating visuals for various programs and events on campus. I prefer my sketch pad and pens, but it serves its purpose.

  Forever fascinated by fashion but not having much in the way of a budget for clothing, I’ve made do with pieces I’d sneak from my mother’s previously impressive collection, free items picked up at churches and community aid groups, and the occasional vintage splurge. Oftentimes I’ve sifted through boxes of donated items only to uncover a single T-shirt or skirt that’s usable. Once I scored a faux leopard print jacket that rocked, but those finds are rare. Maybe it was necessity that forced me to figure out how to use a thread and needle. I’d use what fabric I could find; taking it apart and putting it back together was a way to dream up what I might someday be able to create. I’m not particularly skilled at sewing, but imagining the fit of fabric against my skin, the way some clothes tell a story without using words, the place where edginess and elegance meet in leather and lace, and how it invites me out of this world and into another, helped me disappear from reality for a little while.

  Over a month after school starts, when the sky turns sleepy, with the clouds spreading out like a down comforter, Grant transfers into my precalculus class. I see him every day, in the dining hall and around campus. Now that we’re in a class together, an altogether different window opens, revealing how carefully he listens to Mr. Meshcheryakov, Grant’s patience as he explains to me, again, quadratics, and that he isn’t all jokes and debate, like when he’s with Pepper and Sorel.

  I look at him the way an artist studie
s values and composition, lighting and contrasts. When the teacher asks a question about the upper limit of a sequence, I’m caught daydreaming about his ruffled bedhead, the way his shoulders hunker over his desk as he works, and how one ankle twists beneath the other under his chair. Focusing on understanding what Mr. Meshcheryakov says, with his thick Russian accent, requires every bit of my attention. I miss the answer and have to redo the entire page. If I were solving for Pearl plus Grant, I’d find he’s exquisitely flawed and I’m cautious, afraid, damaged . . . the common denominator that we’re both kind of shy . . . end of the equation.

  On Halloween, Sorel corners me in the hallway of the history building. “Whatcha been doin’, City Girl? Study, study, study?”

  I shrug. Lately, Charmindy and I are companionable nerds, our conversations rarely veering away from classes and only occasionally delving into art. The one time she mentioned anything remotely saucy was to ask if it was weird that this guy Brett, who hangs around with some of the girls in Viv Brooks, always shows up after her AP Chem class and walks her back to the dorm. Apparently, she sputtered something nonsensical at him, and judging by the three shades of red she turned while relaying the story, she isn’t entirely an academic automaton.

  Sorel snorts. “Tonight’s Halloween. We’re going to the woods to drink, want in?”

  I look around for witnesses. I shrug again.

  “It’ll be spooky,” she says, clawing the air with her fingernails, chipped with black polish.

  “Yeah, sure,” I say, uncertain if answering no is an option.

  That night, Sorel swoops into my room, dressed from head to toe in black, which pretty much has become her typical attire as the first two months have passed. She parts her lips in her trademark grin, revealing vampire teeth—and not the fake, cheesy plastic ones.

  She roots through my stuff, trying on bracelets and tossing them back on my bureau. She pops a piece of Charmindy’s gum in her mouth. She points at the Shrapnels poster over my bed. “Who’s that? Never heard of them.”

  “Just an old band.”

  She gets a closer look and then points. “That chick looks kinda like you.”

  I close my eyes, bracing myself for confession time, but when Sorel turns around and the image of my mother comes into focus, I simply shrug. Unless she recognizes JJ from one of those “Where are they now” shows, Sorel doesn’t make the connection, and I don’t need to help her along.

  “They were popular in the nineties,” I say, pointing. “She played guitar and sang for the music industry’s grunge-goddess sensation the Shrapnels. They got big playing festivals, touring the world, and were huge in Europe—totally feminist with tits-in-your-face action,” I say for Sorel’s benefit. “They had a few hits, really popular with college radio. One of the original girl bands. But I guess their hearts weren’t in it, or maybe the next big thing replaced them.” Though it probably just came down to addiction.

  “Totally obscure. Pepper’s way into all these random bands. Signed and everything,” she says, tapping the scribbled autographs. “Wait, did they do that song ‘Rotten’?” Sorel asks, singing a few lyrics.

  “Yup, and ‘Potholes in My Heart,’ ‘Guerilla,’ ‘Make It or Fake It’ . . .” I answer, listing a few more off with a tired and relieved sigh that my secret still seems relatively safe.

  After another moment studying the poster, her eyes flit to Frida. “Dress warmly,” she orders, riffling through the clothing on my side of the closet. She holds up the dazzling gold dress from my mom’s Grammy night and makes a gagging face. “The woods are cold, and this is hideous,” she says, letting the dress slip off the hanger and onto the floor. I’m about to pick it up and explain that it’s couture, but as she exits, she steps right on it, but then again, so did my mother. It’s a miracle she didn’t sell it. My chest tightens. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

  I follow Sorel outside to the lawn. The smoke from the fire at the shelter memorized the contours of my lungs, and a dry cough issues from my chest.

  As we walk toward the woods, the bottom of the full moon grazes the tops of the pine trees, illuminating their pointy peaks in the distance. It’s like a backdrop for a Halloween play or the opening scene of a horror movie.

  “You didn’t strike me as the studious type, PJ. Pepper and I placed bets that you would’ve been at least suspended by now, but I suppose not everyone’s who they seem.” She gives me an uncertain look that I brush off as the woods close behind us like a door.

  “What better thing to do on Halloween than party with your friends, right?” She looks back at me with a crazed glint in her eye. “Screw the school-sponsored parties in the student center. They’re lame,” she says as if daring me to disagree.

  I don’t care if she doubts me. I don’t need to prove that I’m hardcore, having seen and done things that she probably only fantasizes about in a warped, wannabe, alterna kind of way. Since arriving at Laurel Hill, when people ask me about myself, everything that comes to mind has to do with Janet, Janet, Janet. I’m not sure who I am, which is of far greater concern than others wondering who I am.

  Our feet crunch along the stiff corridor of weeds that leads to the clearing.

  “Trick or treat,” Sorel calls.

  Pepper sits atop the rock, with a glow stick casting eerie green light around his face. Grant materializes from the shadows.

  “Hey, ladies,” Pepper says. He pulls out a bottle of tequila and passes it to Sorel.

  Grant lights a cigarette, and for a moment, he glows in the light of the match, but softly, like an invitation for warmth.

  Sorel pushes the bottle into my hands, studying me.

  I don’t hesitate and tilt it to my mouth. “Happy Halloween,” I say after the liquid burns my throat.

  Pepper lights a sparkler and passes it to Sorel. The two dance around the clearing, creating trails of light. Grant smokes quietly, as if inhabiting his own world. After I take another chug, I settle on a log and amuse myself by penning a love letter to alcohol against the dark tapestry of sky. After too many late nights partying with friends, and morning hangovers that made me feel like a lollipop plucked from the floor—sticky and hairy—I told myself I wouldn’t drink anymore.

  This is just an interlude.

  Pepper and Sorel run out of sparklers. The bottle of tequila rounds the circle as Pepper weaves a creepy story about a hitchhiker and a bride. The leaves rustle with the mood of the tale. I find myself closer to Grant and am extremely aware that the arms of our jackets touch. If I squint my eyes, I almost think I can see high-voltage purple-white lines striking the space between us like lightning between clouds. Or fizz from the sparklers.

  When Pepper concludes his story, he and Sorel disappear to make out, leaving Grant and me with the bottle of tequila. Whether because of nerves or its promise to keep us warm, we quickly empty it. Our voices chatter with the cold and nervousness. The trees sway even though the wind has died down.

  “When was the last time you went trick-or-treating?” I ask Grant after we’ve cataloged our favorite movies.

  “Don’t remember. At the boarding school before here, we just had a party. But—”

  “What? Tell me.”

  “Nah, never mind.” He smirks.

  “No really, what?” I ask. A giggle escapes. Thanks, tequila. “Come on,” I say, banishing the giddiness.

  After a few more rounds of me begging like a dope, he leans against the rock, softening. “Promise not to laugh?”

  I nod. “Promise.” The word carries the weight of something more, of what hides in the night.

  “Last time I dressed up I went as a hot dog.” He looks sheepish.

  “A Hallo-ween-ie” I say, laughing and breaking my promise. The tequila makes the joke funnier than it is.

  Grant offers a chuckle as if he’s forgiven me already. “How about you?”

  The alcoh
ol helps me plow through my self-consciousness. “Last time I went out, I dressed up like Frida Kahlo,” I say, going on about how I don’t admire any fashion icons but real people who wear clothing as an art form, whose hearts are literally on their sleeves. “I can’t wrap my head around her, and yet in a way I see something of myself in her art, how she created beauty from her pain. She translated what ached inside of her into a visual shock or an evocative representation, so the person on the other side of the canvas felt what she felt. She—”

  I’ve lost track of what I’m saying; it’s like the trees echo my voice. The dim outlines of the trunks, lined up like matchsticks, spin faster and faster as the tequila twirls me to the beat of my own music. As each disorganized thought crosses my lips into words, I lean closer to Grant, his eyes dark in the forest light. For a moment I fear he sees too much of me, like all my dusky secrets are about to spill out and be made visible and bold, like Frida. I’m not ready for that kind of exposure.

  The tequila suddenly betrays me. I lurch and then throw up in the woods behind where we sit. My head slowly clears as embarrassment crushes me.

  “I’m sorry.” I wipe my mouth. That wasn’t cool. “I gotta go.”

  I stumble down the path out of the woods and to the dorm, bypassing the common room where I hear the canned screams from a movie. I shower, washing away the evidence of my recklessness, and hope to forget the night.

  Chapter 7

  A note to go to the administration building appears, taped to my door, penned in Connie’s script. I don’t know how getting kicked out works, but the wires and cords that hold me to the earth warp and wiggle as I contend with the tequila hangover. I am not ready for classes or being vertical or landing wherever it is they send homeless private school failures. I brush my teeth twice, the mint toothpaste yielding to the sharp taste of tequila, lingering in my throat.

  As I follow the path to the building, the blur of Halloween night haunts me. I berate myself for drinking too much and for making a fool of myself in front of Grant.