Life Swap

by Abby McDonald

  “Natasha.” Greeting me with a raised eyebrow, Professor Elliot ushers me into her cluttered room. She’s wearing a mismatched green cardigan over a pair of old tweed trousers, but somehow I still feel like the slob. “Sit down, please. Would you like some tea?”

  “Umm, no. Thank you,” I add, looking nervously around as she begins to fill a small kettle and set out a mug. I know Oxford likes to make a big deal about the informal students-staff vibe, but if I’m in trouble, I’d rather she just give it to me straight. Elliot fusses with her drink for a couple of agonizingly long minutes as I wait. I can see my essay on her table, covered in red marks. My stomach gets tight.

  “Now…” Settling in an armchair, Elliot finally turns to me. “How are you finding it here?”

  “Fine,” I answer. “Good, I mean.”

  I don’t mention that it’s been the longest, loneliest three weeks of my life.

  “Good.” Elliot nods. “And you’re managing the workload all right?”

  “Well”—I hesitate—“I’m trying. It’s a pretty different system from the one back home.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “But I’m working really hard and doing everything I can to keep up,” I find myself explaining anxiously. Buried in the Global Exchange small print had been a clause saying that both colleges could kick us out if we didn’t meet their “minimal academic criteria.” There’s no way I’m letting that happen.

  “And I can tell,” Elliot reassures me. “But I think perhaps we should look at doing something different with you.”

  I blink. “What?”

  “From now on, I’ll be setting you different work from Carrie and Edwin.” She continues, “You’ll still be a part of the tutorial group, and you’re more than welcome to tackle their reading lists, but for your own essays, I think we’ll set you something more suitable. A little less…challenging.” She shoots me a smile that’s supposed to be comforting, but I’m still stuck on her words. Different. More suitable. Less challenging.

  I’m being demoted.

  “Does that sound good to you?”

  “Sure,” I manage. “But…” I swallow, suddenly feeling tears well up. “Were they really that bad? My essays, I mean.” I think of the hours I’ve been slaving over her reading lists: battling to find sense in modern themes of feminism or crazy theoretical constructions of the perfect society. I know I’m not anywhere near my classmates, but I didn’t think I was doing so bad.

  Elliot laughs lightly. “We don’t think about things in those terms here. But if you really must know, your work has been…fine.”

  A rush of relief floods through me: she can’t send me home on “fine.” But then I think about what she’s saying.

  “So why change things?” I try to keep my voice steady, embarrassed to feel so emotional over a dumb reading list.

  Elliot looks surprised. “I thought you’d be happy to take the pressure off. This way, you get to have some more fun, really enjoy this exchange the way you want.”

  The way I want.

  I fold my hands carefully. “It’s been fine,” I lie. “I can manage.”

  Elliot doesn’t look convinced. “It’s all right to admit it, Natasha.” She gives another little laugh. “I know this isn’t your usual style, so why not take the new assignments and have fun? I’m trying to do you a favor here. My other students would kill for an opportunity like this.”

  “So why not give it to them?” I ask before thinking.

  She glances away, and then it hits me. To her, I’m just the dumb Californian, the party girl who doesn’t need to be here. She knows it doesn’t matter if I flunk, because I’ll just go back home to my film classes. The other kids actually need to work hard, to be smart, to succeed. But not me.

  The truth stings me hard behind my rib cage. My work is “fine,” but she’s still writing me off just because I wear cute skirts and keep my hair blown out. It’s clear she’s never seen Legally Blonde. Aren’t smart people supposed to be above this kind of blatant discrimination?

  “I can manage,” I finally repeat in an icy voice, before she can confirm my worst suspicions. “I’d rather do the same as the others.”

  Elliot studies me for a minute. “Fine,” she agrees, obviously bemused. “But you might want to spend some time reading MacKinnon and Dworkin, in addition to next week’s books. There were some rather gaping holes in your argument.”

  “Right,” I answer quietly.

  “And maybe you should get copies of Edwin’s essay, to have a better idea of structure and summary.”

  “OK.” I nod, wondering how to ask the boy for a favor when he’s never said a word to me, except to attack my opinions.

  “Right.” Elliot’s forehead crinkles slightly. “I suppose that’s everything, then.”

  “Good.” I reach for my folder. “I’ve got to get a drink before the tutorial. I’ll be right back.”

  I flee before she can see me cry.

  “That’s terrible!” Holly exclaims. We’re sitting in the corner of the crowded Raleigh bar that evening—her with a white wine, me with a Diet Coke (my teetotal pledge still working)—and, at last, I can vent. “What did you say?”

  “What could I say?” I shrug off my sweater and raise my voice to be heard over the loud rock song on the jukebox. The bare stone walls of the bar are adorned with old oars and sports photos, and it’s full with students crammed around small wooden tables. “She already thinks I’m a moron. I should have just taken the easy option; now I’m stuck with her hard-core assignments and I can’t take it back.”

  “You’ll be fine,” Holly assures me, and even though she has no idea about my scholastic inaptitude, I let myself believe her. “It’s always hard at first. It took me a whole year to get my head around the format for my organic chemistry essays. I had to retake my exams.”

  I don’t have a year, but I figure I’ve been moaning long enough. The last thing I want is to be a drag and risk boring my only friend. “What about you?” I have a drink and try to make my voice happy. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing new,” Holly muses, biting her bottom lip. “Aaron is still calling me. He doesn’t know about…”

  I pat her shoulder. “And you don’t have to tell him.”

  She nods. “I know, but I still feel bad.”

  “Don’t. He was the jerk who got you into this in the first place.” Not that I’m bitter and jaded when it comes to guys.

  Holly seems to pick up on my tone. “Have you ever had a scare like that?”

  “No,” I admit thankfully. “But even if I needed to get Plan B or whatever, I wouldn’t feel guilty. That’s just screwed up, like you should be sorry for having sex.”

  Holly grins. “See, now I know you’ve been taking Professor Elliot’s classes.”

  “No way, really?” I laugh. “Tell me if I get as bad as Carrie—she’s impossible. Everything’s a freaking male conspiracy to, like, keep us in the bonds of submission or something.”

  “Umm, I know!” Holly exclaims. “Last year she kept the JCR meeting running three hours talking about how the college shouldn’t subscribe to the Sun.” I look blank. “This newspaper,” she explains, “they run topless models on page three.”

  “Weird.”

  “The paper or Carrie?”

  “Both! Seriously,” I say, “what’s with her? I mean, she gets so angry over everything.”

  “I don’t know.” Holly sighs, taking a sip of her wine. “But there are tons of people like that here, campaigning over everything. It’s a breeding ground for future politicians.”

  “Egalitarian,” I quip. Morgan or Brooke would have teased me, but Holly takes it for granted that we both know what I mean.

  Holly brightens. “I nearly forgot, there’s a European Affairs Society ball this weekend—you should come!”

  “A ball?” I see visions of chandeliers and string quartets.

  “They’re so much fun,” she promises, eyes wide and eager. “It’s a gre
at excuse to dress up, and there’s a dinner. We could go shopping.”

  “Will it be stuck-up?” I hedge. Dealing with the preppy brats around Raleigh is enough for me.

  “No more than usual.” Holly shrugs. “Anyway, balls are part of the Oxford experience. You can’t come here and not go to one.”

  She sounds so bossy, I grin.

  “OK.” I’m already thinking of the perfect dress I have, the one I wore to my senior prom. I never usually do formal gowns twice, but this one is Gucci and gorgeous and took three weeks of begging the stepfather before he buckled. “I’m in.”

  “Great!” Holly beams, before a group of students in scarves and coats bundle around our table and loudly greet her.

  “You know we’ve got practice at six tomorrow?” A guy with pink cheeks and floppy brown hair throws his coat on top of mine.

  “And Milton says we’re doing weight-training all next week,” adds a petite redhead, almost spilling her beer.

  “He’ll kill us all!” Holly groans. She turns to me. “Everyone, this is Natasha. Ellen, Alex, James.” She nods at each person in turn. I wave, and they offer assorted hellos.

  “So where are you from?” asks the guy crammed next to me. Alex, I think it is.

  “L.A. originally.” I smile, glad to be buried in the middle of a crowd for the first time in what seems like forever. “But I go to school just up the coast.”

  “California!” The redhead sighs longingly. “Beaches, sunshine…”

  “Surfing,” Alex adds. “What on earth are you doing here?”

  I giggle. “It’s cool to have a change.”

  “Bloody freezing, you mean.”

  “Yup, the weather does suck,” I admit. “But Oxford is amazing—all the old buildings, the history…”

  “…the sadistic rowing instructors.” Another guy arrives at our table in time to finish my sentence. “Did you hear what Milton wants us to do next week?”

  And with that, I’m buried in the middle of a raging debate on rival crew teams and Raleigh’s chances of success. As their enthusiastic conversation surrounds me, I feel a glow of warmth that has nothing to do with the overheated room. Professor Elliot is wrong—I’m not here for the easy way out. I can do this. I know I can.

  Emily

  After my mini-breakdown at the beach, I don’t accept any more of Morgan’s invitations. As much as I want to get along here, I can’t bear the thought of that panic or uncertainty again, so by the end of my third week, I’m back in a perfectly structured routine, every hour from eight until five neatly accounted for—thanks to my wall-chart organizer. Morning runs, library sessions, classic film watching, and, of course, classes; if I ever get lonely or start to question what I’m doing here, all it takes is a quick glance above my desk at the daily schedule to calm myself down again.

  In addition to Professor Lowell’s screenwriting session, Natasha is also signed up for a range of core curriculum and film modules. The core material is a breeze: the sort of basic education requirements I could complete in my sleep, but to my surprise, the film work is actually interesting—full of ideas and concepts I’ve never come across before, everything from the business side of the industry to sociological readings of performance and script. Throwing myself completely into the work, I can almost see why someone would voluntarily choose to study it.

  As the rush of students around me stampedes toward the door of my only morning lecture, I take a moment to check I have all the photocopied notes and reading suggestions. I’m finally adjusting to the size of this place, with cavernous lecture halls full of earnest film geeks and slacker students. My days of personal debate with my tutor are on hold for now, but the anonymity is refreshing. I see the same faces from some of my other classes: emo boy, perky girl, and Ryan, but nobody expects anything more than a smile or nod from me. I used to have to always be the one with the superior argument or insightful comment, but here I only have to show up.

  It’s the first time people have ever expected so little from me.

  I finally finish double-checking my books and slip into the aisle, bumping straight into somebody else. “Excuse me,” I apologize, still fastening my bag.

  “No problem,” a familiar voice drawls, edged with the slightest hint of sarcasm.

  My head snaps up and I find Ryan in front of me, slouched in a maroon print hoodie and regarding me with extreme impatience.

  “Oh, it’s you.”

  “Could you sound any more thrilled?” His face twists into a half smile. “You’re giving my ego a bruising.”

  “I don’t think your ego needs any more help from me,” I mutter, and then wish I could take it back. Ever since I found out Ryan was Morgan’s other half, I’ve fought to keep things civil between us. I may never have had a roommate before, but I presume not fighting with her boyfriend is part of the basic requirements.

  Ryan looks amused at my comment but lets it pass. “We’re meeting at four, right?”

  “Right,” I agree. I’ve been working extra-hard to get my rewrites finished; we start filming next weekend, after all. “I booked us a study room at the library.”

  His face wrinkles. “Want to just get a coffee instead? The library’s dead.”

  “Exactly. It’ll be easier to concentrate there.”

  “Whatever. See you then.” He saunters away, and I just wonder how much more reluctant his expression will get when he hears my proposals.

  When I get back to the apartment, there’s a hair tie on the door handle and not-too-subtle moans emerging from inside. Again. Apparently Morgan has a penchant for lunchtime sex, preferring to burn off calories rather than consume them. She also prefers not to limit herself to her room. I hoist my bag up again and walk slowly back down to the street. It’s bad enough that Ryan is a fixture in all my classes, but does he really have to take over my personal life too? I mean, I don’t know what—

  Wait a minute.

  I pause, frozen on the sidewalk outside. Ryan had just been in class with me at the main campus. I power walked to the transit stop and caught a shuttle bus straightaway, so even if he drove himself, he still wouldn’t have had time to get through traffic and get naked with Morgan by the time I got back.

  She wasn’t with him.

  It probably makes me a terrible person, but a small smile spreads across my face at the thought. Ryan acts as if he knows everything, but Mr. Know-It-All doesn’t know this. And I’m not about to tell him.

  “So, what’s the verdict?” Ryan collapses in the seat opposite me and shoots me a wary look. Unlike the creaking old bookcases and dark wood back at Raleigh, the library study room here is small and bright. I’ve set out the table with copies of my changed script, as well as plain notepads, pens, and bottled water. Everything is planned for this to be as quick and painless as possible.

  “Why don’t you take a read through it and then we’ll talk?” I pass him a stack of pages I’ve had bound in a blue folder. He gingerly takes one between his thumb and forefinger as if it’s toxic. I pretend to scan through a textbook while he reads, but I can’t help sneaking looks across the table to try to gauge his reaction. He’s pulled another seat next to him and kicked off his Converses, resting the pages on his brown cords. I thought he was one of the hipster boys, with those black skinny jeans and plaid shirts, but today he’s looking more nerdy in a stripy knit vest.

  I wonder who Morgan was with.

  Time stretches on. He clears his throat and I glance up, but his face is entirely free from emotion, giving me no hint at all what he thinks. Despite myself, I’m nervous. Ryan’s original script was the story of a boy who finds some of his grandfather’s old letters and is inspired to make changes in his life: admitting how he feels to his long-term crush, finally breaking away from an old friend who’s become a bad influence. It’s a sweet concept, but Ryan tried so hard to be unconventional that he forgot that conventions exist to give the story structure and conflict.

  “You killed the grandfather?” Fi
nally finishing, Ryan looks over at me, his expression still hard to read.

  I nod. “This way, he’s got a reason to follow the advice. It’s emotional blackmail.”

  Ryan narrows his eyes thoughtfully. “And you moved the scenes with his crush around.”

  “We went through that in class.” I try to keep my voice gentle. I can tell he’s liable to get defensive. “I know you don’t want the romance to be the main focus, but they’re the best scenes. You want them to be the dramatic high point.”

  There’s a long pause. Ryan looks back down at the script and flicks his pencil against the edge of the table. Tap-tap-taptap. It echoes in the tiny space. Tap-tap-taptap.

  “Can you not do that?”

  Tap-tap-taptap.

  I glare at him. He smirks back.

  “Relax,” he tells me. I sigh, pulling my hair back into a tighter plait.

  “The changes?” I remind him.

  “Sure, whatever.” His voice is so nonchalant, I can’t believe it.

  “‘Whatever’?” I repeat. “I thought this was the most important thing in your life.”

  “Lowell’s always telling us to get distance from our work.” Ryan begins to smile now that he knows he’s annoying me. And just for good measure, he begins with the pencil again. Tap-tap-taptap. I have to fold my hands together to stop myself reaching out and snatching it from him.

  “We start shooting on Saturday,” he says, as if I don’t already have a schedule mapped out, complete with time for delays and weather problems. Not that there’s any weather in California. “The first few days will probably be working out the kinks, getting light and sound figured.”

  “Fine.” I run my eyes down the long, long list of prefilming tasks I’ve been making. Another boy from class, Mike, is supposed to be producing, but I only needed one look at his red-rimmed eyes and bagful of snacks to decide I’d better run this myself if I want anything done. “Here.” I tear off the bottom of the page—the least necessary things—and pass it to him. “You’ll need to get these sorted before we start.”