Stowe Away

by Blythe Rippon

  “Claire let me decorate the common room if she could have the bedroom,” Natalie said.

  “So, what’s in there?” Sam asked, hoping she didn’t sound nervous asking about Natalie’s bedroom.

  “Janis Joplin, Blondie, and Joan Jett. Claire, at least, has consistent taste.” Natalie bit her lip. “I’d offer you something to drink, but, um, we don’t have anything. We’re a little unpracticed in the art of hosting.”

  “No worries. My mini-fridge is stocked. I’ll be right back.” Sam headed for the door, and Natalie followed her.

  “The RSVP list was pretty big. You’re going to need some help.”

  Although she was more or less indifferent to fashion, Sam noted that Natalie was sporting the J. Crew look in pressed chinos, boat shoes, and a lightweight salmon sweater. It was a far cry from the ripped jeans and cowboy boots. As she walked behind Natalie heading toward her dorm room, she tried not to stare at the way Natalie’s pants clung to her hips. Or to wonder how Natalie knew the way to her dorm room. She seemed hard to pin down, but that wasn’t going to deter Sam from trying.

  Natalie was asking something about Vermont when Sam interrupted.

  “So, you’re gay, right?”

  Sam’s face flushed; God, she really needed to acquire a filter. There was something about college—or maybe it was something about Natalie—that made words just rush out of her mouth unbidden. “I mean, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that. I didn’t mean to offend you. I think you make me nervous. Wow, you have really broad shoulders—do you swim?”

  Natalie turned and stared at her, her face impassive. She leaned a bit closer to Sam, an insignificant gesture that somehow cut off all the airflow to Sam’s lungs.

  Sam wondered if she was pissed or interested or something else altogether. The pause that followed felt like forever. She tried again. “So, you’re gay though, right?”

  “No. No, I’m not,” Natalie said.

  “Oh,” Sam said, entirely unable to keep the disappointment from her voice. Her shoulders dropped, and although Natalie offered her a small smile that enabled her to breathe again, her shallow inhales and exhales were essentially pointless now. A crush on a straight girl was the last thing Sam needed.

  Everything she knew about lesbians she’d learned from AfterEllen.com during her junior year of high school, and as she stared at Natalie, she tried to pinpoint what had tripped her gaydar. Maybe it was the slight swagger to Natalie’s walk; or the interested expression on her face whenever pretty women walked by; or the raw sexuality she radiated which—when contrasted with her gentle demeanor, make-up, and feminine haircut—struck Sam as just a tad masculine. Maybe it was just hopeful thinking.

  Natalie grinned at her. “You didn’t offend me though. You’re funny.” Something in the way she looked at Sam made coming out entirely unnecessary. Really, Sam never seemed to need to say anything—even in high school, people just intuited.

  Natalie turned and continued toward Sam’s room. It took Sam a moment to follow. “Has anyone ever told you that you look and sound a little like Jodie Foster?”

  This time Natalie laughed out loud. “Isn’t that just another version of the same question? Besides, she has blue eyes, doesn’t she?” They reached Sam’s door, and Natalie leaned against the frame. “Mine are green. Like yours. Also, she’s prettier than me.” Those eyes turned jade with mischief and as Sam stared into them, she realized she was in big trouble.

  Unable to shake the feeling that Natalie was flirting with her, Sam swallowed and tried to regroup. “That’s not true,” she said. With Natalie staring at her like that, Sam lost track of where they were. Of what day it was and who was president. Of what her own name was. All she knew was Natalie’s eyes and the pounding of her own heart in her ears. Eventually, Natalie nodded at her door, and Sam fumbled for her keys.

  “So, what’ve you got in your fridge? I don’t drink soda.”

  “Of course you don’t, California. Let me guess…coconut water? No, wait, something even weirder and healthier. Aloe water?” At least her composure was returning.

  Natalie made a face. “That stuff is vile.”

  Sam unlocked the door and walked to her mini-fridge, grateful for the cool air on her face and a minute to slow her racing thoughts. Sam’s crush aside, maybe they could still be friends. Very good friends. Hell, it was college—people change and try new things in college all the time. Maybe Natalie would, too…

  No, that line of thought would only make Sam miserable, she decided with a sigh. She handed a Pellegrino to Natalie and claimed one for herself.

  Natalie clinked their bottles together. “I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” she said, smiling.

  They gathered as many bottles of sparking juice and water as they could carry and headed back to the party. As Natalie watched Rick, Ilsa, and Victor navigate the waters between politics and love, Sam stole glances at her. Bogart’s captivating performance aside, Sam was pretty sure she would start a war before she’d let Natalie board a plane and fly away from her with someone else.

  “Hey there, Sporty Spice. Nice pigskin,” Sam said as she approached Natalie, who was sprawled in the grass of the Trumbull courtyard, her head pillowed on a football. Her casual posture was so inviting, it seemed to make the pointed arches of the college’s windows soften. “May I join you?” Sam asked.

  Natalie patted the ground next to her. “I was actually hoping if I hung out in this courtyard long enough, some shy chemistry major would happen by, and I’d persuade her to play catch with me.” In a San Francisco 49ers hat and Giants baseball tee, Natalie had apparently dressed for the occasion. Every time she saw Natalie, Sam learned something new about fashion; today, it was that mixing sports in one’s attire wasn’t the faux pas she would have expected.

  The invitation to lie next to her made Sam’s skin tingle, and she tried not to read too much into it. The ground was a little damp, there were sticks in all the wrong places, and still there was no place Sam would rather be. “You know, you won’t be able to play the piano every night if you jam your fingers playing catch.”

  Natalie’s eyes were closed, so she followed suit, enjoying the cool breeze drifting across her face. They relaxed in silence for a bit, smelling the sweet decay of fallen leaves. The sound of feet crunching on brown grass filled their ears as students passed nearby, talking about classes, or parties, or nothing at all. Fall was in full effect, and the bright sunlight had little power to do more than warm their skin. The thin T-shirt she was wearing offered scant protection from the chill seeping up through the ground and leaving goose bumps on her skin. Still, the moment felt supremely perfect.

  She was hyperaware of Natalie’s breathing and the heat coming off her body. She had never associated temperature with a smell before, but she knew now she’d never be able to stop smelling something faintly citrusy whenever she felt Natalie’s warmth.

  When Natalie spoke again, Sam had almost forgotten what they had been talking about. “Sorry, does it bother you that I play piano so late?”

  It was a good thing Natalie’s eyes were closed. Heat crept up Sam’s neck and into her cheeks as she realized she’d just given herself away. For the past six weeks, every Monday through Thursday evening at eleven thirty p.m., Sam would sneak into the back of the Trumbull College common room and listen while Natalie poured her heart out into the eight foot Bosendorfer. Sam had checked the name painted above the keyboard once, just in case she had an opportunity to impress Natalie with her knowledge of piano makers. She’d also done some research on classical composers and the characteristics of different time periods. It would seem that the late Romantic and Impressionist periods were Natalie’s favorite, and she alternated between Chopin, Ravel, Debussy, and Prokofiev. One night, after a particularly dynamic performance of a Rachmaninoff sonata, Natalie had wiped tears from her eyes, and Sam wondered what it woul
d feel like to be the piano keys underneath Natalie’s hands, being played over and over again by passionate and knowing hands.

  Careful to respect Natalie’s need for a private outlet, Sam always slipped away from the common room before she was noticed. “Actually.” Sam cleared her throat. “I was wondering…if you’d teach me.”

  Natalie bolted upright. “Really?” She squealed. “I’d love to! What kind of music do you want to learn—classical or pop? Or jazz? Jazz is hard. But there’s a lot of freedom in jazz. Of course, pop is hard too because you’ll want to sing while you play, and that’s more challenging than patting your head and rubbing your stomach.”

  “Hey, you’re rambling.” Sam propped herself up on her elbows, carried away on the wave of Natalie’s enthusiasm. She took a deep breath, and, for once in their relationship, managed to say something measured and thoughtful. “Let’s just start with ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ and go from there.” When Natalie beamed at her, she felt like she had to say something more. “I’m excited. You’re really talented.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that. But I am a good teacher,” she said softly.

  Sam laughed. “Oh yeah? How do you even know?”

  “Oh. I, uh, well, I give lessons.”

  “You do?” She’d never seen anyone else in the common room with Natalie. The idea of Natalie teaching someone else made sparks of jealousy flash through Sam.

  “Yeah. On Sundays, I go to this homeless shelter called Open Door in downtown New Haven, and I give lessons to the kids. I discovered the place after the first week of classes.”

  Sam was a little stunned. She rolled onto her side and propped her head up on her hand. “A homeless shelter has a piano?”

  Natalie mirrored her position. “Well, I bought them a keyboard. When I decided to go to Yale for college, I vowed that I wouldn’t get wrapped up in Ivy League money and snobbery and all that. It’s too easy to forget that not everyone comes from privilege, that there are different ways to be smart. That it’s important to give back.” Natalie paused and studied Sam for a moment. “You can come sometime, if you want.”

  “Um,” Sam rubbed the back of her neck. She’d never knowingly met a homeless person. “Yeah, sure. I’d like that.” Because, if Natalie would be there, of course she’d like it.

  “It’ll be fun. Hey, speaking of fun…”

  Sam groaned.

  “Brent’s throwing a party this weekend. You should come.”

  Sam had no desire to watch Natalie and her new boyfriend Brent find creative ways to be constantly touching each other at the party, like they had done all over campus. If she were being honest with herself, she’d probably admit that there was little wisdom in spending more time with Natalie, who was clearly unavailable to her. But every now and then she was convinced that whatever spark she felt when they exchanged glances was mutual. She hadn’t expected that one of the first things she would learn in college was the intractability of hope.

  Regardless, if anything was going to happen between them, it certainly wouldn’t be at a party thrown by Natalie’s boyfriend. And watching Brent attack Natalie’s mouth as if it were a hot dog would hardly help Sam move on. “Thanks, but I have plans.”

  “Spending the weekend in the lab again? You know, college ain’t just about book learnin’. There’s this thing called ‘letting loose.’”

  “Yeah, I know. I just like what I do.” It was true, but that didn’t make the words sound any less lame to Sam.

  “Ugh, I envy you. I don’t think psych is for me. I was thinking architecture for a while, but I don’t own enough black clothes to fit in. I’ve finally decided against music. Not sure what that leaves me with.” Natalie poked Sam in the ribs and giggled. “Not sure with what that leaves me.”

  Ignoring the tingling Natalie’s fingers produced when they touched her, Sam said, “I did tell you that modern grammarians find it acceptable to end sentences with a preposition. So does my Aunt Marian, who happens to be a librarian.”

  “You’re kidding, right? Marian’s a librarian? That’s so obvious.”

  “Isn’t your Uncle Art an artist?” Sam asked.

  “Yeah, but I think he was trying to do it ironically. I can’t imagine librarians doing things ironically.”

  “I assure you, librarians have an impressive capacity for all literary devices. Anyway, I hope you have fun at the party.” Sam stood and extended her hand to help Natalie up.

  “You wanna play some catch before you go back to cloning sheep or whatever it is you do in your lab coat?” Natalie batted her eyes and pouted prettily.

  In that moment Sam realized that no power on earth could make her say no when Natalie pouted.

  Sam walked back toward her dorm room after a particularly frustrating afternoon. Her lab partner hadn’t shown up, and she was torn between moving on alone, which might be interpreted as mean, and waiting, which was undeniably unproductive. The middle ground she had opted for was the worst of both worlds: she had gone through the motions to familiarize herself with the project, but hadn’t turned anything in and wouldn’t receive any credit for the work she’d done. At the beginning of the semester, she had briefly considered asking Natalie’s roommate, Claire, who was also in her chemistry class, to be her lab partner; she decided against it, worried about things getting messy if they didn’t work well together. Now she was regretting opting for a stranger, an unknown quantity who was proving disappointing.

  Juggling people always seemed harder than juggling science or poetry. Maybe that’s why she would never take a creative writing class, even at Yale, which had an excellent poetry program; there were just too many people in classes.

  Come to think of it, it had been a while since she’d carved out time to write. Maybe an evening alone with her notebook and some Miles Davis could be her reward for refusing to throw her lab partner under the bus. If the past two months were any indication, Tracy could be counted on being out, getting beyond drunk at some frat house, and stumbling home around four a.m. Sam entered the courtyard with unseeing eyes, as lines of poetry formed in her head. She ran into something and, startled, leaned back so that she could get enough distance to focus on Natalie. As if literally running into someone wasn’t disturbing enough, she could smell the mint on Natalie’s breath, an undeniably common smell that nonetheless made her lips tingle.

  Natalie grabbed Sam’s shoulders to steady her, and Sam was grateful that their near-collision provided cover while she remembered to breathe. She couldn’t prevent her gaze from dropping to Natalie’s lips, and a ripple of desire surged through her.

  “You have to come with me. Right now,” Natalie said.

  Sam took an inordinately large step back and tried to catch her breath. “I do? Is everything okay? Is there some kind of emergency?”

  “Yes, a fashion emergency.”

  Sam glanced at Natalie’s clothes, relieved to be looking at something other than her lips. “Sweater vests aren’t exactly fashion-forward, but I hardly think this qualifies as an emergency.”

  She probably deserved the eye roll she got in response. “I want to try out a new look for the Coyote Ugly party tonight, but I need another set of eyes. And some wheels to drive me to the mall. Please?”

  Sam glanced down at her baggy jeans and T-shirt that read Geology rocks! “I hardly think I’m qualified to offer opinions in this area.”

  Natalie looked at the shirt and laughed. “You’ll do just fine. There’s ice cream in it for you.”

  As if she really needed bribing to go somewhere with Natalie. “I’m parked in the lot.”

  Twenty minutes later, Sam fiddled with the zipper on her jacket and waited for Natalie to come out of the dressing room. Department stores made her uneasy. There were too many designers, too many racks, and too many digits in the price tag. Convinced that agreeing to this excursion was a terrible idea, she vacillated between
hoping and dreading that Natalie might ask if the leather pants she took into the dressing room made her butt look good.

  The latch on the dressing room door slid open, and Natalie emerged wearing said pants, which might as well have been painted on, stilettos held together by straps and a thin silver chain, and a top that was more of a corset than anything else. “Well, what do you think?”

  The zipper tag on Sam’s jacket slipped out of her sweaty hands and she swallowed hard. “It depends on what you’re going for. This is a far cry from the cowboy look you had on the first time we met.”

  “I’ve moved on from that.”

  “To Julia Roberts before she meets Richard Gere?”

  Natalie looked down. “I guess it’s a little much. But I tried the sporty look, and that definitely didn’t work for me.”

  “You mean the other day in the courtyard when we played catch? I thought you looked good.” God, being asked to critique Natalie’s attire was such a double-edged sword which seemed to slice through Sam’s stomach—on the one hand, it gave her an excuse to stare, but on the other hand, it was tortuous to gaze at something she’d probably never have. Natalie looked good in everything, and she probably looked good out of it too, and maybe Sam needed to stop spending so much time with a straight girl.

  “It’s not about looking good, Sam. It’s about figuring out how to express who I am through a particular style. So I’m just going to keep trying them until I find one that works.”

  “Well, I’m sure Brent would like this one.”

  “Brent? Oh, I’m with Marcus now. He’s way more open-minded—Brent was always so judgy.”

  How Natalie knew this about Brent, since they never seemed to use their lips for talking, was anyone’s guess. Sam was glad Natalie had dumped Brent, and not just because that whole Wolf’s Head Secret Society thing he was always going on about was downright creepy. Natalie had said, “At least he’s not interested in Skull and Bones,” but all of the Ancient Eight secret societies at Yale seemed equally awful. And Sam wasn’t sure why a freshman would be obsessed with them anyway—they were for seniors. Sam hadn’t met this new guy, which was just as well, considering she’d been having the worst dreams lately in which Brent kept interrupting conversations she was having with Natalie to kiss his girlfriend, put his arm around her shoulder, and walk away with her, leaving Sam alone and pathetic. “Well, Marcus then. He’d like it.”