by Shawn Inmon
Cassandra poked her head inside each bedroom and saw two twin beds in each.
“Four people, four beds. Where would you put a fifth person?”
Carol nodded at the couch in the living room. “You could have that until someone moves out, then you’ll get first dibs on a bed.”
“How much is the rent?”
“Your share will be twenty-five dollars per month. Your share of the other bills will be around twenty dollars a month. We don’t use all that much water, because the hot water heater is so small and after the first shower each morning, everyone else gets pretty cold water.”
Forty-five dollars a month is a lot less than I thought I’d be paying. That will help stretch my money a little further. Still. She glanced at the high-backed couch against the living room wall. What if I want to go to bed early and everyone else is still up. What do I do then?
Cassandra glanced out at her Mustang and thought about having to climb back into it and continue her search. That felt worse than the idea of having to sleep every night on the couch.
“When can I move in?”
Carol laughed and hugged Cassandra. “I think you’re already home!”
“Okay! I don’t have much stuff, but I do have a couple of suitcases back at the hotel.”
“You run and get your stuff. Barbie and I will work on clearing out a little closet space for you and we’ll set up a couple of drawers for you to keep your unmentionables.” Carol narrowed her eyes and nodded. “I’ve got a good feeling about you, Cassandra.”
“Good. Me too. Except, you’ve got to call me Cassie.”
Cassandra ran back to the old hotel she had been staying in, grabbed her suitcases, and flew back to her new home.
When I was older and just playing out the string, I never could have envisioned this, both the good and the bad. Sometimes, it still feels like a dream, but I know I’m really here. And now I have a home. Well, a couch, at least.
By the time she got back to the house, Dara, the fourth roommate was there. She was shorter and a little rounder, but she had the same devil-may-care attitude that Carol and Barbie had. She was thrilled to be splitting the bills one more way and didn’t seem to mind at all that their sofa had been converted into a bed for the foreseeable future.
THE NEXT MORNING, CASSANDRA drove to the registrar’s office. She didn’t have an appointment, but when she opened the door to the office, there were only two other students in front of her, so she sat and waited.
Half an hour later, the boy who had been ahead of her left and the secretary said she could go in. It wasn’t a large office, but it had a nice view of the campus.
A gray-haired woman sat behind the desk. Cassandra sat opposite her, waiting for the woman to look at her. For long moments, she did not. She was writing something in a large book in front of her.
Finally, she looked up and took Cassandra in. “I’m Mrs. Thomas. Name?”
“Cassandra Collins.”
She went to a file drawer marked A-D, shuffled through some file folders and finally pulled out a folder that was nearly empty.
“I see the Garden Club from Middle Falls has sent a check in your name. It will just about cover your first semester’s tuition, but you’ll need to make payment arrangements for Spring Semester.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“So, have you picked out your desired classes?”
“Ma’am?”
“The classes you want to register for.”
Cassandra swallowed hard and felt perspiration break out on her forehead. “Was I supposed to have done that already?”
The woman cocked her head and looked at Cassandra over the top of her glasses. “Yes. Did you not go through your welcome packet we sent?”
“I did, but it was a few months ago, and...”
“Yes, yes,” the woman cut her off. “That’s fine. You probably won’t get most of the classes you want anyway.”
“What? Why?”
Mrs. Thomas folded her hands in front of her. “Let’s start here. What are you hoping to study?”
“I guess I’m not really sure. I thought maybe you could help me with that. I want to be an artist. A sculptor, or a painter, or maybe a singer.”
“Those are all very different disciplines, but it doesn’t matter now. You’ll need to spend your first year getting your prerequisites out of the way. That means several math classes, some English classes, science and history classes.”
Cassandra did her best to keep her face calm but failed.
“Were you planning on coming to Berkeley, taking a few classes where you stand around, painting a nude model, and graduate in four years with a degree?”
No. Well, not completely. Well, I guess, kind of. Damnit. Why do these things never seem to work out the way I envisioned them?
“No, ma’am.”
“Of course,” Mrs. Thomas said, in a tone that said, Obviously, you did, but we’ll let that slide, because I’ve tortured you enough.
She glanced up at the clock on the wall, then pressed a button. “Mrs. Daniels? How many waiting?”
A click, then, “Only one at the moment.”
“It’s your lucky day then,” Mrs. Thomas said. “Let’s pick you out a schedule.”
Twenty minutes later, Cassandra left in a daze, with a schedule she had no idea how she would be able to complete.
Advanced Algebra? I don’t remember the simplest Algebra problem. How will I ever make it through that? And Political Science? I don’t even know what that is.
Cassandra looked at the schedule in her hand.
And not a single art class to be found.
Chapter Twenty-One
Cassandra had dreamed about attending college at Berkeley for more than fifty years. It had literally become the stuff of dreams to her. The allure of it was strong enough that when she was given a second opportunity, she had been willing to sacrifice everything to go there.
That had meant giving up her future husband, her best friend, her good relationship with her parents, and the financial security she could have had so easily. All of that loss was in her rear view mirror, though, and UC Berkeley now spread out gloriously in front of her.
On the first day of the Fall Semester, she was the first of the young women in the overcrowded little house to wake up. There were several reasons for that. The desire for a hot shower was only one. Not to mention, she found it extremely discomfiting to wake up, roll over, and find someone sitting at the kitchen table or in the chair beside the sofa, drinking coffee and staring at her.
Finally, she had made the most basic of freshman mistakes. She and Mrs. Thomas had signed her up for an 8:00 a.m. class. That meant that on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, she would have to pull herself up and at ‘em by six to have a chance at being presentable and reasonably awake when she sat down in Professor Dunhill’s Theory of Literature class.
The class was small, because who, aside from a few crazy, dedicated acolytes and unaware freshmen would sign up for a class that early? Especially for a class where you actually had to think.
Of the total of fifteen hours she had signed up for, Theory of Literature had seemed like it would be the easiest. She had always liked to read, so unlike algebra, there hadn’t been a fifty-year break in the application of the primary skill needed for the class.
She started that first day, flush with excitement. Even if the classes weren’t exactly what she had planned, she was here, finally living her dream.
Professor Dunhill walked into the tiny classroom, which only had a dozen seats, at precisely eight o’clock.
“I hope you all took the opportunity to look at the syllabus.” He looked up from the binder he had been staring at, noticing the class for the first time. “Yes?” He received no acknowledgement. “Let’s hope for your sake you did, because we’ll be having a test today on the themes and meaning of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.”
Good grief. The first minute of the first day of class, and I’m already behind!
I think I might have made a terrible mistake.
A young man who had been sitting slumped in the seat farthest back mumbled, “This is bullshit,” gathered his book bag and casually walked to the door. Cassandra couldn’t be sure, but she thought he might have flipped a bird on the way out.
Professor Dunhill waited patiently for him to leave and close the door behind him.
“Anyone else?”
Cassandra seriously considered bolting herself, but her next class wasn’t until 10:30 a.m., and she didn’t know the campus well enough to know where to go to kill time yet.
A young woman with long dark hair and wearing a tight sweater with a plaid skirt followed the first defector out the door.
Again, the professor waited. When the door closed again, he looked expectantly at the now even-smaller class. When no one else seemed inclined to flee, he shut the binder and put it on the lectern. He came around and sat at the front of the desk.
“Now that we’ve lost those who don’t have the courage of their convictions, we can begin.”
A bookish-looking girl in the front row raised her hand.
“Yes?”
“Does that mean we’re not really going to have a test today?”
“Oh, of course not. It’s right there on your syllabus. Have you not read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight?”
The girl shook her head.
“Pray tell, did anyone?”
One hand shot up, belonging to a rather smug-looking woman wearing an ill-fitting dress and slightly askew glasses.
“Miss...”
“Pettigrew,” the young woman answered. “Linda Pettigrew.”
“Well, Miss Pettigrew, dare I say, you will have quite an advantage over the remainder of the class. To give you all a fighting chance, then, I’ll do you the favor of telling you a bit about the story.”
He lectured for thirty minutes, using phrases like chivalric romance, alliterative verse, and the rhyming bob and wheel.
Cassandra had her notebook out and took notes as quickly as she could but was lost from the first thirty seconds on. The professor was speaking English, but none of the words seemed to go together and she couldn’t decipher their meaning. As such, they touched lightly on her ears, then disappeared down into the oubliette of her brain, never to be seen again.
When Professor Dunhill finally said, “And that’s all I think you’ll need to know to ace this relatively easy test,” he handed out small paper blue essay books. “The test will be made up of three essay questions, which I will write on the board.”
He walked to the blackboard, picked up a piece of chalk, and wrote, “Whose interpretation of the green girdle do you agree with – Sir Gawain’s, or the rest of the court’s? Explain why.” Beneath that, he wrote, “Over the three days of the challenge, how does the hunt become more difficult for Bertilak de Hautdesert?”
Cassandra did not bother to wait for the professor to write the third question. She knew she was sunk. She had never read—or even heard of this Sir Gawain before, how was she expected to be able to pass an essay test about him?
Tears blurred her eyes as she stared at the blank page of her blue book. She got control of herself as best she could and looked at the rest of the class. A few people were doing their best to bluff their way through the questions, while Linda Pettigrew wrote one confident paragraph after another.
The rest of the class wore the same stunned expression as Cassandra, though she noted that none of the others seemed near tears.
When the clock finally hit 8:55, Dunhill said, “Time’s up. Turn your books in. If you want to purchase notes on today’s lecture, they are available for a fee. I hope those of you who haven’t read the material before today will do so by Wednesday’s class. We will have another test then.”
Like the small hurricane of bad news that he was, he walked out the door, leaving damaged GPAs in his wake.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Cassandra’s debut in her Theory of Literature class was inauspicious, but after a full week, she realized it was the class she had the best chance of passing. She felt completely overwhelmed and behind in every single class.
As she walked from her house to her 8:00 a.m. class the following Monday, she mused on her situation.
I didn’t give much thought to whether I would be able to handle the classes or not, I just assumed I would. I always pictured myself in a big room, with a canvas in front of me, or working on a clay statue. I never thought about pop quizzes on thousand-year-old poems. Maybe I would have done okay if I had gone straight out of high school and into college. But, fifty plus years of Wheel of Fortune, Dancing with the Stars, and Danielle Steel novels haven’t put me in a position to succeed.
As Professor Dunhill had suggested, she had bought a copy of the notes for his lectures, but they didn’t help her much. The notes went over her head just as much as the lectures did.
I think what I need is Lecture Notes for Dummies or something. The problem is, they won’t let me take the classes I really want to take until I get the basics out of the way and I don’t know if I’m going to be able to get those basics done. So where does that leave me?
Cassandra was not a quitter, so she did her best to persevere. Eventually, by buying study guides, paying attention to the study guides, and really applying herself, she was able to bring her grade in Theory of Literature to a 2.2. That translates to a C, which was worse than any grade she had ever received from kindergarten through her senior year in high school.
She arrived in class ten minutes before eight. When she walked in, Linda Pettigrew was already there, nose buried in her copy of Chaucer’s Tales in Middle English, which they had yet another test on that day.
I’d like to hate her, but I don’t. She doesn’t seem mean, she just works harder than everyone else. Or, maybe I should just admit that she’s smarter than me.
When Cassandra took a seat a few chairs away, Linda raised her head and said, “Morning,” somewhat absently.
“Bet you’re gonna ace another one, aren’t you?”
Linda shrugged her thin shoulders. “Maybe. I hope so. I stayed up until three o’clock last night studying.” She closed her eyes, threw her shoulders back and in an orator’s voice, said, “Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote, the droghte of March hath perced to the roote, and bathed every veyne in swich licóur, of which vertú engendred is the flour.”
“Eeep,” Cassandra said. “Did you memorize the whole thing?”
Linda shrugged. “Just the prologue.”
Cassandra thought back to how she had spent her own night. She had baked a big lasagna for the house, Barbie had uncorked a cheap bottle of wine, and they had sat up late, talking and laughing.
Not exactly giving it my full effort, am I? But, it’s tough in the house. Nowhere private to really study. Or, more likely, that’s just an excuse.
“I think I’m going to pass this class,” Cassandra said, “but I’m not sure about the rest.”
Linda looked up, somewhat interested. “Yeah?”
“Well, I’ve got Psych 101, too, and I can maybe pass that one, but I’m completely lost on Poli Sci, and don’t even ask me about Algebra.”
“You know why that is, right?”
Cassandra had the strangest feeling Linda was going to say, “Because you’re really a seventy-year-old woman in an eighteen-year-old’s body.”
Instead, she said, “They wanted us to pass and get good grades in high school. Well, unless we were hopeless head cases, of course. By high school, they’d pretty much figured out who those were. For the rest of us, they made it a pretty easy path to get good grades. Show up, do your homework, don’t smart off to the teacher, you’re pretty much guaranteed at least a B.”
Cassandra thought back on her high school years. It had been a long time, but she couldn’t really disagree with what Linda was saying. It didn’t hurt to be a Collins at Middle Falls High, either. It wasn’t a guarantee, but it got you off on the right foot with the tea
chers.
“Here, or at any major university, they don’t care. They put obstacles in our path. They’re creating the leaders of tomorrow and all that. That’s why they do things like give us tests on the first day of class like Dunhill did.”
“You’re a smart cookie.”
Linda shook her head. “I’m not all that smart. I’m just following in my sister’s footsteps. She went to Berkeley three years ago. For Christmas last year, she made me a little booklet of helpful hints. One of them was to beware of Professor Dunhill, because he starts every semester with a test on the first day.”
Cassandra looked wistful, wishing that she’d had an older sister like that.
“I’ll loan it to you if you want. I think I’ve got it memorized.”
“That’s sweet of you, but I don’t think it will help me. I think I’ve forgotten too much of what I learned in high school.”
Linda looked surprised. “Really? When did you graduate?”
I can say “this year” or “fifty years ago.” Which one are you most likely to believe?
“Just this year, but I think everything I learned leaked out of my ears while I slept this summer.”
Just then, a small flood of the remaining students poured in, followed by Professor Dunhill.
He handed out another test, which Cassandra was sure she failed.
As she walked to her next class, she noticed a student with an easel and canvas set up at the edge of the Common Grounds next to Dwinelle Hall. It was such a fetching scene—a young man, living out her dream—that Cassandra turned her back to the painter, so she could get the perspective of what he was seeing. Then, she walked around behind him to see what he was painting.
Some students called Dwinelle, one of the biggest buildings on campus, the freshman maze because of its confusing architecture. One wag said, “It’s not unusual for a freshman to wander in at the beginning of their first semester, and stumble out into the sunlight, blinking like a mole, just in time for graduation.”
That was exactly what this painter must have had in mind. He was painting the building, but instead of a realistic portrayal of the building, he was painting it as an endless maze that stretched out into infinity.
