Prep: A Novel (5 page)

It was folded into my dictionary, where I’d left it the night before. I unfolded it and set it on the desk. The second
N
in
CONGRATULATIONS
had smudged. I licked my finger and pressed it against the smudge, which made it worse. I wondered why I’d written
Good luck at Harvard!
That was stupid; it made it seem as if she were departing immediately, when she’d be at Ault for another seven months. The stars and vines looked, suddenly, like the efforts of a nine-year-old. And
Love
—love? Who was I kidding? We hardly knew each other. I picked up the card and tore it into long strips, then ripped the strips into thirds. The pieces of paper fluttered in the trash can before they settled.

I thought of Dede, her panicky denials, her fingers gripping my arms. I wanted to talk to somebody about what I’d seen, but everyone was at dinner. I picked up one of Dede’s celebrity magazines and lay on my bed, trying to read. The world outside Ault seemed strange and irrelevant, and I had trouble paying attention to the articles. Before long, I had set aside the magazine, removed the yearbook from my closet, and was looking at Gates’s picture again. When I heard voices outside, I hurried to the bathroom to avoid Dede’s return and hid in a stall for ten minutes. Then I went straight to Little’s room. “Am I bothering you?” I asked when she opened the door.

“I don’t know yet, do I?” She was wearing glasses and a gray sweatsuit.

“Can I come in?”

She stood aside to let me enter. I sat on her desk chair, though she hadn’t invited me to, and she sat on her bed, her legs crossed in front of her open textbooks and notebooks. I had never been inside Little’s room, and it was stark, without posters or tapestries or photographs. The only personal touches besides her bedspread and books were a clock radio on the windowsill, a plastic bottle of lotion on the dresser, and a small teddy bear at the foot of the bed. The bear wore a pale purple sweater; looking at it, I felt a plunging sadness that entirely eclipsed the suspicion and irritation I felt toward Dede. But the sadness was too large for me to understand, and then it passed.

“You won’t believe what happened,” I said. “I know who the thief is.”

Little raised her eyebrows.

“It’s Dede.”

Little’s eyebrows sank and scrunched together. “Are you sure?”

“I caught her red-handed. She was going through Sin-Jun’s dresser.”

Little murmured, “Dede Schwartz,” then nodded. “I believe it.”

“It’s so creepy,” I said. “It makes her seem like a pathological liar or something, the way she made sure she was the first one whose money was stolen.”

“I knew I didn’t like that girl. What did Madame say?”

“I haven’t told her yet. Dede begged me not to.”

“But you saw her digging around in Sin-Jun’s dresser.”

“Exactly.”

“If you don’t turn her in, she’ll just keep doing it.”

“I know. I don’t get why she would steal, though. She gets a huge allowance from her parents.”

“You try to understand a lot of folks here, all you’ll do is give yourself a headache.”

“Can I sleep in your room tonight?” I asked.

Little hesitated.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I don’t need to.” I stood, embarrassed. “I have to see Dede sooner or later, right?” When I left the room, Little made no effort to stop me.

I hid again in the bathroom, this time in the corner shower, which was known to have low pressure and thus was never used. I still hadn’t changed out of my formal dinner clothes, and sitting on the blue tiled floor in my skirt felt odd and unclean. Once I heard the bathroom door open and Dede call, “Lee? Lee, are you in here?”

Before curfew, I went downstairs and found Madame. I opened my mouth to tell her about Dede, but standing in the entry of her apartment, I could feel the seriousness of the accusation, how much it would alter both my own life and Dede’s. I wasn’t ready yet.

“I’m going to bed,” I said. “Can I check in early?”

I shook her hand, then returned to the bathroom.

At the infirmary, six rooms containing only beds lined either side of the hallway. There was also the room where the nurse sat and where you had your temperature taken when you first came in, the TV lounge, and the kitchenette with a poster featuring nutrition trivia. Among other facts, the poster informed readers that eating chocolate released the same chemicals in the brain as being in love. From time to time during the years I was at Ault, I’d be at a lunch table, either listening to or participating in a conversation about any number of topics, and someone would say, “Did you know that chocolate releases the same chemicals in the brain as being in love?” And other people at the table would say, “I think I’ve heard that, too,” or, “Yeah, I remember reading that somewhere.” But you could never remember where until you were back in the infirmary, sick or faking sick, the rigidity of a normal day having given way to some long, pale, vaporous unfolding of hours: You slept, you ate pudding and toast, you watched daytime TV with other students who’d also ended up in the infirmary on this day, whom perhaps you were friends with or perhaps you’d never spoken to before.

This was my first visit to the infirmary. The previous night, I’d returned to my room after midnight, when I knew Dede and Sin-Jun would be asleep. At dawn, I rose, pulled on jeans, and left the dorm without even brushing my teeth. If I could just have another day to sort things out, I thought as I walked through the cool, still-dark morning, then I’d be able to decide how to turn Dede in.

The nurse took my temperature and assigned me a room, and I fell deeply asleep. When I awakened, the yellow light of late morning was shining through the shade, and I could hear the TV. I stepped into the hall in my socks.

A mousy sophomore girl named Shannon Hormley was in the lounge, and so was a senior guy, Pete Lords, one of the two boys who’d been holding a stereo speaker the day Gates had danced at roll call. They both looked up when I entered the room, but they didn’t say hello, so neither did I. I sat down. They were watching a soap opera. On-screen, a woman in a blue sequined dress said into a telephone, “But with Christophe in Rio, I simply don’t see how that’s possible.” I wondered who had selected the show. Already, I wanted to get up and leave, but I thought that doing so this quickly might seem peculiar. I glanced around the room. On the table next to my chair, several pamphlets were fanned out.
I’m considering suicide,
one said across the top. The next said,
I was a victim of date rape,
and the third said,
Am I gay?
Something in my stomach tightened. I averted my eyes, then glanced at Shannon and Pete to see if either of them had been watching me read the pamphlets. It seemed they hadn’t.

I pretended to become absorbed in the show while I waited for them to leave. When they did—Shannon disappeared after half an hour, then Pete lumbered into the kitchenette—I grabbed the third pamphlet and darted back to my room.
Women who identify themselves as lesbians are sexually attracted to and fall in love with other women,
the pamphlet said.
Their sexual feelings toward women are normal and appropriate for them. These feelings emerge during childhood or adolescence and continue into adulthood.
There were questions you could ask yourself:
When I dream or fantasize sexually, is it about boys or girls? Have I ever had a crush on or been in love with a girl or a woman? Do I feel different from other girls?

I tried to imagine kissing Gates: We would be standing, facing one another, and then I would step forward. I might have to get on tiptoe, because of her height. I’d tilt my head so our noses didn’t smash and press my mouth against hers. Her lips would be dry and soft; when I parted mine, she’d part hers, too, and our tongues would slip against each other.

The scenario neither disgusted nor excited me. But maybe this was because I was trying not to be excited. I continued to read the pamphlet:
The first time I touched my girlfriend’s breasts, it felt like the most natural thing in the world—Tina, 17.
I thought,
Tina, 17, where are you now? Are you still seventeen, or are you an adult? Do your neighbors or coworkers know your secret?
I could picture her in Arizona, say, or Oregon, but I doubted she lived in New England. As far as I knew, there were no gay people at Ault. In fact, I had met a gay person only once in my life and that had been at home—he was our neighbor’s son, a guy in his thirties who’d moved to Atlanta to work as a flight attendant.

I imagined placing my fingers on the mound of Gates’s breast. And then what? Would I clutch it? Move it around? The image was absurd. But if I didn’t want to touch her, I wasn’t sure what I did want. I stuffed the pamphlet in my coat pocket, out of sight, and wished I hadn’t taken it.

When I returned to the room in the early evening, Dede was sitting on her bed, clipping her fingernails. She jumped up when she saw me. “Where have you been? I have something to show you.” She pulled my arm, leading me back out of the room. We stopped in front of the giant trash can in the hall, and the same stench from our room filled the air. “Look,” Dede said and pointed. Dry, stringy wax lay on top of newspapers, an empty potato chip bag, and the remains of a potted plant. The wax was yellowy-orange and perhaps a foot long. “It’s squid,” Dede said. “Dried squid. That’s what stinks. It was in Sin-Jun’s closet. Isn’t that the grossest thing you’ve ever seen?” Dede seemed happy, no longer desperate. “I asked Sin-Jun if I could look around, and she said fine, and I found it. I told you that’s all I was looking for.”

“It’s food?” I asked and when Dede nodded, I said, “Where’s Sin-Jun now?”

“On the phone with her mom, I think. She feels bad, but she should because it’s disgusting.”

“Did you tell her you were looking through her dresser earlier?”

“Lee, you need to get a grip about that. If you try to turn me in, you’ll just embarrass yourself. Why don’t you wait and see if Sin-Jun complains that anything is missing? If she doesn’t, I think that clears my name.”

“Nothing will be missing,” I said. “I’m sure you put it back.” Oddly, now that I was starting to believe Dede was innocent, I felt more free to accuse her.

“Okay, Nancy Drew.” She leaned in. “Let me tell you something. You don’t need to be such a freak. It’s your own fault. If you didn’t do stuff like this, maybe we could be friends.”

“Gosh, Dede.” I made my voice earnest, like a girl’s from a 1950s sitcom. “Could we really?” It felt good to be unpleasant; I was relieved to find I still had an aptitude for it, underneath my Ault-induced meekness and sentimentality.

Dede shook her head. “I feel sorry for you.”

She went down the hall, fingernail clippers in hand, and I presumed she’d gone to discuss my freakishness with Aspeth. I hung up my coat and lay on my bed, on top of the covers. Then I remembered the pamphlet in my coat pocket. I retrieved it, and when I saw the idiotic title—
Am I gay?
—a bitterness rose in me.
No, you’re not gay,
I thought.
You’re a pamphlet.
I wanted to burn it.

I heard the doorknob turn, and I pulled open the top drawer of my desk and shoved the pamphlet inside. I assumed Dede was back with fresh insults, but it was only Sin-Jun.

“I so sorry about squid,” she said.

“It’s okay.”

“I was bad roommate.”

“It’s really not a big deal,” I said. “Don’t worry.”

“You’re not here today,” she said.

“I was in the infirmary.”

“You have sick?”

“Sort of. Yeah.”

“I make tea for you.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “But thanks.”

“No tea?”

“Not now.”

She seemed disappointed, and I thought that I should have accepted the offer, but the moment had passed.

It was in Spanish class, just after lunch, that I remembered. Terror passed through me. The pamphlet was in my desk, in the top drawer—the most obvious place imaginable! The thief would be looking for cash, but how much more interesting, how damning, this would be.

Twenty minutes were left in class. I tried to calm myself with math: If nineteen of us lived in Broussard’s, and if four thefts had occurred over the last six weeks, then the likelihood was slim, it was infinitesimal, that one would occur between now and the end of sports practice, when I could get back to the dorm. But already one of the thefts had been in my room. And anyway, how could I rely on numbers, their cold impartiality? What did numbers care if everyone at Ault thought I was a lesbian?

Fifteen minutes were left in class, then ten, eight, five, four, two. When the bell rang, I bolted from the schoolhouse. I would be late to biology class next period, if I didn’t miss it altogether, but having my name reported to the dean seemed a small price to pay for hiding the pamphlet.

Hurrying across campus, outside when most everyone else was in class, I thought of the day I’d left Ancient History and felt a tenderness toward my earlier self. Things actually hadn’t been so bad then. At least, they hadn’t been so complicated.

I cut through the courtyard, past the empty granite benches where I’d met Gates. It was a windy, overcast day, and when I opened the door to Broussard’s, the handle was cold.

This is the part I think about the most often: the timing of it. Sometimes I wonder about the accidents that happen to a person—car crashes, falling tree branches, fires in the night—and I wonder, were they avoidable or were they destined? Once they’ve decided to occur, will the bad coincidences of your life seek you out, their shape changing, their consequences staying the same? Or maybe their shape doesn’t even change; maybe they hold form, waiting for you as patiently as turtles.

Little emerged from our room just as I was about to enter. It was as if she had anticipated my arrival and was opening the door for me, except that once it was open, she did not step aside deferentially, and we almost collided.

We stood there for so long without speaking that I thought we might not speak at all. But that kind of silence would happen only in a movie; in real life, it’s so hard not to clutter the significant moments by talking.