The St. Ambrose School for Girls(22)
Ms. Crenshaw clutches the baggie of white stuff to her chest. “Sarah, I’m here for you. You know that, right.”
I blink. Until now, I wasn’t sure whether the RAs had been told about my “situation.” But as she asks no questions, it is clear a report has been made.
“Thank you.” I put my hand out again. “For the salt.”
She opens her mouth like she wants desperately to jump into my madness and save me from myself. It’s kind of her. But no offense, if Dr. Warten can’t do it with all the pharmaceuticals and talk therapy at the mental hospital, no one who teaches geometry in a prep school is going to get far with a mind like mine.
“I’m always here for you,” she says as she puts the Morton’s in my palms.
As I walk out like I stole the stuff, I wave over my shoulder. I don’t want to be rude, I really don’t, and the fact that she probably gets a lot of hasty goodbyes makes me feel bad for her. But damn.
When I’m back up on the second floor, I take my laundry bag, which is full of bleach-stained yet clean clothes, and slip the dye, the ColorStay, and the plastic baggie of one cup of salt through the aperture created by the drawstring. After I swing the load onto my shoulder, I pick up the worn navy blue backpack that has my geometry and English homework in it. I’m bringing work with me because I anticipate I’ll be down there for a while and I’m never leaving any of my washer and dryer cycles unattended again.
I struggle to get out the door with my burdens and push my damp, stringy hair out of my flushed face.
“Seems like everyone got wet today.”
I look toward Greta’s voice. She is sitting back on her bed, perfectly dry and happy as a clam, a closed chemistry book next to her, a notebook opened on her lap, a CD case dismantled so that she can read the album notes. She’s in her silk robe, and only the corkscrew-curly wisps around her face suggest that she might have been out in the foul weather at some point. In the background, the new Guns N’ Roses album, Use Your Illusion I, is playing, and their ilk has never come out of this Bobby Brown room before. Greta also bought Use Your Illusion II. It’s next to her chemistry book. I didn’t figure her for a Guns N’ Roses fan, and I bet that Francesca and Stacia have also bought the albums. They’ll all hate the music, and I’m glad the three of them wasted their money. I wonder where they got the idea to buy what they did.
As I turn away without responding to her, I picture myself as her mortician, messing up the lipstick on her gray and frozen mouth.
This makes me smile.
chapter EIGHT
The following afternoon, I’m still happily surprised the dye worked as well as it did. I am walking back to Tellmer from my last class, chemistry, and I continue to look down at my pants with satisfaction and no small amount of amazement. The bleach spots that marred the black folds are essentially gone. Yes, there are faint traces of the staining out here in the bright sunlight, but I’m very confident few will notice them.
I’m very confident that Greta will not notice.
She, of course, matters the most. And when I picture her confusion growing over the passing days as I continue to appear in all manner of freshly washed, non-bleach-speckled clothing, I chuckle to myself, and then laugh out loud.
I rarely feel this kind of accomplishment. My pride is of the weak sort, the last-ditch effort of my character to protect the fragile shell of my dignity, and in its timidity, it’s always scuttling in haphazard apology for cover.
Today, however, in my resurrected clothing, I feel like I have bested Greta, and therefore I’m glowing inside. I’m radiant. I’m magnificent.
The fine day matches my mood, sure as if I control the weather with my emotions. The storms that drenched Francesca, Stacia, and me ushered out the heat and humidity, and now it is classic fall in New England, the sky a piercing blue, the sun a brilliant light bulb covered by no lampshade of clouds. With the arrival of this dry air, and the nights about to turn colder, the leaves are going to start to change fast. Soon the color show will begin, and I tell myself that this year, I will stop to enjoy the distinct seasons.
Buoyed by my current sense of accomplishment, I know that I will not miss the opportunity. In fact, I can do anything I set my mind to. My mood is an inner change of weather ushering out my dull, trudging affect. I am the brilliance that has come across this campus, across the earth itself. I am as resplendent as the sun and everyone knows this because, like the sun, I am sending out waves of energy in all directions, touching and enriching everyone’s lives.
I want to feel this way forever. And ever. And ever. And I will. This is my new state of being. From now on, I will wake up every day and be in this wide open space of awesome inspiration and actualization. No more dim corridors with closed doors for me. No more grim worries about anything. No more insanity. In fact, I will stop taking the lithium for I do not need it. I am no longer crazy. I am reset to factory settings. And accordingly, I decide that these black clothes have to go. I don’t want to be on the Greta side of having too much color, but enough of these dour, depressing togs. I will get a job during the month of January when we are off from school and I am back at home. I will save my money, and just before I return to Ambrose, the seat of my rebirth, I will go to the mall and I will buy blue jeans and tops in yellow and red and gold, and sweaters that have subtle patterns. I will trade my heavy black lace-up boots for more reasonable ones, ones that perhaps have a little heel on the back. I will even get my hair recolored so that it is all its natural shade of mahogany, and after that is done, perhaps I will get some strands of blond added in, just around the face.