The St. Ambrose School for Girls(7)
I am my mother, giving my power over to a stranger, all because of a self-created myth of their authority and higher status over me. I am a shadow in my black clothes, looking to conform to another’s contours on the ground, following them wherever they go.
The only benefit to Ambrose that I’d seen was getting a break from Tera Taylor, undiscovered movie star. Now it seems I have brought all my own baggage along with my two suitcases.
On the far side of the door that Strots closed with her foot, there is a burst of laughter and chatter. Greta has broken the seal of her privacy and I have a sense of many girls skipping out, the pressure released, a cascade of Benetton and Esprit like sequins spilled from a dressmaker’s pocket.
When I look back at Strots, she’s staring at me in the same way I assessed her lighter and soft pack. I’m used to this expression on people. Behind their eyes, they’re wondering about me, connecting dots that, if I could read minds, I suspect would make me defensive and sad, even though they’re probably somewhat close to the truth.
“I’m going to give you a piece of advice,” Strots says in a low voice. “Don’t give them what they want.”
“Who is they?”
“You’ll know who I’m talking about,” Strots mutters as she puts her cigarette between her teeth and unclips the flap on the top of the backpack. “Just don’t give ’em what they’re looking for and they’ll get bored. They only like chew toys with the squeakers still in ’em.”
chapter THREE
Two nights later, I’m asleep on my back in bed when my eyes flip open. My first thought is that I’m glad I was in any sort of REM state. Settling here in the midst of all the dorm activity is proving to be a challenge, and I’ve never had a roommate before. And then there is the incessant traffic in the bathroom.
I turn my head on my thin pillow. Moonlight is streaming in the central window that I’ve come to think of as a referee that holds Strots’s furniture on her side and mine on my side. Across the floor between our line of scrimmage, geometric shadows thrown by the frames of the panes cut the lunar glow into blond brownie pieces on the pine boards.
Strots is curled tightly on her side facing me, her head ducked into her hugging arms, her legs drawn up, yet scissored below the knees. It is not a fetal position. It’s as if she has a ball in her grip and is rushing through players on an opposing team. Her drawn brows confirm this impression and so does what I’ve gleaned about her character over these forty-eight hours of our cohabitation. She is an athlete in everything she does. The world is her overtime.
Sitting up, I slip my bare feet out from my scratchy sheets and place them on the blond brownies. I am quiet as I go to the door, but I’m not as worried about waking Strots up as I was the first night. She’s not disturbed by much, and I envy how that generalizes from her waking hours into her dreamscapes.
Our door doesn’t make a sound as I open it, and thanks to the moonlight, there’s no adjustment of my eyes as I step out into the hall. Looking both ways, as if I’m at a busy intersection and trying to cross with no pedestrian light, I’m struck by how many girls my age are sleeping right now. Slumber is an intimate state, marked by vulnerability. To be so close to so many strangers as they twitch like dogs on a rug, separated only by doors that have no locks on them, makes me feel as if I’m an intruder in all of their houses at once.
I don’t have far to go to get to the bathroom, and that’s the problem Strots pointed out that first day. No one is inside when I enter and the details of the buttercup-yellow facility don’t really register in my fog, other than it, as always, reminds me of that Mercedes. One thing does stand out, however. The florist-shop air in here, heavy with humidity and the bouquets of so many soaps, shampoos, and conditioners, is the kind of thing that I haven’t decided whether I find noxious or magical.
After I use the toilet and wash my hands, I stand over one of the trash bins at the row of sinks to dry things off and hope that I can go back to sleep. I still don’t know what woke me.
Voices register and I look up. Over the sinks, there is a row of mirrors that are lock-in-step with the basins, dancing partners that are the flash to the static porcelain. The sounds of an argument are coming through the wall.
In my groggy state, my first thought is that it’s my mother and one of her boyfriends. This conclusion is immediately discarded. Wrong bathroom, for one. For another, there’s only the male part, low and defensive, the shriller, female counterbalance noticeably absent. There are plenty of pauses, however, which suggests the woman both has a lot to say and fights in the carpet-bombing manner Tera Taylor does.
I lean toward the wall to try to catch the words. Eavesdropping like this feels both wrong and delicious, a second piece of cake stolen out of the fridge after the party is over. I am suddenly much more awake.
“—please, don’t do this again with that Molly Jansen thing.” The tone turns exhausted. “It’s been a goddamn year and the charges were dropped—I’m sorry, what was that?” Pause. And then things get sharper. “You’re the one on the road, Sandra. You chose that job—look, I have to go.” There is a short silence. “I’m—because I need to clear my head, that’s why. I love you, but—have you been drinking again? You’re slurring…”