The St. Ambrose School for Girls(86)
“Are you in love with Keisha?” I ask.
The instant the words leave my mouth, I want to snatch them back.
“Yeah,” Strots says. “And she loves me, too. Totally.”
“Be careful with her.”
Strots rolls over and looks at me. “What the hell are you talking about.”
“Not like that.” I think of Greta, standing outside her room earlier, completely unbowed. “I don’t want her to have to deal with Greta like we are, is all.”
There’s a long silence. “If she does anything to Keisha, I’ll fucking kill her.”
With that, Strots turns away again, and soon thereafter she’s doing that percolating thing she does when she snores. How I envy her ability to shut herself off even in the midst of the chaos we’re in. On my side of the room, that is just not possible.
I am still staring at the ceiling when the dawn’s early light arrives with a blush at the horizon, as if the sky is shyly delighted by the sun’s advances. Lack of sleep is dangerous for me, exactly what we bipolar patients do not need, and yet there is nothing to be done about the insomnia. My mind has been kindling all night, my silence and stillness only an exterior affect. Inside my skull, my thoughts are a heavy metal concert.
When the time comes, I go through my morning motions and so does Strots. We head to Wycliffe separately for food, and when I enter the cafeteria, I receive a lot of double takes and lingering stares. For a moment, I can’t figure out why. And then the essay in all those mailboxes comes back to me. The good news is that none of that really matters now. There’s another shoe that could be, should be, dropping, and I spend a lot of time glancing in the direction of Greta’s table. Everything looks normal over there, but it’s not going to stay that way.
Nick Hollis will catch more flak, for sure. And even if Greta doesn’t get kicked out, because as a minor she really can’t be blamed for the indiscretions of an adult, I will guarantee he won’t have anything more to do with her. He’ll be too worried about his own problems, and people who slip and fall do not want to go back and revisit their banana peel.
Talk about toys being taken away, and I wonder if Francesca is going to be pleased. I know in my gut she’s not going to be surprised.
In first period English class, which I am once again grateful I do not have with Nick Hollis, I stare ahead and see nothing. I write things down in my spiral notebook that could be an adequate representation of what’s covered by the teacher or might be doodles. I open my mouth and answer when called upon, and have no clue whether I’m speaking in tongues or not.
In Ms. Crenshaw’s geometry class, which has been mysteriously rescheduled for a day early, I actually pay attention. Not to the material. To her. Does she have bags from lack of sleep under her eyes? Yes. Do her hands shake when she takes chalk to the board? Hard to tell, but I think so. Is her voice low-level anxious? I guess.
Except this was all true before last night in the rain, her wound-up agitation an en tremblant halo around her.
And there’s an ironic twist to everything. She and I are truly on the same team now, really working together, just as she’s always wanted—except she doesn’t have any clue about the relay race we’re in or that I’ve handed her the baton. Making things worse, I can’t watch her going around the track, can’t measure her stride or her stamina.
For that matter, I don’t even know if we agree on the finish line.
What if her crush on Nick Hollis makes her determined to protect the man? She’s already been taking care of his bucket seats this whole semester, without any encouragement from him. Quite the opposite. Maybe she confronted him and demanded a movie night in return for her silence?
I have to hope jealousy will cut that cord quickly.
At the end of the day, I take a walk around campus instead of heading back to my room. In doing so, I hope to give things a further chance to play out, as if my absence in the dorm is required for the situation to fulminate properly. The idea of passing another night in strained ceiling contemplation is torture in the hypothetical. If this insomnia actually transpires? I don’t know how to get through another block of those creeping hours.
My roam takes me by the maturing superstructure of the Strotsberry Athletic Center. In spite of the late hour, there are workers crawling like ants around the site, welding, hammering, using heavy equipment. There is a long black limousine parked parallel to the construction zone, and it has to be Strots’s father, still on campus after he strong-armed the administration into keeping his daughter in school. As I keep going, I find myself glad that the rich are treated differently than anybody else. Courtesy of this double standard, I’m getting to keep my roommate, and my desperation not to be without Strots makes me embrace the favoritism that inures to my benefit. To hers.
No wonder the people in my mother’s magazines look so happy and self-satisfied. There is no uneven terrain for them, no matter their footwear.
As I arrive back at Tellmer, I’m not sure what to expect, and a strange, riding paranoia makes me rush up the stairs. It’s hard to see how my own little game of dominoes might backfire on me and my roommate, but it could happen. Greta is far better at this kind of scheming than I. Much more practice, for one thing, and then there’s the fact that the load she carries is far lighter, since she’s jettisoned the weight of a conscience long ago.