I raise my eyes. The dean’s change of affect is pronounced and totally devastating to me. He is no longer hostile because he’s no longer dealing with a student who is being deliberately oppositional. He has softened because he is dealing with a disabled person, someone from whom it would be cruel to expect normal functioning.
Of all the things my illness can take from me, I never expected it would be my credibility.
And certainly not when such a thing matters most.
chapter TWENTY-THREE
I return to Tellmer by myself and have no memory of the trip back. The fact that I am suddenly at the door to Strots’s and my room supports the dean of students’ position that the reliability of my testimony is suspect. Opening the way in, I find my roommate dismantling her bed. She’s lifted the mattress up off its seat of springs.
She looks over at me. “Have you seen my cigarettes?”
That this is the first thing she asks does not offend me. Nothing has changed in her situation as a result of my going off with Mr. Pasture, and I’ll bet she didn’t have any hope in that regard as I was leaving.
“Sorry. I took them.”
As her face registers surprise, I close the door and go over to retrieve the Marlboros and their matching red Bic lighter from my desk.
“I didn’t smoke any,” I say as I hand her things back to her. “I moved them to prove I was smoking.”
The statements, taken at face value, make no sense, but neither of us is in a rush to sort it all out. I sit on my bed. She sits on hers and cracks the window.
“You want to be a smoker now?” she says in a conversational tone, as if we’re waiting in a doctor’s office or perhaps at a beauty parlor, as if she doesn’t care about the answer particularly, but feels the need to make neighborly talk.
“I figured out what Greta was going to tell them, how she was going to spin everything. I figured they would ask about the closed door, so I wanted to have an excuse. I told them I was smoking and that’s why it was closed. Not because we were… doing anything.”
I’m as defeated as she, but for a different reason. In her case, the truth has been used against her. In my case, the truth does not exist.
She looks up from the lit end of her cigarette. The smile that touches her face is sunlight breaking through dark clouds, a welcome slice of golden warmth that does not last.
“You did that?” she says.
“I wanted to help. Any way I could.” I shrug. “But it didn’t matter. They don’t believe me—not about Greta’s pranks or anything else.”
Strots exhales toward the window. “They want to kick me out.”
I close my eyes. I am going to cry. “Greta deserved what she got in the phone room.”
“Not because of that.”
I glance over. “Because Greta told them you hit on her last year?”
“She said I forced myself on her. They called it sexual assault.”
This freezes me, even as I tell myself I should not be surprised. But I just assumed Greta would play the made-a-pass card, although why should I have underestimated her. Of course, she would take it further.
“That’s a lie,” I say.
I have seen the heartbreak in Strots’s eyes. I can guess the illusion of mutual love Greta engineered, and having to use her own body to do the job would be totally irrelevant to her.
“I thought we were in a relationship,” Strots says as she bends down and untwists the cap of her soda ashtray. “She saw things very differently, at least according to what she told them.”
“Oh, God… Strots.”
“The charge against me—how did they put it? ‘Conduct unbecoming an Ambrose girl.’ I believe that’s the gay part, but it covers the sexual assault, too.” She laughs in a hard rush. “Get this, though—Greta is refusing to press charges.”
“She better not. She’d have to lie to the police.”
“She says she’s too traumatized, and the school wants to cover it up anyway. Oh, and the physical attack downstairs? They didn’t even bring it up. Then again, they have more than enough against me already. Jesus Christ, to think that I nearly killed her and that’s no big deal compared to this school’s Christian values being offended. Unbelievable.”
“When are you leaving?”
Strots laughs again without smiling. “Well, see, that’s the thing. My father being who he is, and that sports center only half finished? They’re ‘meeting’ with him.”
“Who is?”
“The headmaster. I don’t know what’s going to happen. They want me gone, but they like that new weight room and gymnasium and the endowment. They’re going to try to negotiate to keep the project going.”
“So maybe you’ll get to stay,” I say hopefully.
“Doubt it. My father is pissed at me. If the administration doesn’t kick me out, he’ll probably pull me himself.”
As she taps her ashes into the Coke’s narrow neck, I cannot fathom that we will not sit like this ever again. I begin to tear up.
“I tried,” I say as I look down at my shirt, at the black expanse that has been so completely and competently dyed. “I really did. Maybe if I hadn’t bought the ColorStay…”
“What?”
“I doesn’t matter.” I shake my head, and correct myself. “It. It doesn’t matter.”
“You’re right about that.” Strots stares out the window, one arm tucked around her middle, the other up on the vertical so that her hand with the cigarette is right by her tanned face. “I really hate her. I really fucking hate Greta Stanhope.”
Strots drops her butt into the bottle and exhales in exhaustion as she looks around. Then she gets up, goes to her closet, and pulls out the camping backpack and the duffel she walked in with that first day.
As she tosses them on her bed, I say, “Why are you packing? You don’t know you have to go.”
My tone is pleading. I feel like a small child, staring up into the face of an adult who has the power to ruin my life.
“Might as well be ready. And I can’t sit still.”
I take care of the stationary side of things while Strots makes an efficient decampment from her bureau, her desk, and her bed. Even as I keep out of her way, I’m participating in the preparation for her departure: I’m the one doing the crying. Tears are rolling off my face and landing on the dyed shirt that did us in.
I’m crying for Strots. For Keisha. For me.
It’s all so wrong. However, I think that Strots wants to leave. Not because she doesn’t like me or love Keisha, but because she’s done with everything here. I can’t blame her.
When my roommate has finished with her packing, she puts her load by the door. “Listen, I have a favor to ask.”
I sniffle and drag my palms down my eyes and my face. “Anything.”
She points to a plate and a chef’s knife that she took out from under her bed and left on the corner of her desk. “Can you return those to Wycliffe tomorrow? I feel bad throwing ’em out. I shouldn’t have taken them in the first place.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Thanks.” She looks at the ceiling. “Anyway, I’m going upstairs.”