The last thought that I am conscious of is the dim notation that Nick Hollis is no longer standing in the parking area.
The last thing I am aware of seeing is the tightly sealed windows on both sides of his car.
The last sound I hear is the final step my right boot takes before I leave the asphalt and walk off onto the damp, cold grass.
And then I have no memory of anything.
chapter TWENTY-SEVEN
Someone is shouting.
I open my eyes. I am groggy and disoriented, and I cannot ascertain what I am looking at as I am confronted by an expanse of white. Did I pass out and end up at an emergency room? Did I get taken to a mental hospital in Boston? Did I die and this is—
It is the ceiling. Over my bed in my dorm room.
Light is streaming through the bank of windows, creating shadows in the folds of the blankets that cover me. Morning? It must be.
As I sit up slowly, I put my hand to my face. My temples are pounding and my head feels as though it weighs as much as my entire body. Moving with care, because I worry that my skull is in danger of rolling off my shoulders and getting lost under my mattress, I look to Strots’s bed, expecting her to be asleep.
She is not. Her side of the room is empty.
And who is shouting? What time is it—
Something lands in my lap, damp and heavy, and I squeak. It is the towel that evidently had been wrapped around my hair, which is also damp and heavy. I must have taken a shower before putting myself to bed. I do not remember doing either… the soaping and rinsing or the stretching out and resting.
Who is yelling? The words are muted, distilled through some kind of distance. At first I think they are coming from outside in the hall, maybe down by the staircase. But no. Their origin is below me.
I stand up and lean into the window. Down in the parking lot, a dark-haired man in a groundskeeper uniform the color of an ivy bed is motioning toward the river with his sweat-wrinkled cap. He is speaking to a policeman who is dressed in a blue uniform and is sporting a badge, a gun, and cuffs, all of which are holstered.
The cop is nodding and making calm-down motions with his palms, like he is patting the asphalt they are both standing on. The three cars owned by our RAs are where they always are. No other people are around.
No, that is a lie.
Two men emerge from the trees by the river, and as they walk up to the cop and the groundskeeper, their heads are lowered. One has his hands linked behind himself, at the small of his back. The other is fiddling with a notebook. They’re in schlubby sports coats rather than uniforms, but the way the cop turns the handling of the groundskeeper over to them, it’s clear they’re in charge.
They take turns speaking to the man of the flapping cap, the groundskeeper’s hands shaking as he grips and re-grips his topper, twisting the brim like it’s taffy.
I look to the brambles and wonder what they have found out there.
Unable to watch for a moment longer, I leave my room, and find that Greta’s door is open. Her bed is made and there are a couple of outfits, colorful as rainbows, laid out as if she’s having a hard time deciding what, among all her options, she will put on for the day. Her roommate does not seem to be in there.
No doubt Greta is in the bathroom and I head there with heavy feet that become ever more weighty as I worry about my roommate.
Inside, the air is especially thick with steam and shampoo scents from the rounds of morning showers. There are two girls at the sinks, curved over the basins as they brush their teeth. Someone is still in the process of showering, the rainfall landing in a tinny rush on the drain.
I use the toilet and go to wash my hands. As I dry them off, I glance over my shoulder. At the bank of cubbies, Greta’s bucket is missing, so she must be the one under the spray. Strots’s is in its space, so she must be upstairs with Keisha.
The night’s repose has steeled me. Once Greta returns to her room, I’m going to tell her my truth so she can be mad at the right person. And then I need to go up and confess my sin of silence to my roommate. In front of her girlfriend, too, so that my accountability is magnified. It may be too late; Greta may be gunning for Keisha already. But my conscience needs a shower of its own.
When I get back to my room, the order of my To-Do list is inverted. Strots has returned already. She’s sitting on her bed, smoking, dressed in her sleeping rig of T-shirt and boxer shorts, her shower shoes on her bare feet. Her hair is wet and slicked back from a combing.
She doesn’t notice me.
“Strots?” I say as I quickly shut our door to make sure no one sees her with her Marlboro. “You okay?”
Maybe she’s deliberately giving me the cold shoulder? But I never told her about the panties, so how would she know that I—
Her head jerks as her eyes shift to me. “Oh, hey.”
There’s no anger in her expression. There’s no… anything, really. She’s like a billboard of herself, painted by an amateur.
“Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
I approach her cautiously. In case she wants to yell at me. When she just goes back to smoking, I’m disarmed by her detachment.
“Are you all right?” I ask.
“Oh, yeah.” She taps her cigarette on her Coke bottle’s opening and misses, ash spilling down onto her bare leg. “Just great. And you?”
As now really doesn’t seem like the right moment for my confession, I should go on about my business and intercept Greta as she comes back from her shower. But I feel compelled to stay with my roommate.
“Um, did you see the cops out there?” I say, unsure how to break the silence.
“Out where?” she says on an exhale.
“In the parking lot.”
“No.” Strots taps her ash and makes the Coke goal this time. “Was there one?”
“Three, I think.” I go over and tilt into the window. “They’re gone now.”
“Weird.” Strots rubs her face with her free hand. “So Keisha broke up with me last night.”
“What?” I fall into my desk chair. “Why?”
“It’s just too much, you know. The whole thing about Greta and me from last year.”
“But it’s resolved. I mean, your father took care of everything.”
“Keisha’s on an academic scholarship. If it gets yanked? She can’t afford to be here anymore.” Strots shrugs. “Even though I didn’t get expelled, I’m on probation and I’m contaminated in the eyes of the administration, so it’s too dangerous for her to hang out with me. Christian values and all, you know? And the school can’t sacrifice me, but she’d be out in the blink of an eye. She’s right.”
A chill goes through me. “Did Greta find you last night?” I ask with dread.
“Huh?”
“I think, ah, I think she was looking for you.”
Strots has a faraway cast to her eyes as she glances over at me, and I imagine all kinds of thoughts fighting for airtime in her head. The same thing is happening on my side of the room.
I clear my throat. “So, um, I have to tell you something—”
“You know, I think I will leave.”
“What?” My breath clogs in my throat. “What do you mean, leave. As in this dorm—or as in school?”