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I decide to walk him to the dining hall, maybe eat there for a change. Eating alone sucks, but there are only so many microwave burritos a girl can stomach. When we get downstairs, I ask him if he really went to South Bronx High School.
When he speaks again, he sounds like Dee. Or the Dee I know. “They closed South Bronx High School a year ago, not that I ever went there. I went to a charter school. Then I got snagged in Prep for Prep—scholarship thing—by a private school that’s even more expensive than Sidwell Friends. Take that, Miss Thang.”
“Why didn’t you just tell her where you went?”
He looks at me and then, reverting to the voice he’d used with Kendra, says, “If homegirls wanna see me as ghetto trash”—he stops and switches to his lispy, sassy voice—“or big-ass queer”—now he switches to his deepest Shakespeare voice—“I shall not take it upon myself to disabuse them.”
When we reach the dining hall, I feel like I should say something to him. But I’m not sure what. In the end, I just ask him if he wants chocolate chip or butter cookies next time. Grandma sent me both.
“I’ll supply cookies. My mama sent up some homemade molasses spice ones.”
“That’s nice.”
“Nothin’ nice about it. She’s throwing down. She wasn’t about to be outdone by somebody’s grandma.”
I laugh. It’s a strange sound, like an old car being started after a long time in the garage. “We won’t tell my grandma that. If she accepts the challenge and bakes her own cookies, we might get food poisoning. She’s the worst cook in the world.”
It becomes a routine then. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday: cookies, tea, alarm clock, Shakespeare, study. We still don’t talk much about ourselves, but little things slip through the cracks. His mother works at a hospital. He has no siblings, but five zillion cousins. He’s on a full scholarship. He has a rather huge crush on Professor Glenny. He is double-majoring in history and literature, and maybe a minor in political science. He hums when he’s bored, and when he’s really into his reading, he twists his hair around his index finger so tight, it turns pink. And just as I suspected from that first day in class, he’s smart. That he doesn’t tell me, but it’s obvious. He’s the only one in the entire class to get an A on Glenny’s first assignment, a paper on Henry V; Professor Glenny announces it to the class and reads snippets of Dee’s paper to the class as an example of what the rest of us should strive for. Dee looks mortified, and I feel sort of bad, but the Glenny groupies regard Dee with such looks of naked envy that it’s almost worth it. I, meanwhile, get a very solid B on my paper about Perdita and themes of lost and found.
I tell Dee little things about me too, but half the time, I find myself censoring what I want to say. I like him. I do. But I’m trying to make good on my tabula-rasa promise. Still, I sort of wish I could ask Dee’s opinion about Melanie. I sent her the very first piece I made from ceramics class, along with a note about how I’d completely upended my schedule. I sent it Priority Mail, and then a week went by, and I didn’t hear anything. So I’d called her up to make sure she’d gotten it—it was just a crappy, handmade bowl, but it had a beautiful crackly turquoise glaze—and she apologized for not responding, saying she was busy.
I told her all about my new classes, and about the crazy lengths I was going to so my parents wouldn’t find out: sending them biology tests with improving scores (Dee’s and my lengthy study sessions are paying off) but also sending them my old chemistry lab partner’s tests, with my name on them. I figured she’d get a good laugh about this, but instead her voice had stayed flat, and she’d warned me about the kind of trouble I’d be in if I got caught—as if I didn’t already know that. Then I’d switched gears, telling her all about Professor Glenny and Dee and reading out loud and how mortifying I’d thought it would be to read in front of the class but how everyone does it and it isn’t so bad. I’d expected her to be excited for me, but her voice had been practically monotone, and I’d found myself getting so angry. We haven’t talked or emailed in a couple of weeks, and I’m both upset about it and relieved too.
I’d kind of like to tell Dee about this, but I’m not sure how to do it. Aside from Melanie, I’ve never had a really close friend, and I’m unclear how you make one. It’s silly, I know. I’ve seen other people do it. They make it seem so easy: Have fun, open up, share stories. But how am I supposed to do that when the one story I really want to tell is the very one I’m supposed to be wiping clean? And besides, the last time I did open up to somebody . . . well, that’s precisely why I’m in need of a tabula rasa in the first place. It just seems safer to keep it like it is—friendly, cordial, nice and simple.
At the end of February, my parents come up for Presidents’ Weekend. It’s the first time they’ve been up since Parents’ Weekend, and having learned my lesson, I go to elaborate lengths to keep up the image they expect of me. I put my clocks back out. I highlight pages in my unused chemistry textbook and copy labs out of my old lab partners’ book. I make us lots of plans in Boston to keep us off campus, away from incriminating evidence and the Terrific Trio (who now have become more of a Dynamic Duo anyway because Kendra’s always with her boyfriend). And I tell Dee, with whom I now study on weekends sometimes, that I won’t be around and that I can’t get together Friday and Monday.
“You throwing me over for Drew?” Drew is the second best Shakespeare reader in the class.
“No. Of course not,” I reply, my voice all pinched and panicked. “It’s just I have one of those trips with my ceramics class Friday.” This isn’t entirely untrue. My ceramics class does go on field trips occasionally. We’re experimenting with glazes, using different kinds of organic materials in the kiln, and sometimes even firing our pottery outside in earthen furnaces we build. I do have field trips, just not in the next couple of days.
“And I’ll probably work on a paper this weekend.” Another lie; the only class I have papers for is Shakespeare. It’s amazing how good at lying I’ve become. “I’ll see you Wednesday, okay? I’ll bring the cookies.”
“Tell your grandma to send some more of those twisty ones with the poppy seeds.”
“Rugelach.”
“I can’t say it. I just eat it.”
“I’ll tell her.”
The weekend with my parents goes decently enough. We go to the Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Science. We go ice skating (I can’t keep my blades straight). We go to the movies. We take tons of pictures. There’s an awkward moment or two when Mom pulls out next year’s course catalog and starts going over class schedules with me and then asks me about my summer plans, but I just listen to her suggestions like I always have and don’t say anything. By the end of the weekend, I feel drained in the same way that I do after a marathon session of reading Shakespeare aloud and trying to be all those different people.
On Sunday afternoon, we’re back at my dorm before dinner when Dee pops by. And though I haven’t told him one single thing about my family, not even that they were coming, let alone what they believe about me, what they expect of me, he still shows up in a pair of plain jeans and a sweater, something I’ve never seen him wear before. His hair is pulled back into a cap and he’s not wearing lip gloss. I almost don’t recognize him.
“So, how do you two know each other?” Mom asks after I nervously introduce them.
I freeze, in a panic.
“We’re biology lab partners,” Dee says, not missing a beat. “We’re raising the Drosophila together.” It’s the first time I’ve ever heard him pronounce it correctly. He picks up the tube. “Breeding all kinds of genetic abnormalities here.”
My dad laughs. “They had us do the same experiment when I went here too.” He looks at Dee. “Are you pre-med also?”
Dee’s eyebrows flicker up, the slightest ripple of surprise. “I’m still undeclared.”
“Well, there’s no rush,” Mom says. Which almost makes me laugh out loud.
