A House of Cards

A House of Cards

JACQUELINE WHITE

iUniverse

Bloomington

A House of Cards

Copyright © 2009, 2011 by Jacqueline White

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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4620-3288-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-3290-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-3289-1 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 09/06/2011

Contents

The Shuffle

The Deal

1. Idle Reflections

2. Guidance Counselors

3. Shopping Trips

4. Letters from Home

5. Extracurricular Activities

6. Connection and Competition

7. Botany and Zoology

8. Dinner Guests

9. Group Dynamics

10. Physical Education

11. Levels of Comfort

12. Party Crashers

13. History Lessons

14. Free Exchange of Ideas

15. Community Ideals

16. Christmas with Friends

The Flop

1. Risk Assessments

2. Things Close to Home

3. Good Company

4. Names

5. Couples

6. Campaign Promises

7. Summer Breaks

8. Free Love

9. Friendly Tensions

10. Favorite Men

11. Birthday Parties

12. Opportunity Costs

13. New York, New York

The Turn

1. Flight Risks

2. Mistaken Identities

3. Bears and Barbecue

4. Favorite Toys

5. Obligations and Responsibility

6. Brotherly Advice

7. Living Arrangements

8. Redefining Relationships

9. A Thousand Words

10. New Year`s Resolutions

11. Up in the Air

12. Times Alone

13. Gambling Men

14. Engagements

15. Wedding Planning

16. Small Starts

17. Cold Feet

18. Bachelorette Parties

19. Late Night Conversations

20. Haves & Holds

The River

1. Working Relationships

2. Legacies

3. The Philosophers

4. Men of Distinction

5. Future Aspirations

6. The People`s Court

7. Isolating Events

8. Big Brothers

9. Family Reunions

10. Escalation of Tensions

11. Vandalism and Vows

12. Ultimatums

13. Arbitration Officers

14. Social Affairs

15. Family Requests

16. Family Conflicts

17. Mirror Images

18. Final Acts

The Shuffle

September 06, 1969

At this very moment, the world is in the process of converting energies.

This was the pearl of wisdom that came to me in those wee hours between midnight and dawn when all of the truth, mysteries, and questions of life and the universe are revealed to us mere mortals.

In other words: I couldn’t sleep.

In the morning I would be moving into my room at Wolbach Hall, officially on my own for the first time in my life, and in a few days, a few, short, days, I’d be starting my first year of college at Radcliffe. I was excited! The first days of school were always exciting to me and I’d been waiting for this particular first day for a very long time. As long as I could remember I’d wanted to attend Harvard, walk the Square, take study breaks along the Charles, swap ideas with the most preeminent minds in the country, and finally I was here! Okay… so maybe Radcliffe wasn’t exactly Harvard, but that was merely geography. On Monday I wasn’t just starting another year of school, I was starting the first day of my future. Who wouldn’t be excited about that?

Unfortunately it wasn’t excitement that was keeping me up; it was images of a past that would never convert into a future.

He didn’t even turn around.

I switched on the lamp beside my bed and located my composition book from the last spot that it’d been before I’d made an attempt at sleep. At the moment it was brand new, nearly empty, the pages fresh, white, and ready to receive the many mysteries of the world. So far, though, the only thing that had been written in it was the one question that my philosophy teacher, Dr. Geiger, had started and ended the summer term on: What is duty?

All summer long we’d discussed ethics in the modern arena. We discussed the shifting movements the country was currently going through: the War, the Woman’s Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the Labor Movement, and all term he questioned, What is duty?

He had posed the question to us as if it were the most important one we’d ever be asked; as if the answer were life and death.

Oh, but it is, Professor Geiger would insist passionately. "Eichmann claimed that he was only going to work every morning; that he was only doing his duty. The slaughter of 11. Million. People. He would say slowly, each word its own sentence. As merely the course of duty. Boys grow from playing with toy guns to becoming toy soldiers, convinced that they must serve their duty in order to become real men."

Professor Geiger had lost two brothers during the War: one had enlisted willingly the day he’d turned 18, and the other had been drafted and died in a bar fight the night before he was supposed to be shipped out. They’d died within several months of each other while he was in college busy obtaining his degree. "It is a matter of life and death," he’d repeat with more gravity, meeting each of our eyes.

Now, underneath that one, solitary, question, I wrote an oversimplified answer: Duty is doing what you are morally obligated to do.

What is obligation, then? I mused. Do we have a social responsibility, a social conscious? When should social responsibility evoke civil disobedience? If we are merely acting on that which we should be doing morally are we really being disobedient? Is doing what you should do morality, or is it just complicity? Those that are complicit do what they’re told to do, when they’re told to do it: they are potential until they are called to motion.

That sentence, particularly the word ‘potential’, brought me out of my current string of musings. As long as I can remember, people have told me that I had the potential to do anything I put my mind to, that I held promise. It used to make me feel proud whenever I heard that, but then I’d taken my first physics class and it made me forever hate that word. Potential energy is merely energy that exists, at rest. Potential, then, is only the capability of mobility, not the actual movement. Potential is a wedge.

I am not potential energy, I wrote, I am kinetic, and as such I will not wait until my back is against the wall before I act!

I decided to make that my mission statement for the upcoming school year: Energy!

I turned the page and wrote that word down at the very top of my notebook, wondering if a one word mission statement was too perfunctory. I wrote down ‘perfunctory’ beside the word ‘energy’. Perfunctory =.

I yawned through my laugh, wishing that there was a clock nearby. I knew that it had to be late. I’d been up for hours as it was, and I could barely keep my eyes open. I was mentally and physically drained, yet I wasn’t quite tired enough to not see images that didn’t exist when I closed my eyes. Like Derek in a tux.

He’d look amazing, immaculate, dashing even. It’d be one of those rare times when he was all dressed up, starched and pressed with no sawdust or paint, no pencil stuck behind his ear. His cheeks would be red with that blush that he couldn’t help showing, and his face would be transformed by the force of his smile. Derek had one of those smiles that fully complemented his face; completed it like the last and most important puzzle piece of the jig-saw. Usually it didn’t take much to put that smile on his face, and of course he would be wearing a smile on this day. What was a wedding without a smile? Men always smiled; it was a moment of triumph for them, wasn’t it, and Derek was nothing without my smile.

Only… he wouldn’t be smiling at me.

The woman who met him at the end of the aisle wouldn’t be me, it wouldn’t be my face that he gazed endlessly upon, and after they exchanged vows, it wouldn’t be my forever that they disappeared off into. In this vision, he wouldn’t even look back as he disappeared into that future, the way he hadn’t looked back at the train depot to see me standing on the platform, watching him walk away: kinetic energy moving away from potential.

As I’d stood there and watched, I couldn’t help thinking that if life were like the movie pictures, my fiancé wouldn’t have been boarding a train taking him back home to Alabama. The only reason he’d be getting on that train without me would be because he had to, because of circumstances beyond his control. If this were on the silver screen, he would have been dressed in army fatigues, his hair would be the buzz cut they issued when he was drafted, and his train would be taking him to Fort Dix before he was shipped overseas to secure for all the freedoms of liberty, to save the world from tyranny and communism.

In that image I would have stood on the platform and watched, my dress billowing around me as tears poured resolutely from my eyes. He’d square his shoulders with the weight of the knowledge that the only reason he was leaving me was because his responsibility to me dictated that he had to make sure that I could live in a better world; because real Americans didn’t run from their obligations. Before he disappeared, though, he would pause in his stride, turn back to me and scoop me up into his arms, and as the symphony swelled tragically, he’d deliver one last pan-around-kiss before he jogged away.

My two best girlfriends, Susie and Jane probably, would be there for me to cry into their arms as I watched his train disappear into the horizon, and they would have just the right words to tell me to make me feel better, to make me feel more proud then abandoned. If this were a movie picture, his ring would still be on my finger, and not balled up in his fist at the bottom of his pocket, keeping company with the lint.

But then, if this were a movie, Derek and I wouldn’t have been together in the first place because Lena would never be the one standing on the platform of South Station while Burt walked away from her. It would be Elizabeth Taylor, or Debbie Reynolds, or Audrey Hepburn. There were no movies with couples like Derek and I unless you counted Sydney and his onscreen fiancé, and she had run off with him wherever he went.

If life really were a movie, I wouldn’t be heading off to college instead of getting married.

But life wasn’t a movie, and Derek and I were neither of those people: he wasn’t heading to Vietnam, just back home, and I’d stood on the platform and watched him board the train, hoping that his feet would slow, or that he would look back even once, but he didn’t.

He was just gone.

I picked up my pencil again.

What was a mission statement without goals to substantiate it? I reasoned.

Beneath the word ‘energy’ I wrote out:

Things I wish to learn:

1)    A non-major required science.

2)    Boston maritime laws.

3)    How the new Bell touch system works.

4)    A musical instrument.

5)    A non-romantic language.

6)    Why fools fall in love.

I re-read over my words, and they made me think about my mom arriving back in Bakersfield alone. I wondered if she cried. She was thirty-eight years old and living by herself for the first time in her life. She’d moved from her father’s house, to my father’s house, and since she moved out of my father’s house, we’ve been keeping each other company for the past couple of years. How strange it must have been for her, her first night back to the house to realize that she was the only one in it, and would be, possibly forever?

Thinking about that, I added another item to my list.

7)    Learn the Art of Living Alone

I didn’t want to be thirty-eight and just getting that chance. Number 7, like number 6 might, possibly, take more than a year to figure out, but it was doable.

Thinking about my mom only reminded me of the words of wisdom she had left me with as we said good-bye. Idly I wrote those down beneath my list for the year:

1)    Stay in Roxbury and Cambridge.

2)    Don’t talk to strangers or ride the transports alone.

3)    You are here to learn!

4)    You can call your aunt for anything.

5)    You can always come home.

My mom hadn’t actually said that last one, but I assumed it to be true so I added it to the list. After reading those words again, though, I put two very neat lines through that statement. I’d been trying to get away from Bakersfield and Alabama since my forced migration there when I was nine. Hell could freeze over first; I didn’t care what happened in Boston, I wasn’t going back.

Instead I reiterated my mom’s words:

6) You are here to learn.

Beneath her words and mine, I added an explanation:

No boys

Make the right kinds of friends

Don’t get involved in the ‘counter’ culture:

No sit ins

o    No demonstrations

No protests

UNDER NOCIRCUMSTANCES ARE YOU ALLOWED TO BE ARRESTED

(I speculated, though, that my aunt would post bail if I did).

    Make your family (dad) and your church (mom) proud (get straight A’s)

I remembered my mom’s preamble to her parting words and realized that they should have been added to the list first. Unfortunately it was too late for that, so I wrote it underneath everything else.

7) This is a good thing!!!

At the top of the list with a nice 1) behind it, it made much more sense, but at the bottom, beneath everything else, it just seemed out of place. The thing, what I was trying very hard to avoid, was over. And this far at the bottom of the page, it was hard to figure out if it was good.

The Deal

1. Idle Reflections

Have you ever listened to someone paint a picture of hope for you in terms of summertime? There are things in life that are expressed not by paper printed items, but by heart, and there are things that transcend simple human thought processes: there are matters that unite all creatures across all color lines, across all gender lines, even across the sands of time. There are secrets to be found in life that you can only discover when you don’t spend time looking for them . . .

My thoughts trailed, and with them they took my eyes, bringing them away from the pages of my notebook to force me to appreciate the not-quite-autumn day that surrounded us. It was one of those bright and sunny days, cloudless; the type of day that brought most people out of the dorms, and the libraries, and their residences, to do something, anything, in appreciation of the amazing weather; sun worshippers. It was the last few official days of summer, and even though it was still somewhat hot, there was a certain coolness to the air. It wasn’t a chill so much as the tiniest hint of a secret, as if autumn was letting us know that it was right around the corner and the crippling heat of the summer would soon be gone; nature was ready for change.

I wondered if humans, too, went through our own seasonal changes every quarter, mere reflections of our surroundings. Did we have a yearly time of growing, of shedding, of cooling off, and heating up, as organically a part of our nature as breathing in and out? I wondered how many relationships ended at the end of summer because they were unable to last even the hint of the drop in temperature. Were Derek and I, then, just simple functions of biology after all? I’d said something to him along those lines once and he’d gotten angry at me. I think that was the first time he’d ever told me he loved me.

The thought had me reaching for my pencil again and I looked for something else to distract me. Beside me, Erin was stretched out along her faded blue and white cotton blanket, her long, tanned, legs making a precise ‘X’ in front of her. One of her school books lay open and ignored in her lap as she took in the mostly male student body around us. In that moment particularly, she reminded me of my best friend, Patrice.

Why’d you choose Radcliffe? I wondered casually. I looked up as I posed the question, meeting Erin’s curious eye, knowing that in-between boy watching she’d been watching me clandestinely.

Her eyebrows knitted together as she considered my question. "I can’t say that I ever really chose here, she said, thoughtfully, biting down on her lip. I applied on a dare, and once my guidance counselor found out, she did everything in her power to help get me here. Her voice halted suddenly. God, Ms. Lender was an evil woman, she stated cheerfully, but she took to me for some reason." She shrugged.

Weren’t you a little apprehensive about coming here for school? I wondered for the sake of conversation.

She shielded her eyes to see me better. A little, she admitted, "but Chris isn’t that far away, and life is all about the adventure, right? Can’t be afraid to surf because of the size of the swell. You’re here, she noted. It’s not like Bakersfield’s right next door."

No, I agreed. But my aunt’s here and Bakersfield was always temporary to me so I don’t consider myself to be far from home.

I wish that Kimmy and my dad weren’t so far away, she said at my statement. I miss them so much, she added, exhaling with a sigh. A gust of wind blew her hair wildly around her face, framing it in little brown strands, and I felt a stray strand of my own hair fall against my face, flaunting the fact that it had escaped the French braid that I wore it in most days. Erin’s hair was brown like mine, but hers was a rich, deep brown color, while mine was more of a cinnamon: darker brown with red undertones, the color of dry Alabama clay. On one of those rare occasions that I had let my hair down, Derek had let his fingers comb through it, combing it onto my face just so he could brush it away, joking that it smelled exactly like cinnamon…

The end to this particular thought came in the form of a plastic white disc with red and black lettering that came whistling in between me and Erin, landing on her book as if that had been its intention. We followed the direction of the projectile to the source: a tall, lanky, dark featured young man who looked very chaste as he said, My apologies, madam. It just got away from me. He had eyes only for Erin as he spoke.

Erin was already grinning as she picked up the disc and was on her feet in seconds. She expertly whisked it back to him. No worries, she remarked. You’re forgiven.

Hey, maybe you want to join us? the guy suggested. He flashed a smile revealing every one of his front teeth, including a small one that was turned at an unusual angle. His smile, stance, and blush were the perfect combination of confidence and bashfulness to instill trust, to suggest he was a nice guy. The combination was painfully familiar and brought back other beginnings, years ago. I looked away from the exchange, retreating back to the comfort of black against white, picking up my pencil to add to the little characters that were so much like ants trailing across the page, bringing back crumbs from a picnic.

Yea, maybe, Erin remarked, an encouraging smile in her voice. I’m Erin, she pronounced confidently. This is my roommate, Tracy. She tugged at my arm as she said the words, and again I looked up.

At the mention of me, the guy’s eyes took me in speculatively. I returned the favor, cataloguing his features in case I ever needed to reference them again. They looked nothing alike, I noted. Derek was not as pale, not so thin in the face, his nose was wider, his lips thinner. As this guy looked me over, I saw myself not in terms of how I looked, but how I looked to him. His first observation, the most important: I wasn’t white. The second was that probing, dissecting gaze that tried to interpret the layers. I wondered what distance had brought him here to this particular spot. He wasn’t southern, that seemed apparent. He didn’t have a Californian ease, either; didn’t speak with a city accent, he wasn’t from New York, Jersey, or Boston.

Far out, he finally remarked, the emphasis going to Erin. I didn’t really mind the look, we all looked; I looked at people all the time. Derek… Derek, too, was a people watcher. He was an artist, a painter, a sculpture, one of those who were perpetually trying to hold a single moment in limbo as if he feared forgetting… at least that’s how I always thought of him, of us. As a graduation gift Derek had given me an idea of how he saw me; he had constructed, mostly from memory, a picture of me, copied from a photo, and in it I had been able to see exactly what he saw when he looked at me. At least I thought I had.

So I didn’t care that he looked. What chafed me so much was the value assessment that he attached to the look, like a person deciding that they knew the contents of the lunch based on the bag that it came in. I wondered how you could be so certain of who someone was by merely one look. The only thing I could tell when I looked at him was that he wasn’t my ex.

Come on, Tracy, Erin was saying, possibly at a cue I’d missed. I found myself being pulled to my feet. Dylan says that we can be on his team.

At the words, Dylan, the dark haired, green-eyed guy with the beautiful smile, smiled again, and even though I knew the smile was for Erin, I smiled back.

He’s dreamy, isn’t he? Erin whispered secretly in my ear. I thought about her fiancé, Chris, four hours away at West Point. I remembered their tearful farewell at the start of the school year.

He’s certainly nice to look at, I remarked, encouragingly. I let my notebook fall back to the blanket and I flashed another smile at large to the people around me. In high school I stuck mostly to myself by choice; I didn’t want the distractions.

But that was high school Tracy. I was in Boston now, and the times, they were a’changin’

We played an impromptu game involving lots of running, some collision, and mad dashes after that little piece of plastic until time passed in a tangible way and the teams broke apart to once again become individuals who had to head to late afternoon classes, early dinners, or jobs. Dylan and Erin had a hushed, secretive, conversation while I packed up my sack. She came back to our little land claim smiling, her face sufficiently flushed.

What’s with the smile? I wondered.

Her smile grew slowly until it covered corner to corner. Nothing in particular, she responded vaguely. She noted my movements. You’re not heading back to the dorm? she protested. It’s still early!

As if in agreement, underneath a different tree several feet away, two someones: a blonde haired man with a flute, and a black haired woman in a patchwork skirt and a guitar, had started playing ‘Peter and the Wolf’. Almost impulsively people drifted toward them to listen, as they often do when music is involved. It brought to mind the article that I’d read about an event that had just taken place in Bethel, New York, where the common thread of music had bonded hundreds of thousands of people for one instance. It reminded me, too, of the sheet music that I had sitting on my desk, of scales that I was supposed to be practicing.

I have to work tonight, I informed her.

Erin looked yearningly toward the small group of people now sitting cross-legged under the trunk. I wish I could play the guitar, she remarked. I always wanted one, but there was never any money for it. Dad wouldn’t have thought it useful to learn anyway.

Even though we’d had a piano in my house when I was little, my dad would have probably thought the same. The piano had been my dad’s wedding present to my mom. The progression of the knowledge of how to play—my Grandpa’s mother had been the one to teach my Grandpa’s uncle, who had taught my Grandpa, who’d taught my Grandma, who taught my mom—had been as much of a tradition in my mom’s life as the music she played. The gift had been so intuitive on the part of my dad that it made me believe that my parents had once been in love.

Reluctantly, Erin decided to walk back to our House with me. The biggest drawback to living in the Quadrangle was the walk; it was easy enough to feel separated from the campus when you had to make that long trek every day. On our way to our room, we passed by the downstairs bulletin board with its notices of upcoming events, a call to join the National Organization for Women, and a sign-up sheet for intramurals with a reminder about House spirit and House pride. We walked by faces that were starting to become familiar, and on our floor we passed by the bank of telephones before continuing on to the room where our other roommate, Olivia, was predictably missing. Erin stepped out of her shoes and kicked them toward her third of the room. I tried not to follow the progression with my eyes, to not go over and pick them up and stack them neatly beneath her bed. I was in the process of learning how to room with someone else. Erin and Kimmy had shared a room all of their lives; I’d always been the only child.

So, I think I’ve figured you out, Erin stated as she watched me carefully pack by sack for the evening.

Have you? I wondered, idly, pausing in packing my latest book on law to hear what my roommate had to say.

Yes, she began with certainty. Either you’re going to make a really good lawyer-,

Or? I wondered.

A really good writer, she summed up.

I laughed at her summation. What?

Well you’re always writing and you pay meticulous attention to detail, so I figure it’s one or the other.

Well, now that I have something to look forward to, I said, dryly. Anyway, I don’t write. Not really.

You always have a pen and paper in hand and I know no one studies that much. Not even you.

I do study that much, I returned. I’m afraid that I’m simply not that interesting.

She waved my words away. I think that somewhere inside of you lurks someone completely improper, she pronounced with a flourish.

Better people have tried to draw her out, and they still haven’t found her yet, I replied. "Have you figured out what you want to do yet?" I posed, wondering if Erin had put any more effort into figuring out what she wanted from her life.

It doesn’t work that way, she answered. I can only do someone else… but I’m thinking that I need to either go into fashion editing or marine biology.

I tried to see how the two could possibly be connected. I love your ‘or’s’!

"No listen: it makes sense. I’ve never had the money to buy what’s trendy so who needs to buy it when you can determine what it is. No one really knows what’s fashionable anyway. People just rely on what other people tell them, and when all else fails they just recycle something that’s already come in and gone out of fashion. Mod? Totally a rip from the 20s, and the British Invasion… didn’t the Indians already go through that in 1665?"

I couldn’t help but laugh as she went on, And Chris wants to be a marine biologist. It doesn’t pay much, but he makes it sound fun. I don’t know; maybe I’ll choose something that will allow me to see Kimmy through college first and then go back to school for something I really want to do.

Sounds like a plan, Erin, I stated.

I just have to find a way to make it work, she said with determination. Were you writing or studying earlier?

Writing. Studying, I answered.

You’re so square, she declared. Studying’s for boys. You’ll never get a husband if you’re smart.

In that case, I began, considering her statement, I think I need to study more.

My friend’s mom told me that once, she told me. Can you believe that?

It’s kind of true, I said, thinking about it seriously. Men can’t handle smart women and deep down they all want stupid girls who will blindly adore them and not make them realize the truth about themselves.

I love your cynicism, Trace, Erin declared, laughing. "You sure you’re not a feminist? Where’s your copy of Le Feminine Mystique?" she questioned in a faux French accent.

Of course I’m a feminist, I said, dismissively, "I’m a woman. I’m not an extremist, though, and it’s Tracy. Feeling as if I sounded too harsh I explained more gently, I just don’t like that nickname very much."

You should have said something sooner! Do you have a thing against all nicknames, or just that one in particular?

Just Trace.

What if I call you Cat? For Catherine?

Knock yourself out, I remarked. She pantomimed hitting herself in the head. I had a delayed reaction laugh. And that’s not cynicism, I asserted once I had a chance to recover. It’s truth. Men are uncomfortable with driven women. They see us as aggressive just because we don’t want to be done for. Besides… I don’t want another boyfriend. I’m all for trying new things, but school comes first and guys just complicate things.

Erin gave me a probing look. You really miss him, don’t you? she wondered.

I looked away from her gaze, studying the stitching in my bag so I didn’t have to look at her. Doesn’t really matter, does it?

Of course it does! You want to talk about it? she wondered.

No, I said, shortly.

You know you can, Erin enthused. I’d listen.

There’s nothing to say, I remarked, It just didn’t work out. It happens.

I’m sorry, she whispered.

There’s nothing to be sorry for, I declared. It was just one of those things that happened. I forced a smile. Anyway I’ve got to go Erin. See you when I get back!

I finished gathering my satchel and books together, booking across campus to the law library, glad for the excuse to get away, and for the stack of books in the tombs waiting for me like old friends ready to distract me from the past.

2. Guidance Counselors

There was a girl hovering near my door when I got back to the dorm after class. She sized me up as I drew near. Are you Tracy? she wondered suspiciously.

I am, I said, slowly. I recognized the girl from the floor meeting at the beginning of the year but I couldn’t recall her name.

A Stephanie Fulbright called and asked that I pass that message along, she informed me.

My expression instantly became friendlier. Stephanie was a girl I’d met the previous summer during a high school scholar’s program on campus, and had, like me, given up her vacation this summer in favor of getting a head start on the school year. As soon as the girl brought Stephanie’s name up, I remembered that I was supposed to have called her when I’d gotten back in town.

Thank you, I said, appreciatively.

Instead of saying You’re welcome, she declared, Phone calls aren’t to exceed 5 minutes. House rules. And stalked off.

I glanced after her for a moment before continuing on to my room. Erin was reading on her bed, and she glanced up when I walked in. How’s class? she questioned in a bored sort of tone.

Class, I remarked. There was some girl out in the hallway-

Hovering around the phone’s, Erin wondered, cutting off the end of my sentence.

Yes.

Darcy, she acknowledged. She was looking for you earlier.

What’s with her? I posed. She could rival Olivia for friendliness.

No idea, Erin responded.

I dropped my belongings neatly under my desk before going back out into the hallway to make my call. The girl, Darcy, was sitting in the little study alcove a few yards away, in sight of the phone. I turned my back on her and dialed the number that was left, all the while feeling her eyes on my back. Self-consciously I drummed my fingers on the table while I waited for Stephanie to be put on the phone.

Hey, Steph, I began tentatively as soon as I heard her voice, they told me you left a message?

She didn’t hesitate with her admonishment. Why didn’t you call me? she demanded without preamble. You were supposed to call as soon as you got back in town! We had schedules to draft, study groups to plan… The world to take over.

Sorry, Steph, I forgot, I remarked, attempting to sound guilty. Considering that Derek and I had broken up the day that I’d gotten back to Boston, though, I didn’t try too hard.

Well, it’s done now, she dismissed. "The year’s already started so we’ve got to get together. Do you like bhurta?"

I wasn’t sure I knew what it was. I’ve… never tried it before, I responded after a thought, thinking it sounded like food. I hoped it wasn’t someone’s name.

Well you’ve got to! she insisted. I found this great ethnic place in the Square that you just have to try! I wondered what subgroup was covered under her broad umbrella term of ‘ethnic’. Meet me at 5:00 tomorrow so we can catch up?

Sure, I responded. What House are you in?

Moors. Don’t be late!

Ethnic meant Indian, apparently. As we walked toward City Square the next day, Stephanie kept up a steady stream of conversation over the sound of traffic, only requiring me to check in every so often to let her know that I was listening. She talked nonstop about the end of her summer, and it was only once we were surrounded by unfamiliar but tantalizing smells, and were seated with food in front of us that Stephanie turned the conversation on me.

What classes are you taking this semester, she wondered, not waiting for me to answer before she reeled off her own course load. I heard that you don’t want Bradenton for composition, she warned in between mouthfuls of her dal makhani (I ordered the kachi biryani—I wasn’t quite so adventurous when it came to food and figured anything with chicken in it couldn’t be too risky).

I already took comp over the summer with Michaels and it wasn’t so bad, I returned. I told her my courses and predictably she scoffed.

Why the hell are you taking an engineering class, she wondered. And Swahili? The way she said it made even the idea of the language sound like something dirty. Those aren’t the classes we talked about over the summer.

It’s to diversify my schedule, I explained.

A senseless science class will only lower your average and unless you’re planning on becoming an ambassador to Kenya or the Congo it is a useless application of your time. I thought that you were trying to get through-,

I was-, I said, cutting her off, but I’m not anymore, and it isn’t a useless application of my time.

What does the carpenter have to say about that, she wondered, diminishingly. You now, granted he’s even able to grasp the gravity of your course selection.

I told you to stop calling Derek that! I said a bit sharply. And anyway, your guess is as good as mine as I haven’t told him my new schedule or anything else that’s current. We broke it off.

Stephanie’s sudden look of compassion made me squirm, even if it was short lived. You broke up with the carpenter? she wondered. She paused in contemplation long enough to swallow two portions of her meal. I was wondering how long it would take you to come to your senses, she mused. I’d say that I’m sorry to hear that you’re no longer together, but to be quite frank you would have never made it to the bench with a carpenter as a husband.

Gee, thanks, Steph.

I’m only being honest! she said, defensively. "Hypothetically speaking you have the potential to be a justice on the Supreme Court someday. Opportunities that weren’t previously available are opening up for Coloreds and women and by the time you’re old enough to be considered, if you live up to the potential that I think you have, in 30 or 40 years you could be nominated for the seat. That won’t happen if you’re married to a carpenter, and that’s simply the truth. Was he even in school?"

Yes, he was, I remarked, crisply, trying to keep my voice in check. He was studying to be an accountant.

Oh that’s even worse! she decided. "At least carpenters work hard, but an accountant? That shows his apparent lack of ambition right there! I mean the only thing that’s worse than an accountant is an orthodontist; trust me on this, Tracy! That is not the kind of man you need. If you have any ambition of a robe, you need to be with a real mover and shaker, equal in strengths and intellect, or slightly less than, but not a carpenter for crying out loud!"

You know you can really be a snob sometimes, Steffy, I stated.

She was nonplussed by my comment. "No, I’m a realist, and you know I’m speaking the truth! We are the future, Tracy. We’re the ones who will someday run this country and that is a responsibility that shouldn’t be taken lightly, nor squandered away by impulsive high school decisions like thinking that a carpenter could possibly be any good for you. You could use a little snobbery in your life; it’d do you some good."

She gave me a serious look. I mean imagine being invited to the governor’s mansion and over dinner your carpenter regales the table with an anecdote about the differences between quarter inch and eighth inch drill bits! Or… - she said loudly over my attempt to cut her off. "He attempts to cut his escargot with the steak knife and ends up flinging a snail into President de Gaulle’s lap because on a carpenter’s salary there is little occasion to dine out in proper venues so he never learned the proper way to remove the meat from the shell. Then, to top it all off, he apologizes to ‘His Majesty’ because he doesn’t even know that France doesn’t have a king! Could you imagine the embarrassment?" she wondered, shaking her spoon at me in an unrefined way.

He wasn’t an imbecile just because he wanted to work on houses, you know, I stated, and I am far from being a debutante, thank you very much.

Oh, save the righteous indignation, Tracy, she dismissed, as if my feeling were no more substantial then the smoke that curled from the incense around us. "And, no you’re not a debutante; you’re a bit rough, she agreed. But . . . as long as you make the right friends, get in with the right people, and take a little advice from the snobs like me . . . you’ll learn. Where would he have any occasion to get that type of education?"

Who says that I even want to sit the bench anyway? I posed.

Well if you don’t want to, you should, she decided. There’s no point in doing something if you don’t intend to be the best at it, and I thought it was your goal to be the best.

It is-,

"Well, if that is your goal, you need to start getting in your head that everything needs to be a conscious decision."

"I know that, and that is my goal, but Justice robes were never in it, and by the way, Steph? Jesus was a carpenter."

Yes and his father created the universe, his mother was a virgin, and he rose from the dead three days after being brutally beaten and nailed to a hunk of wood, she returned, not bothering to mask her scoff. The point being is that unless Derek can walk on water he’d do nothing but stand in your way. You need someone in your life that’s on the same level as you, she reasoned.

I know some nice Colored men that I could set you up with. There’s Clarence, she mused, "but he’s too ambitious. You need someone who’s slightly less ambitious than you, that way your careers aren’t butting heads. I bet Stanley would be a great match. He’s not good looking, but he’ll have his Ph.D. in a few years, and he’d make a good cheerleader: he’s not the type to trailblaze, if you know what I mean. He’ll write a book or two, and teach at some slightly better than state college, which leaves you free to pursue your law career without interference."

Steph, I said, finally cutting her off. "I know you mean well, but I don’t need you plotting my future or figuring out who I’m going to marry. Derek and I broke up less than a month ago, and even though you might not have thought that highly of him, I’m upset, okay? Be a friend and leave me alone about it please?"

She ‘humphed’ and that was the end of that conversation.

3. Shopping Trips

Sadie called while you were gone, Erin informed me casually when I got back to the dorm. As usual, she was lying on her bed doing homework, another part of her personality that she had in common with my best friend.

Sadie? I wondered curiously as I placed my bag down.

Sadie was a first year law student that I knew from the library. We’d met over a stack of books and started talking about a book she was supposed to be reading for class. We then spent the rest of my shift talking about the politics of Harvard and Radcliffe.

I wonder what Sadie wanted, I said mostly to myself as I read over the note Darcy left. Since Sadie and I both spent so much time in the library, I must have seen her around every now and then before, but ever since that first conversation, she kept reappearing in my life as if an acknowledgment of her presence in the form of a name had been sufficient enough to bring her to life. Now, it seemed like I saw her just about everywhere. She was constantly in the library and not only was she on the exec board of the prelaw student association, she also belonged to half a dozen other student organizations and clubs across campus, a handful of which I was a member of as well.

I checked the time and decided to try calling her back. To my surprise she actually answered the phone. Tracy! she greeted excitedly.

One of the girls said you called? I questioned.

I did, she acknowledged. Some girlfriends of mine are going shopping in Roslindale Square this weekend and I wanted to know if you’d like to come.

Shopping? I repeated.

She took my surprise as disapproval and I imagined her frown through the phone. "Oh, don’t tell me you’re one of those anti-consumerism fanatics? It’ll be fun! You didn’t have anything planned did you?"

Um… no, I responded. I don’t.

It felt odd to be able to say those words because in my attempt to forget about nameless individuals who no longer existed and to make the best out of my time in Boston, I strove to pile as much stuff into my free time as possible. So even though I was carrying a full compliment, working, and going to class, I volunteered my mornings at St. Luke’s homeless shelter and soup kitchen, my afternoons at Legal Aide, and I joined every other club or organization that I thought sounded interesting, would boost up my resume, and fit into my schedule. I even studied more than was necessary. I didn’t have too many days when I didn’t have anything planned.

Groovy. I’ll pick you up at 11:00! See you this weekend!

She hung up the phone before I could say good-bye.

On Saturday, Sadie showed up at my House driving a forest green Mercedes convertible with an outfit to match, and I couldn’t help thinking that she looked more at home here, than she did in the library. Sadie was the type of person who hardly seemed in place among the novels, books, dust, and dim lighting of Langdell Hall. Honestly, Sadie was the type of girl that didn’t look as if she faded into much of anything. Her layered blonde hair fell in waves down her back, and it wasn’t so much the color of it, as it was the stateliness of her hair that you noticed. Her casualness stemmed less from a rejection of all rules, but more of the type of having few things that she actually worried about. She wasn’t the type to need you to tell her she was remarkable; she knew it already, and in the same instance simply didn’t care.

Her two friends both gave me appraising looks at my approach, and the one in the back seat, a pale girl with jet black hair and dark brown eyes, eyed me in apprehension when I slid into the seat beside her. The girl sitting in the front was auburn haired, and her oversized tinted glasses made her look a lot like a hoot owl, or a peach with yellow eyes. I recognized both of them from the library.

Tracy, Pam, Jem, Sadie introduced informally as she pulled away a little too quickly from the curb, cutting off a car as she pulled out. "Jemma, Pamela, this is Tracy. She’s a freshman who spends way too much time in Langdell." I pulled the lap belt on as her friend turned in the seat toward us.

You’re one to talk, Said, her companion declared at that comment. You never leave the library.

Only because I’m trying to keep up, Sadie responded flippantly.

Oh right! You’ve got so many lawyers in your family that your last name should have been Esquire. To me the girl said, Sadie’s like the smartest woman in the class; she just hangs out in the library all the time so she doesn’t have to be around Mitch.

I looked toward the speaker trying to ascertain if she were Jem or Pam. Who’s Mitch? I questioned, not able to figure out her name on looks alone.

He’s her really good looking, really rich, really paternally acceptable, second-year med student, socs boyfriend, the auburn haired girl said with an obvious flourish at being snide.

"Just tell all my business, Pamela, and Mitch is not… that is not why I stay in the library all the time."

"Oh, right, so tell me that you actually like that pretentious little stud and not just his last name," she challenged.

"Don’t call Mitch a stud! He’s a really good guy, and yes, I do like him, Sadie stated hotly with a fire that seemed to stem not from this particular statement, but from an ongoing conversation between the two of them. Sadie continued without provocation, Just because you and El can’t figure out what you want doesn’t mean that the rest of us are so unsure."

El and I know exactly what we want, Pam responded, its other people that don’t get it. She turned toward me and perhaps Jem. Eldred’s my fiancé, she stated with somewhat of a defensive edge to those words.

"Yes, and they’ve been engaged for a very long time," Sadie supplied.

It hasn’t been a long time! Pam challenged.

Nine years, last count, Sadie responded.

It hasn’t been nine! she protested, and their back and forth was like watching a ping pong match take place. El proposed in high school, Christmas of our senior year, so it’ll be five years in December.

Yes, but they’ve known each other since they’ve been babies, Sadie informed me. We’ve got bets going among us as to whether or not they’ll ever actually get married!

It’s perfectly valid to have a mutual partnership without concerning ourselves with the restrictive bonds of the currently established structure that only seeks to exclude and devalue actual relationships by reducing a woman to terms of property, Pam said in one breath. El and I don’t need a piece of paper to tell us how we feel about each other, and El doesn’t feel the need to lord over me, so no, we might not ever get married, but that doesn’t reduce any how much we love each other. And if we do get married, Said, you’re not going to be invited to the wedding.

Like you would really get married without me, Sadie replied.

Pam pointedly turned her attention on me. So why do you hang around Langdell so much if you’re a freshman? she demanded. Pam was already striking me as someone who got straight to the point. She certainly didn’t mind volunteering information about herself or her friends.

I work there, I said in answer. I want to be a lawyer some day so I might as well make good use of my time, and I get to quiz Sadie on legal things.

She keeps me well researched, too, Sadie interjected. It’s amazing: Tracy knows practically every book in the library, and she’s read, catalogued, and summarized most of them. She’s brilliant.

Really? Pam wondered, and at her emphasis I attempted to dissect her accent and her response to that particular statement. Pam’s voice wasn’t neutral, it was impassioned, every word significant to her, and with it came the feeling that she wanted you to feel its significance. It was deep, not necessarily seductive, it wasn’t like Lauren Bacall’s voice, but it was on the lower end of the normal female spectrum; a smoker’s voice, maybe… and something else. Listening to her reminded me of something I read about how children responded more to the lower register of a male’s voice, like she was aiming to have that effect. Southern, I decided. None of the normal markers of a southern accident, be it mountain, country, city, or otherwise, but there was that small note of familiarity; maybe a northern, southern state, like Maryland.

"She breezed through Manheim’s book, Sadie posited as further evidence of my smarts, not to mention that she’s read like every note on a ruling by Judge Hand and Judge Warren."

"Considering that he’s practically redefined the judiciary since he’s been in office, I would think that it would be an oversight on my part if I didn’t study Warren, I remarked to her comment. But I can’t say that I breezed through Manheim’s book, I corrected. It was too heavy on the Latin for that, and my Latin is merely passable."

Even so you should have seen her notes, Sadie praised. They were better than Professor Roemer’s class notes, and anyway Latin is just one of those things that professor’s like to use to prove how smart they consider themselves to be. Most who spout it hardly know what they’re talking about; they just want to sound intelligent.

Sadie speaks it conversationally, Pam remarked snidely to her pronouncement.

Maybe, she said in that careless tone of hers, but the only reason I know it so well is because Cress had a Latin tutor and my father and uncle thought that Latin was one of those things that, like everything else, was better left up to the men, so of course I had to prove them wrong!

Pam gave Sadie a look at her statement. If you don’t become a lawyer, Said, it’ll be a sad day for the woman’s world, she said decidedly. You’re too smart to be a debutante. Betty…

Don’t want to hear it, Pamela, Sadie remarked.

You’re only doing yourself a disservice, Pam went on. If we-,

"You know what I think, Sadie said pointedly over Pam’s words. I think that you can never trust a man who tries to use Latin in every day conversation."

Oh, or Socrates, Jem added softly but with enthusiasm, working her way into the conversation. It was the first I had heard her speak so far. Never trust a man who quotes Socrates.

I thought about some of the well known and quoted Socratic quotes I knew, and silently agreed as Pam laughed out loud. Oh, God, yes, she remarked. "That’s always your clue to run in the opposite direction. That’s why El’s the perfect man: he’s smart and well behaved! Pam refocused her attention on me. So who’s got you coming to the library?" she posed with a wink.

Ignore her, Tracy, Sadie directed. Pam failed to learn tact in finishing school.

I didn’t go to finishing school, Sadie.

Obviously, Sadie said, dryly. "I’d be more than happy to lend you my copy of Vogue’s Book of Etiquette and Good Manners, she offered. In case you ever want to brush up."

"Vogue, Pam scoffed. You mean that nefarious sexist rag posing as legitimate women’s literary work? Forget there’s a war, dress in army chic and it’ll bring our boys home, and maybe the sky blue eye shadow made from napalm will bring you equal rights under the law while we’re at it!"

Do you ever cork it? Sadie teased. Pam glowered at her before looking back at me for an answer to her question.

No one, I responded. So far, no guy had managed to step out of the void to catch my attention, and I didn’t imagine anyone would. Derek and I had just kind of kept running into each other, sort of like Sadie and me. Fate, if such a thing existed.

Who’re you hiding from, then?

Her next question seemed to be more on point, although hiding was inaccurate. Hiding would indicate that there was someone to hide from, and as it was, it was nearly impossible to hide from someone who didn’t even live in the same region as you. I wasn’t hiding… I was in the