Here We Lie. Paula DeBoard Treick

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      “Really,” Joe said, dropping the tour-guide impression. “And believe me, I’ve tried. Men aren’t allowed to step foot in the dorms unless they’re family. So up here we have the Commons—that’s the dining hall. Classroom buildings, the science center, fine arts auditorium, a gym complete with indoor track and racquetball courts...”

      I followed his gestures, trying to take it all in. Keale looked like its own small town, separate and distinct from Scofield, operating on its own purpose and pace. I knew from the brochures that there were just under two thousand students at Keale, but only a few were visible that night, including a girl lying on a blanket, looking up at the stars, and a trio running past in gym shorts and tennis shoes, ponytails swinging, their steps perfectly synchronized.

      “What’s your dorm?” Joe asked.

      “Stanton.” I’d read the housing form so many times that I’d memorized the details by heart. Stanton Hall, room 323 South. Roommate, Ariana Kramer.

      Joe circled a row of buildings and pulled into a parking lot that was mostly empty. He nodded his head in the direction of a brick monolith, patches of ivy creeping up its sides. “That’s it, then.”

      I unbuckled my seat belt and it zipped back to its holster. “Thanks for the ride. I really appreciate it.”

      “Hold on,” he said, shifting the car into Park. He popped the trunk and met me there, hoisting both of my bags over his shoulders with an exaggerated groan.

      “I can at least carry one,” I protested.

      “You ordered the deluxe service, right? This is the deluxe service.” He staggered next to me like a pack mule. At the door to Stanton, he set the bags on the ground and held out a hand, palm up. “So. Five dollars.”

      “Oh.” I blinked and felt around in my pocket.

      He laughed, shaking his head. “Just kidding. The first ride is free. Maybe someday we’ll run into each other in town and you’ll buy me a cup of coffee or something.”

      “Absolutely.”

      He turned, waving over his shoulder.

      “Hey,” I called. “You ended up not being a creep after all.”

      He put a hand to his heart. “I’m flattered, Midwest. A bit disappointed in myself, but flattered.”

      I’d only managed to drag one bag inside the dorm when I heard his car start, followed by the rattle of his tailpipe, which grew fainter and fainter until it became part of the night.

      * * *

      Five minutes later, I’d retrieved a key from the resident advisor on duty and wrestled my bags into the elevator and down a long hall, past dozens of closed doors. My roommate hadn’t checked in yet, and two neatly arranged sets of furniture greeted me—beds, dressers and desks, industrial and plain. I was too exhausted to change clothes or find my bedding, so I collapsed onto one of the bare mattresses still wearing my tennis shoes.

      You did it, I thought, grinning in the dark. You made it. You’re here.

      For the first time in hours, I thought about my dad. I didn’t know if I believed in angels that could look down from heaven or karma or anything beyond this very moment. But right then, I thought he would be happy for me.

      Lauren

      The summer after I graduated from Reardon, I spent ten lazy weeks on The Island, our five acres in the Atlantic, not far from Yarmouth. The land had been in the Holmes family for generations, passed down to Mom as the last standard-bearer of the name. With nothing expected of me, I slept in until eleven, dozed in the hammock in the afternoons, avoided my mother except at mealtimes, and took late-night smoke breaks with MK in the old gazebo, perched on the east cliff of The Island.

      “I wish I could just disappear,” I told MK, staring out at the water, the cigarette turning to ash in my hand.

      He narrowed his eyes, giving me a faux push, as if it might send me not only toppling over the edge of the gazebo but out to the Atlantic itself, to the blue-green forever that waited beyond the rocky edge of The Island.

      “Very funny,” I told him.

      He stubbed out his cigarette and flicked the butt, which bounced on the railing and disappeared into the vegetation below. There were thousands of cigarette butts there by now, the accumulation of our idle summers. “Poor kid, condemned to a life of luxury.”

      I tapped off an inch of ash, watching it crumble before it hit the ground. “Easy for you to say. You’re doing what you want to do.”

      MK shrugged. He was starting law school at Princeton in the fall, following in Dad’s footsteps. The only difference was that he didn’t seem to mind that his life had been planned out for him, the way I did. “Well, what do you want to do?”

      I shrugged.

      “There must be something you’re half-good at,” he said, knocking his shoulder into mine in a way that suggested he was joking.

      “Nope.”

      He was quiet for a minute, as if he were trying to dredge up some hidden skill I didn’t know I possessed. Eventually, he said, “You used to draw people’s faces all the time. Remember? It made Mom furious. Instead of taking notes in class, you would basically just doodle.”

      I laughed. “I could be a professional doodler.”

      “Artist, dummy.” He patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. You’ll get the lingo down.”

      Except I knew that the little faces I drew really weren’t more than doodles, and certainly not the sign of artistic talent. I’d taken a drawing class at Reardon, and the instructor had been less than enthusiastic about my work. The proportions were all wrong, she said—the necks too skinny, the shoulders too broad. At The Coop, I’d watched Marcus capture the essence of a person with a few brushstrokes, not needing to pencil in first or leave room for erasure. I might have liked doodling, but it clearly wasn’t a skill that was going to get me anywhere.

      Every day on The Island, I’d read the classifieds in the Boston Globe, scanning for options: education, engineering, medicine, social work—anything to get me away from the predicted Mabrey track. I didn’t even meet the qualifications to be a night clerk at the 7-Eleven, which required previous cashier experience. I’d entertained briefly the idea of the Peace Corps—a lifestyle that would have suited me for about five seconds—but there was a surprisingly long list of requirements, none of which I met. It turned out no one was looking for a spoiled eighteen-year-old with an unimpressive GPA.

      Finally, I gave in.

      It was easier to accept that I was nothing more than a cog in a machine that had been set in motion long before I was born.

      * * *

      Keale College in northwest Connecticut was the perfect choice from my mother’s viewpoint—far enough away that we wouldn’t bump into each other, but close enough to keep me under her thumb. Since it was an all-girls school, she must have figured I was less likely to become romantically involved with the resident pot dealer. She filled out my application, requested housing, СКАЧАТЬ