21st Century
After a lifetime of social exclusion I was used to the solitary nature of my existence. It didn't bother me, because it was just how things were. Maybe it bothered me a little. I tried not to get my hopes up about college, constantly repeating to myself that I was there to get my degree and nothing else.
And then one day I packed a small suitcase, bid my father – and our house – farewell and took a three hour bus trip to Grand Northeastern University with a stomach that was sour with nerves and a fervent hope that I was doing the right thing for myself.
Within days, I had a friend. Her name was Emma, she was British and loud and she was my roommate in the shabby little apartment we were sharing with two other students just off campus. She was the only person there when I arrived, yanking open the door after she heard me dragging my suitcase up the three flights of stairs and grinning widely at me.
"You must be Paige!"
"Yes," I smiled, terrified that I was going to emit some kind of 'loser' scent and put her off me immediately.
"I'm Emma! Here, let me take your bag. Wow, I love your hair. OK, so, yeah," she led me into the apartment, "it's not One Hyde Park, but it'll do."
I laughed again, even though I didn't know what or where One Hyde Park was. Emma was an exuberant whirlwind of emotion and color, everything I was not. She showed me around the place, showing me how to work the tap in the shower – "stand to the side when you turn it on or you're going to freeze your arse off" – and pointing out the fact that one of our other roommates had used stickers to label their yoghurt and sliced deli meat in the fridge.
"His name's Adam," Emma told me, "and he seems quite serious about the food so I wouldn't go eating any of it if I were you."
"I won't!" I replied, eager to present myself as easy to get along with. Emma turned around, then, and took me by the shoulders.
"You're so quiet, Paige. I thought I would be the quiet one, and you the extrovert. You know, that whole American versus British thing."
I looked down, unsure of how to respond. "Uhh, well. I guess I've always been a little –"
"It's OK!" Emma yelled, a decibel level I was soon going to get very used to. "It's totally fine! It's adorable, actually. I love quiet people!"
She wasn't kidding, either. Emma Wolf from the UK didn't even leave me the option of not being her friend, which ended up being A-OK with me because I liked her right off the bat. Sure she was loud enough to attract glances as we walked across the leaf-strewn campus on the way to class (and I'm ashamed to admit I chose many of my classes – a lot of English and History – simply because Emma herself had already chosen them), but she was irresistibly likeable, plain-spoken and warm. On the first day of classes, as I stood outside the main arts building wondering whether or not I was going to throw up with anxiety, she appeared in front of me with that big smile of hers and a cup of hot chocolate.
"Here you go," she grinned, pushing it into my hand. "You can't be down if you've got hot chocolate. Why are you standing here like a little lost lamb anyway, Renner?"
That was another one of Emma's habits – calling her friends by their last names. "I – uh, I couldn't find the classroom," I told her. "It says room 038 but I couldn't find anything lower than 100."
"It's in the basement," she replied, tucking her arm through mine and leading me back inside. "You didn't think they'd let us undergrads into the grander rooms, did you? The ones they put in the prospectus? Of course not! Now we're here and we've paid our fees, it's off to the dreary basement with us!"
"The pros- what?" I asked, still not entirely used to Emma's rapid-fire speech patterns.
"Prospectus. The catalog, you know, the book they send with all the photos of happy students and gourmet meals to convince us to apply. Now come on, you're almost late. Are you going to drink your hot chocolate or not? Because if you're not, I will."
***
It took me awhile to accept that I had suddenly, and almost as if by magic, become 'normal.' Emma happily bulldozed me into friendship and with her came all of the other people she had done the same with – and our roommates. Within weeks I found that I was hardly ever at the apartment, because there was always some social event to attend, always something to do. At first, I just floated along happily, like a leaf caught in a burbling steam of sociability. I hung back behind Emma, letting her take the lead, clutching at her arm as she ran on ahead of me.
Soon, though, and slowly, I started to gain confidence in myself. I started messaging people myself, rather than just letting Emma take care of everything. I began inviting people to the apartment instead of just joining in when Emma took the lead. She liked to have 'suppers' as she called them, usually on weekend afternoons and evenings. A whole chicken would be put in the oven to roast, bottles of wine would be opened and people would drift in to eat and drink and talk with us late into the evening.
It was after one of these suppers, when everyone had left and I was doing dishes in the kitchen while Emma sat at the table, finishing the last of the wine, that I found myself suddenly sniffling and tearing up.
"Oh God!" Emma cried, jumping up and wrapping her arms around me. "What is it, Renner? Were the potatoes that bad? I swear I should have left them in the oven a little longer!"
I giggled a little, comforted by my friend's joking, but I needed to tell her what was in my heart. "The potatoes were fine," I whispered, running hot water over a soapy plate.
"I know that, you silly sausage! Now come on, tell me what's gotten you all upset."
"I'm not upset!" I said, aware of how ridiculous I sounded making a pronouncement like that as a tear slid down my cheek. "I mean, obviously I look upset but I'm not. I'm – I'm happy."
Emma pulled away and gave me an exaggerated look of skepticism. "Are you? You don't look it."
I remember doing that thing, then – that thing you see little kids doing after they've been crying when they inhale and their breath is all shaky. I did that and Emma led me to the table, still strewn with wineglasses and plates. She sat me down and looked me right in the eyes.
"Now, Renner. Speak up. Tell me what's wrong. And don't go all silent and embarrassed like you always do."
I swallowed. "I meant it, Emma. I'm happy. I told you this before but I don't know if you believed me or if you understood. I really didn't have any friends in high school. None. Nobody liked me – a lot of them actively seemed to hate me."
"They're fucking idiots then," she replied.
"Yes, they kind of were. But I just wanted to say that I'm, uh, I'm grateful to have met you. I mean, not to be too awkward about this or anything but it means a lot to me that we're friends. That we do things like these dinners on the weekends. I never had anything like this before. I never," I broke off, sniffling again, and Emma gathered me into her arms.
"I know, Paige. I know. I believe you. Some people have a really hard time of it in school. I got bullied a little, when I was around 12 or 13 – I was taller than all the other girls, too loud, too enthusiastic, too everything. But I don't think it was anything like what you went through. But you're here now, aren't you? You're here with me and with the rest of us and things are looking up for you, my quiet little friend."
After my mother's death, I was never as close to another human being as I was to Emma. Not during those first years at college, anyway. I wanted to tell her everything about me, I wanted to bond even tighter. I wanted to tell her about Caistley. I didn't, but I wanted to. Sometimes I would think about it before falling asleep at night, in my little room that overlooked a tree-lined street. What would she say? What expression would she wear on her face? I was pretty sure she would suspect I was playing a joke on her.
There was a moment, one foggy September morning at the beginning of our sophomore year, that it was on the tip of my tongue to say something. Emma and I were up early, intent on getting a photo of the misty campus as the sun came up and before all the other students poured in. We were standing amongst the trees in the big field that the campus was built around and I commented, without thinking, that the air felt very much like England. By that time I thought of England as the place where Caistley was located, even though no one from Caistley would have recognized the word.
Emma turned and gave me a sharply curious look. "What?"
"Oh, I, uh," I stammered, "I meant it feels like how I imagine the air in England would feel."
But Emma wasn't quite buying what I was saying. "Huh," she said, still looking at me. "You've never been to England, right?"
I made a weird shrugging, head-shaking gesture with my body that I hoped managed to walk the fine line between not revealing the truth and not outright lying.
"Because it does feel like England this morning," Emma continued. "Exactly like it. That stillness in the air, the way everything is slightly muffled by the fog. I'm actually feeling a little homesick – and I never get homesick."
She was right, too, and I so badly wanted to join in, to tell her of the grey, foggy fall days in Caistley, the smell of the wood smoke and the sea all mingled together. I couldn't, though.
Emma sensed I had something to say. She waited quietly – something she hardly ever did – peering at me, waiting for me to come out with it. But I couldn't. We left it at that, she got her photo, and we both went off to our first classes.
It was around this time, too, that I developed my first real crush. I mean, I'd been attracted to certain boys before, but never to somebody I actually knew, somebody I might have a chance with. This particular boy was named Brandon and he was on the Grand Northeastern swim team. He wore sweats in navy and gold – the college's colors – with 'SWIM TEAM' written across the back, and I spent a lot of time staring at those letters from my spot directly behind him in one of my history classes. He was tall and gangly – the muscular kind of gangly – and he had a deep, foghorn-y type of voice. I'm not even sure what I saw in him. He wasn't ugly, but he wasn't particularly attractive either. What I don't want to admit to myself and what is therefore the most likely truth, is that I probably liked him because he paid attention to me.
Make no mistake, I was not one of the 'popular' girls at Grand Northeastern. I had friends then, sure. Some of those friends were male. A couple of them even liked me, if their sweaty palms and nervous stuttering around me were any indication. But most of the boys still wanted to date the same girls they'd wanted to date in high school. Cute little giggling blondes with white teeth and flawlessly tawny skin and a certain way of making those sophomore boys feel more like the men they had not quite become yet.
Emma had a boyfriend, but she wasn't one of those girls. She was, as she'd said before, too loud, too tall, too in-your-face for those handsome boys who needed their girlfriends to be an admiring audience of one, not competition. And it was Emma herself who noticed I was spending entirely too much time commenting on Brandon from history class.
"You've got a thing for this guy, huh?" She asked me casually one night while she picked at some pasta-based casserole I had made for dinner.
"What?" I asked, failing so badly at feigning innocence that even I had to laugh. "Fine. OK. Yes, he's cute, I guess."
"You guess, huh? Is that why I get a report on what Brandon was wearing and what Brandon said and oh Brandon is so smart after every class you have with him?"
I threw a piece of pasta at Emma's head. "Shut up."
She ducked and laughed. "Well invite him over then. How about Sunday? I'm making another roast, Adam and Jake will be there, Sarah, Bryan, Alison – a bunch of people. It'll be easier that way, too, because if you go all silent and shy there'll be other people there to pick up the slack."
Emma wasn't wrong. It would be more comfortable in a group. Friends or not, social life or not, I knew I wasn't in any way ready to handle myself like a normal human being in any kind of one-on-one situation with Brandon.
He said yes, though, when I asked him after our next class together, staring at my feet the whole time. Well, first he asked me who else would be at the dinner, but I assumed he was just making small talk. I texted him the street address to our apartment and then scuttled away, glowing and trying to keep the enormous grin off my face until I was out of sight.