I’m running through sociology terms in my head and scanning email on my phone when I almost run into someone.
“Oh, sorry.” I look up to see a junior who’s on the soccer team with Jordan.
“It’s chill.” He steps around me. “Hey, wait, actually, Cassie?”
I turn around. “What’s up?”
“There’s someone in the living room waiting for you, says she’s your aunt.”
I have one aunt who lives in Indiana and collects china dolls. She’s never even been on a plane, let alone hopped over to California to say hi.
“Okay, thanks. I’ll go, uh, say hi.”
As I step into the living room, I’m immediately greeted by the opposite of Aunt Helen, Madison Macey, wearing a Chanel suit and a ridiculous hat. She’s sitting on the edge of a couch, as if certain she’ll catch a disease from it, and as far away as she could be from the other occupants of the room, two seniors and Duncan playing FIFA.
“Cassie!”
“Aunt Mandy.” I smile through gritted teeth. “What are you doing here?” It’s all I can do not to spice up that sentence with a few expletives.
“Didn’t your mother tell you? I wanted to visit you.” She stands. “Come on—we’re having a girls’ day.”
I glance toward the door. “I have class in ten minutes,” I lie.
“I’m sure you can skip it. I haven’t seen you in so long.”
“Yeah, it’s almost like it’s the first time I’ve met you, Aunt Mandy.”
She laughs and grabs me by my arm, her grip waaaay harder than it looks, and leads me toward the door.
“Great to meet you,” she calls behind us.
The boys grunt something indistinguishable.
She’s quiet until we arrive at a Starbucks off campus.
“I’ve been trying to reach you for two days.”
I open my mouth to speak, but she holds up her hand so she can order a Venti nonfat vanilla something or other.
She turns to me, perfect eyebrows raised, while they swipe her platinum card for the three-dollar charge.
“My phone broke,” I say.
“You’re in the middle of the biggest negotiation of your little life.” She stops as the barista hands her the cup. She rolls her eyes and spins it around to show me the word Melanie in large print. “Unbelievable.”
We sit down, and she starts back in as if she’d never stopped. “So let’s talk strategy.”
“Huh?”
“We want to control exactly how this story breaks. Picture this...” She waves her hand. “The day the article runs, you hold a press conference on the lawn of the frat, with all the major news stations in attendance.” She raises her eyebrows and takes a sip of her coffee.
“I don’t know if that’s a good... Madison, that’s where I live. What am I supposed to do, just walk back inside afterward?”
“It’s where you lived for the experiment. Cassie, it’s over.”
“Yeah, but maybe we could wait until the end of the school year. That way I can finish my first year in the house with my pledge class, move out for the summer and then deal with all this.”
She tilts her head to the side, and her mouth forms a little o, like something has just occurred to her. “What do you care about ending the year with your pledge class? Don’t tell me you’ve been Stockholmed?”
“No.” I exhale. “I haven’t lost my focus or anything, but I mean, this was always an undercover project that involved real people. A press conference in front of the house...it’s not like someone was murdered there.”
“But—”
“No.” I look up at her. “This is supposed to be a nuanced project. There are real issues there, but there are also real teenagers, some of whom haven’t done anything wrong and don’t need to have their home plastered over every television in America.”
“We’re talking about your project being plastered over every television in America.”
I tap my fingers on the table nervously. “What if we turn the project into some sort of program to educate fraternities about gender issues? You’ve read the entries. Most of these guys are just ignorant—they’re not evil.”
“Cassie, you know as well as I do, that sort of thing does not make money or create press for Stevenson. In fact, that would cost this project funds that you don’t have. We’ve already invested so much in you. Now you need to produce what you promised us, what you proposed.”
I run my hands through my hair and exhale. “Okay, what if you only go with print, and change the name of the frat. You already have to change the names of the people involved. After all, they didn’t consent to the study.”
“Cassie, you are the only girl in the world in a fraternity. People will know which one it is.”
“Oh.”
She sips her coffee.
I sigh. “I thought there was going to be a peer-reviewed academic paper.”
She reaches out to take my hand in hers. “There will be, and there will be a brawl among the university presses over who gets to publish it, but only if we create enough buzz with the journal entries.”
“But the entries alone are misleading. I don’t want them to run without—”
“That’s not the kind of call you get to make.” She drops my hand and crosses her arms over her chest.
“What if I don’t send them to you?”
She just stares at me like I’m an idiot.
“Oh...” It seems like the roof of the coffee shop is crashing down on me. “The online portals.” For security reasons I wrote all my journal entries in a secure site. A secure sight created by the Stevenson organization.
She nods. “We already have them, and so does America Weekly.”
“And there’s nothing I can do?”
She purses her lips. “I came here as a courtesy, because we’d like you to get on board. We don’t need your permission.”
“What if—what if I give up my scholarship?”
I can’t believe the words, even as they come out of my mouth.
“It doesn’t matter.” She stands up. “This is what you signed up for. Read your own contract. You’ve spent a quarter of our money already, and we solely own all your work. We’re moving forward, with or without you.”
Without saying another word, I get up and head for the street. I barely notice the small bell ringing as I stumble out the door. I start walking, not really sure where I’m going. The sun is setting when I get to the main quad, turning the sandstone walkways a warm orange color.
A few tourists are lingering, left over from the groups that come in herds every day. A mother turns away from her camera to yell to her child in a language I don’t understand, but the tone tells me she’s saying it’s time to go home.
The little boy slouches and pouts but waddles over. Her stern face softens as he approaches, and she places a hand on his head as they walk away.
A few students, backpacks on, make their way along the far side of the quad. They’re talking, but I can’t make out their words from this distance.
Rays of sunlight shoot between the columns that surround the quad and I squint my tired eyes. Sighing, I slide off my backpack and sink to the ground. I lie down, using my bag as a pillow, too tired and too worn down to care that people may stare, that I may end up in tourists’ pictures or garner weird looks from someone who thinks they might recognize me from somewhere; maybe a class, maybe the news.
I reach into the pocket of my jeans, pull out my phone and dial. As the number rings, I listen to the sound of my breathing, trying to steady it.
“Cassie?” The surprise in her voice, despite caller ID, breaks the last remaining pieces of my heart. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t call your mother for an entire semester.
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s me.” I hope she can hear the smile I somehow manage.
“How are you, sweetie?” There’s noise in the background, the sounds of pots and pans, and a television, probably the soap operas she DVRs. At home dinnertime is already over, and she’s probably watching TV while doing the dishes, while my father lounges with a beer in the den. My heart aches just picturing that stupid, tiny house in Indiana.
“I’m good,” I lie.
The ensuing pause is long, and I picture words floating over the expanse of an already darkening country.
“You sound sick,” she says. “Do you feel like you have a fever?”
“No.” I sigh. “I, uh, I’m just tired.”
She just makes a humming sound.
“Mom?”
“Mmm-hmm?”
“Can I ask you something?” I trace my fingers over the rough, sandy bricks below me, manicured perfectly to never allow a weed to emerge between them. “I have this, uh, class, and it’s really important. If I do well, it could set up my entire career, because the professor offers internships. But to do well, I have to hurt people who’ve become my friends...some of the best friends I’ve made here.”
I banish thoughts of the way Jordan’s eyes sparkle when he laughs and Duncan’s bear hugs.
“You see,” I lie, “it’s a journalism class, and I’m covering the football team. I found out that a lot of them used steroids for the first half of last season, and obviously that’s wrong, but some of them have changed their minds, and some never did it in the first place, but they’ll all be hurt by the scandal if I go with the story. I mean, it’ll be huge, and my professor will hire me, but I’ll have hurt my friends, and I’m not sure...” I exhale. This analogy sucks anyway.
“Well, Cass.” My mother clears her throat. “I think you have to ask yourself, if you run the story, are you doing it because these people did something wrong and you have an obligation to expose it, or because it will help your career?”
“Can I say both?”
She laughs. “Yeah, but it won’t help you very much with your decision.”
I half smile. “I guess so.”
We both go silent, and I wonder what else I can talk about. What do most kids say when they call their parents? Ask about the weather, news in the neighborhood, how pets are doing?
“I miss you, Mom,” I say. “Sometimes I really just want to come home, sleep in my own bed. To hug you.” My voice cracks. I can’t believe I ache so badly for such a messed-up home.
I wipe a stray tear from my eye as she launches into a motherly chorus of missing me, too, and me always being her little girl and so on.
“Thanks, Mom.” I bite my lip. “Listen... I gotta go.” I shift my weight, the hard stone starting to make my body sore. “I have a...meeting soon.”
“Oh, okay. Sorry I couldn’t help you more, kiddo.”
“No, Mom, you did help.” I pause. “I’ll call you again soon, okay?”
I stare at the lock screen for a while after the beeping that signals the end of the call.
The world is blue with dusk when I finally stand up, the weird, cold relief of having just finished crying lingering as I head back to the house.