Shattered Memories

  I guess I shouldn’t worry about my roommate asking too many questions, I told myself. She looked more terrified of meeting other girls than I did. In fact, seeing and meeting her practically convinced me completely that I was back to being as normal as I ever was.

  “Your father hanging around to take you to dinner?” I heard Marcy ask, and turned to see her right behind me.

  “No. He hasn’t said so, I mean. I don’t think so.”

  She laughed. “Don’t make it a world crisis. You want help unpacking? I’m not especially good at it, but I am nosy.”

  “What?”

  “C’mon. You don’t have to hang out here. You have a half hour or so before you meet Mrs. Thatcher and get your panties inspected,” she said, seizing my hand.

  I started to resist and then gave up and followed her out, looking back at my father, who saw me and winked. Claudia was still standing like someone who belonged with Haylee.

  Maybe I attract them, I thought, and surprised myself by laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” Marcy asked as we continued down the hallway.

  “I don’t think I could explain it easily.”

  “Good. I hate long stories. But,” she said, pausing and looking back, “I think you might have your hands full. You might have Dracula’s daughter for a roommate.”

  “Her I could handle,” I said.

  Marcy’s face brightened even more. “I’m going to like you,” she said. “And you’re going to like me.”

  She said it with such confidence that I couldn’t help but laugh.

  Maybe it was possible, I thought. Maybe I could escape the past, just as my father hoped I would.

  6

  Marcy went at my luggage like a starving resistance fighter behind enemy lines who had just had an airdrop of needed supplies. She moaned and groaned about not being my size every time she took out something and held it up to see how it might look on her. It reminded me of how Haylee would put on something Mother had bought us both and tell me why it looked better on her than it did on me, even though we had identical bodies and there was nothing different about our dresses, blouses, or skirts. According to Haylee, the color would do more for her complexion, her eyes, and her hair because hers was subtly different. If Mother had heard her say it, she would have punished her severely, which would mean I would suffer, too. The logic was that if there was the seed of something wrong in one of us, it would be in the other. Punishment wasn’t just retribution to Mother; it was preventive, protective.

  While we were unpacking, Claudia entered, practically tiptoeing to her side of our room. I realized quickly that she had a way of moving about surreptitiously, making hardly a sound, and keeping her eyes from meeting anyone else’s. She wasn’t simply shy; she wanted to be unnoticed, to completely disappear, which was not something easy to do in this place, I thought.

  There was a window across from each bed, and each of us had a bedside light, a side table, and a small pink area rug beside the bed. The flooring was similar to the wood floors in the study hall. There were dark brown paneled walls and, to the right of the door, a bulletin board on which we could tack any reminders or schedules. Already pinned to it were the dormitory rules in big black letters.

  “Need any help?” Marcy asked Claudia, peering around her at her suitcase.

  “No,” she said quickly. “Thank you,” she added after a long moment, like someone who had just remembered she should say that.

  “So where you from?” Marcy asked her.

  “Allentown.”

  “First time in a private school?”

  She looked like she wasn’t going to answer as she took out clothes and began to hang up blouses and skirts.

  Marcy shrugged, and we continued with mine.

  “No, it’s my third,” Claudia finally said. It was as if sounds entered her ears and then took their time reaching her brain.

  “Third? Did you say third?” Marcy asked.

  “In three years,” Claudia added. Then she smiled, but it wasn’t so much a smile as a smirk that said, So shut up about it.

  “Say,” Marcy said, turning to me as well. “Now that I think of it, how come your mothers didn’t come along to see you guys enrolled and moved into the dorm?”

  “My mother’s recuperating from a long illness,” I said.

  Claudia thought a moment, obviously deciding whether to answer Marcy.

  “My mother’s home with my younger sister, Jillian. She’s six now. Our little princess,” she added. “Jillian didn’t want to take the ride, and when she whines, it’s like a thousand church bells ringing. I usually put my hands over my ears, but my mother says I should stop doing that because I might give Jillian a complex. So my mother stayed home with her to keep the peace. That’s the slogan that hangs above our heads in my house: ‘Keep the Peace.’ ”

  Neither Marcy nor I spoke. Marcy turned to me and widened her eyes. We finished getting my things into the drawers built into the closet. We could hear Terri marching up and down the hallway and calling for all newlyweds to join their parents in the lobby to go to Mrs. Mitchell’s orientation meeting. She paused in our doorway.

  “Watch out for Marcy,” she said, staring at her like a schoolteacher reprimanding a first-grader. “She tends to borrow everything she can and then conveniently forgets to return it. That’s why she helps newlyweds unpack.”

  “It’s not doing me any good,” Marcy whined. “Nothing Kaylee has fits.”

  “You can borrow anything I have,” Claudia said. “And forget to return it.”

  Marcy and I looked at each other and then started to laugh.

  But Claudia didn’t. She looked like she meant it. We all started out.

  “Her bark is worse than her bite,” Marcy called after us as Claudia and I joined our fathers, who were standing together in the lobby.

  “How’s it going?” my father asked, looking at both of us for an answer.

  “Good,” I said. Claudia didn’t respond, and her father didn’t wait to see if she would.

  As we walked across campus to Matthews Hall, where the administrative offices were, our fathers remained ahead of us, talking. I imagined they had a lot to share, both apparently having daughters who needed some special tender loving care. My father, of course, would mention nothing about Haylee or what I had survived. I wondered what reason for my being here he did tell Claudia’s father. He would probably give him the reason most were here. Their parents had little faith in public schools and could afford to send their kids to one of these places, so why not try it?

  I glanced at Claudia, who walked with her arms folded tightly across her chest, her head high and her neck stiff. Three private schools, I thought. She’d been through these orientations twice. No wonder she looked only vaguely interested.

  “So why have you gone to so many private schools?” I asked her.

  She shrugged. “My father says it’s like trying on shoes. Even though a pair might be your size, they might still squeeze here and there or simply be wrong for your feet.” After a moment, she added, “However, if Littlefield doesn’t work for me, they’ll ship me to a nunnery.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Who knows?” she said. “My mother thinks I’m an unhealthy influence on my little sister. If she could, she’d keep Jillian in a plastic bubble or keep me in the attic.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  “I’ve stopped feeling sorry for myself,” she replied. When she spoke, she quickly glanced at me and then shifted her eyes to look down before she finished a sentence.

  Everyone had family problems, I thought. Some were only skin deep and could be shrugged off, but some were so deep that they’d affect who you were forever. Here I was arriving with so much emotional baggage that I thought there was little chance I would succeed at anything, especially making new friends, and the first person I had to get along with seemed to be a walking tragedy.

  Since I had arrived, I hadn’t thought much about Haylee, and, mor
e important, I wasn’t thinking about how she would react to things. I had begun to feel optimistic. Now I couldn’t help wondering what Claudia would think if she knew my story. Would she avoid complaining about her own life? She did have that “top this” attitude, as if she were the poster child for parental neglect, and as funny as it might sound, I was betting she didn’t want anyone else to draw more pity than she could. Maybe she didn’t feel sorry for herself any longer, but she sure seemed eager to get others to feel sorry for her, whereas I wanted to avoid it like the plague.

  “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” Claudia asked, as if she could hear me thinking. It was like a bell I was waiting to hear ring. Marcy had yet to ask, but I knew she would as soon as she could.

  “No,” I said. It wasn’t an instantaneous decision for me to deny Haylee’s existence. I had been thinking about the question constantly during the ride to Littlefield and concluded that for now, being an only child was the best answer. Besides, right now, as far as my father was concerned, and apparently even Mother, I was the same as an only child.

  “You’re lucky,” she said. “Is your mother seriously ill?”

  “She’ll be all right,” I replied, rather than making up something. There was obviously no way to tell the truth.

  We walked silently for a while. I saw that my father was having a good conversation with Claudia’s father.

  “What’s your father do?” I asked her.

  “He’s a private business manager.”

  “My father runs a very successful software company,” I said, then decided not to sound too perfect. Misery, after all, loves company. “My parents are divorced.”

  “Are they?” She paused and looked thoughtful. “I wish mine were.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Children of divorced parents get more attention, because each parent wants to show the other that their child or children love them more. My mother had been trying to get pregnant again for years, so when my sister, Jilly, came, they treated her like she was a gift from the angels. I became the back-burner child. Everything I wanted was put on the back burner until Jilly’s needs and desires were met. My mother hates when I call her Jilly instead of Jillian. That’s why I do it.”

  She walked faster.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, catching up, “but being the child of divorced parents is not better than being a child in a happy family, believe me.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” she said. “I haven’t had either type.” She sounded like someone who had been deprived of food.

  Our fathers waited for us to catch up when we reached the entrance to Matthews Hall. They were of one serious face full of worry. Suddenly, the beautiful sunny day looked overcast to me, and there weren’t more than a few puffy, cotton-candy clouds moving lazily across the sky. Depression was insidious, crawling over the grounds toward me, smiling and reminding me that I was always only a short memory away from its firm, tight grip. My father started to reach for my hand, but he stopped when he glanced at Claudia’s father, who was already turning to enter. Maybe he thought I didn’t want to seem like a little girl next to my new roommate, when in truth, that was really what I felt like.

  A lean woman in a gray skirt suit and high-necked blouse was there to greet us. She wore her dull gray hair severely drawn back and pinned with a black hair clip. She easily looked like she was in her sixties, but I bet myself she was probably no more than forty, someone who thought the older she looked, the more respect she’d command. Later I would learn that she was Mrs. Mitchell’s personal assistant, Pamela Cross. Marcy would tell me, “She’s the cross Mrs. Mitchell bears.”

  “Right this way, please,” she firmly directed us and the others entering the hall. She held her arm out as though she were preventing us from going anywhere else in the building. We entered a conference room on the right. Inside, a female student in a midlength black skirt and a frilly white blouse handed out pamphlets to both parents and students. She barely smiled and wore a tag that read, “Student Government President, Kim Bailey.” Some of the information on the pamphlet was also in the brochures my father had brought for Mother to see, but there were two pages of rules that applied to both classroom behavior and dormitory behavior. The list for the latter looked longer than what was pinned on our room’s bulletin board. Everyone stopped talking in anticipation. Some looked like they were even holding their breath. I imagined a drumroll.

  Everyone turned when Mrs. Mitchell entered. She was about five foot nine and quite pretty, with small facial features and dazzlingly bright blue eyes. She had her light brown hair styled in a classic bob. Her smile was warm and friendly, and I couldn’t imagine why my father had heard and why Marcy and the others thought of her as an Iron Lady, a Mrs. Thatcher. Her makeup was subdued but tasteful, complementing her natural beauty. She wore a dark green skirt suit in the same style as the one Pamela Cross wore, with a white blouse and a string of small pearls matching her pearl earrings.

  “Welcome, everyone,” Mrs. Mitchell said, stepping behind the podium. She held out her arms. “Welcome to Littlefield. I’m so glad we have been able to provide you with a beautiful fall day for your first impression of our campus. We’re very proud of it. It’s truly our home away from home, something I have high hopes your children will come to believe as well.”

  Her voice was crisp; her words, although spoken sharply, made her sound refined and proper, and they seemed genuine.

  “Please, take seats if you haven’t. I promise I won’t keep you long. I know how eager your children are to become part of Littlefield.”

  Her posture firmed, and the warm smile evaporated. The dazzle in her eyes quickly changed to a steely, sharp, and intense focus on us all.

  “What I want to do is assure you that you have placed your child in a responsible, efficient school where every child is treated like an individual. Everyone reaches his or her goals in a different way, but we’ll provide the foundation for your child to exhibit his or her predilections freely and successfully. To our way of thinking, there is no such thing as a normal child or an average child. Perhaps it’s been well hidden until now, but we’ll know and nourish what makes your child special.

  “To do all this, we ask a few things of everyone. We are not here to reform anyone,” she continued. Now I could hear the firmness in her voice, but it wasn’t simply gritty and unwavering. There was a clear suggestion of intolerance. “Littlefield is not a solution for children who have been in constant trouble in their public schools. We have little time for disciplinary problems. And we know you parents aren’t spending all this money to have your child waste time or effort or be responsible for wasting someone else’s. That is a belief set in concrete here.

  “The pamphlet you’ve been given has the latest update to our rules. We are aware of the growing problems educators and parents are having out there,” she said, nodding at the window as if those problems and troubles were peering in at us. “I can guarantee you that you left them behind you when you passed through our gates. We believe we have a contract with you and your children. We’ll provide the best education possible, and in return, we ask your child to provide the best behavior possible, characterized by cooperation, obedience, and respect for others as well as him- or herself.”

  She smiled, but her smile was ice-cold now, more like a mask.

  “No DSD,” she said. “Drinking, smoking, drugs. A single violation of that rule is a breach of our contract. Children, your parents signed a document that establishes they will lose all the money they’ve invested in Littlefield. There are no exceptions, no special circumstances. Violators who plead will plead to deaf ears.

  “Read the rules, obey the rules, and enjoy your school life and education,” she said. “Parents, you all have my direct phone line should you need anything. We have our own medical facilities. Mrs. Cohen, our school nurse, comes to us from service in the U.S. Army.”

  Mrs. Cohen stepped forward. She was in a nurse’s uniform and looked to be in her l
ate thirties, even though there were strands of gray in her dark brown hair.

  Mrs. Mitchell continued. “You will soon meet our guidance counselor, Mr. Hedrick. We are proud of all our staff. Every teacher at Littlefield has a master’s degree.

  “For now, let’s get everyone settled in comfortably. Tomorrow, after all, is a school day.”

  It was so quiet when she paused that I could hear heavy breathing behind me. Mrs. Mitchell nodded and started out. Someone’s mother stopped her to ask a question, but the rest of us began to leave. My father was at my side, Claudia and her father ahead of us, looking like they were fleeing a fire.

  “I set up an account for you,” my father said as we walked. “The business department handles it. You can withdraw cash when you need it for things.”

  “Thank you, Daddy.”

  “So what do you think?” he asked. I knew he was eager to hear me say encouraging things.

  “So far, so good. My roommate is a bit much, but I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

  He nodded. “You might end up doing some psychotherapy yourself. Her father told me a little about her. This is her third private school in three years.”

  “She told us.”

  “She’s also a bit of an anorexic,” my father said.

  “Maybe more than a bit. So she’s in therapy, too, huh?”

  “Be careful you don’t start trading stories,” he joked, but my slipping and saying something I didn’t want anyone here to know was something I feared. He saw the fear in my face. “Look, Kaylee, when it comes to your roommate, just be a listener. Maybe that’s all she really needs.”

  I stopped walking abruptly.

  “What?”

  “Did you tell Claudia’s father about Haylee?”

  “Not a word. He didn’t ask about any other children.”

  “Good. I don’t care to mention her, either, and I won’t. I’m an only child now.”

  “Very wise,” he said. “You’re a lot stronger than you think, Kaylee. I’m sure you’ll be a great help to some of the other girls besides your roommate.”