An Off Year Page 6

  “We stop getting more than one present each from Dad after we graduate from high school, remember?” said Josh. “Family policy.”

  “Oh, was that why you didn’t want to go to college?” added Germaine. “Because you didn’t want to stop getting presents?”

  “Yeah, something like that,” I said, staring at Dad, who was watching the floor, swirling around the one glass of expensive Scotch he let himself have per year. I was pissed. I was annoyed at myself for being pissed, because I felt like I was too old to be mad about what I got or didn’t get for Christmas. But it wasn’t really that. I didn’t like passive-aggressive hints. He had been doing things lately like leaving me clippings from newspapers about picking the right college, or how many great amenities freshmen were getting lately. I’d rather he pound a huge drum and stomp around the house chanting “Back to school, back to school” than this.

  “Well, thanks,” I said, putting it aside.

  “Your mom sent over some stuff,” said Dad, pointing to a big black shiny shopping bag next to the tree. This had better be a redeeming present or else I was giving up Christmas forever. Inside the bag was a black leather jacket from Italy. Admittedly, it was pretty cool, but it certainly wouldn’t be warm enough in Chicago to wear anytime soon. Also included was a cardboard tube. I could tell that the jacket was going to be clothing when I saw the box, but this was a surprise.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “I don’t know!” said Dad, while Josh and Germaine tried on their jackets. We didn’t mind if we all got the same present from her, because if it was good, we all got something good, and if it was bad, we could all complain together.

  I pulled the metal cap out of one side of the tube and extracted a big poster. It was so huge that when I spread my arms to see it, it still didn’t open up all the way. We had to put two mugs from our hot chocolate down on the ends to see what it was.

  “Sexy,” said Josh. It was a black-and-white photo of a couple kissing in some café. I think it was French. The café, not the kissing.

  “What is this?”

  “There’s a card,” Dad said, handing me a business card with some scrawling on the back.

  For your dorm!!!! Xoxox, Mom had written on it.

  “That’s great,” I said. “She doesn’t remember that I’m not in college.”

  “Maybe it’s for when you go back,” said Josh.

  “If you go back,” said Germaine.

  I stood up. “Where do we keep the wine?” I asked, picking up one of the mugs and letting the poster roll back up with a snap. “I need a drink.”

  “Shut up,” said Dad.

  I left the college book in the family room for a few days, hoping that maybe somebody would make it disappear. I would rather get a booster shot and my teeth cleaned simultaneously than have to look at, and apply to, colleges again.

  A few days after Christmas, I woke to the smell of waffles cooking: Dad sometimes made special breakfasts for us while we were all on break. Of course I wasn’t really on Christmas break, but I was happy to enjoy the benefits of Dad’s and Josh’s. I wandered downstairs in my sweatpants and T-shirt and found the table set, with the dreaded college guide on my plate. Cute.

  “What is this?” I asked. “Where are my waffles?”

  “This is a trap,” Dad said, talking above the radio set to NPR, which he always listened to too loudly. “To get you to look at schools again. You need to at least start thinking about what’s going to happen this summer.”

  “This summer,” I said, “it’s going to be hot. Perhaps a thunderstorm or two.”

  “You’re going back to school,” he said, pointing his spatula at me. “We just have to face facts and get to it, unless you want to have a big fight over it.”

  “Don’t point that thing at me,” I said. He poked me with it instead and put down a plate of waffles with whipped cream and strawberries.

  “Enjoy!”

  I sat down and flipped through the book while I ate my fancy waffles. The kitchen had seemed so bright and clean and happy and welcoming, especially the sunshine bouncing off the fresh snow in the yard, but it was all a horrible mirage.

  These college guides are supposed to help you make an educated decision about what schools you are interested in based on several factors, such as size, location, and academic strengths and weaknesses. But in reality everybody just reads them to find out how the food is or what the party scene is like. I read a description of one school that called the town it was located in “One of the Seven Gates of Hell.” If that’s not intriguing, I don’t know what is.

  My vision began to blur as I stared at the book. It described colleges in the most boring way possible:The “Christian Path” is considered an essential component of the university’s curriculum. . . .

  Too religious. I hadn’t been in a church since the last time my mom pulled me into one in Europe to look at the frescoes.

  Inherently, the student body is issue-oriented. Students spend a good deal of time in the library. It’s also joked that each professor believes that you’re majoring in his or her subject. Approximately 70 percent of each graduating class moves into the job market after matriculation. . . . Too boring. And with lame jokes.

  There are no core requirements: students are encouraged to create their own majors, with mandatory enrollment in at least four areas of study at all times. All students must take classes in the fine arts, social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities.

  Too intimidatingly brainy.

  The student body eagerly looks forward to key social events each year that attract swarms of men.

  Too many women.

  Dedicated environmentalists abound. . . .

  Too good. Too many hippies.

  Approximately 75 percent of the student body go Greek, and those who avoid the Greek system tend to feel excluded from the social scene.

  Too horrible to even consider.

  After about fifteen minutes, I put my head on the kitchen table, wondering how bad Dad would feel if I were found dead like that. The book was giving me a headache. I groaned.

  “Nice try,” Dad said, taking my plate from me. “But you’re not going to get off the hook anymore. I want you to think about this, Cecily. Fun time is over.”

  “When was fun time?” I asked. “I must have missed that.” I started heading up the stairs.

  “I’m serious,” he said. “Come here.” And I walked halfway back down the stairs.

  “What?” I said snottily. “I have to go upstairs and research schools.”

  “Come here,” he repeated, pointing to the floor. I rolled my eyes. I hated feeling like this, like I was ten.

  “You’re going back to school. If it’s not going to be Kenyon, you’d better figure out which school it is going to be. We’re going to have to fill out applications, go to interviews, the whole shebang—all over again. And by ‘we,’ I mean you, because I don’t have time to go over it all again, but I do have time to make you do it yourself.”

  I rolled my eyes again.

  “Also, I called Kenyon and talked to the admissions office after we came back last fall. They said it’s okay if you want to come back, because I originally told them that you were just deferring enrollment.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Thanks.” I somehow felt betrayed. I was so used to not doing anything with this year that it felt like an invasion that he had done anything productive without me knowing it.

  “But if you decide that you don’t want to go to Kenyon, that’s fine. You just have to figure it out now so I can let them know you’re not going there. That’s why I got you the book.”

  I moaned. The last thing I wanted was choices. “All right, Dad,” I said. “I’ll let you know in a few weeks.”

  “Days.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Sounds good. See you later.”

  I started back up the stairs, and, for some reason, seeing Germaine’s closed door made me stop. I went back halfway down the stairs.
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br />   “Dad?”

  “Yes, baby?”

  “How come you let me stay here? This year?”

  “I thought you wanted to stay here.”

  “Yeah. But . . . how come you didn’t make me go?”

  “I don’t make monkeys,” he said, and made a face.

  “Funny.”

  Conrad and Germaine were watching a movie in the living room. I was sure that they wouldn’t mind if I joined them as I looked through the college guide book more. Germaine rolled her eyes several times and mouthed a few variations of “Get out,” but I pretended not to see.

  “What are some things that I want in a college?” I wondered aloud.

  Conrad perked up. “Do you want activism? Do you want to do community service? Do you want to study abroad? Do you want a campus friendly to the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered community? A medieval society?”

  I stared at him. I’d never heard him speak so much in his life. And he wasn’t making any sense.

  “Huh?”

  “Choosing a college is one of the most important steps you’ll ever take in your life. It will affect who your friends are, what your interests are, where you find a job, who your lovers are. What sort of organizations you might be interested in, what activities, study options. It can really help define who you will be. I can help you if you want.”

  Define who I would be? I now wanted to not be here, not having this conversation. Germaine stared at me so hard, I got a little scared.

  “Where did you originally go?” he asked.

  “She went to Kenyon,” Germaine said.

  “Oh, you went to Kenyon?” he repeated.

  “For about five minutes,” I said. “Actually, maybe more like two hours.”

  “That’s a good school,” Conrad said. “I had some friends there. Did you know Todd Turkowitz?”

  “Did I!” I exclaimed. “He was like my best friend there! We’d have ever so much fun. We would laugh and laugh.”

  “Don’t listen to her,” said Germaine.

  “Thank you so much, Conrad. This has been most helpful. I will be sure to come to you if I have any further questions. Good day.” I tipped an imaginary cap and walked out of the room.

  Germaine and I were still annoying the shit out of each other, so it was nice having Josh back for Christmas, just because he seemed glad to be home, which made the house feel a little happier in general. I was not terribly happy, though, when we heard that his girlfriend was coming to visit. I was pretty sure her name was Angie, but I couldn’t be positive. (Actually, I knew it was Angie, but I kept pretending that I forgot it whenever I talked about her to Dad or Germaine. Neither of them found this amusing.)

  Josh and I had never really hung out, just the two of us, outside the house. In fact, he’d sort of ignored me at the beginning of high school, which was devastating at the time. He apologized later, saying that he was just trying to fit in with his friends, but it took me a while to get over the first few days of school, yelling “Hey, J-baby!” (Mom’s nickname for him) in the hall only to have him walk by and not even look at me.

  But we have gotten along fine ever since. I wasn’t sure how Josh ended up seeming so much more easygoing than Germaine and me. Who knows, maybe he was full of secret turmoil and he just managed to act like nothing bothered him too much. But he didn’t seem to get irritated by Dad the way Germaine always did, and when I heard him on the phone with Mom, he didn’t seem to hate talking to her the way I did.

  So I wasn’t sure what it was that I distrusted so much about this girlfriend, but I knew that Josh had been a little annoying since he’d gotten home for break, squirreling away in his room and talking on the phone and making stupid giggly noises, so I had to assume she was the cause of it all. Plus, Yolanda had to come an extra day during the week to clean for the houseguest, which put me in a bad mood because whenever Yolanda cleaned, she moved my stuff from where my stuff needed to be. I had very specific piles around my room that meant certain things. These I would file at a later time. These would get thrown away on Tuesday. This one would just stay around for a while. She consolidated them all, and it drove me wild.

  I knew that Angie was coming the day before New Year’s Eve, so to avoid the grand entrance, I hid in our local Barnes & Noble, which was a bad plan since the store was full of kids off from school and people returning gifts. I bought a celebrity trash magazine and sat in the corner of the café with my back to the room, so if anybody from my school came in, they wouldn’t see me. Eventually I finished the magazine, and I felt that if I ordered another hot chocolate, my teeth would fall out of my head, so I headed home.

  I just had to stay out of the common areas of the house where Josh and Angie might be hanging out. I didn’t want to know what they were doing, but I imagined they were staring at each other and sighing in adoration.

  When I came home, Dad was in the kitchen, paying some bills.

  “Angie’s here,” he said, smiling.

  “Oh yeah? What’s she like?”

  “She seems really cool.”

  “Cool?”

  “She definitely doesn’t seem like she’s in a bad mood, unlike you. I might trade her for you.”

  “Look, I can’t promise I’ll be in a good mood, but what if I just keep my bad mood away from them?”

  “That’s fine,” he said. “Just be polite. Are you jealous or something?”

  “No,” I said. “I just don’t like people in my personal space.”

  “I guess it’s a bad idea that I told her she could sleep in your bed,” he said.

  “Ha-ha.” I went upstairs to brush the chocolate taste out of my mouth. When I stepped out of the bathroom I saw my brother smooching somebody blond and petite in the hallway. I figured that people who make out prefer to do it on couches or beds or in bars, but anywhere seemed to do in the case of these two perverts.

  “Hi.” I tried to sound like this was all perfectly normal, that I was cool with running into weird makeout sessions. Even Germaine had the decency to close the door when she and Conrad did the disgusting things they did. My brother blushed, but the blond person looked up and smiled.

  “Cecily, right? I’m Angie! It’s so nice to meet you.” She marched toward me with her hand held out. She gripped mine, perfectly firm. If I were giving her a job interview, I would have hired her on the spot, based on the handshake. She wore a red sweater that somehow showed off her small waist and looked comfy and warm, too. I never knew where girls found such sweaters.

  I glanced at Josh, but he was busy staring at Angie with big, wet, shiny, adoring cow eyes. I wanted to puke.

  “Nice to meet you, too,” I said. I think that’s what you said in situations like this. You lied.

  “Were you out returning Christmas presents?” she asked.

  “I wish,” I said. “I wish I had presents I could return.” She laughed loud.

  “This is Angie’s first time to Chicago,” said Josh.

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, I hope you like it.”

  “I do,” she said. “Josh and I are going to go to the Art Institute in a little bit.”

  “Oh really?” I turned to Josh.

  “Why ‘oh really’?” Angie asked, as Josh looked at the ground.

  “This one time Dad tried to take all three of us to the Art Institute, Josh was so determined not to see any art that he sat in the car the entire time we were there. Even though Dad promised he’d get us all something from the gift shop. And even though we parked in an underground garage.”

  “So you didn’t have a book or anything?” asked Angie.

  “No,” said Josh.

  “You were that determined not to see art?”

  He shrugged. “What can I say? I thought it was lame.”

  “How long ago was this?” Angie asked.

  “It was last week,” I said. She laughed again. After they left, I had the sinking feeling that it was going to be really hard to hate Angie, so I went and bugged Germaine to get off
the computer and let me check my e-mail, even though I knew I didn’t have any.

  “I’m using it,” she said.

  “Dad, Germaine won’t let me use the computer,” I called to his office, in a voice I had perfectly pitched so that I knew he couldn’t hear it but she’d think he could.

  “Jesus Christ,” she said. “Have it. God.”

  That felt much more natural.

  Angie ate dinner with us, although Germaine had escaped by going to Conrad’s place. He shared a dumpy apartment in the city with five other guys, and Germaine only went there in the direst of circumstances, like when she had to be pleasant to houseguests. Dad was fascinated by Angie and wanted to know what she thought about the Art Institute, since she had just finished an art history class at school and he’d minored in that when he was in college.

  Angie seemed all right. But something about the way she was so friendly yet polite was almost professional. Or too adult. Or too happy. I felt like she was an actor pretending to be somebody who was twenty instead of an actual twenty-year-old. She just seemed so damned nice and polite, and I kept waiting for her to turn into Germaine, or Kate, or any of the other girls I knew who had gone to college. Secretly she had to be fake, or boring, or a bitch. Even though it wasn’t fair of me to assume this, I kept expecting the transformation to happen. I was just nervous being around someone, too, whom I had to behave around.

  “We rented some movies tonight if you want to watch them with us,” said Josh. “Ghostbusters and What About Bob?. Some Bill Murray stuff in honor of Angie’s first time in Chicago.”

  “Sounds like fun,” I said. Sitting around watching movies with them sounded awkward.

  “I’m going to hang out and watch them, too, Cecily,” said Dad. “You should join us.” I tried to think of any reason I could not watch the movies with them that didn’t involve me sitting awkwardly and quietly in my room, not doing anything. But I had no plans, nobody to call.