An Off Year Read online

  I can’t remember if I just decided to have a crush on Ethan or if I actually did have a crush on him. He was a year older than us. He was certainly all right enough, but sort of B-class material, the guy who would hang back and laugh as his friends performed silly antics. He was pretty cute, with a thatch of overgrown reddish hair and big dark brown eyes. We had nothing to talk about, but after dark, when the counselors slipped out of the cabin to our “staff meetings” and all made out or smoked pot, Ethan and I would sit together on the field along with the other counselors who weren’t screwing or smoking. He gave me awful back rubs, soft and ineffective, but it was still nice to have someone touching my back, even if it was in a lackluster manner.

  “You liiiike him,” Kate said after the first night the two of us hung out, walking back to our cement-floored cabins.

  “Shut up.”

  “Laaaaaaaah,” she said. She was just excited because she let Joe touch her boob that night.

  “He is cute,” I admitted, begrudgingly.

  “What do you guys talk about?” she asked. “Cuteness and liking each other?”

  “Oh good god, I could never talk to him!” I couldn’t. It felt really embarrassing for some reason. Just sitting next to each other and being cuddly felt okay, though.

  “CECILY HAS A BOYFRIEND!” the sixth-grade girls all sang when I tried to open the screen door to the cabin without making a sound.

  “You little slags better shut up,” I hissed, and went to my bunk, excited and terrified about seeing Ethan the next day. The senior counselor had put on a Coldplay album to listen to while she fell asleep, and for the first time it sounded kind of romantic and not just bland.

  We were both too shy to really do anything except maybe put our heads on each other’s shoulders, but on the night before we were due to go home, he asked if I wanted to go for a walk.

  “Okay,” I said, and my heart started beating hard, because obviously this was the point where I was going to have sex and have a baby. Actually, we’d probably just kiss, but the obviousness of it, the soon-it-will-be-time-to-kiss-ness of it gave me plenty of opportunity to get nervous.

  Did we talk? We probably did. About what, who knows? Bug spray? The shittiness of my kids? How we’d be going home soon? I don’t remember. I just remember how romantic it was down by the lake. It was about midnight, but something, probably the moon reflecting off the clouds, made it seem almost light out. Crickets chirped. Water lapped. I wanted to puke. I mean, not only from nervousness; it was so cliché, I almost couldn’t stand it.

  We faced each other. Ethan chuckled and plucked at one of my braids. Then we kissed and I was so nervous, my hands were shaking. He was probably a decent kisser in that I don’t remember being grossed out or anything, but I didn’t have time to notice. I was just trying to act like I wasn’t freaking out, which of course made me seem completely nervous.

  “Relax,” he whispered. What did he look like in the dark? Was he smiling? Did he look serious? I couldn’t tell. All I remember was his smell: a musty smell of dust and sweat that would probably smell repellent in everyday situations, but was oddly comforting at camp.

  It didn’t last long. I heard someone calling my name and scrambled back to the campground. One of my kids, probably just to spite me, decided that she was going to get homesick the night before it was time to go home. But I was actually grateful. I wouldn’t have known what to do next.

  Ethan was going to ride back to his suburb (thankfully, we didn’t go to the same school) with a friend, and I was stuck with bus duty. Before he headed back to his cabin to collect his stuff, he came to meet me by the giant huffing buses that would take everyone back home. We sheepishly grinned at each other. We clearly didn’t know what to do. Were we boyfriend and girlfriend now? Would we never speak again? I decided to do what I had done all summer and leaned my head on his shoulder, and he wrapped his arms around me as obnoxious kids tapped on the windows of the bus above us. I couldn’t wait to get going.

  Ethan pressed a folded-up scrap of notebook paper in my hand. It was too small to say anything meaningful: it was almost certainly his phone number. I couldn’t handle the responsibility of calling a boy, having to talk to him, having to get to know him as a regular in-school guy, not a camp counselor. On the ride home, as the big black garbage bag got passed up toward the aisle for kids to dispose of the remains of their boxed lunches, I put the number inside and felt relieved as it slipped between apple cores, banana peels, sandwich crusts, and granola bar wrappers—beyond my realm of responsibility.

  That next summer, I asked my dad if there were any jobs for me at his university, and I spent it blissfully but boringly filing in the history department office, far away from Ethan and the possibility of kissing.

  “So,” I said after telling this to Jane.

  “So,” she said. “I guess you’re seeing one of the downsides of staying behind while everyone moves on.”

  That stung. “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, I guess I am.” She looked at me, and I couldn’t tell if the expression on her face said, “Well, what are you going to do now?” Or, “You poor thing.” Or maybe it said, “I’m hungry.” I didn’t feel like trying to figure out what it meant, and anyway, the appointment was over. “Well, see you, Jane,” I said.

  Dad picked me up from my appointment.

  “How was it?” he asked.

  “Fine,” I said, and looked out the window at a Starbucks across the street. Kids from the university were curled up inside, studying in pairs. I felt pathetic.

  “Want to talk about it?” he asked, turning left toward the lake.

  “NO,” I nearly shouted. When we got home, I made a beeline to my room and tried to whip up some tears to make myself feel better, first because I was a pathetic, lonely person not doing something with my life. Second, because I was a bad daughter. But nothing came of it.

  february

  I had strong opinions on daytime television. Oprah was always good as long as it wasn’t about self-improvement. Shows with more than one host were usually awful unless a guest host was sitting in. I liked Judge Mathis because he reminded me of one of my favorite teachers from grade school. But while I was a merciless critic, that didn’t mean I didn’t watch it all. I tried to do it on the sly, though: when Dad was out of the house, because I knew he’d get pissed if he caught me lounging on the couch watching yet another teenager screaming at an audience, “Fuck you! Y’all don’t know me!”

  Unfortunately, Dad came home for an early lunch one day when I was watching an episode of Jerry Springer that involved very fat men who enjoyed eating sloppily while not wearing many clothes.

  “Oh, hi, Dad,” I said, trying to keep my cool as I hastily turned off the TV.

  “Nice way to spend your day,” he said.

  “I was just about to take Superhero for a walk,” I said. Superhero, who had been lying on the floor next to me, raised his head at the w word. Fortunately, he couldn’t speak and tell Dad he’d already been on one.

  “Okay,” said Dad. “I just came up here to let you know that I took the liberty of setting up a meeting with a professional.”

  “What? No.”

  “Yes.”

  “NO.”

  “YES.”

  “Let me just get this straight before we keep going,” I said. “A professional what? I’m already seeing a professional therapist.”

  “A professional college counselor,” said Dad. “I never trusted those counselors at your high school anyway. There weren’t enough of them, and they knew nothing about you.”

  This was true. My school supplied four counselors to seven hundred kids in my graduating class. Mine was named Robin, and I never even found out for myself if Robin was a man or a woman. But it could have been worse: there was one girl in our class named Hillary Thomas who was applying to Brown, who got rejected because her counselor accidentally sent them the transcript of a girl named Heather Thompson. Heather had dropped out early in the year to have a baby.
In the end, Hillary got in anyway, which was good because Hillary was a superintense overachiever and many people, I won’t name names, found it amusing when her head nearly exploded after not getting into Brown.

  But still. I didn’t want to see a counselor. Kate’s parents had hired one. Her name was Claudia Something-or-other but Kate referred to her as the Claw. Kate’s parents paid thousands of dollars for her to sit in a room with the Claw, apparently a dried-out husk of a woman who wore “whimsical” jewelry decorated with little wooden animals. They would make lists of possible schools Kate could attend, based on Kate’s personality. The Claw then encouraged Kate to join the basketball team, build a house with Habitat for Humanity, and join a church youth group, all within the last four months of school, to pump up her application. Kate knew before she even saw the Claw where she wanted to go, but her parents basically just wanted to see if maybe there was some way the Claw could convince Kate to apply to Princeton and just maybe Kate would get in, and then just maybe her parents could mention to all their friends, casually, that they had a daughter who went to Princeton. Unfortunately for them, Kate did not get into Princeton, because, unbeknownst to them, she blew off the interview to go get ice cream sundaes with me. Kate would repeat to me in the Claw’s husky voice, “You know, if you’re really serious about this, you would . . .”

  It all sounded completely unhelpful, annoying, and a lot of bullshit, and I was through with that part of applying to colleges—the making-yourself-look-better-than-you-are part.

  “I don’t want to,” I said.

  “Too bad,” Dad said. “You have an appointment with her next week. Someone at work recommended her. They said she’s great. Speaking of which, you know, I can always speak to the dean and you can go to college right here in town. You could still live at home.”

  “No.” I would not be a pity case who ended up going to the school where her father worked. I would not go to college less than a mile away from my house. I probably wouldn’t get in anyway.

  “Cecily, what do you want? I’m at the end of my rope here. I’m trying to help you.”

  “I don’t know, what SHOULD I want?”

  “You should want whatever makes you happy.”

  “Well, I don’t fucking know what that is yet. Tell me what to do.”

  He opened his mouth to say something, closed it, and took a breath. “I am telling you what to do, and that’s to see the counselor—at least to see if she helps. And when you do meet with her you’d better have some thought of what you’re looking or not looking for.”

  “Well, I’m not the same as I once was, you know. Things change,” I said, trying to sound world-weary and knowledgeable.

  “Apparently, they do, because you were sorta easy to deal with a few months ago and now you’re a total—”

  “I think I want something where I can just have a lot of opportunities to figure out what I want,” I said.

  Dad beamed. “See? That wasn’t so hard.”

  I was so full of crap. I realized something, though. Dad was thinking, or maybe hoping, that the college was the problem, the reason I turned around the year before. And that all I needed was a better school to keep me there. That was interesting.

  I was in a foul mood the day of my appointment. Dad dropped me off (the same building as Dr. Stern), which meant I had to walk home. It would probably be a twenty-minute walk and it was a mild day, but I hated having exercise forced on me. Plus, I hated my outfit. At the last minute I had picked a long-sleeved T-shirt and down-filled vest to wear with my jeans, but the wind still blew off the lake pretty strongly and I knew I’d be freezing on my long journey home. This seemed like a real intrusion upon my precious time, too. If there was one thing I knew I was totally over, it was the college application and selection process. God, it was a drag. Repeating everything you’ve done, trying to convince people how special you are. Reading back through the college books hadn’t made me feel any more nostalgic for it. This was going to suck.

  “Hi!” said a perky girl with blond hair as I entered the office, this one on the fourth floor.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m Cecily Powell.”

  “Great,” she said, clicking a few things on her computer. “Okay, it looks like you have a noon with Leah. You’re going to love her. She’s the best.”

  “Great,” I said.

  “She’ll be right with you.”

  “Fine.”

  The girl put some headphones in and started humming as I flopped onto one of the sleek black leather couches. Sunlight streamed into the office, but that didn’t help the hideous reading material selection. U.S. News & World Report and the same college books I had at home. There were a few framed letters on the wall. I glanced at them but quit paying attention after I read, “Dear Leah!!! Oh my God. I am loving it at Dartmouth.”

  Dear Whoever. Shut up. I hate you.

  Aargh. I had a horrible feeling that it was so obvious that I didn’t belong in this office, that it wasn’t going to help me at all. But I couldn’t come up with a good reason why. And in the meantime I was stuck, because Dad definitely was going to give me a quiz if I came out of here without sounding like I had gotten something out of it—he had promised before he dropped me off. Dad wasn’t much of a disciplinarian, but he was serious when he told us to pay attention to things. When we went on trips, he would refuse to buy us souvenirs unless we could speak for at least five minutes on what we had seen.

  “Hey, hi, hi,” said a woman rushing in through the reception room door, carrying some files and a plastic shopping bag. At least two purses hung from her shoulders, plus a backpack. She was wearing one of those long black superpuffy coats that a lot of people wear in Chicago in the winter. It basically looks like a comforter with sleeves. I’m sure they’re very cozy, but I just couldn’t bring myself to buy or wear one, ever. For the coldest days, I had convinced my dad to buy me a bright red and black North Face jacket, which, he informed me, cost enough that I would never need another winter coat for as long as I lived—so I was stuck with mine anyway. She had long, frizzy-curly black hair that was being crowded out by a lot of white. It was probably what mine would look like when I was a crazy old lady myself one day. She shuffled through the lobby and through the door separating the office from the reception area. The door slammed behind her. Less than a minute later, the perky girl at the front desk pulled out one of her headphones and picked up the ringing phone. She hung up and said, “Okay, Cecily! Leah is ready for you. Just head through this door. Hers is the office to the right.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and trudged through the door.

  Leah was definitely the crazy-looking lady with the frizzy hair. She was still taking off her coat when I walked into her office. Her window offered a nice view of an unusual apartment building across the street. For some reason, the architects had designed it with this funny top to it that made it look German, vaguely like a gingerbread house. I could see a little strip of blue lake on the horizon.

  “Hi, Cecily. It is Cecily, right? Unless you go by any nicknames?”

  “Nope,” I said, and then wished I had said something like, “Why, actually, most of my friends call me ‘Moon Unit’ ” to see if she would play along.

  “Have a seat,” she said, gesturing to the chair on the other side of her desk. “You don’t mind if I eat, do you?” Actually, I did mind. I was starving, and her Jimmy John’s sandwich looked amazing. It made me hate this all the more. Dad had woken me up at eleven-thirty for my noon appointment, which gave me exactly fifteen minutes to get up and go. I used those fifteen minutes to shower, not eat breakfast. I started to complain about how hungry I was as he drove, but he shot me a look that made me shut up.

  “It’s fine.” I shrugged. Her office was decorated with posters of university campuses and more letters, presumably from satisfied customers.

  “Okay,” she said. “Apologies in advance if I spill all over myself and/or have onion breath.”

  I gave a fake half smil
e.

  “So, Cecily,” she said, licking some mayonnaise off her fingers and then flipping through a few pages in a file that she apparently already had on me. “What can I help you with today?”

  “I don’t know, really,” I said. “My dad signed me up for this and didn’t really tell me.”

  “Believe it or not, I hear that a lot,” she said.

  “Yeah,” I said. It came out as more of a statement than a question. A conversation-ender.

  “Hmm.” She obviously had wanted me to ask, “Oh really?” or something, but I wasn’t in the mood to chitchat. “Well, do you have any idea why you’re here?”

  I didn’t know if she was playing some sort of psych game or if she just didn’t know what was up. “You don’t know yet, really? Or are you asking me, like, so I can figure out out loud what I should be thinking about?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Whatever.” She opened a bag of potato chips. They smelled delicious. Krunchers! They were always great, despite their corny name. “Tell me why you think you’re here. It shouldn’t matter either way if I know or not, because your answer should be the same, right?” she asked. Ugh.

  “Well, okay. I’m taking the year off.”

  “Why?”

  “It just wasn’t time yet.”

  “Time for what?” she said, munching. Damn her and those chips.

  “Time for, you know, school. I went to start my freshman year, but I couldn’t do it. I turned around and went home.”

  Leah looked me straight in the eye over her long nose as she sipped from her takeout cup. She kind of looked like an owl. She put it down on the desk, hard, and made that Aaah noise you make after you’re particularly refreshed.