Elena Vanishing (18 page)

But here's a surprise: my manager is downstairs, waiting for me. With him is the angry set of bangs, his new boss. She glares at me like she thinks I might try to steal the coffee mug she's holding. And I'm sleepy enough, I just might.

Together the three of us walk to the Counseling Center. They flank me, one on each side. I try to get a conversation going, but neither of them seems to want to talk.

Once we get there, the managers' boss turns to me. “We've arranged for a counseling session for you,” she says.

This is a little strange, but it's probably all for the best—anything to keep Dean from feeling singled out. I'm more than happy to help a student get the care he needs.

When I come out of my session, I'm surprised to find my manager and his boss still there. Surely they have more important things to do on a busy day like today than hang around here waiting for me. And the new boss is eyeing me in a very odd way. She smooths her tight skirt.

“Elena,” she says abruptly, “we want you to take the day off.”

What happened? What did you screw up?
says the voice in my head.

“You've been under a lot of stress,” she continues as I pause, stunned. “Take a nap. Go see a movie.”

“Is this a joke?” I say, settling my expression and finding my smile. “Seriously, I feel great. And orientation is mandatory.”

“This isn't negotiable, Elena,” she replies.

What the hell? What did you do?
shrieks the voice in my head.
You stupid bitch, what the hell did you screw up?

I walk back to my dorm apartment in a towering rage.

You've got an empty day planner
, fumes the voice in my head.

My hands start to shake with anger and nerves. The shakes turn into shivers that slide up and down my spine. I hate this! My busy day is ruined.

You've got an empty day planner
, repeats the voice in my head.
Your life is out of control!

There is nothing—nothing!—worse than an empty planner.

I try to sleep my way through the empty hours, but my dreams are terrible. By noon, I really do feel sick. My aching body feels like it's coming apart.

At three o'clock, my cell phone rings. I lie there staring at the ceiling and listen to it. I don't bother to pick up.

Five minutes later, there's a knock on my door. It's my manager and the manager of one of the other dorms.

“Hi, Elena,” the other manager says, looking embarrassed. But my manager's face is a blank mask.

“You didn't answer your phone,” he says.

“I'm off today, you know that,” I say. “You were there. You heard your boss tell me to take the day off.”

“We were worried,” continues my manager, “when you didn't answer the phone.”

“You were
worried
? What do you mean, you were
worried
? I was asleep! I'm not on call today. I'm not required to answer my phone.”

He doesn't respond to that, but the other manager who's with him looks even more embarrassed. I hate that they're seeing me like this—smudged makeup, old clothes. I'll bet I have blanket lines on my face.

“You know as well as I do,” I say, “that your boss
told
me to get some sleep. So, if you don't mind, now that you're not worried anymore, I'm going to go do what I was told.”

It takes the last of my self-control not to slam the door in their faces.

Ten minutes later, just as I'm drifting off again, there's pounding on my door.

“Welfare check! Open up, or we unlock it!”

What the
hell
? Welfare checks are only performed when a student's life or health is in danger! They must have the wrong apartment number. But the rest of this building is empty!

When I open the door, the campus police are just as confused as I am. “We were told an Elena Dunkle was in crisis,” one of them says.

“I'm Elena Dunkle,” I snap. “No crisis here.”

The other officer walks past me and checks the whole apartment, as if he thinks there might be another Elena Dunkle hiding back in the bedroom who desperately needs his help.

“Well, okay,” he tells me as he leaves. “If you
do
need our help, give us a call.”

Now I'm far too angry to go back to sleep. But the anger gives me a sense of purpose again, so I channel that energy into work. I sort through stuff in boxes. I fold T-shirts and put them into drawers. I hang up skirts and tops.

By the time I take a break, the sunset is turning the sky golden outside my apartment windows. I'm feeling weak and sick. I haven't eaten all day—not even my granola bar and cup of green tea.

You can't go to the cafeteria
, says the voice in my head.
The other RAs are talking about you behind your back. They'll ask you why you weren't at orientation.

But the only food I have in the apartment is a bag of pixie straws I bought to give to my new freshmen, who arrive tomorrow.

Pixie straws are pure sugar
, says the voice in my head.
You're not going to eat pure sugar, are you?

The sun goes down. Darkness closes in. Because my body is used to nights at the gym and days at the mall, it isn't sure what time it is. My brain has that gummy, gluey feeling that comes from being at loose ends.

An empty planner does to the mind what a day without a shower does to the body.

In a kind of daze, I walk around, unpacking things. But the chaos in my apartment doesn't seem to get any better.

Finally, after midnight, I lie down on my bed and fall asleep in my clothes.

A rustling noise wakes me. I light up my phone: four o'clock in the morning. Then I slip it under the sheet and hold my breath.

Somebody is in my apartment!

I can hear footsteps trail across the packing clutter: the crackle and crunch of paper. Then the pop of a foot crushing a shoe box lid.

I can't move. I don't dare to move. And I'm lying with my back to the door!

Step by quiet step, the intruder creeps into my bedroom. I silently will it to be a thief and nothing more. Mentally, I offer up my laptop lying open on the desk, but the footsteps come toward the bed.

A form leans over me, pressing its weight into the small of my back. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a woman's face.

She raises her hand. There's the faint flicker of light off a knife blade.

Oh, my God! She's going to
kill
me!

The next instant—nothing.

My back can still feel where she leaned against me, but the woman with the knife is gone. I flee the room, sobbing, and huddle outside on the concrete steps.

What
was
that? Was that a dream? Can dreams be so
real
?

After half an hour on the steps, I gain the nerve to creep back inside. I flick the switch by the door, and fluorescent light stabs on and pins all my possessions into place. I look around the apartment. Nothing seems right. The colors are harshly, artificially bright. On the floor by my bed, the fallen blanket has stiffened into unnatural folds. Even my ragged old cow seems to glare at me.

“Hey, Dylan,” I say, kneeling down by the round fishbowl and putting a finger against the glass. But the blue fish lies motionless on the gravel by the stone pagoda. His fins and tail droop sullenly.

It's not late, it's early. I can get a jump-start on my day. As I shower, I push the curtain aside every few seconds to make sure no one is there. I apply my makeup with trembling fingers.

Day Three of orientation. I feel like hell. My day of rest has left me jumpy, chaotic, bedeviled, and miserable. But thanks to my nightmare, I have an hour before sessions start to work again on my apartment, and this time, I'm finally making headway. I stick my motivational posters up on the wall and hang my ballerina Christmas ornaments from the corkboard.

At seven-thirty, my cell phone rings. It's my RA manager.

“Elena, do you have a minute?” he asks.

Of course I have a minute! I put extra warmth into my voice just to show that there are no hard feelings. I check my makeup and hurry down to the RA offices, glad to be busy and useful at last.

That's when my manager leads me into the new boss's office.

And the new boss fires me!

“Why?” I ask. It's the only question I can think of. Even the voice in my head is silent.

The new boss looks as sour and suspicious as if she thinks I'm trying to catch her in some kind of trap.

“We aren't required by law to give a reason,” she says.

“I've known RAs who got caught with alcohol in their rooms,” I say. “And even they didn't end up getting fired.”

She glares at me as if I'm firing her and not the other way around.

“I said I'm not giving you a reason!”

My next stop is the office of the Head of Housing, where I appeal the firing. “At least tell me why,” I say.

“Elena, you've been under a lot of stress,” he tells me kindly. “We don't think this job is good for you.”

You've never spoken to this man, have you?
says the voice in my head.
Who's been talking about you? What has he heard?

I say, “So you want to help my stress level by yanking my funding a week before the new semester?”

The Head of Housing steeples his fingers and puts on his gravest, most fatherly expression.

“An RA is supposed to be a role model to these incoming first-year students,” he says. “That's an unwritten contract I have with their parents. And, in good conscience, Elena, I cannot say that you are such a role model.”

“I have a completely clean record during my time in student housing,” I say. “I have a GPA that put me on the honor roll twice. I earned a departmental award. I was asked to serve on the university's welcoming committee. I've never even gotten a speeding ticket. I've logged almost two hundred hours of volunteer time helping wounded soldiers in a hospital setting.
And you don't think I'm a good role model?
”

He doesn't answer. And that's good. He damn well better not!

But he doesn't need to answer. I already know what this is. It's a setup. The Counseling Center meeting, the made-up call to the police—they were building a mental case against me. Because the last thing I did before all this started was announce in public that I have an eating disorder.

It's a beautiful morning. The sun is shining, and there isn't a cloud in the sky. But as I walk back out into the sunshine, I can find no consolation. None at all.

Today, the new freshmen are arriving. My RA friends have their hands full. All around me, excited young people and happy parents are calling to one another across stair rails and asking one another for help. They are lugging boxes up to their new rooms and pulling brand-new comforter sets out of bags.

All over campus, new adventures are beginning. And they're going to happen without me.

You've been robbed
, says the voice in my head.
You let your guard down. You screwed up. You've been robbed.

Next to the concrete stairs of my dorm, a girl wearing skinny jeans and a lost expression on her face asks me the way to the student traffic office. I stop, and between us, we mark up her copy of the campus map.

“This place is so big,” she says. “I'm never going to learn my way around.”

“No, you'll do great,” I assure her. “You're already getting it figured out.”

She brightens up and walks away with her head a little higher, and I realize: that girl is one of my freshmen.

You've been robbed
, says the voice in my head.
They stole her from you.

I trudge up the steps, unlock my door, and push it open.

Not your door. Not anymore.

My room looks great now: cheerful red carpet on the floor by the coffee table, colorful posters, sequined blue pillows on the couch.

Not your room. Not anymore.

I drop my keys on the kitchen counter. Where to start?

My fish isn't sulking and sleepy anymore. Blue fins unfurled, he floats majestically through his bowl. I dip my finger in the water, and he deigns to nibble it.

“We have to leave, Dylan,” I tell him. “We've got till noon tomorrow to be out of here. I think I've got a Starbucks cup for you in the bathroom.”

You're a loser
, says the voice in my head as I drag clothes back out of the closet.

You're a loser
, says the voice in my head as I pack up the car.

Only losers live with their parents
, says the voice in my head as I walk through the rooms one last time.
Your hard work didn't mean anything. Everything you ever work for will be lost.

Dylan doesn't like his Starbucks cup. He thumps at the sides while I empty out his bowl.

“Time to go,” I tell him.

But before I go outside, I check my makeup. I brush my hair. And as I walk to the car with my fish in a paper cup, I make sure to hold my head up and smile.

They've robbed me. But they can't make me cry.

It's November, just three months since I was at the top of my game.

I'm not at the top of anything anymore.

Slowly, still tangled in shreds of dreams, I become aware of my surroundings. Pain has brought me back: dull, throbbing aches where my vertebrae are and sharp stabs of soreness from the cartilage of my ribs. My skull is a tight helmet, clamping my swollen brain. My eyeballs ache in their tender sockets.

I sit up. An orderly bedroom assembles itself around me. But all the sophistication in the world can't cover up the fact that this is the same room where my sister, the dogs, and I slept in bunk beds when I was ten.

The dogs are dead. Valerie is married—no beach wedding, no maid of honor. And I'm still here: the one who tried to make her way out into the world and failed.