For Sure & Certain (4 page)

“I would’ve remembered this.”

Marigold twirled, her creamy petticoat skirt making a circle, a lacy camisole layered with a hand-crocheted shawl. Half a dozen necklaces hung to her belly, jingling. Marigold felt like the wind when she moved. She liked being a breeze, ready to shift at any moment.

“I mean, I guess it’s better than that time you decided to be French mime.”

“That was in fourth grade.” Marigold shook her head, knowing Tabby was teasing, but it all felt a bit too raw for her, everything did that reminded her of before, when she tried so hard to be seen.

Now her clothes stood out in a pretty, romantic way, but no one else saw it like that. They assumed this was another fad Marigold was starting. They didn’t see the truth underneath the petticoats and ruffled socks she wore. They assumed the worst.

The girls walked up the staircase and down the hall. Entering Tabby’s bedroom they were assaulted by an absolute disaster.

“What happened?” Marigold asked, lifting a pile of clothes heaped by the door and depositing them on the canopied bed.

“Everything. You would know if you’d come to graduation like a normal person.”

“What does graduation have to do with a messy room?”

“Oh it was, like, totally crazy here yesterday. All the girls came over to get ready for the after party, which was awesome, but the next thing I know, everyone was trying on all those new pieces from my mom’s line and it just got kind of out of hand. You would have loved it. Or at least the old you would have.”

Marigold took in the amazing couture pieces from Tabby’s mom’s clothing line. Her stomach twisted remembering how many times Tabby dressed her up in outrageous ensembles last year when their world revolved around finishing her costumes with an over-the-top hat or rhinestone vest or platform boots.

“I mean, you would have died.” Tabby talked with her hands, emphasizing every other word as though it was the most important thing ever. None of it was. Not to Marigold at least. She stood listening, not knowing if she even wanted to stay. This was the reason she created distance; she no longer wanted to be apart of a life that revolved around parties and performances. She wanted a life that had more meaning … some substance. She was looking for depth but kept drowning.  Treading water alone was exhausting.

“Anyways, we all got super slutty and the guys were seriously hard just from seeing us. It was nuts. Jay’s mom got us all a suite at their hotel and it was, like, perfection. You should have been there. It was better than junior homecoming.”

“That’s a hard night to top.” Marigold remembered how that night she wore a dress that was little more than lingerie. Blue silk wrapped loose around her body and when she moved it looked like she was swimming, like she was a mermaid.

When the limo drove them all to Chesapeake Bay, they skinny-dipped, champagne bottles in hand, crashing their smiles into the waves as if life couldn’t get any better. But it did get better, at least she had thought it did, everything became bigger and better, each week seeming to top the week before. One hundred thousand YouTube followers will do that to a girl.

“Yeah, homecoming was good, I mean except for the fact your date was Gerald.” Tabby made a wrenching noise, and Marigold couldn’t hold back a smile at that.

Gerald was the epitome of a douche bag, yet had somehow managed to date Marigold for a few months too long.

“True.” Marigold stepped farther into the bedroom and sat crossed-legged in the center of the thick white-carpeted floor and began folding clothes. “I’m glad you guys had a good time, you’ve looked forward to this night forever.”

“Yeah,” Tabby said plopping down next to her. “But it wasn’t the same without you. You totally should have been there, Goldie. It was like the one person who used to be center stage wasn’t there, but we all kept looking around for you, for the one who knew how to hold court. You just disappeared on us.”

“I don’t want to rehash this anymore,” she told Tabby. “We’ve been over it.” Marigold never expected to leave the scene she created. But she did, it got out of hand, people got hurt.

“I know, but you could have tried again, to come back.” Tabby’s voice was soft, and Marigold felt bad for the one millionth time for not being the person everyone wanted her to be.

“No, Tabby, I couldn’t. To everyone at school, I was more than life itself, I can’t live up to those sorts of expectations. I don’t want to.” Her voice was raw, these jagged edges of their friendship too sharp. Tabby didn’t want to accept Marigold as anything besides the girl she used to know.

The room fell silent, and Marigold matched a pair of socks, adding them to the pile on the floor, thankful to have something to do with her hands.

“When do you leave?” Marigold asked gently.

“In the morning, at like four.”

“I can’t believe you’re going to Peru.”

“You could have come too.”

“I know.”

“You didn’t even come to prom.” Tabby’s voice was weak, and Marigold didn’t have the nerve to meet her eyes.

“It’s not my thing.”

“So you’ve said, but what’s so strange is that it always was. Prom would have been the most ‘Goldie’ thing ever.”

Tabby’s knees touched Marigold’s, but more space hovered between them than had ever before. It would be so easy to go back to where things had been. A few simple moves on Marigold’s part: send in the paperwork to Jamestown, ask where her old crew was hanging out tonight, beg her mother to buy a last minute ticket to Peru, who would acquiesce because this was exactly what her mother wanted her to be. Her and Tabby could meet cute European boys on the mountain trails and spend the summer reveling in their privilege before heading off to an Ivy League.

Marigold didn’t do any of these things because that would be the old Marigold. The Marigold who was satisfied with non-stop action, but after she quit making the videos, she realized they never made her feel alive, not really. They were a way to be seen, but she wanted to be known.

She took Tabby’s hands and looked in her eyes, wanting to remember the girl she might have become.

“I made you a scarf.”

“It’s like eighty degrees at the top of Machu Picchu.”

“I know, I thought you could wear it when you move to Boston this fall.” 

“I’ll see you before the fall, weirdo.”

“Okay,” Marigold said, but she didn’t believe the word even as she said it. She knew this was good-bye.

Abel

            
 
The first morning of classes Abel made his way across campus towards the dean’s office. They had a meeting, and because of that he woke early, much earlier than Lacey, and had eaten warm oatmeal at a table alone in the dining hall.

He was used to rising early, growing up on a farm will ingrain that in a guy, and clearly his summer classmates had less restrictive upbringings. Though it had been stiff competition to get in the program, no one took it as seriously as he did. That was obvious when so many students in the cohort messed around on their phones during orientation.

For him, this was everything, his only real shot at doing something besides managing his parents’ farm. Everyone else seemed to have grown up with an advantage he couldn’t really understand. They didn’t realize the power of an education, how it wasn’t readily available to him, and how this wasn’t something to take for granted.

As he walked to the office, he wasn’t nervous or jittery, that was never Abel’s style. It was excitement that pulsed through him. Finally, he was here, earning the first college credit of his life … credit a year ago he would never even have dared to imagine.

“Welcome, Abel.” Dean Larsen led him into his large office. Larsen was his father’s age, thin face and long limbs, wearing a suit that appeared a size or two larger than necessary. As if he feared his arms and legs would continue to grow even though he was in his fifties.

“Thank you for having me here as a student.” Abel shook Dean Larsen’s outstretched hand before taking a seat in a leatherback chair. “I realize this is all really out of the ordinary.”

“It is, it is quite unusual,” Larsen said rubbing his hands together, as if massaging in lotion that wasn’t there. He rested his elbows on the large wooden desk and looked Abel straight on. “Unusual, but exciting. Thrilling, even. It is the intention of this institution to raise learners, to mold minds, to shape the future.” He paused, giving Abel a serious nod. “You’ll do well here if your test scores have anything to say about it.”

“I hope to, sir.” Abel smiled as Dean Larsen went over most of what had been covered during orientation the day before. He would be taking four courses this summer with twenty other students who were all admitted into the Business Intensive. Regular summer courses would be held as usual, of course, but for the most part Abel would remain in this pack of twenty.

“What do you think, Abel, are you eager to begin?”

“Eager, yes. And ready. This opportunity is such a privilege.”

“Of course, of course, but you are very bright, and this is well deserved.” Larsen smiled as he stood, indicating the end of the meet and greet. “Welcome to college, Abel Miller.”

***

The first week was filled with awkward conversations, people squinting their eyes at him in his unusual clothing, and then quickly turning away. He ate lonely lunches in the dining hall, usually next to Lacey, who was friendly enough, but Abel couldn’t keep up with the way the kids here spoke.

It was easier to stay out of everyone’s way. He sat in classes where professors questioned his ability to comprehend the information. He stopped by Tara’s room after getting lost on his way to the campus bookstore and she sweetly drew a map for him with little arrows pointing out close by cafes and bookstores. Abel found himself memorizing it as he fell asleep each night, not wanting to get lost again, and look even more out of place than he already felt.

Abel could handle the content, and the professors quickly learned that besides his thick accent he asked relevant questions during class discussions and seemed engaged in all the assignments. It was the down time Abel wasn’t familiar with.

There were no lazy afternoons at the farm. Every day of his life had been spent working hard. When not helping a member of the community raise a barn, or fix a roof, or lend a hand harvesting a bumper crop, he spent hours on accounting, reviewing ways to make the sheep farm more efficient and streamline the workload.

Here, in D.C., living in the heart of a city, with public parks holding the largest stretch of green and no farm animals in sight, the learning curve was sharp, even for a student who earned a twenty-three seventy on his SAT. Nothing prepared Abel for this new pace of life.

Classmates in the Honors Intensive walked with thumbs moving fast against a phone, never looking up as they crossed intersections.  In class they took notes on small tablets, swiping at screens holding their textbooks, reading the news. Snapping pictures to post on interfaces Abel had heard of, but never used. Since he didn’t spend his free time plugged in to a screen, there were empty hours to fill.

He had two classes in the morning, a short lunch break, and two more classes in the early afternoon. He kept busy on campus, one day he stopped to see his favorite Professor Trape during visiting hours to ask about a random Wall Street journal article, but he was careful not to appear needy.

He’d even found a computer lab to ask a tech guy to help him figure out how to use the laptop he had bought before he came. The other days he holed up in the massive library or a nearby bookstore, practicing typing on the laptop, and reviewing all the textbooks the courses had assigned.

Still, he found himself looking out the window of his tidy bedroom, in constant awe of how different the most basic things were. Light switches, sidewalks, the pleasure of holding his book in plain sight, not stuffing it under his pillow where a family member wouldn’t see it and find offense. Here, he was free. After the first week of classes, Saturday stretched out before Abel, who woke to a silent dorm floor. Once showered and dressed, he stuffed his wallet in the back pocket of his trousers and took his straw hat from the hook, unceremoniously placing it on his head. He took his set of keys and locked the door, making his way to the dining hall.

Once there he frowned, realizing weekend breakfasts were pretty lame on campus. Toaster oven’s and cold cereal. He buttered a few slices of bread and layered raspberry preserves on top, not used to such simple fare. To be honest, he’d never cooked more than this in his life, and he felt a flush of embarrassment at this simple truth.

His Mom and sister’s did all the cooking and cleaning, planning and shopping. They kept the house smelling of yeasty rolls and sweet pies. They provided him with the comfort of farm fresh eggs, warm biscuits, and sizzling slabs of bacon to warm him on the weekend mornings.

Thinking about the breakfast his family enjoyed two hours away caused his stomach to rumble and his head to hurt. Coffee. That’s what he needed. He looked at the machine sitting on the counter. He had enough experience the past few days to know it was much too weak to fuel him.

He uncharacteristically bit his fingernails. He could go out and find some. Simple. There were harder things than procuring a cup of coffee. But at the moment Abel couldn’t for the life of him think what one of those things might be.