When Women Were Dragons(60)

In the workroom, Mrs. Gyzinska closed the door and told me to sit down at the long table that was usually used for sorting books or gluing split spines. She went to the corner and poured out two cups of very hot coffee. It burned my mouth, but I appreciated it all the same. She had books to show me, as she had made several purchases for the reference section. I began paging through them eagerly. Mrs. Gyzinska watched me as she slowly sipped her coffee. Her skin softly bunched around itself, like petals, and her eyes were small and bright and keen. She held a stack of envelopes on her lap. She held them up for me to see.

My stomach clenched a bit.

“I’ve taken the liberty,” she said slowly, “of sending out for information in your name.” She let the envelopes slip from her fingers onto the table, one by one, paper whispering against paper, like the sound of wind in the trees. I stared at the envelopes. “They are scholarship applications. You’re a good candidate. Your sex will work against you, I’m afraid, because the world remains in its current state, but your accomplishments speak for themselves. I know every professor working in the correspondence program—if any one of them hesitates to write you a recommendation, leave him to me, and I will handle it. There are very few who do not owe me a great debt. May I suggest you call yourself Alex and simply . . . forget to check any box that might identify yourself as female, and let them figure it out.”

“I would have done that anyway,” I said. Ever since I started my correspondence classes, my professors knew me as Alex and not Alexandra. They sent me evaluations heaped with praise. To this day, I’m not sure some of them would have done so if they had sent it to Alexandra.

I forced myself to thumb through the envelopes, forced my face into a neutral expression, but all the while anxiety gripped my insides like a vise. My vision swam a bit and I could feel the back of my neck begin to sweat. What about Beatrice? How would I manage it? I didn’t know, and I couldn’t say it out loud. Mrs. Gyzinska seemed to hear me anyway. She shifted her weight in her chair, squeaking its legs against the floor. I cleared my throat and looked at the envelopes. I noticed that she had placed an envelope from her alma mater on the top. I imagined it must look like a castle, all covered with ivy.

I handed that one back to her.

“This one can’t happen,” I said flatly. “Even if I got in, there’s no way.”

Mrs. Gyzinska regarded me silently. She sipped her coffee. She didn’t ask.

The silence held until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

“I mean,” I said. “I appreciate it. I really do. And I’m definitely going to school, it’s just that . . .” My voice trailed off.

Mrs. Gyzinska set her cup on the table. Her face was mild and pleasant. She didn’t look uncomfortable in the slightest.

I swallowed, and tried again. “It’s so far away. And wherever I go, I have to bring Beatrice. So.”

Another interminable silence.

“Beatrice won’t live here,” Mrs. Gyzinska said finally. “With your father. And your stepmother. That’s what you’re saying.” She steepled her fingers and held them under her chin. “Her family is—”

“Me,” I said. I looked at my hands. “It’s me and Beatrice, together. That’s what it will always be. My father is not interested in me going to college, and said so, so we will do it on our own steam. It’s a tall order, but it’s even taller at a rich kids’ school. If you understand me. They don’t have a lot of people in my situation. It’s hard to imagine that they would understand, much less accommodate me.”

Her expression flickered a bit, but then was as implacable as ever. “Well,” she said, waving her hands casually, “I fear you may be right about that. No matter. In any case the letter of recommendation that I have already written for you will work just as well at the University of Wisconsin as it will anywhere else. I have considerable pull there too. The issue, of course, is how we can compel them to allow you to live in married and family housing, since, after all, you and Beatrice are a family unit, rather than having to navigate securing a place to stay in a city you do not know, and with limited resources. No one should have to do that on their own. Especially not a”—she pursed her lips—“a mathematician.” She frowned. She would have preferred me to study philosophy, I think.

There was a sudden splashing outside. I looked out the window and saw Beatrice and Mr. Burrows mucking through the marsh in Wellingtons. Mr. Burrows held a rack full of test tubes, and Beatrice held a long syringe.

“Now, you see,” I could hear him explain, “we have to be careful and thoughtful about exactly where we wish to draw our samples, that way we can—now Beatrice, that is the opposite of what I . . . Oh, heavens.”

Mrs. Gyzinska rolled her eyes. “This is why I never had children,” she said, shaking her head. Then she noticed me, checked herself, and patted my hand. “I don’t have your skills,” she added diplomatically.

I sighed. Rested my forehead on the heels of my hands. “I’m not sure I do either,” I said. It was so much. It was so, so much.

I opened my textbook and started reading. I wasn’t trying to be rude. I just had work to do. And precious little time to do it in. I tried to quiet the swirl of anxious thoughts tangling inside my head. The very notion of pausing the pursuit of my studies felt, to me, like the end of the world. Who was I, after all, without the clarity of mathematics? Who was I without theorems and equations and angles and variables? Who was I without careful measurements and reasoned analysis? I thought about my mother, about her cancer eating her from the inside. In my imagination, her tumor looked like a dragon. I imagined myself in armor like a knight. I imagined traveling into the depths of my mother’s body—tracking it, finding it, engaging with it, and killing it. I underlined passages and made margin notes in my textbook with such force that I nearly split the paper.