Black Cake(21)
How to Become a College Dropout
Benny, at the school of her parents’ dreams.
Benny, seventeen, at the top of her class.
Benny, getting the side-eye at the black student union.
Benny, not black enough. Benny, not white enough.
Benny, not straight enough. Benny, not gay enough.
Benny, alone on a Saturday night.
Benny, in bed with bruises all over.
Benny, signing papers in Administration.
Benny, walking down the marble staircase.
Benny, nineteen, a college dropout.
What You Don’t Say
In her third year at college, Benny was cornered in the dorms by two girls who had seen Benny getting flirty with one of the guys from the African American fraternity. They called her a traitor. One of them pushed her into her room and when Benny caught her foot on the metal leg of her bed and fell, she kicked Benny in the face.
It was the surprise of what was happening that caused Benny to stay there on the ground, more than any of the blows landed by her schoolmate. She was, after all, six feet tall, and though she’d never loved the surfing and swimming as much as her parents and Byron, she’d done a bit of sport all the same, she’d grown up pretty strong.
In the end, it was all soft-tissue damage; the bruises would heal in time. But there was a deeper hurt that drove Benny away from the school. These were girls who she’d thought would have supported her for her differences, not lashed out at her. The one who kicked her while she lay on the ground had once danced with her at the student pub, then leaned her against a dark wall that smelled like beer and sneakers and kissed her. They had both smiled, then headed back to the dance floor.
This is the kind of thing a person doesn’t say. That these were senior-year students who’d initially made her glad to be on campus. That instead of closing ranks around Benny, they’d closed her out. That as the one girl kicked Benny where she lay, the other didn’t say stop. But Benny would never report them. She refused to give anyone the chance to look her up and down the way people sometimes did and say, You see?
From then on, with each move, first back home to California, then Italy, then Arizona, Benny yearned consistently for one thing more than any other, a life that felt emotionally unremarkable. A life that felt safe.
Arizona had seemed like a good place to start once Benny had decided to go to art school. She would get as far away as she could from the feel of the northeastern university that she’d left behind. She would study something that interested her, not her parents. She would take that time to figure out exactly how to move forward, how to find her place in the working world.
Benny was energized by the broad, seemingly barren expanses that, seen from up close, were popping with life. The furred leaves of the velvet mesquite. The blue-green bark and yellow flowers of the blue palo verde. The bristly javelinas, the splotchy Gila monsters, the baby rattlesnakes that flicked their tiny tails to warn of the potency already pooled within.
Arizona had a good art program that Benny could afford and Benny had grades that could get her into the school, almost no questions asked. And that was how Benny met Joanie. At the time, Joanie was a graduate assistant in ceramics. She had a sharp jaw and wavy ponytail that pulled at Benny the first time she saw her walking down a corridor with clay-splattered coveralls.
Then Benny saw the blue vase. It was nearing the end of the first term and some of the students had gone over to Joanie’s townhouse for drinks and snacks. The poured-cement floor in Joanie’s living room was cool and bare. The only carpeting in the central space was a claret-colored rug hanging on one of the walls and below it, on the floor, was a row of Joanie’s ceramic pieces. The partygoers were clustered together in front of an enormous blue vase.
To say the vase was blue was about as imprecise as calling a person interesting, but everyone agreed that it was, at the very least, bluish. Benny sat staring at the waist-high object for what felt like an hour, pulling her gaze up from the mostly emerald lower border, through its rich celestial middle, to the pale aquamarine splash at the top, the flecks of gold and amber near the upper edge, and finally, part of the lip and bulge of the vase, which had been left uncolored, the natural, reddish tone of the pottery exposed. Benny contemplated the vase, then looked over at Joanie. And Joanie smiled back at her in that way that Benny would come to know.
Four years into their relationship, Benny still hadn’t told her family about Joanie, and this had become a problem. Joanie was ten years older, been there, done that, plus they were living in the twenty-first century, for Pete’s sake, she said. Benny tried to make it up to her. She filled Joanie’s kitchen, decidedly nicer than her own, with spices and sautés. She sent emails around to promote Joanie’s exhibits. She waited every Friday night for Joanie outside the office where Joanie worked part time, so they could grab a pizza together.
But Joanie was the kind of person who appeared not to mind the slights of others, until finally they had crossed some invisible line. And now, it was Benny’s turn to find out what that could mean.
As another winter of holiday plans approached, Joanie told Benny that Benny had been doing too much for her, suffocating her, when all Joanie had ever asked her for was one thing. Benny rushed over to Joanie’s place. As soon as Joanie let her inside, Benny saw that the blue vase and a couple of the other pieces were gone, leaving empty spaces along the floor. It was then that Benny noticed the wall rug, rolled up and bound with plastic ties, the cardboard cartons lined up near the kitchen counter. Joanie told Benny she had decided to move to New York to take a teaching job, she’d be leaving before Thanksgiving. And just like that, it was the end of Benny and Joanie.