Educated(53)

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WAITING FOR CHRISTMAS THAT year felt like waiting to walk off the edge of a cliff. Not since Y2K had I felt so certain that something terrible was coming, something that would obliterate everything I’d known before. And what would replace it? I tried to imagine the future, to populate it with professors, homework, classrooms, but my mind couldn’t conjure them. There was no future in my imagination. There was New Year’s Eve, then there was nothing.

I knew I should prepare, try to acquire the high school education Tyler had told the university I had. But I didn’t know how, and I didn’t want to ask Tyler for help. He was starting a new life at Purdue—he was even getting married—and I doubted he wanted responsibility for mine.

I noticed, though, when he came home for Christmas, that he was reading a book called Les Misérables, and I decided that it must be the kind of a book a college student reads. I bought my own copy, hoping it would teach me about history or literature, but it didn’t. It couldn’t, because I was unable to distinguish between the fictional story and the factual backdrop. Napoleon felt no more real to me than Jean Valjean. I had never heard of either.



* Asked fifteen years later, Dwain did not recall being there. But he is there, vividly, in my memory.





PART TWO





On New Year’s Day, Mother drove me to my new life. I didn’t take much with me: a dozen jars of home-canned peaches, bedding, and a garbage bag full of clothes. As we sped down the interstate I watched the landscape splinter and barb, the rolling black summits of the Bear River Mountains giving way to the razor-edged Rockies. The university was nestled in the heart of the Wasatch Mountains, whose white massifs jutted mightily out of the earth. They were beautiful, but to me their beauty seemed aggressive, menacing.

My apartment was a mile south of campus. It had a kitchen, living room and three small bedrooms. The other women who lived there—I knew they would be women because at BYU all housing was segregated by gender—had not yet returned from the Christmas holiday. It took only a few minutes to bring in my stuff from the car. Mother and I stood awkwardly in the kitchen for a moment, then she hugged me and drove away.

I lived alone in the quiet apartment for three days. Except it wasn’t quiet. Nowhere was quiet. I’d never spent more than a few hours in a city and found it impossible to defend myself from the strange noises that constantly invaded. The chirrup of crosswalk signals, the shrieking of sirens, the hissing of air brakes, even the hushed chatter of people strolling on the sidewalk—I heard every sound individually. My ears, accustomed to the silence of the peak, felt battered by them.

I was starved for sleep by the time my first roommate arrived. Her name was Shannon, and she studied at the cosmetology school across the street. She was wearing plush pink pajama bottoms and a tight white tank with spaghetti straps. I stared at her bare shoulders. I’d seen women dressed this way before—Dad called them gentiles—and I’d always avoided getting too near them, as if their immorality might be catching. Now there was one in my house.

Shannon surveyed me with frank disappointment, taking in my baggy flannel coat and oversized men’s jeans. “How old are you?” she said.

“I’m a freshman,” I said. I didn’t want to admit I was only seventeen, and that I should be in high school, finishing my junior year.

Shannon moved to the sink and I saw the word “Juicy” written across her rear. That was more than I could take. I backed away toward my room, mumbling that I was going to bed.

“Good call,” she said. “Church is early. I’m usually late.”

“You go to church?”

“Sure,” she said. “Don’t you?”

“Of course I do. But you, you really go?”

She stared at me, chewing her lip, then said, “Church is at eight. Good night!”

My mind was spinning as I shut my bedroom door. How could she be a Mormon?

Dad said there were gentiles everywhere—that most Mormons were gentiles, they just didn’t know it. I thought about Shannon’s tank and pajamas, and suddenly realized that probably everyone at BYU was a gentile.

My other roommate arrived the next day. Her name was Mary and she was a junior studying early childhood education. She dressed like I expected a Mormon to dress on Sunday, in a floral skirt that reached to the floor. Her clothes were a kind of shibboleth to me; they signaled that she was not a gentile, and for a few hours I felt less alone.

Until that evening. Mary stood suddenly from the sofa and said, “Classes start tomorrow. Time to stock up on groceries.” She left and returned an hour later with two paper bags. Shopping was forbidden on the Sabbath—I’d never purchased so much as a stick of gum on a Sunday—but Mary casually unpacked eggs, milk and pasta without acknowledging that every item she was placing in our communal fridge was a violation of the Lord’s Commandments. When she withdrew a can of Diet Coke, which my father said was a violation of the Lord’s counsel for health, I again fled to my room.



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THE NEXT MORNING, I got on the bus going the wrong direction. By the time I’d corrected my mistake, the lecture was nearly finished. I stood awkwardly in the back until the professor, a thin woman with delicate features, motioned for me to take the only available seat, which was near the front. I sat down, feeling the weight of everyone’s eyes. The course was on Shakespeare, and I’d chosen it because I’d heard of Shakespeare and thought that was a good sign. But now I was here I realized I knew nothing about him. It was a word I’d heard, that was all.