My Dark Vanessa(22)

I stare down at the smoking cigarette, consider picking it up and bringing it to my lips, but instead grind it out with my heel. I return to the dance, find Deanna Perkins and Lucy Summers swigging from a Nalgene bottle as they hold a running commentary on everyone’s costumes. Strane stands only a few feet away beside Ms. Thompson, his eyes locked on her. Jenny and Tom stand close together on the periphery of the dance floor, their fight resolved. She winds her arm around his shoulders, nuzzles her face into his neck. It’s a gesture so intimate and adult, I instinctively look away.

Whatever they have in the Nalgene bottle sloshes around as Deanna and Lucy pass it back and forth. Deanna, taking a swallow, notices my stare. “What?”

“Let me have some,” I say.

Lucy reaches for the bottle. “Sorry, limited supplies.”

“I’ll tell if you don’t let me.”

“Shut up.”

Deanna waves her hand. “Let her have a drink.”

Lucy sighs, holds out the bottle. “You can have a sip.”

The alcohol burns my throat worse than I expected and I start to cough, like a cliché. Deanna and Lucy don’t even try to hide their laughs. Thrusting the bottle back at them, I march out of the dining hall, willing Mr. Strane to notice, to understand why I’m angry and what I want. I wait outside to see if he’ll come after me but he doesn’t—of course he doesn’t.

Back in Gould, the dorm is quiet, empty. Every door is closed, everyone still at the dance.

I stare down Ms. Thompson’s apartment door at the far end of the hall. If she hadn’t called to him, something would have happened. He said he wanted to kiss me; maybe he would have done it. Still in my costume, I walk toward Ms. Thompson’s door. Mr. Strane is probably making her laugh right this moment. At the end of the night, they’ll probably go to his house and have sex. Maybe he’ll even tell her about me, how I followed him outside and he said that stuff just to be nice. She has a crush on you, Ms. Thompson will say, teasing. As though it’s all in my head, a narrative sprung without a source.

I grab the marker attached to her dry erase board. Notes from the previous week are still scribbled there: the date and time of a dorm meeting, an open invitation to a spaghetti dinner in her apartment. With one swipe of my hand, I erase the notes and write BITCH in big bold letters that take up the whole board.



The first snow comes that night after the dance and covers campus in a heavy four inches. On Saturday morning Ms. Thompson calls us all into the common room and tries to find out who wrote bitch on her door. “I’m not mad,” she assures us. “Just confused.”

My heart thumps in my ears and I sit with my hands clasped in my lap, willing my cheeks not to burn.

After a few minutes of sitting in silence, she gives up. “We can let it go,” she says. “But not if it happens again. Ok?”

She nods, prompting us to say ok. On my way back upstairs I look over my shoulder and see her standing in the middle of the empty room, rubbing her face with both hands.

Sunday afternoon I approach her door, my eyes lingering on the whiteboard, bitch still faintly visible. I feel guilty—not enough to admit what I did, but enough to want to do something nice. When Ms. Thompson opens the door, she’s in sweatpants and a hooded Browick sweatshirt, her hair pulled back, no makeup on her face, acne scars on her cheeks. I wonder if Mr. Strane has ever seen her this way.

“What’s up?” she asks.

“Can I take Mya for a walk?”

“Oh god, she’d love that.” She calls over her shoulder, but the husky is already barreling toward me, ears pricked and blue eyes dilated, propelled by the sound of the word walk.

Ms. Thompson reminds me that it will be dark soon as I slide Mya’s harness over her head and clip the leash. “We won’t go far,” I say.

“And don’t let her run.”

“I know, I know.” Last time I took Mya for a walk, I let her off-leash to play and she ran straight into the garden behind the arts building and rolled in fertilizer.

The temperature rose overnight to fifty degrees and the snow is already gone, leaving the ground spongy and slick. We walk the trail that winds around the sports fields, and I let the leash out long so Mya can sniff and romp around, darting from side to side. I love Mya; she’s the most beautiful dog I’ve ever seen, her fur so thick my fingers disappear to the second knuckle when I give her back a good scritch. Mostly, though, I love her because she’s difficult. Bossy. If she doesn’t want to do something, she’ll talk back at you in a grumbly howl. Ms. Thompson says I must have a special gift with dogs because Mya doesn’t really like anyone except me. Dogs are easy to win over, though, way easier than people. For a dog to love you, all you have to do is keep some treats in your pocket and scratch behind their ears or at the base of their tail. When they want to be left alone, they don’t play games; they let you know.

At the soccer field, the trail forks into three smaller paths. One leads back to campus, the other into the woods, and the third downtown. Even though I promised Ms. Thompson I’d stay close, I take the third path.

The storefronts downtown are decorated for the season with fake foliage and cornucopias, and the bakery has already hung Christmas lights. As Mya pulls me along, I check my reflection in every window, a two-second glimpse of my hair fanning out from my face, possibly beautiful, though it seems equally possible I might be ugly. When we get to the public library, I stop. Impatient, Mya looks back at me, flashing the whites of her blue eyes as I stand staring at the house across the street. His house—that has to be it. It’s smaller than I imagined it to be, with grayed cedar shingles and a dark blue door. Mya sidles up beside me, bumps her head against my legs. Let’s go.