Just One Day(47)

The condo is quiet. The parents are all in bed, though as soon as the door closes Mom pops out of her bedroom. “You’re early,” she says.
“I was tired,” Melanie lies. “Good night. Happy New Year.” She pads off toward our room, and Mom gives me a New Year’s kiss and goes back to hers.
I’m nowhere near tired, so I sit out on the balcony and listen to the dwindling sounds of the hotel’s party. On the horizon, a lightning storm is brewing. I reach into my purse for my phone and, for the first time in months, open the photo album.
His face is so beautiful, it makes my stomach twist. But he seems unreal, not someone I would ever know. But then I look at me, the me in the photo, and I hardly recognize her, either, and not just because the hair is different, but because she seems different. That’s not me. That’s Lulu. And she’s just as gone as he is.
Tabula rasa. That’s what the reggae singer said. Maybe I can’t get my wish, but I can try to wipe the slate clean, try to get over this.
I allow myself look at the picture of Willem and Lulu in Paris for a long minute.
“Happy New Year,” I tell them.
And then I erase them.

Nineteen
JANUARY
College
Two feet of snow fall in Boston while I’m in Mexico, and the temperature never rises above freezing, so when I get back two weeks later, campus looks like a depressing gray tundra. I arrive a few days before classes start, with excuses of getting prepped for the new semester, but really because I could not handle being at home, under the watchful eye of the warden, one day longer. It had been bad enough in Cancún, but home, without Melanie to distract me—she took off for New York City the day after we got back, before we got a chance to ever resolve the weirdness that had settled between us—it was unbearable.
The Terrific Trio comes back from break full of stories and inside jokes. They spent New Year’s together at Kendra’s family’s Virginia Beach condo and went swimming in the snow, and now they are ordering themselves Polar Bear T-shirts. They’re nice enough, asking about my trip, but I find it hard to breathe with all that bonhomie, so I pile on my sweaters and parkas and trudge over to the U bookstore to pick up a new Mandarin workbook.
I’m in the foreign languages section when my cell phone rings. I don’t even need to look at the caller ID. Mom has been calling at least twice a day since I got back.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Allyson Healey.” The voice on the other end is high and winsome, the opposite of Mom.
“Yes, this is Allyson.”
“Oh, hello, Allyson. This is Gretchen Price from the guidance office.”
I pause, breathing through the sickening feeling in my stomach. “Yes?”
“I’m wondering if you might like to stop by my office. Say hello.”
Now I feel like I’m going to throw up right on the stacks of Buon Giorno Italiano. “Did my mother call you?”
“Your mother? I don’t think so.” I hear the sound of something knocking over. “Damn. Hang on.” There’s more shuffling and then she’s back on the line. “Look, I apologize for the last-minute notice, but that seems to be my MO these days. I’d love for you to come in before the term starts.”
“Umm, the terms starts the day after tomorrow.”
“So it does. How about today, then?”
They are going to kick me out. I’ve blown it in one term. They know I’m not a Happy College Student. I don’t belong in the catalog. Or here. “Am I in some kind of trouble?”
That tinkling laugh again. “Not with me. Why don’t you come by—hang on.” There’s more shuffling of paper. “How about four?”
“You’re sure my mother didn’t call?”
“Yes, Allyson, I’m quite sure. So four?”
“What’s it about?”
“Oh, just getting-to-know-you stuff. I’ll see you at four.”
Gretchen Price’s office is in a crowded corner of the ivy-covered administration buildings. Stacks of books and papers and magazines are scattered everywhere, on the round table and chairs by the window, on the love seat, on her messy desk.
She is on the phone when I’m ushered in, so I just stand there in the doorway. She gestures for me to come inside. “You must be Allyson. Just move a pile off the chair and take a seat. I’ll be with you in a second.”
I move a dirty Raggedy Ann doll with one of the braids chopped off and a stack of folders from one of the chairs. Some of the folders have sticky notes on them: Yes. No. Maybe. Paperwork slips out of one. It’s a printout of a college application, like the one I sent in a year ago. I shove it back into the folder and put it on the next chair.
Gretchen hangs up the phone. “So, Allyson, how’s it going?”
“It’s going fine.” I glance at all the applications, all the comers who want a spot like mine. “Great in fact.”
“Really?” She picks up a file, and I have the distinct impression my goose is cooked.
“Yep,” I say with all the chipperness I can muster.
“See, the thing is, I’ve been looking at your first-term grades.”
I feel tears spring to my eyes. She lured me here under false pretenses. She said I wasn’t in trouble, it was just a getting-to-know-you session. And I didn’t fail. I just got Cs!
She looks at my stricken face and motions for me to calm down with her hands. “Relax, Allyson,” she says in a soothing voice. “I’m not here to bust you. I just want to see if you need some help, and to offer it if that’s the case.”