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August 18, 2011
Sonia had pared down what she would move into her single room for her junior year. She wanted to make sure there wasn’t clutter in the room like when she shared a room with Becky. Her eyes welled with tears while she moved things into her new room, which surprised her because she was overcome by tears often over the summer and was certain she was all cried out. Sonia had worked with the Housing Department and got a medical exemption so she could get a single room at the cost of a double. The room was in one of the older dorms, so it wasn’t new and updated. It smelled of disinfectant and sweaty socks. The air conditioning rattled and squeaked. It didn’t feel like home yet.
Gone were her collection of cookbooks and novels that she’d brought the two previous years. Sonia had left her collection of jewelry and handbags with her mother, encouraging her mother to use them and go out, knowing her mother would probably look at the accessories and hide in her bedroom. She’d kept her vision board and her glass jar full of buttons. The vision board she would use to keep gauging if her vision was worsening, and the buttons she decided she couldn’t part with, even if she would never use them as she had once dreamed.
While she and her mother had visited a spa several times over the summer, as promised, Sonia felt certain it was her visits with Abby that were helping her. “You are radiant. See, I knew coming to the spa would turn you into a new woman!” were her mother’s exact words. Sonia decided not to tell her mother otherwise, she simply thanked her and said she felt better.
Sonia looked around her room, trying to memorize where everything was. Her bed was pushed up against the left wall. Her desk was in the back right corner. A night table sat beside her bed, a receptacle for all her visual aids. She kept two magnifying glasses, new sunglasses, a powerful compact LED flashlight, and her spare folding cane in the drawer. On top of the night table, she kept her phone charger and her “granny lamp.” Sonia’s chin trembled as she looked around the room. She had lost a friend and a roommate because of her disease. Was that just a sign of things to come?
Her father had surprised her with a fancy coffee machine for her dorm room. He and Philip found a bookcase they made into a storage place for it. They had built in a table that she could easily open up, added hooks for coffee cups, and reinforced the sides so it could hold the heavy machine.
When Lin and Dani first came to her room, the coffee machine thoroughly impressed them.
“Sonia! Look at this set up! This fancy coffee maker is to die for. The shelf looks boring. I can spruce it up in no time. You just let me bring some paints over here and I’ll make it the focal point of your room,” said Dani.
“I hardly need a ‘focal point,’ I’m going blind.”
“You are out of the fashion program, but honey, we can’t take the fashion out of you, even if you can’t see it,” said Dani.
Sonia laughed. “Ok, you can paint my ugly shelf.”
Lin said, “Tell me what this machine can do.”
“You will be thrilled to learn it can make you a proper Matcha Tea Latte,” Sonia said.
Lin replied, “Be still my heart.”
Soon Lin brought a tin of matcha, a whisk, and a cup to use, so she could make her favorite drink whenever they got together.
That first weekend, Dani showed up with a box full of paints, paintbrushes, and a drop cloth. She covered the outside of the bookcase with large vines and flowers, big enough that if Sonia got close, she could see them. Dani decorated the tabletop with fanciful cups and teapots. Dani also brought over a bottle of flavored syrup so she could make sweetened coffee drinks. She said drinking sweet tea for all her childhood had ruined her palate, and made it impossible for her to drink anything that wasn’t cloyingly sweet.
Dani also found a shabby folding table that she painted to match the bookcase. With the help from other women on the hall, they pulled the bookcase out several inches and slid the table behind it.
By the third weekend, Dani had completed all her painting projects in Sonia’s room and announced it was time to have a “Girls’ Night In.” Dani got out the table and angled it close to the bed, which would allow two of them to sit on the bed, while the third would use the desk chair. Lin had picked up Chinese take-out, so Sonia’s room was filled with spicy ginger, and the umami of soy.
“We can eat here, play card games, enjoy our coffee. It makes this room a cute little hangout. And the tabletop is adorable, if I do say so myself,” said Dani.
“This little table is great,” said Lin.
When the coffee was ready, the three women spread their meal out on the table and ate while they laughed and caught up. Sonia shared that her mother had dragged her to visit a spa and insisted it had improved her health.
“But it was talking with Abby, not the spa, that helped.”
“How has it helped?” Dani asked with a mouth full of food.
“She’s, you know, helped me put things in perspective. And, uh, to not be so hard on myself. Learn to trust myself more,” Sonia said.
“Trust yourself more... that you could use,” Dani said.
Lin smacked Dani on the shoulder.
Dani replied, “What? It’s the truth.”
Sonia sniffed. “It’s been weird being all alone in this room. That’s taken getting used to.”
Lin said, “That would be hard.”
“Abby said living like this would give me a chance to learn how to take care of myself as my vision gets worse. I’ll have to focus on what I really need. Which, I guess, is a good thing.”
Dani passed around fortune cookies for them to eat. Sonia sat with the plastic wrapped cookie in her hand. Her head drooped to her chest and her shoulders slumped.
Dani said, “Sorry, Sonia. I wasn’t thinking. I could read it for you, or maybe you don’t want a cookie?”
“No, it’s not about the cookie.”
“What is it?” asked Lin.
Sonia swallowed. Her voice came out monotone and flat. “I’ve been sad. It’s finally really hitting me: the Fashion Design dream is over. I didn’t sew anything over the summer. Couldn’t see enough to even try.”
Sonia played with the fortune cookie, the wrapper crinkling under her fingers.
“I didn’t bring any of my fashion portfolio stuff. Why would I? But it’s just hard to leave it all behind.” Sonia spoke so softly, Lin and Dani had to lean forward to hear her.
Sonia sniffed again, straightened her shoulders, and took a deep breath. “I’m in the Communications Department now. And I am going to use the fashion education I got so far to help me get into a PR Department at a fashion house.”
Lin placed a hand on Sonia’s arm and said, “You are creating a brand new dream.”
That reminded Sonia of a time when she knew her future was in good hands