Freshman Winter
The winter of their freshman year was the coldest Carlisle had seen in ages. Snowdrifts reached to the windowsills, and giant icicles hung from the copper gutters of Whipple Hall. At night, drafts whistled through the creaky windows of the double, making Aubrey stir in her sleep. She’d turn over and burrow under the covers with a contented sigh. Like everything associated with Carlisle, the weather was magical to her. She had gotten a second job in addition to her work-study, and bought herself a down parka and snow boots with the money. She bundled happily into them each morning for the trek across the frozen Quad. The snow sparkled in the frosty sunlight as her feet crunched on the paths. Inside the overheated lecture halls, a wet-wool smell rose from her classmates’ clothes as she strained to hear the professor over the clanging of the radiators. She wanted to remember this time and place forever, all the things she learned and felt, the people she knew, every sensation.
Aubrey had started spending her weeknights in the basement stacks at Ogden Library studying with Jenny. She adored it there. The sleet pelted against the glass of the high basement windows and reminded Aubrey of the scratching of mice. It was dim in the little corner they’d claimed as their own, and—against regulations—they plugged Jenny’s space heater into an ancient outlet beneath a scarred wooden table. Aubrey warmed her feet and imagined herself sitting by a fire in the time of Dickens, with only a candle for her light. With the musty smell of old books filling her senses, she’d lose herself in their pages.
Aubrey was taking Novels of the Gilded Age, Eastern Religions, Intro to Astronomy, and Sanskrit (so she could read Hindu and Buddhist liturgy in the original). It was a heavy load, but she was eager to open her mind, to become worthy of Carlisle. She was writing a paper on the yoga-sutras of Pantanjali, ancient Hindu texts that promised the acquisition of supernatural mental powers through the regular practice of yoga. Was it true? She went to yoga class to investigate, so she could include her personal observations in the paper. That was the sort of amazing work you could do here. But when she tried to talk to her friends about what she was learning, most of them would say, “Cool,” and change the subject to which parties were worth going to on Saturday night. It surprised her how few people at Carlisle cared about acquiring knowledge for its own sake. Her roomies didn’t. Jenny studied to get As. Kate never studied. Kate skipped class when she felt like it and barely cracked a book. All term she would ignore her assignments, then spend Reading Week hopped up on stimulants—Dexedrine, the minuscule amount of coke she could afford since Keniston cut her allowance, and cup after cup of black coffee—so she could stay awake cramming for days. Then she’d regurgitate it for the exam and promptly forget it. Watching Kate pound uppers during fall term, Aubrey worried that her heart would stop, that she’d drop dead on College Street on her way to Hemingway’s for an espresso to add to the toxic cocktail already flooding her bloodstream. But nothing bad happened. That’s how it always went with Kate: no consequences. Her grades turned out decent, so she repeated the same scam for winter term—all play and no work, stockpiling a sizable stash of uppers for exam time.
One Wednesday night in early February, Aubrey was down in the stacks reading when she heard a knock on the window above her carrel. She’d been far away, lost in Edith Wharton’s New York, which reminded her uncomfortably of Carlisle. The heartless rich kids, the genteel wraiths who’d fallen on hard times, the strivers looking for their next advantage—they were all here. It’s not like there were no good people at Carlisle, but there were plenty of indifferent ones, as well as some who’d been corrupted at a young age through no fault of their own and couldn’t help but misbehave. Aubrey put Kate in that latter category, if she was being honest. Lately, Kate had been thumbing her nose at her father and living off handouts from the fat trust fund that belonged to Griffin Rothenberg, her Odell swain. Griff was the son of a wealthy investment banker and a Swedish fashion model. With his striking blond head on his compact jock body, he bore enough of a resemblance to Kate that they were sometimes mistaken for brother and sister. As far as Aubrey could tell, Kate thought of Griff that way. Griff followed her around like a lovesick puppy while Kate treated him with a comfortable, dismissive indifference that Aubrey found hard to watch. Aubrey carried a torch for Griff herself, though she did her best to hide it. Griff was the male Kate, really. Not only did they look alike, but he had that same careless confidence, that ease in the world, that Aubrey both coveted and lacked utterly. Griff was the boy she’d most like to lose her virginity to, but she had no hope of achieving that. He was obsessed with Kate, and Aubrey was nothing but a third wheel to be patted on the head on those rare occasions when he noticed her at all.
At the sound of the knock, Aubrey looked up. Kate and Griff were down on their knees in the window well, making faces at her. Griff slammed a rectangular object up against the glass—a plastic tray from the dining hall.
Jenny leaned over from the adjacent carrel and gazed up at the tray pressed against the window.
“They’re going traying now?” she asked. It was a rhetorical question.
The snow was deep enough that winter that the skiing at the local resorts was supposedly sublime. Aubrey had never been on skis and couldn’t afford a lift ticket to save her life, but she’d gone mad for sledding. The speed, the abandon, the sharp taste of snow in her mouth when she crashed. Traying was the Carlisle version of sledding. You blasted a stick (smoked a joint), stole a tray from the dining hall, and walked a mile in the cold to Belle River Park to the crazy steep sledding hill, where you flew down the slope using the tray as your sled. The hill had been rigged up with all sorts of homemade jumps. The most popular jumps sent you rocketing high into the air, or directed you off into the woods to confront an obstacle course of trees. The broken limbs and the concussions were piling up, to the point that the college infirmary recently sent out a memorandum warning the students not to sled. But everybody ignored it. Traying was too fun.
“I’m going with them. Do you want to come?” Aubrey asked, shutting her book.
“No thanks, I have an essay due for Gov.”
Aubrey gave a thumbs-up toward the window and grabbed her coat. “If I’m not back before the library closes, could you take my books home?” she asked.
“Sure,” Jenny said grudgingly.
Aubrey skipped out of the bright library, down the marble steps into the crisp, cold air, pulling on her gloves as she went. She fell into step beside Kate and Griff, who were giggling uncontrollably. Obviously, they’d started the party without her.
“What are you guys smoking? Can I have some?” Aubrey said.
“On Briggs Street in broad daylight?” Griff said with a snort.
“Broad moonlight,” Kate corrected.
The moon shone in the black sky and reflected off the snowbanks, strong enough to make Aubrey squint. Their breath came out in puffs of smoke as they walked.
“I have a fresh joint in my pocket,” Kate said. “We’ll smoke it when we get there.”
“At least tell me what you’re laughing at,” Aubrey said.
“Griff claims there’s a rumor we had a threesome in Dieckmann Hall.”
“You and Griff did?” Aubrey asked, tingling with jealousy. She told herself Kate was above sleeping with Griff, and that as a consequence, he was celibate, and frustrated. But probably not.
“Not me and Griff. Us,” Kate said.
“Not a threesome, a foursome,” Griff said. He was laughing so hard that it was difficult to understand him. “All three Whipple Trips with some fratbro from the ten-man, on more than one occasion.”
“No, an orgy with the entire suite,” Kate said, collapsing against Griff in giggles as she walked.
In Carlisle-speak, Aubrey, Kate, and Jenny were known as the Whipple Triplets, or the Whipple Trips for short. And the ten-man was a notorious ten-person suite in Dieckmann Hall that, year after year, remained occupied by the wealthiest, most dissolute prepster dudes on campus. Translating the slang, a rumor was circulating that Aubrey and her roommates had gone full slut with those notorious party boys. While on the one hand Aubrey was flattered to be gossiped about, on the other she was horrified.
They left the bustle of Briggs Street behind. Church Street was darker and quieter, lined on both sides with small apartment buildings that served as grad student housing, and two- and three-story multifamily houses, interspersed with convenience stores and gas stations. It was nearly eleven, and many windows were dark already. The occasional car passed, its wheels hissing on snow-slicked pavement. Jenny’s parents lived nearby. Aubrey could only imagine how they’d feel if they heard this scandalous rumor about their daughter.
“Why would anyone say that about us?” she asked.
“Because you don’t live in Dieckmann, but you’re always there for brunch on Sunday. Ergo, you spend your Saturday nights bumping uglies in the ten-man,” Griff said.
“We like the cinnamon rolls,” Aubrey said.
“What is that, some kind of kinky sex position?” Griff asked, and cracked up again, laughing so hard that tears leaked from his eyes and snot from his nose.
“We go to Dieckmann for Sunday brunch because it’s the only dorm that serves cinnamon rolls.”
“Don’t tell him that. You’ll spoil the fun,” Kate said.
“Baby likes her skanky reputation,” Griff said, pulling Kate close.
“I don’t,” Aubrey said.
“Aubrey. People care enough to gossip about you. Appreciate the moment,” Kate said, and jerked from Griff’s grasp. “Let’s run.”
Kate took off racing toward Belle River Park, as Griff belted out the chorus to “Born to Run.” Eventually Kate disappeared around a corner. Griff and Aubrey looked at each other, then took off after her. Griff shot Aubrey some side-eye and it became a race. They sprinted, neck and neck. Her legs were longer, but he was stronger and faster. Aubrey’s lungs stung from the cold. She laughed and squealed, the rumor already forgotten.
A few minutes later the two of them passed through the gates into the hush of Belle River Park. The shadows of the trees on the snow were ghostly as Aubrey caught her breath. They wound their way to the sledding hill, where they found Kate standing in the shelter of a copse of evergreens, her face lighting up and going dark as she flicked her cigarette lighter. The park officially closed at sunset, but it was deserted and rarely patrolled, so they had no fear of detection.
Kate succeeded in getting the joint lit.
“Here,” she said, and handed it to Aubrey, who drew the pungent smoke deep into her lungs.
Aubrey had never touched drugs or alcohol before freshman year, but under Kate’s tutelage, she’d quickly become a connoisseur. Pot seemed like part of a Carlisle education, like studying Buddhism or going to art films dressed all in black. She’d smoked enough dope that she could now get a contact high just from breathing the air in the vicinity of someone else smoking, or putting her lips to the mouthpiece of a well-used bong. Or so she believed. A psychopharmacology major she knew from Sanskrit class swore there was no such thing as a contact high, that it was only a placebo effect. If that was true, why was Aubrey soaring off the first hit from Kate’s joint? The joint came her way again, and Aubrey took another toke, then grabbed the dining hall tray from Griff’s hand.
“Me first,” she said, and ran for the sledding hill.
As she ascended the steep hill, Aubrey’s feet sank into the snow, making each step an effort, and she slowed to a trudge. Man, she was high. Every step sent strange vibrations up her legs and spine. The cold felt warm on her exposed skin, and the snow looked indigo in the moonlight. She lost track of time. The hike up the hill seemed to go on forever, but then suddenly she was at the top, looking down. Where were Kate and Griff? Her eyes were having trouble focusing. The spot where she thought they should be was swallowed in the darkness of the evergreens. What if they’d abandoned her, here in the freezing cold? Suddenly that seemed likely, and then virtually certain. Her heart seized up. She imagined the park police finding her tomorrow morning, frozen solid, in a fetal position, and alerting the RA in Whipple, that biology girl they barely knew, who’d have to inform Aubrey’s roommates. Would Kate feel guilty at all? Would she cry? Probably not. Then something moved below. Aubrey stared right at them; she’d been staring at them the whole time. Wait, Kate was kneeling in front of Griff. Were they, could they be—?
Aubrey threw the tray onto the snow and plopped down on top of it. The impact against the hard ground made her teeth clatter. She tasted blood, and pushed off before she quite had her balance, immediately spinning around and barreling downhill backward.
“Aaagh!” she screamed.
As much as she kicked and flailed, she couldn’t right herself, and in what seemed like a split second, she crashed into Kate and Griff at the bottom. They toppled over into the snowbank, limbs tangling, voices crying out, hoarse in the wind. Aubrey hit her head on someone’s boot hard enough to see stars. Griff’s pants were down around his ankles. Kate got to her feet, laughing.
“Gimme that, you spaz, I’ll show you how it’s done,” she said in her luscious voice, made deeper by smoke and cold. Kate grabbed the tray from under Aubrey’s thighs, and ran off toward the hill.
Griff picked himself up and turned away quickly. Aubrey saw a flash of smooth white butt as he yanked up his pants and rearranged himself. She stood up abruptly and staggered, reaching out for the nearest evergreen for support, rubbing her forehead.
“You okay?” Griff asked, turning back to her.
“I guess,” Aubrey said. She was high enough that even though she knew intellectually that she’d really cracked her head, she couldn’t feel it, and she wasn’t alarmed. “What about you?”
“Fine.”
“You didn’t get frostbite in a sensitive place, did you?” she asked, and giggled.
Marijuana had amazing sedative properties. She was bitterly jealous of Kate, of the way Griff adored Kate, of how cavalierly Kate squandered his attentions. The resentment hibernated somewhere deep in Aubrey’s chest, but at this moment, she couldn’t access it, and it didn’t matter. It just seemed funny, how their signals were so crossed. Kate would never love Griff, and Griff would never love Aubrey. Sad, sad, sad.
Griff laughed, but then stopped short. “She only has sex with me when she’s high,” he said, suddenly maudlin. “Do you think that’s a bad sign? Sometimes I’m not sure if she really cares about me, or if she’s using me for my money.”
You’re the only one who isn’t sure about that, Aubrey thought to herself. Griff looked at her with such profound sadness that Aubrey worried she’d mistakenly spoken aloud.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s not your fault. I’m the idiot who lets her.”
“Everyone thinks it’s a privilege to get abused by Kate,” Aubrey said. She thought she was trying to make him feel better. But as the words came out and hung in the icy air, Aubrey felt their truth in her own case.
The wind gusted, and Griff swayed on his feet, listing in Aubrey’s direction. For one mesmerizing second, she thought he would kiss her. Then she realized: They were both totally baked, that was all. His balance was off. She was imagining things. Why would Griff kiss her? The guy was utterly crushed, he was so obsessed with Kate, who didn’t give two shits about him. He wouldn’t kiss Aubrey.
She could kiss him.
Aubrey was experiencing a strange disconnect between thoughts and actions, and didn’t realize she’d acted on her desire until their lips met. His mouth was warm and firm. Her lips parted, and so did his. They were French kissing. He smelled of pot, but tasted like peppermints and snow.
Griff pulled away, rubbing his eyes. “Whoa. Did that just happen?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” Aubrey said. But she was sure. She had the memory now, and he couldn’t take it away from her.
At the top of the hill, Kate turned around and settled onto the tray, calling out to them to watch.
“Please don’t tell her we did that,” Griff said.
Like she cares who you kiss, Aubrey almost said, but she wouldn’t hurt Griff out of spite. He was like her, pining for a person he couldn’t have. Maybe one day he would see how alike they were. In the meantime, Aubrey felt no guilt over that kiss. Normally, girl rules would apply here. Aubrey and Kate were best friends and suitemates. Until such time as Kate officially declared her lack of interest in Griff and designated him fair game, Aubrey should keep her hands off. But Kate had such bounty when it came to men, and didn’t follow the rules herself. Kate was sleeping with more guys than poor Griff, and he had no clue. Or who knew, maybe he did and he let her walk on him anyway. One of Kate’s hookups was that Lucas kid who Jenny was obviously still crazy for. Fair’s fair. Why should Kate get everything, and the rest of the world go begging?
Kate skidded toward them on the tray, whooping, and came to a stop ten feet short of where they stood.
“Agh, that sucked. What a dud! I’m going again,” Kate called. She stood up, stamping the cold from her feet, and looked past them down the path. “Jenny? You came!”
Aubrey and Griff turned in unison. Jenny hurried toward them, white clouds of breath streaming behind her. Aubrey instantly saw that something was off, something bad had happened, then told herself it was the weed talking. Pot made her paranoid. She ought to write that down on a piece of paper and carry it around so she could look at it when she was wasted, and remind herself not to fret.
But Kate looked worried, too. She strode over to meet Jenny.
“What is it?” Kate said. “Is everything okay?”
“Aubrey, your sister left a message on the room phone. Your mother’s in the hospital. She says it’s serious enough that you should go home.”
Aubrey’s brain was pleasantly foggy from the pot and the kiss. She had no sense of impending doom. How could anything bad happen on the same night that she kissed Griff?
“I talked to my mom a few weeks ago, and she sounded okay. Amanda’s just being dramatic,” Aubrey said.
But in the back of her mind, she knew that wasn’t the case. Her mother had mentioned doctors’ appointments a couple of times recently, and tests. Aubrey, with her college kid’s blinders on, hadn’t followed up. Besides, she knew her sister well enough to suspect that Amanda wouldn’t bother to call without good reason.
“I hope you’re right,” Jenny said. “She didn’t give any details. But she did say it was urgent and you should plan to go home right away. I think you should at least call her.”
“I can’t go home, not with finals coming up. Besides, I can’t afford the plane ticket.”
“Let’s go back to the room, sweetie,” Jenny said. “You can call Amanda and get the whole story. If it’s really bad—I hate to say it, but if it is—the school has emergency funds for that sort of thing. We’ll figure it out.”
Aubrey looked from Jenny to Kate and back again, her face slowly crumpling as the news sank in. Leave it to her mother to go and get sick. Life had been too much for Brenda Miller to handle ever since Aubrey’s dad walked out when Aubrey was three years old. Could you give yourself cancer? The yoga-sutras spoke of the connection between mind and body. Who knew, maybe you could. Maybe her mother had wished herself dead, because she was tired of the struggle, and managed to make it happen. At least now I won’t have to send her any more cash, Aubrey thought. Then she started to cry, out of guilt more than grief. Like her father and sister before her, Aubrey had left her mother in the lurch. Brenda came to the airport to say good-bye when Aubrey went east. She pretended to be happy, but as Aubrey was about to disappear through security, Brenda hugged her tight as a vise and whispered over and over again, Don’t leave me, stay with me, please stay, I can’t get by without you. Aubrey gave her mother a quick peck on the cheek, then pried her arms away and ran. That was the last time they saw each other, and now her mother was going to die.
* * *
“She can’t go alone. We can’t let her. She’s a mess,” Jenny whispered.
Jenny and Kate sat together on Jenny’s bed in the double. Aubrey had called her sister only to learn the worst. Her mother’s cancer was advanced. The doctors gave her mere weeks to live, days maybe. Now Aubrey was huddled under the covers in her bed, her chest rising and falling rhythmically, her eyes shut tight. They assumed she was sleeping but in reality she was wasted out of her mind. Her head hurt from when she whacked it traying, or else from the drugs. They’d slipped her a couple of Valiums from Griff’s stash to calm her down. On top of the pot she’d smoked, the Valium wrapped her in a fluffy cocoon where she could see the bad feelings, but not feel them. Her head pounded and vibrated, but it was happening to someone else. She listened to her friends discuss her welfare as if from miles away. The sounds reverberated strangely in her ears and dug into her brain. She would remember their words the next day, and for a long time after, but in the moment, nothing they said could cause her pain.
“She’ll be fine tomorrow,” Kate said.
“Her mother’s dying. She won’t be fine. She needs our help.”
“Who’s gonna pay for the tickets for one of us to go? She can’t even afford one ticket.”
“I told you, the college has an emergency fund. I’ll do the paperwork in the morning.”
“Maybe they’ll pay for her. They’re not gonna pay for two tickets. Sorry to inform you, but I’m flat-out broke. Besides, we have exams coming up, too.”
“Like you give a rip about exams. What kind of friend are you, Kate?”
“How dare you, Jenny? I’m a good friend, thank you very much. Aubrey wouldn’t have a social life if not for me.”
“Congratulations, but I’m afraid another drunken frat party is not what Aubrey needs right now. We can come up with the money for an extra plane ticket if we put our minds to it. She has to deal with the doctors, and from the way it sounded—” Jenny paused and drew a breath. “—funeral arrangements, too. It’s a lot for her.”
“Why should that be our problem? She has an older sister, doesn’t she?”
“The sister’s useless, and a total bitch on top of it. I’m telling you, we can’t let Aubrey go through this alone. One of us should go with her.”
“Well, I can’t go,” Kate said petulantly.
“Why not?”
“I just can’t.”
Deep inside her drug-happy cocoon, Aubrey felt a jolt of worry. Jenny should back off before Kate agreed to come to Vegas. The last thing Aubrey wanted was for Kate to come home with her, and get a firsthand view of her pathetic trashy family. Kate would never look at her the same way again.
“You owe me an explanation, don’t you think?” Jenny said.
“I don’t owe shit to anybody, especially not to someone who just accused me of being a bad friend. After everything I’ve done for you, Jenny. I constantly invite you to stuff you could never get into on your own, and you never even say thank you.”
Her mother was sick, and now her best friends were arguing because of her. She wanted to speak, to beg them to stop, to tell them how much it hurt to see them angry with each other. But the drugs were in the way, and she couldn’t form words.
“Nobody ever helps me,” Kate said.
“Helps you with what? I want to help Aubrey because her mother is dying. What’s your problem?” Jenny said.
“My mother died, too, when I was only ten, and all I got was blame.”
“From Keniston,” Jenny said, skeptically.
“Exactly.”
“Oh, come on, Kate. You always harp on that but we both know that’s not true.”
“How do you know? You weren’t there. He blamed me because I wouldn’t visit her. I couldn’t. She’d been so beautiful, and then she was skin and bones. Tubes in her, and there was this bag attached to her, full of shit and God knows what. It smelled.”
Aubrey heard sniffling. Kate was crying.
“I understand,” Jenny said.
“No, you don’t! Nobody does. Keniston forced me to visit her anyway. He never cared what it felt like to me. He just said I was a bad daughter. People always think the worst of me.”
“This is not the time for self-pity.”
“Oh, first I’m a bad friend, now I’m having a pity party. Admit it, you hate me.”
“I don’t hate you. This is about Aubrey. We should try to help Aubrey, that’s all.”
“I would be no help. I freak in hospitals. I said so. Shut up about it and stop forcing your goody-goody ideas on me.”
“Can you please lower your voice?” Jenny whispered urgently.
“God, she can’t hear us. She’s wasted out of her mind. I’m tired of trying to measure up to your ridiculous standards.”
“You’re taking this way too personally.”
“It is personal. Everything with us is personal. You do things to show me up, Jenny, to prove to everyone you’re better than me. Well, two can play that game. I had sex with Lucas, you know.”
Jenny made a strangled noise. “But … you said nothing happened. You said you had to pack.”
“Not then. Not at Thanksgiving. Just the other day. And don’t act like you don’t care. I know he was the guy you talked about, the one you lost your virginity to. I knew and I did it anyway.”
There was another long silence. Aubrey held her breath, listening hard, glad she had the drugs to make her feel nothing, or she would’ve hated Kate right then. She didn’t ever want to hate Kate. Kate was her dearest friend.
“Why?” Jenny said finally, in a small voice.
“Because I felt like it. Because he wanted to. Because I am not constrained by your uptight, narrow-minded definition of friendship.”
The silence stretched out.
“I was right,” Jenny said, her voice harsh. “You are a bad friend. You’re a bad person.”
Jenny got up without another word and left the room. Aubrey peeked at Kate through her lowered eyelashes, which were wet with tears, and saw that Kate was smiling. A sick, ghoulish smile, like she’d been punched in the stomach, but a smile nonetheless.