Dartmouth

THE TRIP BACK HOME IS QUIET.

Xander is all red-rimmed and tapped out. She’s squeezing her fingers around the steering wheel like she’s checking to make sure it’s still solid. I think she’s even more freaked out than I am. John Phillips taught the Romantic poetry class where Mom and Dad met. All the time she was dating Dad, she was diddling the professor, and lying to Dad about it. She must have been. There’s no other explanation.

Doris kept insisting that nothing proves they slept together, but then Xander told her what I wouldn’t, that the statue she gave Phillips was worth six thousand dollars, that he’d given it to her in 1995. By the time we left this morning, Doris was as upset as we were.

I thought I knew who my Mom was, but now it’s like she’s a stranger.

“Hanover is practically on the way, you know.”

It’s been so long since Xander has spoken, I’m jolted in my seat. My back is killing me. I couldn’t sleep at all last night, and I’m sore and exhausted all through my body. “Fine.”

I knew she’d want to go to Dartmouth to look for Phillips. Why fight it?

Xander flips the turn signal when we reach the exit to Hanover. I hear a little sniff, and I catch a tear glistening in the corner of her eye. She dabs at it with her thumb.

“It’s going to be okay. She’s still Mom,” I tell her, even though I’m not sure I really believe this anymore. “Besides, your birthday is in a week. You’ll probably get another letter.”

“I know,” she says, her voice scraggly. “I’m just emotional because of all the pot I smoked this weekend.”

It’s true, she smoked again last night after Doris went to bed. I asked her about it, but she just shrugged like it didn’t matter.

“You should be crying,” I tell Xander. “I don’t know why you have to always know everything.”

“I’m sorry,” she says through a voice that sounds slit down the middle. “I shouldn’t have started digging into all this. You were right.”

My anger shrinks away at this First Ever Admission of Guilt from Xander Vogel. I should record the date and time, because it’s not likely to ever happen again. She’s so dejected that I want to offer her an olive branch. “We’re committed now. There’s no use fighting about it.”

She chuckles. “You sound like Mom.”

We pull in to Hanover, a little New England town a lot like all the others, with handsome old houses and churches with white steeples, only this town has fresh paint over everything, and shiny windows, and well-kept lawns, and lots of pretty people walking pretty dogs. It’s easy to see that there’s a lot more money here than in our town, but I like our version of New England better, chipped paint and all.

We follow the signs to Dartmouth College. Xander brazenly parks in the faculty parking lot, and we get out and walk across the perfectly manicured lawn to the first big building we find. It looks like a church, made of red brick with a tall white spire, but it turns out to be the library, and just inside the door is a little pamphlet stand. Xander grabs a campus map, and we scan it, looking for the Department of Comparative Literature.

We have to cross the campus, weaving between big buildings that look like huge mansions. Most of them are made of red brick with white trim, but some of them are painted a sparkling white, and their windows seem black by contrast. There are flowers of every size and color planted across campus, though it’s summer and there are hardly any students here to enjoy them. A man carrying a large pile of books zooms by us, and Xander turns to watch him go. She isn’t so sad anymore. She seems excited, and I realize that soon she’s going to be in a place like this.

The thought catches me cold. “Xander! It’s Monday! You have to let the universities know today!”

She looks at me blankly. “I called before we left Doris’s. You were in the shower.”

“Whoa! And you didn’t tell me?” I grab her elbow to slow her down. “Well?”

She looks sad, like she doesn’t want to tell me, so I know where she chose.

“You’re going to Caltech?”

She nods, her face mushy like she’s going to start crying again.

“Why?”

“They have a more theoretical program, and I want to go into research.”

“But it’s so far away!” Tears slide down my cheeks, and I press my palms against them. The motion makes my back seize up, and I wince.

“Zen, even if I went to Boston, you’d never see me. I’d be working too hard.”

“You could come home for long weekends!”

“But I have to do what’s right for my future. Caltech is better for me.”

“You just want to get away from us so you can turn into a total slut!” I yell at her.

Xander turns away and starts walking again, her feet plodding through the short green grass.

I’m too upset, and in too much pain, to care that Xander feels bad.

We finally get to the hall where the Department of Comparative Literature is, and Xander holds the heavy door open for me. Once we’re inside, I realize how hot it is today. The air feels cool on my cheeks, and I take deep breaths to calm myself down. This is turning out to be the second-worst summer of my life. When Mom was dying—that’s still number one.

The lobby is dark, and we can see through the little windows in the doors that all the offices are empty. We climb some worn stone stairs up to the second story, where we find only one door open. A plump woman is sitting at a tiny desk, surrounded by what looks like a national disaster involving office supplies. She’s humming as she sorts through nametags and fastens them to hundreds of black folders. “Excuse me,” Xander says.

“Oh!” the woman cries, startled. “I didn’t see you!”

“We’re looking for Professor John Phillips?” Xander says in her most confident, professional-sounding voice. Only someone who knows her well would know she’s been crying.

The woman crinkles her eyes. “He couldn’t be in Comparative Literature.”

Xander wilts a little. “Then he must be a former faculty member,” she says. “He taught here in the eighties?”

The secretary’s eyes wander over the mess in front of her as she thinks. “That was before my time, but I might have something about him in our files.” She starts to get up, but seems to think better of it. “Would you mind telling me what this is about?”

Xander stares at her for a second, kind of stunned. I sense something building in the room, and I take a step toward her to stop her, but I’m too late. She totally vomits up the entire story, seeds and all. It goes something like this: “Our mom and dad met here in graduate school . . . she sent off this bird statue . . . we’re afraid Mom might have a past with this man . . . we’re just looking for some answers.”

As she talks my eyes get wider and wider, and finally my mouth drops open. I squeeze her elbow to stop her, but she is like a giant truckload of cow manure cruising downhill with shot brakes.

I look at the plump secretary, trying to gauge her reaction. She’s leaning in closer and closer as though gossip is a drug and she’s a desperate junkie. Finally Xander sputters to a stop, and the woman just stares for a second, but then she does something I never would have anticipated. She gets up, walks around the desk, and gives Xander a big hug. She pats her back and says, “I’ll look through my old files. Just sit tight, hon.”

“What the hell was that?” I ask her after the secretary leaves.

She shrugs. “I figured I couldn’t come up with a better story than the truth.”

We walk over to an ugly, threadbare couch in the corner of the room, and we both sink into it.

It takes a long time, but the secretary finally comes back with a folder in her hand. “I found it!” she says triumphantly. “He was a visiting professor here, fresh from his Ph.D. program at Brandeis. I don’t know for sure where he went from here, but I do have a few copies of recommendation letters that were sent out on his behalf. These are the schools.” She hands Xander a list of what looks like a dozen schools. “Of course, you didn’t get this from me. In fact, we’ve never met.”

“Thank you,” Xander whispers. She stands up, gives the secretary another hug, and shuffles me out the door.

Once we get outside, she reads over the list of schools quickly and hands it to me. They’re spread all over the country, but if he is still working at one of them, we’ll be sure to find him. I get butterflies in my stomach imagining talking to him, and while Xander drives I fall asleep, haunted by restless dreams.

It’s almost dusk by the time we get home. The streets are quiet and small in the dim light. A cat trots across the street in front of us. “Make a wish,” Xander says out of habit.

I roll my eyes. When I was a kid, for a long time Xander had me believing that when a cat crosses in front of you, you’re supposed to make a wish. She also had me looking into the toilet after I went number two for clues about my future, like some people do with tea leaves. I got over that one, but I still sometimes wish on cats.

As we pass by it, I watch the dark feline shape lazily slinking between two cars. Please let us find out Mom was innocent. That she’s who we thought she was.

The house is dark. Xander turns on the light and we stand in the doorway, looking at our home, not talking. The crystal mantel clock is ticking quietly. Dad’s Sunday newspaper is spread out on the coffee table, the book review section on top. That was the only section Mom would ever read. The moonlight glows on the pinewood floor in a ghostly yellow streak that leads toward the staircase. I could almost believe this is a room Mom left just a moment ago. I close my eyes and smell the air for her scent, but all I smell is a garlicky hint of some pizza Dad must have ordered for dinner.

I hear a creak on the basement stairs, and Dad hobbles into the room, arms held out to hug us. We let him, though I can tell by the way Xander’s face is all scrunched up that the odor of stale, depressed Dad isn’t doing it for her, either.

“How’re my girls?” he asks, his voice husky with relief at seeing us.

“We’re good,” Xander says into his sweatshirt.

“You had a visitor,” he tells me as he releases us. “Some kid carrying a camera.”

I stare at him blankly before I remember the boy I’d met at the prom. “Oh yeah. For the yearbook committee.”

Xander’s ears prick up at this, but she says nothing about it, for now.

“How’s Doris?” Dad plops backwards into his armchair, letting out an old-man groan.

“A little burned out,” Xander says. “A little daffy.”

“So, unchanged,” he says, nodding approval.

“Speaking of unchanged,” she says ominously, “is that the same sweatshirt I saw you wearing when we left? Three days ago?”

“I might have washed it,” he says teasingly.

“You might have slept in it,” I say. I’m trying to hide my disdain, but I know he can see it on my face, even in the dark room. I’m starting to lose patience with him. We’re all sad about Mom, but at least Xander and I haven’t given up.

“I know, girls,” Dad says, his face long with embarrassment. “I’m beginning to think my sabbatical was perhaps not the wisest choice.”

“Have you gotten anything done?” I ask him.

He shrugs.

“Don’t you have to do something?” Xander nags. “An article? Anything? Isn’t the department going to expect something to show for all this time off?”

“I’m tenured,” he says with a shrug.

Xander tilts her head at him. He drops his eyes to his watch, which has carved a depression in his wrist. I don’t think he’s taken it off since Mom died. I have a private theory that he’s trying to avoid seeing the love poem she’d had engraved on the back of it. “It’s late, girls,” he says, not because he’s tired, but because he doesn’t want to talk about how he’s not working. “Good night,” he says as he shuffles to the basement door.

“Sloth,” Xander calls after him.

“Go soak your head in broth,” he tells her as he starts down the stairs.

“Take that stinky sweatshirt off!” I yell.

“But I like the feel of the cloth!” he yells back.

“You smell like a horde of goths!” Xander yells louder, never to be outdone at a Vogel rhyme-off.

Dad doesn’t answer, so we go into the kitchen for a late snack. Xander turns on the light, which makes us both blink. The kitchen feels fake, like it was taken apart while we were away and reassembled almost right. I want to ask Xander if she feels the same way, but she’s looking down the doorway that leads to the basement where Dad has gone, her eyes wide and absent, her expression blank. Suddenly I don’t want to ask her what she’s thinking about. I want to be alone.

I get a banana and go up to my bedroom. There’s a note on my pillow, and I click on my reading lamp.

 

Dear Goddess of Wisdom,

 

Your dad thinks I’m stalking you. Sorry.

I lost your phone number because my mom took my leisure suit to the Goodwill in an attempt to rehabilitate my fashion sense. Your number was in the pocket. I was despondent, but I remembered that you are Xander Vogel’s sister, and I asked her pizza parlor friend where you lived, and she told me. Now that I think about it, you should probably ask that girl not to go around telling strange guys where you live.

So I came by your house with my camera hoping to get a few frames of you demolishing something, and your dad answered the door, and he seemed very concerned that I tracked you down. So I decided to leave you a note assuring you that I’m not a crazed fiend. In case he says something.

If you’re still willing to let me take your picture, please contact me at 245-5984. But please don’t give my number to any crazed fiends. Only now am I waking up to the terrible danger of stalkers.

Paul

 

The last part of the note makes me laugh, and that makes my back hurt, so I lie down on my mattress. It feels unbelievably good to be in my own bed with the feather mattress and flannel sheets, and for a minute I weigh the pros and cons of falling asleep without brushing my teeth.

I’m young. What’s a little tartar?