An Off Year

february

I had strong opinions on daytime television. Oprah was always good as long as it wasn’t about self-improvement. Shows with more than one host were usually awful unless a guest host was sitting in. I liked Judge Mathis because he reminded me of one of my favorite teachers from grade school. But while I was a merciless critic, that didn’t mean I didn’t watch it all. I tried to do it on the sly, though: when Dad was out of the house, because I knew he’d get pissed if he caught me lounging on the couch watching yet another teenager screaming at an audience, “Fuck you! Y’all don’t know me!”

Unfortunately, Dad came home for an early lunch one day when I was watching an episode of Jerry Springer that involved very fat men who enjoyed eating sloppily while not wearing many clothes.

“Oh, hi, Dad,” I said, trying to keep my cool as I hastily turned off the TV.

“Nice way to spend your day,” he said.

“I was just about to take Superhero for a walk,” I said. Superhero, who had been lying on the floor next to me, raised his head at the w word. Fortunately, he couldn’t speak and tell Dad he’d already been on one.

“Okay,” said Dad. “I just came up here to let you know that I took the liberty of setting up a meeting with a professional.”

“Let me just get this straight before we keep going,” I said. “A professional what? I’m already seeing a professional therapist.”

“A professional college counselor,” said Dad. “I never trusted those counselors at your high school anyway. There weren’t enough of them, and they knew nothing about you.”

This was true. My school supplied four counselors to seven hundred kids in my graduating class. Mine was named Robin, and I never even found out for myself if Robin was a man or a woman. But it could have been worse: there was one girl in our class named Hillary Thomas who was applying to Brown, who got rejected because her counselor accidentally sent them the transcript of a girl named Heather Thompson. Heather had dropped out early in the year to have a baby. In the end, Hillary got in anyway, which was good because Hillary was a superintense overachiever and many people, I won’t name names, found it amusing when her head nearly exploded after not getting into Brown.

But still. I didn’t want to see a counselor. Kate’s parents had hired one. Her name was Claudia Something-or-other but Kate referred to her as the Claw. Kate’s parents paid thousands of dollars for her to sit in a room with the Claw, apparently a dried-out husk of a woman who wore “whimsical” jewelry decorated with little wooden animals. They would make lists of possible schools Kate could attend, based on Kate’s personality. The Claw then encouraged Kate to join the basketball team, build a house with Habitat for Humanity, and join a church youth group, all within the last four months of school, to pump up her application. Kate knew before she even saw the Claw where she wanted to go, but her parents basically just wanted to see if maybe there was some way the Claw could convince Kate to apply to Princeton and just maybe Kate would get in, and then just maybe her parents could mention to all their friends, casually, that they had a daughter who went to Princeton. Unfortunately for them, Kate did not get into Princeton, because, unbeknownst to them, she blew off the interview to go get ice cream sundaes with me. Kate would repeat to me in the Claw’s husky voice, “You know, if you’re really serious about this, you would . . .”

It all sounded completely unhelpful, annoying, and a lot of bullshit, and I was through with that part of applying to colleges—the making-yourself-look-better-than-you-are part.

“I don’t want to,” I said.

“Too bad,” Dad said. “You have an appointment with her next week. Someone at work recommended her. They said she’s great. Speaking of which, you know, I can always speak to the dean and you can go to college right here in town. You could still live at home.”

“No.” I would not be a pity case who ended up going to the school where her father worked. I would not go to college less than a mile away from my house. I probably wouldn’t get in anyway.

“Cecily, what do you want? I’m at the end of my rope here. I’m trying to help you.”

“I don’t know, what SHOULD I want?”

“You should want whatever makes you happy.”

“Well, I don’t fucking know what that is yet. Tell me what to do.”

He opened his mouth to say something, closed it, and took a breath. “I am telling you what to do, and that’s to see the counselor—at least to see if she helps. And when you do meet with her you’d better have some thought of what you’re looking or not looking for.”

“Well, I’m not the same as I once was, you know. Things change,” I said, trying to sound world-weary and knowledgeable.

“Apparently, they do, because you were sorta easy to deal with a few months ago and now you’re a total—”

“I think I want something where I can just have a lot of opportunities to figure out what I want,” I said.

Dad beamed. “See? That wasn’t so hard.”

I was so full of crap. I realized something, though. Dad was thinking, or maybe hoping, that the college was the problem, the reason I turned around the year before. And that all I needed was a better school to keep me there. That was interesting.

I was in a foul mood the day of my appointment. Dad dropped me off (the same building as Dr. Stern), which meant I had to walk home. It would probably be a twenty-minute walk and it was a mild day, but I hated having exercise forced on me. Plus, I hated my outfit. At the last minute I had picked a long-sleeved T-shirt and down-filled vest to wear with my jeans, but the wind still blew off the lake pretty strongly and I knew I’d be freezing on my long journey home. This seemed like a real intrusion upon my precious time, too. If there was one thing I knew I was totally over, it was the college application and selection process. God, it was a drag. Repeating everything you’ve done, trying to convince people how special you are. Reading back through the college books hadn’t made me feel any more nostalgic for it. This was going to suck.

“Hi!” said a perky girl with blond hair as I entered the office, this one on the fourth floor.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m Cecily Powell.”

“Great,” she said, clicking a few things on her computer. “Okay, it looks like you have a noon with Leah. You’re going to love her. She’s the best.”

“Great,” I said.

“She’ll be right with you.”

“Fine.”

The girl put some headphones in and started humming as I flopped onto one of the sleek black leather couches. Sunlight streamed into the office, but that didn’t help the hideous reading material selection. U.S. News & World Report and the same college books I had at home. There were a few framed letters on the wall. I glanced at them but quit paying attention after I read, “Dear Leah!!! Oh my God. I am loving it at Dartmouth.”

Dear Whoever. Shut up. I hate you.

Aargh. I had a horrible feeling that it was so obvious that I didn’t belong in this office, that it wasn’t going to help me at all. But I couldn’t come up with a good reason why. And in the meantime I was stuck, because Dad definitely was going to give me a quiz if I came out of here without sounding like I had gotten something out of it—he had promised before he dropped me off. Dad wasn’t much of a disciplinarian, but he was serious when he told us to pay attention to things. When we went on trips, he would refuse to buy us souvenirs unless we could speak for at least five minutes on what we had seen.

“Hey, hi, hi,” said a woman rushing in through the reception room door, carrying some files and a plastic shopping bag. At least two purses hung from her shoulders, plus a backpack. She was wearing one of those long black superpuffy coats that a lot of people wear in Chicago in the winter. It basically looks like a comforter with sleeves. I’m sure they’re very cozy, but I just couldn’t bring myself to buy or wear one, ever. For the coldest days, I had convinced my dad to buy me a bright red and black North Face jacket, which, he informed me, cost enough that I would never need another winter coat for as long as I lived—so I was stuck with mine anyway. She had long, frizzy-curly black hair that was being crowded out by a lot of white. It was probably what mine would look like when I was a crazy old lady myself one day. She shuffled through the lobby and through the door separating the office from the reception area. The door slammed behind her. Less than a minute later, the perky girl at the front desk pulled out one of her headphones and picked up the ringing phone. She hung up and said, “Okay, Cecily! Leah is ready for you. Just head through this door. Hers is the office to the right.”

“Thanks,” I said, and trudged through the door.

Leah was definitely the crazy-looking lady with the frizzy hair. She was still taking off her coat when I walked into her office. Her window offered a nice view of an unusual apartment building across the street. For some reason, the architects had designed it with this funny top to it that made it look German, vaguely like a gingerbread house. I could see a little strip of blue lake on the horizon.

“Hi, Cecily. It is Cecily, right? Unless you go by any nicknames?”

“Nope,” I said, and then wished I had said something like, “Why, actually, most of my friends call me ‘Moon Unit’ ” to see if she would play along.

“Have a seat,” she said, gesturing to the chair on the other side of her desk. “You don’t mind if I eat, do you?” Actually, I did mind. I was starving, and her Jimmy John’s sandwich looked amazing. It made me hate this all the more. Dad had woken me up at eleven-thirty for my noon appointment, which gave me exactly fifteen minutes to get up and go. I used those fifteen minutes to shower, not eat breakfast. I started to complain about how hungry I was as he drove, but he shot me a look that made me shut up.

“It’s fine.” I shrugged. Her office was decorated with posters of university campuses and more letters, presumably from satisfied customers.

“Okay,” she said. “Apologies in advance if I spill all over myself and/or have onion breath.”

I gave a fake half smile.

“So, Cecily,” she said, licking some mayonnaise off her fingers and then flipping through a few pages in a file that she apparently already had on me. “What can I help you with today?”

“I don’t know, really,” I said. “My dad signed me up for this and didn’t really tell me.”

“Believe it or not, I hear that a lot,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said. It came out as more of a statement than a question. A conversation-ender.

“Hmm.” She obviously had wanted me to ask, “Oh really?” or something, but I wasn’t in the mood to chitchat. “Well, do you have any idea why you’re here?”

I didn’t know if she was playing some sort of psych game or if she just didn’t know what was up. “You don’t know yet, really? Or are you asking me, like, so I can figure out out loud what I should be thinking about?”

“Sure,” she said. “Whatever.” She opened a bag of potato chips. They smelled delicious. Krunchers! They were always great, despite their corny name. “Tell me why you think you’re here. It shouldn’t matter either way if I know or not, because your answer should be the same, right?” she asked. Ugh.

“Well, okay. I’m taking the year off.”

“Why?”

“It just wasn’t time yet.”

“Time for what?” she said, munching. Damn her and those chips.

“Time for, you know, school. I went to start my freshman year, but I couldn’t do it. I turned around and went home.”

Leah looked me straight in the eye over her long nose as she sipped from her takeout cup. She kind of looked like an owl. She put it down on the desk, hard, and made that Aaah noise you make after you’re particularly refreshed.

“Okay. Let’s try this. What do you think you want from a college?” Leah asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, staring at the desk.

“You seem fairly bright,” she said, glancing at my file. “So whatever your particular issue is that compelled you not to go through with your year, I’m assuming it’s not an academic thing. Or a drug problem or anything like that.”

I just stared out the window at the weird German-looking building.

“Okay, Cecily,” Leah said, leaning back in her chair. She let her head slouch to her shoulder and looked out the window at the German building, not at me. “I can respect that it maybe wasn’t your choice to be here and that you’re questioning the point of this. But seriously? I’m getting a little fucking sick of the attitude. Don’t you think you’re a little too old for this?” I blinked, hard, and I started feeling funny in my stomach. My heart began racing.

“Now,” she said. “I know you didn’t come here because you don’t care about wasting your dad’s money. And I know you’re not acting like this because you’re a spoiled brat.” She looked at me expectantly, but smiling.

“Um. No.”

“Good,” she said. “Because I don’t want to have to kick you out of here. I hate kicking people out of here. But I really hate it when my time is wasted. I’ve spent too much precious time on snotty kids, and believe me, there are a lot of them in this town.”

I snorted out a gross-sounding laugh. She laughed, too.

“It’s okay,” she said. “We can both admit it. But that’s all right. At least it’s just you,” she said. “Sometimes I get to see these kids’ parents yell at them in front of me. Or they answer for their kids like it’s a ventriloquist act. Or I start questioning the kids’ attitude and then their parents question my attitude and I have to kick them all out and then have a good cry.”

“I think my dad wants me to figure it out on my own,” I said. “I guess he thinks he can’t figure this all out for me. He was a lot pushier with my sister when she was my age, and she didn’t turn out much better than me. I think she’s worse.”

“Helicopter parents are not always the best,” Leah said, and I imagined for a minute what it would be like if Dad had made me apply to more schools, tougher schools, had made me take the SATs two or three times, had rung up his colleagues for recommendations. Would I be better off? We probably wouldn’t get along as well, that’s for sure.

“So what’s up, Cecily?” she said, looking me in the eye again and leaning forward in her chair. The way she said it made me think she knew exactly what my situation was. For a second, I wanted to cry.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know what’s up.”

“So you picked Kenyon, huh?” she said, flipping some more through my file. “It’s a good school. I have a lot of friends from there. You can talk to some of them if you want. They all loved it there. I can’t say that for everybody I know who went to other schools.”

Kenyon. I liked it because the name sounded like “canyon.” And because they sent me a cool-looking brochure that featured a leaf-strewn path with friends enjoying soon-to-be precious college memories together. And also because I got in there. As I told Leah, Dad had pushed Germaine pretty hard when it came to picking out colleges. Josh was a goody-goody who graduated in the top quarter of the class, so he pushed himself. I didn’t know if Dad was tired from pushing Germaine, hoped I’d be like Josh, or what, but while he checked in to make sure that I was actually remembering to look at schools and apply to them, and recommended some he thought I might like (all small liberal arts schools), he seemed satisfied as long as I was applying to places that had a semidecent reputation and weren’t too far away and didn’t cost an arm and a leg to go to. I received the brochure for Kenyon, applied, and got in. I didn’t have a big plan for what would happen once I got there, what I’d major in or join or whatever. I was okay at everything. Probably less capable at math and science. I liked Spanish. I just figured I’d start college and by the end figure out what I was going to do.

I mostly liked the school because it didn’t look too much like anything. Josh’s school definitely had a frat and party atmosphere. It was a good university, but it wasn’t like kids were going to museums with their free time or anything. Germaine went to a small college that was 89 percent women, and I was convinced that the smallness and womanliness of it were partially what made her crazy. We fought before she left for college, but I thought that we’d get along better after she came back. I was wrong, though: I think she got so used to fighting with girls for four years that she was just going to keep going. Also, I think that was why she was boy crazy and lazy. After four years of being told the importance of being a strong woman, a leading woman, Germaine just didn’t want to do anything.

Kate’s college was prestigious but hippie-ish, the kind where most of the kids were filthy and stunk like incense and shopped at co-ops, but were also all really rich. Everyone at Mike’s former school seemed like assholes. I had no real basis for this stereotype, but I was going to go with it. I had no idea what the University of Kansas was like, other than the fact that it was located in Kansas.

I liked Kenyon because it seemed like I didn’t have to join a club, be an asshole, or be too smart or too independent or too womanly or too girly or live in Kansas. And now I liked it because I could go there without having to send in an application.

As I talked to Leah, I figured out what it was about her that seemed odd. She was about my dad’s age, maybe ten years younger, but the way she listened to me and said “Uh-huh,” or “Oh really?” or “like” instead of “said” and really looked at me while I talked, it was more like a friend, or someone my age. I didn’t know what to think. Germaine and I never had conversations on purpose, and my mother never seemed to listen to me that closely when I talked. I wasn’t sure if I liked Leah, but I liked talking to her. It felt like one of the few normal conversations I’d had all year. I wondered if she was a mom. I didn’t see a wedding band on, but I saw some picture frames on her desk, though I couldn’t see what was in them. They could have contained babies, or a sailboat, or dogs. I wondered what it would be like to have a mom like her. She seemed cool with her own dorkiness.

“Okay,” she said when I was done talking about where I might have gone to school. “Let’s start from the beginning, though, and get a few other options in there. What size student body were you looking for?”

“Seriously?” I said. “In all seriousness, I don’t think it’s the school. I was ready to go to Kenyon. And then it went to shit.”

“Well, you know it’s also my job to help kids figure out if college just isn’t right for them,” she said. “I’ve had plenty of kids go into the army, or they went right to work, or they traveled first.”

“I don’t want to join the army,” I said. “I would suck at being in the army.”

“Do you think there’s something about a university setting that just isn’t right for you?” she asked. “You could always take classes online.”

I made a face, and she snorted. She took a huge plate-size cookie out of her fast-food bag, unwrapped it, and held it out for me to break off a piece. I declined. I didn’t believe in sharing desserts. When I went in, I went in all the way.

“No,” I said. “That sounds superboring.”

“That’s good,” she said, some cookie bits falling onto her chunky gray sweater. “We’re establishing that you’re not totally socially inept.”

“I am, kind of.”

“That’s okay. Me too. I mean, obviously,” she said, looking down at the crumbs on her sweater. We sat in silence for a few moments. The room was quiet except for a few whooshes from cars down the street below.

“You know what,” I said, “I know I shouldn’t take it for granted, but I always just assumed I’d go to college. I know there are kids in the world who would love to but they can’t afford it, but I just assumed I’d go anyway. I didn’t worry about going. My dad always talked about me going the way he had talked about my brother and sister going, and they went. I took it for granted that it would happen.”

“You’re lucky.”

“Yeah.”

“So you’re thinking that assumption was wrong?”

“No,” I said. “Because I think not going, ever, would feel weirder than going. Despite all the issues I apparently have with it.”

“What are the issues?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Like, everyone ends up the same when they go to college. It’s all about partying and awesome-ness and getting drunk and going to class.” Based on my conversations with Kate, anyway.

“Well,” she said, “that’s not entirely inaccurate.”

“And,” I said, “I don’t even know if I would have any friends anyway. I’m hardly friends anymore with the people I went to high school with, and I’ve known them for years. And everyone’s going to think I’m a freak when they find out I’m older than them.”

“Well, they won’t. But you’re obviously afraid of blending in too much, losing your identity.”

“Right.”

“But I also get the feeling that you’re afraid of not having any friends at all.”

“I guess that’s right.”

“Well, Cecily, I gotta tell you,” Leah said, wadding up the cellophane from the cookie into a ball. “I know it’s my job to help you find which schools would make you happiest and be best for you, and then try to help you get in there. But, like you said, it doesn’t sound like it’s the school that’s the issue. I mean, yes, I think you actually would be better off at Kenyon than, say, University of Arizona. But all that other stuff—that’s up to you. I actually think it’s pretty cool that you’re doing your own thing, even if you don’t know why you’re doing it. All these parents shove their kids into the system, and nobody really seems to know why. They have an idea that it’s going to be helpful down the road somehow. That if they don’t power through and go-go-go, then they’re going to be fucked for life. You should question it. I question it and it’s my job, for Christ’s sake.”

“Well, I don’t know if I’m questioning it or me or what,” I said. I liked the idea that I was actually a rebel, fighting The Man and not letting myself be led through the cattle chute of my late teens. But I didn’t mind The Man. I was probably afraid of The Man more than anything else. I didn’t want to fight him.

“Cecily?” she said. “My advice? Don’t worry so much.”

“Aren’t you paid to get me to worry about it?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t get kickbacks from schools for sending them there. I’ll get your money regardless of whether you go to college or go get pregnant and have six kids and move to Peoria.”

“What?”

“Our hour is up,” she said sweetly. “Come back and see me if you want. Or don’t.”

“Okay,” I said. I did sort of want to come back and see her again, just to talk to her, not even to help with college stuff. Maybe in some alternate universe.

“Okay,” she said.

I got up and put my vest on. “Good luck,” she said as I opened the door.

“You too,” I said. I had closed the door before I realized that I meant to say, “Thanks,” because I wasn’t wishing her luck on anything, but I let it go.

The walk home wasn’t nearly as bad as I had dreaded; in fact, it felt good to actually move around. I bought a hot chocolate on the way, which, of course, made the entire world more pleasant. Except for Germaine, who was in the kitchen when I got home, heating up a Lean Cuisine and basically making the entire kitchen reek.

“How was Leah?” she asked.

“Fine,” I said suspiciously. I didn’t know Germaine was so in on my plans.

“I saw her once, you know,” she said. “She didn’t help me at all. I think she’s an idiot.”

“Well, I kind of liked her,” I said. She snorted and took out her dish of sadness, stirred it, and put it back in the microwave.

“So? What did she say?” she asked.

“Oh, you know . . .” I said, hoping to make that profound statement last until I could find Superhero’s leash and get back out of the house. This was unpleasant.

“No, I don’t know,” Germaine said. “I’m just curious about what she told you.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why should it matter to you?”

“Everybody just wants to know why, Cecily. That’s really it. Once we know why, then we can just go back to ignoring you and let you have your little year off.”

I rolled my eyes. “Well, I don’t know why, so fuck off.” The only thing that really bothered me was the way she said “everybody,” like everybody was gathering together to whisper about me. But of course, to her, that was what I wanted.

“Oh, come on,” said Germaine. “You can’t have been that scared. It’s not like you haven’t gone away before. You’re not completely socially inept. You’re not fat. Are you crazy? Or are you just acting crazy because you want attention?”

“Yes,” I said. “That’s exactly it. And oh how I enjoy this. I’m really having fun with the attention I’m getting right now.”

“I bet you are,” she said.

“You know, contrary to what you might think, I didn’t orchestrate this just to piss you off,” I said. “I didn’t really think this through at all. Okay? I did something and I clearly didn’t have a follow-up plan. But I’ll tell you this: if I knew it would be this much fun, I probably wouldn’t have done it.”