In a small office on the lower floor of the ugliest building on what I’d already come to believe must be one of the most beautiful campuses in America, Gregory Russell looked up at me from a desk of scribbled notes and hard-backed books ranging from Art History to analyses of the Russian Revolution. He had almost white hair and leathery tanned skin, but a clearly muscular body beneath his tatty T-shirt and jeans.
I stood nervously in his doorway.
‘Hi,’ I offered tentatively. After a pause, I continued in an apologetic rush, ‘Um, sorry to disturb you. I wanted to talk to you about your directing class.’
There was blank silence that reminded me of the void of panic that catches your breath when a computer crashes in the middle of an essay you haven’t yet saved. I waited for him to respond, but he merely nodded, studying me curiously. I had my hair pulled back into a low ponytail and suddenly felt conscious that my nails were bitten.
‘I’m an exchange student,’ I spoke to fill the silence. ‘So, I don’t have the credits to take the 200-level class, but they said at orientation to talk to the professor because I’m really interested in directing.’
‘Are you?’ He raised a messy eyebrow and stared at me some more. Ignoring my request, he said, ‘Well, why don’t you assistant direct my play this term? What’s your name?’
I looked at him in surprise. With the offer hanging in the stuffy air, I felt that familiar pang of fear. As I had for most of my first week in America, I felt out of my depth: a child playing at an adult’s game, convinced it would only be a matter of time before someone noticed that my masterpiece was simply a crayon drawing, worthy of no more than a place on the fridge.
I swallowed back my fear and told him my name. I vaguely tried to talk him out of his offer, admitting I didn’t really have any experience, but he’d made up his mind and seemed quite pleased with his decision, no matter what I said. He told me it would mean a lot of watching him and taking notes, but some people would pay just to be able to observe a good director at work. Humbled and excited, I nodded. I was to go away and read the script and, if I liked it, come to the theatre at seven tomorrow for auditions.
I wandered slowly back to my dorm, thinking while I passed under the shadows of the impressive buildings and towering oaks of the ancient women’s college that Professor Russell was the only person I’d met so far that hadn’t immediately commented on my accent. He hadn’t even blinked when I opened my mouth and had skipped any of the ‘Where are you from? Oh, is that near London?’ banter I’d grown accustomed to over the six days since my arrival in the US.
When I reached my dorm, I decided I couldn’t face my empty room in the eaves and instead opted to sit in one of the wooden porch chairs. I took out the photocopied script Professor Russell had given me and curled up to read Mac Wellman’s ’Twas the Night Before … in the late summer sun.
As I imagine it happening, at the very same moment, Jessica Hunt climbed out of her father’s car and slammed the door shut with more force than was necessary. Her mom gave her an angry look and Jess suppressed the desire to roll her eyes. Her feelings about being back at Rosella for the beginning of senior year were, at best, mixed.
Today was her birthday and she’d just spent twenty hours in a car with both her parents. All summer, her brother and she had been planning a road trip as her transport back to school. They were going to chill out to some old-school nineties classics and stop at midnight diners and Taco Bells along the way. This way, the trip from Dallas to Delaware County would not be spent next to a crying child on a plane and, best of all, she would have her car for senior year. But the plan had died a solemn death when, on the way home from her sister’s baby shower, Jess had rolled her vehicle off the road and into a ditch. Luckily unhurt, she’d clambered out of the dented mess and promptly burst into tears.
Now, heaving her suitcases out of the trunk as her father held the door open because of his back, she tried to muster some excitement. This was to be her last year of school: who knew where she would go after that and how amazing it would be to get away from this oestrogen-charged bubble?
It wasn’t working. The last time she’d been on this campus was over a year ago and not an especially happy memory. Her senior year stretched before her more as a necessary sentence than an opportunity to sentimentally savour the ‘final’ everything and the power of being the oldest.
As a Sophomore, Jess had chosen to major in Theatre Arts and minor in German. Hoping to study abroad, she’d overloaded her Fall semester with language courses and impressed her professors with her extra-curricular reading. It was in ‘From Hitler to Hesse’ that she shone as the star student and secured her nomination for Student of the Year. Of course, it helped that the tutor – a PhD student from the neighbouring co-ed – was rated a ten out of ten for looks on the Daily Jolt website and had gaggles of first-years whispering about his chiselled jaw and toned body every time he walked past.
Unlike most of the giggling teenagers, Jess had spent quite some time talking to Mr Atlas and knew details such as where he’d spent his childhood skiing in the Alps to obtain such a physique and how he found it hard to understand why everyone walked around campus in their pyjamas. Jess was always the last to leave after class, not because she was deliberately dawdling – this happened in every class – but because she had an extraordinary ability to spread herself out. Even after the shortest of classes, she would have three notebooks and six pens, numerous scattered pieces of paper and various doodles, her phone, her glasses case, a couple of hair-ties, some Burt’s Bees and possibly eye-shadow dribbled around her. In these minutes after the classroom had emptied, Jess would ask Mr Atlas seemingly random questions about language that she’d been mulling since their last session and grill him for information on regional variations in dialect. At first, her piercing curiosity had unnerved him. He had never taught a student who devoured syllabus and non-syllabus with the exact same attention. Jess seemed unaware of the fact she’d have to write a research paper and sit a midterm; she’d turn up five minutes late or early with the appearance of someone who’d been walking along the hall when it’d suddenly occurred to her to learn some German. She wanted to know everything she could and approached the language like a mathematical problem – ‘If this rule works here, then what if I want to say this? And how does it change if this happens?’ – coming up with the most bizarre of hypothetical situations in order to cover all possible circumstances.
In time, Atlas – as Jess soon began referring to him – began to look forward to these post-lesson chats, partly because they challenged his own knowledge and partly because of Jess herself. He became almost fascinated by her variations. His class was at 9.45am and, while with the other students he could predict which ones would stumble in bleary-eyed, which would be in full make-up and which would have the exhausted air of those who woke at 4.30 to get to crew practice, with Jess, every day was a surprise. On the days when she wore enormous green hoodies and clashing baggy pants, he’d assume she didn’t care about her appearance and sometimes wonder if she fitted the women’s college stereotype and preferred girls. At other times, though, she’d strut into the room with her hair intricately knotted, her face made-up with blue eye-shadow and scarlet lips and three-inch heels transforming her slumped posture into elegant grace. On these days, he guiltily caught himself wondering if the effort was for his benefit.
It was because he knew he shouldn’t be thinking this that he asked her one day if she would mind not applying her make-up actually in class as it gave the impression she wasn’t listening. He hadn’t meant this to sound as stern as it came out and immediately regretted it. Taken aback, she apologised and explained she’d always fiddled and doodled and it helped her concentrate, that she had never not listened in a single class and that his was her favourite subject this semester. He felt guilty and tried to make up for it. They were discussing the subjunctive as he locked the classroom door and, not wanting to end the conversation, she asked if he was free for a coffee. He didn’t have another class until the afternoon and, though part of him thought it was a bad idea, he knew students and professors were often friends and seen having perfectly innocent coffees in the library café. He said yes. Over this hour-long latte, their conversation leapt from Texas to the Rhine, Oasis to Bon Jovi, dorm life to living alone in a foreign country. When it was finally time for them both to get back to their days, Jess, never having seen the point of subtlety, said she’d had fun and would like to hang out with him sometime. He ignored the alarm bells sounding in the distance and said he’d like that too. They arranged to meet in Albany at the weekend and said goodbye, each walking away smiling.
After that, they met regularly outside of class, never acknowledging anything more than a close friendship and always parting with excited promises to see each other again. When the weather improved, they went for walks around the campus and argued about the various merits of snow versus sunshine. On one particular afternoon, he’d driven them to Huntersfield Forest for a picnic. Jess was telling him she had only had one relationship at high school and it had been an awkward one; that sometimes she wondered if she wasn’t just some freak destined to live alone. He looked at her and allowed some of the feelings he’d been suppressing for the past few months to seep through the dam of responsible teaching and the threat of losing his job. He touched her face and told her that would never happen, that she was the most remarkable girl he’d met. Without warning, he found himself telling her that he was scared of the feelings she aroused in him, that he knew they were wrong, not just because he was her tutor but because she was so young and he shouldn’t be telling her even this.
It was Jess that kissed Mr Atlas rather than the other way around. But after that kiss, something shifted. Sometime between that first taboo confession of feelings and their final fraught fumblings, she shed her confident, Texan Lolita-meets-Natalie-Portman-in-Leon-and-perhaps-a-bit-of-Sharon-Stone skin and discovered something altogether more vulnerable beneath. She insisted everything was fine, but gradually stopped allowing Atlas to hold her, and he noticed she withdrew each time she saw even a hint of a rising in his pants.
In her dorm one night, Jess threw up four times in a row. She kept throwing up for two more days before dragging herself to the counselling service. In violent floods of tears she waited until they gave her an emergency appointment. Her parents were called and told their daughter had been having suicidal thoughts and it was probably best that she come home for the last two weeks of the semester. It was hell for about six months and Jess’s doctors prescribed various cocktails of anti-depressants until one began to work. She spent her junior year in Texas, attending classes at the local college and working at Wal-Mart. It was quiet and simple and she got her life back together, trying not to think about Atlas and how she’d freaked out. Her family was supportive and Rosella made provisions for her grades to transfer. By the time she arrived on 3rd September 2003, she was deemed competent and happy, though still, of course, mildly medicated.
Once the car had been emptied of suitcases, boxes and last-minute remembrances that’d wedged themselves under the seat and into the glove compartment, and Jess’s new room was stuffed with a disorderly pile of books, clothes and mostly green furnishings, she and her parents made their way down to the fluorescently lit dining hall.
Jess stood in the line for hot food wearing her pale green Rosella sweatshirt with baggy black combats spattered with paint from numerous get-ins and strikes. She’d shoved her strawberry-blonde hair into a messy ponytail and her feet were encased in beat-up Chuck Taylors. Before her was something claiming to be vegetarian lasagne, next to some rather anaemic-looking chicken, a bowl of broccoli, two different types of potato and some cold garlic bread. She picked out the least offensive bit of chicken while her mom, next to her, smiled broadly at the students working the kitchens and made faux-satisfied noises as she helped herself to the smallest possible slice of lasagne. Her dad whispered not very quietly in her ear that he’d seen a Cracker Barrel down the street and maybe they’d go there later.
She stood waiting for her parents to finish collecting their food and looked around for three free seats. She noticed a girl who’d lived on her floor in their first year. She asked if they could sit in the seats next to her and felt reassured by the slightly confused look of recognition on Stacey’s face. She saved her the embarrassment of trying to remember where she knew her from by launching into a strained but chirpy: ‘It’s Stacey, isn’t it? You lived in McKinley, didn’t you? I’m Jess, I was Emily’s roommate.’
Stacey smiled, relieved. ‘Hi! You were away last year weren’t you? Did you go abroad? Sorry, these are my parents, they just brought me up today.’ Stacey’s face was so genuine, Jess felt momentarily happy to be back at Rosella. The girl before her was pretty, but in the modest way of those who really don’t know it. Jess remembered now that she and Stacey had spent an evening discussing Texas over milk and cookies (the one Rosella tradition Jess had missed) because Stacey’s father was a pastor in Dallas, only a few miles from the church Jess’s mother volunteered at. Jess was glad her mom and Stacey’s dad were now sat at opposite ends of the table because she didn’t feel like a merry discussion of religion that would undoubtedly end in her mother enquiring as to whether Jess planned to attend church on campus this year, ‘Because she was rather slack in her first and Sophomore years and it really breaks my heart to think of the good Christian upbringing she had and, well, I worry it reflects badly on us as parents.’
Instead, her and Stacey’s moms were politely discussing the nutritional value of the meal-plan and how they wished there was a larger salad bar. Stacey’s mom was from Costa Rica and, sitting side-by-side, Jess could see where Stacey’s genes came from.
Stacey smiled at Jess and she couldn’t help returning it. Stacey’s sweet, Jess thought. Good and studious, happy and kind; she’s not the type to make enemies, not the type to flirt with a professor then glue her head to a toilet. This is the sort of girl my therapist wants me to make friends with.
‘Are you taking any theatre this semester?’ Stacey was asking Jess between tiny mouthfuls of salad.
‘Yeah, I decided to major in it.’
‘Cool, me too.’
‘Really? I think I’m doing the ’Twas the Night Before … practicum and I have to do a design course sometime this year. What about you?’
‘Wow, what are you doing for ’Twas the Night Before … ? I think I’ll audition but I doubt I’ll get a part. Greg told me I should try anyway.’
‘You know him? What’s he like? He wasn’t here when I left and I just emailed Lyn over the summer asking if she knew of anything coming up. I think I’m assistant directing, or possibly dramaturging, whatever that is.’
‘Greg’s really fun. He used to be an actor, then went into directing, so he has all these stories. He’s a good teacher. I took his Acting 2 last semester. He doesn’t give As, though.’
‘Fuck, I need good marks in my theatre classes ’cause there’s no way I’ll get anything good in the physics requirement I still have to take.’
‘Oh no, poor you, you still haven’t done that? I got all my requirements out of the way last year; I guess that was one good thing about not studying abroad.’
‘You stayed here? Who else was here?’
‘Oh, some of the theatre people, like Alex and Hannah, but a lot went to London and Paris. Vic went to RADA, which is pretty cool. There was quite a big Sophomore group in the department so it worked out.’
The conversation went on. It was weird for Jess to think of Ruff Theatre having gone on in her absence. She’d worked on most of the plays it had staged since she arrived and had been close to a couple of the professors, both of whom had now left, one to finish his PhD and the other to teach at the neighbouring co-ed. She still vaguely knew the head of the department, Henrietta, but the only other people Jess would still recognise, according to Stacey, were: Carol, a tenured director from Michigan; Bill, the head technician; and Lyn, the department secretary. She was nervous to meet the new additions but excited too, sure the only way to survive this year would be to wrap herself in drama of a theatrical rather than a personal kind.
Knowing none of this yet, I stood awkwardly in the theatre lobby and wondered if I was meant to wait here or find the auditions for myself. Professor Russell had said 7pm and it was still only ten-to, so I decided to sit in one of the three chairs opposite the makeshift bar. I took out the photocopied script and read over the character list again. I knew I wasn’t very prepared; even though I’d read the whole play yesterday on the porch, I couldn’t have told someone what it was about and hoped Professor Russell wouldn’t expect me to have anything too detailed to say. More and more, I felt like a fraud doing an English degree when I could quite capably read an entire novel while my mind danced through any number of thoughts and fantasies until I realised Jane Eyre, Silas Marner and Nicholas Nickleby were still no more than names and I’d have to Google them before class. Not only that, but I read slowly too, which felt like a punishable crime in academia, so I tried to keep it quiet, sitting up through the night and telling people the bags under my eyes were because I’d gone out and, yes, I too had just scanned the book an hour before the seminar.
Last night, I’d emailed Professor Russell saying I absolutely loved the play and offering some hopefully intelligent-sounding comments about absurdity and tone, but his reply had simply expressed curt satisfaction at my willingness to assistant direct and told me to come today. Now, I worried I’d sounded gushing and foolish.
‘Are you Nat?’ A kind-eyed girl with a clipboard poked her head out of a door I hadn’t noticed. ‘I’m Mel, the stage manager. Greg and the others are waiting in the theatre, come on in.’
I followed Mel back through the door and found myself at the top of the steep left-hand aisle of the auditorium. I could make out the dark shadows of two girls sat three rows from the back and saw a mess of notebooks around one of the middle seats. Professor Russell was moving plastic chairs from the stage to the wings and looked up when I entered. ‘Nat! How are you? Take a seat, I’m over there, sit next to me.’ I followed orders and Mel kindly pointed to the two girls, introducing them as Jackie and Jessica.
‘Just Jess,’ one corrected, smiling vaguely at me. ‘So what you doing?’
‘Um, assistant directing I think. You?’
‘We’re both assistant directors and dramaturgs,’ Jess replied and, not knowing what a dramaturg was, I nodded and kept quiet.
‘We’re the Texan ’Turgs – We just made that up! Turns out we live like ten minutes away and we only just met! Are you a fresher?’ This came from Jackie.
‘Exchange student, I think I count as a senior.’
‘Really?’ Jackie’s suntanned features fell into a frown. ‘Probably just for registration and stuff, you don’t graduate with us or anything, do you? I mean, that wouldn’t be very fair. How old are you?’
‘Nineteen.’
‘Oh my God! And you’re ’06? That’s kinda cool.’ I quickly decided Jess was nicer; Jackie was looking really quite put out that I could be counted as a senior when I was only the same age as the first-years. ‘I was twenty-two yesterday,’ Jess continued. ‘I feel so old!’
*
From: Natalie Lucas <sexy_chocolate69@sweetmail.com>
To: Matthew Wright <theoutsider@worldopen.co.uk>
Sent: 7 September 2003, 10:54:03
Subject: Hello
Hello darling,
How are you? I’m doing really well. I’m sorry I haven’t emailed sooner – I still can’t get the internet working in my dorm room, so I’m sending this from the library. There’s a technician coming out this afternoon, though, so hopefully it’ll be sorted by tonight. Maybe we can Skype?
How’s England? How’s Annabelle? Are you surviving?
I’m good. I’m going to be assistant directing a play, which is quite exciting. We had auditions last night and I got to know the other assistant directors and the director who is this professor called Greg who is really cool. I think you’d like him. He seems odd and tuned in, maybe Uncle material.
My classes haven’t started yet, but I’ve been given my reading list for one of them. I’m meant to have started on it this morning, but I just got sidetracked for an hour reading the Wikipedia page about the Babylonian bible and Adam’s first wife. Did you know the Christians just totally pinched the story for Genesis and cut out the coolest character? She slept with an angel and got kicked out of Eden and banished to suck the blood of small children and animals. There’s something kind of awesomely sexy about that isn’t there? I wonder if I can weave it into one of my essays this term.
Talking of awesomely sexy, I haven’t exactly fallen into lesbian paradise like Rose told me I would. I’ve heard a few things, but the only people I’ve seen have been quite scary and butch-looking. And the first-years and international students on my floor keep shrieking and giggling whenever someone mentions anything that could be construed as even slightly gay, so I haven’t really said anything yet. Maybe it’s me; maybe I’ll never find anyone. But still, the theatre stuff will be fun and keep me occupied until I can see you. And the campus is lovely – all old buildings and big trees in oranges and browns. There’s a tiny town across the street with a bookshop and a café, but apparently you have to get a bus to go anywhere else, which I haven’t tried yet.
I miss you so much. It’s horrible not being able to just hear your voice or text you. I keep picturing you a million miles away and wishing we could just curl up on your chaise and read Whitman and send the rest of the world away.
Miss you with all my being,
Your Lilith
xxxx
*
One evening, after about two weeks of rehearsals, I sat with Jackie in Bobst café, the only place apart from the dining halls offering food on campus. We were savouring the late-night grease when she blurted, ‘So, are you gay or what?’
‘Excuse me?’ I choked on my curly fry.
‘Well, the cast have been placing bets and I said I’d try to find out. Because Mia noticed your rainbow socks, bracelet and belt, but Stacey thought maybe that meant something different in Europe.’
‘Wow.’ I felt heat reaching my ears. ‘Well, um, I don’t know, no one’s ever asked me that before.’
‘Really? ’Cos you’re like a walking Pride flag with all that crap on. So are you?’
‘Gay? Um, I guess, I mean I want to be.’
‘Awesome. You certainly came to the right place then.’ Jackie winked.
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. Only, lose the paraphernalia – rainbows are way obvious, you know?’
Over the next few weeks, I began to notice certain things about Rosella and the surrounding area. I noticed students walking to lectures and dining halls in their pyjamas, holding hands. I ventured onto the free bus to the nearest town and saw seven female couples showing affection on the sidewalk and only one boy and girl sharing an ice-cream. And cycling by the sports centre early one morning, I witnessed the rugby team growling their terrifying motivational cheers.
I rang Matthew to tell him what I’d seen.
‘So, Rose was right,’ he mused with a hint of jealousy. ‘How long until you find a little girl for us then, Baba?’
I didn’t know. Rosella was beginning to feel like an upside-down world to me. It was suddenly queerer to be straight than gay, and people stared with curiosity at boys and girls in simple jeans and jumpers more than at transgender teens in leather jackets and lesbians with tattoos. My rainbows may have been too obvious, but I was beginning to notice a whole army of badges and signs, not hidden shyly beneath layers or worn as secret messages like I had, but presented proudly for the world to see, even by some of the teachers. I felt like a child in a sweet shop, frozen to the floor because, though the brightly coloured jars made my mouth water, I didn’t recognise any of their contents and had no idea how to approach the counter with my order.
As I strolled through the library and lecture halls, I imagined myself part of each of the attractive fem-couples lolling on benches and carrying each other’s books. Learning the lingo day by day, at night I dreamt of U-Haul clichés and a feline-filled future. Each time I left my dorm, I hoped that today I’d brush my Sapphic destiny, catch her eye and smile an apology. I pictured the two of us having coffee or agonising over flavours at the ice-cream parlour. I even scripted flirty conversations, followed by a first hesitant kiss and regular dates to hang out in companionable silence while doing our homework. After leaving my classes and finishing my errands, I returned to my dorm, deflated and angry at myself, wondering if my life might have changed had I worn a different sweater or eaten in a different dining hall.
I heard an element of concern in Matthew’s telephone voice, but he continued to whisper about sweet, peach-like girls we could take to New York when he came to visit. I giggled and moaned in all the right places, but more than anything, his stories reminded me how different I was, how hopeless it was to imagine I might fit in, even here. I cried most evenings, wishing Matthew’s arms were around me, wishing the world was full of Uncles. I talked enthusiastically about the play, but checked airfares daily and finally booked a flight to go home for Christmas. I told my parents I’d be spending the whole winter break with Becky in Philadelphia, but plotted a weekend in London with Matthew, followed by turning up on my mum’s doorstep as a surprise on Christmas Eve. Knowing I’d see Matthew soon soothed my nightly loneliness and I stopped rushing home to Skype after rehearsals.