All You Need Is Love (2 page)

Maybe tonight I’ll make it until nine. Which is two in the morning in London. When will I stop computing the time change and wondering what’s happening there, what I’m missing? Maybe when the doors of reality open and welcome me inside.

The doors of reality in this case are the large double arches (no, not of artery-clogging fast food) of Master’s Hall. Set back from the main campus, Master’s looks small compared to the grand pillared style of the ivy-covered brick buildings used for classes. Once the Headmaster’s office (once=1790-something) and is now the site of formal investigations into academic doings or undoings. Not to be confused with the Discipline Committee that meets elsewhere (and with my father, I might add), the Academic Committee (or the AC as they’re known) of one small room that, despite its ventilated name, is known for its intense humidity.

As soon as I walk through the doors, I’m sweating. Droplets of perspiration make their way from my workout bra to my belly button and I hope I don’t look nervous — just overheated.

“Please, take a seat,” says Mrs. Hendricks, the remarkably non-sweaty ACC. “I’ve elected to handle your case myself as George Humphries is dealing with another matter.” Not sure what that “other matter” is — I’m too out of the Hadley Gossip Loop these days — but I’m thrilled to have Mrs. Hendricks. She has a reputation for being kind and gentle with her cases.

“The fact that I have a case seems really unsettling,” I say. Last semester, a senior in my ethics class realized she was three semesters shy of completing her math requirement, and once she explained her situation to Hendricks, all she had to do was some Saturday tutorials. I’m hoping for something easy, too, given the circumstances.

As if she reads my mind Mrs. Hendricks says, “Given the circumstances, I believe you did the best thing.” She gives me a small smile from across the desk and I notice her pink ribbon pinned to her sweater. Everyone knows someone or is connected to someone with breast cancer and it’s comforting not to feel so alone.

“I’m so glad you see my point of view,” I say. “My aunt is — she’s very important to me as I’m sure my dad explained. So there’s really no way I could stay abroad and miss…” my voice starts to crack. I will myself not to cry.

“Love — I understand the circumstances and as I said, I agree with you. Were I in your position I would likely do the same thing.”

I sigh, glad I won’t be penalized. “Great. So do I just make my college counseling appointments and audit classes?”

Mrs. Hendricks shakes her head. “I’m afraid it’s not that simple, Love. LADAM won’t give you credit because you’re not actually attending their program.”

I lick my lips and feel the sweat gather in my bra. “But they gave me assignments. My friend Arabella Piece — the exchange student who was here — emailed me all the work I’ve missed and I can do it all here and send papers back…”

“But LADAM won’t accept all of them!” Mrs. Hendricks allows her voice to get stern. “You don’t seem to grasp the full situation, Love.”

“No, I guess I don’t. I left London really suddenly and no one told me about the problems that would cause.” My hair slips from its loose knot and the red of it covers my eyes. I quickly tuck it behind my ears and try to think fast. “Can’t I do the Hadley work?”

“You’re not a registered student at Hadley this term,” Mrs. Hendricks explains. She looks for something in one of the antiquated files that form a u-shape into which her desk is tucked.

“So basically, I’m a woman without a country, with no school and yet lots of requirements to fulfill,” I say. “And since Hadley has no summer school, I wouldn’t graduate for a year and a half? Nothing I did in London would count?”

“Yes, I should think that sums it up rather well. In the fine print of your application to LADAM, it states that work must be completed in full and in person in order for any of the credit to count.” In her cotton cardigan and sensible skirt, Mrs. Hendricks comes around to my side of the table. “Now, ordinarily, I would be the first to tell you that you’ve made your academic bed and now you must lie in it. But due to the nature of your decision to come back, I think we need to find a solution.”

I manage a smile. Maybe I won’t have to be the oldest senior ever at Hadley. “Suggestions?”

“I’ve taken the liberty of speaking with…” she looks at the paper in her hands. “Poppy Massa-Tonclair. Quite a name. Anyway, she gave you such a glowing review that I asked her to sponsor you in an ISPP.” She pronounces this last term iss-pee, like a snake with a bladder problem in the punch line of a joke, but I refrain from commenting on it.

“I’ve never actually known anyone who did an ISPP,” I say. “They’re sort of mythical on campus.” Rumor had it that one guy Something Something Addison (one of those cool boarding students of legendary status) who graduated years before got one for doing a non-profit project, but until now I assumed it was campus lore.

“They’re extremely rare. For extenuating circumstances only and I believe this qualifies.” Mrs. Hendricks hands the paper to me and I look at the paragraphs that describe my project.

“PMT — I mean — Poppy Massa-Tonclair said she’d do this? Really?”

Mrs. Hendricks nods. “The final project is due in duplicate to this office. You’ll need to send another copy to LADAM. Any of the work you’ve been assigned through your London courses is up to you to consider — it’s not a technical requirement, but it would serve your record well to complete it anyway. Good luck.”

Serve my record well? So the reality is that I have more work than before. Well, it’s better than repeating half of junior year. I stand up, convinced I’ve lost those extra London pounds by sheer loss of water-weight. “Thanks — thanks so much!”

“So you’re basically making a movie for credit while I have to slog through academic hell otherwise known as calculus and advanced Latin?” Chris asks as we do non-impact-heavy cardio on the Elliptical trainers at the LOG.

“Hey — my movie as you call it is just an idea right now. And no one forced you to take advanced Latin — you just signed up because that guy you thought was hot was in it.”

Chris swats my shoulder. “I told you that in confidence!” His look these days is a perfect melding of the nineteen-fifties prepster (think: black and white photos of guys in Madras on the porch of some summer estate) and leftist cool (think Elvis Costello glasses and roughed up seams on all his pants).

“Like there’s anyone around,” I say and gesture to the empty gym. “Which is a shame only because if there’s no one here, there’s no one to appreciate how great you’re looking these days.”

Chris quickens his pace and smiles. “It’s so good to have you back — I missed my fan club.” He breaths hard. “You know you’re the only member of that club, right?”

“I hardly think that,” I say and check how many minutes I’ve been ellipticalling. Not enough for that endorphin release.

We have the most coveted spots in the LOG, the row of machines that face directly onto the quad, perfect for people-peering and taking my mind off my woes.

“Blah — I’m so relieved — Mrs. Hendricks seriously made me think I wouldn’t graduate next year.” I get off the machine and go to the weight training center, which is far enough away from where Chris is that I have to yell a little. Or whatever the word is before yelling.

“It’s not like the film will be easy — I mean, first of all, PMT has to approve my whole idea. And she might not, given the fact that she is, in fact, a professor of LITERATURE.” I work my thighs and then pause between sets. “Then I have to think of a topic, an angle, a whole way of making it coherent. Which is why a movie makes the most sense.”

“And what will this Oscar-winning viewing experience be about?” Chris yells back.

“I don’t know yet,” I say. More sweat drips from my forehead, my hair is greasy and matted, and my face has that blotchy hot itchy feeling — a sort of allergy season meets deodorant ad. I am SO sexy. “What’s a good plot for a movie?”

Then, from behind me:

“Why don’t you make a movie about how much better things were around here when you were gone?”

The words alone could belong to anyone with dire need of butt-pole removal, but the sultry, nasty voice comes attached to none other than the bitch on wheels Lindsay Parrish. Evil incarnate is close enough to smell — and I have to admit her scent is kind of appealing — like one part Upper east Side expensive perfume, the other like freesia; how anyone so mean got to smell so good is beyond me. Then again, the world’s not a fair place, is it? The smell of her is enough to send my mind reeling (ha-ha, film reference) back to her cruelty last term, the way she and Cordelia (AKA faculty brat extraordinaire) tried to condemn me in front of the whole school at my play. The way Lindsay made Arabella — my best friend — run naked around the flag pole. The way she tried to steal my old boyfriend, Jacob. And the minute I think this, I all of a sudden realize, she might have succeeded.

Chris comes over to stop the slur-slinging before it starts. “Hey, Lindsay,” he says and eyes her fancy workout attire. “Did you not get the memo that you can’t bring bitches into the gym?”

“If you mean dogs, then your fake girlfriend here should leave.”

“Enough,” I say and hold up my hand and turn to Chris. “She’s so not worth it.”

“Funny,” Lindsay cocks her head and smiles wickedly, her teeth bleached and ready for the kill. “That’s just what Jacob said about you when he and I first hooked up.”

I don’t give her the credit of responding but when I drop Chris at his class and head home to shower; I have that rush of TISHS (Things I Should Have Said). I should have told Lindsay that it doesn’t matter to me what happened with her and Jacob. That I knew they hooked up while I was in London — yes, London, Lindsay, with my hot aristocratic boyfriend. EDid I mention he’s amazing and out of every girl in the entire small though highly populated British Isles, he chose me?

I wash the remains of the morning’s sweat and sludge off in the shower and picture Asher coming for his promised visit. Am I totally shallow for wanting to parade him up and down the quad, to make out with him in front of Lindsay so she can drool and then go home and pick her zits (okay, maybe she has one — somewhere) and doubt her self-worth? Perhaps this wish is surface level, but I hate the fact that I’m back here dealing with anvil-heavy issues and Lindsay can come along and knock me down with one phrase.

As I towel my hair dry and consider various subjects for my ISPP, I realize I have yet to set up my college counseling meeting with Mrs. Dandy-Patinko, so I decide to go over there on my way to Mass. General. So much for putting in solid study hours at the library. As a compromise, I shove some books in my bag and head out the door, trying not to admit the real reason Lindsay’s words bugged me.

The real being, of course, that I have unresolved issues with Jacob. Not with Lindsay. Lindsay’s a known entity — nothing she does or says or inflicts should be surprising. But Jacob — he’s the one I thought I knew. And yet I never would have predicted he’d fall prey to Lindsay’s hot body and mean spirit. For some reason I put his morals and desires above the random hook-up.

The college counseling building remains, comfortingly — annoying — the exact same as when I left. Sturdy bookcases filled with college catalogues, pamphlets, leaflets, lots of lets and yet none that reads “This is Where Love should Apply, Be Accepted and Go”.

Only as I wait for Mrs. Dandy-Patinko to free herself from the tangle of her headphones do I admit it — not even in my journal because putting it on paper would make it too real. In my mind I say, very small, like I’m talking to myself in lower case — Lindsay hooked up with Jacob. He hasn’t been pining for me. He has put his mouth, which is lovely full but not too full so as to be pouchy — on her mouth. She probably had her hands tucked into his dark mop of curls.

Never mind that I’ve been kissing — and beyond — close to sleeping with Asher. And never mind that I haven’t even seen Jacob in almost a year. But the thought of him with Lindsay makes my stomach turn. The other students waiting for college counseling don’t look at me as I seethe; they’re all too focused on their own problems — SATs, college interviews (um, hello, note to self: need to get butt in gear for those and feet in non-flip flops to make studious impression), and the dreaded SIBOF scores that Hadley uses to Magic-Eight Ball your college track. Maybe they predict where you’ll get in so they can claim “very high acceptance rates to students’ top choice colleges” in their catalogue. Hey, maybe my brain is finally off the thaw status and back to thinking clearly (until seven-thirty tonight when I crash and loose the ability to do simple math).

Mrs. Dandy-Patinko, my good-natured bosomy college counselor, appears at the doorway to (no, not hell — that’s Lindsay’s dorm room in Fruckner House) her office. She straightens her hair and smiles — one of us is the lucky person who is next in line to focus on their futures.

“I’m ready for Love!” Mrs. Dandy-Patinko announces.

Aren’t we all?

“Hello,” the now-face familiar head nurse on Mable’s floor greets me in her hushed tones at the nurses’ station. “Before your visit today, we’d like to have a word.”

My heart races, my chest throbs, my knees threaten to buckle. I didn’t tell my dad I was coming today so there’s no chance he would have prepared me for the worst — if that’s what this is.

“Can I please just see my aunt?” I ask. I live in constant fear that one day I will come for a visit and she will just be gone. That panic-response makes me edgy. “I really need to get in there.” I make a move towards the corridor that leads to her room, but I’m stopped in my tracks by Nurse Insensitive who asks me to please take a seat in the waiting room.

I do as I’m told, surrounded by other anxious people connected by grief or worry. Someone hands me a cup of coffee without speaking — I wonder if she is here visiting a friend, or her mother, or partner. Who knows? I nod a thank you and sip the tepid cup of Joe (note to self: add cup of Joe to annoying phrase list in journal). No one’s coffee is as good as Mable’s. Slave to the Grind is the best. Of course I’m biased, but it’s smooth, strong, and rich without being overbearing. Oh my god, I think, I sound like I’m describing Asher. After a couple more sips, I am greeted by a familiar and welcoming face, Margaret Randall, Mable’s favorite nurse. She’s also Henry Randall’s (AKA Preppy Vineyard Boy) aunt and really nice. She’s become chummy with my dad and was friendly to me before I left for London.