Autofocus (6 page)

“Har har har.” I roll my eyes.

“I'm serious,” he says, mock serious.

“Well. If they're zombies . . . at least they'll like me for my brains.”

He shakes his head with a smile. “I'm not laughing at that.”

“You really shouldn't,” I agree, sighing.

“Okay, let's go. I'll protect you,” he says, standing up.

“Promise?” I look up at him. I should worry. I don't know him at all. But a guy who makes me laugh, and who's wearing a
Star Wars
T-shirt, isn't all bad, right?

“Promise,” he says, offering his hand to pull me up. I grab on, unsure of what the other side may lead to.

MONDAY

Not much happened after Bennett and I entered the party. Trey left for some soccer thing at one of his teammate's houses, so Treena spent the rest of the night with us. It's not until the following morning when Treena gives me the details on Trey.

“So . . . something happened last night,” she starts as she pulls out her shower caddy. “Trey kissed me.” Her voice is bubbling with excitement and makes me wake up immediately.

“I know!” I say, sitting up in bed. “I mean, I saw, and then quickly ran away.”

“You
saw
?”

“Your door was unlocked, but when I saw you two, well, that's why I went to the stairwell. I didn't want to disturb you.”

“Sorry about that. I didn't mean to—”

“Tree, it's okay. I'm super happy for you,” I say, and I am. I wish it hadn't all happened when I was here. But maybe I'm being selfish. This is a guy who likes her, so I want to cheer her on. I have to. “Anyway, details!”

“There aren't many! I don't know,” she says, smiling and blushing. “Did you like Trey?”

“Yeah, he seems nice,” I say, figuring it to be the safest response, “but we didn't talk much.”

“Yeah, parties aren't great for bonding. Tonight will be better. Speaking of . . . I see you got along with Bennett really well,” she says in a singsong voice, and I sigh over my warming cheeks because it's not like that. Sure, he's cute and funny, but he's not the reason I'm here. I don't need to be distracted by guys while I'm here for a more important reason.

“Yeah. He's cool. I mean, we were just talking,” I explain, getting out of bed and rifling through my bag for some clothes.

“Just talking, uh-huh.”

“We were!” I protest.

“Maybe
my
goal of the week will be to get you a boyfriend,” she says, and I shake my head at her enthusiasm.

“How about instead of a boyfriend,” I start slowly, “let's
make it our goal to do something fun each day.”

“Oh, don't worry, we will. I have plans.” She raises her eyebrows as she says this, and I perk up.

“Really?”

“You're going to love college,” she says, and I wonder if she's right. “It's so different. I mean, we can be someone new. No one knows about high school us, not that high school us was bad. It's just . . . I was able to start over.”

Perhaps for her that works, but maybe I don't want to start over. Maybe I like who I am.

“Anyway,” she continues. “Tonight will be fun.”

“Yeah,” I say, remembering that we're having dinner with the guys. “And this morning, too,” I remind her. “I'm excited to start investigating.”

“Yes! Ugh, I still hate that I can't go. You'll be okay, right?”

“Of course,” I say, sad, too, but understanding. She needs to take a test. I need to do this . . . and maybe I
should
do it on my own. “I'll text you immediately after.”

“Can't wait.” She grins, knocking her shoulder onto mine. I repeat the gesture.

“Me either,” I say.

“Okay, I should get ready,” she says, heading for the bathroom. I'm far too awake to go back to sleep, so I decide to start the day as well.

While Treena's in the shared bathroom down the hall, I have a second to look at her room and the person it
represents. There's not much on the walls; it all seems like her, but a cleaner, tighter version.

I think of what she said, about starting over, and remember the last sleepover we had. It was a week before she left. We were having a movie night, and it was my turn to choose, so I went with
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
. With a sigh she agreed to watch Ferris and friends skip school. By the end, we wondered what it would be like to have one crazy day where we did whatever we wanted and found ourselves in both adventures and misadventures. With only my purse and camera, I'd go to the airport and board the cheapest flight, just to see where it would take me. She, on the other hand, wanted to go to another school and pretend to be someone else, just to see what it would be like not being her for once.

I guess, in a way, she's doing her Ferris Bueller adventure now, only it's lasting much longer than a day.

After getting ready, I nervously get a map from Treena.

“It's a straight shot to the stadium—just follow the sidewalk around the park, then pass the library, and keep walking until you see the biggest stadium you've ever seen.”

“That big?” I ask, putting the map in the shoulder bag I usually use at school. It also has my phone, notebook, pens, a bottle of water (extra from my trip up, courtesy of my mom), and my camera.

“Gigantic. I'll be back from class by three, so I expect a full report then. And don't forget we have dinner plans tonight.” She leans over to tie her Chuck Taylors.

“As if I have any other plans to get in the way,” I joke.

She jumps up and gives me a hug. “Good luck. Let me know how it goes, okay?”

“Will do,” I say into her hair. Then I turn around and take my first step out the door, and not just onto campus, but into my future.

On campus, I find Treena's directions extremely simple. The sidewalks are crowded with people going to class, flipping through books and texting as they walk. Some are engaged in conversation, but not everyone, so I don't feel as alone. I pull out my camera and take a quick picture of a row of students walking forward, all looking down at their phones, and then, to contrast, a shot of a group of people walking and talking to each other. I'm thinking these might be good for my blog, to show that I'm starting my search. To show the campus, and though it surely doesn't look the way it did back then, to show a place where my mother's history is rooted.

A girl yells out, “Mrs. Donnelly!” and a woman turns around. They laugh about something, and their ease with each other reminds me to check in with my mom. I text her quickly, sending her a picture of the campus, and she responds enthusiastically. I think she's getting used to the idea of me going here for school.

I walk a few more minutes, cutting through the park behind Treena's dorm, which is pretty empty right now, as
everyone is rushing off to class. There's the fountain, also empty, except for statues playing inside, and I take a picture of the fake college students doomed to spend eternity splashing in water.

I cross a busy intersection, where car horns blast as we flock sheep-like across the street, and people start thinning out. The walk is slow and quiet and I'm having fun taking in the campus. It really is beautiful, with oak trees lining the way, and buildings over a hundred years old. I can't help but wonder if my mother walked these streets, if she went into these buildings. That thought never fails to amaze me. In the distance, just as Treena said I'd see, an enormous stadium is perched atop a small incline.

It takes a while to get there, but finally I'm standing in front of an intimidatingly large iron statue of a Native American atop a horse, holding a feathered spear. Below it is a round base taller than me that says
UNCONQUERED
.

I walk behind it and stare up at the brick stadium reaching toward the sky. It's so intimidating, so vast. The doors are right in front of me. Heart racing, I breathe in, taking in this last moment. Inside might be information I never dreamt of having. Or, it could be nothing at all.

It's weird; I've spent a lifetime not knowing anything more than my mother's name, and today, things might change.

Air-conditioning hits me as soon as I walk in, and I'm greeted by a roped-off line in front of an information desk.

“Hi,” a girl with a face full of freckles says, waving me to the desk.

“Hey.” I'm suddenly nervous. I was expecting an older person to take pity on me, not someone close to my age. “Um. This is the registrar, right?”

“Yep! Can I help you with something?” she asks. She has long blond hair and bright blue eyes, with matching blue feather earrings. Before her is a computer that looks older than me.

I take a deep breath. “I was wondering if I could get some information about someone who went here a while ago.”

“Um, we don't give out personal information . . .” the girl says, furrowing her forehead and looking to call up the next person in line. I look back and realize I'm still the only one here. Good.

“Right, I know, it's just . . .” I fade out. “Okay, so, seventeen years ago a girl named Claire Fullman went here. She was a freshman then. She died that year. She was also my mother.” The girl's mouth drops open a little. Then, almost instantly, her face changes to that same sympathetic gaze I get every time I mention this. “I never knew her, and was adopted. I'm trying to . . . find out about her now. I'm about to start college, and I just want to know what kind of person she was, you know? I want to know something about her, because all I have right now is that she went here.”

“That's it?” she asks sympathetically, and I can see that my story actually affected her, made her feel.

“Yeah,” I say, shrugging. “I was just hoping for more. So I was wondering if you could possibly find her schedule from seventeen years ago, and at least let me know if any of her teachers still work here. Because maybe he or she might remember her, and then I'll have one more fact about her.”

The girl bites her lip, and then asks, “What about your father?”

“I never knew him. He left, I think,” I say stoically, and she lowers her head again.

She leans toward me and drops her voice to a whisper. “My cousin is adopted, too. She's doing the same thing you're doing right now, trying to find her mom. But her mom is still alive. I'm not sure which is better, really.”

“Me either,” I admit, knowing I've thought this same question countless times before.

“I can't image how hard it must be,” she muses, absentmindedly tapping the desk. My heart is racing, wondering if I proved something, anything. She snaps out of it and looks at me, as if coming to a decision. She whispers again. “Here's the thing, I'm not really supposed to do something like that; it's an invasion of privacy. But since she's no longer alive . . . and since you're her daughter . . . I mean, it can't hurt anyone, right?”

“Right!” I excitedly whisper back, and suddenly I love this girl.

“Right. Okay. Let me see what I can find.” She types into her ancient computer, and I wait anxiously for something,
anything. She frowns, types again, and asks, “Claire Fullman, right?” and I nod in response, heart pounding. She did go here? I'm not just on a wild-goose chase. “Okay, hmm, well, let's see,” she says, “hold on.”

She gets off her chair and picks up a piece of paper from the printer, and then puts it on the counter in front of me. There are four classes listed, four teachers listed. “Here's her schedule for, it seems, her first and only semester.”

“I thought she went here for a year?” I ask, and the girl sadly shakes her head.

“Unfortunately, three of these teachers are no longer here. Some were TAs, um, teacher assistants, so they just graduated. And then one professor retired.”

I nod.

“But the good news is that one professor
is
still here. It looks like she was a TA back then, and now she's a professor in the English department. She's really awesome, too—I had her last year. Do you have a map?”

My spirit lifts with every word she says—one professor is still here. One professor might know my mom. This is
amazing
. I shake the thoughts and quickly get the map out of my bag.

“Okay, we're here,” she says, pointing to the stadium on the southeast corner of the map. “Professor Stark teaches in the Williams Building, all the way over here.” She points to a building on the top northeast corner. “It's a bit of a walk, but just stay on the outer rim of campus, and you'll hit the back of it. Hold on,” she says, typing something else in her
computer. “Okay, she teaches in room 216. If she's not there, her office is room 210.”

“Thank you
so much” is all I can mumble out, my heart soaring with excitement and nerves. “You have no idea how much this means to me.”

“I do.” She shrugs. “I hope someone helps my cousin, too, you know?” she asks, and I grin at her. I back out of the room, paper and map in hand, and greet the warm sun once again. And this time I don't find the unconquered statue intimidating, but instead, empowering.

The Williams Building looks like every other redbrick building on campus. The only thing that sets it apart is the grouping of students loudly debating a Shakespeare play near the front door.

I go inside and head up the stairs to the second floor. A guy looks at me and instantly I feel out of place, as if he knows I'm still a high school student and not in college. I look down and continue my way up the stairs.

The building is much nicer than the dorm. The hallways are white, but the doors are old, wooden, and open, leading into well-lit classrooms. I pass a few rooms of conversation and hear people reading aloud and chatting and waiting for classes to start.

Professor Stark's classroom is the third one on the right.
I don't know if she had this classroom so many years ago, but I still feel antsy, standing here, where my mother might have once stood. Heart pounding, I take a deep breath in, close my eyes, and then open them, looking into the small window on the door.

The room is empty.

Just to be sure, I knock lightly and wait. Nothing. I turn around and look at the map for the professor's office number. When I look up it's right there, across the hall from me. I wait for a gap in students, and then walk over. Peering inside the window, I see a woman sitting at a desk, reading from a book. I knock lightly.

“Come in,” she calls, and I bite my lip as I open the door. “Can I help you?” she asks, taking her glasses off. The woman—Professor Stark, I'm assuming—is older, in her forties, and wearing a tan cardigan over a white button-down shirt. She's sitting at a brown wooden desk that's covered in papers and books. A picture of the Globe Theatre is on the wall behind her. If my mom had an office, it would look just like this.

“Hi, um, are you Professor Stark?”

“I am. What can I help you with?” she asks, eyes darting back and forth between me and the book before her. Of course I'm bothering her. Of course she realizes I'm not one of her students. I must look like a baby.

“I was, um, wondering if you possibly remember my mother,” I say, and her eyebrows go up. “She was a student of
yours seventeen years ago, when you were a TA.”

“Oh, that was a very long time ago,” she says, tapping her pen on the desk.

“I know, I was just wondering if you . . . did.” I stop, realizing how weird this really sounds. I suddenly feel stupid standing here, a child in a grown-up world. “I never did, I mean, I never met her, so I'm trying to find people who might have. So I can . . . learn something about her.”

“Oh,” Professor Stark says, and lowers her head just like the girl at the registrar did. She looks back up to me and asks, “What was her name?”

“Claire. Claire Fullman.” I watch her eyes for any sort of recognition, but they're gazing across the room, and I almost wonder if the answer could be found in any of the hardback volumes piled against the walls.

“Claire . . . Fullman . . .” she muses. “Claire Fullman.” She shakes her head, then looks at me sadly. My heart drops; she doesn't need to answer. “I'm sorry, the name doesn't ring a bell.”

“Oh,” I say, looking down.

“It was quite a long time ago. I was only in my early twenties back when I was a TA, and I had
a lot
of students. Unless she did something truly remarkable . . .” She trails off, then takes me in. “But I suppose she did. She made you, didn't she?”

I force a smile. She's trying to be nice, but it's not enough. I feel my quest slipping through my fingers as I realize that
she won't have the answers I'm looking for. If not her, who? Where do I go from here? I don't want to ask my mom again. . . .

“Right. So, I'm very sorry I can't help you. I wish I could, but I don't have any records from my TA days, and like I said, I had a lot of students.”

“It's okay,” I say, because I don't know what else to say. I know she can feel the disappointment pouring out of me. “I knew it was a long shot.”

“If I may ask, how did you find me?”

“Registrar?” I say as a question, and blush a little from admitting my way of going around things.

She nods, and I smile. “Smart girl.” She stares at me again. “Did she grow up around here?” she asks, rubbing her chin with her hand.

“Yes,” I answer.

“Well, there are six high schools in the county, three that are close to the college. You can start by checking them. Osceola High School is the closest.”

“Oh! Thank you. I'll do that.” Another shot. Another place to try. Maybe this isn't the end of it all just yet.

“You're welcome,” she says, standing up and looking at the clock behind her. “If you'll excuse me, I have to teach a class in a few minutes. But it was nice meeting you . . .”

“Maude,” I say.

“Yes, Maude. Good luck on your odyssey,” she says with a raise of the eyebrows. Yeah, my mom would like her.

“Thank you. Thank you very much,” I say, nodding.

When I step into the hallway, I lean back against the wall and watch as the students pass before me. Some walking fast, some slowly ambling on, talking to friends. And one girl telling a story so large, so vocal, with so many hand movements. I stand up straight, realizing that not only am I in a building my mother once stepped into, but also, possibly, a hallway. She was here. She was part of these walls, these floors. And maybe she's still here. Somewhere.

I get out my camera and place a trembling finger on the button.
Snap.

One more photo for my blog. One more photo for the day.