Just One Day (16 page)

On Sunday afternoon, we’re back at my dorm before dinner when Dee pops by. And though
I haven’t told him one single thing about my family, not even that they were coming,
let alone what they believe about me, what they expect of me, he still shows up in
a pair of plain jeans and a sweater, something I’ve never seen him wear before. His
hair is pulled back into a cap and he’s not wearing lip gloss. I almost don’t recognize
him.

“So, how do you two know each other?” Mom asks after I nervously introduce them.

I freeze, in a panic.

“We’re biology lab partners,” Dee says, not missing a beat. “We’re raising the Drosophila
together.” It’s the first time I’ve ever heard him pronounce it correctly. He picks
up the tube. “Breeding all kinds of genetic abnormalities here.”

My dad laughs. “They had us do the same experiment when I went here too.” He looks
at Dee. “Are you pre-med also?”

Dee’s eyebrows flicker up, the slightest ripple of surprise. “I’m still undeclared.”

“Well, there’s no rush,” Mom says. Which almost makes me laugh out loud.

Dad turns to puts the tube back next to a cylinder of pottery I forgot to hide away.
“What’s this?”

“Oh,
I
made that,” Dee says, picking up the piece. And then he starts explaining how he’s
taking a pottery class, and this year’s class is experimenting with different kinds
of glazes and firing methods, and for these pieces, they fired everything in an earthen
kiln fueled by cow patties.

“Cow patties?” Mom asks. “As in . . .
feces
?”

Dee nods. “Yes, we went to local farms and asked if we could collect their cow manure.
They actually don’t smell that bad. They’re grass-fed cows.”

And it hits me then that Dee is using another voice, but this time, the person he’s
playing is me. I had told him all about the cow patties, the earthy smell, collecting
them from the farms . . . though when I’d done it, he’d laughed his head off at the
thought of all us rich kids at our forty-thousand-dollar-a-year school paying for
a class in which we went to farms and picked up after cows. I’ve told Dee more about
myself than I guess I realized. And he listened. He paid attention, absorbed a bit
of me. And now he’s saving my ass with it.

“Cow feces. How fascinating,” my mother tells him.

_ _ _

The next day, my parents leave, and on Wednesday, our Shakespeare class starts on
Twelfth Night
. Dee has checked out two different versions from the media center for us to watch.
He feels that as penance for not doing our homework, we should at least watch several.
He hands me the stage version as I fire up my laptop.

“Thank you for getting these,” I say. “I would have done it.”

“I was at the media center anyway.”

“Well, thank you. Also, thank you for how completely awesome you were with my parents.”
I pause for a second, more than a little embarrassed. “How’d you know they were coming?”

“My girlfriend Kali. She tell me. She tell me
everything,
because we be
besties
.” He narrows his eyes. “See? Wasn’t no need to hide Miss Dee from the folks. I clean
up real nice.”

“Oh, right. I’m sorry about that.”

Dee stares at me, waiting for more.

“Really. It’s just my parents. There’s a lot . . . well, it’s complicated.”

“Ain’t so complicated. I gets it just fine. Okay to slum with Dee but not to bring
out the good silver.”

“No! You’ve got it wrong!” I exclaim. “I’m not slumming. I really like you.”

He crosses his arms and stares at me. “How was your
field trip
?” he asks acidly.

I want to explain, I do. But how? How do I do that without giving myself away? Because
I’m trying. I’m trying to be a new person here, a different person, a tabula rasa.
But if I explain about my parents, about Melanie, about Willem, if I show who I really
am, then aren’t I just stuck back where I started?

“I’m sorry I lied. But I swear, it’s not about you. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate
what you did.”

“Ain’t no
thang
.”

“No, I
really
mean it. You were great. My parents loved you. And you were so smooth, about everything.
They didn’t suspect a thing.”

He whips the lip gloss out of his pocket and, with painstaking precision, applies
it first to his top lip, then his bottom. Then he smacks them together, noisily like
some kind of rebuke. “What’s to suspect? I don’t know nothin’ ’bout nobody. I just
be the help.”

I want to make it right. For him to know that I care about him. That I’m not ashamed
of him. That he is safe with me. “You know,” I begin, “you don’t have to do that with
me. The voices. You can just be yourself.”

I mean it as a compliment, so he’ll know that I like him as is. But he doesn’t take
it that way. He purses his lips and shakes his head. “This
is
myself, baby. All of my selves. I own each and every one of them. I know who I’m
pretending to be and who I am.” The look he gives me is withering. “Do you?”

I purposely tried to keep all of that from him, but Dee—smart, sharp Dee—he got it.
All of it. He knows what a big fat fake I am. I’m so ashamed I don’t even know what
to say. After a while, he slips
Twelfth Night
into my computer. We watch the entire thing in silence, no voices, no commentary,
no laughing, just four eyeballs staring at a screen. And that’s how I know I’ve blown
it with Dee.

I’m so miserable about this that I forget to be upset about Willem.

Twenty-two

MARCH

College

T
he winter drags on, no matter what the groundhog says. Dee stops coming over in the
afternoons, ostensibly because we’re not reading
Twelfth Night
aloud, but I know that’s not really it. The cookies from my grandmother pile up.
I get a bad cold, which I can’t seem to shake, though it does have the side benefit
of getting me out of reading any of
Twelfth Night
in front of the class. Professor Glenny, who is stuffy himself, gives me a packet
of something called Lemsips and tells me to get in shape so I can pull a double shift
as Rosalind in
As You Like It
, one of his favorite plays.

We finish
Twelfth Night
. I thought I’d feel relieved, as if I’d dodged a bullet. But I don’t. With Dee out
of my life, I feel like I took the bullet, even without reading the play. Tabula rasa
was the right move. Taking this class was the wrong move. Now I just have to buckle
through. I’m getting used to that.

We move on to
As You Like It
. In his introductory spiel
,
Professor Glenny goes on about how this is one of Shakespeare’s most romantic plays,
his sexiest, and this gets all the Glenny groupies up front swooning. I take vacant
notes as he outlines the plot: A deposed duke’s daughter named Rosalind and a gentleman
named Orlando meet and fall in love at first sight. But then Rosalind’s uncle kicks
her out of his house, and she flees with her cousin Celia to the Forest of Arden.
There, Rosalind takes on the identity of a boy named Ganymede. Orlando, who has also
fled to Arden, meets Ganymede, and the two strike up a friendship. Rosalind as Ganymede
uses her disguise and their friendship to test Orlando’s proclaimed love for Rosalind.
Meanwhile, all sorts of people take on different identities and fall in love. As always,
Professor Glenny tells us to pay attention to specific themes and passages, specifically
how emboldened Rosalind becomes when she is Ganymede and how that alters both her
and the courtship with Orlando. It kind of all sounds like a sitcom, and I have to
work hard to keep it straight.

Dee and I start reading together again, but now we’re back in the Student Union, and
he packs up as soon as we finish our assignment. He’s stopped doing all the crazy
voices, which makes me realize just how helpful they were in “interpreting” the plays
because now, with both of us reading in monotones, the words sort of drift over me
like a foreign language. We may as well be reading it to ourselves for how boring
it has become. The only time Dee uses his voices now is when he has to speak to me.
I get a different voice, or two, or three, every day. The message is clear: I’ve been
demoted.

I want to undo this. To make it right. But I have no idea how. I don’t seem to know
how to open up to people without getting the door slammed in my face. So I do nothing.

_ _ _

“Today we will read one of my favorite scenes in
As You Like It
, the beginning of act four,” Professor Glenny says, one bone-chillingly cold March
day that makes it seem like we’re heading into winter, not out of it. “Orlando and
Ganymede/Rosalind are meeting again in the Forest of Arden, and the chemistry between
them reaches its boiling point. Which is kind of confusing and amusing, given that
Orlando believes himself to be speaking to Ganymede, who is male. But it’s equally
confusing for Rosalind, who is in a kind of delicious torment, torn between two identities,
the male and the female, and two desires: a desire to protect herself and remain Orlando’s
equal, and the exquisite desire to simply submit.” Up in the front of the classroom,
the groupies seem to emit a little joint sigh. If Dee and I were still friends, it
would be the kind of thing that would make us look at each other and roll our eyes.
But we’re not, so I don’t even look at him.

“So, Orlando comes to Ganymede in the forest, and the two perform a sort of Kabuki
theater together, and in doing so, they fall deeper in love, even as they don’t entirely
know
whom
they’re falling in love with,” Professor Glenny continues. “The line between true
self and feigned self is blurred on all sides. Which I think is a rather handy metaphor
for falling in love. So, it’s a good day to read. Who’s up?” He scans the class. People
are actually raising their hands. “Drew, why don’t you read Orlando.” There’s a smattering
of applause as Drew walks up the front of the room. He’s one of the best readers in
the class. Normally, Professor Glenny pairs him with Nell or Kaitlin, two of the best
girls. But not today. “Allyson, I believe you owe me a Rosalind.”

I shuffle up to the front of the room, along with the other readers he’s chosen. I’ve
never loved this part of the class, but at least before, I could feel Dee cheering
me on. Once we’re assembled, Professor Glenny turns into a director, which apparently
is what he used to do before becoming an academic. He offers us notes: “Drew, in these
scenes, Orlando is ardent and steadfast, completely in love. Allyson, your Ganymede
is torn: smitten, but also toying with Orlando, like a cat with a mouse. What makes
this scene so fascinating to me is that as Ganymede questions Orlando, challenges
him to prove his love, you can feel the wall between Rosalind and Ganymede drop. I
love that moment in Shakespeare’s plays. When the identities and false identities
become a morass of emotion. Both characters feel it here. It gets very charged. Let’s
see how you two do.”

The scene opens with Rosalind/Ganymede/me asking Orlando/Drew where he’s been, why
he’s taken so long to come see me—I’m “pretending” to be Rosalind. That’s the gimmick.
Rosalind has been pretending to be Ganymede, who must now pretend to be Rosalind.
And she tries to talk Orlando out of loving Rosalind, even though she really
is
Rosalind and even though she really does love him back. Trying to keep track of all
the pretending makes my head spin.

Drew/Orlando replies that he came within an hour of his promised time. I say to be
even an hour late when you’ve made a promise in love’s name puts in question whether
you’re truly in love. He begs my forgiveness. We banter a bit more, and then I, as
Rosalind as Ganymede feigning Rosalind, ask, “What would you say to me now, an I were
your very very Rosalind?”

Drew pauses, and I find that I’m waiting, holding my breath, even, for his answer.

And then he replies, “I would kiss before I spoke.”

Drew’s eyes are blue, nothing like
his
, but for a second, it’s his dark eyes I see. Electric and charged, right before he
kissed me.

I’m kind of rattled as I deliver my next lines, advising Orlando that he should speak
before he kisses. We go back and forth, and when we get to the part when Orlando says
he would marry me—her—I don’t know about Rosalind, but I’m feeling dizzy. Luckily,
Rosalind has more grit than I do. She, as Ganymede, says, “Well, in her person, I
say I will not have you.”

Then Drew says, “Then in mine own person I die.”

And then something in me just comes undone. I can’t find the right line or the right
page. And I seem to have lost something else too. My grip on myself, on this place.
On time. I’m not sure how much of it elapses while I stand there frozen. I hear Drew
clear his throat, waiting for me to say my next line. I hear Professor Glenny shift
in his chair. Drew whispers my line to me, and I repeat it and somehow manage to regain
my bearings. I continue to question Orlando. Continue to ask him to prove his love.
But I am no longer acting, no longer pretending.

“Now tell me how long you would have her after you have possessed her?” I ask as Rosalind.
My voice no longer sounds like mine. It is rich and resonant with emotion—full of
the questions I should’ve asked back when I had the chance.

He answers, “For ever and a day.”

All the breath whooshes out of me. This is the answer that I need. Even if it doesn’t
happen to be true.

I try to read the next line, but I can’t speak. I can’t breathe. I hear a roar of
wind in my ears and blink to stop the words from dancing all over the page. After
a few moments, I manage to choke out the next sentence, “Say ‘a day’ without the ‘ever,’”
before my voice breaks.

Because Rosalind understands.
Say a day without the ever
. That after the one day comes heartbreak. No wonder she won’t tell him who she truly
is.

I feel the hot tears in my eyes and through their veil see the class, silent, gaping
at me. I drop my book to the floor and bolt toward the door. I run out into the hallway,
past the classrooms, and into the ladies’ room. Crouching in a corner stall, I gulp
deep breaths and listen to the hum of the fluorescent lights, trying desperately to
push back against this hollowness that threatens to swallow me alive.

I have a full life. How can I be this empty? Because of
one
guy? Because of
one
day? But as I hold back my tears, I see the days before Willem. I see myself with
Melanie at school, feeling all cocooned and smug, gossiping about girls we didn’t
bother to get to know or, later on, on the tour, pantomiming a friendship sputtering
on fumes. I see myself with my parents, at the dinner table, Mom with her ever-present
calendar, scheduling dance class or SAT prep or some other enrichment activity, leafing
through catalogs for a new pair of snow boots, talking at each other but not to each
other. I see myself with Evan, after we slept together for the first time and he said
something about how this meant we were the closest people to each other, and it had
been a sweet thing to say, but it felt like something he’d gotten out of a book. Or
maybe it was that I hadn’t felt it because I’d begun to suspect that we’d only gotten
together because Melanie had started dating his best friend. When I’d started to cry,
Evan had mistaken my tears for joy, which had only made it worse. And, yet, I’d stayed
with him.

I have been empty for a long time. Long before Willem entered and exited my life so
abruptly.

I’m not sure how long I’m in there before I hear the squeak of the door. Then I see
Dee’s pink Ugg knockoffs under the stall.

“You in here?” he asks quietly.

“No.”

“Can I come in?”

I unlock the stall. There’s Dee, holding all my stuff.

“I’m so sorry,” I tell him.

“Sorry? You were stupendous. You got a standing ovation.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you my parents were coming. I’m sorry I lied to you. I’m
sorry I bungled everything. I don’t know how to be a friend. I don’t know how to be
anything.”

“You know how to be Rosalind,” he says.

“That’s because I’m an expert faker.” I swipe a tear with my hand. “I’m so good at
faking I don’t even know when I’m doing it.”

“Oh, honey, have you learned nothing from these plays? Ain’t such a line between faking
and being.” He opens his arms, and I step into them. “I’m sorry too,” he says. “I
might’ve overreacted a hair. I can be dramatic, in case you haven’t noticed.”

I laugh. “Really?”

Dee holds my coat, and I slip into it. “I don’t like being lied to, but I do appreciate
what you tried to say to me. People have never known what to make of me—not in my
neighborhood, not at high school, not here—so they’re always trying to figure it out
and tell me what I am.”

“Yeah, I know something about that.”

We look at each other for a long minute. A whole lot gets said in that silence. Then
Dee asks, “You wanna tell me what all that was about in there?”

And I do. So much it’s squeezing my chest. I’ve been wanting to tell him this, everything
about me, for weeks now. I nod.

Dee offers me his arm, and I loop mine through it, and we leave the bathroom as a
pair of girls come in, giving us a strange look.

“Well, there was this guy . . .” I begin.

He shakes his head and gently clucks his tongue like a sweetly scolding grandmother.
“There always is.”

_ _ _

I take Dee back to my dorm. I serve him a backlog of cookies. And I tell him everything.
When I finish, we’ve munched our way through black-and-whites and peanut butter. He
wipes the crumbs off his lap and asks me if I ever thought about
Romeo and Juliet
.

“Not
everything
tracks back to Shakespeare.”

“Yes it does. Did you ever think what might’ve happened if they weren’t so damn impatient?
If maybe Romeo had stopped for a second and gotten a doctor, or waited for Juliet
to wake up? Not jumped to conclusions and gone and poisoned himself thinking she was
dead when she was
just sleeping
?”

“I can see you have.” And I can. He’s pretty worked up.

“I’ve seen that movie so many times, and every damn time, it’s like screaming at the
girl in the horror movie.
Stop. Don’t go in the basement. The killer’s down there
. With Romeo and Juliet, I yell, ‘Don’t jump to conclusions.’ But do those fools ever
listen to me?” He shakes his head in dismay. “I always imagine what might’ve happened
if they’d waited. Juliet would’ve woken up. They’d already be married. They might’ve
moved away, far away from the Montagues and the Capulets, gotten themselves a cute
castle of their own. Decorated it up nice. Maybe it would’ve been like
The Winter’s Tale
. By thinking Hermione was dead, Leontes had time to stop acting like a fool and then
later he was so happy to find out she was alive. Maybe the Montagues and Capulets
would find out later that their beloved kids weren’t dead, and wasn’t it stupid to
feud, and everyone would be happy. Maybe it would’ve turned the whole tragedy into
a comedy.”

“
The Winter’s Tale
isn’t a comedy; it’s a problem play.”

“Oh, you hush up. You see where I’m going with this.”

And I do. And maybe I hadn’t thought about this with
Romeo and Juliet
, but I had briefly gone to the what-if place with me and Willem. On the train back
to England and then on the flight home, I’d had second thoughts. What if something
had happened to him? But both times, I’d voiced my doubts—first to Ms. Foley and then
to Melanie—and both times I’d been set straight. Willem wasn’t Romeo. He was
a
romeo. And I’m no Juliet. I tell Dee this. I enumerate all the examples of him being
a player, beginning with the fact that he picked up a random girl on a train and,
an hour later, invited her to Paris for the day.