Love from London (33 page)

“It’s a feminist manifesto,” she says way too loudly. Given the acoustics of the quad, the sound bounces off the brick walls and people look to see who’s killing their springtime buzz.

“Feminist manifesto sounds like a new kind of pasta!” I say and walk over to her.

She hugs me and hands me the book. “You HAVE to read this. Promise?”

“Sure — and welcome back to you, too!” I say. She looks different. Gorgeous, but then she’s always been pretty. When you go away from a place and then come back, everyone and everything seems exactly the same and at the same time, totally changed — older, or more together, or more something. Or maybe it’s just my view of myself. “No more hair dying?”

Harriet touches the underside of her hair. Where once there was white, or green, magenta and purple, it’s now all one shade of light brown. Her librarian glasses have been traded in for wire frames and she’s dressed like she’s ready for a board meeting, ballerina-prim but not repressed. “I decided that if I’m primarily concerned with people listening to my words, I should let my appearance be plain.”

“Well, I like the Amish idea, but quite frankly,” I say and study her up and down. “You look hot.”

“I think so, too,” Welsh Farrington says and slips his arm around Harriet’s waist. Welsh is the best lacrosse player at Hadley and has been since he was a freshman. He’s known for his inane comments and his ability to carry heavy objects and he’s got the shoulders to prove it. Harriet snuggles into him, betraying the woman unto herself persona she’s always had. Welsh notices me over his bulging forearms. “Hey, Love. Haven’t seen you in a while. Did you have mono or something?”

“I wasn’t sick. I was in London.”

“Oh, right,” Welsh nods. “Same difference.”

Same difference=number three on my annoying phrase list, and I try hard not to say anything. I’m about to comment on how lying in bed with a sore throat feeling like shit with terrible, debilitating fatigue has nothing in common with gallivanting around London (and while I’m not sure my London life fits the exact definition of gallivanting, it must have come close), about to ask how long Harriet and Welsh have been an unlikely couple, when I am stopped in my verbal tracks.

I am speechless. Not even capable of miming.

Across the overly green quadrangle, halfway between the heap of book bags and the newly arranged oversized terracotta pots containing palm trees (um, hello, we’re a New England school — it’s not like trustees and alums are going to be swayed into thinking tropical plants really grow here), is the reason for my loss of words.

I back up, away from Harriet and Welsh, who are rather consumed by each other anyway, and duck behind a pine tree. From in between the needles, I watch and am hit again with that breathless feeling that occurs when your past appears in your present.

Standing with his hands in his pockets, kicking at something on the pavement, is Jacob. My Jacob. The boy formerly known as my Jacob but who hasn’t been mine for — well — ever, unless you count several magical weeks at the end of sophomore year. He moves toward the student-monikered Stripper Pole, which is of course nothing of the sort, but rather an old flagpole that resides in the very center of the quad (and because the whole campus was designed by a famous mathematician, Lee Rose, we know it’s the very center). Jacob slouches down and then sits with his back to the pole and checks out the scene. There’s no way he can see me — I’m tucked way into the foliage, but it’s unnerving. I have no idea what I’d say, or if we’d talk or hug or ignore each other. By Chris’s latest gossip garnish (gossip garnish=that last bit of fluff on the conversational salad) informs me that Jacob’s winter romance with Dillon Fuchs (pronounced Few-ks, though highly and intentionally mis-emphasized) is over, that it wasn’t a big deal. But who’s to say what’s a big deal or isn’t — how can you know unless you’re in that relationship?

I check my watch — it’s two o’clock, nearly time for assembly. Having seen Jacob from a distance, I’m hoping for a close up during the all-student meeting. I’m not ready for a face-to-face, but in the safety of a crowd, I might manage a better view. It’s reassuring to see him sitting by the Stripper’s Pole, though, reading and being his usual observant, calm self — the guy I knew who played piano by himself and who wrote Dylan lyrics into his notebooks. Harriet and Welsh make out in front of everyone. Jacob sits by himself. Some things change, some stay the same.

Correction: most things change.

I walk into Fisher Hall, the old auditorium that’s used only for all-school assemblies (not to be confused with all-school events — those are held all over campus). Assemblies are for big-time speakers of important historical note, or for Serious Social Situations or issues (SSS — although not to be mistaken for the mix Arabella made me called SSS=Slow, Sad, and Sadistic, which was and is brilliant). Fisher Hall is also the place for Head Monitor elections. Hadley has no mere student body president, no one governing council. There are lots of positions like that.

But Head Monitor is the most coveted position because you have to be voted in doubly — nominated by two faculty members and then chosen by your peers (read: all the students who are your friends, lust after you, fear you, or just recognize your face more than the other candidate’s). And, once you’re voted in, you have more power than any other student and meet with all of the faculty and generally bask in the glory of your newfound status until you go to college and realize you’re just one of a thousand such people from other prep schools across the nation. But I digress.

I’m squished into the old-fashioned wooden folding seat next to Chris and Chili and some of Chris’s dorm mates when Chris gives me a nudge.

“So,” he says raising his eyebrows. “What do you think?”

I stare blankly at him. “Of what?”

“Oh dear — you don’t even know, do you?” Chris says. He puts his palms on my face and twists my head so I can see what he wants me to see. There, at the front of all the chairs, is a grand piano.

“So — it’s a large instrument they wheeled in. They can plant palm trees in Massachusetts — anything’s possible with the trustee fund,” I say.

“No,” Chris shakes his head. “The person playing. You can’t see him from here but it’s Jacob.”

“My…” I stop myself. “Jacob? Really? But he never played in front of anyone. Well, he played in front of me — and maybe the coffee house crowd, but he’s so shy, he’s so quiet, he’s so, like…”

“Like about to be Head Monitor?” Chili asks.

Which is exactly what happens. Jacob is called to the stage. More surprising than the fact that he was nominated (teachers have always liked him — he gets great grades and questions their authority just enough so they know he’s paying attention but not so much that he undermines it) is the fact of his ease on stage. He waves, smiles and does those little in jokes with people that makes various members of the student body laugh and cheer. He’s like the big man on campus in some movie. Except he’s not.

“He’s not, right? He was like this person no one else knew,” I say to Chris and he tries to shush me. I whisper again. “This is so weird.”

“It gets weirder,” Chris says and points.

Along with Jacob are two other contenders for the Head Monitor position. At graduation, the current Head monitor hands over a symbolic Hadley Crest that then resides in the monitor’s dorm room, proudly on display (read: gathering dust until the next graduation). One nominated student is Betty Yee, and the other is — as it would be in my bizarre world — the leggy, luscious, and lame Lindsay Parrish.

LP is all smiles as she rises from her swampland (aka her seat) and oozes her wrath onto the improvised stage. Like Olympians waiting to have their medals slung over their necks, Lindsay, Betty, and Jacob (cue the violins, cue the sighing — enough so that Chris gives me his
stop
look) stand and accept their verbal praises from the faculty and cheers from the students.

When my father appears, I’m reminded of his split personas. Sure, there’s overlap like this morning when his stern tone about my apparently abominable behaviour in London — OMG (and other annoying email/IM abbreviations!). But aside from verbal scoldings, I like seeing my father in his authoritative state. He’s comfortable in front of crowds; even the student body at large has taken a shine to him. I rarely hear dissent among the troops except when someone’s messed up and passes the blame onto my dad, who is usually the nearest high-up upon whom psychological sludge falls. Basically, people like him. He’s cool enough, dresses in a manner so as not to encourage immediate ridicule, and has a reputation for being FAIR. Personally, that’s one reason I believe he’s been quick to enforce rules on me so I can set an example for the entire Hadley campus.

“Okay, settle down,” Dad holds up his hand and wrangles us all into silence (actually, I’ve been silent this whole time save for my sighs). “Thanks to you all for voting — I know it meant making a decision when you were not yet fully awake…”

“I missed the election?” I ask Chili.

She nods. “It was this morning before breakfast — if you wanted a say you had to get committed to that ballot box.”

So while I lay in bed wondering what my sweet boyfriend was doing an entire ocean away (drinking coffee with milk no sugar? Buying me my favorite treats at Rococo Chocolates? Or perhaps tonguing Valentine the up-and-dare I say — coming artist?) all the other Hadley students were deciding which person would be at the forefront of my senior class next year.

“I can’t believe I didn’t vote,” I say and stare at the three candidates. Betty has her hands clasped in front of her, Lindsay is doing her half-smile thing where she looks pretty but is no doubt brewing her evil thoughts and plans in her mind, and Jacob…Jacob’s just — well, I can’t go there. Not yet.

“It’s not like it was a presidential election,” Chris says. “Plus, you’re not even registered — they wouldn’t have counted it.”

“True,” I say and rest my chin in my hand — the position Arabella’s beauty mag warned is a likely cause of chin acne. But seeing as chin acne is not, in fact, one of the woes that plagues me in this life at least not at this moment, I relish the mopey pose. “But I would have liked to have known who was running.”

Chris leans forward and puts his head in his chin, too. He whispers without looking at me. Our heads are nearly touching but we don’t look at each other. “Maybe if you got your head pried out from its perma-place in your ass, you’d be more aware of the campus goings on.”

“Is goings-on one word or two?” I ask him trying hard to be annoying. He fights the laughter.

“I just think you’ve been hiding.”

“Wow — you are like so talented in the emotional forensics department, Chris. I mean, did you get a degree in…”

“Oh, shut up. I’m trying to help you.” He turns to me and pretends to peel away layers from my face and shoulders. “You’re like covered with this film of misery and distance.”

“Like a character from a Gothic novel,” Chili adds.

“Oh, like you even knew me before,” I snap at her. “But yes, you’re correct. But we’ve all got issues and mine have recently overcome my naturally effervescent self. For that, I apologize.”

“Apology accepted,” Chris says. “Now, is Jacob hot or what?”

I don’t — or can’t — answer. I just watch in fascination as Lindsay flirts with him on stage, doing the oops,
sorry I touched your thigh with my hand
move, and giggling under her breath. The scary thing is, he doesn’t seem offended. Where in Mr. Chaucer’s English class, the place of our meeting, he always kept away from the shiniest of the moneyed set, the unbearably popular crowd, he appears to be very chummy with the queen of doom.

So I am most dismayed or surprised or both when my father, unaware of the effect his words will have on me, announces, “This year, we’ve broken precedent at Hadley Hall!”

An announcement like this always inspires more enthusiasm than is really warranted. When we gained the right to wear flip-flops last spring (prior, shoes had to be “firmly affixed to the feet” as stated in the student handbook) you’d have thought peace had been achieved among dissenting nations. So the students are clapping and whistling now and my dad continues. “As the years move on, so does tradition have to adapt. In light of this, and in light of the voting count and faculty recommendations, I am pleased to announce the name of the new Head Monitor for next year’s senior class…” Cue the gasps and ahhs and oohs. “Lindsay Parrish.” Cue the mouth open in full disbelief. From me. Cue Lindsay clapping for herself. She’ll probably ban non-exclusive fashion labels or make eyeliner mandatory.

Students stretch, ready to go. “But wait — the tradition we’re breaking is…Lindsay will be spending time with, organizing meetings with, and working late into the evenings with her new CO-Head Monitor, Jacob Coleman. The position is one that requires so much effort; we feel it’s best to now have two people, one male and one female, taking care of business.”

I’m not the only one to find some sort of innuendo in his words and I watch the stifled laughter around me. Clearly, there’s a back story here and I don’t know it.

“Go, JC!” This chant is said many times as seniors and underclassmen alike approach Jacob and pat him on the back. JC? He has a nickname now? Head Monitor is always given to that person whom you expect to win, who has the academics going, but not so much that the studying excludes the social set, and the kicker is that the person’s usually really kind. So here we have Lindsay, whose grades are probably fine, and who is a class-A bitch, but popular. And we have Jacob — JC — who up until now had the grades and kind thing, but the uber-popular? When did that happen?

“Pretty much right when he came back from Switzerland,” Chris explains as we go running together and I ask him. “Look, he was always cute. Then he went away for a summer and a fall and came back after Winter break about a foot taller, a bit more broad, and speaking four languages.”

“Four?”

“
Si
,
oui
,
da, e vero
,” Chris says. “Plus, if you go away for a term at boarding school, when you come back, your stock either rises, as with Jacob. Or plummets, which we see with the not-so-polished Cordelia.”