“I want to move forward, Callie. With a new job. With a new place to explore. With Eugenie. And with ...”
“With what, Thomas? What else could there be?” I huff, trying to catch my breath as well as everything else that has been thrown my way in the last twenty minutes.
“With a new baby on the way.”
And now the cliché is complete.
Chapter Three
August 1989
My mother opened the doors to peer into the two bedrooms on either side of the common living area before I could haul even one of my multiple suitcases out of the hallway. “Callie, you need to be in this one,” Helen Steele decided after further inspection. It was the opposite room from the one that had a piece of orange construction paper with my name on it adhered to the door with Princeton mascot tiger-head stickers above my designated roommate’s matching handmade nameplate.
“But, Mom, this is my assigned room.” I pointed to the obviousCallie Steelewritten loudly in black Sharpie, just like my quad-mates’, and dragged a duffel full of shoes toward the twelve-by-twenty-foot dorm room. One of the beds was already made up with a nondescript navy-blue comforter and starched white sheets tucked into the corners with military precision. There were no throw pillows for a touch of decor or to prop up against the wall to study in bed late at night. I picked up a white coffee cup on the dresser next to a toothbrush. The Vitruvian Man was on one side, and on the other was the related theory that the dimensions of the individual limbs of a human being follow mathematical laws. An interesting choice for a twice-daily rinse and spit. The walls stood bare, but a series of calculators was lined up on a desk in front of a Macintosh SE keyboard, which made the choicein mugs a little more understandable. I cracked open the freestanding wardrobe my roommate claimed and spotted several plaid flannels on hangers with the buttons done clear to the top. There were no other clues as to whom my roommate might be, other than nothing like me.
“Come and look in here,” my mother hissed, waving me over to the other bedroom while she remained on the lookout for any of my unknown quad-mates. I didn’t go inside. It felt like I was already breaking the number one college-dorm no-no: entering someone else’s space uninvited. My mother, on the other hand, who had viewed rules as mere suggestions her whole life, pushed me inside. The bed opposite the door held a brand-new mattress, not the Princeton-issued one. It was done up like a professional replica of the Laura Ashley home-decor showroom on Madison Avenue a few blocks from our apartment. With a single nod from my mother, I knew the white-and-green-striped bedding with pink-flowered overlay was to Helen’s liking. As was the elongated matching dust ruffle that hid the storage area beneath the bed. There was a black-and-white photograph blown up to poster size of Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion from the set ofThe Wizhanging prominently in the room. My mom pointed to Diana Ross’s autograph, raising her eyebrows in approval of the company this student’s parents must keep. Next to Dorothy was a series of framed photos of girls posing in front of each landmark on Europe’s top-ten must-see list: the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, the Tower of Pisa, and so on. My mother closely scrutinized each one, her finger poised to ascertain which of the high school graduates captured in these images would be slipping into the designer bed that evening. Her finger landed on the third photo of a girl fourth from the left, posing in front of the Acropolis in a Spence T-shirt.
“I bet this is her,” my mother announced with Nancy Drew–like authority.
A plush pink throw rug matching the flowers of the duvet hid the bareness of the worn wood, and I imagined it warming the frigid floors that would surely come with New Jersey winter in a dorm room with old, leaky single-pane windows. I gave the handle of one of the windowsa twist, and it opened with a lubricated swing I wasn’t expecting. Catching myself before I toppled out, I decided that this room had the perfect view, overlooking trees that witnessed the founding of the university. Princeton move-in day had brought hundreds of students, who crisscrossed every which way, maps in hand, alongside dads sweating, moms barking directions, and siblings looking fed up.
In contrast to the huddles of threes and fours moving quickly across campus together, right below me I spied a broad-shouldered boy with a square set jaw, alone, in a plain white T-shirt and heavy denim jeans, with the handles of an oversize red nylon duffel bag slung over his shoulders like a backpack. In his hands was a single cardboard packing box. I leaned a bit farther out the window and noticed the box was filled with books, though in his muscular arms, his cargo appeared light as a feather. One volume sat open atop the pile, and I wondered what it was, if I had read it.
The boy walked slowly, seemingly not in any hurry to get where he was going, reading the open book, undisturbed by the chaos around him. I watched him saunter near my perch and continue onward without looking up. I scanned left and right to see if any mom was hustling to catch up with her son, or father yelling that he had found first-rate parking. After a few moments, still no one joined him. Passing by the main arch of Blair Hall, he stopped, shifted the box of books onto one hip, and touched the stonework. I could clearly make out his wide smile as he gave the centuries-old building a vigorous pat, turned the page on his book, and then continued on his way.
Every face I had seen on the Princeton campus in that first hour was new. Some, I assumed I would never see again, as they looked like upperclassmen already stressed over the anticipated work ahead and were likely out of my potential peer group anyway. Others, I was curious if we would be in class together, if we might become friends. I crossed my fingers and hoped the boy with the box of books and I would end up in some of the same English seminars.
Cutting into my thoughts, my mom announced, “It’s a shame you and Brooke Shields didn’t overlap; you would have become great friends.”
I wasn’t sure what would make my mother believe that Brooke and I would have been besties, other than my plan to minor in French and Brooke’s multiple trips to Paris for fashion week, but Helen Steele was not short on big dreams.
“Cute.” Having quickly moved on from Brooke, my mom pointed to a sunshine-yellow cardigan tossed on the desk pushed up to the window. She examined the material between her fingers. “Cashmere,” she said with an added raised eyebrow.
Before I could hustle my mom out of the room, she pulled a dress from the closet that indicated, though only a freshman, this girl was confident that she would be invited to an eating club’s house party by semester’s end. “This is cute too,” was Mom’s conclusion before putting the dress back and taking out another item to inspect.
“Mom, stop!” I begged, and jerked my head toward the common room. There was an orientation scheduled for 10:00 a.m. and another at 1:00 p.m. I imagined the two quad-mates who had moved in had opted for the morning session, and I got nervous that one, or both, would return any minute.
After unexpected traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike had pushed us off our planned arrival time, I wanted to at least get my suitcases and boxes moved into my room before we met up with my dad for the afternoon orientation. I decided to unpack that evening after sending my parents to the Nassau Inn for a night of nonstop worry on my mother’s part before saying our goodbyes in the morning. The minute we’d reached my dorm room, my dad had announced he was heading out to find his old one. I wasn’t sure who was more excited for my first year at Princeton: me or my father, who was beyond giddy to relive his college years.
Tapping her fingers on the bare mattress, my mom studied my face, then the walls of the room, and announced, “Easy fix.” Before I couldstop Helen Steele, she had crossed the common room and slammed the door to the hallway, effectively shutting out witnesses. Then, using her manicured index finger like a knife blade, she peeled my stickered nameplate off the door of the starkly decorated room.
“Wait, how do you know which is the girl with the nice decorations and which is her assigned roommate?” I asked, examining the two nameplates that led to the better wardrobe.
“Again, easy,” my mom declared, shaking her head in displeasure at my subpar deduction skills. “It’s Quinn Tahiri. Her mother is a well-regarded singer with the Metropolitan Opera. Her mom was on tour in Europe this past summer; that’s why there are all these pictures of Quinn with her friends in England, France, Italy, and Greece. She must have been their chaperone. Plus, there is no way a ‘Jenny Dover’ wears cashmere.” My mother referenced the yellow cardigan again and started to dislodge an unsuspecting Jenny’s orange construction paper to switch with mine. “Trust me, Callie. I’ve just arranged your new best friend.”
Chapter Four
Present
The button of my jeans is lost between the deep crease that separates my upper gut from my lower one. I sit tall and attempt to inconspicuously slip my hand under my thin linen blouse, worn for the sole purpose of keeping me cool in the raging June heat, and dig for the button. I release both my breath and my pinched skin.
I text Quinn.
11:12 a.m. (Callie)
I’m out.
A little over a month ago at the dining room table, with the efficiency of the fifteen-minute-meeting format Thomas adhered to at work, my husband succinctly summarized the demise of our marriage with the more brutal tagline “It’s not me, it’s you,” and asked to have the bedroom to himself for an hour to pack a few bags. I grabbed my stained joggers off the laundry room floor and, dazed, shuffled across the street to Lisa’s house, not to return home until the following week, when a work crew showed up to wallpaper her guest room.
