I started spending any free time I had in lounges, the office, libraries, basically, anywhere else but our room. I felt like an accessory. Accessory to what, I wasn’t sure. But I felt like I was helping her hide something from Akul. John had offered to help me practice my speech, so I spend a lot of time going over ways I could make the training program better and then inserting it carefully into my speech, dropping it in to make a smooth convincing mechanism. I knew I shouldn’t have been worried about what Ruby was writing but I often wondered if she was writing a slander speech, something that would put me in a really bad light. She could. Anyone who lives with a stranger for a year has dirt on them. She had had no problem sharing with Flint about John, which meant that she was willing to go that extra mile for nothing. What would she be willing to do for something she wanted?
Meanwhile, Lily and Carl broke up for the nineteenth time. We rolled our eyes while we patted her on the back. “It’s okay” fell lackluster from our mouths to plunk upon her deaf ears. We could have been singing the Cotton-Eyed Joe for all she cared. Voices and warm bodies was all she needed at that point and we were certainly up to filling that task. Around 11 pm though, Ruby got a text. She quickly shot off a reply and told us she had to go. We let her. What else could we do? Barricade the door?
When she was out of the room, my curiosity overcame me. “Stay right here,” I said to Lily.
“Don’t leave me.” Lily got up to follow me out.
“Okay, fine. Follow me.” We tiptoed, spy style, to the study room window where I had once looked out in wonder at the students scurrying like ants.
Now, sidewalks looked like the anthills had been brushed away, leaving only bare concrete in its wake.
“That’s Ruby!” I said, pointing at the figure below the window.
“Who’s that?” Lily pointed to the guy beside her. “Akul?”
We pressed our faces up against the glass in unison. “It’s Fothorn. Jacob Fothorn.”
I left my face there for a moment, enjoying the feeling of the cool glass. Now we really were accessories to this. Did we have to tell Akul?
We watched them walk away from our dorm and I envied the way that she could just go off with Jacob, regardless of Akul. She listened to herself; that was for sure. I imagined the sound of her boots clacking against the sidewalk and dried to drown my thoughts. If I thought too much, I know what conclusion I would come to. Ruby was my roommate, but Akul had been living in our room for almost as much time as she had.
* * *
We waited outside the elections room for almost an hour and a half. The election process was a cascading one from most important to least. The Training Officer position was at the end. When I walked into the elections room, I was surprised to see the entire organization jockeying for position around the oval table. Granted, I knew our organization was small, but this was tiny. There were maybe ten? Twelve if we were pushing it. I swallowed, hoping my speech words hadn’t gone down to my stomach. I could feel the acid begin to churn like a hungry shark, doing flip-flops to scare out some sustenance.
“Who’s going first?” Sandy said.
Ruby and I made eye contact, trying to feel out the protocol.
“You can go,” she said and left before I could respond.
“I guess I’m going,” I said smiling as big as I could, hoping my lame joke would be sharp enough to chip away at the ice.
John gave me a half smile. Progress.
“For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Andi. I’m running for Training Officer because I believe it is one of the foundational building blocks of EMS. If people don’t advance, then we don’t have any people. I’ve been learning everything I can about training through scenarios and drills. I’ve seen the plans for new member training and I understand the continuing education that needs to get done. As far as who I am, I’m organized, obviously dedicated and really ready to become involved in leadership in this organization. I want to make it an inclusive place for everyone. Does anyone have any questions?”
Sandy’s hand was the first in the air. “What would you do if someone was struggling in scenarios and had gone through them all?”
I recognized the cases she was talking about. People who had gone through scenarios who hadn’t been ready. These people would spend over a year in scenarios and then drop out because of the stress.
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“I’d probably take them out of scenarios, run them through drills and make sure they were ready before putting them back in scenarios.”
Sandy smiled. I knew I had messed up.
John raised his hand. “What would you say the primary role of the Training Officer is?”
“Organization,” I said. “Making sure everything gets done, not actually doing it. Trying to do it all would burn out any Training Officer and isn’t a good plan. I’m very organized and I’d be able to delegate to the other members of the organization.”
I hoped that had saved me, even a little.
“Any other questions?” I said.
“You can send Ruby in,” Sandy said before anyone could answer.
I turned my back slowly, worried that a knife was going to come flying out of Sandy’s hand and lodge itself in my back. I sent Ruby in.
“Was it bad?” she asked.
“I guess you’ll see,” I said, putting my hands on the table to prepare for my head to rest itself there.
She left. She came back. We waited almost forty-five minutes in absolute silence.
John came to get us. “We’re ready for you,” he said.
There had been war in this room. Everyone had deep grooves in their face, exhaustion from trying to get their point across. Ruby and I stood side by side, waiting for the judgment to fall.
“Ruby.”
The single word was all she needed to celebrate. I stood still, hoping they were going to tell her that she was not the Training Officer, that I had made it through. But no one said anything further. I gave her a hug, trying desperately to be a good sport. Grinning, she took her seat with the Executive Board and I exited the room. Elections were over. Later, John had told me that Sandy was the major force in putting Ruby in the position instead of me. He said she had fought so hard to make sure everyone knew that I wasn’t strong enough to go through scenarios and so I wouldn’t be strong enough to have anyone else go through scenarios. She had finally gotten her way and kept me out of being able to change anything.
* * *
Flint found me on Flagstaff Hill, the place that everyone went to in order to smoke weed. Perhaps he was even looking to smoke, but he discovered me instead. I was sitting next to a bench, because the bench was metal and cold at night. He walked up behind me and put a blanket around my shoulders. If he had been a serial killer, I would have been dead, because I didn’t react. I had no idea who was behind me but I didn’t care. I rested my forehead against the bench. Flint sat down beside me.
“I saw Ruby today,” he said.
The sound of her name set the hurricane going. “What did she tell you this time?”
He didn’t answer, but I knew.
“I saw the quizzes on your desk,” he said.
I hoped the cool metal would seep into my skin and turn me into a statue. People only admired statues. But statues didn’t have blankets. I tugged the one Flint had given me closer.
“What about them?”
“I’ve seen your high school transcript, Andi. What is going on? I can’t tutor you forever.”
“I never asked you to,” I said.
He stood up, circled the bench and sat down again, leaping up almost immediately. He kicked up his own personal cyclone of dust as he did furious fast walking laps around the bench. He picked up a rock and threw it at a nearby tree. Crack. It echoed down the hill, brushing the tips of the grass as it went. I flinched at the sound, sensing its familiarity to my nightmares, the sounds of horse’s hooves. Flint sat down beside me again, breathing harder.
“When I was in third grade, I had these two T.V. shows that I loved to watch. But I was only allowed half an hour of T.V. per week.”
“That must have seriously messed you up,” I said.
He shot me a look. “I would watch one of the shows when my mom was home, but I would watch the other show when she wasn’t. She’d run out for an errand and I’d flip on the T.V. So one time, she asked me to make these drawings to send to my grandparents in Florida while she ran to the drug store for some soap. We had run out. Well, naturally, I turned on the T.V. to watch my show while I drew the pictures she had asked for. She was back too soon though. I heard the door shut and I flipped the T.V. off and started frantically coloring something on the page, but I was no longer young enough to get away with scribbling on the page and calling it art. She asked me what I did while she was gone. I said that I had been working on the pictures. She put her hand on the T.V. and gestured for me to come over. She got down on her knees so we were eye level and said something I will never forget. She said “Flint, I have only ever asked one thing from you: respect. Respect means that you care about someone enough to trust them with the truth.”
“I see so many parallels to my situation,” I said.
“That’s the thing, Andi. I don’t.”
“Why are you always so cryptic? Can’t you just say that you think that I lied to you?”
“That’s not what I’m getting at. You’ve never been real with me, even when you tried. I wonder sometimes if you’re capable of it. Stop thinking about what people think of you and just be the Andi that I know is in there.”
“How do you know that this isn’t the real me?” I said. How do I know which me is me?
“I can’t figure that out for you. I just know that it’s keeping you down. You can’t be anything until you’re you.”
He left me with the blanket.
I sighed. The situation had called for it. It all reminded me of the hookah-smoking caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland. He kept asking her “Who are you?” and blowing smoke in her face. That always made me angry. I wanted Alice to find a different hurdle to overcome. How was Alice supposed to know who she was if she couldn’t see through all that smoke? The only thing I hated more than smoke was mirrors.