But it would not happen. I was no Annie, whose personality could shift as music changes keys, to match the boy she chose. I was Fraser, and I was stuck with myself, and I was not good at being romantic.
Chapter 13
“HOW’D THE INTERVIEW GO?” said my father anxiously.
“Not so good. I kept yawning in her face.”
My father looked at me in utter disgust. He had raised me all these years so I could spend a college interview yawning?
“It was hot in there, Dad. I got sleepy. I kept trying to bite on the yawns and keep them inside my mouth, but it didn’t work. My jaw cracked, and the yawns came out anyhow.”
My father sighed. “Oh, well. I’m not that crazy about this college anyhow. Too small. And too feminine. All these little bushes and pretty little trees and cute little dormitories. It’s not my idea of a college.”
We walked back to the car. I had always thought of college as an autumn thing. Plaid stadium blankets and autumn leaves to scuff through. But summer hung heavy over the campuses we visited. Nobody was busy. They were too hot.
“I think our first priority in college selection should be air conditioning,” I told my father.
He was busy trying to find a place where we could have lunch. “The second priority should be that they have restaurants around. I can’t believe how many of these colleges just squat out here in the countryside. What do they expect the parents to do? Bring picnics along?”
“I think I saw a restaurant about a half mile before we got to the campus, Dad. It was called the Four Bears, or the Six Doors, or something.”
We were getting punchy. Nine colleges in four days is a lot of campuses. It was necessary to keep a notebook so we could remember one from the other.
“Just don’t choose that one where the freshman girls lived in a dorm that looked like a horror-movie set,” said my father. “Your mother would have a nervous breakdown visualizing you there. You’d have to major in writing occult novels.”
“It wasn’t that bad. Lot of stones, and dead ivy, and a broken clock on the spire.” We walked over a steaming pavement to where we had parked our car. He was right about this campus. It was very girlish. I didn’t feel a part of it. I felt too heavy-handed and organized and academic for this place. “I wish I were interesting,” I said.
“Interesting!” said my father. “You knocked the socks off everyone who interviewed you.”
“Not quite. But I meant romantic interesting.”
He got uncomfortable and started the car up instead of discussing it. We found the restaurant, but it turned out to be a clothing store named the Four Seasons.
“Check the map,” I said. “How far are we from the nearest town?”
“I’m sure we’re not near any town. I had no idea this end of the state was so vacant. I don’t know what happened to all this urban sprawl we keep reading about. There’s nothing here but farms and colleges.” He opened the map.
“We’re only forty miles from State,” I said. “Let’s just drive down there, wander around a little, do some comparing, eat at the cafeteria, and drive on home.”
“As long as you put food first,” said my father, “I think I can go along with that.”
We headed with empty growling stomachs for the next university. If they have good food today, I thought, I’ll probably choose my school on the basis of its cafeteria. I’m starved. I’m so hungry my stomach is flapping.
“Your mother really wanted to come on this trip,” said Dad. “She was heartbroken that she couldn’t take the time off from work. It’s lousy. She worked all her life to raise you from infancy to the moment when you’d start leading your own life, and now she’s missing the special part. Seeing where you’ll go, how you’ll fit in.”
What if I never fit in? I thought.
“It’s your mother’s money paying for college, you know. Her only real purpose in starting that career was to send you.”
“Does she mind?” I said.
“Mind!” repeated my father. “Fraser, there’s nothing she wants more in life than to have you succeed. Except maybe to go to Scandinavia.”
I laughed. “But you want to go to China and India.”
“That can wait. When we get you through college, your mother and I will hit Norway.”
“You shouldn’t wait four years,” I said. “I can go to State, and it won’t cost that much, and you can go this year.”
We were there. My father drove around the campus, the way he always does, past his old fraternity house, past the playing fields, past the building that was the entire engineering department when he was there and is now a tiny wing. Past the vast student center that always appalls him because it was paid for by alumni and he thinks it’s too grandiose.
So, he understands that she wants Norway more than he wants China, I thought. Maybe what it is is that each couple has to find out what kind of pair they are. Semi-detached or fully intertwined, or anything else. As long as it works.
We got out of the car and walked up stone steps worn smooth by a hundred years of student feet. A few students from summer session were walking slowly across the grass. Several were lying under oak trees, spread-eagled to cool off, and one art class was sketching, except for the two class members who were napping.
“Twenty thousand kids here,” said my father. “A few of them have to be suitable, Fray. Somebody out there is going to think you’re ‘romantic interesting.’”
He actually said it, I thought. Referred to my social and emotional status.
We were only steps from the cafeteria when my father took my arm, almost harshly, as if to stop me from doing something dangerous. “Sweetheart,” he said in a strange voice, “you can go where you want. Truly, any place on the globe comes second. Your mother and I want the best school for you. It probably isn’t State. Don’t come here just because it’s easy. Don’t come here just because it’s familiar. Do what’s right for you.”
We stared at each other. My father’s eyes seemed to mist over, but maybe not. He turned and entered the cafeteria swiftly.
The cafeteria was vast. Several of the larger dormitories have their own cafeterias, but this one is also open to the public. It has two lines: the cheap one for soup, sandwiches, Jell-O and potato-chip packages, and an expensive one with as many choices of casserole, salad and meat as a cruise ship.
I can go anywhere, I thought. He promised. It matters more to Mom than anything. It’s what she’s working for.
Me.
I took a fork, knife and spoon. I took a heated plate, set them on the tray and began sliding it down the buffet rack.
As many colleges to choose from as dishes in the buffet, I thought. All different textures, flavors, varieties.
“Well, I’ll be darned,” said my father, slipping his wallet back into his pocket as we left the cashier. “Look who’s waving to us from across the room.”
I glanced over, expecting to spot some old alum he remembered from thirty years ago, but it was not. It was Mr. Hollander.
And Michael.
A good thing I had had practice making difficult walks. Like going to see the Liptons at the hospital waiting room. Walking toward Michael was the hardest thing I had done all summer. Any poise, any casualness I had acquired from visiting all those colleges left me. I was just an awkward high-school girl, stumbling toward a boy she had dumped.
“Hi there,” said my father, delighted. He and Mr. Hollander shook hands. “Michael here for an interview? Hi, Michael.” My father shook hands with Michael too. I just stood there with a heavy tray in my hands and tried to smile normally.
Michael looked appealing as ever. He was still lovely.
Lovely. Funny word to use for a boy. But he was, to me. I thought, I could fall back into you the way Kit toppled downstairs. Forever. Finally. And it might even be worth it. I said, “Oh, hi, Michael. How are you?”
He shoved his own tray down to make room for mine. I sat down opposite him. “Never saw you eat t
hat much,” said Michael, looking at my loaded plate. “College interviews really require stoking up, huh?”
“I didn’t know you wanted to come here,” I said.
“I don’t know what I want to do. Dad and I are looking at everything.”
His voice caught at me. Deep. Warm. Our fathers talked about colleges as if they were the ones about to attend. Majors, admission requirements, tuition increases.
Michael said, “So how’s Kit?”
He had a funny smile on his face. He’s asking that right off, I thought, so I can’t accuse him of being thoughtless. I smiled back, but my smile was embarrassed, awkward. “She’s better. They’re going to be able to bring her home in August and do out-patient therapy.”
“That’s great,” said Michael. He looked at his empty plate and then at my full one. “You really going to eat all that?”
“Probably not. You want some?”
“That turkey really looks good.”
I gave him the turkey.
“I was proud of you,” said Michael, his mouth full of turkey. “Throwing yourself into raising money for Kit. I liked the mile of pennies.”
“You gave to it?” I said.
“Every week I put a roll in. That didn’t really add up to much money. So I bought a Road Rally seat for twenty-five dollars instead of five.”
“Your name wasn’t on the list!” I cried. “I’d have seen it. I checked them all, just to see if—”
Michael grinned so widely his whole body seemed to be participating in it. “Just to see if I did?” he said.
My father said, “Well, we didn’t go there. It seemed pretty out of the way to me.”
Michael’s father said, “It is out of the way. They’re all out of the way. But I’m told they have an excellent botany department and I know Fraser was quite a botany expert.”
“No, I wasn’t,” I said. “I just did an experiment that didn’t work out too well but looked impressive.”
“That’s half of life,” said Mr. Hollander, laughing.
Michael said, “You want to take a walk around the campus with me, Fraser?”
It’s a huge campus. You could walk for hours and still find sidewalks you hadn’t used, dorms you hadn’t noticed. I said, “Sure.”
We walked everywhere. We talked about college subjects—where we’d find part-time jobs; whether we’d like freshman English; what to do if you don’t like your roommate.
“I missed you,” I said.
We were standing in the middle of an enormous graveled area filled with large inexplicable modern sculptures. They seemed to have cutting edges, and whatever they were intended to mean, they were sure of themselves. It made me sure to be among them. I would tell Michael how I felt. I would tell him about Smedes and Jim. About being semi-detached.
“I missed you,” he said.
We were still walking, threading among the sculptures. “It wasn’t that you weren’t perfect,” I told him. “It was that it was too much. Too much of a good thing. I started to drown in all that we did together.”
Michael stared at me. “Too much?”
“I guess I’m not very romantic, Michael,” I said, and the urge to be truthful began to hurt inside, because it sounded so stupid, so dull. Keep going, I thought, you can’t stop now. “I loved you, but I didn’t love spending all my time in a pair. There were other people. Other things to do.” I was beginning to cry. Damn tears! “I’m sorry,” I said, and I was done. I couldn’t have added another syllable if he begged me for it; I had choked myself already.
“It wasn’t me?” said Michael. “It was us?”
“Sort of.”
“You might have tried explaining that to me before. I figured you wrote me off because I was this creep who didn’t care if little girls died of head injuries.”
“It wasn’t that!” I cried. “I just needed more—I don’t know—room around me than Annie seemed to. I couldn’t share that much. It was terrible. I felt so selfish. I just took it out on you, Michael, but it was my character that didn’t work out. Not yours.”
“Oh, Fraser, why didn’t you just say so? How do you think I felt? I had to quit Computer Club when I was getting ready to teach my first course. I had to give up skiing half the only snowy weekends of the whole winter. I had to change my whole life to fit you in.”
It’s going to happen right here, I thought. We’ll break up all over again; we’ll cut ourselves on those metal sculptures; we’ll burn each other. So much for truth.
“I wanted to,” said Michael. “I wanted you to be in everything I was. It seemed to work so well for Price and Annie. I couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working for us.”
“Smedes and Jim are different. They’re semi-detached.”
“They’re what?” said Michael. “That sounds like an apartment.”
I explained it to him.
“I don’t like that phrase,” said Michael flatly.
Why are we doing this to each other? I thought. He doesn’t quite understand what I’m saying, I don’t quite understand what he’s saying. You can’t be any kind of attached unless you understand each other.
“I like semi-attached,” said Michael. He grinned at me and put his arms around my waist and swung me around. I had forgotten that he was so much taller and heavier than I. “Half of me wanted to give up everything for you, Fraser,” he said, “and half of me wanted to give up nothing.”
“I know those halves,” I said ruefully.
He was holding me too closely for me to see clearly. I pulled back and squinted in the blazing sun, and I could see him. Perhaps it was the first time I really did see him. A person with his own life, whose gears couldn’t mesh with mine that often. But when they did mesh, it would perfect.
“Senior year starts in a month,” said Michael.
Senior year? I thought. It was actually a surprise to realize there was still a year of high school left. I had been thinking college, college, all summer, thinking freedom, independence, change. “Do you have lots of plans?” I said to Michael.
“Yes. You?”
“Likewise.”
We were still walking. The sculptures receded. One of the few remaining elms on campus loomed ahead, its symmetry startling, its shade altogether appealing. But the shade was already taken by three couples.
“We could try it,” said Michael, smiling at me. His smile was rather shy, as if he too wanted to walk carefully into another relationship.
“Semi-detached, you mean?” I said.
“Semi-attached, I mean.”
“I can’t be your other half, Michael.”
“Nor I yours,” he said.
We will be friends, I thought. Sometimes we’ll be in love, and sometimes we’ll be too busy to remember. Annie would call it selfish. Smedes would call it sane.
“I call it a good idea,” I said, and we sealed it with a kiss.
A Biography of Caroline B. Cooney
Caroline B. Cooney is the author of ninety books for teen readers, including the bestselling thriller The Face on the Milk Carton. Her books have won awards and nominations for more than one hundred state reading prizes. They are also on recommended-reading lists from the American Library Association, the New York Public Library, and more. Cooney is best known for her distinctive suspense novels and romances.
Born in 1947, in Geneva, New York, Cooney grew up in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, where she was a library page at the Perrot Memorial Library and became a church organist before she could drive. Music and books have remained staples in her life.
Cooney has attended lots of colleges, picking up classes wherever she lives. Several years ago, she went to college to relearn her high school Latin and begin ancient Greek, and went to a total of four universities for those subjects alone!
Her sixth-grade teacher was a huge influence. Mr. Albert taught short story writing, and after his class, Cooney never stopped writing short stories. By the time she was twenty-five, she had written eight novels and co
untless short stories, none of which were ever published. Her ninth book, Safe as the Grave, a mystery for middle readers, became her first published book in 1979. Her real success began when her agent, Marilyn Marlow, introduced her to editors Ann Reit and Beverly Horowitz.
Cooney’s books often depict realistic family issues, even in the midst of dramatic adventures and plot twists. Her fondness for her characters comes through in her prose: “I love writing and do not know why it is considered such a difficult, agonizing profession. I love all of it, thinking up the plots, getting to know the kids in the story, their parents, backyards, pizza toppings.” Her fast-paced, plot-driven works explore themes of good and evil, love and hatred, right and wrong, and moral ambiguity.
Among her earliest published work is the Fog, Snow, and Fire trilogy (1989–1992), a series of young adult psychological thrillers set in a boarding school run by an evil, manipulative headmaster. In 1990, Cooney published the award-winning The Face on the Milk Carton, about a girl named Janie who recognizes herself as the missing child on the back of a milk carton. The series continued in Whatever Happened to Janie? (1993), The Voice on the Radio (1996), and What Janie Found (2000). The first two books in the Janie series were adapted for television in 1995. A fifth book, Janie Face to Face, will be released in 2013.
Cooney has three children and four grandchildren. She lives in South Carolina, and is currently researching a book about the children on the Mayflower.
The house in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, where Cooney grew up. She recalls: “In the 1950s, we walked home from school, changed into our play clothes, and went outside to get our required fresh air. We played yard games, like Spud, Ghost, Cops and Robbers, and Hide and Seek. We ranged far afield and no parent supervised us or even asked where we were going. We led our own lives, whether we were exploring the woods behind our houses, wading in the creek at low tide, or roller skating in somebody’s cellar, going around and around the furnace!”
Cooney at age three.
Cooney, age ten, reading in bed—one of her favorite activities then and now.