about her more than anything in the world. Brooke reached the car just as Leah opened the door. She bent at the waist and all but lifted her sister out of the car. Though Leah was taller, Brooke was standing on the sidewalk a step above. She pulled Leah’s face into her chest, patted her sister’s blond hair pulled into a ponytail and kissed the top of her head. Leah, usually uncomfortable with such public shows of affection, didn’t move for what seemed minutes, kept her face buried in Brooke’s sweatshirt. When they finally parted, dry-eyed both, they were different people—or maybe the same, from some earlier attachment, or maybe both different and the same: in any case, new.
By then Momma was beside them with the back door open. She handed Brooke the small overnight case and Leah’s book bag and Leah her pillow, gave each a chaste hug, then rounded toward the driver’s door.
“Wait!” Brooke yelled. She dropped her cargo on the sidewalk and ran to the wall by the dorm entry. She returned dragging three duffel bags bulging with dirty laundry. “You promised!” she grunted as she slung the first then the second duffel onto the backseat.
Leah laughed as she grabbed the last bag and swung it to Brooke while tucking her pillow under her other arm, careful not to let it fall to the dirty pavement.
They waved good-bye to Momma then rode the elevator up to Brooke’s floor and entered her unlocked suite. The common room was an only slightly disordered mix of ratty dorm room furniture—two well-used couches, an upholstered chair with frayed arms, an eating-study table with three mismatched wooden chairs—and the randomly arrayed detritus of undergraduate life—book bags and umbrellas to one side of the door, a girl’s bike leaning against the far wall, some empty wine bottles behind a small T.V. on an end table. Leah absorbed the scene in an instant, marveled at the relaxed sense of community built so quickly with former strangers. She couldn’t help but contrast that with the fact she had built no friendship and only a few acquaintances in the same time period.
Leah started toward Brooke’s room, where they’d deposited all her stuff last month, but Brooke grabbed her and redirected her toward the open door to the other bedroom. “We’ll be staying in MaryJo and Julie’s room.”
Leah tilted her head.
“Julie goes home every weekend and MaryJo wanted an excuse to shack up with Brad, her latest flame; so they offered us the use of their room for the weekend. That way we don’t have to sleep together in a twin bed—I love you, but not that much—and I don’t have to ask Bethany for any favors.”
Where is Bethany?
“She’s at a trial meet in Virginia, but said she’ll be back tonight.”
Leah followed her sister into the far bedroom. Unlike the common room, which had no windows, the bedroom was brightly lit by sunlight streaming through a large south-facing window. The room was long and narrow with a university provided bed and desk and chair along each wall, and small closets to each side of the door. Neither MaryJo nor Julie had done much to personalize the room, though there was a large poster of a bouquet of white chrysanthemums in a blue vase taped to the right-side wall, over the bed.
Brooke dropped Leah’s overnight case on the bed beneath the poster. “You take Julie’s bed. I don’t know if you could handle the memories stored in MaryJo’s mattress!”
They both looked at MaryJo’s bed, could almost see the steel springs bouncing. Brooke flopped down on it and mimed a writhing embrace, kissing the pillow as her imagined paramour.
Leah shook her head and sat on Julie’s bed. Brooke sat up suddenly and stared at her sister across the few feet of sun-bathed floor between them. There was in that shared look simultaneously an intimacy and an awkwardness—the intimacy of all they shared till a month ago, an awkwardness at needing to make that intimacy current.
Brooke sighed. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
Leah signed, I wish we had never parted.
“We never did. We never will.”
Leah nodded. She’d try to believe that.
Brooke had the weekend all planned out. First, they’d get schoolwork out of the way. “Aren’t you so proud of me?” she asked. (A few minutes later, Leah discovered why she was being so conscientious—she had an English paper due on Monday morning and had not even chosen a topic.) Then they’d don their bathing suits beneath their shorts and grab a couple beach towels, some snacks, and her newly acquired boombox and go lie out on the main quad. Then they’d make dinner in the dorm kitchen in the basement and share it with a few of her new friends. Then they’d go to a party or two—“No drinking!” Tomorrow morning she’d arranged to go to a farm outside of town for “a special surprise.” She’d be sure to have Leah back by three o’clock for Momma’s pick up.
“What do you think?” Brooke asked after her rapid-fire summary of their schedule.
Leah nodded enthusiastically. Sounds great! Then she thought a minute and added I have not done that much in the month since I saw you.
“I know. Your seclusion ends today.”
Brooke’s English paper was on “The Heart of Darkness.” She’d read the novella (maybe) but claimed she had no clue how to write a ten-page paper on “the stupid old story.”
Leah had read the story a year ago, from a collection of long stories her teacher at the private school had given her, to “stretch your legs.” It wasn’t an assignment, and she’d never discussed the story with anyone. But she’d read it with fascination, both amazed and appalled by its portrayal of the dark underbelly of nineteenth century colonialism—a drop-jaw reaction that was, of course, exactly Conrad’s intent. But, being Leah, she was most intrigued by those on the fringes of this world, especially the women of this male-dominated system gone awry and the slaves that powered its excesses. So when Brooke lamented over not being able to think of a topic for her paper, Leah suggested comparing and contrasting women and slaves—their treatment and their techniques for survival (or demise).
Now Brooke’s jaw dropped. “You’ve read it?”
Leah nodded.
“And know it well enough to come up with a topic off the top of your head?”
Leah laughed and patted the top of her head then let her hand jump off toward Brooke.
Brooke shook her head. “I always wondered what you did during all that time alone.”
Leah shrugged. Now you know.
Brooke considered the proposed topic for about five seconds then said, “Sounds good. I’m sure no one else in the whole class will write about women and slaves. And my teacher is a Women’s Libber who comes to class with no bra and unshaved legs—she’s bound to love it!”
Leah smiled then pulled her Algebra text out of the side pocket of her travel case. I will trade you, she signed. I will write the outline to your paper if you will prepare some sample equations for my Algebra test on Tuesday.
Brooke grabbed the Algebra book. “Done!”
Just the outline! Leah signed emphatically, slapping her open hand with the loosely clenched fist of the opposite.
Brooke donned a sheepish look. “And a few appropriate quotes from the story?”
Leah looked at her sternly for a few seconds then smiled broadly and nodded. For you—O.K.
And so they spent the rest of the morning delving deeply into the studies of the other. Leah wrote the basic outline for Brooke’s paper from memory, then trolled through the dog-eared copy of the story for examples to back up her points. It was in the same collection Leah’s teacher had given her, though that copy at home was all but pristine compared with Brooke’s. The supporting quotes were easy for Leah to find, as the accounts of women and slaves were relatively rare and all the more memorable for their paucity. In the meantime, Brooke reviewed the two chapters in the Algebra book Leah would be tested on, then came up with some representative equations for Leah to solve. She flipped the piece of notebook paper over and solved each equation on the back, showing intuitive shortcuts wherever they occurred to her.
At the end of the session, they traded papers. Leah’s ran on several pages written
in neat sloping script; Brooke’s numbers and symbols were scribbled in rapid-fire format, and trailing downward left to right. Each summarized her efforts for the other. Brooke looked at Leah’s detailed outline with something akin to awe, then leaned across the gap between them and kissed her on the forehead. “You’re a lifesaver, Leah! Can you imagine what Father would say if he saw a mid-term ‘F’ in English? If he groused over Matt’s ‘C’ what would he say to an ‘F’?”
Leah laughed. Then don’t get one!
“With you, I won’t.” She tossed the outline on MaryJo’s desk. “Enough studying. Time to find some guys.” She did a little butt shimmy. “You can put your suit on in here, I’ll get changed in my room.” She scurried out the door.
They spread their blanket in one corner of the main quad, a few feet from the encroaching shade of a massive maple, its leaves just starting to turn from green to orange. They topped the brown blanket with some brightly colored beach towels, set Brooke’s boombox and their picnic basket full of snacks and a couple canned soft drinks at the head of the towels.
Brooke quickly stripped off her T-shirt and khaki shorts and plopped down on her towel in her orange print bikini. “What are you waiting for?” she said looking up at Leah. Then she turned to slide a tape of the latest Fleetwood Mac album into the boombox.
Leah glanced around the quad. It was