“No.”
“Come on, Sis.” He tried to coax her. “I’ll loan you my car for four years.”
“I don’t want your car.” She wanted to know her brother would be safe, and he’d just obliterated that hope.
He sighed dramatically. “I guess I’ll take the bus and then a cab.” She knew he expected her to give in.
Dad drove Charlie to the airport. Mom closed herself in the master bedroom and didn’t come out all that day or that evening.
Three weeks later, Carolyn packed and tried to prepare herself to leave home.
Dad said Mom wasn’t up to taking her, and he had to work. Her grandmother would make sure she got settled.
Carolyn carried her things into the dorm. When everything had been put away in her small room, Oma suggested they go for a walk. “I’d like to see the campus before I leave.” They wandered for two hours along the walkways past great halls and through plazas. Oma wanted to see Sather Gate, the Bancroft Library, and the Campanile. “I would’ve given anything to attend a university like this. My father took me out of school when I turned twelve. He thought education was wasted on a girl.”
“You know more than most of the teachers I’ve met, Oma.”
Oma gave a short, humorless laugh. “You don’t give up just because someone says you can’t do something. Sometimes telling someone she can’t makes her want it all the more.”
Oma took Carolyn’s hand as they walked back to the old gray Plymouth. “Time for me to go.” Oma hugged her tightly and patted her cheek. “You’ll be learning from masters. Take advantage of every moment you have.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Your best is all anyone can ask.”
Carolyn kept her word. She attended every class, took voluminous notes, studied late into the night, turned in all her assignments on time, and passed her midterms.
Charlie made it through basic and came home on leave. He drove to Berkeley and took Carolyn over to San Francisco for a day. He’d changed since she’d last seen him. He didn’t say much about training, but pressed her for information about her classes, how she liked Berkeley, if she was finding her way okay. She said everything was fine, just fine.
They sat on a bench along Fisherman’s Wharf. Girls looked at Charlie as they walked by. He looked back at a few. She teased him. “Wishing your little sister wasn’t here?”
He laughed and said being locked up in a barracks for weeks on end tended to make a man appreciate the scenery more. “What about you, Sis? Having any fun?”
“Fun? I’m concentrating on keeping my head above water.”
“Oma said you made the dean’s list.”
Carolyn shrugged.
Charlie straightened and studied her. “You’ll make it, Carolyn. You’re a survivor.”
What about him? Would he make it? “I love you, Charlie. If anything happens to you…” She wondered if school was even important anymore.
He put his arm tight around her shoulders. She rested her head against him. He didn’t make any promises this time.
When Charlie dropped her off at the door, the resident manager asked to speak with her. Two students weren’t getting along. “You seem to get along with everybody. Would you mind trying another roommate?” Carolyn didn’t have the nerve to say no. The RM looked relieved.
Depressed, Carolyn went upstairs, bought a Coke from the vending machine, and settled down to study. The door burst open, banging into the closet. Without apology, a girl entered and swung a duffel bag off her shoulder, flinging it onto the striped bed. “Rachel Altman.” She extended her hand. “Since we’re now roommates, call me Chel.” She had a gravelly voice with an Eastern accent.
Startled, Carolyn shook hands. The girl had an arresting, if not beautiful, face framed by a mass of long, curling red hair held back by a woven leather headband with beaded tassels. She wore a white low-necked blouse that was nearly transparent and would have been indecent if not for the bangles and beads. A macramé belt with more beads held up skintight, brown corduroy, hip-hugging bell-bottom pants. Pulling her hand free, the girl dropped onto the bed and gave it a few experimental bounces. Her gold circle bracelets jangled. “Well, it ain’t the Waldorf.”
Carolyn stared, speechless. Chel looked Carolyn over, from her white Keds and socks to her ponytail. Her mouth tipped in a sardonic smile. “Let me guess. You’re an education major, primary education. Right?”
Carolyn confessed. “What about you?”
“Liberal arts, baby. I’m liberal, and I like art. Seemed a good choice at the time, though I’ve been thinking about changing it to psychology or sociology. Any -ology would do.”
“How did you guess mine?”
Chel’s smile turned sly. “I just looked around. All your notes in neat little piles, typed. Books lined up. No dust on your desk. Your bed is made. All you need is a shiny apple on your desk.” She flung herself backward onto the bed and put her hands behind her head. “And you’re wearing a bra! I’ll bet when you get dressed up, you wear a skirt and a nice sweater and pearls.” She muttered a curse and lunged up, startling Carolyn again. “Don’t worry, babe. I don’t bite. Not girls anyway.” She grinned broadly. “You look pretty uptight. You want some pot?” She laughed. “You should see your face. Haven’t tried it yet, have you?” She stood and headed for the door. “Let’s get out of here for a while, have coffee at the student union. I promise to be on my best behavior.” She dragged Carolyn. “Come on. Live a little.”
Carolyn forgot all about her studies.
Chel talked all afternoon. She seemed high on life-or something. She told Carolyn she’d grown up at the Waldorf, cared for by a well-paid but disinterested nanny while her even more disinterested daddy went off to make his millions, and her bored, disinterested mother went off to ski at Saint Moritz or buy more designer clothes in Paris. “Heaven knows where she is right now, and I couldn’t care less. They’re both capitalist pigs polluting the air we breathe.”
She had left New York City and come to Berkeley because “Berkeley is the center of the universe, babe. It’s where everything is happening! Haven’t you looked around at all? I want to be in the middle of it. Don’t you?”
Carolyn surprised herself and admitted she’d never had the courage to be in the middle of anything. “I’ve always found a way to blend in.”
“A skill I obviously don’t have.” When Chel laughed, people looked, and she didn’t care.
Carolyn had seen free spirits around the campus, but she’d never been this close to one. Chel was like an exotic bird with wild, colorful plumage who’d managed to escape from a zoo and find her way to Carolyn’s dorm room. Chel fascinated Carolyn and made her laugh.
Chel looked smug. “I think you and I are going to get along real well.”
She hardly saw Chel during the day, but they talked for hours when she returned from classes or wherever she’d gone. She brought pot back to the room. She put a wet towel against the bottom of the door and opened the window. “Come on, Caro. It’s not going to kill you.” Carolyn took a tentative puff. Chel laughed at her. “Inhale.” After a few drags, Carolyn found herself talking. Chel lounged on her bed and kept asking questions. When asked if she’d ever had sex, Carolyn told her about Dock. Chel stopped smiling.
Despite their vast difference in material resources, Carolyn found their backgrounds weren’t that different. Absentee parents who, when around, were still so preoccupied with their own problems and projects they were blind to anyone else. Of course, Mom and Dad had never been blind to Charlie. But then, Charlie was something special. She talked a lot about her brother.