“We are serious about this, Beth. If you can’t get your act together, that’s it. Say goodbye to the dorms. We won’t pay for them. You’ll live here and commute to L.A. with your dad. And if you can’t handle that, we’ll stop paying for your college, too.” My mother folded her arms.
I thought about my puny bank account, fed by a weekly allowance and summer jobs. If my parents cut me off, I wouldn’t have enough money to pay for a quarter in the dorms. I looked wordlessly at my mother, terrified. The prospect of going to college and getting away from them was the only thing keeping me sane. What if I had to stay here, with no escape hatch?
“You have to earn your right to go to college, Beth.” My father spoke with slow intensity. “You need to show us that you are committed to it. If you disregard rules, it’s clear you’re not ready for this level of responsibility.”
I couldn’t zone out on this conversation anymore. If I didn’t do what they said, my whole life would end. I was so panicked that I couldn’t figure out what exactly they were threatening. Had they already decided to cut me off? Were they saying I couldn’t go to college at all, or that I couldn’t live in the dorms? Everything I’d depended on was being yanked away.
Putting on my good daughter face, I nodded vigorously. “I understand.”
“I want to believe you, but you’ve let us down so many times.” My father sounded sorrowful. “How are we supposed to trust you after the way you’ve acted?”
This was the problem with tuning in to what my parents said during one of these sessions. At a certain point, it was impossible to know what they were upset about. Obviously they wouldn’t nuke my college education for not wearing shoes in the house. But I hadn’t left the house without permission before, so I didn’t understand the “so many times” part. Tess said my father was mentally ill, but that was hard to believe when he sat right in front of me with my mother agreeing with him. They both sounded so rational. I searched my mind for other crimes I might have committed, infractions so huge they added up to the punishment of taking college away. Was it possible they secretly knew about all the shows I went to with Lizzy over the past year? The abortion? Had I done something I didn’t remember?
Tears burned down my cheeks before I could help myself. If I tried to speak my voice would tremble so much it would be an additional humiliation. So I sat silently as my father painstakingly explained how I was a nothing who deserved nothing. If I didn’t pay attention, if I disappeared into the opening of the ancient Machine, I might incur further penalties. I had no choice but to take it all in. Every single word.
In the movies, going off to college is this tearful farewell with the parents forcing their kids to take bags of cookies and saying things like, “Don’t forget to write!” My parents said nothing on the drive from Irvine to Los Angeles. My mother had prepared a list in her tidy handwriting, reiterating our new rules and agreements. I would call them every night from the dorm phone to prove that I wasn’t going out; I would send them Xeroxed copies of all my syllabi so they could track my assignments; I had to earn straight As. Before I got out of the car, I had to sign the checklist. My mom had gotten this idea from one of her books about dealing with “problem students.”
My father helped carry luggage up to the dorm room I’d be sharing with another girl. When we arrived, my new roommate was standing in the middle of the room, eyeing the bunk bed.
Immediately, she gave us a big smile. “Hi, roomie! I’m Rosa Sanchez, from Salinas. Do you care whether you get top or bottom? Because I don’t care.” Her black hair was cut into a short wedge that flopped over the shaved back of her head. I liked her instantly.
“Hi! I’m Beth Cohen. From Irvine. I like the top.”
“Done! This must be your dad?”
My father put some bags carefully on the floor. “No.”
She glanced at me uneasily. “Okay, well, nice to meet you!”
My father ignored Rosa. “Beth, remember our agreement.”
“I will.”
He turned his back to leave without saying goodbye. I looked out the dirty window, straining to glimpse my parents driving away. But all I could see was a distant courtyard, surrounded by more residence halls.
“Was that your uncle or something?” Rosa was unpacking clothes and books on the lower bunk.
“It was my dad. He just doesn’t like to say that for some reason.”
“Parents are so weird.”
“Yeah.” I laughed, glad there was an easy way to frame that conversation as if it were a wacky moment from a teen comedy. “They really are. You never know what they’re going to do next.”
Rosa and at least a dozen other students on our floor were also in my chemistry class. Everyone said it was one of UCLA’s most terrifying weeder classes, jammed with so much information that only a tiny handful of people got higher than a C-plus. And it was almost impossible to ask questions. Weeders were taught in auditoriums that held hundreds of students, and were seemingly intended entirely to dissuade the vast majority of us from majoring in science.
At least that made it easy to avoid Lizzy. I spotted her once across the room, but she was busy taking notes. I usually sat with Rosa and other people from the dorm. With so many of us crammed into the same classes, it was easy to study and socialize in packs. My days began to blur into a routine. Every night I stepped out of the student lounge, leaving my books under Rosa’s care, to call my parents on the pay phone in the hallway. Depending on my father’s mood, I was either on my way to scientific superstardom or on the precipice of doom. I tried to keep my voice steady and friendly, to obey all the rules. I kept picturing what would happen if they cut off my dorm payments. One day I’d find all my stuff in the hall and someone else in the top bunk.
But for now, I had a weeder class to deal with. The night before the chem midterm, it seemed like the whole fifth floor of Dykstra was freaking out and pulling an all-nighter with the help of coffee, NoDoz, sugary snacks, or meth. A woman snorting glittery powder off her physics textbook in the hallway shrugged at me. “What? It’s only speed. You want coke, you gotta go to the fancy dorms.”
Rosa and I stuck to cigarettes. After my nightly parent call, I grabbed a lighter and poked Rosa. “Let’s take a smoke break.” We took the elevator down to the butt-encrusted smoking area outside, trading questions about the differences between organic and inorganic acids. The midterm was in roughly fifteen hours, and it was definitely time to inhale some gas and particulates.
“Do you think you’re ready for the test?” I exhaled and flicked some ash in the general direction of the bin.
“Yeah. I’m pretty good with tests. That’s how I got into UCLA, you know?”
“What do you mean?”
“I got 1550 on my SATs.”
My eyes bulged. “Wow—that’s super good.”
“Yeah. It’s how I got my scholarship. But I still need to do work study to pay for everything.” She blew a smoke ring.
“What’s work study?”
“It’s like a financial aid thing. I work part time in the library and it helps pay for tuition and dorms or whatever.” She wouldn’t look at me. “I guess your parents pay for college, huh?”