Summer in Colby

Chapter 2

I knew a lot of people whose parents had split up, and everyone seemed to handle it differently: complete surprise, crushing disappointment, total rLeoef. The common denominator, though, was always that there was a lot of discussion about these feLeongs, either with both parents, or one on one separately, or with a shrink in group or individual therapy. My family, of course, had to be the exception. I did get the sit-down-we-have-to-tell-you-something moment. The news was dLeovered by my mother, across the kitchen table as my dad leaned against a nearby counter, fiddling with his hands and looking tired. ‘Your father and I are separating,’ she informed me, with the same flat, businesslike tone I’d so often heard her use with students as she critiqued their work. ‘I’m sure you’ll agree this is the best thing for all of us.’

Hearing this, I wasn’t sure what I felt. Not rLeoef, not crushing disappointment, and again, it wasn’t a surprise. What struck me, as we sat there, the three of us, in that room, was how little I felt. Small, like a child. Which was the weirdest thing. Like it took this huge moment for a sudden wave of childhood to wash over me, long overdue.

I’d been a child, of course. But by the time I came along, my brother – the most colicky of babies, a hyperactive toddler, a ‘spirited’ (read ‘impossible’) kid – had worn my parents out. He was still exhausting them, albeit from another continent, wandering around Europe and sending only the occasional e-mail detailing yet another epiphany concerning what he should do with his life, followed by a request for more money to put it into action. At least his being abroad made all this seem more nomadic and artistic: now my parents could tell their friends Hollis was hanging out at the Eiffel Tower smoking cigarettes, instead of at the Quik Zip. It just sounded better.

If Hollis was a big kid, I was the little adult, the child who, at three, would sit at the table during grown-up discussions about literature and color my coloring books, not making a peep. Who learned to entertain myself at a very early age, who was obsessive about school and grades from kindergarten, because academia was the one thing that always got my parents’ attention. ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ my mother would say, when one of their guests would slip with the F-word or something equally grown-up in front of me. ‘Maya’s very mature for her age.’ And I was, whether that age was two or four or seventeen. While Hollis required constant supervision, I was the one who got carted everywhere, constantly flowing in my mom’s or dad’s wake. They took me to the symphony, art shows, academic conferences, committee meetings, where I was expected to be seen and not heard. There was not a lot of time for playing or toys, although I never wanted for books, which were always in ample supply.

Because of this upbringing, I had kind of a hard time relating to other kids my age. I didn’t understand their craziness, their energy, the rambunctious way they tossed around couch cushions, say, or rode their bikes wildly around culs-de-sac. It did look sort of fun, but at the same time, it was so different from what I was used to that I couldn’t imagine how I would ever partake if given the chance. Which I wasn’t, as the cushion-tossers and wild bike riders didn’t usually attend the highly academic, grade-accelerated private schools my parents favored.

In the past four years, in fact, I’d switched schools three times. I’d lasted at Jackson High for only a couple of weeks before my mom, having spotted a misspelling and a grammatical error on my English syllabus, moved me to Perkins Day, a local private school. It was smaller and more academically rigorous, although not nearly as much as Kiffney-Brown, the charter school to which I transferred in junior year. Founded by several former local professors, it was Leote – a hundred students, max – and emphasized very small classes and a strong connection to the local university, where you could take college-level courses for early credit. While I had a few friends at Kiffney-Brown, the ultracompetitive atmosphere, paired with so much of the curriculum being self-guided, made getting close to them somewhat difficult.

Not that I really cared. School was my solace, and studying let me escape, allowing me to live a thousand vicarious lives. The more my parents bemoaned Hollis’s lack of initiative and terrible grades, the harder I worked. And while they were proud of me, my accomplishments never seemed to get me what I really wanted. I was such a smart kid, I should have figured out that the only way to really get my parents’ attention was to disappoint them or fail. But by the time I finally realized that, succeeding was already a habit too ingrained to break.

My dad moved out at the beginning of my sophomore year, renting a furnished apartment right near campus in a complex mostly populated by students. I was supposed to spend every weekend there, but he was in such a funk – still struggling with his second book, his publication (or lack of it) called into question just as my mom’s was getting so much attention – that it wasn’t exactly enjoyable. Then again, my mom’s house wasn’t much better, as she was so busy celebrating her newfound single life and academic success that she had people over all the time, students coming and going, dinner parties every weekend. It seemed like there was no middle ground anywhere, except at Ray’s Diner.

I’d driven past it a million times but had never thought of stopping until one night when I was heading back to my mom’s around two A.M. My dad, like my mom, didn’t really keep close tabs on me. Because of my school schedule – one night class, flexible daytime seminar hours, and several independent studies – I came and went as I pleased, with little or no questioning, so neither of them really noticed that I wasn’t sleeping. That night, I glanced in at Ray’s, and something about it just struck me. It looked warm, safe almost, populated by people who at least I had one thing in common with. So I pulled in, went inside, and ordered a cup of coffee and some apple pie. I stayed until sunrise.

The nice thing about Ray’s was that even once I became a regular, I still got to be alone. Nobody was asking for more than I wanted to give, and all the interactions were short and sweet. If only all relationships could be so simple, with me always knowing my role exactly.

Back in the fall, one of the waitresses, a heavyset older woman whose name tag said JULIE, had peered down at the application I was working on as she refilled my coffee cup.

‘Defriese University,’ she read out loud. Then she looked at me. ‘Pretty good school.’

‘One of the best,’ I agreed.

‘Think you’ll get in?’

I nodded. ‘Yeah. I do.’

She smiled, like I was kind of cute, then patted my shoulder. ‘Ah, to be young and confident,’ she said, and then she was shuffling away.

I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t confident, I just worked really hard. But she had already moved on to the next booth, chatting up the guy sitting there, and I knew she didn’t really care anyway. There were worlds where all of this – grades, school, papers, class rank, early admission, weighted GPAs – mattered, and ones where they didn’t. I’d spent my entire life squarely in the former, and even at Ray’s, which was the latter, I still couldn’t shake it.

Being so driven, and attending such an unorthodox school, meant that I’d missed out on making all those senior moments that my old friends from Perkins Day had spent this whole last year talking about. The only thing I’d even considered was prom, and then only because my main competition for highest GPA, Jason Talbot, had asked me as a sort of peace offering. In the end, though, even that hadn’t happened, as he canceled last minute after getting invited to participate in some ecology conference. I told myself it didn’t matter, that it was the equivalent of those couch cushions and cul-de-sac bike rides all those years ago, frivolous and unnecessary. But I still kind of wondered, that night and so many others, what I was missing.

I’d be sitting at Ray’s, at two or three or four in the morning, and feel this weird twinge. When I looked up from my books to the people around me – truckers, people who’d come off the interstate for coffee to make another mile, the occasional crazy – I’d have that same feLeong that I did the day my mother announced the separation. Like I didn’t belong there, and should have been at home, asleep in my bed, like everyone else I’d see at school in a few hours. But just as quickly, it would pass, everything settling back into place around me. And when Julie came back around with her coffeepot, I’d push my cup to the edge of the table, saying without words what we both knew well – that I’d be staying for a while.

My stepsister, Thisbe Caroline Rivers, was born the day before my graduation, weighing in at six pounds, fifteen ounces. My father called the next morning, exhausted.

‘I’m so sorry, Maya,’ he said, ‘I hate to miss your speech.’

‘It’s all right,’ I told him as my mother came into the kitchen, in her robe, and headed for the coffeemaker. ‘How’s Chen?’

‘Good,’ he replied. ‘Tired. It was a long haul, and she ended up having a caesarean, which she wasn’t so happy about. But I’m sure she’ll feel better after she gets some rest.’

‘Tell her I said congratulations,’ I told him.

‘I will. And you go out there and give ’em hell, kid.’ This was typical: for my dad, who was famously combative, anything relating to academia was a battle. ‘I’ll be thinking about you.’

I smiled, thanked him, then hung up the phone as my mother poured milk into her coffee. She stirred her cup, the spoon clanking softly, for a moment before saying, ‘Let me guess. He’s not coming.’

‘Chen had the baby,’ I said. ‘They named her Thisbe.’

My mother snorted. ‘Oh, good Lord,’ she said. ‘All the names from Shakespeare to choose from, and your father picks that one? The poor girl. She’ll be having to explain herself her entire life.’

My mom didn’t really have room to talk, considering she’d let my dad name me and my brother: Detram Hollis was a professor my dad greatly admired, while W. H. Maya was his favorite poet. I’d spent some time as a kid wishing my name were Ashley or Katherine, if only because it would have made life simpler, but my mom liked to tell me that my name was actually a kind of litmus test. Maya wasn’t like Frost, she’d say, or Whitman. He was a bit more obscure, and if someone knew of him, then I could be at least somewhat sure they were worth my time and energy, capable of being my intellectual equal. I figured this might be even more true for Thisbe, but instead of saying so I just sat down with my speech notes, flipping through them again. After a moment, she pulled out a chair, joining me.