Passage I

PROSE FICTION: This passage is adapted from She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb (©1992 by Wally Lamb).

On the second page of the Merton College catalog was a photograph of Hooten Hall, its parking lot full of gaping trunks and smiling freshmen, cars clogging the lawns, fathers hefting footlockers. Here, in person, was the same parking lot, the same white birch trees-only deserted and still. I put down my suitcases on the front step and tried the doorknob again.

One of two things was happening. Either Merton College had folded over the summer and been too cheap to spend a stamp to tell me, or the other girls had seen me struggling up the long flight of steps and locked the door. I imagined them huddling on all fours beneath the windowsill, giggling. Either way, I reasoned, I'd given college a fair chance and was now free to trudge back to the station and purchase bus tickets that would land me back in Easterly, my obligation to Ma fulfilled.

I took a quarter out of the trenchcoat pocket and tapped it against the glass. "Hey?" I said, barely louder than a speaking voice. "Excuse me?"

To my horror, someone appeared.

She stopped, squinted out, then walked toward me with a jumble of keys. My breath caught. Locks unsnapped. The door yawned open. This would end badly, I knew.

"What?" she said.

"I'm new," I answered. "A new freshman."

"Yeah?"

"Dolores Price? This is my dorm. Are you the house mother or something?"

She let go a snort of laughter. "I'm the 'or something.' You're a little early, ain't you?"

"I got this letter that said we should arrive some where between ten and four. It's ten after four...."

"Between ten and four next Thursday."

"I'm sure I have the right date."

"You can come in and put your stuff down for a minute, but you ain't supposed to be here until next week."

"Look, I have the right day. I can prove it."

"You do that then," she said. "But hurry up. I got work to do."

Once you left Easterly, you saw the world was full of these people: ticket sellers, snack-bar clerks. They assumed they were better than you just because they knew their own routines.

She led me into a shabby lounge area and clicked a pole-lamp switch.

On the long bus trip down, I'd counseled myself on the dignity of remaining a private person. Now here I was, displaying the entire contents of my opened suitcases, forced to prove that I was right and they were wrong.

"I'm sure I've got that letter here," I insisted.

The Merton College literature was in a side pocket. Though the date on the page kept jumping, kept blurring from my tears, I saw that she was right. For a month and a half, I'd mistakenly fixed on the wrong date.

"Oh, this is just great!" I said. I stared up hard at the ceiling. "Now what am I supposed to do?"

"Go home," she said. "Come back in a week."

"Where do you suppose I live—down the street?"

My eyes met hers. That smug look was gone.

"Ordinarily I'd say call campus security and see what he says, but he's on vacation this week."

"Oh, terrific," I said. "I've just been on a bus for ten hours. Now I have to turn around and go back. If I'm lucky. If they even have a bus going back to Rhode Island tonight."

"Like I said, I got work. I'm lockin' up at fivethirty." She thumped down the hall, eyes to the floor.

For half an hour I sat in the lounge. The long bus ride had exhausted me. I couldn't even manage to get off the sofa.

When she came back, she was wearing a white nylon windbreaker with "Dahlia" embroidered on the pocket. She was carrying a flashlight.

"I been thinkin'," she said. "For the time being, just for tonight because it's gettin' late, I guess I could let you stay here. Just don't put any lights on. Use this instead." She handed me the flashlight. "I looked you up. Dolores, right? You're in two-fourteen. There's mattresses there, but there ain't any sheets. If the town cops see lights, they'll stop and look. I don't want any trouble."

I wasn't crazy about this idea, but all I'd have to do was sit in the dark and breathe. "Okay," I said. "I guess that's what I'll do. Thanks."

"I'd let you stay at my house," she said, "but my brother's home this weekend. Here." She wrote her telephone number on my Merton letter. "Pay phone's around the corner. If you have any trouble, you can call me."

"Dahlia?" I said.

She looked puzzled, then held a finger up to the embroidered name. "This was somebody else's," she said. "Someone who used to live here. Left half her stuff here when she graduated. I'm Dottie. So, if you want to give me a ring, I'll be there, Just call. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Okay then. See you tomorrow. I don't have to come in on Saturday, but I will."