First-Year Orientation, page 12
“So,” the unnamed girl said, crossing her arms. She wasn’t tall enough to be intimidating, but something about her posture in the center of the doorway made Mella think of a bouncer. “Are you just bringing her as a guest, Ri? Or is she interested in joining?”
“She didn’t even know about QuEEn until ten minutes ago,” Rianna said quickly. “But I figured she could come check it out and make up her own mind.”
“Okay,” the girl said, raising her eyebrow again. “That’s cool. But there’s one condition for entry that we base on guests’ answers to a single question.”
“Oh man,” Rianna muttered, and wrinkled her nose. “Forgot about this. Sorry, Mella.”
Mella felt her stomach fizz. On the roof of Reves Hall her head had been spinning, and now she felt a different kind of unsteady. Move on to being someone new, Rianna had said when they were standing up in the sky together. Maybe this was the first step to doing that. This was a club for queer college people—college an oasis she’d been struggling toward through the long desert of high school. But what if she got it wrong, this question that was supposed to tell her who she might be? A whole future struck out before she could even get her feet wet.
“Okay,” she said shakily. “I’ll try.”
“Good.” The girl nodded approvingly. “Here’s the question. And be honest. Ready?”
“R-ready.”
“How do you feel about leaf blowers?”
Mella thought she misheard her.
“I’m sorry, how do I feel about . . . ?”
“Leaf blowers.”
“Leaf blowers?”
“Yes.”
“Uh . . . leaf blowers. Well, I mean . . . they’re . . . obnoxious?” she said, trying to be honest. The truth was, she didn’t have feelings about leaf blowers, not really. “They’re loud . . . and . . . I don’t know, I’ve never used one. They seem kind of ridiculous, I guess? I mean, me and my dad always just raked . . .”
The girl beamed at her, her round cheeks lifting and revealing a smile like a mine of diamonds.
“Welcome,” she said, standing away from the doorway. “I’m Nia.”
Inside, the greenhouse smelled like soil and honey and the music was loud enough so that Rianna and Nia were nearly shouting as they gave Mella the tour.
“So . . . leaf blowers?” Mella said.
“They create more pollution than a car!” Nia yelled. “Every year leaf blowers use one-point-six billion gallons of gasoline and generate tens of millions of tons of carbon dioxide! Plus, they’re fucking obnoxious, like you said!”
“It was the leaf-blowing stuff that recruited me,” Rianna agreed, nodding. “They spew all kinds of carcinogens into the air! Fine particulates!”
They were passing close to the speakers, so any reply would have been drowned by the Chlöe song that was booming out. Mella was relieved. She didn’t know what a fine particulate was. Being a first year suddenly felt like a piece of spinach in her teeth. She didn’t see anyone else wearing the orientation shirt—maybe they had had the sense to change before going to a party. She’d been too wrapped up in Kendall. Letting go of Kendall, she reminded herself.
“What do you think of the greenhouse?” Rianna asked. It was a little quieter on this side of the party.
“It’s beautiful,” Mella said, gazing around admiringly. This she could be honest about. The glass of the greenhouse gave the party a fantastical feeling, and flowers were everywhere: planted, displayed, draped. “Where do all the flowers come from?”
“It’s been part of what QuEEn does since the beginning,” Nia answered. She looked around with an expression of contentment on her face. “We grow and nurture native plants and flowers with a special focus on the entomophilous ones.”
“We’re bug buddies.” Rianna grinned, leaning against the glass wall. “Without bugs, there are no humans.”
Nia’s smile transformed into a theatrical scowl.
“God, please don’t try to recruit people with bug buddies. It’s hard enough getting new members.”
The song transitioned into something fast and smooth that lit up Nia’s face like a firefly. Mella didn’t know the song, but the expression of pleasure on the other girl’s face was a sip of something cold and sweet.
“Dance,” Nia demanded, and before Mella or Rianna could reply, they were each being towed by their wrists to the center of the greenhouse, where people with teacups and saucers bounced and swayed.
The music washed over Mella as it had when they’d passed close by the speakers, and it didn’t matter that she didn’t know the song. The feeling of Nia’s hand on her wrist, warm and familiar, felt like an invitation into more than a dance. It was an invitation to continue what she’d started on the roof, with Rianna’s help: letting go of all the dances in the past. Dancing into a future. Or something.
But even as she let the music move through her legs and up into her hips, the past seemed to wrap its arms around her waist, dragging her back into a sad rhythm. Kendall at prom, slow dancing with her eyes closed and that dreaming smile on her lips. Even as the disco lights turned Nia’s cheekbones into rainbows, all Mella could think about was the one person she was supposed to be letting go of.
She waited for the song to change and then waved off Rianna and Nia, retreating to the bar, where she saw that everyone was getting their teacups. Behind it was a tall white man with his right hand holding a phone to his face and the left covering his other ear, and a light brown woman with fuchsia hair, who smiled when Mella approached.
“Ahh, we lured in a first year,” the woman said over the music, smiling a brilliant smile. “Pick your poison! All alcohol-free, obviously. It’s just tea. Brewed here by our students!”
She gestured at the selection of canisters, which all looked dark in the dance lights. They were labeled with a fancy script: TURMERIC BLEND. VANILLA CHAMOMILE. MOROCCAN MINT. BLACK ROSE. HIBISCUS. Mella’s heart clenched when she saw the last one. It must have registered on her face because the woman with the pink hair laughed.
“Not a tea person?” she said.
“Oh . . .” Mella said, finally looking up. “No, I . . . I actually love tea. I used to work in a tea shop . . . until . . .”
“Until?”
“Um . . . I worked there with my . . . friend. And we . . . we don’t . . . we no longer . . .”
“Ah, they kept the tea shop in the breakup,” the woman said, nodding knowingly.
“It wasn’t exactly a breakup,” Mella said quickly. Even now, with prom months and miles behind, she could remember the terrible sinking feeling in the moment after the kiss. That half breath frozen in time when Kendall had kissed her back, and all the stars in the sky had fallen into Mella’s eyes. Until Kendall yanked them out again.
“Breakups look a lot of different ways,” the woman said gently. Her eyes made Mella squirm, like she knew Mella’s whole story just by hearing her voice. “Are you in the Environmental Studies department? I’m Dr. Redsteer, the assistant chair.”
“Um, no, I’m actually in Family Studies,” Mella said, embarrassed. She also wasn’t quite sure what an assistant chair was. College things, she thought. So much she didn’t know. Her hometown had felt too small for her, but she also felt she’d been shrinking since the moment she stepped on this campus.
“That’s okay.” Dr. Redsteer smiled. “You can always change your mind. There’s environmentalism in family studies, too, anyway!”
“I started in nursing when I was in school,” the man beside her added, putting down his phone and joining the conversation. “Then the greenhouse started calling my name. It might just call yours, too.”
“I changed majors three times.” Dr. Redsteer laughed. “Seems like a hundred years ago, but I did some drifting. With some changes, you have to let the wind take it.”
But then she was frowning at something just over Mella’s shoulder, and a second later a white girl appeared at Mella’s side. Her tan skin first flashed dark purple in the lights, but when the light turned blue, it illuminated the tear running down her cheek.
“Gray,” Dr. Redsteer said. “What’s the matter?”
“Dr. Redsteer,” Gray said. She had a deep scratchy voice. “I . . . I messed up. I can’t find Berta.”
Mella watched Dr. Redsteer’s eyebrows shoot higher.
“Uh-oh,” she said. “Have you told Nia?”
“No,” the girl said quickly. “Not yet. I don’t know what to do.”
Mella stood awkwardly, trying not to stare at the crying girl. Kendall was the first girl she ever allowed herself to comfort when she cried—she wouldn’t dare put her arm around anyone else, wondering what they would wonder. Her history class had watched Schindler’s List, and when Mella cried, a girl named Peyton later teased, Oh, she does have feelings! Of course she did; there just wasn’t space for them to fly, between Kendall and the smallness of Renhill.
“You’ve checked all the labs?” Dr. Redsteer said seriously. “You know sometimes she finds a quiet corner when she’s nervous.”
“I’ve looked everywhere,” the girl said. “I’m really worried about her.”
“Let’s call Nia over—” Dr. Redsteer started, but Gray interrupted.
“No, no, please. Not yet. She’ll be so worried. I need to try . . .”
Her face fell as she searched for words.
“Have you checked the ornithophily garden?” Dr. Redsteer said, leaning across the bar so she could be heard without shouting. “I’ve heard Berta goes there from time to time.”
“No, I haven’t yet,” Gray said, eyes brightening. “I’ll go right now.”
She turned quickly, but Dr. Redsteer caught her with her voice.
“Take this one with you,” she said, gesturing with her chin. “You might need some help.”
Gray glanced uncertainly at Mella, who only just realized Dr. Redsteer had been referring to her.
“Me?”
The music changed again, and on the dance floor, Nia and Rianna and two boys were attempting to perform a complicated series of arm and leg movements to a Megan Thee Stallion song, everyone doubled over laughing. It was an older song, and even though Mella had never done the movements herself, she knew them all by heart. She had watched Kendall master it step by step, though she could never quite get the hair flip. God. Was life just going to be a never-ending series of open wounds? Every day discovering a new source of salt?
“I’ll come with you,” Mella said before Gray could tell her yes or no. The greenhouse and its tea and its music suddenly felt like she still had one foot in Renhill. Leaving the past in the past, she reminded herself, sometimes meant actually walking away from it. She followed Gray out of the greenhouse.
Outside, the humid night air seemed damper still with the dulling of the music. The farther away from the greenhouse Mella and Gray walked, the less it sounded like music and the more it sounded like a heartbeat.
“What’s your name?” Gray asked.
“Mella. And you’re Gray?”
“Yup.”
“What year are you?”
“Sophomore.”
“So is my roommate. Rianna.”
“Rianna Singh? You lucked out. She’s the best.”
“Does she know Berta?”
Gray took a deep shaky breath. All evidence of her tears had vanished, her jaw set. Mella got the feeling she wasn’t the kind of person who let strangers see her cry.
“Everybody knows Berta,” Gray answered. “She’s part of the department. She wasn’t even supposed to be on campus yet, but a few of us—Rianna, Mickey, Richard—came back early to prepare for the tea event. And Nia, obviously. God, she’s going to be so upset.”
She muttered this last part under her breath, so Mella didn’t reply to that.
“So she gets nervous?” she said instead. “And . . . hides out?”
“Yes.” Gray sighed. “She needs special attention sometimes. I was working on a”—she cast a sideways glance at Mella—“secret project with her. And we . . . may have gotten a little carried away. I at least need to find Berta before I tell Nia about . . . any of this.”
“What’s the secret project?”
Gray glanced at her again. Outside of the greenhouse’s disco lights, Mella could see her better: a face with strong bones, wide mouth, sleepy eyes. Her hair was honey colored and tousled. She looked like she spent every day outdoors and forgot what a mirror was for a week at a time. She was beautiful.
“Are you an eco major?” Gray said suspiciously.
Mella looked away quickly. The girl’s eyes were like high beams.
“Um, no. Maybe. Not yet. Not now.”
“Can’t tell you then,” Gray said firmly. Then stopped in her tracks. “Shit, we can’t go this way. We’d have to pass campus security.”
“Is that . . . bad?”
“Um . . .” Gray paused, calculating. She made a decision, then redirected her feet toward another path. Mella followed wordlessly. “Let’s just say that me and Berta had a conversation with them earlier today and they . . . well. They will probably be wondering where Berta is, too. And she’s not the most popular figure on campus.”
“Oh,” Mella said. “I mean, does she even know you’re looking for her?”
Gray blew out a heavy breath.
“Who even knows what’s going on in Berta’s head. So, um, where are you from?”
“Nowhere.” Mella shrugged. “It’s called Renhill. Small town in Kentucky.”
“I know somebody from Renhill.”
“What? Seriously?”
“No, not at all.” Gray laughed quietly. “Never heard of it. I’m from Maryland. Why’d you come here?”
“Honestly?”
“Yeah. I’m not on the admissions board. Plus, whatever. You’re already in.”
Gray led them around a cluster of low brick buildings. There was more music coming from different directions—splinter cells of welcome parties. Mella wondered if QuEEn was the only one serving tea. She never liked the taste of alcohol, but how was she ever going to drink fancy teas again without thinking of Kendall?
“I came here because it was the farthest my parents would let me apply,” Mella admitted. “I wanted to go to a city, but my parents don’t trust them. Said you can’t rely on anyone to take care of you.”
“Yeah, small towns always do a great job of that,” Gray said as she stepped over a low row of shrubs, and Mella almost stumbled, surprised by the sharpness of the other girl’s sarcasm.
“Right?” Mella cried. “Small doesn’t mean close. Small doesn’t mean safe.”
“In a small town, a whisper is a shout,” Gray agreed. “Sometimes the shout means everyone knows you need help. Sometimes it’s just . . . shouting.”
“I always felt like there was no room for me in Renhill,” Mella said. She glanced sideways at Gray, her heartbeat stammering. Gray was in QuEEn, which meant, Mella assumed, she was queer. Mella had a feeling her own parents knew she was gay. But it went unmentioned, unexplored. It was, for them—for her—like a tag on a shirt. Keep it tucked in. But here . . .
Mella ventured on slowly, clumsily. “Like, everything was just too . . . tight. Being . . . being queer in Renhill was like . . . being wisdom teeth? Growing in with no space at all.”
Gray had quickened her pace now, and ahead Mella could see the outline of what must be the garden. She didn’t see any people, though—if Berta wasn’t there, she wondered if Gray would invite her to keep searching.
“Well, you had some space,” Gray said. “Like, they made space for your whiteness, for example.”
Mella blinked.
“What?”
“I mean, you’re white, and if Renhill is like most small towns in its region, it’s probably pretty white, too. So I assume you didn’t get any pushback on that part. So they made space for part of you, just not all of you.”
They were approaching a gate, where an entry pad’s tiny blue light glowed. Gray turned her back on the gate and pressed her butt against the pad. Its light turned green.
“Eco majors get an access card,” she said, patting the wallet in her back pocket.
“Does Berta have one?” Mella asked as they entered the shadowy garden. She didn’t see anyone on the gravel walking path that wound through the dark shapes of flowers and bushes. Now that she was here, she sort of wished she wasn’t. The idea of Renhill making space for her in ways she didn’t see left her feeling like she’d picked up a glass to drink water and tasted gasoline.
But Gray didn’t hear her . . . she was already moving down the gravel path, slowly and quietly.
“Berta,” she called. “Berta, are you in here?”
Mella followed her, feeling like she should call, too, but wondering what she would do if she found her first. Berta would probably wonder why the hell a random girl she’d never met was calling her name. Instead, Mella scanned the parts of the garden that weren’t swallowed in shadow. The moon was high now but not quite full—like a sand dollar partially eroded by salt water. Kendall loved the ocean—in seventh grade, Mella made her an anklet with shells. Mella had loved her even then. Jesus, she thought. I can’t even look at the moon without . . .
Then from far ahead on the path, she heard Gray shout.
“Mella! I found her! I need your help, oh my god!”
Mella’s eyes snapped down from the moon, and she took off running toward the sound of Gray’s voice. Her heart was pounding, and her mind immediately raced to all the things her parents warned about: drugs, rape, alcohol, hazing. All the reasons they didn’t want her in a college in the city, where they believed all these things were infinitely worse. She wondered now if the city was a scapegoat. Where you are doesn’t matter, she realized as she dashed down the path. Everything is everywhere. Just like Kendall.
It was dark ahead, but she could hear the sound of Gray’s breath, and maybe the sound of her crying, too. Mella rounded the corner, flinching when a few low branches whipped her cheek. She found Gray in the shadows on the ground, arms around a white body, pulling, foot braced against the fence.
“She squeezed through the damn bars, but she’s stuck,” Gray panted, glancing over her shoulder at where Mella stood frozen. “If you can hop over and push her through . . .”
