High Hopes Page 4

  Riding in my taxi through New York’s packed city streets lulled my usual fear. With so much stimulation, how could anyone expect me to be aware of all the rules, much less follow them? My breath caught in my throat and my heart sped up—but not from tension.

  It was as if the city’s energy, its constant movement, was making its way into my veins and nerves. I felt alive, in a way I couldn’t remember feeling in ... well, a long time. Maybe forever. The trepidation that had lived inside me forever slipped away just a little. I wondered, hopefully: Maybe I can be part of this mass of people. In a city teeming with strangers, maybe I wouldn’t feel so alone.

  We pulled over at Amsterdam Avenue. My driver hadn’t ever turned to face me. All I knew of him was that he had glossy black hair framing a shiny bald dome.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  “You wanted Columbia University, right?” He gestured abruptly. “There’s the Arts and Crafts Beer Parlor. And over there is Hamilton Hall.”

  I had tried to memorize the campus map, but couldn’t remember Hamilton Hall. Was Hamilton near the dorms? I considered asking him to circle around so I could get a better sense of where I was, but he cleared his throat by way of hurrying me up.

  This was New York. You get out of your car as quickly as possible.

  “Here,” I handed him the wad of cash I had carefully budgeted for my one and only taxi ride until graduation. “And do you happen to know where I could find—?”

  “No.”

  “Okay.” I grabbed my two duffel bags and hoisted them on my shoulder. “Well, thanks.” I opened the door, then attempted to drag my suitcase out from under the seat.

  “Hurry up, miss.”

  He was already looking in his rearview mirror, signaling to get back into traffic. I sensed he was intent on zooming off the instant he found a gap in the traffic, whether or not some part of me remained in his vehicle. I dragged the suitcase out and collapsed backwards onto the street, landing on my butt, the suitcase springing open and scattering my belongings to the sidewalk.

  A middle-aged dog walker with three yapping chihuahuas stepped around my bags, glaring down at me with a special look of derision.

  Scrambling onto my knees, I reached up and slammed the door shut.

  The driver sped off, narrowly missing another cab as he merged into his lane.

  I sucked in a breath. It tasted like diesel fumes.

  So much for feeling one with everything. For a few minutes, I’d felt part of New York’s vibrancy, but I realized I was going to have to find a new pace, lot faster than I was used to, if I was going to keep up.

  I stood. Lifting my suitcase by the handle, I allowed myself a brief look around. Over there was a quad, a grassy oasis in the teeming city. Surrounding it were massive buildings, historical, practically oozing with intellectual promise.

  Hopefully, once I got off the street and onto campus, I could find a map—or a nice passing student. Plus, asking for directions might help me with my apparently needed “interpersonal skills.”

  Under the weight of my luggage, I staggered onto campus. The roar of Manhattan life grew muted almost at once. Luckily, Columbia had anticipated shy students like me. Or they were just extremely organized. There was a campus map, but before I’d even reached it, I saw brightly colored cardboard signs: ‘MOVE IN DAY FOR NEW STUDENTS! FOLLOW THE PURPLE ARROWS!’

  Even without the signs, I probably could’ve deduced where to go by following the hordes of excited teens and frantic parents.

  Witnessing a mom wipe a tear from her eyes with the back of her hand reminded me of my own folks for a second. Her son didn’t notice her; he was too busy looking at his phone, but she happened to lock eyes with me for a second. Caught, she smiled back at me. I forgot to grin back. By the time I remembered to be polite, she was gone.

  For a moment, I felt terribly lonely. All these other freshmen came accompanied by parents, brothers, and sisters—and here I was, all alone. I wished my mom and dad could be here with me. If they were here, my mom would’ve grabbed a cart and raced to keep up with the other mothers. My dad would’ve gotten lost behind, folding and unfolding the city map, suggesting places we could go sightseeing later—until my mom told him, “No, we’ll have time to sightsee tomorrow, but today’s all about Kelly and Columbia.”

  My dad would definitely have helped me unpack, though, all while rattling off trivia about the architecture, which he’d have dutifully researched the night before. Sprinkled between these nuggets of wisdom, he would still find time to try out a few corny jokes. I chuckled to myself, imagining my mother’s expression, annoyed but amused, and full of love.

  I have to stop wishing, I thought to myself, because I’d been doing that kind of wishing for quite a few years now, and it had never done me any good.

  Joining the crush, burdened by my luggage, I followed a girl my age who was pushing a cart full of bedding, toilet paper, and collapsible drawers. Her mom, in a black sweater and scarf, kept trying to put her hands on the cart as if to guide it. The girl’s dad, in suspiciously dark sunglasses, trailed behind, studying each building they passed.

  “Mom, I got it,” the girl said, pulling the cart away.

  “It has a dead wheel. I just want to make sure you don’t run it into anyone.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “Do you remember your hall name?”

  “It’s on the map.”

  The dad glanced over at me. This time I was quicker on the draw, offering the prim, close-lipped smile I save for professional encounters. When he didn’t return it, I slowed my step, realizing I was probably following too closely behind. I turned to watch other sets of families bustling along with their carts full of Bed, Bath & Beyond products. They all looked like so put together, as if they’d spent the summer preparing for an eerie apocalypse with color-coordinated survival supplies.

  The straps of my duffel bags burrowed into my shoulders, making me wince with pain. As ridiculous as my peers looked pushing metal carts, I desperately wanted one of my own. My suitcase kept turning on its side behind me, forcing me to halt every dozen steps to the annoyance of the parents and students behind me. Sweat ran down into my eyes. More than anything, I wanted to get to my room already, drop this stuff, and finally meet my roommate.

  My roommate. This mysterious person would soon be a major part of my life. Just trying to imagine her made my stomach tighten. Typically, my overactive brain had already run through multiple roommate scenarios, every one worse than the other. I pictured a snobby former cheerleader who immediately despised me for being so uncool. Another narrative featured a sociopath with eleven fingers who liked to torture normal ten-fingered girls for fun. In my less disturbed moments, I visualized a quiet, introspective genius who preferred solitude. Of course, me being me, I also pictured a female undercover agent secretly working for the CIA while posing as a Columbia University student. That one might have been my favorite.

  I approached a big sign at the entrance to the dorms with bold uppercase lettering: “WELCOME FRESHMEN TO YOUR NEW HOME!”

  Any lingering connection to the city vanished. Suddenly I was very, very aware of my singularity. The solo kid. The orphan. I felt myself surrounded by all those other kids with their stockpiles of necessities from Costco and IKEA. I imagined them thinking to themselves as they stared at me: Where are her parents?

  I must have been standing there like a goof because some proctor guy with a name badge stopped to ask me if I was lost. Embarrassed, I shook my head and got out of the way of the others streaming by.

  At last, I found myself at the steps of Hartley Hall. Putting my suitcase down, I gave my throbbing hand a rest and caught my breath. I peered up at the beautiful, stately building.

  This is it, I thought. My new home.

  For a long while, I stood there peering up through the windows. On the other side of the glass, kids and parents milled about, taped up posters, hung clothes, argued over where to eat lunch.

  Maybe
if I kept looking up, I could hold back my tears.

  * * *

  I paused outside my door, wondering which imaginary roommate would greet me on the other side. After counting to five in my head, I pushed open the door. The room was empty and much smaller than I’d imagined it would be.

  Whoever would share this space with me hadn’t yet arrived. Two striped, blue mattresses sat atop wooden frames. The bed farthest from me adjoined an open window, and the white walls looked freshly scrubbed, practically crying out for cheesy motivational posters and stick-on calendars.

  Allowing myself a moment to dream, I imagined how nice it would be to study on that bed and periodically look out the window to watch the falling leaves on the campus below. In my mind’s eye, all this space belonged to me alone. I could do whatever I liked, be as messy as I wanted—or just the opposite, construct a super-regimented system of tidiness and cleanliness so the windowsills gleamed and the floor was so immaculate you could eat off it.

  Shaking off such thoughts, I sighed and dropped my stuff on the other bed. I didn’t want to immediately mark my territory in some confrontational way. The last thing I wanted was to be perceived as a pushy, difficult roommate.

  I allowed myself a chuckle: Especially if my roomie turns out to be that CIA agent.

  I looked around some more. There were two identical desks, scuffed and well-worn. I couldn’t help wondering how many people had used them before us. A narrow bathroom occupied the space to the left. The bathroom contained nothing but a toilet scrubber and a chalky white soap slab beneath the mirror.

  I debated my options. I could unpack. I could explore. I thought about what else I had to do. My mental to-do list, usually so insistent, had oddly gone silent.

  As I rested upon a mattress in the middle of Columbia University, in the middle of a totally unfamiliar city, it hit me. I didn’t have to do anything. No one was holding me accountable for anything. If I didn’t want to unpack, I didn’t have to. If I wanted to live out of my suitcase, no one was going to tell me that was a sloppy way to live. I didn’t have any homework yet, no work assignments, no lectures or seminars to rush off to. I didn’t even have to check in with B.B.’s friend, the restaurant manager, until later in the week.

  Peering around, I suddenly felt paralyzed by this unusual feeling. Could freedom trap you? It seemed so weird to acknowledge this: permission to do anything, or nothing at all, could be liberating or terrifying—or both at once.

  Then again, I wasn’t entirely free. I had a schedule, starting tomorrow, of new-student activities. I did have a job to go to later this week, if B.B.’s friend liked me. In order to be self-sufficient, I needed to buy a bike to get around unless I wanted to waste my meager savings on transportation.

  After a few minutes, slightly embarrassed by my paralysis, I decided my first task needed to be searching for a used bicycle. I assumed there must be Wi-Fi in the dorm, but I didn’t know how to access it on the new Macbook B.B. had given me. So, I decided to find a computer in the Columbia library.

  I hastily unpacked, leaving plenty of space for my roommate’s stuff in the closet, then made my way to the library.

  The sun had disappeared behind a few clouds, and the campus felt cooler and more inviting with a soft early autumn breeze. In the intervening hour or so, much of the freshmen and their parents must have settled in, as I encountered fewer of them as I passed through the quad.

  Away from the dorms, I noticed older students who could be graduate students with backpacks heading in the same direction. The men sported more facial hair, and the women acted less giggly and nervous than the ones I’d seen earlier today.

  I imagined a sense of homesickness would soon return. After all, I was still me, wasn’t I? But now the buoyancy I’d experienced when I first saw the city returned. I felt weirdly light—happy, even. I wished Halmuni was here, sure, but it was exciting to say maybe, just maybe, I could do all this on my own.

  Standing outside the library, I craned my neck to see how far up it went. Palatial and regal, it looked like it could’ve been a part of the White House. Pushing open the glass doors, I felt like I shouldn’t touch anything inside.

  As I walked up and down stairs, through long aisles lined with shelves holding more books than I’d imagined existed in all the world, I breathed in the smell of newly printed pages, musty research books, and table cleaner. There were rows of wooden tables, chairs, and green-shaded lamps. I was certain I’d soon be at one of those tables.

  I noticed that the students I saw were leaning over their Mac laptops. Some even possessed two laptops, plus an iPhone in their laps. I hoped having three screens wasn’t a prerequisite for college success. I’d have to find another job if that were the case. As an avid reader, my usual instinct was to cock my head and read all of the vertical titles, but I reminded myself of my mission: Craigslist. Transportation. Cheap.

  I found an open spot next to a young man with short hair who was snoozing on his keyboard. Was this an omen for my next four years? Quietly as I could, I sat next to him, careful not to wake him, and pulled up the browser screen. First, it asked for my login credentials, automatically adding @columbia.edu on the side.

  I stared at the cursor, fingers poised on my keyboard. I could actually type my username and password and get Wi-Fi access. Because I was a student at Columbia University now. Columbia!

  Okay, okay. Enough patting myself on the back. I hadn’t actually accomplished anything yet. After successfully setting up my student account, I opened up Chrome and went to Craigslist, suddenly feeling self-conscious. Worried that the guy next to me might wake up, I tilted the monitor down and scooted closer. I typed in “bikes,” specified the local area, then adjusted the price to $150 maximum.

  NO RESULTS.

  I closed my eyes. I guess the people who warned me New York was pricier than LA were right. My education was starting earlier than expected. Luckily, I’d come prepared. Reaching in my back pocket, I grabbed the budget sheet I constructed on the plane.

  Each box represented a new expenditure. Increasing one meant I had to reduce another. It was like a painful game of Sudoku.

  Looking at the obsessively straight lines, I realized why B.B. advised me to lighten up and party more. Oh, well. Maybe one day my own law practice would thrive like his, and I wouldn’t have to create anal-retentive budget sheets.

  Modifying my bike budget to $200, I looked elsewhere to make a minus-$50 deduction: grocery shopping. I imagined an embarrassment of Cup O’ Noodles wrappers in my dorm trash can. So much for making a good impression on my new roommate.

  I lowered the grocery amount. College students don’t eat real food anyway.

  Online, I scrolled through various options for a $200 bike. Within seconds, I found a decent-looking one in a nice shade of magenta with black lines across the handles.

  I clicked, “Reply to Sender.”

  Just then, the young man beside me shook his head and sat up. I felt him look at me, but my eyes remained on the screen, typing quickly to the anonymous Craigslist seller.

  The smell of honey mustard wafted over. From the corner of my eye, I watched the guy drizzle the yellowish substance on his Cobb salad. Ugh. Though, this wasn’t exactly the food I’d eat or the place I’d dine, seeing him prepare his meal reminded me I hadn’t eaten in a while. I didn’t know if I had my cafeteria card yet, though. Maybe I could get a salad around here. I glanced at the guy’s plastic lid. The price sticker read $15.99. I stifled my gasp. Never mind.

  Now officially hungry, I reached in my bag and pulled out a Ziploc bag of edamame. The beans were warm and slimy by now, but I needed the protein—and I couldn’t deduct $15.99 from any more boxes today.

  While I tried to clandestinely munch on the green pods, I watched more and more students pass by, all maintaining the same expression of determination and worry. None of them seemed to be talking to each other. It was like they all knew socializing for even five minutes would undermine all their study goals
. I started to feel bad for them, until I realized that would be me in about five days.

  I looked up. The Craigslist seller had emailed me back. “I can do $180. Can you swing by tonight?”

  “Yes,” I typed. “I will be there in an hour.”

  Time to go meet another stranger in an even stranger place.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  If Halmuni knew I was about to meet a strange man from a Craigslist ad, she would’ve killed me before I got past the front door. Ever since what happened a few years ago, Halmuni obsessively scoured our local newspaper for reports of area murders, rapes, kidnappings, home invasions, and other violent crimes. She watched the local “Eyewitness News” obsessively like it was her own personal soap opera and kept a notepad by her recliner, ready to record any changes to the FBI’s “Top 10 Most-Wanted List.” Her mini-notebook, ironically covered in a rainbow font spelling out Every Day is Beautiful! barely moved from its spot beside our couch, where she wrote in it like a deranged diarist.

  Every day when I came home from school, she couldn’t wait to share the latest sensational news story with me. My friendly “hello” was met with, “You know who went missing today on news?” or “Did you hear about latest school shooting?” A backpack check usually followed.

  “How come you no keep two Mace?” she’d ask, going through my bag’s contents.

  “I think one Mace spray is enough, Halmuni.”

  “Tell that to dead girl I see on news.”

  One pepper spray wasn’t enough. She insisted I keep two containers into my purse. Thankfully, no one ever asked me about them. Halmuni would typically talk to me about whatever she just read in the newspaper or heard on the TV while I rummaged in the fridge. If the crime didn’t involve armed robbery, which still stung to hear about, I could usually tune her out. There is only so much bad news you can absorb before going numb.