“I want you to have fun at college,” she said.
“Sure,” Alice said. Her hands were sweating—they did that when she was nervous—and she wiped them on her shorts.
“You didn’t have enough fun in high school. I want you to be happy.” Julia flashed a look at her daughter, to make it clear that she was taking this conversation seriously.
“I had fun,” Alice said. And she had. She’d had fun staying up late listening to music in Carrie’s room and watching movies with her mother. She’d started drinking coffee in her junior year, and wrapping her hands around that warm mug every morning had sent a thrill through her—that fell under the heading of fun, didn’t it? One of her worries about college was that the coffee in the dining hall wouldn’t taste as good as what she made at home. She had many worries about college, actually. She didn’t like the idea of being crammed inside a dormitory with a lot of kids her age. Kids her age were loud and messy, and Alice would never be alone. Luckily, Carrie was attending Emerson, which was also in Boston; it gave Alice great relief to know that her best friend would be close by.
“Oh, these drivers,” Julia said. They were traveling from New York to Boston on Interstate 95, a giant thoroughfare that ran up the East Coast. Motorcyclists, enormous sixteen-wheelers, and cars danced around one another, looking for space. She said, “You should date, go to parties, stay up all night, things like that.”
“Is that what you did at college?” Alice asked.
Julia seemed to consider this. “My situation was different. I had to live at home for financial reasons, so I wasn’t really part of campus life. But you can do anything you want, baby. Smoke pot, even. Or, what do the kids call it, hook up?”
“Jesus, Mom.”
Mrs. Laven had transitioned from calling Alice my little girl to—once Alice passed her in height—my old soul. Alice hadn’t minded; she felt a little proud of the nickname, because it suggested that she was mature. It was a reason that she had no interest in dating boys. She was different, ancient on the inside, and did best on her own. The idea of flirting, kissing, having sex, filled her with horror. Alice’s old soul also helped explain the dread in her chest about the next four years.
She sighed. She knew her mother got scared when she thought Alice might be sad, and so Julia was always trying to shove her daughter toward happiness. Alice had taught herself to smile when she walked into rooms her mother was in. She knew that smiling would relax Julia immediately. But this was tiring work, and Alice said, her voice closer to tears than she would have liked, “I’ll do my best, okay, Mom?”
The electricity in Julia petered out, and she nodded. They were both quiet for the rest of the ride. When they reached Boston University’s campus, her mother helped her carry her things up to the second-floor dorm room. They had arrived before Alice’s roommate—a girl named Gloria from Louisiana—so Alice chose the bottom bunk and the desk closest to the window. Alice let her mother hug her goodbye, but she couldn’t hug back, because she thought that if she did, something inside her might break and she would cry. Alice never cried—another loss of control she shied away from—and she couldn’t afford to start now.
* * *
—
She found the first month of college stressful. She’d worried that the lack of solitude would bother her, and it did. She liked her roommate, who had a wonderful, belting laugh, but Gloria spoke only in terms of gossip—“Did you see the guy with the baseball hat flirting with that blond girl?” or “Those two clearly hate each other’s guts.” Alice nodded in vague agreement, but it seemed too early for gossip, like going on vacation and buying a house on the first day. She thought, But we don’t know any of these people. I don’t know you. We’re all strangers.
Because of her height, she was unable to blend in to the scenery. She crisscrossed the campus on her way to class and felt people staring. Girls looked shocked when they saw her but rarely said anything. Some would adopt a pitying expression, the embodiment of the words you poor thing. She knew they were whispering prayers of gratitude for their own smallness, for the fact that they were feminine and could hide themselves when necessary. The boys asked her if she was on the basketball or the volleyball team. When she said neither, they were shocked. “Is your dad Larry Bird?” one guy asked her. She thought he was joking, then realized he wasn’t. Certain boys could accept her height only if she was a serious athlete or, apparently, related to one. Otherwise, her size bothered them, like a piece of mail they couldn’t find a mailbox for. Still, there were other young men—the slightly older versions of the high school boys who’d walked the halls with her—who grinned at the sight of Alice.
“Hell yeah,” a boy named Rhoan said to her when they were introduced at an orientation event. “Right on.” His smile was so infectious she couldn’t help but return it. He and Alice became friends, and when he was stoned one night, he tried to explain his initial reaction to her. “You were this giantess, and you were owning every inch of it. You’re a badass, Alice.”
“I’m not, actually,” Alice said. “People mistake my height for bravery. It’s been happening for a while now.”
Rhoan looked like he was considering this. “Okay,” he said. “Fair enough. Maybe what I’m seeing in you is the potential for you to become a badass.”
Alice smiled. “That’s not going to happen,” she said. “But thank you.”
Carrie visited one Saturday afternoon in October, and after walking around Boston University’s vast campus, she, Alice, Rhoan, and Gloria hung out in Alice and Gloria’s room. Their door was open, so they were able to watch students traffic by. Someone down the hall was playing James Taylor, and his melancholic voice twisted through the air.
“I like you,” Gloria said to Carrie at one point. “I’m glad that my girl has a cool friend. Alice is so shy, I was getting worried. I keep trying to set her up with different tall men on campus—she’s a beauty, and she’s getting looks.”
“Oh, please.” Alice rolled her eyes.
“I like you too.” Carrie was cross-legged on the beanbag in the corner, beaming under her pixie haircut. “Alice is a slow bloomer, that’s all. She’s going to get there, but she’s playing the long game.” Carrie gave Alice a warning look: I’m going to be honest. “Now that she’s away from her mother, I’m hoping she’ll start living more.”
“Hey,” Alice said, surprised.
“So that’s the issue?” Gloria said. “I’ve known my fair share of controlling mothers, that’s for sure. You poor chickadee.”