—It was, I said, praying that someone would get behind the podium soon.
The mandatory meeting was run by several people, most of them minorities, all of them having the term retention specialist in their job title. Before anyone passed out any ice cream, I learned that students of color struggle more in college than our white counterparts. I learned that, when combined with being from a low-income family—the case for some of us in that room, one specialist said—your chances of graduating college fall to somewhere around twenty percent. They told us to look around and imagine most of the people in that auditorium disappearing, and I did that, not really realizing that when Dana and Ruben looked at me, they were imagining me gone.
We learned that the high schools some of us went to, because they were in low-income areas, probably did not prepare us for the rigorous coursework we would soon encounter. We were told to use the writing center, the various tutoring centers. We were told we had to do our homework, told we had to go to class. Dana whispered to Ruben, Is this a fucking joke? I don’t need to hear this! And I sort of felt the same way, but she was the one to get up and storm out of the auditorium, Ruben ducking out a minute after her. No one stopped either of them. I ended up leaving once the ice cream came out, ashamed that some important people at Rawlings felt we needed this meeting, needed to hear things that, the moment after they were said, seemed painfully obvious. I didn’t even stay to sit with Jaquelin, who’d written down every word—get plenty of sleep, take advantage of your professor’s office hours—and who I left alone with her bowl of ice cream. I hadn’t seen her again, not since that day. Not in any of my classes, not even in the dining hall. I hadn’t even bothered to look for her at the airport or on the campus shuttle—I knew without her saying so that her work-study money was being sent home, that she had to stick to her budget in a way I didn’t.
*
As a bunch of British dudes pretending to be Romans whistled from crosses on Jillian’s computer screen, I was the one silently crying, the one days away from disappearing. I calmed myself down by thinking something horrible: at least my mom could get on a plane. At least Beloved Family Member Getting Deported wasn’t on my list of worries. Jaquelin was proof that someone at Rawlings had it harder than me, and if only twenty percent of us were going to make it, then at the very least I had a better chance than her, didn’t I? My home life had to be more stable than Jaquelin’s, right? Maybe I belonged just a little more than this one other person, and ugly as it was, that felt like something—like an actual advantage.
The last of the credits scrolled away. I kept Jillian’s quilt around my shoulders like a cape, dragged it with me over to the phone. I dialed the apartment after punching in the numbers on my phone card, and after a couple rings, Leidy answered.
—I was just calling to tell Mami I made it back okay. Let me talk to her.
—She’s not back yet.
—Back from where?
—The meeting.
It was just after ten at night. I pulled the quilt tighter around me, gathered the material in a fist at my chest.
—The meeting that started at one? That meeting?
—No Lizet, the meeting for future Miss Americas. Of course that meeting. What other meeting would it be?
Her voice sounded tired and so far away. I went over to the heater and dialed it to its highest setting. After we hung up, I put my hands on the warming metal, wondering how long I could hold them there before they burned.
10
I TRIPLE-CHECKED JILLIAN’S SHEETS FOR cereal crumbs the next morning, eventually managing to arrange her quilt back on her bed with the same disheveled elegance she achieved whenever she made it. The DVD was once again in its case and nestled on her shelf between The Big Lebowski and The Sound of Music—two other movies everyone at Rawlings but me had seen. Jillian didn’t even look at her bed before dropping her duffel bag on the rug and launching herself onto it, snuggling her face into her pillows before turning to me at my desk and saying, Liz! It’s so hot in here!