Jaquelin put her hand on my shoulder and pressed her lips together. Do you want to get dinner? I have a swipe on my meal card for a guest.
—I already ate, I lied. And I have my own meal plan, I said, this time meaning to sound rough. Were you just coming out of there?
I pointed to the glass doors of the writing center.
She looked back at the entrance, smiled at the place.
—Yeah, she said. I come every Thursday for a couple hours and work with a tutor on my papers. Have you been? It’s so good, it’s helped me so much.
—No, I haven’t been, but I’m thinking of going now since – because of finals.
—You should! she said. My tutor’s an English major and she’s so good with structure and helping me even just talk through paper topics sometimes. I can’t believe you haven’t been yet. I had to start going the second week, after that meeting where – where we met? – and they told us to go, but I was like, whatever, you know? Then right away we had this response paper due in my history class? And I got a B-minus and I was like, uh-oh, I better hustle if I want to stay here. That feels like a million years ago, right?
I blinked a couple times, said yeah.
—Okay, so no dinner, but maybe – what are you doing Saturday? My roommate invited me to this party but I don’t really want to go alone.
I wanted to say something sharp to keep up the ruse that I was smarter than her—You aren’t alone if you’re going with your roommate—but then I got what she meant: her roommate was white. She didn’t feel like going to a party where she might be the only person of color.
—We can just meet there, she said. We don’t gotta like, get ready together or anything. I just think it would be cool if, since us two are from real cities, right? We can show them what’s up. It’s a dance party supposedly.
The two or three Rawlings parties I’d gone to in early fall blurred together as one long night where I stood against a wall holding a red plastic cup filled mostly with foam as progressively drunker frat boys walked over to me and asked me what my problem was. Despite whatever Omar thought, I wasn’t interested in cheating on him and hooking up with white boys wearing frayed visors with RAWLINGS SAILING stitched across the front, and this version of nightlife was so vastly pathetic compared to the places in Miami Omar could get us into that I preferred staying back at the dorm and waiting for Jillian to come home drunk, her careful makeup all smudged, and tell me and half the hall about some jerk who was totally hot though. But Jaquelin saying this was a dance party—god, I missed dancing, missed moving around in a crowd of hundreds while music pulverized me from every direction. Before Omar and I got serious, I used to be close with some girls at Hialeah Lakes, and we lived for the weekends, for putting on the worst animal print we could find and using our older sisters’ IDs to get into eighteen-and-over clubs, for dancing in a tight circle all night long. We’d claim we were sleeping over at each other’s houses, but we’d come home the next morning straight from the clubs, changing in the backseats of whatever car we’d been allowed to borrow for the night. Once we all found ourselves with boyfriends, those nights slowed down, then stopped, replaced by us hanging out in couples, then just each couple on its own until we either got engaged or broke up. I’d never thought of Rawlings as a place where I could maybe find a version of that fun again. Those first few parties—their hosts blasting music sluggish with guitar and devoid of booty-moving bass—had each ended with me walking back to the dorms a few feet behind the first random group of girls to leave, my arms hugging my shoulders against the cold night.
—Is there gonna be a DJ? I asked.
Jaquelin smiled.
—I could lie and say yes, but really? I have no idea. I just know my roommate said there’d be dancing, because she knows otherwise I’m not interested.
I said I’d come and she gave me the details. We arranged to meet just inside the entrance of the off-campus building—another huge, old mansion, this one converted into event space and high-end student housing—playing host to the party.
—That’s funny, there’s a club called Mansion in Miami, I told her. It’ll probably be just like that, right?
—That’s hilarious, she said. But you know what? I don’t really care if it’s lame, I’m wearing my club clothes because why the hell not? I haven’t worn them once out here. I’ll probably take them back home and leave them there at break. But maybe they deserve a last chance here at Rawlings.
Behind us a clomp of footsteps charged down the stairs, and them coming after her last chance here at Rawlings made me wish they’d run me over, grind me into the concrete and make me part of the campus in a way I could live up to and that didn’t cost anything. As they passed, Jaquelin scooted closer to me, said Hi! and waved at this group of students—all talking to each other—even though not one of them acknowledged that she stood there.
—I’ll wear mine too, I said. You don’t want to be the only one.