THE FIRST TIME I WAS IMMERSED IN THRILL was in music class.
Danielle and I took it together. This particular elective was about music in the movies, analyzing instruments and soundtracks, seeing how they enhanced the story playing out on screen. One movie that we watched was Psycho. My first foray into Hitchcock fascinated me. The idea of an evil guy living in a motel was fascinating, too. It made taking showers scarier and every time we passed a motel that had #1 on the door, I couldn't help wondering what horrors might have happened behind it.
And so began my interest in more thrilling stories.
For the past couple of years at the time of this writing, I have begun to pick up thrilling novels, wondering if mine would ever be among them someday. The Wife Between Us. Behind Closed Doors. I loved the twists and the turns, not knowing what was coming, and then finally putting the pieces together so that finally, everything made sense. Boarding school was an interesting experience in many ways, but before I could graduate, there were several SUPER hurdles I'd have to cross that would make for great thrillers. None of them are long enough to warrant chapters, so enjoy some bite-size horror.
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#1: THE BUGS
The school had students from all over the world, and NYC was a particular hotspot for students from the States. In the fall of 2010, though, this became a problem when they brought bedbugs.
At one point we had dogs come in to sniff them out. Nobody was happy at how the handlers treated our rooms--my roommate, Emily, had posters taken down, and my Buddy Valastro bobblehead was broken (and carefully placed in a desk drawer so I wouldn't see it after they left). I was pulled from study hall by Emily, actually, so we could see the condition of the rooms. This made nobody happy.
As for the bugs? We found that Emily had them on her side of the room, but my side of the room was miraculously fine. Perhaps for the same reasons that mosquitoes don't usually favor me, the bedbugs didn't either. I woke up with some itchy spots on the day of the winter performance, but they never bothered me again.
On the first night they were discovered, we had to move rooms for the night. Emily and I were going to live in a spare room in another dorm. Danielle was going with others to the basement with eight other girls. The rooms would be opened by the academic dean after study hall. But the dean never came to unlock the rooms. Seeing the chance, I decided to move in with Danielle instead, bringing the small bag of clothes I was allotted. It wasn't a terribly fun night, living with eight other girls, and it seemed like we wouldn't be getting much sleep. We did move back to our own rooms (though many others stayed in their temporary dwellings) where Emily voiced her displeasure that I had changed my living arrangements, but the dry ice they had put down didn't really work. As a result, we just ended up living there anyway while the school tried (allegedly) to figure out the next steps.
They announced that the rooms would be treated again over Thanksgiving break. Unfortunately, I got back and immediately saw a bug crawling up the wall. But they didn't ask everyone to move this time. Instead, we all just stayed put, the staff at a loss to do anything else. Nobody wanted to visit each other's rooms. We had been told that bedbugs didn't spread. But if that was the case, how did they get here from New York, which was having a bug epidemic? And because they could live in the walls, they were challenging to get rid of, to say the least. Poor Emily was still waking up itchy every day, and the girl next door had it especially rough. You didn't want to e living in a room next door to someone with bedbugs, because you would get them too.
Finally, they called the affected students together before Christmas to ask us to bring all of our electronics home--the new plan was to heat the rooms to super high temps a few times. Everyone was in a good mood at our Christmas banquet. Our class sponsor, in this case the music teacher, had us go all out to create a Night Before Christmas theme. It looked pretty great, and we all had a good time talking with our friends and getting ready for the holiday.
There was one more hurdle to overcome--a few more room heatings. We spent several afternoons spending free time in the dining hall or other locations, sometimes being forced to carry Spanish posters or heavy textbooks around all day. I would have to sneak into the dining hall restroom in order to get changed to go to yoga, which wasn't easy. At one point, it was so hot when we returned that we had to take cold showers and then suffer through the rest of the very warm night.
Eventually, it ended. Like many of these things, it just kind of fades out and becomes a distant memory. After a tough three months, we got back to normal life, or as normal as it ever was there.
#2: REVUE
Ah, Memorial Day. A time to relax while the seniors went on their senior trip. Right?
Wrong. In freshman year, I learned this the hard way. It was our job to use that weekend to divide into groups and learn a skit that gently poked fun at members of the graduating class. These would have to be memorized, and each group would also have to choreograph and memorize a song. The whole group would also have to learn the full-group songs as well. All this in the span of a long weekend with many rehearsals.
As I realize that I didn't include this in my Theater Geek chapter, I am now beginning to realize another reason why I didn't stick with performing.
These performances were a blast when the seniors came back from their senior dinner upon return. They would sing along with us, laugh at the jokes, and it felt like something special.
Rehearsing, not so much.
Our group was lead by our gruff math teacher and an upperclassman named Lavanya who was pretty bossy with me in particular. Lavanya and I usually got along well enough, but recently that changed out of the blue. She would shoot me evil looks. She would hold her nose whenever I walked by. And now she was one of the people in charge as our group worked on our skis and a song to the tune of "I Want It That Way" for hours a day. It was a lot to learn in a short time, and we struggled to divide up the work. Who would do choreography and who would be better at skits?
I tried my hardest and used my best performing skills that I learned throughout the years. It was never enough. Lavanya constantly told me I wasn't acting "big" enough or doing enough in general. When I asked where the bathroom was in our classroom building, she treated me like I was stupid. And she removed a line from me and gave it to someone else when I just couldn't get it right. Which, to be fair, was kind of a relief. But the stress was mounting. Sometimes I'd go on our breaks nearly in tears.
Teachers didn't always help. They would snap at us for complaining about the heat, or not getting something right. But when the seniors came back, and we actually performed with a charged, celebratory atmosphere and helping them remember their good times, I remembered why this was fun again. And after only two more years, it was over.
#3: NIGHTMARE HALLMATES
There were actually a lot of good hallmates I knew, but let me acquaint you with the ones who make the best stories.
MELANIE: Played music at the loudest level possible with her speakers, often which was just a giant "F**** you" bomb over and over again. Welp, so much for the hallway chats that Danielle and I liked to have regularly.
CHANDRA: A floor leader of Danielle and I (essentially a high school RA), she spread a rumor on social media, or in the comments of a post, that we liked to streak up and down the hallways. Yeah, right...we preferred streaking in classier places. This one earned them a dean's meeting, and when I was in my room one day, her friend who was part of the conversation gave me an oddly formal apology that I could hear her rehearsing from next door.
MS. CAMPBELL'S PHONE: We all had a dorm parent on our hall. Their doors opened up to their offices and their apartments would be behind those. Unfortunately, sometimes this could get noisy. One teacher had cats who liked to fight. Another had a cell phone. One morning, Danielle and I woke up to an alarm sound: "dodo-DOdo-DODO!" Over and over again. Ms. Campbell had left her phone in her front office and wouldn't retrieve it until closer to morning meeting. That was a very long morning, especially for me who takes a while to fall asleep.
NAVA: The granddaddy of all. Nava was a loud, brash girl who was popular with students and some teachers, though she was more of a masculine person. She had a high, shrill laugh that was famous in school.
One Tuesday while we were waiting for teachers to come around for weekly room inspections, she announced a grand plan. Our rooms had key combinations that you entered for access, not keys. Many students who were friends just gave them away, or were simply given the code when they knocked. Nava had a better idea: to figure out master codes for the rooms. She developed a system where she would somehow use tape to place on the keypads to figure them out. Eventually, this worked.
However, she not-so-wisely announced it in front of all of us while we were waiting for weekly room checks. The day she was escorted out was a quiet one on campus, and her advisor instructed us not to talk to her. When she was busy moving out, they also found that she was growing weed.
And yet, she was never expelled. She came back in the fall with lots of stories about an adventure program she did, which was a requirement for her being able to come back. How much of a punishment for Nava the tomboy it was is up for debate, but it didn't sound pleasant to me. She had to wash her clothes in streams and go on very long hikes; basically, a longer and worse version of my elementary school camping trip. I guess that worked? If that was my punishment for something, I assure you I would have been whipped into shape.
#4: NEVER ENDING BRUNCH
There was plenty to dislike about brunch. The food wasn't particularly good. The smell could linger on one's clothes all day--why it was just the brunch smell was beyond me. And the second a faculty member saw you in pajamas, or what they decided were pajamas, they immediately put you on brunch crew that morning. They wouldn't ask you to go change; they'd just penalize you right off the bat.
The absolute worst was the wait time. The rule was that we had to wait until the teachers were done making announcements, usually at 11, to leave. This was the same at lunch and dinner. However, because there were obligations right after lunch and dinner, the faculty took better care to be on time. At brunch, there was absolutely no hurry. Sometimes we'd have to wait until 11:30 or even a few minutes later for the faculty to wrap up their conversations and be dismissed. When the conversation well ran dry, waiting that long was an eternity. It was one of the worst things about weekends.
#5: NOT-SO-SECRET SANTA?
Christmas was festive, even in boarding school. Maybe only being there for two and a half weeks did it, or listening to Christmas carols on my laptop during study hall. Or maybe it was trips to Barnes & Noble to pick out Christmas gifts that did it; or maybe it was the exquisite, elaborate banquets that the junior class would put on before we went home. (When I was a junior, it took us three full hours to set up our class sponsor's idea for a Night Before Christmas theme. It looked good, but whew.)
The school also had a winter tradition called Secret Snowflake. During one morning meeting, we'd all go on stage and draw someone else's name from a plastic fishbowl. That was the person who we'd be surprising throughout the three weeks before winter break.
Flash back a little ways. There was a girl who lived in my dorm who looked like Ben's sister named Kristen. Long, blonde hair, small eyes; you get the picture. Sometimes I'd even try to sneak glimpses of her, confirming that she wasn't who I thought she was.
I think that Kristen caught me peeking because I heard that she thought I liked her. Like, liked like. I was mortified. So I would always try to act natural around her, which often didn't work either. Oops.
I was even more horrified when I drew her name for my Secret Snowflake. Like, really? The worst part was that I'd have to reveal myself with a small Christmas gift.
Still, I'd always wanted to do a Secret Santa. I threw myself into it. The first thing that we had to do was create a sign for their door. I decided to make a paper chain of Christmas trees, with "Merry Christmas Kristen!" written along them.
Eventually, I had to muster my courage and go to her room to hang the banner on her door. Who was to say that Kristin wouldn't be looking through her peephole as I was doing the deed? It was terrifying.
But when I got there, I discovered the horrible truth:
Someone had gotten there before me. Kristin already had a personalized door decoration waiting for her.
I stood there, gaping. Someone must have put Kristin's name back in the fishbowl after they drew it. I smacked myself. What was I supposed to do now? I had no Santa, and someone wouldn't be getting gifts.
What could I do? I ignored it.
I caught a huge break. We ended up suspending the program. In our drama-filled school, there were some people who weren't holding up their end of the bargain. Including probably me, unfortunately. But Kristen would never know who her real Secret Snowflake was. I was spared a tremendous amount of awkwardness. Instead, we all picked a random wrapped gift from under the 20-foot tree on banquet night. I got Juicy perfume.
As for my own Snowflake gifter? I heard them hang up the banner on my door, but resisted the temptation to look through the peephole as not to ruin the surprise. Another gift ended up being a notecard with a pencil and candy cane taped to it. A small girl, who was about 4 feet tall with a voice to match who also had a reputation as kind of an annoying brat but was nice to me sometimes, ended up being the gifter. And it all worked out. Even if Secret Snowflake didn't.
#6: THE FRENEMY
"I won't live with her. I...I just can't. It was bad. I just..." Andrea pleaded her case to the dean of students, who made an unusual exception and changed Andrea's roommate immediately on the first day of the 2009-2010 school year.
I knew that those kinds of cases were rare, because you had to make attempts to at least get along with your roommate before going through with a change. Apparently, though, Andrea had lived with Kayla during summer camp and it did not go well.
Meanwhile, Danielle and I were getting along pretty well, often making trips to Borders for books and fruity drinks together or just hanging out around campus or in our room. Before we left for Thanksgiving break, right after a banquet had finished, I filmed a video of us packing and discussing holiday plans. We still have the video. It's a memory of an iconic moment in time.
Before then, though, another girl was going to enter our realm and change it for good.
And her name was Kayla.
****
We all have had people we really wanted to be friends with.
Take Kelly's friend Sally. They met in preschool, and Sally often came over to our house, since she lived in the neighborhood across the street, and they took dance classes together. She would tell us stories she made up about Scooby-Doo. Sometimes I would invite myself along on their adventures, be it Mickey Mouse art computer games or romping around the backyard, until my dad told me to leave them alone. It was embarrassing in hindsight. Why couldn't I find friends of my own age instead of depending on my little sister's?
That's where Kayla comes in. I felt bad for her from day one. In the dining hall, I encountered a group of girls making fun of her "Asian eyes." Apparently, this was warranted because when they were in the lunch line, she had asked a few girls if they were virgins.
Okay, weird.
But she knew Danielle through some classes they had together. So they became friends, sort of. Kayla was also on the soccer team. Anyone could join our teams, and although Kayla wasn't very good, she said that it didn't matter because she loved the sport. She would lay her shin guards on the floor after practice and bring out her notebook, continuing the long story of a depressed teenager. She had gotten in trouble for writing it at her old schoolâor it got her a trip to the counselor's office, anyway. It was dark stuff.
We had some good times. When it was time to go to Boston on our all-school trip, we shared a room. Kayla was a bed hog, but we didn't have too many problems. The night before we went, we pumped ourselves up by playing a game. Another friend, Sam, took control of my computer by opening random iTunes songs and seeing who could guess the song the fastest. Our room was Party Central. We were loud and proud and didn't care who knew it. We were, in my mind, classic teenagers.
The most memorable that it got, though, was when Kayla was singing random songs about male and female genitalia. Our math teacher/dorm parent actually had to knock on the door and ask us to keep it down. Great. From shy kindergartner to someone who believed that crude humor was hysterical. The worst part was that I actually pretended to laugh.
The good times don't mean that fights weren't present.
"I hate drama," Kayla would remind us constantly. Yet, she started fights every other day. And when she started them, she'd still remind us that that particular fight wasn't drama.
One evening, they got in a fight that was so bad that they could be heard down the hall. I slowly shrunk behind my computer screen. I wasn't used to this kind of drama. Eventually, one of our floor leaders came to save me. Annie's roommate, Chandra, didn't like us very much and was putting Danielle and I on recycling duty every week even though everyone was supposed to get a turn, making one person's turn come every six weeks. Still, we made the best of these times, enjoying the weather and laughing at what ridiculous things people had tried to get rid of. Annie invited Kayla to talk in her room. I was worried from the kind way she was talking to Kayla that she thought we were the bad guys here.
However, nothing really came of it. Kayla did get in other arguments, though. Her new roommate was someone in my grade who wasn't exactly warm and fuzzy. When she read Kayla's diary, Kayla exploded. There were meetings to discuss it between them and everything. Eventually, Kayla's quirks got out and people began to talk about her more. Her nickname was that of a certain cereal brand, Special K.
Danielle and I hung out frequently, as we always did, including Kayla slightly less and less. Sometimes, though, she'd come in anyway, reading pages upon pages from the story about the suicidal kid. As a writer myself, I would try and listen, but I'd eventually zone out.
I was at study hall, doing my normal routines of finishing history homework and then pretending to busy myself, usually by doing a writing project and turning on iTunes. Then Sam came by and told me that Danielle had been trapped in the basement.
I'll let her recollection tell the story.
Danielle and Emily were studying in the dorm basement lounge, a little before study hall started. They were on their laptops, working, and Kayla was there as well. Soon, some kind of argument broke out. We think it was about her not being included as she'd like to be. Kayla started crying. She just wanted friends, she said! She just wanted some attention! "You guys need to listen to me!" she said, before turning around and shutting the door on them. Danielle and Emily began to bang on it. Kayla didn't actually lock them in; she simply stood there and continued crying. Eventually, Sam came to rescue them and disciplinary meetings were held.
And so ended our time with Kayla.
Her legacy lived on. We actually never saw her after that. Usually, if a student was suspended or even expelled, there was an announcement at the next morning meeting. For Kayla, there was nothing. She was just gone from campus after one weekend, and we never saw her again
Four years of that and I would find myself fully qualified for college. Now that I was prepared, I could handle anything that college life threw at me.