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071906
There were only two dorms for high school students, Moore and Sanford. Each was named after a North Carolina senator. They were identically laid out, except that Health Services was located on the first floor of Sanford. Everyone knew, though, that Moore was the cooler dorm. It was co-ed.
When I found out that I would be rooming with a girl named Barbara on the third floor of Sanford, I told myself that it would be fine. There had to be other girls from my drama class that were rooming there. And even though I didn't know a soul named Barbara-much less a soul close to my own age-I figured that she had to be okay, in the long run. Even if she was from Mooresville. Even if her pregnant sister had suddenly died a week before school began. She would be fine.
I met Barbara on the Sunday before classes started. I'd already begun moving things into the dorm. All of the girls on our floor looked like musicians, or else ballerinas. I picked the bed farthest from the sink; the mattress was firmer. Barbara's father was the first to come in. He looked like a wild man. Then there was Barbara. She was fat, and she had a hairy chin. She didn't wear makeup; the circles under her eyes were dark. You could tell from looking at her that she had bad style. At the same time that I was noticing these things I felt terrible for noticing them, but I wasn't wrong. I tried act cheerful in order to cover my disappointment.
My parents left. Barbara and I discussed the placement of a Children of the Corn III poster, but I lost interest. Instead, I went to sit on the green lawn and watch the girls and boys who were moving into Moore.
The girls were definitely cooler, you could tell-mostly drama and visual arts, some modern dancers too. The drama girls were loud and, though they weren't all wearing black (yet), all wore make-up. There was something very put-together about the third-floor-Moore drama girls, something that stood in stark contrast to Barbara and me. They looked so put-together. The VA girls, for that matter, were each askew in some fundamental way-ill-fitting milkmaid dresses, gigantic ankles, rumpled hair-that made them beautiful. The modern dancers looked like the VA girls, but with better bodies and shorter hair. Many of the boys, I thought, were cute.
That very first day, I felt doomed, an outsider. And in the course of my five-month mission to get into Moore, as I wound my way down a complicated yet subtle path of rejection and substitution, I chose to believe that, once I had a room in Moore, things would improve. I'd be able to catch up, make friends that were widely recognized as cool. Looking back on it now, I think it would have been more interesting if I'd been incorrect in my assumptions, but I wasn't.
I don't think Barbara ever forgave me.
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