COLLEGE GIRL a memoir
Laura Gray-Rosendale
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
2013 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
Excelsior Editions is an imprint of State University of New York Press
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu
Production by Ryan Morris
Marketing by Fran Keneston
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gray-Rosendale, Laura.
College girl : a memoir / Laura Gray-Rosendale.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-4384-4709-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Gray-Rosendale, Laura. 2. College teachersUnited StatesBiography. I. Title.
LA2317.G635A3 2013
378.0092dc23
[B]
2012027402
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I cannot begin to express my gratitude toward those responsible for bringing this book to fruition. Thanks to the folks at SUNY PressBeth Bouloukos, Fran Keneston, Larin McLaughlin, Ryan Morris, James Peltz, and Priscilla Ross. To Kass Fleisher, Michael Kimmel, Cathy Small, and Alexis Washam for early advice and support. To Linda Martn Alcoff, Jane Armstrong, Monica Brown, Sherry Greene Gelinas, Janna Jones, Rosemary Mild, Donald Mills, Tara O'Connor, and Karen Underhill for kindness along the way. To the District Attorney's Office of Onondaga County, New York, and the Syracuse Police Department. To the Verde Valley's Cancer Center, Dr. Deborah Lindquist and her staff, for seeing me through treatment. To all who have shared these experiences with me. Though your real names may not appear in these pages, you are this story's heroes and heroines. To my dear familyMom, Dad, and Dave. And, finally, thanks to Steve, whose love makes this book (and this life) possible.
This is a true story. All this happened, more or less, as a famous writer once said. This book represents years of researchconsultation with journals I wrote, interviews with people involved, analyses of news reports, discovery of legal and medical documents, as well as the study of relevant academic scholarship. Conversations, time lines, and details have been altered where necessary. Some names have been changed.
PART
ONE
CHAPTER ONE
I probably dreamed that night.
It was probably the one where I'm in poetry class, listening to Dr. Yingling's soft voice read The Wasteland. Or that other one where I've been mysteriously transported into that cartoon show Fantastic Four with Lindsey and we're invisible or crazy strong or extra-stretchy and we're fighting off all manner of evil with our super-duper powers. There must have been the billowy touch of comforter over my face, that feeling of being burrowed so cozy deep it's hard to tell whether anyone's there at all except for the tiniest wisp of yellow hair visible on a pillow. There had to be big snore sounds, me waking myself up from half-remembered dreams.
These things probably happened.
But I won't remember them.
I'll remember this.
A fistful of my hair jerks me back.
There's a slabby male figure leaning over me, pants bunched around his hips.
I screech into the blackness, my fingers hunting for my glasses.
Pages are crackling on the floor.
A hand shuts off my scream.
I thrash, strain my neck to see a face.
It's gigantic, vacant, blank. Like a blackboard.
Outlined chin and jaw loom over me. I try to scribble in eyes, nose, lips.
But I can't call up chalk.
He moves his hand.
I scream.
Thick fingers jam up my throat. My tongue swells.
Leathery sweat fills my nostrils.
CHAPTER TWO
Unraveling mummies, togas with plastic ivy wreathes, and mouth-breathing zombies in melting faces shuffle the puke-stained wood floor. An artsy coupleshe all in white, he in brownflounces in.
She yells over the fuzzy music to no one in particular.
We're not in costume! We're concepts! I'm a roll of toilet paper and he's a steaming pile of ex-cre-ment!
It's Halloween at Red House, the architecture frat creatively named for its crimson exterior, and I'm leaning against a wall, inventorying the stiletto hole-punches I've made in the hem of my black velvet dress. My long black Morticia wig's plastered my blonde-streaked hair to my head. My black lipstick's turned a bizarre, vomited-up green color. Eyeliner is streaming onto my contacts, my pasted-on black eyelashes cemented together in gummy clumps. Thus my latest decisionto forego blinking.
This was a mistake. I knew I should have stayed home to work on that poetry paper.
I weave my way over to the black cauldron in the hallwaysteaming with dry ice and jam-packed with plastic baby doll-heads and legs and armsand ladle out a glass of grain alcohol and Hawaiian Punch. I sip. Doll toes rub my lips.
Then I see hermy way out of here stumbling toward me. My friend Missytonight all dressed up and resembling some manner of rodent more than usual (mouse? rat? vole? mole? rabbit? boomer?)has the look of someone considering leaving.
Poser-ville, I say, smacking my B&H Menthol Light pack so one junior-minty cig stems out.
Gonna do a line?
Missy's always about the coke. I shake my head.
Let's get out of here.
I go toward the door, Missy skittle-scurrying after me. I begin to excavate the mound of coats on the stairs in search of my own. Then suddenly everything skews, goes sideways off kilter. It feels like a stone wall's crashing down on my shoulders. My back and knees crumple, and I'm biology-frog pinned to the floor. There's the stench of stale beer, vodka. There's a male voice that sounds like a combination of ugly baby and feral animal. His taller, dark-haired friend yanks him off me with a laugh.
Sorry, he gets this way when he's plastered.
I pick myself off the floor, glance behind me.
Tell your friend to keep his hands to himself. I hitch up my dress, attempt to exit without tripping. Missy and I edge into the night.
You kay?
I'm so sick of these parties.
Know what you mean.
Please. That girl doesn't have a clue.
And I'm still not done either. I promised my best friend Lindsey I'd go to one more party tonight. So I drop Missy at her dorm, hustle down Comstock alone, wend toward Lindsey's house on the border of Thornden Park.
Lindsey transferred to Syracuse University from Boston College about a year ago. We met when I auditioned for Thornton Wilder's Long Christmas Dinner, a play she was stage managing. I just liked her immediately. She has a gawky confidence, a smart, quirky sense of humor, can mold her silly-putty face into impossible expressions. Lindsey's also kindpiling up hours of time caring for a homeless man who lives in a fridge box, the Hermit of Chestnut Hill. She boogied from BC after smoking so much weed that everything spilled out of her head, including the fact that she was taking classes and had to put food in herself. But all that's so history. Now when you mention herbs around her you'd better be talking Celestial Seasonings.
