Story for you, about 3/4 done.
In winter, gossip spreads like ice freezing, starting at the edges of conversation and spreading until no inch of water remains unfrozen and no one is safe from the rumors. And it’s easier to overhear in the crisp cold air, especially if you dress like me; the black pea coat every girl wears for warmth and style, jeans, a hat, a scarf over my face and up to my eyes. Even without my jacket, I’m hard to pick out from the crowd; medium height and hair and face, ankle-high winter boots, heavy college sweatshirt. I blend in; I’ve been fading into the background my entire life.
So I listen, and I learn. And sometimes, I learn more than I wanted to.
There’s a pair of girls on campus who have been dating for a handful of months now; I see them around fairly often, moving with a boy’s thoughtless, swinging stride, both average height with hair varying in length from an inch to past the shoulders, in color from blond to brown. They’re not the only ones of their kind, of course - we’re a big school - but they are the only pair on campus. The gossip had died down since the beginning of the year, when they had, casually, begun to hold hands in public… but as the weather grew cold, the rumors had started up again, slowly. I heard them talking in December, right before break; the taller one, with a mix of fury and bewilderment in her voice, was outlining the basic frame of the strangest rumor so far.
“And he told me - would you believe it? - that I’m secretly boinking a boy every time I go home for the weekend, never mind that you usually come with me. Apparently he dresses up as - don’t laugh, Clara, this is what he told me and it’s not funny! - dresses up as a girl so my parents won’t be suspicious… though my mother tends to not mind if I have guys overnight, it’s girls she has a problem with, because she thinks, to use Jake’s term, that I will systematically boink every single one of them…”
The other girl, smaller, thinner, was laughing, tossing a hacky-sack from hand to hand, but I had heard that particular bit of gossip too. I knew people who had not only listened to but believed it, and I did not see the humor. Neither, clearly, did the taller one - Margot - for she snatched the ball mid-arc and dropped her voice to a harsh whisper. I caught only the first few words - “Look, Clare, this is not…” - before they had shut themselves off from the world by the set of their shoulders and the fierce quick movements of their hands.
I moved away, feeling uneasy. Something was growing, like snow piling up for an avalanche, and this was only the first layer of it. The hurried conversation continued behind me; I could hear the occasional hissed, whispering ess, the shotgun pop of a final tee. No words reached my ears, but the undertones were clear; Margot was frightened, Clara doubtful but increasingly anxious. I risked a sideways glance back towards them. The slighter girl was running her hand fretfully through her newly-shorn blond hair, fingering the strands.
Final exams caught me up, then, and I forgot about the pair, although twice in the week left before the semester ended I saw them walking through the snow, Margot in her long blue-gray coat, Clara in a plaid jacket of heavy wool. They didn’t look overly worried or upset to my eyes, and their interactions were no different than they ever were.
But they walked faster than usual, and they took the shortest routes.
Sometimes Christmas kills rumors. But it must have been a rough holiday for most of the student body, for they came back surly and in black moods; roommates sniped at each other from top bunks and study nooks, relationships died, and test-correcting TAs took out their aggression on their students, failing half the class in a fit of pique.
Even I felt it, and I was so invisible to my peers as to be exempt from the rumor mill. My roommate had never shown up in the first place, no boy had ever glanced twice at me, and my courses were all taught by professors. And yet it loomed over me, over the whole school, an avalanche waiting for a word to bring it down.
The word - or rather, the string of them - came soon enough.
Margot was the only person I knew who came back to campus cheerful. She had been raised on a steady diet of boarding schools and was used to the winter break curing all ills, righting all wrongs. Even Clara came back cautious, more reserved than usual, keeping her hands in her pockets to avoid Margot, trying to deflect attention through toning down her behavior. But that was the first thing the gossips noticed, for it was the cause of several minor arguments between the two girls, at least one of them in public.
did you hear? knew that it
couldn’t possibly last.
Margot picked up some chick and Clara
found out about it a day back - well,
why do you think that she
won’t let her lover touch her,
huh? they were all over each other,
before break…
That bit of rumor brought them together faster than anything else could have; they were afraid of not presenting a united front. Bad enough that there were only two of them, that no one came to their aid and no one would stand up to help them combat the words that crept to divide them. I watched people who had laughed with them in the early fall drop their eyes to the pavement as Margot and Clara walked past, noticed the way even professors seemed reluctant to talk to them, as if their unpopularity might somehow be catching. They stuck together like glue; in the second full week after we came back, I never once saw them apart.
But that just made things worse.
look at her, huh, snuggling up
to Clara, trying to pretend
nothing ever happened. who’s
she trying to fool? listen -
did you hear? Margot snuck a
girl into her dorm room last
night; her roommate says
it wasn’t her girlfriend…
So I listen, and I learn. And sometimes, I learn more than I wanted to.
There’s a pair of girls on campus who have been dating for a handful of months now; I see them around fairly often, moving with a boy’s thoughtless, swinging stride, both average height with hair varying in length from an inch to past the shoulders, in color from blond to brown. They’re not the only ones of their kind, of course - we’re a big school - but they are the only pair on campus. The gossip had died down since the beginning of the year, when they had, casually, begun to hold hands in public… but as the weather grew cold, the rumors had started up again, slowly. I heard them talking in December, right before break; the taller one, with a mix of fury and bewilderment in her voice, was outlining the basic frame of the strangest rumor so far.
“And he told me - would you believe it? - that I’m secretly boinking a boy every time I go home for the weekend, never mind that you usually come with me. Apparently he dresses up as - don’t laugh, Clara, this is what he told me and it’s not funny! - dresses up as a girl so my parents won’t be suspicious… though my mother tends to not mind if I have guys overnight, it’s girls she has a problem with, because she thinks, to use Jake’s term, that I will systematically boink every single one of them…”
The other girl, smaller, thinner, was laughing, tossing a hacky-sack from hand to hand, but I had heard that particular bit of gossip too. I knew people who had not only listened to but believed it, and I did not see the humor. Neither, clearly, did the taller one - Margot - for she snatched the ball mid-arc and dropped her voice to a harsh whisper. I caught only the first few words - “Look, Clare, this is not…” - before they had shut themselves off from the world by the set of their shoulders and the fierce quick movements of their hands.
I moved away, feeling uneasy. Something was growing, like snow piling up for an avalanche, and this was only the first layer of it. The hurried conversation continued behind me; I could hear the occasional hissed, whispering ess, the shotgun pop of a final tee. No words reached my ears, but the undertones were clear; Margot was frightened, Clara doubtful but increasingly anxious. I risked a sideways glance back towards them. The slighter girl was running her hand fretfully through her newly-shorn blond hair, fingering the strands.
Final exams caught me up, then, and I forgot about the pair, although twice in the week left before the semester ended I saw them walking through the snow, Margot in her long blue-gray coat, Clara in a plaid jacket of heavy wool. They didn’t look overly worried or upset to my eyes, and their interactions were no different than they ever were.
But they walked faster than usual, and they took the shortest routes.
Sometimes Christmas kills rumors. But it must have been a rough holiday for most of the student body, for they came back surly and in black moods; roommates sniped at each other from top bunks and study nooks, relationships died, and test-correcting TAs took out their aggression on their students, failing half the class in a fit of pique.
Even I felt it, and I was so invisible to my peers as to be exempt from the rumor mill. My roommate had never shown up in the first place, no boy had ever glanced twice at me, and my courses were all taught by professors. And yet it loomed over me, over the whole school, an avalanche waiting for a word to bring it down.
The word - or rather, the string of them - came soon enough.
Margot was the only person I knew who came back to campus cheerful. She had been raised on a steady diet of boarding schools and was used to the winter break curing all ills, righting all wrongs. Even Clara came back cautious, more reserved than usual, keeping her hands in her pockets to avoid Margot, trying to deflect attention through toning down her behavior. But that was the first thing the gossips noticed, for it was the cause of several minor arguments between the two girls, at least one of them in public.
did you hear? knew that it
couldn’t possibly last.
Margot picked up some chick and Clara
found out about it a day back - well,
why do you think that she
won’t let her lover touch her,
huh? they were all over each other,
before break…
That bit of rumor brought them together faster than anything else could have; they were afraid of not presenting a united front. Bad enough that there were only two of them, that no one came to their aid and no one would stand up to help them combat the words that crept to divide them. I watched people who had laughed with them in the early fall drop their eyes to the pavement as Margot and Clara walked past, noticed the way even professors seemed reluctant to talk to them, as if their unpopularity might somehow be catching. They stuck together like glue; in the second full week after we came back, I never once saw them apart.
But that just made things worse.
look at her, huh, snuggling up
to Clara, trying to pretend
nothing ever happened. who’s
she trying to fool? listen -
did you hear? Margot snuck a
girl into her dorm room last
night; her roommate says
it wasn’t her girlfriend…