The Fall of Butterflies (7 page)

W
hen I'm next to Remy I feel famous.

I know. I know that sounds stupid. But here's the thing. All my life I've felt like everybody else is at this invisible party. And you get glimpses of this party, fleeting, on TV or online or in movies or magazines. And it's this amazing, thrilling, whirling party where everybody is superfantastic and skinny and glamorous and nobody ever has to worry about money or food or anything quite so gauche. No, this is a party full of starlight people, and there's just this one thing about this party, which is . . . I'm not invited. Because I'm not exceptional or tall or skinny or some rich old Social Register name's daughter. I'm just some girl. And even if I ever got invited to the party it would be a total mistake. Like
I'd be some cousin's uncle's niece and everybody could tell and if they had their way they would kick me right out.

Because I don't belong at that party. That party is for the fabulous people. And I'm not fabulous. I'm from Iowa.

But not with Remy.

When I'm with Remy I'm invited to that party. When I'm with Remy we are that party. And everybody is looking at us and wanting to be with us and smiling and coming over just to be
superfriendly
. And it's not me. I know it's Remy. But still. Still, with Remy, all that feeling, all that doubt and nervousness and shame, shame for just existing, goes far, far away, and it's just me and Remy, just me and Remy in our own private movie where we are famous and everyone around is there just to shine a light on us.

Which is why I have temporarily moved from my room into hers.

But by the looks of it, she hasn't even moved into hers. I mean it; there's nothing in here. There's one bedsheet, a fitted sheet, strewn over the mattress but not even fitted. Clearly, Remy is on the lam.

“Can you drool?”

“What?”

“Do you think you can make yourself drool?”

“Um . . . what are you talking about?”

“Here. Just think of a lemon. Think really hard.”

“You're weird.”

Remy is leaning over the bed, sideways, with her mouth open, trying to make herself drool. She looks like a spastic flying fish.

“Why would you want to make yourself drool?”

“I don't know. It kind of seems like if you can make yourself drool, or blush, then you can make yourself cry. And you are gonna have to cry to get out of that haunted bathtub.”

“It's not a haunted bathtub. It's a haunted area. It's a haunted bathtub area.”

She giggles. “Would you say it's a bed, bath, and beyond the grave?”

I have to bite my cheek to keep from smiling. “I would say that you can joke all you want, but I'm never going back there, I swear.”

Okay, we are supposed to be studying. It's three p.m. and we're done with class for the day, but all we are doing is leaning over her bed trying to make ourselves drool.

“This is dumb.”

“Okay, let's just practice the crying.”

“Okay.”

I sit up and we start the scene. Remy plays the imaginary dean of student affairs.

“Okay, I'm gonna get in character. Mi-mi-mi-mi-mi . . . okay, I'm ready.”

She sits up, purses her lips.

“And why do you wish to switch rooms, young lady?”

“Because I'm thinking of killing myself.”

There's something here. Something fast that happens to my face. It's a tell. An accident. But my eyes almost give it away. My plan. About
actually
killing myself.

Remy stops. She looks at me. A different kind of look.

“Wow. That was . . . really good.”

“Thanks.”

“Like I really believed you.”

Her eyes are on me now.

“Oh. That's weird.” I shift around in my seat.

And they're still on me. Laser focus.

I shrug. “C'mon, we have to practice.”

Remy raises her eyebrows and continues the charade.

“Okay, okay. My, young Willa. That sounds like a bit of hyperbole.”

“It's not, Mrs. . . .”

“Mrs. Persnickles.”

“It's not, Mrs. Persnickles. I have a great fear of heights, and this room is one of the highest on campus. I mean . . . it's really high. Like I'm on an airplane or something. I get vertigo. I feel like I'm gonna fall off. Like just fall off into the abyss forever.”

“Okay, now cry.”

“What?”

“Cry. That's our cue. When Mrs. Persnickles looks most doubtful.”

“Okay, but I'm not going to do it now. I'm saving it up.”

“That's good. Lightning in a bottle. Save that stuff.”

“Wait. Do you know how to cry?”

“Sure.”

“Where'd you learn?”

“In rehab.”

“Wait. What?!”

“I know. Can you believe it? I got busted once, ONCE, for pot at Spence. It was seriously no big deal. Like nothing. Like a dime bag.”

“I don't really understand pot lingo, but I'm going to nod and pretend I do.”

“Good. Because it's nothing. Seriously. And everybody acted like it was the end of the world and the sky was falling, and next thing you know I was in the most ridiculous depressing place with everybody
sharing
in a circle all the time. Ugh. What a joke.”

“Okay, but maybe it was—”

“It was stupid. Totally pointless. Except that I got to take ‘drama therapy.' Incredibly useful, calling up your emotions at will and such. I mean, I wouldn't mind making a career of it.”

Welp, she shut that one down. I get it. Rehab. Maybe she's embarrassed. I try to change the subject. Make her like me again.

“Is the dean of student affairs really named Mrs. Persnickles?”

“Yes. Her name is Billybottom Persnickles the third.”

“Oh, good, I wouldn't deign to meet with Persnickles the first. Or the second.”

“Of course not, darling,” Remy drawls. “It would be beneath you.”

It's starting to get chilly out, and we only have two hours until the office closes, and I am not going to sleep in that haunted room one more drafty night, so this is it.

“Okay, wish me luck.”

I grab my blazer and leave Remy back to her pretend drooling.

“You know I'm gonna get this,” she says.

“What?”

“The drooling. I'm gonna make myself drool.”

“Are all rich people this weird?”

It's an authentic question.

“Yes. Not the nouveau riche, of course. They're too bougie to be weird. Like they are trying to be this idea of rich or something, but they just always come off as ridiculous, and a little pathetic.”

“Do I come off as ridiculous and pathetic?”

“No. You come off as maybe a little bit crazy.”

I blink. “Really?”

“Well, I'm not the one switching rooms because of a haunted toilet.”

“It's a bathtub. A haunted bathtub.”

“Exactly.”

B
y the time I make it to the office of student affairs, I've pretty much lost all hope. Of course they're not gonna let me move. Ghosts. What difference does it make? I know my days here are numbered and it's only a matter of time until I, too, am lost to the endless stream of souls wading around in purgatory. Or is it waiting? I think they are wading and waiting. But aren't we all doing that, really?

Huh. Maybe this
is
purgatory. And we just don't know it.

Wait a minute.

Maybe this is hell.

No, no, this can't be hell. Too many flowers. And sunsets. And my dad. He would never be in hell.

But maybe hell is nearby.

Like New Jersey.

The door opens and suddenly the dean of student affairs is standing there. Ms.
Smith
. Totally boring. Mrs. Persnickles was much better.

“May I help you, young lady?”

She actually seems kind of nice. Much more crunchy than I had imagined. Like she eats a bowl of granola cereal for breakfast, a granola bar for lunch, and for dinner . . . a granola sandwich. She's wearing Birkenstocks. With socks. Of course. She has a mane of curly, wiry hair that sticks up all around her head.

“Hi, yeah, um . . . well, I'm here to ask for a possible room change, actually.”

“Oh. I see.”

She gestures for me to sit down. I'm not gonna lie to you. There are a lot of Navajo tapestries in here. There is even a dreamcatcher. I wonder if it will catch my dreams of getting a new room.

“Yeah, um, it's just . . .”

I was really expecting a snootier-looking person in this scene. Not this Incense Lady. My lines are all wrong. I'll have to improv.

“May I ask what's wrong with your current room?”

“Honestly?”

“Yes. Honestly.”

“It's haunted.”

I hate my mouth I hate my mouth I hate my mouth! Shut up, mouth!

“Really?”

Okay, this is falling apart fast. First of all, I was never, ever supposed to say that, and second, she was not supposed to respond as though I had some kind of point.

“Yeah, I mean. Okay. This is what happened . . .”

She listens to my terrifying tale about the haunted bathroom. The whole thing. In detail. She doesn't quite seem to be calling the men in white coats just yet. But any minute, I suppose she will press a button and there they'll be—or else I will be ejected out the roof.

“And you feel you won't be able to get any of your work done if you stay?”

“I mean, would you?”

She's on the fence. This is gonna take some waterworks.

“I fear that if I stay there I might . . . kill myself. Like the spirits will convince me or something. The ghost-girl spirits.”

She raises an eyebrow.

Oh God. This is not working. Okay, think of something sad, think of something sad, think of something sad . . .

I know. Here's what. Think about how unfair it is that your mother is out there gallivanting around the rolling hills of France even though she's a horrible person and your
dad, who is the sweetest, best person, is stuck back in What Cheer, Iowa, with not any cheer at all and a whole lot of bills he can't pay. Think about the fact that you are pretending you're gonna kill yourself when you were actually going to kill yourself because all of it, the whole world, is so deeply unjust.

And here's the good part. Here's what makes this work. I try holding back the tears. Yes, that seems to be the trick. Try to hold back the tears. Nobody ever
wants
to cry, right? So, even though my eyes are swelling up with tears just thinking about the injustice of my folks and the weight of the world and the elaborate suicide ruse I am simultaneously faking and hiding . . . I am holding back.

“Willa? I'm sorry . . . Willa?”

Now she is trying to get my attention. To free me of this weight.

“This endless weight of being a human-type person on this spinning orb next to the sun in an infinite universe in a sea of the evermore infinite multiverse!”

That's what comes out. Of my mouth. I say the sentences and I can't control them. Worse. I keep going.

“What does it all mean?! How can there even be a multiverse?!”

“Willa! It's okay. It's . . . it's going to be fine. Here.”

She hands me a tissue. I pant, trying to regain control of
my breath, of myself.

I peek out of my left eye. Clearly, I am done. She's going to throw me out of this place and my only refuge will be the Barnum & Bailey circus. I will be a sad clown and life on the road will be hard, but we will get by with booze and cards every night by the lion cage. One day I will let the lion out of his cage and he will maul the greedy circus master before sprinting off into the setting sun.

“There's a very simple solution here,” Ms. Smith says.

“Th-there is?” I say it through sniffles, like the last urchin left at the orphanage.

“Yes, of course. Now just take a deep breath and I'll figure out the best course of action.”

Now our hippie lady is going through her files, peering into folders, scrolling through pages. She's not quite talking to herself, but she might as well be. If she could solve this problem by squinting it would have been solved an hour ago.

I whisper, “I'm sorry I got upset about the multiverse.”

She pretends not to hear me.

“Okay. Here we are. Denbigh Residence Hall. Perfect. It's on the far side of the green, and you're on the fourth floor. It's a beautiful room. There's even a fireplace. That sounds lovely. Don't you think?”

“Yes! Er, I mean . . . oh, that would be so fantastic. I can't thank you so much for your kindness in my time of woe.”

Woe? Yes. I just said “time of woe.”

“Oh, it's nothing. That's what we're here for. And”—she wiggles her eyebrows—“I am giving you one of the best rooms on campus.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely. You know, I probably shouldn't tell you this, but . . . you're not the first one to opt out of that room.”

“Are you serious?”

“Well, I mean. Look, I don't believe in ghosts. But it does seem that room ends up empty quite a bit. Who knows why . . .”

“Wow.”

She winks at me and hands me the key.

Is she stoned? What's going on? This is all very strange. I thought everyone at this school was supposed to be terrible and stuffy and full of themselves. And like Dean Hardscrabble in
Monsters U
. But this lady. This lady in socks and sandals, she's all right.

And this all worked out—because Remy told me what to do.

“Listen, Willa. I know it's sometimes hard to transition from . . . other places, maybe even other worlds . . . so if there's anything you need, just feel free to knock. I'm always here. Well, I'm not always here, that would be weird, but my office hours are posted, and I'm here during office
hours—you get the idea. But I don't want you to feel like you're all alone here. Because you most certainly are not.”

Huh.

Do you think this is because of my Golden Globe–worthy dramatic performance in a leading role? Or do you think it's because I'm a freak from What Cheer, Iowa? Is
that
why she's being so nice right now? And why did she wink? That, too, is a mystery. The Mystery of the Dean of Student Affairs's Eyeball.

Welp. Whenever anybody's nice to me, my instinct is to run away as fast as possible. And that's just what I'm about to do.

“Um, well. Thanks.”

“You're welcome, Willa. Remember, you are here for a reason.”

“What, like here at Pembroke or like here on earth in general . . . ?”

She smiles, amused. “Both. And, Willa, I, too, am baffled by the concept of the multiverse. But maybe it means that the universe is full of infinite possibility.”

Ooo-kay.

I could sit around and contemplate this interaction for five days, but I'm too excited to see my new room. I mumble another thank-you to the Dean of Infinite Possibility and scurry off to the new digs. Now I am in Denbigh dorm
with an even bigger room, equipped with a fireplace and, of course, a view.

I should make up stories and cry more often. I should ask more about “what would Remy do?”

I resolve to get the rest of my things tomorrow. Not tonight. It's dark out, and the ghosts are probably camped out in my old room, smoking pipes and reading the
New Yorker
.