Narrow River, Wide Sky by Jenny Forrester

Author:Jenny Forrester
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780997068368
Publisher: Hawthorne Books
Published: 2017-06-15T04:00:00+00:00

IV. You’re Not Meant for the Same Things

13. College

MOM SAID, “YOU ALL PACKED?” LOOKING AT MY ROOM, seeing nothing holding me back. She sighed, impatient.

“Yeah.”

“So, you’re ready.”

My throat hurt and the smell of the sage made it hurt more. I’d wanted to leave, but when it came time, I wanted to stay and cry under my crucifix.

Mom turned around, pulling me along with her will. We passed through the trailer: Little scratches in the paneling that triggered memories of games, furniture-moving, fights with my brother, escapes from him. I pet the cats. We’d had many cats over the years. Funny Mike, Paul’s best friend, said we lived in a cat house. Now there was Furzy with the big mitten-shaped, extra-toed paws, tall enough to reach the top of the counter in a full stretch, tortoiseshell Thomas, and Fuffy, the cat only six years my junior. Tuxie tilted his head to play when I passed him sitting in the cat window. I knew he’d miss me, but not enough to follow me to Boulder using his cross-Colorado navigation skills. We believed that he’d made his way home from Omaha, Nebraska, where he’d jumped out of the van when we’d gone to visit the Minnesota relatives, taking the cats with us so they wouldn’t starve over the summer.

Mom drove me over the mountains, following the highways built in the riverbeds, up to Grand Junction and east on I-70, passing through the valley we’d lived in when Dad lived with us, when we lived with goats and chickens, on the way to the University of Colorado Boulder.

I met my redheaded roommate with the whitest, freckle-dappled skin I’d ever seen, well dressed, and said, “Hello. Where you from?” the first question of importance.

She said, “Beaverton, Oregon – a small town.” It sounded small, so I believed her. “Where you from?” she said, looking me up and down. She told me she planned to pledge Alpha Omega something something. I couldn’t catch what she said. She looked me up and down again when I said, “What’s that mean?”

She said, “You have an accent.” I made a mental note to drop the accent that I hadn’t been aware of until right at that moment.

She and her best friend sat in the window smoking cloves, talking about a frat party and pledging.

They talked about sisterhood, the sorority houses, the guidance and support, and the future business contact possibilities. My mind opened, excited. Possibilities.

I asked about pledging a sorority, “How can I do that?”

They laughed.

I didn’t know anything about sorority girls or Oregon, and I didn’t like that she was there on scholarship because her grandmother was one quarter Blackfoot.

I said, “You don’t look like an Indian.” I didn’t believe she needed a scholarship when she didn’t even look like an Indian to me, but mostly I didn’t believe she needed a scholarship after she’d told me about her big house on fifteen acres and her family’s horses.

She said, “It’s not up to you to decide if I’m Indian enough.

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