The Reinvention of Moxie Roosevelt (3 page)

“Moxie, my goodness! Are you hurt?” my mother cried.

I was, in fact, hurt. My butt was in a burning state of shock, and my ego felt bruised beyond repair. I had to crab-walk a few feet to retrieve my shoe and put it back on. I needed to immediately distance myself from this completely non-DUCKI tumble, so I leaped to my feet, reached the door in one hop, yanked it open, and rushed through.

I stopped just inside the door of the dormitory to let my eyes adjust.Whereas outside, everything had been brilliantly hued, like a Hallmark version of reality, inside, everything was cool and dark and quiet. Like I imagined a funeral home might be. The floors were polished marble, and dark and elegantly paneled wood walls lined the hallway. Directly across from the entrance was an alcove that had been tastefully furnished with two delicately upholstered chairs and a small wooden table. The alcove looked like it was expecting Jane Austen and Louisa May Alcott for tea.

My parents were right behind me.

“Mox, are you all right?” my mother repeated. I refused to turn around and look her in the eye.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked. I had humiliated myself in plain view of the world, and I certainly didn’t want to discuss it, or imagine how many people might have witnessed my charming dance rendition of
Spaz Lake
. I deferred further questioning by making my way down the hallway, resisting the impulse to rub both hands on my smarting backside.

The hallway opened into a larger alcove, where twin staircases spiraled upward on either side of the room. Beneath the stairs a large doorway opened into Sage’s living room, decorated with overstuffed couches and a small piano. It reminded me of Baron von Trapp’s mansion in
The Sound of Music
. In the center of the alcove was a large oil painting of a remarkably plain woman wearing some kind of doily on her head. Her intense but humorless eyes followed the progress of the Kipper family toward the staircase. Everything smelled of wood polish.

We made our way up the giant staircase, which wrapped around to become a balcony that completely encircled the alcove below. I heard the sound of loud, thundering footsteps behind me. I instinctively moved to the right. Just in time. The green-haired, combat-boot-wearing blur shot past me. I saw only enough of her to note that she clutched a bronze object like a football, tucked neatly under one arm. She was followed closely by a dark-haired wisp of a girl in a peasant skirt who ran much more quietly, leaving a faint scent of patchouli in her wake.They rounded a second flight of stairs and disappeared.

“Wasn’t that the same girl who knocked you down?” asked my father. “She didn’t even apologize.”

“She didn’t knock me down, Dad,” I said, acutely embarrassed. “She never even saw me. I accidentally backed off the step.”

“I think it
was
the same girl,” my mother said, in an outraged voice she usually reserved for Republicans. “What kind of manners does she have, charging past us like that? Was she raised in a barn?”

“Mom, please,” I said. “There’s no law against running up the stairs. And barns don’t even
have
stairs.”

I hoped no one could hear us. With all the embarrassing circumstances that had cropped up, I had completely forgotten to act Detached and Unique. Fortunately, we seemed to be the only people on the staircase. There wasn’t another human being in sight.

At the far end of the balcony, a second, smaller staircase led to the third floor. I could hear the sounds of voices up there, which grew louder as I climbed the stairs, my parents trailing behind me. When I reached the top, I took a breath, then pushed open the glass double doors.

Into chaos.

There were parents and girls milling about—examining the hallway, standing in the doorways of rooms, dragging suitcases and boxes every which way. It was like there’d recently been a revolution, and a new regime of thirteen-year-olds was rapidly being installed in the capitol building. I tried to make Bold Eye Contact with several of the girls, but no one seemed to notice I was standing there.

“So this is where everyone is,” my dad said. “I was beginning to wonder.”

“The admissions letter said only new students come today. Everyone else arrives tomorrow,” I told him.

“We didn’t bring any of your stuff up,” my mother said, looking around.

The thought of going back down all those stairs, past the doily lady, past the Mavix and the surreal lawn . . . I didn’t think I could stand it. My butt was still killing me, and my ego still hurt too. Stairs should be avoided for as long as possible.

My mother must have read something in my face. I was afraid she was going to do something weird, like go in for the killer hug, or start singing to me. I love my mother, but she has a tendency to act in embarrassing ways when we’re in public. And when we’re alone. But I give her credit—she could sometimes tell when she was embarrassing me, and she didn’t get all hurt about it. She touched my dad on the shoulder.

“Gil, let’s you and I go get Moxie’s stuff from the car, so she can meet her roommates and some of the other girls without us cramping her style.”

The expression made me squirm. But when she was right, she was right. I didn’t want to meet people I’d be living with all year standing next to a woman with terrier hair and a “Save the Tundra” T-shirt hiding the top half of a pair of mom jeans. And heaven forbid my father started in on his soda stories.

Before my parents were safely out of sight, a tall, athletic girl with a clipboard loped purposefully down the hall, her thick blond ponytail bouncing jauntily. She was clearly headed straight for us. Her stride was so powerful my first impulse was to duck and cover my head. But I refrained.

“Hey there!” she said loudly, grinning at us. “I’m Kristen, the proctor. You are . . . ?”

“The Kippers,” my father said, sounding proud, as if he’d just won something.“Gil and Dallas, and this,” he continued, relishing the
this,
“is Moxie.”

I gave the proctor an impassive and, I hoped, unreadable stare. Then, when she least expected it, I shot my left eyebrow up.

“Fabulous to meet you—awesome!” Kristen said. She sounded like
she’d
just won something too. “Let’s get you to your room. One of your roomies is already here. The other one isn’t coming until later in the semester. So you’ll have the triple to yourselves for a while.”

“Moxie’s dad and I are going to run downstairs and start bringing in her things,” my mother said.

Yes. Thank you. Seriously.

Kristen nodded vigorously, her ponytail swishing up and down. I felt like if I watched it sway too long, I would sink into a deep, hypnotic sleep. Maybe that’s how she controlled the new kids.

“Sounds good,” Kristen said, making a note on her clipboard. What could the note say?
Student arrived at room without luggage, Student mesmerized by my ponytail, Student seems markedly nothing in particular.

“There’s a service elevator in the basement, which you can get to from the Sage parking lot—look for a red door near the fire lane. That’s it,” Kristen explained.

My mother discreetly squeezed my elbow.

“Alrightee then,” she said. “Back in a jiffy.”

More embarrassing language, but at this point I was willing to forgive.

My parents set out toward the double doors with the seriousness of Lewis and Clark embarking on their transcontinental exploration of North America. Kristen was watching me intently.

“They’re coming back,” I said, because she looked like she was waiting for me to drop into a sobbing heap at her feet.

Kristen continued to peer at me with intensity for a moment, then suddenly without warning she enfolded me in a terrifying hug.

“You’re going to be just fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine,” she said.

“I know that,” I said, my voice muffled in her shoulder. It was obvious that my entire future as a cool person depended on my not crying at this moment. I quickly summoned the memory of the removal of a plantar wart from the sole of my foot in August. Picturing the injection of painkiller they shot right into that sucker jolted me from tears to disgust. Anything was better than tears right now. Even nausea.

Kristen smelled of freshly cut grass and Tiger Balm sports ointment. I think there was a whiff of field hockey stick in there too. After an awkward moment, I wiggled free of her hug. She continued to give me a wide-eyed, sympathetic smile.

“Okay, so this is your room, 303. One of the best triples—I had this room my freshman year.You’ve got great views of the quad, separate bedrooms, and two of you will have sinks.”

Was that a status symbol here at Eaton? To have a sink?

Kristen pushed the door to 303 open while simultaneously making a little knocking sound with her knuckles. She glanced at her clipboard.

“Hello? Megan?”

There wasn’t anyone I could see in the room we’d just walked into. It was large, with three tall windows, high ceilings, and a wood floor. Against the right wall was a bed, just a bare mattress and pillows. Against the left wall was a desk and a lamp. On both walls there were doors, and one of them opened.

“I told you I don’t go by that name,” came a voice.

Kristen checked her clipboard again, and made a little notation.

“Sorry,” she said. “Spinky. Moxie Kipper, meet one of your roommates, Spinky Spanger.”

When she emerged through the door, all I registered was green hair and combat boots. Zounds. What were the chances? Had she seen me fall smack onto my can? I tried to keep my face totally blank.

Spinky Spanger walked to the center of the room and appraised me with a frank look. I tried to raise my eyebrow at her, but it was temporarily paralyzed.

Spinky was dressed in black jeans, the aforementioned combat boots, and a ripped T-shirt that had been modified by the strategic placement of safety pins. She had something around her neck that resembled, or possibly was, a dog’s chain collar. Her hair, short and standing straight up in a classic brush cut, wasn’t just green. It was an aggressive, leaking radiation shade of green. Earrings adorned all available real estate on her left earlobe, from fleshy bottom to rounded top. A tiny silver hoop hung through one eyebrow. Her nails were painted indigo blue, and most of them were chipped. She continued to stare at me frankly, hands on hips, like I was a horse she was considering buying.

Kristen looked back and forth between the two of us. I could tell right off that Spinky confused Kristen. I liked that. I wanted to confuse Kristen too. Possibly even worry her.

“Well, I could leave you two to get to know each other,” Kristen said, but she addressed it to me almost as if it were a question.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding.

She hesitated for a fraction of a second. So I sat down on the bed and propped my feet up, to show Kristen I felt at home. She turned to go, and I watched the last of her blond locks whip around the door frame. Then everything was silent.

I was alone with Spinky Spanger.

“
M
oxie, ” Spinky said thoughtfully, like she was trying to get the feel of it on her tongue. “Moxie.”

I just sat there on the bed, because I hadn’t decided how to respond. Which was nothing new. My intuition told me my best bet was to stick with my DUCKI personality in this girl’s company. But Spinky appeared so detached and coolly unique herself, I figured I’d better ramp it up a notch. I could already tell that this was a person I wanted to impress.

“It’s a . . . there’s this soda and two presidents . . . I mean, I’m supposed to be . . .”

Spinky waited patiently for my mouth and my brain to coordinate.
Speak
, I commanded myself.

“My parents really should have gone to Remedial Child-Naming School,” I finally forced out. Okay, deep breath. “My theory is if you’re going to go for a weird name, go the whole hog, like Frank Zappa. He named his kids Moon Unit and Dweezil.”

Spinky regarded me thoughtfully. I tried to hide my amazement that I had said something aloud in a complete sentence.

“Are you a Frank Zappa fan?” she asked.

Oh. I had no idea. This saying things out loud thing was tricky. I’d only picked up that tidbit after my father watched a documentary on Zappa and spent the next two days randomly declaring, “Moon Unit! Dweezil! Have you ever heard such crazy names?” And frankly, yes I
had
.

But wait. It was my turn to talk again. I needed to say something unexpected.

“I’m not a fan of
fans
,” I said cryptically, pursing my lips. “It’s like Rimbaud said—worship is for the masses.”

Now
that
I had simply made up. There was a Rimbaud, I was pretty sure. He was . . . wait, a French playwright? Poet? Designer? My mother had been talking about him at breakfast, but only his name had penetrated my psyche. I was banking on the fact that he was obscure enough that he very well
could
have said “Worship is for the masses,” no matter what his profession.

Spinky let out a deep chuckle. I prayed to the gods of Cool Detachment that she was laughing with me, not at me.

I examined her boots to avoid making eye contact. They were well worn and laced up tightly, her black jeans tucked perfectly inside with no billowing bubble-over. I raised my gaze slightly to one of her hands. She had a silver ring on every finger, including her thumb. One of the rings was fashioned in the shape of a skull. A leather thong was wrapped around her wrist, and my eyes widened as I caught sight of a series of squiggles and lines on her forearm.

Spinky Spanger had a
tattoo.

I immediately wanted one.

“Nice tat,” I said, gesturing toward her arm. “I’ve been wanting to get one, but the thought of peeling Gil and Dallas off the ceiling has slowed me down.”

“Really—you’re thinking of getting some ink? Like what?” Spinky asked.