The Trouble with Emily Dickinson (3 page)

The dorm room was empty when JJ entered,
though she could hear the television in the common room. She knew
that Queenie probably was watching a movie. She and Queenie roomed
together and shared a suite with two other members of the
basketball team. Not wanting to be interrogated about what happened
during her tutoring session with Kendal, JJ quietly changed into a
pair of boxer shorts and a T-shirt, and climbed onto her top bunk
without saying goodnight.

She ran her hand underneath her pillow and
pulled out another journal. This one she kept in her bed in case
she ever woke up from a dream and needed to write her thoughts down
on paper before they vanished from her mind like midnight fog.

A number two pencil, with its end chewed
ragged and sides haphazardly gnawed, fell out from between the
pages. Sitting with her legs crossed, JJ closed her eyes and
breathed in long and heavy before she exhaled an equally long sigh.
She did this for a few minutes to clear the clouds in her head
until nothing remained but a clear white space, an empty room in
which the thoughts inside could move about freely

While a sense of quiet draped over her like a
quilt, an image of Kendal appeared in JJ’s mind. The picture seemed
as real as if they were still together in the library, sitting side
by side, discussing the intricacies of Emily Dickinson’s poetry.
When JJ opened her eyes, the writer inside of her had taken hold.
She scrawled words rapidly across the blank pages of her
journal.

Beyond your eyes, I see it . . . a moment,

a feeling, a breath

A second to say the words that never leave your
lips

And then it’s gone

Leaving behind a sensation

Tingling in my heart

Lingering in the air

Making me wish

That the moment never ended

Making me hope

To feel it again

But I imagine

That next time

The words will flow

The moment will last

The breathing will speed

And emotions will reveal

What lies patiently

Beyond your eyes

When she finished, JJ sat back and admired
her work. She whispered the poem out loud to herself in the safe
confines of an empty room where she felt secure that no one else
could hear her.

CHAPTER 4

“Wild nights. Wild nights.”

“No, no. Read it with more enthusiasm,” said
JJ.

Kendal raised her voice slightly. “Wild
nights! Wild nights!”

JJ looked at her skeptically.

“What?” Kendal asked.

“Do you even realize what Dickinson is
writing about here?”

“A wild night?”

“The way you read it you’d think the poem was
about a boring night.” JJ glanced around to make sure that the
library was empty. Then she grabbed the poetry book and pushed her
chair away from the table. She stood up firm and bellowed, “WILD
nights! WILD nights! Were I with thee, WILD nights should be our
luxury!”

Kendal looked on in amazement. “Wow,” she
said.

“See the difference?”

“Yeah. But I’m more impressed with the way
you read it than I am with the poem.”

JJ forced a smile, even though her stomach
was in knots. Had there been a single soul sitting anywhere near
them, she would have never dared to do what she had just done. But
she had to in order to get her point across about Dickinson’s
poetry. “I’m just doing the poem justice,” she said. “I’m giving it
the enthusiasm that Dickinson intended.”

“So she’s talking about a crazy, wild night.
Was she at a party or something?”

“Kendal,” said JJ, exasperation filling her
voice as she sank back down into her chair.

“What?”

“I can’t help you with this if you aren’t
willing to at least try and look between the lines.”

“I know,” Kendal sighed. “I’m still getting
used to this whole poetry thing. Emily Dickinson is just the
beginning, you know? We’re also studying other authors this
semester.”

“Dickinson is the beginning,” JJ insisted.
“It’s from Dickinson that all those other authors stem. You’ll
see.”

“I know I’m lacking enthusiasm. It’s just
that I haven’t had any ‘wild nights’ myself since you started
tutoring me. It’s been two weeks of studying, studying,
studying.”

JJ shifted in her chair. “But they’ve been an
enjoyable two weeks of studying, studying, studying, haven’t
they?”

Kendal smiled as if she were glad that JJ
cared enough to ask. “Yes, they’ve been enjoyable. Thanks to
you.”

JJ held back her sigh of relief. The truth
was that the past two weeks had been the most enjoyable days she
had ever experienced at Sampson Academy. And it was all because of
Kendal.

“So back to those ‘wild nights,’” said
Kendal. “Do you mind if I try again?”

“Go for it,” said JJ. But as soon as Kendal
opened her mouth to begin, JJ covered the page with her hands.
“Except this time, give it a little more oomph.”

“Oomph?”

“Yeah—oomph!”

Kendal laughed, “Okay.”

JJ watched closely as Kendal began reciting
the poem. She suddenly forgot all about those wild nights in the
poem and focused in on Kendal’s eyes, her hair, and the way her
nose twitched when she shouted a word. As soon as she finished, JJ
stood up and began clapping loudly.

Kendal blushed with embarrassment and pulled
at JJ’s arms to get her to sit back down. JJ playfully grabbed hold
of Kendal’s hand and pushed it away. Neither of them let go and
their hands stayed locked together.

“See, that was much better,” JJ said after a
moment, slowly releasing Kendal’s hand.

“Um—can we go over the middle stanza again?”
Kendal asked, pretending she hadn’t noticed that they had been
holding hands for a full thirty seconds. “Futile the winds to a
heart in port, done with the compass, done with the chart.”

“Sure. What do you think it means?”

“I think that it means that because she was
so deeply in love, the winds were useless to her. So was the
compass and the map or chart or whatever. She didn’t need them
because her heart knew which way to go. It knew how to get her to
her loved one because the connection between them was so
strong.”

“Exactly.”

“And when she got there, they’d have plenty
of ‘wild nights.’”

JJ laughed. “Not wild as in crazy silly, but
wild as in overwhelming.” She pointed to Kendal’s heart. “Remember
when I told you that Dickinson believed that love should truly be
felt? Well, the ‘wildness’ is describing what she felt.”

Kendal’s eyes widened. “She must have been
head over heels for the guy she was writing about.”

“How do you know it was a guy?” JJ asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Some people seem to think,” JJ began, but
paused for a moment, not sure how to phrase the rest of what she
wanted to say. “It’s been said that Dickinson might have been in
love with a close friend, another woman.”

“A woman?”

JJ continued slowly, “Well, a lot of her love
poems are not exclusively heterosexual. And in this one she doesn’t
specifically address gender. She’s just expressing love.”

“I don’t know. That still doesn’t mean she’s
talking about another woman.”

JJ paused. “You don’t think it’s possible for
a woman to feel that intensely about another woman? To feel that
much in love?” She looked along the bookshelves as she asked this,
slightly afraid of what Kendal might say in return.

Kendal studied the words on the page, though
her mind drifted to thoughts of how she’d been thinking about JJ
far too often lately. She read the poem over again.

“I do think it’s possible,” she said finally.
“I think love has a way of crossing all boundaries.”

They stared at one another, both well aware
that they were thinking exactly the same thing. A comfortable
silence lingered around them and even though their hour of studying
was up, neither mentioned the time or dared to glance at the clock.
Instead they continued talking, flipping through the pages of
Dickinson’s lyrics as if they were taking a journey through another
world, outside the boundaries of reality, and certainly outside the
confinement of Sampson Academy.

CHAPTER 5

“So, are you going to tell me or just sit
there eating your eggs with that ridiculous grin on your face for
the rest of breakfast?”

“What? I’m hungry.”

“Right,” Queenie snorted. “Look, I kept my
mouth shut and didn’t mention your numerous little tutoring dates
with the homecoming queen to anyone else on the team. I think that
kind of devotion earns me a complete and detailed account of the
evenings in question.”

“Your talent for persuasion astonishes me.
It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”

Queenie curled her fingers and ran them
across her shirt, pretending to buff her nails.

“Cute,” JJ said, peppering her eggs with hot
sauce.

“Quit trying to stall by flattering me.”

“I don’t know why you’re so intrigued
anyway.”

Queenie slapped her hands down flat on the
table. “Are you kidding me? This isn’t like you’re tutoring the
alphabet to some spoiled soccer player. This is THE Kendal
McCarthy, the most popular girl at Sampson Academy. And you’ve been
tutoring her for a couple of weeks now.”

“So?”

“So, I’m bursting with fruit-flavored
curiosity.”

“She’s not what she seems,” JJ insisted.
Anxiety itched in her stomach, and she longed to change the
subject. But Queenie knew her too well, and if she were hiding
something it would be completely obvious.

“She’s not materialistic and stuck up like
the rest of her cheerleading counterparts?”

“She’s, I don’t know, she’s—she’s different.
She’s nice.”

“Nice?” Queenie’s jaw fell nearly to the
table. “I don’t believe it! You like her!”

JJ immediately shook her head in defiance.
“No! I don’t even know her.”

“Yeah, but you used the word ‘nice.’”

“So, I happen to think she’s nice. That
doesn’t mean I like her!” JJ’s voice jumped at least an octave
higher. “You always jump to conclusions like this because it gives
you something to talk about.”

“Really?” Queenie asked, cocking her head to
one side. “Then why are you getting all defensive?”

“I’m not getting defensive!”

Queenie sat back in her chair and folded her
arms satisfyingly across her chest.

“Don’t look at me like that,” JJ warned. She
remained steadfast, even though she knew that Queenie had guessed
her secret. “Can we talk about something else, please?”

“Fine. But don’t come crying to me when the
Dibble Syndrome hits.”

Ah, yes. The notorious Dibble Syndrome. JJ
had considered it, too. During her sophomore year, she’d developed
an obsession with a girl in one of her classes named Kelly Dibble.
She fell so hard for her that it finally caused her to confront her
feelings head on.

JJ made the mistake of telling Kelly that she
was gay and how she felt. Kelly’s reaction was anything but
comforting. In fact, she was downright appalled and stopped
speaking to JJ altogether. JJ soon fell into a depression, and
Kelly transferred to another school the following semester. Though
it was rumored that Kelly had transferred because her parents had
wanted her closer to home, JJ suspected that she was an integral
reason for the transfer.

With Queenie’s help, JJ somehow managed to
climb up from the hole she’d sunk into, and regain her sense of
self. From that point on, she and Queenie had dubbed any serious
crush that left their minds senselessly wandering as the Dibble
Syndrome. But JJ knew this was different.

“It’s not the Dibble Syndrome,” she said.
“Not even close.”

“OK, if you say so.” Queenie began to rub her
left shoulder with purpose, grimacing from the soreness. “Coach
must have had something rather large and obtrusive stuck up her
butt this morning. I mean, how many sprints can one person run in a
two-hour span?”

JJ nearly snorted orange juice through her
nostrils. As she was about to respond with her own witty comment,
she spotted Kendal McCarthy walking across the cafeteria towards
the cheerleading table in the corner.

Most of the tables in the cafeteria were
unofficially spoken for. JJ and her teammates sat at their
designated table near the salad bar, while the boy’s basketball
team sat directly behind them. The soccer players sat at the
longest table near the front of the dining hall. At the next table
sat the students in the academic achievement group, and yet another
table was reserved for the debating team.

The remaining tables were filled accordingly
with members of other athletic teams, the drama club, the Cultural
Awareness Society, the art club, the Christian society and whatever
other clubs remained on campus. Students who didn’t belong to a
particular group bonded together and seized whatever open tables
they could. Sitting at the wrong table constituted a big no-no at
Sampson Academy.

JJ remembered when she mistakenly had sat
down at the cheerleading table her freshman year. Every single girl
at the table had looked at her as if she were an illegal immigrant
who’d dared to cross the border without a valid passport. One
senior had even gone so far as to remark, “Excuse me, but you do
know that this table is for cheerleaders only.”

Of course I didn’t know that, JJ had thought.
There was no neon sign or illuminated billboard advertising that
fact. JJ had wanted to spit those very words back out at her but
swallowed them instead. Feeling defeated, she’d scraped together
what remained of her pride and moved to another table.

“Ahem.”

JJ snapped out of her daze. Queenie was
giving her that look, the one that JJ’s mother used to give her
when she knew she was hiding something. “Could you be staring any
harder?”