Page 16 of Survive the Night

Until two months ago, she had loved being at Olyphant. It wasn’t the fanciest school. Certainly not the Ivy League. And not like NYU or Bennington or any of the other places she’d once dreamed of attending. There wasn’t enough money for that, and Charlie hadn’t been a good enough student to earn a scholarship. She’d been awarded some cash, yes. But nothing close to a full ride.

She settled on Olyphant because it was one of the few schools she and Nana Normacouldafford. A small liberal arts college in New Jersey. The film department decent, if not notable. She had planned on working hard, keeping her head down, graduating with a degree that would set her up nicely for grad school somewhere bigger, better, and more prestigious. She thought she’d eventually become a professor at a school similar to Olyphant, teaching film studies to the next generation of cinephiles.

What she hadn’t planned on was Madeline Forrester swanning into their dorm room that first day of college on a gust of cigarette smoke and Chanel No. 5. She was beautiful. That was the first thing Charlie noticed. Pale and blond and voluptuous, with a heart-shaped face that reminded her of Vivien Leigh inGone with the Wind. Yet she seemed slightly worn around the edges. An intriguing exhaustion. Like a hungover debutante dragging herself home the morning after a cotillion.

Framed in the doorway, teetering on three-inch heels, she surveyed their shared room and declared, “What a dump!”

Charlie got the reference—Maddy was impersonating Liz Taylor inWho’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?impersonating Bette Davis inBeyond the Forest—and her whole body fizzed like a jostled bottle of champagne. She’d just met a kindred spirit.

“I think I adore you,” she blurted.

Maddy fanned herself. “As well you should.”

Her style was easy to adore. Maddy talked fast, using a clipped Yankee accent purposefully meant to invoke Katharine Hepburn. Rather than the clothes favored by every other girl on campus—stone-washed jeans, white Keds, GAP sweatshirts under denim jackets—she dressed like a fifties socialite. Pastel cocktail dresses. White gloves. Pillbox hats with delicate veils. She even owned a mink stole, bought secondhand at a yard sale, its fur shabby and matted in spots. At parties, she’d smoke using a cigarette holder, waving it around like Cruella de Vil. Affectations, all. Yet Maddy got away with them because she never took them seriously. There was always a twinkle in her eye that made it clear she knew how ridiculous she could be.

On the surface, they seemed like an odd pair. The glamour girl and her blandly pretty roommate giggling on their way to the dining hall. But Charlie knew they were more alike than it seemed. Maddy grew up in the Poconos, firmly lower middle class, her childhood home a beige ranch house on the outskirts of a small town.

She was extremely close to her grandmother, from whom she claimed to have inherited her wildly dramatic streak. Mee-Maw was what she called her, which Charlie always thought was weird, even though Nana Norma isn’t exactly normal. Maddy spent the first four years of her life being raised by her grandmother as her deadbeat dad roamed the northwest in an endless quest to avoid paying child support and her mother drifted in and out of various rehabs.

Even after her mom got clean, Maddy stayed close to her mee-maw, calling her every Sunday just to check in. Sometimes when she was staggeringly hungover. Other times as she got ready to goout. Charlie noticed because it always made her feel guilty that she rarely called Nana Norma just to check in. She only called when she needed something, and hearing Maddy ask her grandmother how she was doing usually caused Charlie to picture Nana Norma home alone on the couch, lit by the flicker of whatever black-and-white movie was on the TV.

Movies were another thing Maddy and Charlie had in common. They watched hundreds together, with Maddy commenting on the action the same way Nana Norma did.

“God, has there ever been a man more beautiful than Monty Clift?”

Or “I would kill for a body like Rita Hayworth’s.”

Or “Sure, Vincente Minnelli was gay, but you wouldn’t know it from the way he filmed Judy Garland.”

Like Charlie, Maddy thrived on escapism, living in a fantasy world of her making. It was up to others to decide if they wanted to join her there. Charlie went willingly.

“You can tell me what happened, if you want.” Josh gives her a sympathetic look, trying to put her at ease. “I’m not going to tell anyone. And, hell, it’s not like we’re going to be seeing each other after this. There’s no need for secrets in this car.”

Charlie’s tempted to tell him everything. The darkness, the close quarters, the warmth—all of it sustains her confessional mood. Then there’s the fact that she hasn’t really talked about it. She’s said some things, of course. To Robbie. To Nana Norma. To the psychiatrist she was forced to see. But never the whole story.

“You ever do a bad thing?” she says, easing herself into the topic, seeing if it feels right. “Something so bad you know you’ll never, ever forgive yourself?”

“Badness is in the eye of the beholder,” Josh says.

He turns away from the windshield long enough for Charlie to see the look on his face. He’s smiling again. That perfect movie-stargrin. Only this time it doesn’t reach his eyes, which are devoid of any mirth. There’s nothing there but darkness.

Charlie knows it’s just a trick of the light. Or lack thereof. She assumes her eyes look equally as black and mysterious. But something about Josh’s dark eyes and bright smile rids her of the urge to confess. It no longer feels right. Not here. Not to this man she doesn’t know.

“What about you?” she says, trying to change the subject. “What’s your story?”

“What makes you think I have one?”

“You’re also leaving in the middle of the semester. Which means you’re also dropping out.”

“I’m not a student,” Josh says.

“I thought you were.”

He’d told her he was a student, hadn’t he? Or maybe she’d inferred that because of the Olyphant sweatshirt he’d been wearing when they met. The same one, Charlie reminds herself, he’s wearing right now.

Josh, apparently sensing her unease, clarifies. “I work at the university. Worked, I guess I should say. I quit today.”

Charlie continues to study him, realizing just how much older than her he really is. Ten years, at least. Maybe fifteen.

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