Chapter 14
Carolyn (May 1957)
...
Room C7 felt cold and quiet when Carolyn returned from one of her classes. She tried her best to maintain proper posture while carrying her textbooks down the hallway of floor C but slumped as soon as she arrived at her door. She pushed her way into the room and looked at the empty bed that was briefly Holly's. She heard that soon the bed would no longer be unoccupied and she would have a new roommate; one that would be starting a tad late but would be given extra work to complete to make up for her absence. The mistress had told her the news a couple of days ago during lunch.
"Miss Moore," Mistress Laurier had approached Carolyn as she was quaintly eating her soup. She gracefully put her spoon down and looked up at the mistress to speak.
"Yes, Mistress Laurier?"
"I have some exciting news, my dear." the mistress said. "You will be having a new roommate in a couple of days. Is that simply wonderful?"
"Oh yes," Carolyn said. "It will be lovely to have some company."
The mistress smiled. "Her name is Nancy Adler. She is starting the program late but her father insisted we give her extra homework to make up for her absence. You dear, to the best of your ability, are to help her catch up. You so far have been a star pupil. Will this be a problem of any sort?"
Carolyn stopped herself from shaking her head. The mistress preferred words over head shakes or nodding.
"No, Mistress Laurier. It will not be a problem."
"Excellent."
Carolyn sat at her desk to study. She had some free time before she needed to press on to her next class of the day. She studied history for a brief moment before her mind began to wander. She tapped her pen on the blank notebook paper and began to doodle on the page. Carolyn did enjoy drawing from time to time. Her younger sisters loved when she would draw for them and they would ask her to draw so many things. It was like a game to them.
"Can you draw a rocking chair?" her sister Judith asked one day. The sisters would sit out on the porch swing, and laugh and play until it would be time to go inside for supper. Carolyn would bring her sketchbook close to her face so her sisters wouldn't see the drawing being made. Then she would turn the sketchbook around, revealing the sketch of a rocking chair.
"Now can you draw a butterfly?" her other sister Shirley asked.
"Of course!" Carolyn laughed. "One butterfly coming up."
She stuck her nose back into her sketchbook and a few minutes later, turned the sketchbook around to reveal the drawing of a butterfly.
Her little sisters would giggle and keep the game going until Carolyn would grow tired and have to herd them into the house to wash up. She thought back on those days as she let her mind wander on the notebook that sat on her desk next to the heavy textbooks she despised carrying. She wasn't doodling anything in particular, she just let the pen dance on the page and stared at the words in the history textbook. The words seemed to have no meaning to them as she stared right through the page.
"Could anything be more boring?" she whispered to herself, thinking Holly would have made a snide remark and would have laughed at her. She closed the books, stacked them together, and got ready for her next class of the day.
"Just two more classes to go," she thought. "Two more dreadfully boring classes to go."
Carolyn looked at the small shelf that was anchored to the wall above her desk. Her trilogy of Lord of the Rings began to collect a thin layer of dust and she frowned at the sight. She was glad that her mother had mailed the other two books to complete the set. She quickly wiped them off and vowed that she would start reading them later that night. She missed reading books she cared about. She was tired of the manuals, the heavy textbooks, and the pamphlets. Oh, the pamphlets were never-ending and Carolyn kept them stuffed into her desk drawer. They were all about a single topic; whether it was how to sew a button, how to wash the dishes, or how to vacuum, Carolyn was tired of it all. She already knew how to do all of these things; she practically raised her two younger sisters and took care of the home when their mother was too ill to do so herself. Carolyn used the word 'ill' loosely because when her mother would say she was 'ill' she really meant dreadfully hungover. So Carolyn would have to step up and take care of everything when illness struck her poor mother.
After getting ready for her final classes of the day, Carolyn grabbed her stack of books and gracefully exited room C7, hoping that if the mistress was out in the hallway, she would see just how seriously Carolyn was taking school; using proper posture even when no one was around. A star pupil. A few hours later Carolyn returned to the room, exhausted and in no mood to keep her posture straight and her chin held high. It had been a long day and she hurried into the room and tossed the books to the floor next to her bed. She kicked off her loafers and fell backward onto her perfectly made sheets, which she wrinkled when she dove onto them. Carolyn sighed as she took in the silence of the room; finally away from the chatter of the other girls and the lecturing from the mistress and her other instructors.
"A new roommate," she whispered to herself. "And have to say goodbye to this quiet? There is a problem here indeed." She scoffed and sat up in bed. Carolyn had thought about it and made note that she wouldn't very much enjoy helping another girl catch up with her work. She felt that she had enough on her plate already. She wouldn't dare speak these thoughts to Mistress Laurier though. She needed to stay on her good side, keep her chin up, and breeze through the program so she could return home. She hoped that she would have a moment of normalcy before her parents forced her hand in marriage. She wanted to see her sisters again and not have to be swept up by a husband right away. A husband would be one thousand times worse than a roommate needing to catch up with her schoolwork. Then there was a knock on the door and Carolyn stared for a moment and hurriedly organized her books and other things that were strewn about.