The Memory Merry-Go-Round

            The hill should be easier to climb by now, but it wasn’t. Every time Sydney reached the top, she was out of breath and drenched in sweat. That smooth burn of recently exercised muscles hit her thighs and made her want slouch back to her car. Instead, she reached up and patted down her short blonde hair. It was just one more day of senior year that she needed to get through. Her heart rate slowly returned to normal as she picked her way across campus.

            The hike up every morning was the price the students of Lakeview Community College paid for their academic choices. A close cluster of buildings set on top of a steep hill, Lakeview was a small island surrounded by massive parking lots. Silver Honda Civics stalked returning students to their cars, the impacted system forcing everyone to get aggressive if they wanted anything: courses, recognition, parking spaces. Everything was up for grabs, and yet still out of reach. The system seemed designed as a reminder to the students of how much farther they might have been able to make it, had the circumstances been different.

            Sydney didn’t have these problems. A high school senior taking classes at a community college as a part of an alternative program, she would be gone from this place soon enough.  As she walked across campus, Sydney made a note of the squat architecture. The buildings clung to one another, as though desperate to prevent their inevitable desertion. She felt sad and ill and started to walk faster.

            She readjusted the shoulder strap of her bag as she approached her side of campus. Here the hill sloped back downward and then onto a flat, deserted stretch of asphalt. A few portable buildings were pushed together in the center of it. The word “portable” had become a joke a while back, as the original plans to replace these buildings with something beautiful and sweeping had been discarded as a result of the economic downturn. If the rest of campus was mildly depressing, this side was even bleaker. It was the useless, the unused, and the forgotten. Sydney made her way down to the closest portable.

            She just wanted to get into the room and sit down, but the door was still locked when Sydney went up to try the handle. Her right hand dropped to her side and she turned to go sit on the railing that stretched along the ramp leading to the door. Two other students from her program were already gathered nearby, but the overwhelming majority would stagger one after the other into class ten minutes after it started, a waft of sweet-smelling smoke drifting in with them.

            “Syd?”

            Sydney jumped at the sound of her name. She turned. Sincere seeming blue eyes sunken into a round face framed by dirty light brown hair, that might have once resembled a bowl cut, greeted her. Chris. She twitched her facial muscles up into a smile.

            “Hey,” she said. “What’s up?”

            Chris ignored her greeting and instead said, “Have you seen Maria around here anywhere?”

            Sydney shook her head. “Nope, just got here. I’m surprised you haven’t seen her. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without her.”

            She watched his left hand reach up and run through his hair. Chris was staring at the end of the asphalt and absently chewing his lip with his front teeth. She would be shocked if he had heard a word she said after her negative response.

            Movement at the corner of her eye made Sydney turn her head. Almost simultaneously, she heard Chris let out a sigh of relief, and she resented him. The teachers were on their way over, the requisite line of hangers-on trailing behind. The strangest bunch of people in the entire world, and yet they fit together like a travelling circus. The whole group walked quickly, although the students in the back were clearly making an effort to seem disinterested. When her English teacher caught sight of her and waved, Sydney fought down the feeling that it was now too late to run away. She waved back.

            Sydney watched as her teacher walked up the ramp to unlock the door. His eyes briefly flicked up to where she sat on the railing and he said, “Hey Sydney, how are you doing?”

            She forced a smile onto her face. “Hey Frank, not too bad.” This was a program that encouraged its students to call their teachers by short nicknames. Apparently, they thought it promoted equality and respect, or something. All Sydney ever felt when she called a strange man old enough to be her father by a nickname was slightly uncomfortable. This had been the first disconcerting thing about the alternative program. It had become one of many.

            Sydney waited until about half of the group filed in after Frank before she jumped down and went inside. The oppressive darkness of the room was always what hit her first. The air was still and musty, as they were the only program who ever used this space. Desks were scattered across the floor, some inexplicably overturned. The teacher’s unused desk at the corner and a bookcase at the end of the room were the only gestures towards education. Sydney took her usual desk at the end of a grouping, far enough in to make her look like a part of the class, but still several desks away from the closest person.

            A short, slightly plump boy named Mikey stumbled over her bag and stopped. She looked up at him and a weird flood of confrontational energy moved between them.

            “. . . Sorry,” Mikey finally said, and continued on to his seat at the opposite end of the room. Frank leaned against the broken wooden podium that stood facing the desks and surveyed his students. Nine people looked back at him. He took a moment and seemed to be deliberating over something. Then he took a breath and began.

            “So, The Great Gatsby, how many of you got to the third chapter last night?” Frank’s optimistic tone made Sydney feel embarrassed. She waited a few seconds and then slowly raised her hand. She was the only one.

            Frank took a deep breath and clenched his jaw. “You know guys, this is starting to be ridiculous. I mean, I know we said we wanted this to be an atypical high school environment, but—“

            The door slammed open. In strolled the missing seven students, seemingly unaware that they were interrupting their teacher’s train of thought. Maybe that was part of the respect you lost when you let your students call you by your first name. That usual sweet scent floated in behind them, and one by one they took their seats and leaned back.

            Frank’s mouth was still hanging open from his aborted tirade. The situation was so familiar, and yet it was infinitely more frustrating in this moment. Decisions, decisions, decisions to be made. He took a deep breath with his mouth still open, looked down at the podium he was leaning against, and closed his eyes.

            “As I was saying,” he finally continued, “I don’t know what to do if you guys aren’t even going to try. I mean, what do I have to do to make you learn something?” Awkward silence covered the room. Frank was rarely mad, so nobody knew how to respond to his strained tone. “Do we have to read Gatsby aloud in class, just so I know you’ve at least had the material forced on you? Fine. That’s what we’ll do. Everyone open your books to the first page and let’s read the epigraph. Shelby?”

            The shock of what was happening travelled around the room and was followed by the sound of sixteen books rustling open.

~

            You didn’t get to this program easily. Not that it was academically challenging, you just had to fall pretty far before the school counselors collectively shrugged their shoulders and washed their hands of you. It was something that most students in the area didn’t even know about. Twenty of their companions just disappeared from classes and nobody asked why. It helped that these were the people that nobody thought about anyway. You see that grimy red-haired kid staggering through the hallway and mentally cross him off your list. It just happens.

            But when you got to this place it felt inevitable. Everyone slips off the face of the earth and ends up in the same place. Almost a parody of what “liberal” education looks like, the program encouraged a move away from traditional learning and grades. The students banded together and told themselves they were holding out against the Other. Don’t let me slip back into that mindset. Kill me if I ever sell out. They leaned as far away from the truth as they could before they snapped their necks. Leaning away from the idea that will inevitably catch up to you if you live long enough.

            The Other you’re holding out against doesn’t exist.

~

            Sydney heard the light steps on the ramp and knew who was coming before the door opened. A hand fumbled with the doorknob and then light flooded the room as the door flew back. Sydney heard a slight falter in Frank’s voice as he continued reading from The Great Gatsby. Maddie walked in. Sydney was immediately alerted that something was off when Maddie looked her in the eyes and offered a sincere smile. She watched as the brunette put out her left hand to steady herself against the door frame.

            “Maddie,” Sydney heard herself chirp. “Come sit next to me.”

            Maddie’s smile crept down into one of slow recognition, and she sat in the desk next to Sydney without argument. “What are we doing?” she asked, an expression of genuine wonder on her face. When Maddie leaned in, Sydney was overwhelmed by the smell of cheap tequila. She took a deep breath. Everyone must be staring at them. She looked around.

            But no, everyone was doing their own thing, while Frank tried against all odds to get them to listen. Sydney caught Maddie start to raise her hand out of the corner of her eye, and immediately snatched it down. It was helpful that Frank actively tried not to catch people at things like this, but Sydney’s stomach clenched with nerves as she considered what it would take to hide Maddie’s state from her teachers.

            An extraordinarily long fifteen minutes later and Frank finally let them go for the short break between English and History. As soon as Sydney exited the room, she grabbed Maddie’s arm and led her away from the crowd. When they had reached the edge of the parking lot, she turned around and surveyed the girl in front of her, searching for something recognizable.

Maddie jumped forward and threw her arms around Sydney’s neck. Sydney stiffly returned the hug to keep Maddie steady. When Maddie finally let go, Sydney gently pushed her away and said, “What are you doing? Why are you doing this to yourself?”

~

It was Sydney’s first day in the alternative program, and she was so nervous she couldn’t focus on one train of thought. She couldn’t will herself out of the car and towards the group of people she would be sharing her time with for the next two years. Her dad sat in the driver’s seat and calmly sipped his coffee. Occasionally he would murmur a soft, “Whenever you’re ready,” and reposition himself.

            Twenty minutes went by of Sydney staring out the passenger window and up that hill. Finally, she put a shaking right hand on the handle of the door and opened it slowly. She straightened up, grabbed her bag from where it sat on the floor, and adjusted it into place. “Good luck, honey, you’ll be great,” her father said. She knew there was a polite response to make, but she couldn’t seem to find it. She just nodded her head.

            She got up the hill without realizing it, although her legs burned from the effort. Sydney had looked up the location of the portables the night before, but now faced with the task she found she couldn’t remember which way she was supposed to walk. She felt the slow build of fear and turned around to try and get her bearings. Sydney caught sight of a group of students, around her age, walking across campus. She hung back a few seconds and then followed after them.

            The room was buzzing with noise when she opened the door. Two girls spoke with Frank at the front of the room, and so he didn’t notice her right away. She watched as he leaned back slightly and laughed. It was a good laugh. Sydney felt the room start to grow quiet and looked around. Everyone was staring at her. Finally, Frank looked up and saw the object of this rare silence.

            “Oh hi, you must be . . .?” Frank said, without moving towards her.

            She nodded and didn’t know why. “Sydney Peterson,” she said. “I’m new.” She mentally kicked herself for making such an obvious statement.

            Frank smiled. “Good, well, welcome. Take a seat anywhere you’d like. We’ll start in a second.”

            Sydney crept forward and put her hand on the back of the desk at the very edge of the group. She glanced around for anyone who might be inviting her over, but saw no such invitation. She sat down. Then—

            “Sydney?” a voice asked from behind her. Sydney turned. She was met by a girl with long, perfectly straight brown hair and dark brown eyes. Although she held herself with the confidence of someone much older, her face was one that seemed enduringly young. Her smile said you were the most important thing in the world, and even if it was a fakeout, it was a good one. Several moments passed of Sydney studying this girl before she realized they had met before.

            “No way,” she said, slightly under her breath. “Maddie?”

            Maddie smiled and pulled her bag off of the chair next to her. “Come sit next to me,” she said, still smiling.

            Sydney got up and walked to the desk indicated. “I haven’t seen you since, what? The seventh grade?”

            Maddie nodded slowly and said, “And just look where we are now.”

~

            The shock started to wear off after a few minutes of leading an unsteady Maddie through conversation. Sydney began gasping for air, unable to decide what she should do next. Then she saw Isabelle and Bea standing over near the portables. Bea slipped over part of the railing and fell to her knees. Isabelle threw her head back and howled, cackling so loudly that Sydney could hear it from where she stood. Bea reached up and held out a hand for Isabelle to help her up. Isabelle didn’t seem to notice and continued laughing, then stumbled a little to her left. Sydney realized what was going on and felt the anger start to boil in the pit of her stomach. She expected this from them, but that didn’t mean they had to drag Maddie down too.

            The other teacher, Connie, came out of her portable and whistled. It was time for the classes to switch. Not knowing what else to do, Sydney grabbed Maddie by the arm and started to lead her over in that direction. Once again, Maddie threw her arms around Sydney’s neck and hugged her. Sydney just stood there.

            “I missed you so much,” Maddie said suddenly. “Why don’t we ever do anything anymore?”

            Sydney felt her face start to grow red and the pressure behind her eyes start to build. She gently pushed Maddie away and said, “Come on, we have to go inside.”

~

            Her hand was shaking around the shot glass. She readjusted her fingertips to secure them on its cool surface. Maddie waited patiently by her side, nodding encouragingly as she looked on. Sydney closed her eyes, raised the edge of the glass to her mouth and quickly tossed it back. It went down easily, but she took a swig of the pineapple chaser just in case. She barely had time to gauge her surroundings before Maddie tackled her.

            “I’m so proud of you!” she yelled, slurring her words a little. Sydney felt the vodka go straight to her head and laughed the feeling off.

            It was the night of junior prom, but the only ones at the party who’d been there were Sydney and Maddie. The prom was the program’s version of a school dance, infinitely more awkward due to the lack of people available. Still, the decorated banquet room at a local hotel and as much free food as they could eat eventually got everyone in a festive mood. Maddie and Sydney had coordinated their outfits so they, at least, looked like they were from the same party. At the time she was getting ready, putting on a red flapper dress, complete with full fringe and some fake pearl costume jewelry, had felt like the best idea in the entire world. Now that she was at a run-of-the-mill house party with people from her old high school, she was starting to question the night’s decision making.

            “Oh shit,” Maddie said, “I’m getting a call from my mom. Hold on.”

            “Should you really answer?” Sydney asked. “I mean, I can barely understand you at this point. Isn’t your mom going to figure out where you are?”
            Maddie smirked and shrugged, a little too much, and said, “No way, I’ve done this a million times. I can sober up in a second if I have to.” She pressed the accept button on her phone and walked out onto the front porch.

            Sydney looked around. She knew a few of the people at the party, although they weren’t people she’d call friends. Still, she needed someone to talk to. Maddie’s sudden absence made her feel particularly vulnerable. She spotted an ex-friend’s ex-boyfriend on the couch across the room and made her way over.

            They had nothing in common, except for their mutual hatred of that other girl. A conversation that she thought would last for maybe ten minutes stretched into thirty. Sydney yawned and looked up. Maddie was crossing the room into the kitchen with another girl.

            “I’ll just have one more shot so I can still drive home later,” Maddie was saying.
            “Um sweetie, I think you passed the point where that was still an option several drinks ago,” the girl responded.

            Sydney made to get up and go assert some kind of control over the situation. She looked down, and found that the guy’s arm had snaked its way around her shoulders while she wasn’t paying attention. He was staring at her intently. Although she didn’t feel strongly about this guy one way or the other, the attention felt nice. She stretched her legs out so they were draped across his lap and tried to engage herself back into the conversation.

             Another forty-five minutes passed, and Sydney was starting to feel like she was missing something. She kept trying to extract herself from the conversation she was still having, but every attempt was firmly denied. Then she glanced up and saw Maddie. She was leading Eric, one of the guys from their old high school, upstairs, an eager, yet slightly dull smile on her face. Sydney heard her friend’s warning about situations like this, about how she didn’t want to have sex with anyone yet, about the things she didn’t want to regret doing under the influence, and she started to get up.

            “I should do something,” Sydney said. She put her feet on the ground.

            “Like what?” the guy said. “Really there’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing you should do.”

            Sydney ran her right hand through her hair and bit into the side of her mouth. The guy grabbed her arm and said, “Seriously, just leave it alone. These things happen all the time.” Sydney reluctantly sat back down.

            The rest of the night was spent watching the guy Sydney had been talking to bike home alone at 3 AM and passing out on the couch while four people she didn’t know watched an old episode of Family Guy next to her.

~

            It was harder to help Maddie fly under the radar with two other drunk girls drawing attention. Isabelle accidentally tipped over in her desk, and this caused Bea to break into hysterical giggling. Sydney moved Maddie over to the back of the room and tried to get her to focus on the activity they were supposed to be working on.

            “Maddie, focus,” she said, although she knew it was useless. She did her best to guide her old friend through the process of scribbling down letters, but there didn’t seem to be a point. This was made so much worse by Maddie’s lack of awareness.

            “Killin’ it,” she said loudly, and grinned up at Sydney. She looked so sweet and proud, and Sydney felt this expression as a stab to the gut.

~

            Their friendship had started on completely different terms. Having grown up in the same church, Maddie and Sydney had been friendly for most of their lives without really knowing each other. Dressed in restrictive sundresses in a variety of pastels, they would wave across the mass of people milling around, collecting food from the Easter service potluck table.

            The last time they had seen each other before entering the program had been at a church camp, sponsored by the youth group they had both grown up in. It was here that they finally spoke, and came to realize that they had a similar humor, a similar style of speaking. Maddie could glance Sydney’s way and suggest something with the slight squint of one eye. It was so easy and comfortable so quickly. It became obvious that they were two people who were destined to be close friends.

            Except nothing had come after that. They lost touch and ended up at two different high schools. Sydney didn’t think of Maddie again (other than when telling the odd story from that summer) until her first day in the alternative program. And here they picked up right where they had left off, as if four years hadn’t intervened. This time they were closer, this time they shared the same sense of hollow loss that came with leaving traditional high school. That harsh, sardonic edge to their witty commentary came naturally, born of a shared experience of rejection. Still, it seemed to everyone that they held each other up, and that life would be bigger and more exciting after they graduated from the program.

            Except.

            There was one day in early August of their senior year when Maddie didn’t show up for class. And then another. And then four more. Sydney desperately tried to contact her friend, but was met with silence or the answering machine. Then Maddie finally showed up, walking next to Frank in the direction of the portables. Frank’s face was shadowy and Sydney could tell by the way Maddie nervously pinched at her sleeve that something was wrong.

            When Frank got to the group of students congregated at the portables, he look around for a second before saying, “Let’s all meet in Connie’s room today. There’s something we need to talk about.”

            Sydney could tell by the way some people looked at each other, that they knew what this was about. She felt stupid that she didn’t. She fell in step beside Maddie, but didn’t say anything. She would know what was wrong soon enough.

            When everyone had filed in after Frank, he started to speak. “So as many of you may have heard, Eric Harris passed away last Monday. While we’re usually instructed to continue on in times of tragedy such as this,” he glanced in Maddie’s direction, “it has come to my attention that many of you knew him. I thought it might be good for us to talk about this as a community, so that nobody feels alone. Does anyone have something they’d like to share about Eric?”

            Many hands shot up, but to Sydney’s surprise, Maddie’s wasn’t one of them. She’d assumed that Maddie would be the most involved, as it had clearly been partially her idea. However, as Frank called on people and they started to share, Maddie seemed to grow tenser where she sat. Finally, she stood up from her seat, mumbled something about having to go to the bathroom, and left. Sydney waited five minutes before following after her.

            She found her friend standing around the corner of the last portable, smoking and staring at the ground. Sydney came over and stood next to her, leaning against the railing for a few moments before saying, “What’s going on?”

            Maddie swallowed and looked down. “It’s not helping,” she said.

            Sydney studied her face and said, “What?”
            “This ‘town hall’ discussion, or whatever Frank thinks he’s doing. At first I thought it was a good idea, but it’s just pissing me off.”

            Sydney waited for more of an explanation, but when it became clear that one wasn’t coming, she asked, “Why?”

            “None of them really knew him, and yet they’re acting like his death had a huge impact on their lives. Practicing tragedy. It must be nice.”

            “Did you really know Eric?” Sydney asked, trying to keep the note of incredulity out of her voice. She shouldn’t be surprised by information like this.

            Maddie nodded. “We worked together,” she said, tapping the end of her cigarette against the railing. “I got to know him pretty well over the last two years. I don’t know.” She stopped and looked up at the sky. “It didn’t feel right to go in after he . . . I missed a few of my shifts. I got fired from my job.”

            “I’m sorry,” Sydney said.

            Maddie shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, “I just can’t seem to wrap my head around it. One day someone’s here, joking about the way the manager’s ears move when he’s angry, and then he’s just . . . gone from the world.”

            Sydney nodded, but she didn’t know what to say. She tried, “Yeah death is . . .” but whatever profound idea she had had died on her lips.

            Maddie threw her cigarette on the ground and stepped on it. “Whatever, I don’t want to talk about it. This was a bad idea. I just want to stop thinking about it.” She got up and walked out toward the parking lot. Sydney watched her go.

~

            At the end of class, everyone filed up to Connie’s desk to turn in the activity they had been working on in pairs. Sydney turned in she and Maddie’s and did her best to slink away. The whole day left a sour feeling in the pit of her stomach, and she wouldn’t be able to escape fast enough.

            She wanted out. She wanted out and she wanted away. She wanted to leave this campus and never have to come back. And yet, she knew she had to show up the next day. And the day after that, until she graduated and that would be it.

            All the program had become to her was a painful theater piece of how people throw their lives away. Everything slowly escalated, from being high in class, to daring each other to drop acid and get away with it. This tiny world supported itself and crushed its inhabitants. Frank and Connie forced themselves to turn a blind eye because they knew that, after the program, there wasn’t anywhere else to go. They were all sinking together. And Maddie was in the middle of it.

            With a growing drug habit, a refusal to give up anything that might help her escape reality, and an inability to accept that there was something better waiting for her after she turned eighteen, Maddie had slowly stopped turning up for class. When she did, she was out of her mind on something. Watching it was brutal, and this had meant the dissolution of everything Sydney and Maddie had been to one another. It was the end, and it was being painfully dragged out.

            Sydney had to keep her mind on what would be. On the fact that in two months she would walk across a stage and away from all of this. That would be it, no more program, no more stupid nicknames for teachers, no more accepting each other’s faults no matter how much they hurt. A new beginning.

            And yet, she had the sinking feeling that this wouldn’t feel over, even then. That after she had crossed that stage, she would still see the image of her friend walking away whenever she closed her eyes. Of that dull smile Maddie had had on her face when she led Eric upstairs. Of their matching flapper dresses. Of them sitting on the beach, talking about fashion and boys at church camp when they were twelve. These things would always exist for Sydney.

            She reached the end of campus and carefully picked her way back down the hill towards the parking lot.