Rona Jaffe - Mazes and Monsters

“Oh, Jay Jay,” Kate said, glowing with joy, “I really missed you guys. I’m glad to be back.”

Kate Finch surveyed her new single room and decided she would like living alone. Last year she’d had a roommate, and had thought they’d share things, just like sisters, but her roommate had been withdrawn and cool, hiding her own troubles under an impenetrable mask, and now Kate was glad she wouldn’t have to raise any expectations about things that weren’t there. She’d done that too often in her life, and she’d learned. She unpacked her things hastily, in a disorganized way, because she was not the neatest person in the world, and made her bed with the sheets and antique patchwork quilt her mother had sent from home. A couple of family photos on the dresser and she was set.

A Polaroid shot of her mother, smiling, and her fifteen-year-old sister, Belinda, squinting against the sun; their arms filled with their three cats and a dog, all mixed breeds, all named after the Marx Brothers; the garden of their large, airy house in the background — that was one picture. Her father, in his new incarnation as a swinging single — his hair grown long, aviator sunglasses, a Perrier T-shirt a size too large that still didn’t hide his little pot belly — was in a photo by himself. His snapshot was several years old and he wasn’t single any more, but Kate really wasn’t up to installing that family picture yet. Her father had dumped them — her mother, sister, and herself — when he turned forty. He had been a normal, rather stodgy stockbroker, and suddenly he skidded into delayed adolescence, announced that his life was half over and he was going to die without ever having found out who he was, and went off to live in Mill Valley, where people were reputed to have a good time in their hot tubs and to partake of a free and energetic sex life.

“ I’ll tell you who you are,” her mother had called after him as he left. “You’re an asshole!”

Then she had cried. Kate did not cry at all. She knew someone had to be strong in that family, and it certainly wasn’t her father, who had fled, or her mother, who was like some helpless, bewildered animal shot for sport, or her sister, who was only a kid at the time and had wailed for a week.

“There goes Mr. Right,” her mother said, her eyes misting over.

“Mr. Thinks-He’s-Right,” Kate said.

How could he throw it all away? So what if her mother wasn’t a sex object? She was a little overweight and she never bothered with makeup and she wore kind of old-lady clothes, but she was smart and warm-hearted and poetic and she was a terrific mother. She would always listen and she never intruded. Kate didn’t want a young, sexy mother who tried to act like one of her children. She wanted just the one she had. But now Kate realized that all the years she’d thought she was having a perfect childhood it had been a lie.

Her father wasn’t a sex object either, but he was the one who left and found adventure. She understood intellectually why her father wanted a new life, she really did, but she would never be able to understand it in her heart. She felt betrayed. She never intended to get married. She wanted to be a famous writer.

She was majoring in creative writing, but in the middle of last year after her first great love left her, and The Incident in the Laundry Room happened, and things started piling up on her, she began to get writer’s block. Now she was thinking of changing her major to English lit so she wouldn’t flunk out. She had tried and tried to analyze her problem, and she had finally decided it came from the fact that she really hadn’t lived yet. How could you write about things you didn’t know? She was only eighteen. She had a drawer full of lugubrious half-finished stories with titles like “City of Heartbreak” and “Children of Pain,” which she was ashamed to show to anybody. She couldn’t reveal herself in real life, but worse, she couldn’t even reveal her feelings in her stories. How could she ever be a writer if she wasn’t willing to get hurt by criticism and rejection? Half the time she didn’t know what she felt, and the other half of the time she wondered who would care anyway. She felt ignorant of all the secrets of real life. Being young was like being in a trap: you could try as hard as you could, but you couldn’t get out There — where the real action was — because you weren’t strong enough. Something had to develop, like a muscle, and she thought what that was, was maturity.

That was one of the reasons she had fallen into the game so easily, embracing the fantasy of the mazes and her own character of Glacia the Fighter with such enthusiasm. It was like really being in a story. And you weren’t on trial, because you didn’t have to write it down to get a good mark. You had to be cautious every minute to save your life, to advance in the unknown places, to risk and seize and fight — and it made her feel exuberant.

She looked at her watch. It was three hours earlier home in San Francisco, so her mother would just be getting back from law school. She’d made Kate promise to call as soon as she arrived safely at her dorm. Kate didn’t know any other mother who would let her daughter drive across country all by herself, and in truth she had been terrified the entire way, which was why she had done it. Kate always did things that frightened her, so she would get over them. Windows up, doors locked, radio on, eyes boring straight ahead, remembering that she was very good in karate in case she needed to defend herself; teeth clenched so tightly her jaws cramped, and not even aware of it until she saw the sign that said WELCOME TO PEQUOD. KEEP OUR CITY CLEAN and she realized she could hardly open her mouth.

The phone she’d ordered had been installed. She hoped nobody had been there before her and run up a bill; you never knew what people would do. She dialed home.

“Hi, Mom! I’m here.”

“Hi!” Her mother was sounding really happy these days, ever since she’d gotten her head together and gone to law school to make her own life. “How was the trip?”

“Fine,” Kate said casually.

“You did have enough money for the motels?”

“Oh, sure.”

“I knew you would. I don’t want you to be so cheap with yourself, Kate. I ought to be glad; I’m lucky. Most kids your age are spendthrifts. But I worry if you don’t eat decently and I want you to have a good time. Your father is not going to cut off the alimony until I get a job.”

“That’s what he says. ”

Her mother chuckled. “Don’t you worry. By then I’ll be a lawyer and I’ll take him to court. Listen, did you know you forgot your skis?”

“Yeah. I left them on purpose.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t have much time to ski last year. This year will be worse. Tell Belinda she can use them.”

“Kate, are you saving me money again?”

“No, I just don’t feel like skiing this year.” How could she explain to her mother about the game, how it took so much time? It was just too complicated. Her mother would start to worry that she was neglecting her studies.

“When I think how much you wanted those skis, and how much they meant to you …”

“Mom, just be glad I didn’t have my heart set on a horse.”

“I’d kill you,” her mother said, laughing.

“Listen, I’ve got to go now, this is long-distance. I’ll call you soon. Love you. Good-bye.”

She hung up, and after carefully locking her room went down the hall to find out if Daniel had arrived yet.

His door was open and she poked her head around the sill. He looked up and smiled, happy to see her. Kate thought how much Daniel looked like John Travolta — he was probably the best-looking guy in the dorm and he wasn’t even conceited. Six feet tall, a great body, bright blue eyes, dark hair, an incredibly sexy mouth, and besides that he was a computer genius who would probably make a million dollars when he graduated, working for one of the companies that would be competing for him. She had never been able to figure out why Daniel had decided to come to a school like Grant when he could have gone to Stanford or M.I.T. Maybe he wanted to be a big fish in a small pond. He got all A’s without any seeming effort, as if he was just treading water here. Women were crazy about him, but that didn’t make him conceited either. She was lucky to have him for a friend — she wasn’t sure she could handle him any other way.