The Trouble with Emily Dickinson Read online

  The Trouble

  with

  Emily Dickinson

  by

  Lyndsey D’Arcangelo

  Copyright 2012 by Lyndsey D’Arcangelo

  Cover and Book Design: Publishing Syndicate

  Edited by Theresa Elders

  Published by Publishing Syndicate

  at Smashwords

  Print Edition ISBN

  978-0-9850602-1-3

  Digital Edition ISBN

  978-0-9-850602-2-0

  Library of Congress Control Number

  2012930988

  All rights reserved.

  Thank you for downloading this free e-book. Although this is a free book, it remains the

  copyrighted property of the author and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for

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  Published in the United States

  by

  Publishing Syndicate

  PO Box 607

  Orangevale, California 95662

  http://www.PublishingSyndicate.com

  This book is dedicated to

  the young poets and dreamers

  of the world.

  “Hope is the thing with feathers

  That perches in the soul

  And sings the tune without the words

  And never stops all.”

  Emily Dickinson

  CHAPTER 1

  “My river runs to thee: Blue sea, wilt welcome me?”

  The words lingered in JJ’s ears, compelling her lips to move along the edges of the syllables. The coffee shop was bathed in dim light, except for the spotlight that held the woman centered on stage as she captured the packed crowd with Emily Dickinson’s poetry.

  JJ sat at a table off in a corner by herself, her cobalt blue journal opened wide. She glanced down at the pages of rhymes and rhythmic phrases she’d never once shared with another human being. Though she’d been attending The Spot’s Friday night open readings since her freshman year at private school, JJ never before had come to fulfill a class assignment. That would have mixed business with pleasure. Unfortunately, that was what she was doing at this very moment—mixing business with pleasure.

  “My river waits reply. Oh sea, look graciously!”

  The woman reciting these words was JJ’s creative writing teacher, Mrs. Clark. She’d required the class to attend a poetry reading dedicated to Emily Dickinson. One by one, other students took the stage to read a poem from Dickinson’s body of work. Thankfully, this wasn’t mandatory, so JJ could sit quietly in the corner and blend in with the crowd, as if she weren’t even there. She was a fan of Dickinson, of course, but not enough of a fan to brave the stage and read a poem outloud to the audience. Her stage fright always got the best of her.

  The host of the open reading, a short man wearing square black-framed glasses who worked the coffee counter during the day, took the microphone and expressed his thanks for the large turnout. JJ remembered he’d once taken her for a boy. Since she wore her hair cut short, with bleached-blond tips, usually board-stiff from gobs of gel, her soft tomboyish appearance confused him and he’d mistakenly called her “sir.”

  JJ had simply blinked back at him. He’d immediately recognized his mistake and offered her numerous apologies, along with a free cappuccino. She dismissed it as a misunderstanding, knowing he hadn’t done it on purpose. Others had made far harsher comments about her ambiguous appearance before, and not one of those people had ever offered her a fresh cappuccino to save face.

  When the winning performance of the night was announced, JJ wasn’t the least bit surprised to see one of the students in her own writing class walk up on stage, smiling widely in her sunshine-colored get-up. Her name was Olivia. Olivia Green.

  Now that’s a writer’s name, thought JJ. Much more colorful than her own cow-milking farmhand name of Josephine Jenkins.

  When she was a child, she’d responded to everything from Josie to Jo, but decided to call herself JJ before she came to Sampson. She believed that going by her initials introduced elements of curiosity and originality, themes she liked to showcase at the forefront of her personality.

  After she left the coffee house, JJ shuffled along the broken sidewalk toward campus. As she walked her flip-flops, smacking against her heels, kept up a soothing beat. She realized if she sped up just a bit, the beat would change.

  She tucked her journal under her left arm like a tightly kept secret. She wondered if she would ever muster up enough courage to step up on that stage and share such secrets with the world. Though she knew deep inside that she was as talented as the rest, a self-deprecating fear constantly gripped at her sides and held her back.

  A rumble echoed in the distance. The night’s predicted thunderstorm grew closer. JJ leaned against a flickering lamppost, and then slid down to the sidewalk. Her blueberry-colored sweatshirt itched against her back as she reached into her baggy shorts for her pen. She chewed on its end for a moment, as words played in her head. Lightning flashed, making its mark on the sky. Then a thunderous crash shook the air.

  JJ focused her attention back onto the blank page in her journal. She scratched out the words in her nearly illegible penmanship:

  FEAR

  ONE SIMPLE WORD, TINY, UNASSUMING yet, undeniably TORTUOUS

  When IT REACHES THE HEART in my chest, causing IT TO POUND

  When IT TRAVELS THE LIMBS of my body, causing THEM TO TREMBLE

  When IT SEEPS into my mind, causing THOUGHTS TO SCATTER

  When IT DWELLS in the pit of my stomach, causing IT TO SPIN

  ONE SIMPLE WORD; ENDLESS EXISTENCE

  Can’t I just ERASE IT FROM MY MIND?

  Raindrops began to spot the page, smudging the ink. JJ tilted her head, and with her eyes tightly shut let the water tickle her face. If she sat there long enough, she hoped the rain would wash away all of her fear.

  A smooth black BMW slowed and stopped at the curb beside her. Though the windows were tinted, JJ knew who was behind the wheel.

  Queenie McBride, heiress to the throne of the McBride Estate, rolled down the window. Her long blonde hair was pulled back into a baseball cap and her almond colored eyes were barely visible in the darkness. She happily wore her usual smug expression on her long face. It somehow lent her the appearance of a seasoned woman, someone aware of the complexities of life.

  Known in Virginia as the conquerors of the cotton industry, the McBride family could trace their lineage back to before the Civil War. They owned a plantation where slaves once had worked their lands. Queenie despised her family roots and everything they stood for. Her revenge was to spend her parents’ money as frivolously as possible. Of course, there was the added shock value of being a lesbian. It wasn’t the only thing that she and JJ had in common, but it planted the seed from which their friendship grew.

  “What are you doing?” Queenie asked in an accusatory tone. “Are you finding yourself again?”

  “I’m exercising my right of creative expression.”

  “Care if I interrupt?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Not if you want a ride back to school.”

  JJ reluctantly closed her journal and climbed into the front seat. Queenie hit a button on the radio that sent the Indigo Girls blaring in surround sound.

  “New speakers,” Queenie yelled above the music, pointing to the back of the car.

  As they headed on to the school grounds, Queenie began to sing. Within seconds, JJ
joined in and their voices blended with the music. They entered the conservative bubble of Sampson Academy with Queenie riding the high of buying her new state-of-the-art speakers at her parents’ expense while JJ tried desperately to erase the word fear from her mind.

  CHAPTER 2

  With the rain falling outside her open window, Kendal McCarthy was finding it hard to concentrate on Emily Dickinson’s poetry. She lay on her stomach, staring at the words on the page as if they were written in Greek.

  For some reason, school was something that had never been easy for her. She had to study hard just to keep a B average. In public school, she’d coasted easily. Unfortunately, when she transferred to Sampson Academy during her freshman year, Kendal discovered she wasn’t prepared for the serious kind of studying that private high school courses required. During the better part of her junior year, her grade point average slipped so low her parents had threatened to pull her out of Sampson altogether. If she wanted to graduate with the rest of her class, Kendal had no other choice but to seek help.

  With a little tutoring on the side and an obligatory willingness to do her homework instead of partying, she managed to pull her grades back up. Her hardest class this semester was Women’s Literature, and she’d decided to get some help after she received a low grade on an essay assignment.

  Kendal pulled her small frame off the bed and stood in front of the full-length mirror, which hung between the two single beds in her room. Her hair was cut in a layered angle just below her neckline and was the color of auburn leaves preparing to fall. The greenish-blue tint of her eyes seemed to change color depending upon the way the light hit them. Her face was heart-shaped with a slight curve angling along her cheekbones.

  She was pretty and she’d always known she was pretty. Good genes her mother had told her, you were blessed with a good-looks gene.

  Kendal sighed. The fact that she was beautiful used to satisfy her. At one point it had been enough. But she’d grown tired of it somewhere along the way. This was her senior year at Sampson and she felt as if something was missing, some unforgettable experience that would help her figure out who she was and who she wanted to be. A vacant space existed inside of her and nothing had been able to fill it, not cheerleading, not her friends, not her looks, not even her popularity. Nothing.

  She could hear the rest of the girls of Deacon Hall running around the dorm getting ready to venture out for the night. Their vivacious laughter only reminded her that she wouldn’t be joining them. Instead of partaking in common adolescent delinquencies with the rest of the students at Sampson, she and some random tutor were going to be nose-deep in Emily Dickinson.

  The door to her room swung open. Christine, her roommate and fellow cheerleader, barged in and squealed, “We’re getting ready to go out. Come join!”

  Kendal hissed at the request. “I probably shouldn’t show up late to a tutoring session,” she said smartly.

  “You’re such a good student. You do know that Kyan is going to be at this party, right?”

  “Yes, you only told me a billion times at dinner.”

  “You sure you can’t skip this?”

  “Yes, so quit asking.”

  “Fine,” Christine raised her hand into the air. “Happy studying, then. And um—don’t wait up for me.”

  Kendal fought the overwhelming urge to join everyone in the next room and fill her ears with the latest school gossip—until she spotted the open book out of the corner of her eye. Her stomach turned with guilt.

  After gathering her things, she pulled Emily Dickinson off the bed and slid the book of poetry into her backpack. She left the dorm as fast as she could, knowing that if she lingered any longer she might get swept up in the commotion.

  The rain had slowed to a drizzle and the mild wind felt cool against her cheeks. She crossed the soggy lawn listening to the sounds of the campus come alive in the damp air. Sampson Academy was a small private high school with a small-town feel. It took only about five minutes to walk across the entire campus.

  Kendal took one last look across the quad toward her dorm and then up the road at Marlon Hall, the dorm where the all the soccer players lived and where all her friends would be hanging out. She gazed longingly at the colonial building until she felt her backpack rub against her shoulder, reminding her that Emily Dickinson was waiting for her.

  CHAPTER 3

  “A hundred and ten dollars for a new pair of Nike shoes?” JJ dribbled the basketball between her legs. “I can’t believe you spent that much!”

  “Actually, I got a discount because I bought them online,” Queenie explained. She was standing under the basket waiting for JJ to shoot the ball. “Besides, I needed to improve my vertical.”

  “The most technically advanced Nikes couldn’t help you with your vertical.”

  JJ knew full well that at six feet tall, Queenie didn’t need any help jumping in order to get a clear shot at the basket.

  “It’s my parents’ money, so what do you care?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Good. Shoot the ball.”

  JJ launched the ball into the air and it swished through the net. Queenie caught it and passed it back. JJ dribbled to the foul line, crossed over and shot again. The ball sank gracefully through the hoop.

  “Can’t stop me tonight!” she shouted, as she peeked at the clock on the wall. Her heart sank instantly. “Uh oh.”

  “What?” Queenie asked, as she laid the ball up easily against the backboard.

  JJ picked up her cell phone to check her calendar. “I completely forgot. I’m supposed to be tutoring at the library right now.”

  “So you’re late, don’t go.”

  JJ already was sprawled on the floor, struggling to untie the knots in her shoes. “I can’t just skip it. Unlike you, I have to work for my money.”

  “I resent that,” Queenie said, squeezing the basketball with both hands. “It takes hard work to ask my parents for money. It requires a certain skill, persistence and the wit of a seasoned con artist.”

  “Oh, yeah, I’m sure it must be a struggle to go through life as a McBride.” JJ slid one leg into her warm-ups, trying to shove her things into her gym bag at the same time.

  Queenie stepped over to let JJ use her lanky frame for support. “I can’t help it if my parents are incredibly wealthy,” she said. “At least I get to reap the benefits.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “So what illiterate soccer player are you tutoring tonight, anyway?”

  JJ slipped her flip-flops on and took the ball from Queenie’s hands. “No soccer player tonight. I drew the hot ticket in the lottery this time.”

  “Cheerleader?”

  JJ nodded.

  “Seriously? Who?”

  “None other than the homecoming queen herself, THE Kendal McCarthy.”

  Queenie raised an eyebrow. “Well, then, you best get a move on. Don’t want to keep little Miss McCarthy waiting.”

  “I’m sure she’s trembling with anticipation.” JJ threw on her navy baseball cap and slung her gym bag over her shoulder. “Do me a favor and stay out of trouble tonight, will you? We have an early practice tomorrow.”

  “Gee, okay, Mom. I’ll be good, I promise.”

  JJ ignored Queenie’s retort and hurried out of the athletic center. It was a quarter past nine and she was supposed to have been at the library at exactly 9 p.m. to meet Kendal. She sped up her pace as she crossed the street and headed across the lawn.

  The rain-soaked grass dampened her socks and she wished she’d been wearing sneakers instead of flip-flops. Other students passed her, giggling and laughing. The weekend had begun.

  Maintaining a solid reputation had become an essential way of life at Sampson Academy. JJ had yet to step foot into a soccer party, or even the boys’ dormitory for that matter. She and her basketball teammates had formed their own clique to help deal with the stereotypes that came with being female athletes at a private school full of over-privileged kids.

>   During her freshman year, JJ had entertained the idea of joining a few campus organizations because she longed to be a part of something other than basketball.

  But Queenie had steered her away from anything and everything superficial. So JJ belonged to a group of non-conformists made up of straight-edged kids who neither drank nor smoked, nor cheated on tests. Some were athletes, some social outcasts, and some were studious kids who, like JJ, just didn’t fit the so-called Sampson student profile. There was a certain pride in being part of that group, something that said, “I don’t need to fit in or be popular.” Queenie had instilled that pride in JJ, and she felt forever in Queenie’s debt.

  The Page Library was quieter than the campus outside. As its air of calm eased into her ears, JJ felt her body relax. She searched around the room, filled with tables and countless rows of books. It wasn’t hard to spot Kendal. She was the only other student in the library and she was sitting at the farthest table from the door, next to the biography section. JJ walked up behind her and set her bag down on the table.

  “I’m really sorry,” she said breathlessly. “I was shooting hoops in the athletic center and lost track of time.”

  Kendal stopped texting and looked up from her cell phone, seemingly unconcerned with the fact that JJ had been late. She was dressed casually in a pale pink hoodie and jeans. “You’re my tutor?” she asked.

  JJ promptly removed her hat and ran her hand through her short hair, “What? Don’t I look the part?”

  “I guess I was expecting someone who looked a little more—studious.”

  JJ cracked a confident smile and pulled out a chair to sit down. “Well, don’t let my jock exterior fool you. I can actually read and write somewhat well.” There was an edge to her voice she hadn’t quite intended.