Gretchen’s dorm room looks wrong. Alien. White painted cinder block walls and brand-new Target sheets on the bed, still showing the wrinkles from their cellophane wrapper. I’ve never leaned back against those walls or felt those sheets against my skin.
I can’t imagine being in that room. I can’t imagine seeing Gretchen in my tiny bedroom, either, with the ancient bunk beds and the obnoxious roommates cackling on the other side of the door.
I don’t know. Maybe it’s not about our dorm rooms at all. But I don’t want to think about what else it might be.
“Well, you’re way better than me,” Ebony says. “I was online with Zach for six hours last night. Almost slept through class.”
“Crap, that sucks.” Long-distance relationships. Hatred of our roommates. Tennis. This is what people bond over in college, I’m finding.
I like Ebony, but we’re not exactly BFFs. I’m pretty sure Ebony’s just nice to me because I don’t have any other friends here. I just haven’t figured out how to meet people yet. At least, not people I actually want to hang out with.
Everything will be easier if Gretchen transfers to BU. I can’t imagine making it even one semester on my own here.
“So, do you know what groups you’re signing up for?” Ebony asks.
I shrug. “Mostly.”
The campus activities fair is this afternoon. Ebony and I spent breakfast going through the list of student organizations. Now we’re about to come face-to-face with the upperclassmen who run all the clubs, and I’m getting nervous.
“What’ll you do if you get hit on at the UBA table?” Ebony asks. “Tell them you’re already taken or play it cool?”
“That,” I say, “is the least of my worries.”
Before I’d even gotten accepted to Harvard I already knew I wanted to join the Undergraduate BGLTQIA Association. (It stands for Undergraduate Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, Queer, Intersex and Asexual Association. I think. Actually, I get confused about what some of the letters stand for. They seem to change a lot.)
I started the Gay-Straight Alliance at my high school in ninth grade. It was awesome, but Harvard’s UBA is in another league altogether. Last year, they held the first Intra-Ivy Queer Asian Weekend. People from all the other Ivy League schools came down and held panel discussions and led a Queer Asian Equality March. Then they had a dance party and played Margaret Cho routines on the big screen.
The UBA is one of the most important student groups at Harvard. Visiting their table at the activities fair will be putting my first foot in the door.
Sure, odds are, no one will even notice me there. Two hundred freshmen will probably sign up today. There isn’t much I can do this year anyway—freshmen can’t hold leadership roles in the big organizations. But I have to make a good impression, or at least avoid making a bad one, if I want to get a decent spot as a sophomore.
“You don’t need to stress,” Ebony says, stealing the rest of the fries off my tray as we get up. “You’re going to comp that political blog, right? So you’ve already got your big activity.”
“I might not make it onto the staff, though. Not everybody who comps their first semester gets invited.” We turn in our trays and push through the doors into the open air. Everyone is already streaming toward the Yard. I shift on my feet. It’s stupid to be nervous.
“Oh, no, I heard everyone makes it on those things unless they’re seriously lame,” Ebony says as we join the flow of people. Even in gym clothes, my roommate’s tall, muscled form and long, swinging braids stand out as we walk through the crowd. People always turn to look when we’re out together. Probably thinking I look like a little person next to Ebony.
It’s weird being surrounded by classmates and not recognizing anyone. In high school I’d known everyone since we were kids. Sure, I hadn’t liked a lot of them, but at least I’d known what I was dealing with.
“Anyway,” Ebony says, “if you don’t like the UBA you can always join one of the other gay groups instead.”
“None of the other groups has as much clout as the UBA,” I say. “You’re not planning to settle for one of the lesser engineering groups, are you?”
“Well, no, but that’s because the geeks in FES can kick the geeks in ESH’s asses.”
“Hell yeah, we can! FES has got it going on!” a guy on the sidewalk next to us yells, making the “Live Long and Prosper” sign from Star Trek at Ebony. Ebony laughs and signs back. I roll my eyes, but I laugh, too.
The truth is, I already love Harvard. I knew I would before I got here, but the real thing is even better. I may not know many people yet, but the way it feels is exactly what I always hoped it would be.
The Yard is packed—more crowded than it was on move-in day. I try to take deep breaths as I scan the booths for the groups I’m signing up for: the UBA, the PolitiWonk blog and the Model Congress. All I see in every direction is people jumping up and down, hugging, and eating the free candy the groups have set out on their tables. Am I the only lost freshman here?
Someone to my left yells, “Eb!” Ebony grins and waves at a girl in tennis gear.
“I’m going to go say hi,” Ebony says. “You’ll be okay on your own, right?”
What am I, a toddler?
“Of course,” I say, but Ebony’s already gone. All right, then. I push past a group of guys high-fiving each other by the Ukrainian-American Brotherhood table and find a spot blessedly free of people so I can collect myself.
A girl rushes up to me and presses a mini Snickers bar into my hand. “Hi! I’m so glad you’re interested in the HSWMS! Let me tell you about what we’ve got planned for this year!”
I blink at the girl. Then I realize this spot was only free because I’m in front of the Harvard Students Waiting for Marriage Society table.
“Oh, sorry,” I say. “I’m not interested.”
I put the Snickers back on the table in case it has abstinence cooties.
I back away from the HSWMS table and allow the throng to carry me from booth to booth. There must be hundreds of them.
Hmm. Maybe I should sign up for some other groups, too, just in case. It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to join the College Democrats. And the Japanese fencing-club people look like they’re having a great time waving swords around.
Then I see the giant rainbow flag pinned high on a brick wall. I’ve found the UBA.
The crowd in front is bigger than for any other table in the row. Behind the booth and wading out into the sea of students are upperclassmen wearing bright purple T-shirts that say, “We’re so gay! Harvard UBA!”
Cute. Maybe too cute.
The sign-up sheet is front and center in the middle of the table. All around me, freshmen are elbowing their way toward it, but I linger at the back of the crowd.
Just go up there and sign the list. You don’t have to talk
