The Book of Miranda | gxg | ✔︎

(1) I Want To Swim Through Shrubbery

By the time my parents' coach pulls up in front of Melliford Academy, I've decided the best place for the pad of letter-paper my father gave me to keep in touch is in the closest garbage can I can find. My father himself is pontificating about something to do with reactionary utopias, exemplary rational states, and the contradictions of capitalism. He's been going for an hour, and I've long since tuned out. Both to stop my brain from leaking out my ears, and because the last time I actually tried to listen, I discovered a brand-new level of failing to care. Which is amazing, really. I thought I reached the bottom of that barrel years ago.

The contradictions of capitalism linked somehow to my keeping in touch with my parents, but I lost that thread when we passed free trade. My mother interjects periodically with some version of, "We will be so worried about your wellbeing if we don't hear from you weekly!" It's nice to know I'm still worth the lie. Or maybe that's just my boarding-school tuition talking. Both my parents have made it clear they're paying an arm and a spleen for me to come here, and I wouldn't be surprised if their concern lay less with assurance of my personal welfare and more with ensuring a good return on investment. I'm not sure how my father feels about return on investment. I'm not sure my sanity would survive the answer if I asked.

We haven't moved forward in a pair of minutes, and nobody's yet opened the carriage door. I check out the window. There's traffic: we're third in line in the narrow horseshoe driveway, and the holdup seems to be confrontational. I'd be happy to jump out here—maybe jump in a lake while I'm at it—but there's nothing but an ornamental garden where I'd land, and I don't think my parents will take kindly to me freestyling through shrubbery. Tempting as the thought might be. The mental image elicits a brief fantasy of wild chases through cultivated flora, losing my pursuers in the peonies as the flowers' attendant ants swarm their clothing. Red ants in my father's underwear would be Christmas come early.

Our horses paw the cobblestones. Someone at the Academy's front door has shepherded a griping magnate back into his carriage, which trundles off and unblocks the constipated driveway. There are two more carriages behind us now. I can't be the only one going grey for want of freedom and a breath of fresh air. In another five minutes, I leap from the carriage step to Melliford Academy's front walk.

"Desdemona, dear," says my mother. She doesn't need to say more to express her disappointment with my conduct, and I really don't care. I accept my suitcase from our driver before a Melliford Academy attendant can take it for me, and stride for the front doors like I'm thrilled for school. Mostly I just want to hear my mother's posh heels struggling over the flagstones and up the front steps.

A different attendant greets me at the door. "Desdemona Winchester," I say with my prettiest smile, and am waved through into the school's front lobby. I should count the number of times I pass through this place. I'm aiming for less than thirty, but that's only if my plan for this semester goes through. I'd love to kiss this place goodbye by the end of September.

My father's puffing struggles up the stairs behind me. My brief respite is over: my parents take up their positions on either side of me like I'm a prisoner on death row, pinned between a frock coat with enough structural integrity to stand on its own, and an excessive quantity of ruffles. My father swells with self-important awe at the building around us. "What a splendid exemplification of mid 16th century gothic architecture," he bloviates. "Truly the pinnacle of its era. I can't say I've ever been too fond of the rib vault's use in second-story ceilings, but it's a rare building that wears it well, and let me tell you, this is one of them. Would love to shake the hand of its architect. Truly magnificent."

The ceiling here is, as far as I'm concerned, tall, arched, and supported on pillars that look vaguely like bundles of human femurs lashed together with string. My father launches into a disquisition on lancet windows. I, desperate for distraction, turn my attention anywhere else.