clique (clairo)

madzy

i remember the day i moved into my dorm, a mere five weeks ago, but it seemed like eternity at this point. it was a suite, with a double and a single room. my roommates sandy casteel and lulu adams moved in before me, lulu getting here first and taking the single for herself, while sandy staked her claim on the lower bunk.

sandy and her mom were ecstatic, the two of them taking turns arranging some of my items for me. a polaroid sandy's mom had taken of us hung over sandy's desk, my slightly forced frown surrounded by her cheesing friends. lulu wasn't in the picture.

topher moved into the same building me as well, though on the sixth floor while i was on the third floor. dad helped him while mom accompanied me. he popped in, only to take the grateful dead poster mom mistakenly packed with my stuff.

topher and i were fraternal twins but if we weren't born at the same time, i would've assumed he was adopted. he taunted me with the same joke.

it was now october and midterms were approaching. i had signed up for five courses: intro to philosophy, beginner's russian, film history, mass communication 101 and biology.

regrettably, i hadn't started studying officially in any capacity. it was october ninth, to be exact and midterms were the next week and then it was fall break. i grabbed my planner from my desk and scribbled the dates of each exam so i wouldn't be in for a shock.

at 1pm, i made the trek to film history, which was all the way across campus. i made it there before 1:20 and sat in a chair in the middle section, placing my backpack at my feet and twiddling awkwardly.

at 1:15, most of the class had filled in, roughly 34 out of 40 people. a seat next to my left was open while the one to my right was taken by a boy with blond hair and an indifferent expression.

skipper johnston waltzed in, his jet black hair pushed back into a messy flow and wearing a gray sweatshirt and black running shorts. he took the seat to my left and smiled at me before setting his stuff down.

skipper was one of the few people i talked to on a regular basis, almost to the point of being a friend and one of three people i had spoken to in class, including the professor.

"did you watch the movie assigned for the midterm paper yet?" questioned skipper, his brown eyes staring intently at me.

"no. i, um, couldn't find it on any streaming service."

"i have the disc in my room. do you wanna come over and watch it?" i didn't know skipper very well, but i had a feeling i could trust him.

"i can come over around six," i replied, hoping the time worked for him.

"six sounds good. i'll see you then." with that, class started.

professor gates was known for rambling about film and his inability to give cohesive assignments to the whole class. our first two assignments were automatic one hundreds since everyone managed to watch and write an essay about a different movie since he gave us a list of over one hundred titles to choose from.

this class period, he reminded us all to watch and interpret the 1920s film starring joan crawford for the midterm. it was a silent flick about a flapper meeting a rich and handsome stockbroker with a wife and eventually getting him to run away with her.

after class, skipper told me which hall he lived in and his room number: engert 307.

skipper lived in a single but lacked his own bathroom. he offered me his neatly made bed and i took off my shoes and placed them on the side while he settled in his office chair. he set up the movie on his tv and as the opening credits began to roll, he got up and walked to his mini fridge.

"do you want anything to drink?"

"do you have water?"

"yeah." skipper gently tossed me a bottle of water and cracked open a can of lemonade for himself.

joan crawford was beautiful in a flapper sort of way, at least in this film. she had a short bob and doe-like eyes that darted back and forth, seemingly focusing from the man she shouldn't love then back to the audience (skipper and me).

i was captivated, almost lost in the movie. i wasn't sure why. the references were severely outdated and completely lost in any translation i could've received. there was no sound, there was no color. there was just a story that had tragic implications for one party involved.

i never understood love triangles. i don't think there's any love involved in them. i don't think it's possible to love more than one person at a time, in a romantic sense. to say you're in a love triangle is disingenuous. you're not in a triangle. you're either an outsider looking in wistfully at two loving people, one who swears they're in love with you or you're watching your partner divert their true love and affection to another person.

this movie was simply a depiction of the latter scenario. i watched joan crawford seduce and begin a relationship with a man. i watched the other woman get the guy. i had to write a paper as to how this film is historically significant and how it depicts women as both the tragic heroine and the sultry leading lady without having sexist undertones. my grade quite literally depended on it.

i had zero motivation to write the paper.

i said bye to skipper and told him that i couldn't wait to see him in class two days from now: thursday.

"i'll see you later, madz." i waved and walked out, closing the door behind me. the only other person to call me "madz" was my father.

there was a bit of a stigma surrounding the action of a girl walking through an all male floor of a dormitory, especially at 9, closing in on 10pm. i made awkward eye contact with a boy, the blond one from my film history class, as we passed each other in the hallway, heading opposite directions. he eyed me up and down, seemingly avoiding any of my erogenous zones.

i arrived at my dorm at roughly 10:15 and set my backpack on the floor. lulu's door was closed and sandy wasn't in the common area or our room, so i decided had the room to myself for the time being.

i fetched my laptop and opened it, signing in quickly and opening a google tab. i searched joan crawford and read her life biography.

she grew up destitute, became a show girl around sixteen and was discovered by louis meyer of meyer-goldwyn studios. the film i was assigned to watch was her third film ever and opened to rave reviews. i spotted another one i had to watch in december, likely for the final. humoresque was noted for the reversal of genders in the ever so common age gap. she played a forty something married to a wealthy businessman who falls for a young musician.

sandy walked in and sat on the bottom bunk, sighing quietly.

"madzy, has anyone ever just pissed you off beyond belief?" questioned sandy casually, in lieu of an actual greeting.

"yes." i mean, i've been pissed off at several people in my eighteen years of life, topher, mainly. but i didn't know how far sandy's beliefs extended and if my anger qualified.

"i don't see it. i can't envision you being angry. my mother says you're a gentle soul," replied sandy. i had only exchanged pleasantries with sandy's mother but i was told that she was quite intuitive.

sandy and i held a short, slightly one-sided conversation with each other. she explained how she figured a boy had a massive crush on her based on the way he wrote his number down in her planner. i discussed how i ordered a new vinyl (hot fuss by the killers) and how it was supposed to come in by the end of the week. i agreed that the boy liked her and that i would play the record for her whenever it came in.