The Fork in the Road - Essay Example

The Fork in the Road Except for the setting itself, it might have been difficult to discern the difference between the group of college students now gathered around a picnic table under a tree in the early morning hours and their slightly younger counterparts gathered a half mile away. Here is the jock, Josh, still proudly sporting the yellow and red letterman jacket he’d earned during four years of high school football and track with his arm draped casually around his ‘girl’, Susan. Susan is not the blonde bubbly cheerleader one might expect but is instead dark. The deep tones of her eyes and hair reflect the inner spirit – somewhat brooding, serious and intelligent with a tendency to look deeper than the surface details. Despite the arm around her shoulder, she would appear to be an outsider as the remainder of the group laughed and chattered around her and her handsome companion. Also sitting at the table are Josh’s best friend, Mike, and Mike’s girlfriend Jade. Mike is no longer wearing his letterman jacket, but still bears the strong self-confidence of a popular and successful high school quarterback. Truth be told, he never resented his friend’s star status above his own simply because he was enjoying his own life too much to be jealous of others. His interests remain largely the same as they were in high school – sports, girls, parties and then more sports – and his conversational manner reflects this being loud, boisterous and full of mischief. Jade doesn’t mind. The blonde cheerleader enjoyed her high school years thanks to her own good looks, position on the cheerleading squad and prestigious boyfriend and was happy not to be completely alone during this first terrifying year of college. The chattering group is surrounded by a bevy of other students, all still trying to get in good with the ‘popular’ kids on campus. Circling like bees, they don’t seem to have realized that the hive has changed and there may be new queens to discover or standards may have changed. These are the kinds of thoughts that can almost be picked out of the air over Susan’s head as she watches them, participating in the conversation only when asked a direct question and blankly bored the remainder of the time. Each time this look falls across Susan’s face, she is slightly amused to notice that Jade becomes a bit more animated and is typically the one to pose questions to interrupt Susan’s reverie. “Are you going home for Christmas break, Susan?” Jade asks now, seeming, as always, slightly intimidated by the darker girl. Susan shakes herself into the present, blinking her eyes a few times at Jade to collect her thoughts before responding. She knows her first response would be unacceptable. Why? So my mother can tell me, again, how I need to get Josh to propose before it’s too late and he leaves me? So my father can remind me, again, how disappointed he is that I wasn’t his son? So my idiot brothers can act like complete fools and wish, again, that I were you instead of me? No thanks! “No,” she said aloud instead. “I’ve decided to stay here at the school and work out a few ideas I had.” “You’re always working out ideas. Don’t you ever just want to go have fun?” Mike asked, the same teasing note in his voice he always adopted when talking with her, as if she were his slightly brain-damaged younger sister. Susan found herself biting back another unkind response, Did you ever consider working out a few ideas might be fun? You should try it sometime, blockhead. Instead, she concentrated on not rolling her eyes and kept silent – If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all, she reminded herself. “Well, I thought for sure you would have some plans for at least part of the holidays,” Jade said. Her voice sounded suggestive as she looked coyly over in Josh’s direction. Curious, Susan looked over at Josh who had inexplicably turned an astonishing shade of red just as the chimes in the college bell-tower began to ring. “Uh, uh, actually,” he stammered, “there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you, but class is starting. I’ll catch you at lunch, okay?” Without waiting for a response, he jumped out of the table and was halfway across the quad before Susan realized he’d taken his arm from around her shoulder. Looking back over at Jade, Susan realized Josh’s reaction was somewhat surprising to the other girl, too, although Jade obviously knew something Susan did not. Before she could do anything to pin the other two down for some answers, though, both Mike and Jade were swinging their way into the athletic building, where they had managed to take a credit of physical fitness together – basically an hour to sweat in time to music on the torture equipment of choice. Susan wanted nothing to do with that room. What on earth could be going on with Josh? she thought. Josh was not generally able to keep secrets from her, but then, she had known something was bothering him for the past few weeks. Why hadn’t she paid more attention before? As she stumbled to her feet, tripped up by the table support and very glad her more graceful companions were not around to witness her lack, Susan tried to puzzle out what might possibly be on Josh’s mind. By the time she reached her fist class, she’d come to no conclusions. Although she tried to concentrate on her classes, she found herself instead running through an analysis of Josh’s last look. He was obviously afraid, she thought, but why would he be afraid of me? I’m always the one who benefited most from this relationship. Who knows what he got out of dating me, but I know I’ve been accepted in all kinds of circles because of him. I wouldn’t even have gotten into this school if it hadn’t been for the science scholarship from his father’s corporation. Maybe he’s trying to find a way to break up. I wouldn’t blame him. I’ve never fit well into his crowd. We’ve been even more distant lately – ever since we came to college. He has his life here and I don’t fit into it. Why not? I used to. Tracing back through her memories over the past semester, Susan realized Josh hadn’t been doing anything different. He still went to his training sessions to fulfill his sports scholarship and he still attended all the general education classes that were required of the average college freshman student. He spent his afternoons training and then his evenings partying. The problem was Susan wasn’t interested in going to the parties anymore. As a high school student, Susan had already spent a lifetime knowing she was the biggest disappointment of her parents’ lives. Her father wanted a brilliant athletic son who would go out into the world and make his name famous. Susan’s brothers were certainly athletic enough, but neither one of them could puzzle out a riddle if you gave them hints. And they were young, they might still find a way to make their father’s name a household term. But Susan was the oldest and therefore the most disappointing. According to her father’s patriarchal values, the oldest had to be male and thus a proper heir. Her mother wanted the beauty queen that Jade represented. Beautiful, blonde, tall, bubbly and bright, ready to entertain at the slightest provocation, Jade’s future seemed set as the future socialite wife and fashionable mother that every woman was expected to be. Unfortunately, Susan didn’t fit within this mold. Maybe it was because of her father’s expectations for the son that she wasn’t, but she wanted to be something more than a silent woman trapped within a world defined by men. She wanted to step outside of her bounds and follow her own interests, which were mostly involved in the very unfeminine field of science and technology. As a result of her own inclinations and her childhood situation, Susan had always felt outcast no matter where she went until she got to high school and Josh took an interest in her. Then she was thrown into the spotlight. When Josh took an interest in her, everyone else was forced to either accept her or be relegated to the bottom of the popularity pool. Josh was already a star wide receiver at that point, gaining the attention of the community if not anyone else. It was fun being the center of attention for a while, to be welcome everywhere she went and to have people willing to at least pretend to be friends with her. Josh’s attention transformed her life and made her no longer the lonely child she’d been at 15. He was always sure he was going to get a scholarship somewhere and had promised to take her with him. And he had. He’d jumped on the first scholarship that was offered to him and ‘encouraged’ his father to establish the scholarship that was now paying for Susan’s education. Obviously, she owed him a lot. But the problem was, after a year or so of constant partying and ‘hanging out’ with Josh and his friends, Susan was completely bored. They were empty-headed people with no real ideas or thoughts of their own. Their only objective seemed to be sports for the boys and looking pretty for the girls. Any attempts to steer the conversation to more weighty topics, such as the ideas that plagued Susan in the middle of the night or the most recent developments in the news and politics, were typically met with blank stares, cruel jokes or simply ignored. At the same time, Susan had already tested out of her freshman level classes and was how well into her sophomore levels. This meant she shared none of the same classes with Josh and his friends and they were now all beginning to view her as something of an oddity – a ‘brain’ that had no business mixing it up with them. It was becoming harder and harder to force herself to sit still and be quiet when she was with them and she couldn’t always get by with the excuse of lab experiments that needed to be tended to or homework that needed to be completed. After all, none of them were taking classes that required much homework and they typically skipped doing it or dashed something off just before class anyway. I’m just with Josh because of the obligation! Susan suddenly realized with a shock. I’ve been meaning to tell him how bored I am, but maybe this is why I’ve held off. I feel completely obligated to him and his family. If I break up with Josh, I might have to go back home with no hope of college again. Oh, what if he wants to break up with me? Will I have to go back to work at the restaurant for the rest of my life? With these thoughts in mind, Susan fretted through the last few moments of her biology class and hurried out to ‘their’ meeting place under the tree for lunch. No one else was there yet. She fidgeted on the bench for almost ten minutes before the rest of them finally appeared around the corner. They were all walking together, which was also unusual and, as soon as they caught sight of her, Mike and Jade gave a friendly wave and turned away while Josh seemed to move without getting any closer he was walking so slow. Oh, he does want to break up with me! Susan thought. Now what am I going to do? It’s too late to get another scholarship and Mom and Dad won’t let me go back to school if I’ve already failed once. When Josh finally reached her, he remained silent, just taking her hand and pulling him after him toward a small alcove filled with foliage. Motioning to her to sit, Josh crouched down on the ground in front of her so that they could see more eye to eye. “Susan, I’ve been meaning to tell you something and with semester break coming up, I can’t put it off anymore.” Oh, God, I can’t breathe. My life is over. No matter what he says, my life is over! “I’ve been talking with Notre Dame. You know I’ve always wanted to go there. They have one of the best football programs in the nation. I could really be somebody there. I’ve accepted their offer. I’m leaving right after finals.” Then he fell silent, evidently waiting for her to say something. Susan was stunned. What was she supposed to say? How was she supposed to respond? Of course, she was excited for Josh – what an opportunity for him. She knew enough about sports to know that Notre Dame games were shown on TV, giving Josh the kind of attention he wanted and probably deserved. He would be leaving her, soon. That gave her an easy way out of the relationship without any effort at all, something she just discovered she wanted very much, but what was going to happen to her? She couldn’t stay at school without a scholarship and she couldn’t go home and still manage to find a way back to school sometime in the future. But winter break was only a week away, not enough time to make other arrangements. As a result, she could feel nothing at the moment but confused, angry and hurt that Josh hadn’t given her more time to prepare. After a minute of silence, Josh started talking again. Susan didn’t hear him at first, but did finally catch onto the meaning of his words. “… You’ll really like it there,” he said. “We’ll get a small apartment and you can do anything you want during the day. You could probably even take a class or two if you really wanted. I think your scholarship money would pay for that much.” “Wait!” Susan just needed a moment to put it all together. Josh imagined she would go with him to Notre Dame just to be with him. He assumed she would be willing to drop her education to follow him. It was the moment of truth, she could either become the wife, or pseudo-wife, of the big man on campus again or she could go home in defeat. Staying with Josh, she would probably have a very comfortable future as the wife of a pro-baller, but she would have to sacrifice her own identity and her dreams to do this. Of course, with money in the future, she could always go back to school, but by then they would probably have children or other responsibilities, traveling with the team or perhaps Josh would finally get bored with her and she’d be left alone and broke. But going home was an equal dead-end for her, with maybe a glimmer of hope. She’d done well in her classes and had proven able to test out of most of her basics. She could probably get another scholarship next year and try again and she wouldn’t have to give up her own life. It went against everything she’d ever been trained to do, but Susan took a deep breathe and plunged forward. “Josh,” she said. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. …” Notes: The biggest challenge has been deciding on my topic. I played with characters for a long time, continuing to place the story in a first-person narrative. Finally, I realized my problem was that I was putting myself into the story and, not actually facing this kind of situation, was having difficulty deciding who I wanted to be and what I wanted to have happen to me. The breakthrough came when I decided to put the story into third-person omniscient with focus on the female lead as this is where all the change happens. Once that was decided, I realized I was very limited on what the other characters thought, but could include more detail regarding setting and could develop the characters to a greater degree through characteristics and behaviors rather than simple description. Read More