Kinfolks by Lisa Alther Read Free Book Online Page A

the words, leaving us to guess at what we were supposed to be spelling. The boy who became valedictorian is one of her favorites.
    Although I couldn’t have hoped for Most Popular since I lack vim, I did think I had a shot at Best Smile. I practiced in the mirror all year long, and my smile was definitely among the best at D-B.
    I feel unable to face graduation. But I have to because, as salutatorian, I must deliver my speech. It showcases a quote from Shelley: “Naught may endure but mutability.” I point out to my yawning classmates assembled in the gym that although we can never be sure how things will change, we can be sure that change will occur.
    Afterward, a flag swinger, looking like a crow in her flapping black robe, asks me if this Shelley is Shelley Fabares who sings “Johnny Angel.” I reply yes in a sad attempt to undercut my image as Most Studious.
    Once we arrive at Wellesley in John’s yellow convertible, piled high with my possessions as though we’re the Beverly Hillbillies headed for Hollywood, I understand why they’ve accepted me: they pride themselves on geographical diversity, and there are only three Tennesseans in the whole place. I’m a token Tennessean. This is fine with me. Every college needs a few students who know all the lyrics to “Louie, Louie.”
    Wellesley also prides itself on uplifting the disadvantaged. I pause to wonder if they’ve somehow learned about the Melungeons and mistaken me for one.
    Fortunately, one of the three Tennesseans is a junior from Nashville named Ophelia, who’s been assigned to me as Big Sister. She takes me under her ample wing and explains the mysterious codes that govern the incomprehensible behavior of our Yankee classmates. She, too, has a doctor father, a Yankee mother, a sister, and three brothers. Apart from her bright red hair and heavier build, we could be twins.
    What I find most shocking at Wellesley isn’t just that the other students raise their hands in class and volunteer to talk. It’s also the fact that nobody smiles or comments on the weather when we pass on the campus sidewalks. In Kingsport, I conducted endless discussions — with clerks I’d never seen before — of their latest operations and the delinquencies of their children. Some days I’d wanted to punch a clerk in the mouth to get him just to sell me a damn Coke without intruding on my private turmoil with his sordid family sagas.
    But soon my early training in the orange crate kicks in at Wellesley, and I begin to cherish my invisibility. When I wear my nightgown to class beneath my trench coat, no one notices. In Kingsport, such sartorial behavior would have been critiqued for weeks.
    My only complaint is that after having accepted me for being a Tennessean, Wellesley immediately tries to transform me into a Wellesley Girl. I’m forced to take a speech test. Because of my mother’s extensive coaching on how to pronounce “cow,” I’m able to conceal my true accent and win exemption from the remedial speech class.
    The posture test requires us to strip down to our underwear and be photographed from several angles, as in police mug shots. Because of the Q.T. initiation fashion show, I know how to strut my stuff in a bra and panties, so I pass with high marks.
    However, I’m unable to sidestep the Fundamentals of Movement class, held weekly in the gym. For half a year we’re given instruction in how to sink into a sofa while balancing a cocktail glass and how to get into a sports car in a skirt without flashing too much thigh.
    My hopes are high that I’ll one day need these skills, but each blind date is more excruciating than the last. Few experiences are more demoralizing than spending a rainy weekend at Yale with a surly preppy who hates you. I soon realize that my problem is the same as when I auditioned for flag swinger: I’m not a fun person.
    My parents don’t drink