The Unusual Suspects

It was really happening, but it still felt like a dream.
I wasn’t sure if wanted to wake up.
We’ve been on the road for only twenty minutes but it felt like an eternity, with every second sluggishly tolling by, growing more painful as we got closer and closer to reaching our destination.
I was shaking uncontrollably from where I was in the backseat, overwhelmed with those strangely amazing emotions you feel only once in a lifetime—mixed concoctions of bravery and fear, misery and happiness, wrecking nervousness and what they call “the start of something new”.
Very, very new… something I wasn’t totally used to.
It was so ironic that my family would take on all this change—just for me—when I was always being told that being “traditional” and “conformist” was what was right. At every single Polizzi family reunion (eight hours, a hundred loud Italian-Americans who look kind of like you, and nothing but spaghetti and meatballs), Nana and my many aunts swarmed around me and gushed over me as they turned me into their “little doll”—twisting my long, raven-dark hair in braids (I liked it loose), making me try on a bunch of old prim dresses (too much color), telling me what a “great mother” I would be (without asking me if I even wanted kids). Whenever I would open my mouth to object, Mom would silence me with a menacing glare that said, don’t say a word or you’ll really get it this time. Did I want to make my aunts mad? Did I want to break my Nana’s heart? Did I want to embarrass or shame her? I was a “young and beautiful” woman. Why couldn’t I be like one?
I never said anything.
Usually Big Daddy would comfort me later—he never said anything for me when my mother was around. He understood me, and I loved him like I loved Jesus. And now, I thanked him for being in this car, with all my precious belongings crammed in suitcases in the trunk, at this early in the morning (it was six-forty-five and I had to be there before seven). But he kept telling me “it was all thanks to me”, so I could know I was doing something right… as opposed to wrong.
“I still think this is a horrible idea” my mother kept muttering on the entire two-day-long trip down from Salem to Washington DC. Big Daddy said she was just upset because we were leaving most of our family behind, and she’d had to give up her presidential positions in all the local church and Women’s groups for this “big move”.
She kept telling Big Daddy that I was “going to get nowhere in life” because of what I would learn or “turn into a whore and get pregnant” because I was going to a school with boys or “turn my faith against Christ” because this wasn’t a Catholic school. She wasn’t the slightest bit happy that her daughter got accepted into the nation’s—and one of the world’s—most exclusive and prestigious art schools: Washington Arts Academy.

It’d been any other ordinary day. It was last spring, only a week away from final exams at Holy Cross Academy, the all-girl’s Catholic school I’ve attended since kindergarten. Like every year, I hadn’t been invited to the pre-summer bashes the popular girls had at their four-acre Victorian estates. I was what you would call an “outcast” at Holy Cross, or pretty much wherever I went. I wasn’t like the other Catholic Italian girls in my town—I didn’t play any sports, I didn’t wear my hair up or paint myself like a doll, and I was always writing in my journal (my only friend). No one wanted to be around me, so I was the only one never invited. I’d been locked up in my bedroom, furiously writing dark poetry in my diary, when I heard Big Daddy screaming my name. I rushed downstairs to the kitchen where I found him having an aneurysm, waving a letter around in the air, before tackling me in a massive bear hug.
Mom and my little brother, Paulie (if I was the black sheep of the family, he was the “trophy” kid) rushed in the room, panicked and concerned.
“What the hell is going on?!” I remember Mom screaming in her shrill Jersey accent.
Big Daddy, beaming at me, showed us the letter.
After winning my fifth national poetry contest last month, Washington Arts Academy—the nation’s most renowned arts school—was offering enrollment for the upcoming year. They were giving me full scholarship, on behalf of the Creative Writing & Literature Program.
Funny how one little piece of paper can turn your whole world upside down and change your life forever.
Most married couples who seemed to be on the verge of a violent divorce fight over things like money or not being there in your kid’s life enough. Mine fight over me. They disagree over me a lot, and normally Mom wins. That’s kind of why my life was so miserable for so many years.
Mom was furious. She didn’t want me “wasting away my education” at an arts school with “no sports teams and no math classes” a thousand miles away. Big Daddy knew how passionate I was about writing and respected that it was the one thing I wanted to do in life. Being in the writing program at Washington Arts would be “the best thing for me”. Needless to say, war broke out.
Mom was lethal and dangerous, but Big Daddy was stubborn. He won in less than a week after receiving the letter, and throughout the entire trip down to DC Mom sulked in defeat. She liked to have five Shirley Temples a day, but after we mailed the confirmation letter to Washington Arts she started having probably twelve a day.
Two days ago we packed all our things in boxes and bags, crammed ourselves in Big Daddy’s shiny black Lexus, and waved goodbye to the small Victorian estates, gated pastures, and old forests of Salem Massachusetts. Yesterday, we arrived at the tiny brick apartment Big Daddy bought (far different from the ten-acre Colonial masterpiece my childhood took place in) in some strange new city. I wouldn’t even be living there—Washington Arts was a boarding school—but Big Daddy insisted that we were a family. If one of us was moving, we were all moving. He made me promise that once he found a “hella-good Italian restaurant with some hella-good Ravioli and some hella-good Italian peoples” I’d find time away from my poetry studies and fun dances to have dinner with him every once in a while. I promised.
Yesterday was our very first day here in Washington DC. Today was my very first day at a very new school, and tomorrow would be my very first day of classes. There would be no uniforms, no daily mass, and no sports teams. There would be other religions. And boys.
Naturally, I was absolutely terrified.
“And remember, focus on your graaades” Mom drew out the word in her snappy, shrill voice. She liked talking to me like a toddler who couldn’t understand simple things. “Don’t be distracted by parties and boys—“
“She won’t be distracted Donna” Big Daddy grumbled irritably from behind the wheel.
We were entering the Georgetown neighborhood, where Washington Arts was located. On the left side of the empty road (no one drove this early) the sides of old, crumbling brick homes were covered in twisting green vines. On the right side, the Potomac River shimmered a stormy-blue in the pinkish-golden sunlight. It gleamed off the polished monuments and touched everything with a morning glow.
Mom snorted—she was still sulking—and took a drag from her first Shirley Temple of the day. Her ruby-red acrylic nails were extra-long and she hid her eyes behind bug-sized Chanel shades, which meant her temper had hit the breaking point. She was sitting in the passenger seat and I was directly behind her, so she couldn’t speak to me with her deadly stares. Big Daddy, however, met my gaze in the rearview mirror and winked with a warm grin. I grinned back. Paulie, dressed up in his usual baseball gear, was lost in his Gameboy in the seat next to me.
“Dad, are we almost there?” I asked, trying to hide how nervous I was. I think I failed. My voice shook more than the ground during an aftershock.
“Three minutes Kitty-Cat!” Big Daddy proudly exclaimed, using the old nickname he gave me when I was four. I hated it now, but I never said anything because I knew he loved it. He took a left turn up a steep road lined with more crumbling lofts and old cedars. Mom sighed loudly, and finished off her drink.
Nauseating fear rose in the pit of my stomach. Three minutes, and I could never go back to my old life. That thought alone both riveted and terrified me.
“You doing okay back there Kitty-Cat?” Big Daddy asked, as if sensing my nervousness
“I’m doing fine” I lied, smiling sweetly and voice faltering
“Liar” Paulie snorted, eyes glued to his game
I smacked him in the arm, and he smacked me back. A sharp “hey!” from Mom made us stop. I realized that, just maybe, I would miss my little brother—the baseball star of the family, and my complete opposite.
“You sure you don’t want something quick to nibble on before you go?” Big Daddy asked, looking a bit concerned “There’s a nice little bakery over there”
He pointed out the window at a rustic brick French bakery, and suddenly the scent of warm baking croissants filled the car. My stomach growled, but how could I eat? I don’t think I had anything decent to eat since three days ago.
“I’m fine Daddy” I smiled falsely “Thanks though”
“She’s getting a little pudgy anyway” Mom grumbled
“Will you be quiet?” Big Daddy hissed “She’s not—“
And there it was.
Washington Arts Academy.
Big Daddy stopped bickering at Mom to holler and chant. He slowly pulled the car through a large set of wrought-iron gates, emblazoned with the letters “WA”, and drove along a small cobblestone pathway that weaved through massive, perfectly-manicured lawns—The Great Lawns, as I remembered from the brochure and website. Old cedars and oaks loomed over the car, and through the window I could see several polished, renovated brick and stone buildings—the dorms, the Dining Hall, the Dance Studio, the Humanities Building, the Photography Lab, everything. Piercing the pinkish dawn sky was the bell tower of the Cathedral, the oldest building on campus. It’d been built in the late-eighteenth century but was bought and renovated by the school when it was being built nearly a hundred years ago. It had some of the world’s most beautiful stained glass paintings. Its gothic, Renaissance-y architecture was anomalous against the modern, urban buildings and courtyards. It was absolutely stunning.
I couldn’t believe Mom couldn’t love this. I couldn’t believe I was really going here.
I couldn’t believe they’d wanted me to be a student here.
“This is beautiful!” Big Daddy began ranting in a loud banter typical for a fortysomething Italian man. Mom just stared out at the buildings and lawns with a tight frown.
“Whoa…” even Paulie, whose only idea of a gorgeous work of art was a baseball card, was amazed.
I was speechless. What I was feeling in this moment was indescribable. My heart, racing and pounding with fear earlier, was exploding with total happiness. A part of me was still nervous, but I couldn’t think about that now. I was here. I made it. And it was so incredible.
Here I am Washington Arts, here I am…
“Promise me you’ll look out for yourself Kitty-Cat”
“I promise Daddy!” I laughed, smiling so big my cheeks hurt. I was euphoric, but through my happiness and excitement I was hurting.
Big Daddy was standing with me in front of Newbauma Hall, my new dorm. He’d gone with me to the administrative building to get all my papers, books, and other information. I was holding all of it, with my bags resting at my feet. He’d gotten them from the car, parked somewhere near the main entrance with Mom and Paulie waiting for us to finish up, and carried them for me.
Now, this was our goodbye.
“I don’t want none of them boys messin’ around with you” he warned, waving his finger in front of my face and giving me a stern look “God blessed you with beauty and I know a bunch of little punks are gonna wanna play around with—“
“Daddy, stop!” I laughed to show he was being silly, though I wasn’t that sure. I don’t think I’ve ever been within two feet of a boy, let alone make eye contact—how was I supposed to trust one?
“If anyone gives you any trouble, you know you can call me and I’ll get myself ‘out of retirement’” Big Daddy continued, more sincere but still serious “If they’re smart they’ll know not to mess with the daughter of the Polizzi Mafia boss”
We both laughed this time. The ‘Polizzi Mafia’ was a joke just between us, although I wasn’t a hundred percent sure if he was really kidding about being a former mafia boss. He’s always been vague about his work, and we weren’t exactly an “average income” family.
“I promise Daddy. I love you” I reached up on my tiptoes to kiss his bald, creased forehead, because I could see the tears welling up in his eyes.
“I love you too Kitty-Cat” he pulled me in a big bear hug “Now, if you ever feel down or lonely and if you ever need someone to lean on, just remember—“
“I have a family who’ll always be there for me” I finished our classic family motto.
When I was younger and the mean girls on the playground would call me names or I was just feeling angry at the world, he’d tell me the motto and make me repeat it until I knew there was always someone there for me. Now, my throat felt tight. I think I was really going to cry…
“That’s my girl!” he laughed, though he was clearly choking up.
We waved a final goodbye, but he didn’t leave until he saw me walk through the entrance to my new dorm. And that was that.
My new dorm was on the second floor, room 114B. My roommate was some girl named ‘Linzay Fitzpatrick’, who was in my grade. I cautiously walked through a number of neon-painted halls, where the floors were dusted in glitter and the walls were plastered with an array of eye-popping posters; promoting a variety of artistic clubs like Lit Mag (“Firework!”), Drama Club (“Spot Liters”), Photo Club, and National Honor Art Society. Lockers and doors were painted with glitter, studs, and pictures of starry nights or winged pigs. At one end of the hall, the walls were one big mural of trumpets and piano keys, theatre masks and palettes, against a painted background of the Academy.
I hadn’t been inside for a minute and I was totally blown away.
Lugging all my bags, books, and papers, I finally made it up to my assigned room on the second floor. A saxophone and wolves howling to a full moon were painted on the door, and musical notes spelled out the letters to “Linzay & Christine”.
I knocked on the door and waited until someone opened it. Loud rock music poured out from within, and I was face to face with a girl not that much taller or older than me. She had bright orange hair that hung limply around her shoulders, albino skin, and wide blue eyes that made her face seem smaller. Despite her innocent appearance, she was dressed in dark, grungy clothes. If I was ever caught wearing something like it, Mom would disown me in a heartbeat.
I got over my initial surprise and threw her my friendliest smile.
“Hi!” I perkily greeted “I’m Catherine, your new roommate. You must be—“
I looked back down at the names painted on the door. My papers said ‘Linzay’, but there were two names on the door. The last thing I wanted to do was embarrass myself on my first morning.
“Linzay” she mumbled in a gravelly voice I could barely hear
“What’s that?” I politely asked
“Linzay” she repeated, louder. She was giving me this really confused look that made me blush red (was I doing something wrong? Did I mess up already? Why does she keep looking at me like I’m speaking Korean?)
She must’ve noticed, because she pushed the door open wider and beckoned me to come inside. The room was dark and the music blasted louder. I stepped inside with all my bags, still cautious and unsure.
I looked around the dim room. It seemed like a pretty average dorm—two twin beds, purple-painted walls, a large desk with a lamp and a Mac laptop, a window with curtains, a huge closet and dresser, colored rugs on the floor—but one half of the room was filled with all of her stuff. Suitcases lay half-unzipped and half-unpacked on the wooden floor, spilling forth obscure rock band CDs and grungier, darker clothes—baggy pants with giant holes, ripped band shirts, baggy studded hoodies, spiked boots. Everything that would get me murdered if I was caught wearing it back home. Posters of heavy metal and alternative rock bands plastered the purple wall above the unmade bed, and in one corner rested a cello and a violin. A really good oil painting of a majestic dark wolf against a red background rested on the nightstand in between the two beds.
I walked over to the one half of the room that hadn’t been claimed and laid my bags down on the purple bedspread. The bed was right next to the window, which spilled morning light in the dark room. Outside I could see people walking around in their sweats and hoodies, carrying lattes and laptop cases and laughing with friends. When I was out there with Big Daddy, the grounds had been completely empty.
“Sorry, I thought I was getting my old roommate this year. Christine.” Linzay apologized, closing the door and walking over to me “But I keep forgetting she got expelled last year” she laughed. It was gravelly and somewhat awkward, but it was nice and welcoming.
I started unzipping my suitcases but stopped when she said ‘expelled’. I looked up at her and caught her awkwardly staring at me from across the bed. She was probably sizing me up, wondering if I was worthy enough of being a friend to.
“Expelled?” I asked. Back home, if someone was expelled from school for any reason, it was instant taboo, but she’d said it so casually. Like it happened every day.
“Drugs. What else?” she shrugged, still sounding unnaturally casual
I stopped. Drugs?
She was still looking at me oddly, so I shook off the shock and continued unzipping my bags. An awkward, uncomfortable silence passed between us. Her stereo kept blasting angry, expletive-filled lyrics that reverberated against the walls. She watched me as I unpacked my “church clothes”—the lacey, girly clothes Mom bought me for mass, school, and everything in between. The pearls, white dresses, and pink cardigans were nice and pretty, but most days I was dying to wear whatever I wanted to wear instead of what she violently insisted.
I mean, what was so wrong with black? I liked black. Black was… I don’t know, but whenever I painted my nails the color (any form of makeup was forbidden) or stole a black sweater from her closet and wore it to school in the winter, I got some sort of… rush. The nuns at Holy Cross would call it “feeling sinful”, but what was so wrong with it? It was just black, right?
Anyway, Mom wouldn’t let me wear anything else. I didn’t know of anything else anyway.
“Catherine, right?” she finally spoke up
I looked back up. She was still standing behind my bed, staring at me, examining me…
This was getting really weird.
“Right” I replied as politely as I could
“You’re new here, aren’t you?” she sounded like she already knew the answer
I nodded my head. “What program are you in?” she asked
“Creative writing… you?” Might as well make conversation.
“Music” she pointed to her cello and guitars in the corner, and smiled awkwardly “I’ve been playing the cello and violin since I was four”
“Oh, cool” I didn’t know what else to say. I was feeling really shy, and uncomfortable. The band screaming on the stereo was cursing so much it should be illegal. I wasn’t used to hearing such bad language—the extent of my dirty vocabulary was “sin”.
“So, how’d you get in?” it sounded like something they asked you in prison
“Um, I… won a few poetry contests” I stammered nervously, unpacking my books now (Harry Potter and the Bible)
“What kind? Like, local?” she furrowed her brow
I really didn’t want to sound cocky or special or anything, but I replied anyway.
“Scholastic”
I waited for her surprised, amazed reaction—what I normally got from people when I told them that. But she just shrugged.
“I got here because I performed at Carnegie Hall. Twice.”
She laughed—soft and gravelly—again when my jaw dropped. “What?” she asked
“Carnegie Hall?” how could she talk about it so, so casually?
She shrugged again. It was really getting weird. “Lots of kids here have done it. I mean, that’s why they’re here. You won Scholastic contests, that’s why you’re here. The kids here have done some pretty awesome things—got their paintings in a national gallery, sung for the President, won an Oscar, you name it. I’m pretty close with these two guys—one’s into graphic art, the other’s a pretty damn good at singing—who’re the sons of the president of Russia”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I was hearing that I was going to school with the gifted kids of international leaders, of Academy Award winners. Protégés and geniuses and royalty… and who was I? Some Catholic schoolgirl from another state? Won a few measly contests for her verses?
Where… where was I? What have I gotten myself into?
“Are… are you alright?” she looked at me curiously
“Oh! Umm…” I shook my head and snapped out of it “yeah, totally fine” I grabbed my piles of dresses, skirts, and sweaters and started putting them away neatly in the nearest empty dresser
Another awkward silence passed between us. The song ended and another loud, grungy beat shook the room. I could feel her wide blue eyes shooting through my back. I could sense she was still examining me, sizing me up…
“Hey, wanna come to a party later tonight?”
I stopped, and turned around. I wondered if she was just kidding, but I looked at her, smiling nicely at me, and saw that she was seriously asking me that.
“Umm…” I went to Holy Cross for eleven years, kindergarten through tenth grade, and wasn’t invited to a single party or dance or sleepover. I haven’t been on campus for thirty minutes and I was already invited to a party. Was I really going to say no?
“Sure” I replied hesitantly, trying not to show how excited I was getting. I still couldn’t really believe this.
Linzay’s awkward, hopeful grin turned into a full smile and I felt warm inside. This girl was weird but she was really, well, nice. If I’d met a girl like her back home, I would’ve avoided her like the Bubonic Plague—because that’s what you were supposed to do when you met a girl who dressed like Linzay. But back home the people were wrong. This girl was nice, and you can’t judge a book by its cover.
“Cool! It’s a dorm party, so it’s gonna be here. Get ready around five or six. I’m going with my two friends, Jinx and Cassidy—“ Jinx? Cassidy? Linzay? Did everyone here have unusual names? “You’ll really like them. They’re cool. And they love fresh blood… wait, hold on”
Linzay whipped her cell phone, which was buzzing, out of her jeans pocket and looked down at the screen. I couldn’t shake off the weird feeling I got when she said ‘fresh blood’. Just the way she said it…
“Oh, shit!” she gasped. My mouth dropped open again. Did she really just say that?
“Sorry, I gotta go. My friends are calling me” she looked back up at me, blue eyes apologetic. She turned and rushed towards the door. “See ya later! Nice meeting you!”
“Okay, nice meeting you too!” I called back. When she slammed the door shut behind her, I just stood there and stared at nothing in particular before eventually resuming putting my clothes away. I was overwhelmed. I felt amazed. It was weird…
The painted halls. The weird names. The talk of drugs and prestige. The loud music and louder clothes. The brash language. Nothing here was innocent or prim or “right”. It was… free. Different.
I felt like Dorothy when she walked out of her home and found she landed in Oz.
I’d left my gray home behind for a world where everything was different and colorful,
And I was the fish out of water.