Chapter 3

That winter was a harsh one, not that it was anything new. I didn't do much hunting or spending time outside since, well, Minnesota. One Sunday over Christmas break I went to see Grandpa in hopes of convincing him to go ice fishing with me.

"Ahh is that you? Have we met before, young lady?" he greeted me at the door as I put the heating blanket over the hood of our '03 Camry.

I laughed. "Hey Grandpa. Do you mind if I come in for a bit?"

"Of course, I've been waiting for you." I stared at him. "Well, any pretty girl," he laughed.

I gave him a small smile. "How've you been doing? Gone fishing recently?"

He ignored my question, "Hey, do you think I could borrow a few of those long locks?" He held up a piece of my hair, he pulled this joke all the time since his hairline was greatly receded.

I pulled my hair back. "I came to ask if you'd like to go ice fishing with me sometime in the next few days? It's been a while since we just hung out together."

"I was wondering when you'd come asking. Hey, do you still have some of that jerky left from the last time?" Avoiding the question. Grandpa didn't want to talk about this, apparently.

I sighed, giving up for now. I could just spend time with him today and come back to this later. "So, how's the college hunt going?" he asked. I decided it might be a good idea to talk to him about it.

"Well, you know my friend Madge? Before break she helped me send in my application to Penn State and finish all my essays for the scholarships I qualify for. Hopefully I hear back from them soon," I explained.

Grandpa chuckled. "The State Pen, eh? That's a long ways away from Indian country."

"I know. I'm just kind of hoping for a sort of fresh start, you know? And they have a good environmental program so hopefully I'd be able to get a good job after graduation to help Prim get through college herself."

He nodded, "That's very good. My granddaughters, the smart, beautiful scientists. Your father would be so happy to see you doing so well."

The mention of my father dampened my mood a little. "I miss him," I said quietly, surprised that Grandpa heard me.

"That's the way of things. Walking the Red Road has never been easy. As my father used to say, 'Sometimes it's a good day to die, and sometimes it's a good day to have breakfast.'"

I laughed, "That's from Smoke Signals." Grandpa was so full of shit sometimes. Smoke Signals was kind of like the Mean Girls of the indigenous community – everyone had seen it a hundred times, and everyone could quote it randomly.

He smiled - he'd been caught. He and I were like that with each other. Strangers would always stare at my grandpa after he'd made some joke or told some story they didn't understand about some amazing thing he claimed to have done that never really happened. The only people who seemed to call out his exaggerating were me, and according to him and my father, my Grandmother. That was probably a big factor in why he married her.

"You know, it will be very different for you on the east coast. A lot of those folks have never even known a real Indian before. Be prepared for a whole lot of stupid questions coming your way," he warned.

Of course I expected it to be different. I'd never been further east than Chicago, but it couldn't be too bad, could it? At least if they hadn't been around many of us, they probably didn't have all the awful, stereotypical opinions the people out here did… To be honest, I was just hoping not to run into many Redskins fans. It seemed ridiculous to me that they would have a sports team named after such a nasty slur… how could they think that was okay?

"Don't worry, Grandpa. I'm sure I can handle some spoiled wasicu kids." He didn't look convinced though. I knew my grandpa had spent some time in DC in his younger days when AIM was gaining traction. He didn't talk much about the racism to me though; I guess he thought I had enough to worry about. I wasn't someone who let harsh words get to me much, anyways.

When I came back to school after the winter break, Madge was waiting by my locker with a huge grin on her face. "Guess what!" she said before I could even say hello.

I gave her a look, waiting for her to continue. "My uncle reviewed your application package – he said your academics and history looked very impressive! And he said he's almost certain they'll be offering you a scholarship - they're dying to have some variety in their student body."

Hearing this made me excited, but I had to remind myself that nothing was final, yet. "Thanks so much for your help, Madge. I really owe you one."

"Nonsense! You're doing me a favor by ditching this town with me for big college life. Oh my gosh! We could be roommates." She said excitedly. The idea actually did sound appealing to me.

"That would actually be awesome. Do you know when they'll be getting back to me on all of this?" I couldn't stand the anticipation for something so important for my future.

"I'm not sure. Probably in a few weeks. Ah! We can go dorm shopping, get some new party clothes – imagine how many cute boys there will be! There are so many students there, it's going to be amazing!" She gushed on, but I didn't mind. At least if I couldn't get too excited just yet, she could do it for me.

As the winter slowly began to thaw, I started to feel more and more hopeful and excited for what was to come. Madge was right – my acceptance letter came a few weeks after our conversation. I'd been offered a partial scholarship from the university itself – which still wasn't enough for me to afford the tuition – but Madge tried to keep me hopeful that there were still some other scholarships that would be announced towards the end of the school year. I was grateful just to be accepted at such a school; my father had to join the military if he had any hopes of getting an education, and my mother had taken years to be able to complete her nursing degree at the technical school in Minneapolis. It made me feel good to continue the legacy of going to college, and I was hopeful that at least I'd be able to help Prim get the same opportunities.

In late April, the school had a scholarship banquet for us at a hotel dining room. I sat with my mother and sister for what must've been hours as they read off all the names, growing more anxious as time went on that I'd be winning anything. They hadn't gotten to any of the American Indian scholarships yet, and I knew that at least out of the other ndn students in our class, I probably had the best grades.

After they said there were only 5 more scholarships to go, I started biting my nails. Really? Did I have to be last? Apparently, I did. The last two announced were the ones I'd been waiting for, and when they called my name and Madge started whistling, I couldn't help the huge grin that came over my face. I was vaguely aware of being photographed standing with the school principal, and felt like I was floating as we walked out of the hotel, with Prim swinging our hands back and forth as she and Madge talked about how much fun the next year was going to be. And finally, I let myself feel a little happy and relieved that things were looking good.

After graduation, one of our friends, Bristol, was having an end of the year bonfire at his house. He was an off-rez ndn too, so we had a lot of mutual friends. They included Gale.

As we were sitting roasting marshmallows while some of the guys were playing some kind of drinking game version of "Never Have I Ever," Gale plopped down on the makeshift log/bench next to me. Madge was off talking to some other girls, and he'd caught me alone. I realized this was probably as good a time as ever to tell him about my plans for the fall.

"So I heard you're heading east for some big fancy college in Virginia or something?" he asked.

"Pennsylvania. And where did you hear that?" I questioned him.

"I heard it in the wind," I gave him a look and he chuckled. "Your grandpa's been telling everyone on the rez about his genius granddaughter going off to some great white man's university." Of course it was Grandpa. I couldn't bring myself to be annoyed with him though, he was allowed to feel some pride for his family.

"Yeah," I nodded slowly. "Madge and I are heading out there the 3rd week of August to move into our apartment."

"An apartment, eh? Not staying in a dorm and getting the typical college experience?" He lifted an eyebrow at me and took another sip of some type of brown liquor Bristol had provided.

"Yes, it's much cheaper for me to live off campus and not have to pay for housing and a meal plan. I mean, the apartment's nothing fancy, but it'll be fine. I'm just lucky to be able to do this." He nodded, and I was surprised that he didn't seem angry with me. I thought he'd have a few things to say about me leaving to go learn around a bunch of east coast white kids who seemed a little too enthusiastic about football.

"You seem happy about it. I'm glad. Trying something new isn't something I expected you to do," he said.

"Yeah well, I don't want to just fit into the life I'm expected to live," I said pointedly, referencing our conversation after Thanksgiving about being expected to end up together.

"No, you sure don't. Just promise me one thing: don't forget where you come from. People out there… they don't know our history, they don't know who we are and how we remain. Don't let them turn you into some kind of apple – red on the outside, white on the inside. Okay?" he sounded serious.

I snorted quietly. "You know I won't let anyone change who I am." I tried to sound confident but he still looked concerned. I brushed it off though; Gale was always a little paranoid when it came to this stuff.

As the summer went on, I spent most of it working to save up money for the upcoming year; I had to pay for my own food and electricity and stuff at the apartment Madge and I were sharing. When the day came for us to leave, Madge's father had rented a small trailor to transport her stuff and some of mine; the apartment was furnished, so we didn't have too much to bring, but definitely too much to fit in Madge's little VW Jetta. We were leaving early in the morning on Friday – move in to the apartment was on Saturday after 10 am. We would be driving through the day and stopping to spend the night at a motel in Indiana, then continuing on to State College the next morning to arrive around 2 pm. Madge's father was going to spend the night there with us so we could take our time unloading the trailer before he left back for home on Sunday.

In Madge's car was just she and I, and we spent the first couple of hours just talking about what classes we were taking and other things we would be doing in the coming weeks. After a while, my lack of sleep caught up to me and I set an alarm to nap for a little while. When I woke up, it was near noon and we stopped for lunch somewhere near the border of Wisconsin and Illinois. I offered to drive for a couple hours to give Madge a chance to rest, and we switched back just after we'd crossed into Indiana and Madge drove us to where we were staying for the night. We all passed out very quickly after ordering a pizza to our room for dinner.

The drive the next day was shorter, but it felt much longer. I couldn't keep the butterflies in my stomach controlled, and by the time we pulled off the highway exit labeled "Atherton," I was fidgeting from excitement. As we walked into the apartment, the first thing I noticed was the faint smell of weed. As we walked in and out I noticed a lot of our neighbors were guys, who might've made me nervous, but I knew I could take any one of them. I wondered how they got away with smoking out in the open like that, but our complex was kind of hidden among some trees surrounding us, and there didn't seem to be many police around. Madge's father walked down the street to pick up a pizza again for dinner, and we collapsed once more soon afterwards. I needed to catch up on my sleep if I wanted to be ready for classes to start on Monday.

As soon as Madge's father left on Sunday, she turned to me with a mischievous grin on her face as she pulled out a bottle of raspberry Smirnoff from one of her bags. I realized what she was suggesting and quickly tried to reason with her.

"Madge, classes start tomorrow. I don't want to be hungover on my first day of college."

She started to protest. "Everyone is hungover on their first day of college." I didn't budge, and she sighed as she put the bottle in the freezer. "Fine, but we will go out later this week." I wished she'd meant on the weekend, but I knew she meant before then. The first week of classes was known as "sylly week" among the students, which was some kind of reference to how most classes would simply be reviewing the syllabus for at least the first few days.

On Monday morning I woke up bright and early to get ready for my first class at 9 am. It was a lecture called "Soils 101" and I wasn't sure what to expect. I left 45 minutes early so I had time to get lost finding the building without being late, and made it there rather easily. The building was right next to my advisors office near the famous creamery, and I sat down relieved that at least things were going well so far. The professor was a small little man I'd seen parking his bike outside. As expected, he went over the syllabus and what book and materials we would need for the course before he let us go. My major wasn't too big, so I was expecting to have classes with a lot of the same people, but apparently this one overlapped with a lot of majors in the AgSci college, so it was held in a bigger lecture hall. Bigger than I'd every known back home, but nowhere near the sizes I heard some other classes would be at such a big school. There were maybe around 60 people in it. I didn't look around much, but later in the week I had a lab that went with the class that was smaller, so I'd probably meet some of my classmates then.

The rest of the morning went like this. Around lunch I met Madge at some place called the Hub to eat. She mostly talked about how her professors seemed so far, and how she had embarrassed herself walking in late to a large econ class and stumbled up the stairs looking for an empty seat. As we ate, Madge's eyes would wander to the people around us - she was scoping out the cute boys.

When I got up to head to my last class of the day, I was staring at the wall that had about 8 different trash bins each labeled for different products: plastic recyclables, compost, paper, glass, landfill, etc., when someone next to me chuckled and said "I've been doing the same thing. I feel like it's some kind of test to sort out my garbage."

I looked and was met with a pair of blue eyes that somehow were even deeper than Madge's. I stared for a second before I nodded and gave a small smile to the smiling blond boy standing next to me. He opened his mouth to continue a conversation, but I mumbled something about having to go to class and turned away before I could see his reaction.

That afternoon I stopped at the bookstore to wait in the long line and pick up the books I found listed in the syllabus for each class. As I waited, I couldn't get the boy's smile out of my head. For some reason, it puzzled me how someone could have eyes that blue and warm. When I got home, I forced it out of my mind as I tried to focus on the homework I was trying to get ahead on and told myself social things could be handled after I got on track with my academics. When Prim called that night to ask me how my first day went, I felt a little flutter in my chest when I answered "Good, very good."