Noelle Rose is from Milford, CT. She received an MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and was awarded an SAIC Graduate Fellowship prize. She currently lives in Chicago.
DINING ROOM
The day it happened, I wore a polo shirt that read NEW STUDENT ORIENTATION LEADER on the back. This is what everyone could see when I answered the call at 12:30pm on July 5, 2006 on the University of Connecticut Storrs campus. NEW STUDENT ORIENTATION LEADER standing by the dining hall window, watching the diagonal linger of a path through the quad. NEW STUDENT ORIENTATION LEADER, chocolate smeared on her khakis.
The phone said our house burned down.
The phone was my father.
To the phone, I said and?
I felt my supervisor drape his arm over my shoulders, guide me away from the window into a flurry of not-yet students idling with trays of soft-serve ice cream.
The word had been correct in my head then incorrect when I said it out loud.
In my head, the word meant tell me which animals died.
I expected the phone to know this.
