Walmart Chicken Salad

The quad is lit golden in the afternoon sun as we settle into the grass. It’s been a long day of unpacking, tours, and pretending I didn’t want to eat everything in the dining hall.

I am finally here.  

Krissy, the orientation leader assigned to our cohort, settles into our circle with a big, goofy smile on her face.

“So, Freshies, how was day one of orientation?”

Everyone murmurs their responses—some variation on the word ‘good’ or ‘fine’. I hold back, knowing that if I enthuse about how incredible this place is, I would have to explain where I came from. Plus, the question is rhetorical.

“Awesome! Now we have one more activity today—one that will help us deepen those already fast-budding friendships. Then, once everyone has shared, you all can head off to dinner. Tonight you’re on your own for your first fun night at college. Behave, though; we will meet back here at 9 am!” She claps her hands together.

There is an underlying current in the circle—excitement, freedom, and a touch of fear. Or maybe that is just me.

“Now,” she continues, “college is an incredible time to get to know yourself in a new way, to build and grow, but it’s important to remember that you build your adult self on the best parts of your childhood.” I hug my knees to my chest, protecting myself against wherever this is going.

“Not everyone had the same childhood, but everyone had elements of their childhood that were beautiful and good. Those wonderful moments give you clues about what you value and who you want to be as an adult.” Krissy is reading from her clipboard while trying to maintain her chipper tone.

“So, I want to popcorn around the circle, and each share your favorite memory from your childhood.” With that, she produces a beach ball that I somehow hadn’t noticed sitting on the grass behind her.

“Mave, you’re up!” she says, tossing the ball to me. My head spins as if it is what she had thrown through the air, but I catch the ball.

My childhood was not ‘beautiful’ or ‘good’. I came to college to get away from all that. To cleave everything that had happened before this morning from my future.

“Remember,” Krissy chirps, “this is an exercise in getting to know one another, building context and relationships with the other members in your cohort, so it’s super important that you’re honest!”

I grip the beach ball, feel the nub of the air valve biting into my hand, and come up with the only happy memory I can find.

“I’m Mave,” I start. “My favorite childhood memory is from right before my brother Tommy was born.” My voice sounds much steadier than I feel.

“Oooh, was Tommy a brat? Did he ruin everything?” a shaggy-haired boy near me calls out, and the circle erupts in laughter. The boys have been peacocking all day—showing off for one another, trying to get the girls’ attention. I throw up a look of mock indignation, and he throws up his hands in defense while he giggles.

“We lived in a city, and on this day, my mom piled my sister and me into the car at the crack of dawn. We stopped at,” I pause here, careful not to say the word Walmart, “the grocery store on the way to the lake, and she bought chicken salad, tomato and feta cheese salad, and cupcakes. Then we spent the day at the lake, and it was incredible.”

I hold up the ball to toss it to the next person, desperate to take the focus off me, but Krissy holds up her hand and consults the clipboard.

“Mave, why don’t you tell us what makes that day so special to you?”

When I signed the loan paperwork, I decided this was an investment in me becoming whoever I wanted to be. So, I cannot say that my mother was an addict, always high, often missing. Or that a day where she seemed clear-eyed and focused on Lauren and me was a rare luxury. I cannot tell them it was my first time seeing a body of water bigger than a puddle on the side of the road.  

“Oh,” I stutter. I take a breath. “Well, the day was just beautiful. The lake was so clean and clear. I had never seen anything like the sunlight dancing on the ripples in the water that day. The little beach we were playing on was in an alcove in the trees. It was so quiet—you could hear the birds chirping and bees buzzing—nothing like the sounds of the city. We worked together with the other kids on the beach to build an incredible sandcastle.  We spent the whole day in the sun, but we didn’t get burned. The food was delicious.”

“Grocery store sandwiches are hardly delicious food,” the girl next to me scoffs. During lunch, she had talked about her brother working at a Michelin-star restaurant in France when I had said the taco bar was amazing. I roll my eyes.

“It was to me,” I say before I can stop myself.

Fuck.

The girl giggles, her manicured hand coming up to cover her mouth. The familiar dread rises in a wave and crashes over me. I’ve been scouring photos on the school website and students’ Facebooks and Instagrams since I got my acceptance letter in March. I knew what type of backpack I should bring to class, what brand of sneakers to wear, but I didn’t know that grocery store food was…not delicious?

“What I hear you saying, Mave,” Krissy jumps in, “Is that the things you valued about that day were nature, play, and time with your mom. Is that right?”

“Sure,” I say. There is no way to tell her that what I valued that day was feeling like a normal kid for once.

Krissy flashes me a bright smile and runs her finger along the sheet in front of her, reading aloud.

“This is great information, because as you build this next chapter of your life—you should seek opportunities to engage with your values. So for you, Mave, you should explore nature, engage in creative endeavors, and make sure you stay in contact with your family. Okay?”

I look around the quad while she finishes reading. Dozens of circles of students are tossing beach balls and sharing anecdotes. How many other people here are pretending like I am? Krissy flashes me a thumbs up.

“Thanks for going first, Mave, you can popcorn the ball to someone else!”

I toss the ball across the circle to a boy with a puka shell necklace. As soon as the ball leaves my hands, I realize my mistake. He catches it and smirks at me.

“I’m Chaz. “I don’t know that I can top ‘a lake right outside the inner city and grocery-store tomato salad,’ but…” He pauses, and everyone laughs. Krissy looks as if she isn’t sure whether to cut in. “My favorite childhood memory is when I spent a summer in Thailand. We spent the days swimming in bright, clear water with sharks, building incredible sandcastles, and eating fresh-caught fish every night.”

“Your memory sounds very similar to Mave’s,” Krissy says. She is trying to help, but it makes it worse. Chaz laughs.

“Sure, but rather than being on some podunk lake in West Virginia eating soggy chicken salad,” he spits the last word as if it tastes bad in his mouth. “I was in Thailand. For the whole summer.” The students around me shift in the grass.

Krissy begins gently admonishing Chaz, something about respecting other students. I stop listening.

I lose myself in a daydream where I take Chaz back through my childhood. He wouldn’t last a day in the cockroach-infested drug den we lived in before my dad left. How would he moisturize his precious face living in homeless shelters or cars for months at a time? I feel better immediately, imagining him crying at the lunch table when the school gives him his five-hundredth stale, state-mandated peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a row.

I know he just doesn’t understand. These kids seem to have all been on interesting international vacations. This morning, they had mothers hanging string lights on their dorm room walls and fathers hauling mini-fridges up the stairs. Some of them even cried when their parents drove away. I doubt anyone else packed a whole new life into two suitcases and took an overnight bus to get here. These kids can’t understand why that one day on the lake was so beautiful to me because that was their normal.

Soon enough, I think, I will be just like them.

I glance around the quad, taking in the golden sunset bouncing off everyone’s tired faces and the brick walls, covered in ivy.

This is the new best day of my life. When I start a new job, or go through some other terrible get-to-know-you activity that requires me to talk about it, everyone will understand. Who wouldn’t say the best day of their life was the first day at college?

Chaz popcorns the ball to someone else, looking a little chastened by whatever Krissy told him. I try to listen to what the other freshmen share about their best days, but the stories swirl around me. I am too busy planning my future to lose myself in anyone’s past.