“Like to order anything?” Myrtis said. “Another J.D.?” she said, before he could answer.
“I’ll have another beer,” Cheryl said. She turned to Marshall. “Are we going to eat?”
“Sure,” he said.
“Sure you want another, or sure you’re eating?” Myrtis said.
“Both,” he said. “I’ll have a burger. Medium.”
“And for you?” Myrtis said to Cheryl.
“The same,” she said, “but well done.”
“Fries with those?”
“Yes, thanks,” he said.
“I’ll eat some of his,” Cheryl said.
As the waitress left, Cheryl took a sip of his beer. When she saw how upset he looked, she laughed. “You’re not one of those people who are territorial about food, are you?” she said.
“Listen,” he said, “be serious. It’s a very bad idea to take Valium and drink.”
“One pill’s not going to kill me. I’ve never taken Valium. Are you worried I’m going to become a rag doll and embarrass you, or something?”
“Will you stop after this next beer?” he said.
She saw that he was serious. “Yes,” she said. “Now can we talk about something else?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Your roommate’s problem?”
“I shouldn’t,” she said. Then, suddenly, she said, “You know, I know quite a few students who think you’re a prick. Because of the way you seem to have all these in-jokes with yourself when you talk to them. You call the guys by their first names. Or if you really like them, by their last names. But you always call women ‘Ms.’ The ‘Ms. Lanier’ bit. But I think you’re very nice. So I’m saying this as a friend. I think that you should tone it down.”
Myrtis put a plate of french fries on the table, along with the Jack Daniel’s and another Heineken. She moved the ketchup bottle to the side of the plate. “Enjoy, enjoy, for tomorrow … we enjoy!” Myrtis said, picking up Cheryl’s empty bottle.
“It’s so nice not to see students everywhere,” Cheryl said. “It makes me crazy, sometimes. They think they’re so radical, but they all talk about the same things. The environment. The reefs dying. Clear-cutting. They move around in a little pack and they talk about forests in Oregon and polluted reefs, and they act so self-righteous, like they’d never flush their toilet if they lived in Florida.”
“You’re not worried about the future?”
“I’m worried, right now, about Livan. I think she needs to talk to somebody about what McCallum did to her and also what that stupid woman at student health said. You know what the woman said? She said, ‘Can’t you see past this situation? What exactly do you think it’s done to your future?’ ”
“It’s difficult to say anything, because I don’t know what the situation is,” he said.
“He tied her to the bed and had sex with her.”
“One burger well, one burger medium. How are you doing with that drink?” Myrtis said to Marshall. He looked at his glass. It was half-full. “In a while,” he said. Myrtis nodded and walked away. He looked at Cheryl. She was looking at him intently.
“Is it possible … just possible, I mean … maybe it was something they were doing and then she freaked out? Or felt bad about later?”
“She had to piss in the bed,” she said.
He looked at his hamburger. It looked like the strangest thing in the world. He looked at the drink. It was half-empty. He took a sip and put the glass down. Cheryl picked up the glass and finished it, the ice sliding, causing a small rivulet of bourbon to splash down her chin. She wiped it away. She pushed back her bangs.
“He asked her to piss in the bed?”
“No, he didn’t ask her. She was tied up so long that she had to piss right there. She was humiliated.”
“Cheryl,” he said, “wouldn’t it make sense that if they were there in a hotel, she’d scream for help? That …” He broke off. Jesus: McCallum tying up some kid in Boston. What had he done, polished his apple while she struggled? “God bless” indeed.
“It wasn’t a hotel,” she said. “It was in Revere. Somebody’s triplex in Revere. When they got there, there were other people, but the next day the place was empty. She had sex with him the first night. She wanted to. I mean, she didn’t go to Boston wanting to, but she agreed. And when she agreed, it made him mad. She said she knew she’d done something wrong. And the next morning the whole house was quiet, and when she woke up, he tied her wrists to the bed.”
“And you’re telling me some counsellor in student health only wanted to know what impact this was going to have on the rest of her life?”
She nodded yes. He sensed Myrtis approaching. At least for the moment, she was occupied by people complaining about the blueberry pie; then, at the same table, someone wanted directions for driving the back roads to Portsmouth. Go up to the Texaco station, he heard. And: quarter mile, maybe just a bit over. The song on the jukebox was “Where the Boys Are.” Connie Francis. Good God — Connie Francis. Hadn’t something happened to her, hadn’t she been raped herself, when someone broke into her motel room? I’ll wait im-pa-tient-ly, Connie Francis sang.
“I just saw that on the tube,” Cheryl said. Cheryl was looking beyond him, nodding, signalling yes to Myrtis. Rubbing her hamburger around in the grease on the plate. Cheryl said, “That movie. Where the Boys Are.”
“It’s so depressing,” he said.
“Unbelievably depressing,” she said.
“Your roommate,” he said. “I meant your roommate.”
“I’m glad you’ve forgotten her name,” Cheryl said. “I never should have told you.”
“She needs to see somebody else at student health. I’ll go with her if I need to. You’re right. Of course she’s got to get help.”
“Go with her!” It was almost a yelp. “She would kill me if she thought I told anybody about this, let alone a teacher. She would never trust another human being as long as she lived.”
He thought about it. “Then I’ll go to student health myself and talk to whoever’s in charge and they can contact her.”
“Isn’t that — I mean — you mean you can just go over there and tell them to call her, and they will?”
“I assume so,” he said. He was beginning to think more clearly. Sonja had a friend who was a doctor at student health — a woman who was in her book discussion group.
“Can you find out the name of the therapist?” he said. “Get the name. My wife has a friend who works there and she can be sure that person won’t see her again.”
“But you swear you won’t go there?” Cheryl said. “I mean it: if she found out, she would kill me. She trusts me totally.”
“You’ve done the right thing to tell me,” he said. “I’ll give you my phone number, and you can call me tomorrow night. I assume my wife can get in touch with her friend by then. But wait a minute. Wait a minute.…” What he was thinking was that, if Cheryl called the house, Cheryl might say something and Sonja might find out that he had, indeed, been out the night before with a female student. If only he hadn’t said “Henry” on the phone. If only he’d laughed and sidestepped the question. But no: he had to blurt out a man’s name.
“I’ll call you,” he said. “That’s better.”
She reached in his shirt pocket and took out his pen. She wrote her name on a napkin, and her telephone number. It was a young girl’s writing. Naturally, he thought, since she was a young girl. Even the piece of paper would have to be hidden from Sonja. Or maybe that was ridiculous. Sonja wasn’t paranoid; she’d believe him if he said this was the name of the girl who was the roommate of … Livan. That was the girl’s name. How was he going to look McCallum in the eye?