She hung up first and I stood there for a minute and then slammed my fist against the wall and stormed out of the booth. My mother’s timing had never been worse.
I can tell by the way he moves that he knows. In some way he has caught on and I’m no longer left in the dark about the messenger who is me. I know he knows. The way he looks around a room, the dining hall, the way he walks past Commons. Everything about him. And I think, I just think, that he knows it’s me. I’ve seen him look me in the face; those sultry dark eyes scan the rooms he’s in and they come on me. Is he too afraid to come up to me and tell me how he feels? I listen to “Be My Baby” and dance sad dances and sing His name while I listen and hug myself. I know he likes me. I know it. And tomorrow night at the ball it will be complete. The final answer will be …
(I called my mother today … she wasn’t feeling well … I received a nice comment from a glowering teacher….)
A teacher asked us today in class if a person can die of heartbreak. He was serious. He is also a devil. My idea of hell is being locked in a room away from you but able to see you and smell you. Shut up, shut up, I tell myself over and over again. If I taught a class I would tell you, “You must sleep with me and love me to pass.” I have to learn to write my notes to Him neater. I sit so still thinking of Him. Afraid to breathe. Sometimes I think I will scream. Mary, I tell myself, tomorrow is the night. What do you think about? Who do you think about? Me? Alone? Who has seen you naked, I think to myself. Who have you slept with and loved, is another one. How many cigarettes have you smoked, also crops up. Two, today? True? Shrewjewblue-brewcrewdrewrabbitfrufru. Song for poor Mary. Nobody likes me. Everybody hates me. Guess I’ll go eat some worms. Oh! Lay! Your! Hands! On! Me!
I am in a class now with only forty minutes left. I think I’m going to throw up. I have to see You. I am frustrated, I tell myself calmly, because I want to moan and writhe with You and I want to go up to you and kiss Your mouth and pull you to me and say “Love you love you love you” while stripping, while sex commences. I want to kill the ugly girls who sit around you at The Pub but cannot. I hear a Bread song and suddenly you appear. Someone came up to me and said “Undo the karma, undo the karma,” and I thought of you. I could leave and go somewhere, I guess. Take a vacation … where? Concentration … on what? Penn Station? Masturbation? I have seen this couple walking around and they seem to be very unhappy and I want to touch you. I want you to touch them. Do you like those boring naive coy calculating girls? A poster I saw the other day in a room I peeked in on: When two snake rattlers fight, it is according to strict rules. Neither uses poison fangs, the object is only to force the opponent’s head to the ground and hold it there for a few seconds, thus establishing superiority. Then the grip is released and the loser dismissed. Who can turn the world on with her smile? Who can take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile? Well, it’s you girl and you should know it, with each little glance and every movement you show it. Love is all around, no need to fake it, you can have it all, why don’t you take it, your gonna … Sometimes I hate Him. Tomorrow night.
PAUL We were lying in my bed since the Frog was back. Sean sat up and leaned against the wall and asked me to hand him the cigarettes that were on the floor. I lit one for myself then gave them to Sean.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “No. Let me guess. Paul’s tense, right?”
“Ten points for Sean.”
He got up, disgusted, and put on his boxer shorts.
“Why do you wear boxer shorts?” I asked.
He ignored me and continued getting dressed, cigarette dangling from his lips.
“No, I mean, I really never noticed that before, but you wear boxer shorts.”
He pulled on a T-shirt and then tied up his paint-splattered boots. Why were they paint splattered? Did he fingerpaint or something?
“Do you have them in different colors? Say, mauve? Or maybe tangerine?”
He finished dressing then sat on the chair next to the bed.
“Or do they only come in that … asphalt gray?”
He just stared at me. He knew I was acting like a fool.
“I knew a guy named Tony Delana in ninth grade who wore boxer shorts.”
“That’s a real scorcher, Denton,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“So you don’t want to go to Boston tomorrow, is that it?” he asked.
“Now, you have twenty points.” I put my cigarette out in an empty beer bottle that was on my nightstand and shook it.
Sean just looked at me and said, “I don’t like you that much. I don’t know why I’m here.”
“I’m sorry about that,” I say, getting up and putting on a robe. I smelled the robe. “I’ve got to do my laundry.”
I scanned the room for something to drink, but it was late and we had finished all the beer. I reached over him and held a bottle up to the light to see if there was anything left in it. There wasn’t.
“You’re going to miss The Dressed To Get Screwed party,” his voice was low and ominous.
“I know.” I tried not to panic. “Are you going?” I finally asked.
“Sure,” he shrugged, moved over to the mirror, still in the chair.
“What are you going to wear?” I asked.
“What I usually wear,” he said, staring at himself. The narcissistic little sonofabitch.
“Is that right?” I looked around the room. I didn’t know what I was looking for. I wanted a drink, I walked over to the stereo and looked behind it. There was a half-empty Beck’s next to the speaker. I sat back on the bed.
He stood up. “I’m gonna go.”
“Where to?” I asked. I casually tasted the bottle. It was warm and flat and I made a face but drank it anyway.
“All night study room,” he said. The narcissistic lying little sonofabitch.
He walked to the door and I ended up blurting out, “I don’t want to go to Boston for the weekend. I don’t want to see my mother. I don’t want to see the Jareds,” (though I probably did want to see Richard) “and I don’t want to see Richard from Sarah Lawrence” (hoping to make him jealous) “… and…” I stopped.
He stood there, saying nothing.
“And I don’t think I want to leave you here…” Because I don’t trust you, I didn’t say.
“I’m gonna go,” he said. He opened the door and looked back. “I’ll take you to the bus station tomorrow. What time does it leave?”
“I think eleven-thirty.” I took another sip of the beer, then coughed. It tasted terrible.
“Okay, meet me at my bike at eleven,” he said, heading out.
“Eleven,” I said.
“Night.” He closed the door and I could hear his footsteps echo down the hallway.
“Thanks, Sean.”
I started to pack, wondering what Richard looked like now, trying to remember when I saw him last.
SEAN Someone walks into The Pub, looks for someone, can’t find them and leaves, the door closes behind them. It wasn’t Lauren Hynde, the completely beautiful girl who had been leaving notes in my box, the only reason I’m in The Pub tonight, waiting to confront her. I saw her slip one in last Saturday, when I was up in Commons. I couldn’t believe it. I was so shocked that it was actually someone good-looking that I spent the last week in a sort of daze. Now I’m sitting at a table with four or five or six people, kind of listening to some lame conversation, looking for the girl. They’re all talking about what’s going on at the sculpture studio, about sculpture teachers, and sculpture parties, about Tony’s latest sculpture, even though they have no idea what it says. Tony told me it was supposed to be a steel vagina, but none of these idiots can figure it out.