“Yeah. I’ve got to talk to her.”
“Sure. Sure,” Norris says. “But she went to New York this weekend.”
“What? Who? Lauren?”
“No. Judy.”
That’s not who I was talking about but I’m relieved anyway. “Really?”
“Yeah. She’s got a boyfriend there.”
“Terrific.”
“He’s a lawyer. Twenty-nine. Central Park West. Name’s Jeb,” Norris says.
“What about Frank?” I ask, then “Jeb?”
“The guy knows Franklin,” Norris says.
Maybe it isn’t over with Lauren, I’m thinking. Maybe she will come back. Norris parks the Saab behind the bank on Main Street and looks for the pipe himself.
At the drug store. While Norris picks up a prescription for Ritalin, I browse through the porno magazine rack that’s placed next to the Oral Hygiene section. Open an issue of Hustler—typical — exclusive nude photos of Prince Andrew, Brooke Shields, Michael Jackson, all of them grainy, all of them in black and white. The magazine promises nude pictures of Pat Boone and Boy George next month. No. Put it back on the rack, open the October issue of Chic. The centerfold is of a woman dressed as a witch, her cape flung open, masturbating with a broomstick. She’s better looking than Lauren but in a sleazy way and it doesn’t excite me. Somehow the centerfold comes loose and slips to the floor, open, next to the feet of a blue-haired granny, who’s reading, not looking, not glancing, but fucking reading the back of a bottle of Lavoris. She looks down at the centerfold and her mouth falls open and she quickly moves away to another aisle. I leave it there and walk back over to Norris who’s at the checkout stand with his prescription and tell him, “Let’s get out of here.” I sigh and look over the racks of candy below the cashier’s station. I pick up a pack of Peanut Butter Cups, finger it guiltily and remember last night, but only vaguely. What was it we fought about? Was there any real emotion there? Any raised voices? Or was it just a general feeling of contempt and betrayal and incredulity? I ask Norris to buy the candy for me and a tube of Fun Blood. Norris pays and asks the shy, acne-scarred cashier if she knows who wrote Notes from the Underground. The girl, who’s so homely you couldn’t sleep with her for money, not for anything, smiles and says no, and that he can look in the bestseller paperbacks if he’d like. We leave the store and Norris sneers a little too meanly, “Townies are so ignorant.”
Then it’s The Record Rack. Norris pops some Ritalin. I stare at the cover of the new Talking Heads. Wasn’t that playing last night somewhere, during our talk? It doesn’t depress me, just makes me feel weird. I put it down and decide to buy her a record. I try to remember who her favorite groups are but we never talked about things like that. In vain I pick up an old Police record but Sting is too good-looking and I start looking for albums by groups with no good-looking guys in them. But then maybe the Peanut Butter Cups are enough, and I walk back to Norris who winks at me, purchasing some old Motown collection and he hands it over to the fat blond girl behind the counter who’s wearing a green ski-jacket and a.38 Special T-shirt. As she rings up Norris’s stuff, he asks her if she knows who wrote Notes from the Underground. She laughs at him with contempt (a Lauren laugh) and says “Dostoevsky” and gives Norris back the album and no change and the two of us drive back to campus, mildly surprised.
Sitting in class. It’s something called Kafka/Kundera: The Hidden Connection. I’m staring at this girl, Deborah, I think, who’s sitting across from me at the table. I cannot concentrate on anything and have only shown up in class because I don’t have any pot left. She has short blond hair, stylishly shaved in back and up the side, moussed, still has sunglasses on, leather pants, high-heeled police boots, black blouse, heavy silver jewelry (definitely rebellious Darien, Connecticut, material) and she reminds me substantially of Lauren. Lauren at lunch. Lauren not taking the shades off. Lauren’s peg pants high, the ankles showing sexy and golden, the low-cut V-neck blue and black sweater. Look at the essay, Xeroxed, in front of me but I can’t read it. I’m insatiably horny since I didn’t finish jerking off this morning. When’s the last time I have? Four days ago. The words I pretend to be interested in make no sense. I look back at the girl and start to fantasize about having sex with her, with her and Lauren at the same time, just her and Lauren naked, on top of each other, pressing their cunts together, moaning. I have to shift in the chair, my hard-on actually feeling not good, stretched tight against my jeans. Why does lesbianism turn me on?
The teacher, a large, friendly-looking woman (but not fuckable), asks, “Sean?”
Crossing my legs (no one can see, just a reflex) I sit up, “Yes?”
Teacher asks, “Why don’t you tell us what the last paragraph means.”
All I can say is “Um.” Look at the last paragraph.
Teacher says, “Just encapsulate it for us.”
I say, “Encapsulate.”
Teacher says, “Yes. Encapsulate.”
“Well…” and now I get the awful feeling that this girl in the sunglasses is laughing, smirking at me. I glance over at her quickly. She’s not. I look down at the essay. What last paragraph? Lauren.
Teacher’s losing patience. “What do you think it means?”
I skim the last paragraph. What is this? High school for Christ’s sake? I will drop out of college. I hope that if I stall long enough she’ll ask someone else and so I wait. People stare. Boy with cropped red hair wearing a “You’re Insane” button on his ratty black Nehru jacket raises his hand. So does the idiot at the end of the table who looks like he’s the lead singer of the Bay City Rollers. Even the blond dude from L.A. whose I.Q. has got to be in the lower forties manages to raise a tan arm. What in the hell is going on here? I will drop out of college. Was I learning anything?
“What is it about, Sean?” the teacher asks.
“It’s about his dissatisfaction with the government?” I ask, guessing.
The girl with the sunglasses raises a hand. Do you wear a diaphragm everywhere you go? I want to scream, but stop myself because the idea really excites me.
“Actually, it’s about the opposite,” the teacher, who has got to be a dyke, says, fingering a long string of beads. “Clay?” the teacher asks.
“Well, like, the dude was totally depressed because, well, the dude turned into a bug and freaked….”
I look down and want to shout out, “Hey, I think it’s a fucking masterpiece,” but I haven’t read it so I can’t.
That girl sitting across from me doesn’t remind me of Lauren. No one does. She puts a piece of gum in her mouth. I don’t feel excited anymore.
And leaving class during the break with the intention of not going back isn’t any better since I have to see my advisor, Mr. Masur, whose office is in the Barn. Otherwise known as Administration Row. And walking up the small graveled path I wonder what Lauren is doing right now, this second. Is she in her room at Canfield, or over with friends carving pumpkins and getting drunk in Swan? Up at the dance studio? Computer room? With Vittorio? No, Vittorio’s gone. With Stump? Maybe she’s just hanging around Commons talking to Judy or Stephanie or whoever the hell she knows, reading the Times, attempting Friday’s crossword. I pull my coat tighter around me. I’m nauseous. I walk faster. The Swedish girl from Bingham who I always thought was sort of good-looking (who’s also fucking Mitchell) is coming down the path, toward me. I realize that I am going to have to pass this Swedish girl and say something or smile. It would be too rude to not say anything. But she passes and smiles and says “Hi” and I don’t say anything. I’ve never said anything to the Swedish girl for some reason and I feel guilty and turn around and say “Hi!” loudly. The Swedish girl turns around and smiles, puzzled, and I start jogging toward the Barn, blushing, heavily embarrassed, feverish, walking in through the main entrance, wave to Getch who’s setting up some fossil exhibition, take the stairs up two at a time, and then it’s Masur’s office. I knock, winded.