S: No. Don’t. You’re not.
Me: What? Why not?
S: Listen, I have an idea.
Me: You have an idea?
S: Let’s get married.
Me: What are you talking about?
S: Marry me. Let’s get married.
Me (unsaid): It could be Franklin’s and there’s always the possibility it could actually be Sean’s. But I was very late and had been carrying for a long time and I cannot remember when it was Sean and I met. It could also be Noel’s, though that’s unlikely and it could also be the Freshman Steve’s, but that’s even unlikelier. It could also be Paul’s. Those are the only people I’ve been with this term.
S: Well?
Me: Okay.
SEAN Lauren and I decided not to go to brunch today since there were bound to be too many eyes, too many people wandering around trying to figure out who left with who from the party last night, the dining room would be cold and dark in the late morning, people finally realizing who they spent the night with staring at their soggy French toast with regret; there would be too many people we knew. So we went to The Brasserie on the edge of town to have brunch instead.
Roxanne was at The Brasserie but not with Rupert. Susan Greenberg was there with that asshole Justin. Paul Denton was sitting in a corner with that dyke Elizabeth Seelan from the Drama Division and some guy I didn’t even think went to Camden. A teacher who I was sure I owed at least four papers to was sitting in back. A townie who I dealt for was by the jukebox. Paranoia fulfilled.
Lauren and I looked at each other after we sat down and then cracked up. Over bloody Marys, I understood how much I did want to marry her, how much I wanted her to marry me. And after another drink, how much I wanted her to have my son. After a third drink it simply seemed like a fun idea and not a hard promise to keep. She looked really pretty that day. We had smoked pot earlier and we were high and starving. She kept looking at me with these eyes that were wildly in love and couldn’t help it and I was feeling good staring back and we ate a lot and I leaned over and kissed her neck but stopped when I noticed someone looking over at our table.
“Let’s go somewhere,” I told her, as she paid the check. “Let’s leave campus. We can go somewhere and do this.”
She said, “Okay.”
LAUREN We went to New York to stay with friends of mine who had graduated when I was a Sophomore. They were now married and had a loft apartment on Sixth Avenue in the Village. Sean and I drove down in his friend’s MG and they put us up there in an extra room in the back. We stayed at their place since Sean didn’t have enough money to stay in a hotel. But it worked out just as well. It was a big space, and there was plenty of privacy and room, and in the end it didn’t matter since I was still vaguely excited about the prospect of actually getting married, of actually going through the ceremony, of even becoming a mother. But after two days with Scott and Ann, I became more hesitant and the future seemed more distant and less clear than it had that day at the Winter Carnival. My doubts grew.
Scott worked at an advertising agency and Ann opened restaurants with her father’s money. They had adopted a Vietnamese child, a boy of thirteen, the year after they married and named him Scott, Jr., and promptly sent him off to Exeter where Scott had gone to school. I would wander dumbly around their loft while they were both at work, drinking Evian water, watching Sean sleep, touching things in Scott, Jr.’s room, realizing how fast the time was going by, that the term was nearly over. Maybe I had reacted too quickly to Sean’s proposal, I would think to myself, while in Ann’s luxurious, sunken tub. But I’d push the thought out of my mind and tell myself I was doing the right thing. I didn’t tell Ann I was pregnant or that I was going to marry Sean for I was sure she would call up my mother and have this confirmed, and I badly wanted my mother to be surprised. I watched television. They had a cat named Cappuccino.
The four of us went to a restaurant on Columbus the second night we were in New York: Talk centered around John Irving’s new book, restaurant critics, the soundtrack from Amadeus and a new Thai restaurant that opened uptown. I watched Scott and Ann very closely that night.
“It’s called California Cuisine,” Ann told Sean, leaning next to him.
“Why don’t we take them to Indochine tomorrow?” Scott suggested. He was wearing an oversized Ralph Lauren sweater and expensive, baggy corduroys. He was wearing a Swatch.
“That’s a good idea. I like it,” Ann said, placing her menu face down. She knew already what she wanted. She was dressed almost exactly like Scott.
A waiter came over and took our drink orders.
“Scotch. Straight,” Sean said.
I ordered a champagne on the rocks.
“Oh,” Ann said, deliberating. “I’ll just have a Diet Coke.”
Scott looked up, concerned. “You’re not drinking tonight?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Ann said, relenting. “I’ll be daring and have a rum and Diet Coke.”
The waiter left. Ann asked us if we had seen the recent Alex Katz exhibit. We said we hadn’t. She asked about Victor.
Scott asked, “Who’s Victor?”
Ann told him, “Her boyfriend, right?” She looked at me.
“Well,” I said, could not bring myself to say “ex.” “I’ve talked to him a couple of times. He’s in Europe.”
Sean downed his drink as soon as it came and waved to the waiter for another one.
I kept trying to talk to Ann but felt utterly lost. While she was telling me about the advantages of low-sodium rice cakes and new age music, something flashed in me and pierced. Sean and I in four years. I looked across the table at Sean. He and Scott were talking about Scott’s new compact disc player.
“You’ve got to listen to it,” he told Sean. “The sound,” he paused, closed his eyes in ecstasy, “… is fantastic.”
Sean wasn’t looking at me but knew I was looking at him. “Yeah?” he nodded.
“Yeah,” Scott went on. “Bought the new Phil Collins today.”
“You should hear how great ‘Sussudio’ sounds on it,” Ann agreed. The two of them had been big Genesis fans at Camden, and had forced me to listen to “Lamb Lies Down on Broadway” one night when the three of us were on coke my Freshman term. But what can you do?
Sean sat there impassive, his face falling slightly. And though it was at that moment I realized I did not love him and never had, and that I was acting on some bizarre impulse, I was still hoping he was thinking the same thing I was: I don’t want to end up like this.
Later that night I dreamed of our new married world. The world Sean and I would live in. Mid-dream Sean was replaced by Victor, but we were still smart and young and drove BMW’s and the fact that Sean had been replaced didn’t alter the dream’s significance to me. Not only did we vote in this dream but we voted for the same person our parents voted for. We drank Evian water and ate kiwi fruit and chomped on bran muffins; I turned into Ann. Sean who had become Victor was now Scott. It was unpleasant but not unbearable and in some indefinable way I felt safe.
The next morning over a breakfast of bran muffins and kiwi and Evian water and wheatgrass juice, Ann mentioned something about buying a BMW and I had to hold back a scream. It was clear that this had not been my best term; it was clear that I was losing it.
At night Sean would lay beside me and I’d be thinking about the baby, something Sean would never mention. He would complain bitterly about how pathetic Ann and Scott were and I would get strange, unexplained urges to call my mother or my sister at R.I.S.D.; to call and explain to them what was going on. But this, like my questioning of my relationship with Sean, vanished.