“He’ll never leave his wife for you. It would screw up his tenure review.”
I laugh. She doesn’t. And I slept with that guy Tim who got Sara pregnant and what if it was me who was getting an abortion next Wednesday? What if … Ketchup on the plate, smeared, make unavoidable connection. I wouldn’t let it happen. Judy comes back. Next table: sad-looking boy is making a sandwich and wrapping it in a napkin for hippie girlfriend who isn’t on the food plan. Then it’s the Square walking toward the table. Whirl around and tell Judy to tell me a joke, anything.
“What? Huh?” she says.
“Talk to me, pretend you’re talking to me. Tell me a joke. Hurry. Anything.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“Just do it! There’s someone I don’t want to talk to.” Point with my eyes.
“Oh yeah,” she starts, we’ve played this before, warming up, “that’s why, it all, you know, happened….”
“That’s why?” I shrug. “But I thought, you know that, it happened…”
“Yeah, that’s why … uh, see, do…” she says.
“Oh, ha ha ha ha ha…” I laugh. It sounds fake. I feel ugly.
“Hi, Lauren,” Voice Behind Me says. Stop laughing, casually look up and he’s wearing shorts. It’s October and the boy is wearing shorts and has a New York Times business section under one arm. “Is there room here?” Gestures at our table where he’s about to put his tray down. Roxanne nods.
“No!” I look around. “I mean … no. We’re expecting someone. Sorry.”
“Okay.” He stands there, smiling.
Leave, leave, leave. Use ESP … anything.
“Sorry,” I say again.
“Can we talk later?” he asks me. Leave. L-E-A-V-E. “I’ll be in the computer room.”
“Sure.”
He says “Bye” and walks aways.
I look for another cigarette and feel a little shitty, but why? What does he expect? I think about Victor, then look up, and ask for a match and say “Don’t—”
“Who’s he?” they both ask.
“—ask. No one,” I say. “Give me a match.”
“You … didn’t,” Judy says, cocking her head.
“I … did,” I mimic the head movement. “Oh boy.”
“He’s a Freshman. Congratulations. Your first?”
“I didn’t say I was interested, dahling.”
“He’s got such a nice ass,” Roxanne says.
“I’m sure Rupert would love to hear you say that,” I tell her.
“I have a feeling now that Rupert would agree with me,” Roxanne says sadly.
And that’s a weird thing to say and I wonder what she means. It reminds me of something I don’t want to be reminded of. I tell Roxanne to give me a call and tell Judy that I’ll be in my studio. Go back to my room and decide to skip video class and take a bath instead. Clean the tub out first. Dorm’s quiet. Everyone at classes or maybe still sleeping. Great, hot water. Bring a pad and some charcoal and my box and put some Rickie Lee Jones on. Smoke a joint and lay there. Tried calling Victor last night when I came back from Steve’s room, crying, couldn’t stop, but there was no answer at the house in Rome he said he would be staying at on this date. Remember my last night with him. Touch myself. Think of Victor. I hate Rickie Lee Jones. Turn the radio on instead. Wash my hair. I turn the volume up. Bad station. Top 40. Static. But then I hear a song that I remember listening to when I was seeing Victor. It was a dumb song and I didn’t like it at the time but it suits the moment now and makes me cry. I want to write this feeling down, or draw it out, but then I feel like that would make the whole thing seem impure and artificial. I decide it will only cheapen the feeling and so I lay there in the white brightness and think of memories the song brings me. Of Victor. Victor’s hands. Victor’s leopard-skin pants. Ripped army boots and … his pubic hair? His arms. Watching him shave. At the Palladium, how handsome he looked in a tuxedo. Making love in his apartment. Brown eyes. What else? He starts to fade. I get scared. I get scared because while I’m laying here it suddenly seems as if he doesn’t exist anymore. It seems as if only the song that’s playing does, not Victor. It’s almost as if I had made him up last summer.
SEAN Terror in the Dining Halls. Part IVXVV. The girl who fucked Mitchell last night and who I want to fuck again is standing over at the Beverage Center. I can see her very clearly from where I sit. She’s talking to her overweight lesbian (probably) potter friend. Wearing a dress that I really can’t describe. I guess you’d call it a kimono maybe but shorter and with a sweatshirt over it. It’s bulky but you can still tell that she has a good body and it doesn’t look like she’s wearing a bra so her tits look nice. I sort of know this girl; after we’d spent the night together, I talked to her at a Friday night party in Franklin. She might be in one of my classes but I’m not sure since I don’t go often enough to tell. But, whatever the story is, she is next.
Dinner again and I’m sitting with the usual crew: Tony, Norris, Tim, Getch. The goddamn House Pigs, our house band, woke me up at four this afternoon, rehearsing above my room. I took a shower, aware when I was blow-drying my hair that I missed two classes today and that I have to find a major before the end of the month. I paced the room, smoking, listening to old Velvet Underground hoping it would drown the House Pigs out, until it was time for dinner. They were still playing when I left for Commons.
Jason was serving and I told him I talked to Rupert and that I could get him the four grams by tomorrow night, but that he should take his sunglasses off because they make him look too suspicious. He only smiled and gave me an extra slab of meat, or turkey, or pork or whatever the hell it was he was serving, which was cool considering, I guess. So, I’m looking at that girl, wondering if she’s the one who’s been putting those notes in my box and I get excited — even if it’s not her. But then her fat friend says something to her and they both look at our table and I look down and pretend to eat. I think she’s a Sophomore and I’m pretty sure she lives in Swan but I’m not going to ask anyone at this table. I don’t want to take the fun out of the pursuit. Tim’s a bonehead for getting Sara pregnant and he doesn’t care. I screwed Sara a couple of times my second year. In fact most of the guys at the table had. It seemed almost like a joke that Tim just got stuck with the short end of the stick, the deal. But no one’s too upset or morose about the whole thing. Even Tim makes jokes about it.
“So many girls are having them there might as well be a CWS job for it,” he laughs.
“I’d seriously do it for fifty bucks,” says Tony.
Getch is playing with an Etch-a-Sketch and says, “Gross man. That is just gross.”
“Are you talking about the food or the abortion jokes?” I ask.
Tony explains: “Drano in a Water Pik.”
Getch says, “Great, we’re making jokes about it.”
“Come on,” I tell Getch. “Cheer up.”
“Why aren’t you upset, man?” Getch asks Tim, staring at him in a way only a Social Science major could.
“Look,” says Tim. “I’ve been through this shit so many times before, it doesn’t even faze me.”
Getch nods, but looks like he doesn’t really understand, but he shuts up, and looks back at the Etch-a-Sketch.
“How do you know it’s even yours?” asks Tony, who just came back from a student council meeting, stoned.
“I know,” Tim says, like he’s proud of being so confident.
“But how do you know? The bitch could be fucking you over,” says Tony, a big help.
“You can tell,” says Tim. “You can look at her and just know she’s not lying.”
No one says anything.