Lessons in Love (10 page)

“I appreciate the menu — but I have to get back to work.” I turn to the screen, hoping she’ll leave.

“Right…people like you, you have to actually try, don’t you?”

For some reason, this stings. Maybe more than it should. But I am trying. I do try. I turn to the screen and type
Amelia Lessing was the sort of girl who could stick you with a push-pin and be the first in line to offer you rubbing alcohol as a salve
. I turn back to Lindsay. “All you missed was the social action committee,” I say and Lindsay shrugs. “We voted. Frucnker’s doing the Guide Dog program.”

“Dogs?” Lindsay humphs.

“Sorry it’s not so glamorous — but your fashion fundraiser didn’t fly.”

“Figures,” Lindsay says. It’s like she has no where to go. Then I realize that maybe she doesn’t. She doesn’t need to worry about getting into college, her mother’s donated a new building or something here so she can’t get kicked out (despite her best efforts last year when she passed out on the quad), and she’s not big into extracurricular activities. She must be bored out of her mind.

Note to self: do not feel pity for LP.

“Anyway,” I say, “Our puppy gets delivered next week.” My dad said he’d pick it up — so maybe I can get special permission to go with him. The fact that I need to be signed out of the dorm even to go with my father is ridiculous, but I can’t waste time on that now.

Lindsay stares at me, my attempts at decorating my room, the music I have playing (OMD — Crush, thanks to Mable’s immense import collection), my work, my whole being — as though I’m from another solar system. One where things matter. She’s going to break, I think, to cry or say something real.

And then, with her eyes narrowed, she gives a snort. “Good luck with your ‘work’.” She makes air quotes. “I’m going to hang out with my cool new roommate.”

And right then, in back of her in the corridor, I see Chili — dressed up, too, and waving to me as she heads into her room. Their room. So she accompanied the Piranha on her woo-the-dean dinner. This makes me nervous, but I don’t have time for nerves.

I turn back to the screen where the cursor is waiting for me to write a story worthy of that Wednesday night ACW group. My tendency, which I’m realizing as I attempt to write fiction, is that I suck at coming up with names. Either they sound unbelievable or else all the good names belong to people I already know. I let this distract me for a full fifteen minutes and then decide to steal-slash-honor the real Nick Cooper by creating a character who isn’t like him but who shares his name.

Just past the edge of the field where the muddied footprints were was where Nick Cooper found the first signs of something wrong.

The real Nick Cooper is in India, or Morrocco, or Dubai, or Lima, but he sends letters to me that transcend how we met. That is, he never brings up Asher Piece, Arabella’s brother, or my time in London, and when I write back I seem to have more to say about my inner workings and present life than do those lame “remember whens”. Mainly, because we don’t have much to remember together. So I use his name in fictional form because he’s named after a Hemingway character (his real name is Nick Adams Cooper), and I know what it’s like growing up with a heavy-hitting literary name (Charles Bukowski — no relation — was a famous poet).

I figure I’ll be stuck once I’ve made up Amelia Lessing and fake Nick Cooper, but I’m not. I don’t want to fall into the hell hole of high school writing that takes place in a classroom or dorm or coffee shop, so I fling my characters elsewhere: to a weird beach in Mexico I went to when I was little, with Mable. I remember a blue hammock, muddy paths after a torrential rain, and always the threat of panthers in the Yucatan. And that’s what I want to have in the story, this threat lurking in the background, so the reader never fully relaxes.

I know Charlie’s coming and my work is piling up and I need to stop by and see my dad, and that at some point I might even want to attempt a social life, but for the minutes and hours I spend writing, my mind and body seem to exist only in the story.

When I next check the clock, it’s almost eleven. I stretch my back, feeling the ache of having been hunched over. My wrists are sore (note to self: must buy gel pad so as not to loose feeling in arms), my eyes sting, but the rest of me is quite pleased. Not perfectionist pleased, but filled with something solid.

“What’s been captivating you?” Mary Lancaster asks.

I jump upon hearing her voice. “I didn’t even know you were there.”

She’s stretched out on her bed, propped up by a backrest some of the girls call husbands, made of yellow corduroy, which completes her beachy side of the room. “I’ve been reading here for almost a half hour. You didn’t even move when I came in, and I didn’t want to bother you…”

I stand up and doing post-running stretches. That’s how I feel, exhausted and exhilarated the way I do after a great run. I tell her this. “Does that make sense?”

Mary nods. “That’s why I didn’t interrupt. You looked so…intense. Like, when I’m covering someone, or if I have a plan with the ball, there’s nothing anyone in the stands can do to distract me — I’m all the way present there.” She looks at me and let’s her book fall onto her chest. “Is that what you mean?”

“Exactly,” I tell her. “What’re you reading?”

She shrugs. “The Tempest. Shakespeare.”

I smile at her. “I like that play — but not as much as the other ones.”

“Well,” Mary says, arching her tanned bare feet, “I’d rather be…oh, there’s lots of things I’d rather be doing than reading this. But…” she looks back to her book and picks up a blue highlighter. “Work’s work, right?” she starts reading and then pauses. “Hey, you’re all into books, tell me about this one.”

I massage my head, save my work on the computer, and then go sit on Mary’s bed. It feels both unusual and nice to be with a friend at this time of night. Normally, at home, I’d be by myself flicking through late night tv or else lying in bed watching the shadows change every time a car zooms by, either way trying to switch off my over-active brain.

“So…” I pick up the play. “The Tempest — there’s a storm…and all these characters…” I point to their names, “They get carried ashore, where they meet Miranda and her dad, Prospero. He’s the one who made the storm.”

Mary takes the book back. “Thanks. I’ve been reading the first three pages over and over again, but it’s not really my thing.” She mimes a drop shot. “That’s more my thing. Not that I don’t like books — just…it’s not that easy to relate to, you know?”

“Yeah?” I lick my lips and slick my greasy hair behind my ears. I need to shower to rid myself of my slime. “Maybe if you, you know, think about how it’s a love story — and there’s this conflict between the father and daughter — she falls in love with this guy Ferdinand — and Prospero doesn’t like that…”

Mary watches me. “I think you should read it, tell me all about it, and then I’ll write the paper.” She waits for my reaction.

“Mary…I….”

“Relax, Love. I’m totally kidding. You think I’d risk any form of plagiarism or rule-breaking?”

I’m relieved to hear her say that. I still don’t know her well enough to get when she’s joking, and the thought of cheating or doing someone’s work for them really makes me queasy. “Speaking of rule-breaking, what’s up with you and your man?”

Mary’s smile fades a little but she tries to cover it up with lots of head tilting back and forth as she says, “Oh, Carlton’s fine. He’s always…fine. We’re — we — we just have a rhythm…”

I raise my eyebrows. “Meaning?”

Mary blows air out her lips and makes the sound of a horse whinnying. “All along, everyone talks about relationships and how great they are. How that’s what you’re supposed to want, and get, and stay in…” she traces the pattern of her coverlet with her finger. “But it’s…it’s like a job, after a while.”

I grimace. “That doesn’t sound fine, Mary…”

She shakes her head. “Don’t listen to me. I’m just all PMSy, which means you will be, too. By mid-year the entire dorm will be on the same schedule. Believe me — it’s not fun.”

I sigh, tired, and smile at her, wondering if she had a bad night with Carlton or if she’s just in a cranky mood. “Well, let me know if I can lift your spirits. I’m gonna jump in the shower now…”

“Avoiding the rush in the morning?”

“That and it’ll relax me before bed. I’m still not used to it here…” I look around the room. Sometimes when I lie in bed, my body feels like it’s pointed the wrong way, or I feel as though I’ve forgotten something — to take my vitamin, or brush my teeth — and then I realize it’s just being in a new place, and how disorienting that is until one day — or night — it just isn’t anymore.

“I’ll be here,” Mary says and chew on her highlighter pen cap. “Me, Propsero, and Miranda.”

Miranda, I think, as I take my small bottle of shampoo and conditioner, my mini soap and extra-large towel. My dad ironed nametags on everything — one of his guilt-ridden efforts, no doubt — and I hold my own name as I walk to the shower. Miranda. Beautiful Miranda who steals the heart of Ferdinand. I wonder what Charlie is doing. If he’s with her. If they’re working side by side in the library, or out for a late burger at Bartley’s. If he’s talked about me.

I hang my towel up on a small metal hook, take off my clothes, and as I lather, rinse, but don’t repeat (takes too much time and it’s just a ploy on the manufacturers part to make you go through product faster and rebuy it), it hits me that maybe Charlie’s thinking about me, too.

Of course, I can’t call him now. No cell phones. Just a pay phone in a room the size of a closet next to the common room. There’s even a phone log so when the dorm phone rings, whoever gets it writes down who called and when and if there’s a specific message. We all get to read about people mom’s calling with news from home, or friends at other prep schools leaving coded messages like “get the cookies — I’ve got the milk”. It’s yet another display of the lack of privacy afforded by the dorms. My plan is to be proactive and make the calls before they come in so as to avoid Lindsay — god forbid — talking to my mother or Sadie — the sister I hardly know — or Charlie.

It doesn’t occur to me before I overhear Ms. Parrish in the shower that perhaps she already has.

I pull my name-tagged towel in with me to dry off. It’s a ritual from home — I always stay in the stall, keeping the steamy air trapped in as much as possible, before I step out. Sealed off by the curtain, it’s actually peaceful in here. And late. I’m working my way from head down to feet, noting how much less water I have dribbling down my back now that my hair’s short, when I hear her voice.

“Anyway, you should’ve seen it — he was so checking me out.” I swallow and stop rubbing my damp self as I listen to Lindsay. “You saw him, right? Talk about dating outside of one’s echelon….”

I stay still, frozen and now getting a little cold, hoping she won’t see I’m right behind her in the shower area. The bathroom is large — with a wall of sinks topped by mirrors, and then at the back, changing benches and eight shower stalls separated by coral-colored curtains.

“Did you have fun?” Lindsay asks.

I can’t see out the slit in the curtain to know who she’s with, but then I hear Chili. “I did. It meant a lot. Today was…kind of hard.”

I wonder why and then realize she means the lunch with me and Chris and how we told her she needs friends her own age. We didn’t mean to be harsh, and it wasn’t meant to degrade our friendship with her, but now I’m guessing we — or I — wasn’t clear enough. She goes on. “It’s like Love wants the best of both worlds — me around whenever she’s lonely and has no one else, but if it’s a senior thing or with her boyfriend — then forget it.”

Instant guilt combines with a certain aggravation. I mean, fine — feel that way and talk to me, but spew it to Lindsay? To the girl we dissed all summer? Chili was the one who came up with the various LP incarnations — Lame Priss, and so on.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lindsay says. “You’ve got me now. And you were great at dinner. You really showed how diverse I am…” Lindsay stops herself. “I mean, I like having friends with diverse backgrounds. Plus…he was into me, right?” Chili starts to hem and haw.

Ah, so Lindsay used Chili’s mixed race to demonstrate she’s not only old-guard money and stuck-up. And it probably worked. But how can Chili stand being used like that?

“At least you’re honest,” Chili says. “First Love screwed me over on the room thing — no offense, Linds — and then today…Well, never mind. At least we know where her priorities are.”

They
know where my priorities are? I’m not even sure
I
know — how can they be so sure?

I decide that lurking in the shower stall makes me an accomplice to my own demise, so I wrap myself in my towel, grab my shampoo stuffs, and fling aside the curtain. Clearly, they’re surprised. Lindsay’s mouth — filled with her expensive European toothpaste (how necessary is it to import it from Portugal? Ever heard of Tom’s or Crest?) — drops open and Chili looks very embarrassed.

“Love, hi,” Chili says, tugging at her springy hair which I know for a fact means she’s feeling caught and conflicted.

“Don’t you mean goodbye?” I ask. “Isn’t what all that was, Chili? A see-ya to whatever friendship we had?”

Chili clenches her fists and looks at me via the mirror. “That’s what
you
did! You and Chris — a traditional gang-up on the new girl right at lunch.”

“We weren’t ganging up on you!” I yell, then I realize yelling isn’t going to help. So I talk calmly, keeping my towel tucked by my shoulder. “All we were saying is that we’ll feel really guilty if — nine months from now at graduation — you have no one to sit with while we’re marching across the platform.” I look at her. “My closest friend was a senior when I was a sophomore and it was great, but then it sucked — and I wished…looking back I think I missed out because I didn’t get to know other people.”

“Like?” Chili asks.

“Like me,” Mary Lancaster stands in the doorway, her height filling up most of it, a green toothbrush poised in her hand like a microphone.

I smile at her. “Right.”

“Oh, please,” Lindsay rinses her mouth out and licks her front teeth. “You’re just jealous, Love. Of the time I have with Chilton…” Lindsay uses Chili’s full name and I flinch. “And that I took her out instead of you.”