What It Was Like (29 page)

I looked at the woman, her pleading, piggy eyes, and the Doggy With Braces Without Braces, all hero-worshipful behind her, and I thought: how ridiculous. Asking
me
for advice? Me, as I was crashing and burning? But then I actually thought of something to say.

“Come here,” I said to the Doggy as I conducted him away from his mother. He let me guide him by the arm as I turned him around to face me.

With my hands on both his shoulders, I looked into his gleaming, trusting, dopey eyes and said, “Everything is temporary. Repeat that to me.”

“Everything is temporary,” he said back.

“Everything is temporary,” I said again, burning my gaze into his brain.

“Everything is temporary.”

“Good,” I said, releasing him. “Now, get your ugly face out of here.”

He grinned, laughed, and hauled his mother away down the sidewalk. Turning back, he called to me one last time.

“Hey!” he yelled. “So are you going back to the Moon-shak?”

“Never in a million years!”

Who would have known then that the last laugh would be on me?

≁

I slept for about twelve hours when I got back to my dorm, body and mind exhausted, but in a good way. Even Roommate A's thunder-fingered typing and cigarette smoke couldn't disturb my sleep. When I woke up, I took my quasi-Bondian hot-cold-hot-cold shower that made me feel even better. I went in with two guys on a large pizza and ate three huge slices with pepperoni. I was stuffed and ready to go.

I sat down, knocked off two overdue papers for Brilliant, and made up a bunch of other work. I had the classical music station on my clock radio on low, and I listened
through
the pure, comforting music to concentrate on my work. I didn't realize it then, but it was as if a fever was breaking. After a long, dark period of time when everything was about losing Rachel Prince, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, the spell was slowly ending. I had lost her: the story was over. The air was clearing.

Of course, this happened over a space of weeks. It wasn't just suddenly, “
Hey! I'm over Rachel!
” But one day, coming back from French class, I saw this poster from a new movie with this very pretty, dark-haired French actress that someone was thumbtacking to a bulletin board in the hall. As I passed, I thought,
wow, that girl looks a lot like Rachel
, and I didn't feel a twinge of pain. Then I realized that the miracle had happened. I had been healed, cured of Rachel Prince.

≁

Things started to get better for me in several ways. My grades improved; my sleep improved; my relations with Roommate A and my parents improved. I paid attention in class and learned more. I found that I could work straight through 8:00 p.m. without a pause whatsoever. Of course, my sex life wasn't as good, but I could live with that for a while. When my sex life was great, the rest of my life wasn't so hot. Someday, I told myself, I would find a way to combine the two.

One thing I do remember is something one of my teachers said. Actually, he quoted a very smart man – Goethe – putting words in the mouth of the devil Mephistopheles in
FAUST
who said: “All theory, dear friend, is gray.” That really hit me hard. I had found out that everything I thought to be true was reversed. True love made me miserable; heartbreak was better than love. I guess that's what's called getting an education. Negative learning. Maybe the best thing is to live day-to-day, and not necessarily try to overthink everything all the time.

That worked for a while, long enough for me to start to regain my strength. I even went to a freshman mixer. Of course, I just stood along the side and drank (the official punch and some smuggled-in rum), but I didn't dance with anyone. I talked to a girl for a bit in the line for punch. She was cautious; I was defensive. It was pointless, just like the encounter with that girl Amy in Freddy Masaro's basement. Even though I was technically “over” Rachel, there was still an emptiness in my heart. So when I talked to this nice, short, smart blonde, she could tell that I wasn't really all there. I was still lost, in The Zone but
alone
. Rachel had hurt me, and although I felt I was basically “healed,” I didn't want my stitches to reopen. So I went back to the wall, danced with myself for a while, and left in a semi-contented state of mind. Someday, I would fall in love again, and it would be better. I would do things right next time.

≁

So it was, of course, on a perfect spring day, weeks later – blue sky, cherry blossoms on the trees, and I had just gotten back an A on a very tough French test – when I was crossing 116th Street to get some lunch between classes, and I heard her call my name. It was that same voice – the joyous, seductive
musical
voice that hooked me the first time we ever talked, on the walk back from the Rec Hall after what's-his-name and his square-dancing family. My heart paused, and I turned around, and there she was, blocking the sidewalk: Rachel, as beautiful and defiant as ever, with her blue-blue eyes and her perfectly tossed dark hair.

“I told you I'd come back to you,” she said. “You didn't believe me.”

At first, I didn't say anything. Intellectually, I felt ice-cold to her, yet my body was drawn to her like a magnet. I experienced the actual physical force of her
pulling
me toward her, but I held back.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I
drove
here,” she said proudly, stepping to the side to show me a ridiculously beautiful new red Mustang convertible.

“So you finally got your Mustang,” I said. “You always said you would.”

“A car means
freedom
!” she swept her hand across the hood luxuriously, like a model in a TV commercial. “Real freedom. For
us
.”

“There is no
us
,” I said.

“That's up to you,” she shot back with a tight smile, confident, yet a little needy at the same time too. She waited for me to run to her, but I wasn't going to. At least not immediately.

“What would you have done if I hadn't come along here?” I asked, trying to play it cool.

“I was going to wait another twenty minutes,” she answered. “Then I was going to go up to your dorm room. Don't worry, I was going to find you.”

She was so damn beautiful.

“Why did you come back?” I tried to find some resistance inside. “I was just beginning to –”

“I
told
you I had to get some things in order,” she talked over me, coming closer. “Like letting things calm down. Like getting my Mustang. Like getting their
confidence
.”

I watched her come toward me, working her magic. She was wearing this filmy, fluttery blouse and tight jeans.

“Things are better now,” she continued. “I got them to trust me. I'm seeing this therapist, who is not so bad.
And
I've got them ready to let me see you again!”

“And that's why you're here?” I held firm.

“I told you,” she said artfully. “There were some things I had to get in order.” She got closer and closer. “You have every right to say ‘no' to me,” she said simply. “But I'm here because I love you. And I always have.”

She was straight in front of me, her eyes locked on mine.

“I know what I want,” she said point-blank.

Then she kissed me deeply, as if nothing had happened, nothing at all, and in a few moments, we were back in The Zone. Right then,
right then
I was lost, even if I didn't know it myself.

“Let's go up to your room,” she whispered. “And I'll tell you everything.”

≁

Fortunately, Roommate A was out so we had a long time to be together. As she told me everything that had happened to her in the past few months, I couldn't believe how much I missed her. Just watching her mouth move and her hands talk, playing with her hair or touching a button or something on her girlish blouse, was like a movie to me. She was trying to be upbeat for me, trying to wipe away any hard feelings I might have had. Rachel always thought that she could charm anyone out of anything, especially me.

“I can't believe we're finally together, after all this time,” she said. “Back in The Zone.”

“The Zone,” I repeated.

“It hasn't been easy,” she said softly. “Being without you.”

“That was
your
choice,” I said back.

She looked down, picking at the lint on the blanket on my bed, not wanting to meet my gaze.

“You don't know what I've had to go through,” she said. “You don't know how hard it was for me not to call you every day.”

“Then why didn't you?” I said coldly, trying to hide any sympathy I felt for her. I wasn't going to make it easy for her; at least not
too
easy.

“I had to get everything clear!” she insisted. “I had to get them to stop suspecting me of everything! You have no idea what I've had to do. I had to get everything in order.”

“And is everything in order now?” I asked sharply.

“OK,” she said with an impish smile, “How about this, for a start? They're going away for the weekend, this weekend coming up. To visit some friends in the Hamptons. One of Herb's Mafia friends, I think. They've been fighting like animals lately, as bad as with Manny. So, how would you like to come over and spend the weekend with me? You and me, all alone, just the two of us, in my house. We can sleep in my bed. We can do . . . anything you want.”

She looked down modestly, trying to conceal any sense of power she felt over me. I think she could tell that I was drawn in by what she was saying. She knew that I still cared for her, but if that wasn't enough for me, not yet, she offered something more.

“OK,” she said. “Then how about this? You come over this weekend for a session of strip poker. With me and Nanci.”

“Strip poker with you
and Nanci
?”

“She'll do whatever I tell her to,” she said confidently. “In fact, I'll give her to you. As a present. You can do whatever you want to her. And me too, if you're extra-
extra
-nice.”

“Are you kidding?” I asked her.

“I want to make you happy,” she said. “I
owe it
to you.”

She turned my face to hers.

“Listen to me,” she said confidentially. “Things really are going to get better. Soon,” she insisted. “You have to believe me. I have real plans for us.”

I certainly wanted to believe her, but I was rightfully wary.

“I don't know what to believe,” I said. “I shouldn't admit this, but you really hurt me. I shouldn't allow myself to be hurt by anyone again, even by you.
Especially
by you.”

“Please?” she begged, taking my two hands in hers. “You're all I want. All I've ever wanted. All I've been working for.
Please
? I promise to be good, and everything . . . I promise.”

She leaned forward to kiss me. Our lips joined, and everything in the room started dissolving, just as it used to, as I took her down. How could I not? I had been so lonely and empty inside. How do you say “No” to Love? The answer is “You don't.”

I made her leave early, so she wouldn't face too tough of a rush hour back to the Island. Actually, I was impressed with the confidence she had in her driving ability. Driving in Manhattan was a huge challenge to me, and I had been driving for a lot longer than Rachel. The cab drivers are merciless, there are potholes all over, and the bike messengers are completely insane.

“You'll be proud of me,” she said as we walked to her Mustang, parked on 116th Street. “I'm a very good driver. I learned on Eleanor's giant, ugly ol' car, so driving Candy is no problem.”

“‘Candy'?” I asked, anticipating the answer before she said it.

“It's my name for my Mustang, silly,” she said, holding tight to my arm as we walked. “The name of the paint color is
Candyapple Red
, so don't you think that Candy is an appropriate name?”

“It's not appropriate,” I said as we approached the blaringly red little convertible. “It's perfect.”

“I wound up getting the convertible,” she said reflectively. “I think that was the right thing to do.”

I had to laugh at her. She was so innocent in some ways: complaining about her horrible parents even as they showered gifts on her. Yet I believed – and still believe to this day – that her parents (
and Herb
) were bad people who did bad things to her. What exactly those things were and how long they went on, well, some of it we'll never know. But it was obvious that they felt guilty about the way they treated Rachel. They
had
to give her things like Mustang convertibles to make up for the hell they made her live through.

“Drive carefully,” I said. “You'd be better off going up to the Triborough Bridge and taking the Grand Central to the Van Wyck and down.”

As she was taking her keys out of the purse that hung from her shoulder, she said, “I know of only one way to get back home, and that's through the Midtown Tunnel, and that's the way I'm going. Don't confuse me.”

“There's more traffic that way,” I said, knowing somehow that she wouldn't change her mind. “The Long Island Distressway, World's Longest Parking Lot.”

She sniffed a laugh, ignoring me, and opened the door of the Mustang with her jangly set of keys. It was truly a beautiful car. Deep red paint, shiny black leather interior, bucket seats.

“Black leather seats,” I said. “Don't they get hot in the sun?” I sounded like
my
 
father
.

“Yes, they do,” she said, tossing her purse across the seat. “But they
look
so cool that it's worth it. Now, give me a kiss.”

She turned to me pertly, expecting me to be right there, ready to adore her. And I have to admit that I was. I took her in my arms and kissed her, feeling how soft and frail her body was. I pulled her closer and kissed her harder until she pushed me away.