“Blow me.”
He winks at me in the mirror, his dilated pupils glittering like two black marbles. “I can’t blow you, Mom. I already have a date.”
I laugh and grumble. I wish something would melt the pimple on my nose.
Earlier this afternoon, my girlfriend, Marci Wolf, offered to lend me a stick of cover-up for tonight’s “huge rite of passage.” (Her actual words, I swear.) She smiled straight into my nose as she did so. I brusquely informed her that I do not wear cover-up. The Thompson Twins wear cover-up. Tina Turner wears cover-up. Not me.
II: Entangled in Your Web
My roommate’s name is DePaul Adams. His family controls the entire U.S. shipping industry. (Or something.) In recent months, he has taken to psychedelics with the all-consuming zeal of a religious fanatic. He is Dorchester Prep’s Timothy Leary, a self-appointed guru of chemical mind expansion. Give him an excuse; he’ll drop a tab of acid. He drops it before lacrosse practice. He drops it for late-night cram sessions. He dropped it one Friday morning to “deal with Chapel,” even though the drug’s effects tend to last at least twelve hours, so by dinner he was still off in the land of looking-glass porters and marmalade skies. Tonight, he has dropped it in celebration of the Spring Ball, the aforementioned rite of passage and Dorchester’s sad parody of a prom.
He’s also my best friend.
When my Grandpa Joe died this past winter, DePaul sent a letter of condolence to my mom so breathtakingly elegiac that it made her cry. He was hallucinating when he wrote it. Oh, and he keeps two dwindling sheets of Daffy Duck Blotter in our mini fridge (still over a hundred tabs) — more than enough LSD to get us both expelled, and probably enough to land us each a stretch of ten-to-twenty in a federal penitentiary.
III: Hot Whispers in the Night
“You should get dressed, Mom,” DePaul says. He tears himself from his reflection. “The chicks will be here soon.”
“Turn this garbage off first,” I groan from my bed.
“Never!” He cranks the volume and starts to jig around the room — his bow-tied, tuxedoed body a sudden squidlike cross between a Deadhead and the cast of Beat Street, arms flapping in waves, a blissful smile on his face.
I laugh again, but I am depressed. I am depressed because DePaul is happier than me, and he always will be, even without the LSD. I am depressed because he is going to Princeton in the fall, whereas I am going to NYU (I didn’t get into Princeton), and because he never gets zits, and because I am stone-cold sober. Furthermore, DePaul owns his tuxedo. I rented mine. My parents are not billionaires. My family has not bequeathed me a trust fund. My bow tie is neither real nor paisley; it is fake and black, like a waiter’s.
Mostly, I am depressed because DePaul wants me to have fun tonight, and I want to have fun, too. But I can’t. I have a secret.
Not that I mention any of this. I’ve never mentioned it. I’ve never even hinted at it. I came close to whispering it to a certain someone once, late at night, off campus, when we were both drunk … but I stopped myself. Like I’m doing with DePaul right now.
Instead, I tumble out of bed and start climbing into my own tuxedo — while my best friend continues to jig, and Tina Turner’s overplayed atrocity continues to blast from his thousand-dollar speakers.
IV: I’m Captured by Your Spell
Fifteen minutes later, there’s a knock on our door.
“The chicks,” DePaul whispers to his desk lamp. He and the lamp have been chatting for a while now. His eyes are all pupil; the irises have long since disappeared.
I scowl at him. My fake bow tie is asphyxiating. The cummerbund threatens to flatten my kidneys. Every item of clothing suffocates me in some way, down to the rented black shoes and socks. Yes, I’ve rented socks. The guy at the tuxedo place insisted on it, claiming my own socks were “too thick” and wouldn’t match the rest of my “ensemble.” (Too thick?) Dressing in one of these things is tantamount to extortion. It ran me $197.35 — $2.65 shy of my monthly allowance; $2.65 doesn’t even cover my acne medication. It barely buys a sandwich. I vow never to wear a tux again.
DePaul tries to scowl back, but ends up giggling. I shuffle over to our door and open it. The chicks are indeed here, DePaul’s girlfriend and mine. Side by side.
Rebecca Weiss and Marci Wolf.
Rebecca is a freshly showered vision, her long red curls still damp (she refuses to use a blow-dryer because of “the static”). She’s applied a dash of eyeliner, but no lipstick. She’s not even dressed formally. She’s in sandals (I can see her red-painted toes) and a rumpled skirt and a loose-hanging Indian print blouse (I don’t think she’s wearing a bra, either) … and every article of clothing accentuates every curve of her flawless porcelain body, right up to her eyes … those wondrous, slinky, hazel eyes.
Conversely, Marci hides her eyes behind freakish chlorine-blue contacts. She’s slathered on about an inch of makeup. Blond hair = blow-dried. Silver hoops dangle from her ears like a pair of hollowed-out air hockey pucks. Her strapless pink dress reminds me of the gruesome bridesmaids at my aunt Irma’s wedding. (Irma was a newlywed at the age of fifty-three. She married an accountant named Melvin Lewis, who is kind, but resembles a four-hundred-pound pork roast.) Needless to say, Marci is not wearing sandals. She is wearing high heels. They are plain and black, like my tux.
Marci smiles straight at the zit on my nose and says, “Hey, handsome!”
V: Captured!
So, in case you haven’t figured out my secret —
I am an asshole.
Plus, yes, I am in love with my best friend’s girlfriend. Call it cliché, call it pitiful or whatever you want, but there’s another problem on top of all that.
Rebecca and Marci are also roommates. And best friends. Like DePaul and me.
In other words, I am not only in love with my best friend’s girlfriend, I am in love with my girlfriend’s best friend. And she is the same person.
Evil, I know. Confusing, even. But to clarify, it’s not just a crush. It’s empathy. It’s feeling (the feeling I could never have for Marci): for Rebecca’s acerbic wit, for her redheaded bohemian beauty, for how she hates MTV but secretly enjoys it. For how she loves Van Halen circa 1978–1984 as much as I do, and thus believes Sammy Hagar should be shot. For how she laughs so hard that she loses herself. And for the braces she once wore, because now that they’re gone she’s hotter and knows it.
If only I loved Marci … if only I even liked Marci enough not to be bored with her and irritated by her (evil again, but true) … if only, everything would be perfect. DePaul and me, Marci and Rebecca: two pairs of roommates and best friends, hooked up with each other. There is no better boarding school scenario. After all, sex at Dorchester is tough to schedule. Sex generally occurs when one’s roommate is out. So imagine, if your roommate could sneak out and trade places with your significant other’s roommate … why, all four of you could be having sex every night of the week!
But sneaking out has never come up among us. For one thing, it’s traditionally up to horny males to initiate such liaisons, and DePaul won’t make a move. He seems as bored with Rebecca as I am with Marci. (How? HOW!!! Is he that blind?) And I am too much of a wimp to sneak out — even for sex. I am too much of a wimp to have sex, period. I am a virgin. I want the first time to be amazing, and I’m scared it won’t be with Marci. Maybe that’s weak, but I don’t care. Finally, on a practical level, DePaul is often tripping too hard late at night to do anything else except chat with his desk lamp.
VI: Oh, Yes, I’m Touched by This Show of Emotion
“I said, hey, handsome,” Marci repeats. “Hello? Zack? Anybody home?”
I force a smile. “Sorry. Hey, Marci. Thanks. You look beautiful.”
Marci sighs and brushes past me into the room, her heels clattering. My eyes meet Rebecca’s for a moment. She smiles back, but I detect displeasure. I can’t blame her. I real
ly wish I weren’t such a jerk or a liar. Rebecca’s best friend deserves someone better than me; she deserves someone better to her. Chalk it up to inertia. Or chalk it up to a simple probability: If I break up with Marci, I will in all likelihood wind up on Rebecca’s shit list — a place I refuse to be.
“Rebecca’s in a pissy mood,” Marci announces.
“Why’s that?” DePaul asks.
“Because she found out yesterday that she didn’t make it off the wait list at Stanford. She’s pissed because now she’s going to NYU. As if that’s a bad college. You know where I’m going? Oberlin! Picture a bunch of drugged-out cellists in a godforsaken wasteland — no offense on the drugged-out part, D — but seriously …”
Marci’s voice fades into nothingness. Rebecca is going to NYU???
Rebecca snickers and shakes her head. DePaul furrows his brow at her, as if genuinely concerned. (He’s most likely puzzling over how she has morphed into a unicorn or a giant daffodil.) Part of me rejoices — the part reserved for unwholesome fantasies. Suddenly, I am ecstatic that I didn’t get into Princeton.
“Zack, you got into NYU, too, right?” Rebecca asks me point-blank.
“Yeah. Actually, my parents already sent in the tuition deposit.”
She wriggles her eyebrows. “Mine, too. Maybe we’ll get mugged together. Or better yet, we can buy switchblades for protection, and every once in a while we’ll hijack a taxi to go visit DePaul in his ivory tower. Princeton is only two hours from the ghetto.”
I burst out laughing.
Marci turns to me. “What’s so funny?”
“Uh, I … um, nothing. Sorry. It was just what Rebecca said — about the ghetto, and about us going off together to the ivory tower. I mean, with the switchblades. New York City is not that dangerous… .” I don’t finish. I don’t even know what the hell I’m talking about. Whatever it is, it can’t be good. Silence falls over the room.
“So, D, how do I look?” Rebecca pipes up. She glares into the black holes that should be DePaul’s eyes. “Zack just complimented his girlfriend.”
DePaul studies her for a moment. “You’re shimmering?” he offers with a shrug.
Rebecca grins flatly. “That’s sweet, D. Much appreciated. Just try to keep it together tonight, all right? The sixties are over.”
VII: Should I Be Frightened by Your Lack of Devotion?
After a clumsy presentation of corsages, the four of us head to the dining hall.
DePaul does keep it together, as much as he can. He only stops twice during the walk to gape at the moon. (In all fairness, it’s full.) But when we arrive, my depression sinks to a new low. Marci was on the Spring Ball decorations committee, and it shows. The dining hall is bedecked with streamers and balloons. The scuffed-up wooden tables are shrouded with white linens and set with genuine napkins and silverware; they’re even festooned with plastic floral arrangements.
“Real flowers attract too many bugs,” Marci explains to me in a stage whisper.
My God. Who is this girl? Okay. I have to admit: The streamers look nice. Still, even with rented napkins, you can’t fool me. This is the dining hall. This is the same stuffy cafeteria where we eat every single meal every day of our goddamn lives — meals like “Nantucket Canned Scrod.” Marci and the rest of the decorations committee cannot magically transform this room, no matter how noble their intentions. This is not a prom. This is Dorchester’s Spring Ball. This is a fraud.
“Whoa!” DePaul exclaims as the four of us sit down. “This place feels amazing. It’s vibrating. It doesn’t even feel like the dining hall. It feels like a … prom.”
I bury my face in my hands.
“What’s the matter?” Marci asks.
Before I can think of a lie, DePaul gasps, “Holy shit!”
I lift my head. DePaul jabs a finger at the stage — a makeshift wooden platform in an area normally reserved for garbage disposal.
“Check out Miss Wyatt,” he says. “She’s drunk. I heard she went to college with that band. Right, Marci? I think they’re, like, an R.E.M. cover band …”
For once, DePaul isn’t seeing things. Miss Wyatt is drunk, staggering amid an array of amps and drums, slurping some kind of suspiciously clear liquid from a Styrofoam cup. It’s a cruel irony. The Spring Ball is the night when the faculty is supposed to be on high alert for student drinking, an offense punishable by suspension, yet she’s wasted, while the four of us haven’t imbibed a single drop. (Aside from DePaul, we haven’t ingested anything more potent than breath mints.) On the other hand, who can blame Miss Wyatt? She’s young. She’s trapped here, like the rest of us. So what the hell? Bottoms up! Her musician friends sip from identical cups as they adjust their instruments, pedals, and microphones… . They are a bunch of underfed artist types, much like Miss Wyatt herself. I’m very worried they’ll suck.
“So, you guys?” Marci prompts. “We should all get up and dance as soon as —”
Without warning, the band bursts into Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer.” Miss Wyatt stumbles offstage. My ears perk up. They don’t suck. They’re good, even. The sound is bass-heavy and metronome-steady. My fingers drum the tablecloth.
“OH MY GOD!” Marci shrieks. “I love this song! Miss Wyatt said these guys only did college rock.” She casts a sidelong glance at me and starts to fidget in time to the music, the universal sign language for: This is your last chance. I’ve asked you to dance, so please dance with me, unless you truly are the biggest asshole on the planet.
I peer around the dining hall. It’s packed with fellow seniors, most in rented tuxes and formal dresses like Marci and me. (DePaul and Rebecca are pretty much the only couple in exception to the rented-tux-and-formal-dress rule.) All are as antsy and deserving of fun as Marci. Several leap to their feet and sweep their dates onto the floor.
I turn away from Marci. I can’t help it. I am that big an asshole.
VIII: Should I?
DePaul scoots toward me. “Hoop earrings, Mom,” he breathes in my ear. “Dig Marci’s hoop earrings. Chicks who wear earrings like that … it’s a sign. They’re saying they want to get freaky. That’s why I should bang her.”
“Excuse me?” I whisper back. I know I should be offended, or at least act offended. But all I can do is laugh. “What kind of sign are you talking about? You want to bang my girlfriend because of her hoop earrings?”
“It’s obvious you don’t want to bang her.”
I swallow. “It is?”
“Mom,” DePaul chides, “when Marci and Rebecca first came in tonight, you looked Rebecca from the bottom up. But you looked Marci from the top down —”
“Will you guys stop whispering to each other?” Marci interrupts. Her glossy lips curl in a frigid smile. “It’s not very polite. Can we either get up and dance, or can we all have a conversation?”
“Sorry!” I push away from DePaul. “What do you want to talk about?”
“That’s a very good question, Zack,” Marci replies curtly. “I want to find out, once and for all, why DePaul calls you Mom. I want to know why you let him do it.”
“Because I breast-feed him?” I joke.
Rebecca slaps a hand over her mouth to keep from cracking up.
Marci doesn’t so much as blink. Her face is an ice sculpture.
“Hey, Marci, Zack’s just kidding,” DePaul says. “Come on, let’s dance. I love this song, too.” He throws out a hand to Marci — surprisingly steady, considering his condition — and whisks her out onto the floor with the rest of the couples.
I sag back in my chair.
“You handled that very well,” Rebecca remarks.
“I thought so.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
Rebecca leans across the table. “How did you and Marci get together anyway? I mean, really.”
I think for a m
inute. “Because you and DePaul started going out. And she was pretty aggressive. I mean, she let me know she had a crush on me… . I was just flattered. Plus she’s sort of hot, and she’s your roommate — also, she has a last name that starts with W. We sit near each other at Chapel and stuff. It worked out.”
“Very romantic,” Rebecca snorts. “‘She’s sort of hot.’ I have a W name, too, Zack. I sit closer to you than Marci does. I sat closer to you yesterday.”
“But you’re going out with DePaul,” I hear myself mumble.
Rebecca doesn’t respond. I stare at Marci as she clings to DePaul and tries to follow his crazed moves. He’s far surpassed Deadheads and Beat Street; he’s in shaman trance territory. Then again, “Sledgehammer” is a great song.
“You know what, Zack?” Rebecca says. “You should either break up with Marci this second, or go out there and cut in on that dance. Because Marci wants something to happen with you tonight.”
IX: Should I???
Everything freezes. I stop breathing. My fake bow tie threatens to cut off the oxygen to my brain. “Something to happen? Like what?”
“Oh, come on. Don’t play dumb. Marci thinks the Spring Ball is a ‘huge rite of passage,’ and she isn’t talking about the fake prom vibe.” Rebecca sighs. “I just wish DePaul wanted something to happen tonight, too. That’s why I’m in a pissy mood. Not because I’m going to NYU. I’m psyched to go to NYU. You’re gonna be there.”
“Yeah. I am.” The plastic flowers on our table spin as if I’ve just dropped Daffy Duck Blotter. “But you’re in a pissy mood because … ?” I leave the question hanging.
Rebecca looks straight into my eyes and smirks. “Surprise, surprise. Yes, Zack, I am a virgin —” She stares down into her lap. “I’m probably going to regret saying that. Whatever. The cat is out of the bag. So I might as well finish. I don’t want to lose my virginity to DePaul. I just wish he wanted to lose his virginity to me.” She lifts her head. “You know what I’m saying?”