When the professor came around to comment on my efforts he said, “You’ll have to work a little faster, Miss Bradford, if you hope to sketch more than his big toe before the semester ends.” I was so relieved when the bell rang that I slammed my sketch book shut and raced out.
As I hurried across the campus toward my dormitory, the guy I’d just been sketching suddenly appeared beside me. He had shrugged into his shirt but hadn’t bothered to button it. “What’s your hurry, Irish?” he said.
“Are you talking to me?”
He spread his arms to encompass the empty sidewalk and pivoted in a slow, hip-swaying turn. “Do you see anyone else? A leprechaun, perhaps?”
“Why were you staring at me like that in art class?”
He gave a lazy, lopsided smile. “It seemed only fair. You were staring at me.”
“I was drawing you! But you were very rude, in case you don’t know.”
“Wow! You’ve got an Irish temper too! Far out!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I turned to leave, but he stepped smoothly in front of me.
“Have coffee with me.” He smiled broadly this time, and I thought my heart would go into cardiac arrest. He slowly fastened the buttons on his shirt while his magnetic blue eyes held mine. I’d never had such a heart-stopping reaction before. I was both fascinated and terrified.
“No, thank you,” I managed to say.
“Why not?”
“Well, in the first place, I don’t even know you.”
“Jeff Pulaski. Art major. Born and raised in Pittsburgh.” He extended his hand.
I shook it briefly, then said, “And in the second place, I’m pinned.”
He laughed uproariously.
“I’m glad you find that amusing, Mr. Pulaski.”
“I do! Ever see those butterflies in the museums, all stretched out on a piece of velvet with pins holding down their wings? Here’s this beautiful creature, meant to fly, but it’s just lying there, trapped, held down by pins. That’s what I think of whenever some chick says, ‘I’m pinned.’” He fingered my boyfriend’s fraternity pin, fastened just above my breast, and laughed again. “He’s got you all stretched out under glass like his prize specimen, and no one else can touch you.”
“How dare you!” I said, slapping his hand away. “I’m nobody’s possession!”
“Then prove it by having a cup of coffee with me.” There was that smile again.
I didn’t have to prove anything to him, but something compelled me to accept his challenge. Part of it was stubbornness, part was curiosity, but mostly it was the sheer excitement of being with such a dangerous person. How much longer could my heart continue its wild stampede before they had to rush me to the emergency room?
The campus coffee shop pulsed with life, the crowded room ringing with the noisy bustle of students trying to be heard above The Rolling Stones. I couldn’t tell if the dull, throbbing sound was my heart or the bass rhythm. I laid claim to a table and two chairs while Jeff ordered our coffee at the counter. I watched him saunter smoothly through the crowd without spilling a drop.
“Here you go, Irish.” He set down the cups and lolled in the chair opposite mine, his legs outstretched.
“Why do you keep calling me that?”
“An artist is trained to. pay attention to details. I could tell right away by your dark hair and fair skin and that freckled nose of yours that your ancestors are Irish.” He traced his finger down the bridge of my nose.
“You couldn’t be more wrong,” I said, pushing his hand away. “I’m one hundred percent German on my mother’s side, and Daddy is pure WASP—Bradford and Biddle.”
“Sounds like a law firm,” he said with a grin. “‘Bradford & Biddle, Attorneys at Law.’”
“Not even close,” I said, laughing. “Daddy is a pediatrician, and he’s definitely not Irish. His ancestors date back to before the Revolutionary War. I could join the DAR if I were so inclined—which I’m not.”
He shook his head. “Someone must have switched babies at birth. You’re pure Irish.”
“Well, don’t tell that to Daddy, or he’ll throw me into the river like a litter of kittens. He thinks the Irish aren’t quite human. Trust me, there’s no Irish blood in these veins. What nationality are you?”
Jeff sat up straight. “Pure Polack and proud of it. We’re one generation off the sausage boat. You ought to see me do the polka.” He lifted his coffee cup in a mocking toast as if it were a beer stein, then swallowed a gulp. “My dad was a steelworker until he injured his back-now he’s a laid-off steelworker collecting disability pay.” He took another swallow and set the cup down. “Hey, got a pen I could borrow?”
I dug around in my purse and produced a pen. He proceeded to sketch a picture of me on his paper place mat. I sipped my coffee and watched him draw, fascinated. He was very good. In a few simple strokes he had my likeness.
“Well, you did say you were an art major.”
“Yep, me and Michelangelo. What about you?”
“I’m a lit major who ended up in art class by accident.”
He stopped drawing and gazed at me with interest. “Oh? How’s that?”
“Well, you know how we have to take either music or art as part of the curriculum? I wanted Introduction to Music, since Daddy always buys season tickets to the symphony and I know a little more about music than art. But by the time I registered, the music courses were all filled.”
He leaned so close I could smell the coffee on his breath. “Would you like some private tutoring?” He made the word sound as dangerous as skydiving without a parachute.
“Um . . . no thanks. I’m doing okay, so far.”
He flipped the place mat over and reached for my hand.
“What are you doing?”
“Relax, I’m not going to hurt you.” His palm was warm and dry and as rough as sandpaper. White paint speckled the backs of his hands. He held my hand in his as if appraising a diamond, then he began to sketch it on the back of the place mat. “You have Irish hands,” he told me as he worked.
“Are you deaf, stubborn, or just plain dumb? I already told you, there’s not an Irish bone in my body.”
He laid down the pen and gripped my hand in both of his, gently massaging all the tiny bones in the back of my hand with his thumbs. “I think I feel a few. . . .” His touch was so sensual that I pulled my hand away in self-defense.
I had to get this conversation back to firmer ground.
“So . . . how do you plan to make a living with your art major after you graduate? Accost women on the street and charge them for drawing their portraits on place mats?”
“Who cares about making a living?” he said with a lazy shrug. “I’m not going to get sucked into that middle-class rat race.”
“Spoken like a true hippie!” I said, laughing. “Haven’t I seen you burning draft cards and protesting the war in Vietnam?”
“Darn right! lt’s a fictitious, immoral conflict, created by the capitalistic Pentagon establishment to increase the corporate profits of the arms industry. If they try to draft me, I’m moving to Canada. I’ve already got friends up there.”
“Wow! You’re the kind of guy who really raises my dad’s blood pressure. It would be very entertaining to bring the two of you together for a little chat.”
I smiled at the thought.
“Geez, you’re beautiful!” he said suddenly. He leaned across the table and held my eyes with his smoldering gaze. “Will you let me paint your portrait sometime?”
“Um . . . I guess so. . . .” I don’t know how I ever managed to get the words out, since my heart was in my throat and beating like a hummingbird’s wings. Something was happening to me that I didn’t understand. I remembered watching an experiment in physics class as iron filings blindly paraded to the beat of a magnet, and I felt as powerless as those filings, pulled toward this magnetic man against my will. I didn’t understand how or why any more than I had understood the forc
e of magnetism in physics class, but I knew I had to escape from his power while I still could.
“Look at the time!” I said with a gasp. “I’ll be late for class!”
“I’ll walk with you,” Jeff said.
I followed him out of the coffee shop on shaking legs. He didn’t see me shove the place mat with his drawings into my sketchbook.
When I checked my campus mailbox the next day, I found an index card with a delicate painting of a monarch butterfly, rendered in pen-and-ink and watercolor. Wicked-looking steel pins held down its wings. Scrawled across the bottom was a note: Thanks for the coffee.
* * *
Two days later, I was eating lunch in the cafeteria with my boyfriend when Jeff plopped down across the table from us with his tray of food. “Hi, guys. What’s happening?” He sounded as casual as a lifelong friend. My heart immediately began another idiotic tap dance.
“Um, not much,” I said. “Just having lunch with my boyfriend, Bradley Wallace. Brad, this is—”
“Jeff Pulaski. Art major. Born and raised in Pittsburgh.” Jeff extended his hand. Today it was speckled with blue paint. He smelled vaguely of mineral spirits and another scent I recognized from the art studio. Brad wrinkled his nose in distaste. He didn’t offer his hand in return.
“Don’t all you hippie types usually hang out in front of the ROTC building to eat your veggie burgers?”
“Yeah, Brad, but I just found out that I don’t need a fraternity jacket to eat in this cafeteria, after all . . . so here I am! Pass the salt, will you, Irish?”
“Do you know this person?” Brad said, turning to me. He sounded as stuffy as my father.
Before I could answer him, Jeff did. “Yeah, we’re old friends. She’s going to pose for me. We’ve made all the arrangements.”
The subtle lift of Jeff’s eyebrows and the sultry tone of his voice had Brad scrambling to his feet, fists clenched. “You want to step outside and say that?” Brad was an honor student, not an athlete. I had seen what Jeff looked like beneath his tattered tie-dyed T-shirt. I knew who would win this contest.
“Lighten up, Brad,” I said. “Jeff’s just joking around. You know me better than that.” I pulled Brad down beside me again and kissed his cheek. “But it’s sweet of you to want to defend my honor.”
Jeff made a face. “Gag! I’m getting cavities over here!”
“Listen, freak. I don’t recall inviting you to join us.” Brad’s voice was low and menacing.
“Aw . . . having memory problems again, huh, Bradley?” Jeff tilted his head, feigning sympathy. “You haven’t been yourself since they put in that steel plate.” It took every ounce of willpower I possessed to keep from laughing. I knew Brad would never forgive me if I did.
“Come on, guys, let’s all lighten up, okay?” I said, biting my lip.
“Peace, brother!” Jeff made the sign with his fingers. Brad ignored him, concentrating on his lunch. “So what’s your major, Bradley? No, wait! . . . Let me guess. You want to be a proctologist, right?”
Thank heaven Brad didn’t know what a proctologist was or he would have been on his feet again. “Bradley is going to be a clinical psychologist,” I said quickly. Jeff made a face.
“Ouch! You have to wear a suit and tie for that, don’t you? You’ll never catch me in a suit and tie!”
“Surprise, surprise,” Brad said dryly.
“A suit is just an overpriced straitjacket. A tie is a silk noose—”
“Spoken like a true Neanderthal.”
Brad used one of Daddy’s favorite epithets—Neanderthal. I glanced at Brad in his button-down oxford shirt, khaki slacks, and penny loafers and saw a younger version of my father. The image scared me. Daddy approved of Brad. They understood each other. Daddy wouldn’t let someone like Jeff wash his Cadillac. Grandma Emma, on the other hand, would adore Jeff. They were two generations apart but cut from the same mold.
“Bradley, Bradley . . . do I sense some latent hostility here?” Jeff stroked his beard in a mocking imitation of Sigmund Freud. “Do you always color between the lines, Bradley?”
“Do you deliberately avoid the lines?”
“Yes, I find it makes a very striking effect.”
Brad pushed his chair back and picked up his tray. “Let’s go, Suze.”
“Sooze? Oh, Irish! Tell me you’re not going to spend the rest of your gorgeous life with a man who calls you Sooze!” I gave Jeff a weak smile and followed Brad out of the cafeteria. Why had I never noticed before how irritating the nickname “Suze” was?
When I opened my mailbox the next morning, I found a picture of a clown that had been torn from a children’s coloring book. Jeff had colored it with crayons, completely outside the lines, creating a beautiful, delicately shaded effect that was almost three dimensional. The note read: Marry me! I promise I will never call you “Sooze” like that other clown.
My heart not only thumped when I was with Jeff, but now it did its bongo-drum imitation whenever I looked at one of his drawings.
I had a date that night with Bradley—a dance at his fraternity house. In his navy blue blazer and frat tie, Brad looked exactly like the other sixty clean- cut, crew-cut guys in his fraternity. They probably all colored between the lines too. The thought depressed me.
Later, when Brad kissed me in his Mustang, I remembered the sensual hand massage Jeff had given me and wondered what it would be like to kiss him. Would his beard feel soft against my cheek or coarse and bristly? I had never noticed it before, but it seemed to me that Bradley kissed like a fish. When he finally broke away, I felt relieved.
“Hello? Anybody home?” he said. “Why do I get the feeling you’re a million miles away, Suze?”
“I don’t know . . . I have a lot of things on my mind.”
“And I don’t think I’m one of those things, am I?” He pouted just like my brother, Bobby, did when he didn’t get his own way.
I thought of Jeff’s butterfly painting, and I felt “pinned.” I didn’t know what to do. “I’m really sorry . . . but can you take me home, Brad?”
“We have another forty minutes left until curfew!”
“I know. I’ll be my old self tomorrow, I promise.”
Brad did a slow burn all the way back to the dorm. He didn’t get out to open my car door or walk me to the lobby. He didn’t even kiss me good-night. The first thing I did when I got to my room was to pull all three of Jeff’s drawings off my bulletin board and stash them in my desk drawer. Maybe now I could keep my mind on Brad.
I liked Brad. He was a really cool guy, a member of the coolest fraternity. We’d been dating for almost a year and had even talked about getting married someday. We had a lot of things in common—among them, the desire to pursue careers and join what Jeff called “the middle-class rat race.” But my pulse had always stayed normal around Bradley Wallace. Maybe it was because he was as bland and as good for me as oatmeal.
When I came out of art class on Monday afternoon, I found Jeff Pulaski waiting in the hallway for me. “How’s it going? Need any tutoring yet?” That dangerous word again.
“Um, no thanks. I’m content with a B.”
“Are you sure? I could help you get an A. . . .”
“I’m sure you could,” I said, swallowing. What on earth were we talking about? It certainly wasn’t art because I couldn’t seem to breathe properly. Jeff stood very close, blocking my path.
“Hey, I’ve got tickets to a Simon and Garfunkel concert next weekend. Come with me.”
“Is Bradley invited too?” I asked weakly.
“Who’s Bradley?”
“Um, my steady boyfriend . . . I’m pinned, remember?”
“Oh, that Bradley. The guy who doesn’t own you. The guy who calls you ‘Sooze.’”
“Yeah. That’s the guy. Thanks for asking though, Jeff. I’ve got to go.”
“Hey, be careful with his fraternity pin, Irish,” he called after me. “It can draw blood.”
The following weekend, Brad c
ame to the dorm to pick me up for our date. We were going to a reshowing of the movie classic Dr. Zhivago. But as I bounded down the stairs from my room to the lobby, the first person I saw was Jeff Pulaski. He had his dark hair untied, and it hung down to his wide shoulders in waves. He casually raked it out of his eyes with one hand, and he looked so good I froze in place, staring open-mouthed.
“Thanks, Irish. You look great too,” he said with a grin.
“Sorry. Was I that obvious?” I wanted to crawl under the stairs and hide.
“Yeah. But you look far out when you blush like that. That’s one thing I really like about Irish girls. They blush very easily.”
Before I could reply, a voice behind me said, “Excuse me . . . you’re blocking the stairs.” I moved aside, and a pretty blonde with hip-huggers and long ironed hair sashayed past me into Jeff’s arms. “Ooo, I can hardly wait to hear Simon and Garfunkel!” she purred. I watched them stroll from the building together, Jeff’s arm casually draped over her shoulder, her arm circling his waist. I was astonished to discover that I was jealous.
I went to the movies with Brad, and as I watched Dr. Zhivago’s dilemma-married to the respectable Tanya but in love with the beautiful Lara—I wasn’t sure if my tears were for the Russian doctor or for myself.
* * *
In the weeks that followed, I grew increasingly discontented with Bradley Wallace. He reminded me more of Daddy every day. Why had I never noticed how arrogant Brad was? Or how easily he assumed that I would always be at his beck and call? I hadn’t seen Jeff Pulaski since that night in the dorm, but I couldn’t get him out of my mind. As I sat in the library, daydreaming about being tutored by Jeff, Bradley plunked two university catalogues down on the table in front of me.
“I’ve narrowed my graduate school choices down to these two schools,” he said. “What do you think, Suze?”