Class

by Cecily von Ziegesar

  Blanche stood behind her, talking to Beetle. “See? She’s a nice girl,” she crooned. “You big mama’s boy. You big fart machine. You big whatchamacallit.”

  Shipley bobbed up and down, hoping Beetle wouldn’t fart on her.

  Blanche walked around them so she was facing Shipley. “We’ll only be gone a few hours. Here’s the number of the restaurant. It’s in Hallowell. He’s had a bath and dinner. All you need to do is have fun for about an hour, change him into his pj’s, give him a bottle, and put him down. Bottle’s in the fridge. It’s shaped like a boob. He probably won’t drink it all though, since he was such a hungry man at supper.” Blanche pressed her nose into Beetle’s flabby cheek and breathed in, as if she couldn’t get enough of the smell of him. “Just make yourself at home with little old rubberbutt.”

  Shipley wanted to ask what exactly Beetle liked to do for fun and what he was supposed to wear to bed, since he seemed to be wearing his pajamas already. Wasn’t that what babies wore pretty much all the time? She also wanted to ask if he still wore diapers, and how she was supposed to put him to sleep, but she didn’t want to seem unprofessional. Beetle belched and she felt something warm and wet seep into the cloth of her sweatshirt.

  “Whoops!” Blanche handed Shipley an old stained dish towel.

  Obviously this household didn’t use paper towels and recycled everything, including jam jars. It was also a household in which women lived together and adopted babies from Mexico or wherever and gave them very un-Mexican-sounding names like Beetle. There was absolutely no way for Shipley to make herself at home. She was galaxies away from Greenwich.

  “Just so you know, that’s regurgitated baby formula all over your shoulder, not breast milk. Can’t breastfeed when you adopt,” Blanche explained, tossing back the dregs of her wine. “So we’ll see you around eleven or twelve.” She gave Beetle one last kiss on his little forehead and swished out the door in her fringed boots. “Help yourself to anything in the fridge if you get hungry!”

  It seemed like a lot of trouble for only $40, especially an hour later, after fun time. Fun had consisted of Shipley putting Beetle down on his feet so he could walk around, and watching him topple over onto the carpet like a badly made toy. It hadn’t occurred to her that he wouldn’t know how to walk. Of course Beetle had begun to cry, and he’d been crying ever since. She carried him around for a while, walking from room to room, opening cabinets and drawers, reading the spines of books, checking out the contents of the fridge and generally snooping. She learned that Professor Rosen and her partner, Blanche, liked to eat things like tahini, tempeh, and quinoa. She learned that they used something called Dr. Bronner’s Magic Liquid Soap to wash everything—their dishes, their clothes, their hair—and that instead of Advil and Tylenol their medicine cabinet was stocked with little vials of homeopathic remedies with names like Nux Vomica, Belladonna, Gunpowder, and Cypripedium Pubescens. She learned that they slept on the floor, on a futon covered in natural-looking cream-colored sheets, and that they owned only six dresses between them. She learned that they used organic bleach-free tampons. There was no caffeine in the house and no television, but the pantry was stocked with case upon case of wine. Their favorite authors seemed to be Virginia Woolf, Shakespeare, and Jeanette Winterson. A Clinton-Gore banner was displayed in the living room window. They had two large Maine coon cats who ignored Shipley completely. The house was cozy, full of plants and pillows and throws and furniture salvaged from thrift stores, but it was so completely alien Shipley wasn’t comfortable enough to sit down.

  How had they come to live this way? she wondered as she paced the dusty wood floors with the crying baby in her arms. Were they raised in a house like this? Had they always eaten tempeh? Had they always preferred women to men? And if not, when did it happen? When did they know that they wanted to be mommies together and raise a little boy without caffeine or television or meat or bleach? How did they know they preferred Clinton-Gore over Bush-Quayle or Ross Perot? Was it something they learned in college?

  She couldn’t help but wonder what would happen to her after four years of exposure to such people. She might experience a slight alteration, or she might be completely transformed. Would she stop shaving her legs and using deodorant and write the word “women” with a y? Would she forgo leather and refuse to eat meat? Would she grind her own wheat and get fat and grow a mustache?

  Beetle kept on crying. Finally she laid him down on his back in his crib. His face was no longer tan, but red. His diaper needed changing—it had been swelling by the minute—but she couldn’t very well change him when he was so hysterical. Maybe he’d wear himself out soon and fall asleep.

  But the baby continued to cry.

  Shipley stared at him. She reached through the slats of the crib and poked his spongy arm with her finger.

  “Hush. You be quiet now,” she murmured and stuck out her tongue, as if this were only a game they were playing and her helplessness was just an act. Beetle’s shiny jelly bean eyes widened and the intensity of his howls increased. She left the room, hoping he would cry himself to sleep.

  Downstairs she lit a cigarette and poured herself a glass of white wine from the open bottle in the fridge. She ashed into the sink, gulping the wine between puffs. Upstairs Beetle’s cries grew louder and more desperate.

  A worn Home phone book lay on the kitchen counter. Shipley snatched it up and without even pausing to think, turned to G for Gatz.

  “Hello? Is this the Gatz household with two teenage kids—a guy named Adam with red hair, and a pretty girl with long dark hair and a strange name that I can’t remember—Philosophy?” she asked desperately.

  “Is this some kind of poll?” the woman on the other end replied.

  “No, I just…Is Adam there?” She and Adam rarely saw each other on campus and they never spoke. Shipley wasn’t sure why, but ever since she and Tom had become a couple, she’d avoided Adam completely.

  “Adam is at the college, rehearsing his play.”

  “And what about…his sister?”

  “Tragedy?!” the woman bellowed, her mouth away from the phone. “Who may I ask is calling?” she said into the earpiece. “Someone named Soon Yi!” she bellowed after Shipley had given her name.

  The phone clattered against something hard and then Tragedy picked up.

  “Hello?”

  “Tragedy? I don’t know if you remember me. This is Shipley.”

  “Of course I remember you,” Tragedy huffed. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to live with Adam now? He hardly talks or eats or even looks at anyone. He’s like a ghost.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” Shipley said, wondering what all this had to do with her. “But please, I just need someone to—” She explained the situation, her voice shuddering on the verge of hysteria. Tears spilled down her cheeks. “He won’t stop crying and I don’t know what to do!”

  “Okay, Jesus. Calm down.” Tragedy sighed impatiently. “Listen, take a deep breath and make yourself some chamomile tea or something. I’ll be there in a sec.”

  11

  In driver’s ed they teach you that most accidents happen on familiar roads close to home. You relax and let your guard down. It is then that you are at your most vulnerable. Adam thought about this every time he drove home from Dexter. He never seemed to drive on roads that were unfamiliar, which meant, basically, that he was an accident waiting to happen.

  “Adam!” Ellen Gatz hollered across the yard from the barn as Adam pulled up to the house. “Your sister’s in there talking on the phone with some friend of yours named Shun Lee!”

  Adam tore inside the house, only to find that Tragedy had already hung up.

  “Shipley’s down the road babysitting and the kid won’t stop crying,” she explained. “Why in fuck’s name she called here, I don’t know, but I said I’d go over and help.”

  “I’ll drive you.” Adam lunged for the door. “Come on.”

  The road was a blur. The car seemed to zoo
m along on its own. All Adam could think about was Shipley. She was all he’d been thinking about for weeks.

  “Hi,” she said, greeting them at the door, cheeks puffy and eyes rimmed with pink from crying. “Adam, you came too?”

  “Yes,” Adam answered robotically. From inside the house came a piercing, forlorn shriek followed by a series of breathless choking wails. The baby sounded like it was being tortured. “I came to help,” he said bravely.

  Shipley backed away cautiously, as if she’d just remembered that it wasn’t her baby or her house. “Well, I guess you should come in.”

  The kitchen stank of cigarettes. A half-empty bottle of white wine stood open on the kitchen counter. Tragedy didn’t wait for the grand tour, she just headed upstairs to Beetle’s room, leaving Adam and Shipley to stare at each other in the kitchen.

  “How was play rehearsal?” Shipley asked. Now that he was standing in front of her, she knew why she’d been avoiding him.

  “Good,” Adam said. “Better than before. I think it’s actually going to be good.”

  “Great!” She glanced at the stairs. “Maybe we should go up and see how they’re doing.”

  “Okay,” Adam agreed, reluctant to give up this moment alone together, but eager for a distraction.

  He followed her up the stairs, admiring the neat sway of her trim rear end. No awkward creases or excess flab. She probably looks even better naked, he thought, forgetting to breathe.

  Shipley tried to march upstairs in the least provocative way possible. If only she’d worn her favorite jeans, the ones that made her legs look longer and thinner and her waist extra slim. She sucked in her breath, hoping it would make a difference from behind.

  They reached the landing, panting. Beetle’s room was directly in front of them.

  “He’s wet,” Tragedy explained, expertly picking up the baby from his crib. She rocked him back and forth, her Amazonian body swaying with motherly grace. “Aren’t you, bud? Well, I’m gonna fix it. Don’t you worry. It’s okay. I was a little squirt like you once. I remember how bad it sucks.”

  Shipley and Adam stood mutely in the doorway as she laid Beetle down on the rug and removed the legs of his terry-cloth suit. His diaper was swollen and yellow.

  “Lookit all that pee,” Tragedy crooned as she removed the soiled diaper and replaced it with a fresh one. Beetle had stopped crying. He smiled his toothless, goofy smile at his new adored aunty. “Lookit that little wiener. It’s like a worm. Just a little worm.”

  “Thanks so much for coming over,” Shipley said. The doorway was narrow. She and Adam were practically touching.

  “It’s hard to imagine how guys ever get to be guys looking at a precious little fucker like this, huh?” Tragedy zipped Beetle up into a clean terry-cloth jumpsuit. This one had orange and brown tiger stripes and four little points on the end of each of the footies, like tiger claws. “There you go, hot stuff.” She kissed the tip of Beetle’s nose and picked him up, flying him over her head like a human airplane. “One day I’m going to have at least twelve of these things. My own crazy crew. Babies and animals everywhere.”

  Shipley and Adam stared blankly back at her, both focused on the humming centimeter of space between them.

  “Why don’t you guys go make some coffee or something while I try to put him down?” Tragedy suggested. “Does he have a bottle?”

  “Oh, I forgot about the bottle.” Shipley dashed downstairs and came back with the breast-shaped bottle from the fridge. “This is what they said to use.”

  Tragedy took the bottle and held it against her chest. “Ha! Mine are bigger.” She sat down in the rocking chair in the corner and settled Beetle in her lap to drink his milk. She watched him drink for a while and then turned to glare at Shipley and Adam, still standing in the doorway. “Would you please get the fuck out of here?”

  Adam backed away and headed downstairs.

  “Are you sure?” Shipley asked, desperate to follow him.

  “Uh-huh,” Tragedy said without looking up.

  Downstairs Adam opened and closed the kitchen cupboards. Shipley went over to the sink and flushed the mound of cigarette ash down the drain.

  “They don’t have any coffee,” she told him. “I checked.”

  He opened the refrigerator door. “Are you thirsty?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Me neither,” he said, closing it again.

  It was dark outside. The house was quiet save for the rattling November wind. Shipley glanced at the radio, wondering if she should turn it back on.

  “Did you see the scarecrow?” she asked.

  “No. Yes. I’ve seen it before,” Adam said. “Pretty crazy.”

  They stared at each other for a moment. Adam’s hair was a deeper red than Shipley remembered. It was auburn. And his freckles had faded a little. He looked thinner too, and taller. “Your sister got mad when I called. She said you were…upset.” She leaned back against the kitchen counter. “Are you…Is it…better?”

  Adam watched her mouth move, reveling in the notion that it was moving for his sake. In his incessant Shipley fantasies they never did much talking, only kissing. He wasn’t prepared for talking.

  “I was disappointed,” he admitted, pressing his back against the fridge. “Because I thought we were…friends.”

  Maybe it was the wine and cigarettes going to her head, but Shipley was suddenly struck by how very similar this scene was to the laundry room fantasy she’d had at home while packing for college.

  Her mother, who dry-cleaned everything except her underwear, insisted that Shipley learn to use a washer and dryer.

  “There won’t be any cleaning lady at college, and you can’t use the laundry service because they shrink everything. Your dorm will have a laundry room,” she instructed, handing over the manuals to the household Maytags. “The best times to wash your clothes are first thing in the morning or late at night. Otherwise the laundry room will be so busy your clothes will wrinkle waiting for the dryer.”

  The task of washing her own clothes was so foreign to Shipley as to seem romantic. The words “gentle spin” and “tumble dry” evoked thoughts of a handsome stranger who would wander into the laundry room while she was folding her clothes.

  “Let me help,” he’d say, picking up her laciest bra. He’d continue folding her panties and bras until, unable to control his desire, he’d tear off her clothes, dropping them one by one into an open washer. Then he’d remove his own clothes and ravish her on top of the warm, agitating machines. It would be their secret, these late-night laundry room trysts, with the washing machine spinning so noisily they’d never even learn each other’s name.

  The refrigerator hummed. Shipley smiled shyly up at Adam, as if he were reading the part in her diary where she’d written about him. He was the handsome stranger in the laundry room. She took a step toward him, and then another. “I’m going to kiss you,” she whispered as she slipped her arms around his neck. And then she did, slamming his head back against the freezer door like the uninhibited adulteress in her daydream.

  They kissed in the kitchen for a long time. Adam tried to remain calm and keep his hands quietly at her waist, but Shipley slipped her hands beneath his T-shirt, causing his heart to explode out of his chest, and then his hands were all over her.

  “Is it safe to come down?” Tragedy whispered from the top of the stairs.

  Adam tore his mouth away from Shipley’s. “No! Keep playing with the baby.”

  A moment later headlights flashed through the kitchen windows. Professor Rosen and her partner were back.

  “They’re here!” Tragedy called.

  “Shit.” Shipley wiped her mouth on her sleeve and tucked her hair behind her ears. “It’s okay. I’ll tell them you stopped by to study,” she said quickly. “They won’t mind.” She corked the wine and stuck it back in the fridge.

  Tragedy came downstairs with the empty breast bottle in her hand. “At least he’s asleep.”

  Bee
tle. Shipley had forgotten all about him. Adam just stood there with his hands in his pockets, grinning.

  “Hello, hello. I see you have company.” Blanche pushed open the kitchen door, her cheeks flushed from red wine and cold wind.

  “How was it?” Professor Rosen asked as she came into the kitchen. “Oh, hello, Adam.” She removed her jade earrings and tossed them on the countertop. Her cheeks were flushed too. “Is everything okay?”

  “We had to go over something for Geology,” Shipley blurted out, even though Adam didn’t take Geology. “Beetle’s asleep. He’s fine. What an easy baby!”

  “And who might you be?” Blanche smiled at Tragedy.

  Tragedy didn’t care for pleasantries. “Adam’s sister.” She pushed past them and stepped onto the porch. “Come on, Adam, the sheep are waiting.”

  Shipley remained in the kitchen, her ears tuned to the sound of Adam and Tragedy pulling away in Adam’s car. Blanche went upstairs to check on Beetle. Professor Rosen rooted around in her purse for Shipley’s pay.

  She handed Shipley a wad of bills and sniffed the air. “Do you smell smoke?”

  Shipley wrinkled her nose and shook her head. She was a terrible liar.

  “Darren read your poem to me in the car,” Blanche trilled as she came downstairs. “It’s very good. You should submit it to A Muse.” A Muse was Dexter’s biannual literary journal. “I basically run the thing so I can tell you now we’ll publish it.”

  “Thanks.” Shipley stuffed the money into her sweatshirt pocket. Knowing that Professor Rosen had shared the poem with Blanche might have been more troublesome if her mind wasn’t preoccupied with how fun it had been to slam Adam’s head against the freezer door—who knew she had it in her?—and how fantastically illicit it had been to kiss him in Professor Rosen’s kitchen. She considered driving straight over to his house so they could pick up where they left off.

  Professor Rosen opened a cupboard door and took out two clean jam jars. “That boyfriend of yours—Tom? Wow, did he ever knock my socks off today at rehearsal.”