How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship & Musical Theater

by Marc Acito

  I'm concerned, of course, that we're too vigorous and noisy, but I'm like a kid with a new toy and getting Kelly to reach orgasm through intercourse alone becomes something of a personal mission to me. (“Look Ma, no hands!”) So we're going at it pretty hot and heavy one afternoon, me running lines in my head to keep from coming (Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall . . .) when suddenly Kelly's eyes go wide.

  “Are you there? Are you there?” I pant. “Please tell me you're there.”

  “Do you hear that?” she says.

  “Hear what?” (Blessed are the peacemakers, for . . .)

  “That sound, downstairs.”

  I stop and listen.

  Footsteps. Coming up the goddamn stairs.

  Kelly and I leap out of bed and do that hopping-around dance that people do when they're trying to hunt for their clothes and get into them at the same time, all the while saying, “Shit, shit, shit!” Kelly's managed to find her shirt and I've got my pants to my knees when there's a tap at the door which, because we are obviously destined to be punished, swings wide open. I turn, and there she is, her eyes and mouth wide open like a flounder.

  Ziba.

  She looks at me, my boxers bobbing in front of me like a circus tent, then at Kelly, who's trying to appear nonchalant with her shirt on inside out and, I swear, it's like a water main bursts inside her. Tears erupt from Ziba's eyes and her face seems to crumble into pieces. It's kind of a distressing sight, to be honest. She spins around and pounds down the stairs, slamming the front door as she goes. Kelly jumps into her jeans and takes off after her without even putting on her shoes.

  Who needs Juilliard when I've got all this drama right here?

  I throw on the rest of my clothes and am just wiping some lipstick off my neck when, from downstairs, I hear a scream.

  I fly down the steps and, as I whip around the corner, I see a very panicked psychotherapist frantically waving a knitting needle at a very large black man. “Who the fuck are you?” Kathleen screams.

  The man backs away from her. “It's cool, it's cool,” he shouts as he raises his hands to show he's unarmed. He glances over his shoulder. “Edward, tell her you know me!”

  “I know him, I know him!” I say. “We go to school together. It's okay.”

  Kathleen drops the knitting needle.

  “Kathleen, this is TeeJay.”

  “I came here with Ziba,” TeeJay says. “Honest.”

  Kathleen exhales and leans against the wall. “I'm sorry,” she says. “I heard a big crash and when I came upstairs and saw you, I . . .”

  A worried-sounding cryent calls up from the basement, saying, “Is everything okay?”

  “Everything's fine,” Kathleen says. “Just the cats again.” She runs her fingers through her hair and then hardens her eyes at me. “Edward. Sweetheart. I work very hard to make these people in the basement sane. Could you please try not to do anything that will make them crazy again?”

  “Sure. Sorry.”

  “Thank you.” Kathleen nods to TeeJay and then disappears down the stairs. He and I stand there, gaping at one another.

  “Can we go outside and talk?” he asks. His voice is low and woody, like how you'd imagine an oak tree would sound if it could speak.

  “Sure,” I say. We go out on the front porch.

  “So, what can I do for you?” I say. “I mean, you're welcome here anytime, of course, but it's not like . . . well . . .” Why am I always such an idiot in front of black people?

  TeeJay folds his huge cannonball arms across his chest and stares at me. “A couple of days ago this guy showed up at our door,” he says, “saying he worked for Frank Sinatra.”

  “Frank Sinatra? The Frank Sinatra?”

  “He said he was looking for information on LaChance Jones.”

  My stomach does a backflip. “LaChance Jones? Who's LaChance Jones?” I say.

  TeeJay burns a pair of holes in me with his eyes. “She was my sister.”

  Oh. My. God. I'm going to roast in Hell forever.

  “This guy asked if we knew anything about someone opening a bank account in my sister's name. My mama got so upset she just ran out of the room crying.”

  Flames licking at my feet.

  “He asked me if I knew who this was,” TeeJay says, and hands me a piece of paper. It's a photocopy of the fake driver's license Natie made for Ziba/LaChance. The bank must have xeroxed it when she opened the account.

  Devils piercing my skin with their blazing-hot tridents.

  “What did you say?” I ask, trying not to wet my pants.

  “I told him no,” he says.

  “What?”

  TeeJay folds his arms again, the muscles in his biceps bunching. “I had no idea if this guy was who he said he was. But I knew Ziba was cool, so I figured I better talk to her first. She told me everything.”

  Shit. “I'm so sorry,” I say. “I didn't mean to . . .”

  TeeJay takes a couple of steps closer to me. “Didn't mean to what?”

  “Didn't mean to cause you any harm.” I stagger backward, knocking into the porch swing.

  “Come here,” he says.

  Oh God.

  “I said come here!”

  I take a step forward. “Listen, I'm not good at this kind of thing, so can you just make it quick so we can get this over with?”

  TeeJay unfolds his arms.

  TeeJay grabs me roughly by the shoulders and I brace myself to get knocked into next week. But then he takes me in his huge arms and gives me the most bone-crunching, back-cracking, oxygen-depleting hug.

  “Thanks, man,” he whispers as he squeezes me.

  “Fr wht?” I say into his chest. What the hell is going on?

  TeeJay lets go of me and rests his enormous hands on my shoulders. “That guy who works for Frank Sinatra, he hung around for a while and asked me what I was doing and was I gonna go to college or what. And I told him straight I didn't have enough money 'cuz my mama and my little brother depend on my paycheck. Then this afternoon, this showed up. Special delivery.” He hands me a letter.

  May 1, 1984

  Harvey Nelson

  Financial Aid Office

  Rutgers University

  620 George Street

  New Brunswick, NJ 08901

  Mr. Thelonious Jones

  319 First Street

  Wallingford, NJ 07090

  Dear Mr. Jones,

  I am writing this letter to confirm that Rutgers University has received an anonymous donation on your behalf for the express purpose of paying the entire cost of your tuition (including books and fees), as well as room and board for four years of undergraduate education.

  We look forward to your joining the freshman class this fall. Enclosed please find the necessary forms for class registration as well as room assignment.

  Congratulations.

  Sincerely,

  Harvey Nelson

  Director of Financial Aid

  That's so like Frank. He swipes my ten grand with one hand and gives away forty with the other.

  “Don't thank me,” I say, as I hand the letter back to TeeJay. “Thank Frank Sinatra.”

  “Yeah, but if it wasn't for your fucked-up plan, this never would have happened.”

  “I can't take all the credit,” I say. “Natie thought most of it up.”

  “Who?”

  “Cheesehead.”

  “Oh, yeah, I know that kid.”

  I plop onto the porch swing and rest my face in my hands.

  TeeJay sits next to me. “You okay, man?”

  “Yeah, I'm just tired.”

  “'Cause if you need anything, you just let me know.”

  “Not beating the crap out of me was enough.”

  “I'm serious,” TeeJay says. “You need some money? I've got plenty saved.”

  “Oh God, no, please, no. But thank you. Go buy your mother something nice.”

  “You got it,” he says and rises to leave.

  I look up
at him. “So what are you going to study?”

  “Pre-law. I'm going to be a lawyer.”

  “Good. I may need one.”

  The doorbell at Ziba's house is one of those old-fashioned kind that twist like a key, and I always ring it more than is necessary because I like turning it. The house is a gingerbread Victorian, complete with a turret where Ziba lives like an exiled princess in a fairy tale. Kelly answers the door. She mouths “Hi” to me, or “Hiyee” to be exact, and stares down at the ground like she's either embarrassed or has suddenly developed an extreme interest in Oriental rugs.

  “Figured you could use a ride home,” I say.

  “Thanks,” she says, almost inaudibly.

  “Where's Ziba?” I whisper. I don't know why I'm whispering, but it feels like the thing to do.

  Kelly glances over her shoulder. “Upstairs,” she says, then looks at me in the eye for the first time, which I take as an invitation to grab her in my arms and kiss her, movie-star style. Kelly complies for the briefest moment, then stops me by pressing her palms against my shoulders. She backs away, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “We can't stay long,” she says. “Ziba's parents will be home soon.”

  Ziba's parents are a strange pair, so stiff and formal in their foreignness that all of us, Ziba included, spend as little time as possible in their house. There's something about the place—with its hardwood floors, its paintings with those little art lights above them, and its bookcases lined with titles in multiple languages—that makes one feel as if one should be discussing literature or art while sipping a fine vintage wine and using the word “one” as the subject of the sentence. You can tell that sophisticated people live here because all their photographs are in black-and-white.

  Kelly and I climb to the third floor, then up the little winding staircase that leads to the turret. Ziba's room is so spare that you'd think it was a nun's cell were it not for the framed eight-by-ten glossies of Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, and Lauren Bacall. It's a tiny round space the color of a brown egg with just a single bed, a nightstand, and a small chest of drawers. Ziba actually has a whole other room on the third floor just to keep her many clothes and shoes.

  “You decent?” Kelly calls as we reach the top of the stairs.

  “Come on in.”

  Ziba is standing in the middle of the room in a satin robe, a large bath towel over her head. She rubs with both hands to dry her hair, then flips the towel off and shakes.

  I gasp.

  “Well, what do you think?” she asks.

  “It's so . . . short,” I say. Ziba has chopped off her long wall of hair so that nothing remains but the shortest of spikes, like an unmowed lawn. With her enormous eyes and beaky nose she almost resembles a baby bird, a very chic baby bird, mind you, but a baby bird nonetheless.

  “I think it's kind of punk,” Kelly says.

  “It's kind of necessary, is what it is,” Ziba replies, dropping onto the bed and flipping her head as if she still had long hair, “just in case the Mob comes looking for LaChance.”

  “Those are just rumors about Frank,” I say.

  “I still don't understand how he traced the money to you,” Kelly says. “We withdrew it as cash.”

  “Never underestimate the power of Sinatra,” I say. “After Laurel Watkins told him about the Catholic Vigilance Society, he probably used some Hoboken connections to investigate the post office box, which must have led him to the Convent of the Bleeding Heart and LaChance Jones.” I look over at Ziba with her butchered hair. “Oh, Zeeb,” I moan, “I'm so sorry I got you into this mess.”

  Ziba flicks the notion away like it was a piece of dust. “Edward darling, don't be so dramatic. My whole life there have been people who've wanted me and my family dead. Your evil stepmonster and the Mafia will just have to get in line behind the Ayatollah Khomeini.” Her eyes shift to Kelly. “No, if I wanted to be angry with you, I have a much better reason.”

  Kelly blushes.

  “Yeah, sorry about that, too,” I say.

  “Oh, I can't blame you,” Ziba says. “Look at her.” She traces Kelly's jawline with a long, tapering finger. “She's irresistible.” Kelly pats the space on the bed next to her for Ziba to sit down and gives her a longish kiss.

  It's really hot.

  “That being said,” Ziba says, licking her lips, “I've never played well with others and I don't intend to start now. I know it must sound terribly bourgeois and frankly, I'm a little disappointed in myself for acting so . . . traditional,” she says it like it's the worst thing imaginable, “but that's the way I feel.”

  I look at the two of them sitting on the narrow bed together, so impossibly gorgeous and perfect, like sunshine and darkness, and I see that Kelly has made her decision already. If I were being mature about it, I'd say she made the right one: as much as I care for her and am loving the sex, I don't think I could show her the kind of devotion that Ziba just did. If I weren't being mature about it, I'd do everything I possibly could to undermine their happiness so I could continue to get laid. But I don't.

  When they make the movie of my life, this would be the moment when I graciously leave the two of them together, like I'm Humphrey Bogart telling Ingrid Bergman she has to get on the plane at the end of Casablanca. In the next scene you'd see me driving home alone in the Wagon Ho while Frank sings “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” on the soundtrack, generating sympathy for my luckless, loveless state, but in real life that's not what happens. In actual fact, while I may be luckless and loveless, I still have to drive Kelly home where we will continue to live together platonically, except now I'm the one who wants to have sex all the time and she's the one avoiding it.

  Turnabout is a bitch.

  Opening night of Godspell Mr. Lucas lets me lead the entire cast in a guided meditation as a warm-up. I know it's a little too funky woo-woo for a public high school, and some of the kids snicker and giggle, but I think it's important that we get in the right frame of mind for the show. I talk them through a visualization my mother taught me, nothing radical, mind you, just imagining your body filling with white light and exhaling out all negativity. It calms me, too, but also makes me kind of sad, which is usually what happens when I slow down enough to realize how I'm feeling. Everywhere I turn, parents of kids who do practically nothing in the show are bounding about, bringing them flowers and making a big woofy deal over them. It would never occur to Al to do anything beyond show up, which is more than I can say for my mom, who I can only assume is lying dead somewhere in a mass grave. That happens in South America; you know, people just disappear. I know. I saw Missing.

  I go into the bathroom in Mr. Lucas's office to check my makeup one last time and to get away from all the hoopla. What I see in the mirror surprises me. Originally, Mr. Lucas and I had thought I would keep the beard for a more biblical look, but since his concept for the production is so modern, he asked me to shave it off. I'm pleased to see that all that running seems to have made a difference. My eyes look big in my face and my cheekbones and jaw are sharp and lean. I've also grown an inch, for which Kathleen takes complete credit. “I raised another son,” she says.

  There's a knock on the door and, as if on cue, there is Kathleen with a bouquet in her hand.

  “Am I interrupting the artist at work?”

  She's brought stargazer lilies. My favorite. A wave of emotion crashes inside me and I throw my arms around her, almost knocking her over.

  “You okay, sweetie?”

  I lean my head on her shoulder. “You've done so much for me,” I croak. “I don't know how I can ever repay you.”

  Kathleen pulls away so she can look me in the eye. “You can't,” she says. “And you shouldn't.” She reaches up to play with a stray curl on my forehead. “Just remember that when you get to be my age and someone younger than you needs help, pass it on. Okay?”

  I nod. “I got makeup on your shoulder,” I say.

  She glances down at the blot on her shirt. “I'll
treasure it forever. Someday that smudge will be worth a lot of money.”

  Kathleen.