Innocence

by Lucy St. John

Chapter 10

  I got better at drinking beer. Mark this down as my first lesson learned at good ol’ State. The Coors Light on tap turned the evening into some sort of magic carpet ride across the freedoms and choices of college.

  I watched as the Five scattered and worked the room. A room crowded, hot and teeming with sexual energy and a driving beat. Sonya, of course, had intrigued Josh. The drop-dead gorgeous guy with his long hair, languid movements and laid-back, even disinterested air, had invited me to this party. Originally, I was the only person of our group who was issued an invitation. But even in those early hours, I knew the Five was special. I had already forged a bond to each of my fellow members. I wouldn’t hear of going to my first college kegger without them.

  Did I regret this now? Did I regret it, as I watched from across the room, as Sonya playfully poked Josh’s chest and employed her classic combination of smoky eyes, sassy personality and sultry sexuality to effectively erase me from the evening’s equation?

  I don’t know. Perhaps. And maybe that’s why I took better to the beer. What did they say about crying in one’s beer? Drowning one’s sorrows? Well, I wasn’t shedding tears. But maybe I was weeping inside. Not for being wronged by Sonya, or even for being passed over by Josh. Rather, for my own role in blowing it. I must have come off as some prissy Pollyanna in my battles to gulp that first cup of bitter beer. It would turn off anyone, wouldn’t it? Certainly, a guy who could have any girl in the room and who already had a head start on kicking that keg had immediately lost interest, like a beer going flat.

  Now, Sonya had her hooks in. And they were mighty strong hooks, indeed. She was a player. I think I knew this the moment I laid eyes on her. But I underestimated her talents with the guys. And how.

  Amanda Livingston was yet another belle of the ball that night. Blonde, beautiful and busty, why wouldn’t she be? And once the guys heard the sexy ring of her British accent, it was game over. The fact that Amanda was super-smart, tart-tongued and had a desert-dry sense of humor only added to the challenge for those college guys flocking around her. Oh, and Amanda could drink, too. She could drink most guys under the table, in fact. All this made her a coveted and imported museum piece in this plain, Pennsylvania college town. The guys couldn’t get enough. Hell, they were falling all over themselves just to get her another beer.

  Watching her, I noticed Amanda wore this bemused look on her face. She laughed, but it wasn’t with them. It was at them. These dudes didn’t have a chance. What was worse, they didn’t even know it. You had to admire Amanda for the way she played them for suckers and fools. It was sport for her. A form of entertainment. She was toying with them. But there was something deep to Amanda. She ran very deep. And it would take a special man to mine her heart -- and for Amanda to admit him to her secret, inner world of special sexual favor. But once inside, it would be a paradise. I had no doubt about that. None at all.

  Finally, there were Lauren Marks and Chelsea Daniels. By all appearances, they were polar opposites. Lauren was definitely dressed down in her skateboarder aesthetic. And it wasn’t simply her choice of clothes that seemed to hide the woman that she was, but wasn’t ready to show to the world. It was her attitude, as well. Her brashness and bluntness – and to some extent, her bluster. All of it seemed designed to ward men away. But this was misreading Lauren’s defense system. This was Lauren’s armor. Her outward shell that protected something soft, tender and feminine on the inside. Her clothes, her attitude, her disciplined un-sexuality were designed to ward off the wrong kind of guys. But for someone. The right someone, Lauren remained an unopened flower. And when the right sunlight shone, she would bloom. And her radiance would steal one’s breath.

  Chelsea, meanwhile, was flush with femininity, yet, awash in innocence, if not naiveté. This made her more girlish, rather than a college woman with guile. She harbored an undeniable physical attractiveness that men surely noticed. But she lacked an underlying, knowing and manipulative sexuality that most women her age had developed, to one degree or another. All this made Chelsea seem sisterly, in a way. Not sexual.

  Again, it would take a special man to unleash the woman inside Chelsea Daniels. But for now, she exhibited the kind of girlish beauty and pure innocence that made you only want to smile. She was still sugar and spice and all things nice, and part of you wanted her to stay that way. The way she had come to us from her small town up north, with her behind-the-times fashion, her wide eyes and her natural sense of endless wonder. But college was a place of learning. And Chelsea would learn, too. Only some of the lessons would be cruel. Criminal, in fact. But those were sorrows for another day.

  Tonight, this night. Our first as college coeds, Chelsea was sipping at her beer, chatting with a small circle of rather nerdy guys. And along with Lauren, her protector, by her side, all was right with the world. And even with Old State.

  I liked looking at my girls, each a different side of the other. And each a different side of me. I wanted to be more like all of them. But for now, I was Monica. The police chief’s daughter, so prone to be careful and calculating. Trained to be observant, to read people and their intentions. Drilled by my father to anticipate, to expect, to be ready.

  But ready for what?

  Here I was at my first college kegger, a free and emancipated woman on all counts. And what was I doing? I was locked inside my own head. I was living life vicariously through the eyes of my newfound friends. The Five.

  It was like reading a book. I was one step removed. I was there, yet invisible. I was the night’s omniscient narrator. Privy to everything. But a participant in nothing.

  It was the safe way to life a life. But the experience -- filtered and secondhand as it was -- wasn’t really living. Still, I could not break out of this parallel existence. It was the way I was raised, I guess. And it was endlessly fascinating in the vicarious way that watching someone through a window is fascinating. The way those YouTube videos of other people’s unfiltered, unedited, messy little lives can be fascinating.

  But it’s not living. It’s not dangerous enough to be living.

  It’s watching life from the cheap seats, way up in the stands.

  And then, a voice spoke to me amid the din of the party. At first, it didn’t register, what with me lost in my thoughts and observations, as usual.

  Then, it came again:

  “What are you looking for?” the voice asked, faintly at first. Then, again, louder and with conviction.

  “You,” the voice said. The male voice.

  I turned to see the bespectacled guy with wavy hair and intense eyes. He looked a little like a young, pre-Hippy John Lennon. But his rounded wire glasses were a little too much like a costume. Yet, the eyes behind them were alive with thought and intelligence. I could see this right away. And it drew me in.

  I swung my face to his, our eyes locking.

  “Me?” I mouthed, then raised a hand to my chest. A who, me? gesture.

  “You,” he repeated, not even blinking, pulling me closer in his tractor beam of a stare.

  “What are you looking for?” he asked again.

  It was a damn good question.