Nine Inches

by Tom Perrotta

  “One of my nieces got caught up in that Jamaican mess,” he said, shaking his head as if the trauma were still fresh. “We let that thing get outta hand.”

  Ethan had to turn away two kids at the door, but not because they’d been partying: Carlie Channing had forgotten her ID, and Mike Gruber hadn’t realized that the tickets had to be purchased in advance. Both of them begged for onetime indulgences that Ethan would have been happy to provide, but Lieutenant Ritchie made it clear that no exceptions would be permitted on his watch. He seemed to take it for granted that he was the final arbiter, and Ethan had no reason to assume otherwise. Carlie left in tears, Mike in sullen bewilderment.

  “It’s a good lesson for them,” the Lieutenant observed. “Follow the rules, you got nothing to worry about.”

  Ethan nodded without enthusiasm, vaguely ashamed of himself for knuckling under so easily. Carlie returned ten minutes later with her ID, but he was haunted for the rest of the night by the thought of poor Mike wandering the empty streets, exiled from the fun on account of a technicality.

  IT WAS a relief to slip into the cafeteria, where the lights were low and the music was loud. Assuming an affable, don’t-mind-me expression, Ethan joined his colleagues at their observation post by the snack station. Every few songs one of them would venture out on a leisurely reconnaissance mission, but mostly they just nibbled on chips and Skittles while commenting on the action unfolding around them.

  “Look at that.” Rudy directed their attention to Allie Farley, a leggy seventh-grader teetering past them in high heels and an alarmingly short skirt. “That can’t be legal.”

  Charlotte craned her neck for a better look. She was the chaperone in charge of dress-code enforcement.

  “It wasn’t that short when she came in. She must’ve hiked it up.”

  Allie was chasing after Ben Willis, a shaggy-haired, delicate-looking kid who was one of the alpha jocks of Daniel Webster. When she caught up, she spun him around and began lecturing him on what appeared to be a matter of extreme urgency, judging from the slightly deranged look on her face and the chopping gesture she kept making with her right hand. Similar conferences were taking place all over the cafeteria, agitated girls explaining to clueless boys the roles they’d been assigned in the evening’s dramas.

  For his part, Ben just stared up at her — she had at least half a foot on him — and gave an occasional awestruck nod, as if she were some supernatural being, rather than a classmate he’d known since kindergarten. Ethan sympathized; Allie had gone a little crazy with the eyeliner and lipstick, and he was having trouble connecting the fearsome young woman on the dance floor with the giggly, fresh-faced girl he taught in fourth-period social studies. She seemed to have undergone some profound, irreversible transformation.

  “I wish I could’ve worn something like that when I was her age,” Charlotte said. “I had scoliosis, and back then you had to wear this awful body brace. It looked like I was wearing a barrel.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Ethan said.

  “I never told you?” Charlotte seemed surprised. Back when they were pals, they’d stayed out late drinking and talking on numerous occasions and had covered a fair amount of personal history. “Junior high was a nightmare.”

  “Must’ve been tough,” Rudy said.

  “Long time ago,” Charlotte said with a shrug.

  Allie turned away from Ben and began signaling to Amanda DiCarlo, a petite, dark-haired girl who was standing nearby. Eyes widening with horror, Amanda clapped one hand over her mouth and shook her head. Allie beckoned again, this time more emphatically, but Amanda wouldn’t move. She was wearing a white lab coat with a stethoscope slung around her neck, an outfit that marked her as a member of the Social Activities Committee, the group that organized the dances. The SAC apparently insisted on picking a theme for each event — tonight’s was Dress as Your Future, which at least explained the cryptic signs in the hallway — but no one seemed to know or care about the theme except the committee members themselves. In addition to the cute physician, a basketball player, a ballerina, a CEO, and a female astronaut were circulating throughout the cafeteria, looking a bit sheepish as they interacted with their uncostumed peers.

  Overcome with impatience, Allie seized Amanda by the arm, forcibly tugged her over to Ben, then scampered off, leaving the newly constituted couple to fend for themselves. They barely had time to exchange blushes before “Umbrella” began to play and Amanda’s shyness suddenly vanished. It was like she became another person the instant she started dancing, mature and self-assured, a pretty medical student just off work and out to have a good time. Ben hesitated a few seconds before joining her, his movements stiff and a bit clunky, eyes glued on his partner as dozens of classmates surged onto the floor, surrounding and absorbing them into a larger organism, a drifting, inward-looking mass of adolescent bodies.

  Ethan wasn’t sure why he found himself so riveted by the spectacle of his students dancing. Individually, most of the kids didn’t look graceful or even particularly happy; they were far too anxious or self-conscious for that. Collectively, though — and this was the thing that intrigued him — they gave off an overwhelming impression of energy and joy. You could see it in their hips and shoulders, their flailing arms and goofy faces, the pleasure they took in the music and their bodies, the conviction that they occupied the absolute center of a benign universe, the certainty that there was no place else to be but right here, right now. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt like that.

  He was so busy staring that it took him a little while to notice Charlotte’s arm brushing against his. She was swaying in place, her elbow knocking rhythmically against his forearm, lingering a second or two before floating away. When he turned to smile at her, she responded with a long, quizzical look. In the forgiving darkness of the cafeteria, she could’ve easily been mistaken for twenty-five, a young woman full of potential, a stranger to disappointment. She leaned in closer, bringing her lips to his ear.

  “You okay?” she asked. “You seem a little sad.”

  THE TROUBLE started during a moment of deceptive calm, a lull he recognized too late as the eye of the hormonal hurricane. It was a little before nine o’clock — the home stretch — and Ethan was feeling loose and cheerful. If pressed, he might even have been willing to admit that he was enjoying himself. The kids had prevailed upon the teachers to join them for a few line dances — the Electric Slide, the Cotton-Eyed Joe, the Macarena — and he felt like he’d survived the ordeal not only with his dignity intact but with his good-guy reputation enhanced. Then he’d been invited to preside over the raffle, pulling names out of a Red Sox cap and bestowing gift certificates for pizza and frozen yogurt on winners who couldn’t have been more excited if he’d been handing out iPods.

  He was making his way back to the snack station when a vaguely familiar slow song began to play; Charlotte later told him it was “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol. He felt something stirring among the kids, a sudden sense of urgency as they scanned the room for prospective partners. At the same time, the DJ turned on his special-effects machine, a revolving sphere that shot off an array of multicolored lights, painting the cafeteria and everyone in it with a swirling psychedelic rainbow.

  There must’ve been something hypnotic about the combination of that song and those lights, because Ethan stopped in the middle of the dance floor and let it wash over him. All around him, kids were forming couples, moving into each other’s arms, and without fully realizing what he was doing, he found himself scanning the room, searching for Charlotte. It wasn’t until he located her — she was wandering among the dancers, checking for compliance with the Nine-Inch Rule — that Ethan finally emerged from his trance, remembering that he had a job to do. For the first time since Rudy had given it to him, he reached into his pocket and withdrew his yellow tape.

  There’d been slow dances earlier in the evening, but the kids hadn’t seemed too interested. Relatively few couples had ventured o
nto the floor, and the ones who did had been extremely well behaved. This time, though, maybe because the night was winding down, Ethan sensed a different mood in the cafeteria. Most of the dancers still kept a safe distance, but a significant minority were inching closer, testing the limits of what was permissible, and a handful had gone into open rebellion, pressing together with moony looks on their faces and no daylight between them.

  When Ethan came upon one of these pairs, he tapped both partners on the shoulder and held up the measuring tape as a helpful reminder. He was pleased to discover that Rudy was right — the kids seemed to enjoy the intervention, or at least not mind it. Some smiled guiltily, while others pretended to have made an honest mistake. In any case, no one protested or resisted.

  The song must have been about halfway over by the time he spotted Amanda and Ben. They had drifted away from the herd, creating a small zone of privacy for themselves on the edge of the dance floor. Even at first glance, something seemed strange about them, almost forbidding. The other couples had at least made a show of slow-dancing, but these two were motionless, clinging to each other in perfect, almost photographic stillness. Amanda was melting against Ben, arms wrapped tight around his waist, her face crushed into his chest. His eyes were closed, his lips slightly parted; he appeared to be concentrating deeply on the smell of her hair.

  Ethan knew what he was supposed to do, but the role of chaperone suddenly felt oppressive to him. They just looked so blissful, it seemed wrong even to be watching them — almost creepy — but for some reason he couldn’t manage to avert his eyes, let alone move.

  He wasn’t sure how long he’d been staring at them before Lieutenant Ritchie appeared at his side. Ethan nodded a greeting, but the Lieutenant didn’t reciprocate. After a moment, he jutted his chin at the young lovers.

  “You gonna do something about that?”

  “Probably not,” Ethan replied. “Song’s almost over.”

  The Lieutenant squinted at him. Bands of red, yellow, and green light flickered across his face.

  “That’s a clear violation. You gotta break it up.”

  Ethan shrugged, still hoping to run out the clock. “They’re not hurting anybody.”

  “What are you, their lawyer?”

  By this point, Rudy and Charlotte had arrived on the scene, the combined presence of all four adults creating an official air of crisis. Ethan could feel the attention of the whole dance shifting in their direction.

  “What’s going on?” Rudy asked. He was all business, like a paramedic who’d happened upon an accident.

  Lieutenant Ritchie glared at Ben and Amanda, who remained glued together, oblivious to anything beyond themselves. Charlotte looked worried. The damn song just kept on going. Ethan knew when he was beat.

  “It’s okay,” he assured his colleagues. “I’m on it.”

  LATER, IN the bar, Ethan tried to describe the look on Amanda’s face right before he pried her away from Ben. The way he remembered it, her expression wasn’t so much angry as uncomprehending; he’d had to call her name three times just to get her to look up. Her eyes were dull and vacant, like she’d been jolted out of a deep sleep.

  “I don’t think she even knew where she was,” Ethan said.

  “She’s a sweet kid,” Charlotte pointed out.

  “Tell that to the Lieutenant.”

  “Ugh.” Charlotte’s mouth contracted with disgust. “I’m surprised he didn’t use his pepper spray.”

  Lieutenant Ritchie had insisted on formally ejecting Ben and Amanda from the dance, a punishment that carried a mandatory two-day suspension and required immediate parental notification. Ben’s dad had at least been polite on the phone — he apologized for his son’s behavior and promised there would be consequences at home — but Amanda’s mother treated the whole situation like a joke. It was a dance, she told Ethan, pronouncing the words slowly and clearly, as if for the benefit of an imbecile. They were dancing at a dance. She made him explain the Nine-Inch Rule in great detail, correctly sensing that he found it just as ridiculous as she did.

  “I still remember the first time I danced like that,” Ethan said. They were working on their second drink — Rudy had joined them for the first round, but left after receiving a phone call from his wife — and the bourbon was having a welcome effect on his jangled nerves. “Must’ve been seventh grade, with Jenny Wong. She was just a friend, a girl from down the block, but it was such an amazing feeling to have her pressed up against me like that, with all those people around. One of the highlights of my life.”

  “You’re lucky,” Charlotte said, sounding like she meant it. “When I was that age, I used to sit alone in my room and make out with my arm.”

  “Really?”

  “It wasn’t so bad.” She glanced tenderly at the crook of her elbow. “I still do it sometimes. When nothing else is going on.”

  Ethan smiled. It felt good, being here with Charlotte. McNulty’s had always been their bar of choice — they’d sat more than once at this very table — and he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that the past five years had never happened, that they were right back where they’d left off. He had to make an effort not to blurt out something inappropriate, like how much he missed talking to her, how wrong it was that such a simple pleasure had vanished from his life.

  “By the way,” he said, “I really like your glasses.”

  “Thanks.” Her smile was unconvincing. “I prefer contacts, but my eyes get dry.”

  He studied her irises — they were hazel with golden flecks — as if checking on their moisture level.

  “Something wrong?” she asked.

  “Not really. This is just kinda weird, isn’t it?”

  Charlotte looked down at the table. When she looked up, her face seemed older, or maybe just sadder.

  “I don’t know if you heard,” she said. “Rob and I are getting divorced.”

  “No, I hadn’t. I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged. “We’ve been thinking about it for a while. At least I have.”

  Ethan hesitated; the air between them seemed suddenly dense, charged with significance.

  “To tell you the truth,” he said, “I never understood why you went back to him.”

  Charlotte considered this for a moment. “I almost didn’t. I was all set to leave him for good. That night I slept on your couch.”

  He didn’t have to ask her to be more specific. She’d slept on his couch exactly once, and he remembered the occasion all too well. Her thirtieth birthday. He’d made lasagna and they’d killed a bottle of champagne. They both agreed she was too drunk to drive home.

  “I waited for you all night,” she told him. “You never came.”

  A harsh sound issued from his throat, not quite a laugh.

  “I wanted to. But we had that long talk, remember? You said you still loved Rob and couldn’t imagine being with anyone else.”

  “I was stupid.” Charlotte tried to smile, but she seemed to have forgotten which muscles were involved. “I was so sure we were going to sleep together, I guess I overcompensated. Rob and I had been together since freshman year of college. I just wanted you to know what you were getting into.”

  “You’ve gotta be kidding.” A bad taste flooded into Ethan’s mouth, something sharp and bitter the whiskey couldn’t wash away. “I was dying for you. That was the longest night of my life.”

  “I thought you’d abandoned me.”

  “But you said — ”

  “I was confused, Ethan. I needed you to help me.”

  “You went back to him two days later.”

  “I know.” She sounded just as baffled as Ethan did. “I just couldn’t bear to break his heart.”

  “So you broke mine instead.”

  Charlotte shook her head for a long time, as if taking inventory of everything that might have been different if he’d just come out of his bedroom.

  “I’m the one who lost out,” she reminded him. “Everything worked out fine for you.” />
  Ethan didn’t argue. This didn’t seem like the time to tell her about the weeks he’d spent on his couch after she went back to her husband, the way his world seemed to shrink and darken in her absence. He didn’t go on a date for almost a year, and even after he met Donna — after he convinced himself that he loved her — he never lost the sense that there was a little asterisk next to her name, a tiny reminder that she was his second choice, the best he could do under the circumstances.

  Charlotte wasn’t making any noise, so it took him a few seconds to realize she was crying. When she took off her glasses, her face seemed naked and vulnerable, and deeply familiar.

  “I don’t know about you,” she said as she wiped her eyes, “but I could use another drink.”

  IT WAS late when he pulled into his driveway, almost one in the morning, but he wasn’t tired. He wasn’t drunk either, not anymore, though he’d felt pretty buzzed after his third drink, pleasantly unsteady as he made his way down the long, dim hallway to the men’s room. There were ice cubes in the urinal, an odd echo of his bourbon on the rocks, and an old-school rolling cloth-towel dispenser, the kind that makes a thump when you yank.

  He wasn’t too surprised to find Charlotte waiting in the hallway when he stepped out of the bathroom — it was almost like he’d been expecting her. A peculiar expression was on her face, a mixture of boldness and embarrassment.

  “I missed you,” she said.

  Kissing her just then felt perfectly normal and completely self-explanatory, the only possible course of action. There was no hesitation, no self-consciousness, just one mouth finding another. He ran his fingers through her hair, slid his palm down the length of her back, then lower, tracing the gentle curve of her ass. She liked it, he could tell. He spread his fingers wide, cupping and squeezing the soft flesh.

  Voices made them pull apart, two young women on the way to the ladies’ room.

  “Excuse me,” one of them said, turning sideways to slip by.

  “Don’t mind us,” chuckled the other.