“Thirty.”
“Dollars?” I asked with surprise.
“No, beads,” he retorted. “We can each trade thirty beads for gifts this year. Yes, you airhead, thirty dollars. No more.”
“You’re really funny,” I answered him, sneering and smiling through the phone. “You should take that act to the Improv.”
“Thirty dollars,” he said again.
“Fine,” I answered finally. I didn’t really care about his gift to me being cheap. That didn’t matter to me. But it limited what I could give, and I hated that. Gift giving was supposed to be extravagant. How could I be extravagant on thirty dollars?
I racked my brain for an entire day. Cologne? Books? CDs? I seriously considered breaking our agreement and just getting him the Nintendo system he and all his roommates had been dying for. But I didn’t want to embarrass him, and I knew that I would if I spent three hundred while he spent thirty.
“You need to get him something,” Penny insisted as we cruised through The Sharper Image for the millionth time. “Get him a sweater or something.”
“For thirty dollars?”
“He’s the one who came up with the limit,” she shrugged. “Maybe he deserves a cheap sweater.”
***
My trip to the mall was turning into a waste of time. My hands were empty, my budget still as wide open as thirty dollars could be. Penny’s bags were full of gifts for Tim. Leather gloves, new wallet, two new sweaters, a few new CDs. The list went on, as did her spending.
“Does Whats-her-name still work here?” Penny asked as we were approaching the food court, and the accessories store where Abby had worked last holiday season.
“I think so,” I answered as nonchalantly as possible. I had been wondering the same thing since we had pulled into the parking lot. My heart actually started beating heavier as we approached the wide-open doorway of the store. I remembered back to last year, how I had studied her, been fascinated by the drama of her, without knowing it was her. I thought about what she had been through recently, and tried my best not to hate her.
But I had to look, at least. As we walked slowly past the store I gazed in, searching through the mass of harried shoppers huddled in the tiny confines of a store called AfterThoughts.
And she was there, as dark and scowling as I remembered, standing behind the counter and observing her customers with an intense but expressionless appearance on her paler than pale face. Though it was not my first time seeing her, I still found myself surprised at her appearance. She did not seem completely of this world, especially in the cheerfulness of the Christmas season. It was as if Halloween got lost at the North Pole.
But the one new thing I did notice about her this time around was how skinny she was. Really thin and tiny, like a possessed porcelain doll. I thought about John being able to wrap his hands around that tiny waist, and thought about the five or six pounds I had gained over the past few months. I imagined that she must be a size zero, and thought about the size six I was currently filling out.
And just like that, I had a whole new reason to hate her.
***
That year, I received a hardbound copy of Wuthering Heights, and a pink child’s pencil with a silver dangling princess crown hanging on a delicate, silver link chain, taped to the wrapping paper, which was really nothing more than the Books section of the Sunday newspaper. I was as happy with that gift as I had been with a lap full of them last year.
As for my gift to John, I bought a copy of Popular Science from the newsstand at the exit of the mall, and filled out the card to order him a one year subscription. With the leftover money, I bought rolling papers, a lighter with a cheesy bald eagle and American flag on it, and three scratch lottery tickets.
So romantic. His entire Christmas came from a newsstand. But even better, he loved it. And won fifteen bucks on one of the scratch tickets.
We coasted along nearly problem-free until Valentine’s Day on the equity built on those thirty dollar gifts.
***
Aside from the exchanging of gifts, there was little drama throughout the holiday break. On New Year’s Eve, Penny and Tim were supposed to join John and me in Boston for First Night, but in what was to become a regular occurrence, the two broke up the day before the event, and so John and I were on our own. She and Tim were back together again within a week.
In late January, just days before returning to school, I received a notice there was a single waiting for me in Hadley Hall, should I still be interested. Hadley Hall was part of the group of dorms that made up the lower quad, and it was perpendicular to Rice Hall, where Topher lived. Each room had its own private phone line. The RA was a guy who lived on the other wing, where it was likely I’d never have to deal with him. I immediately phoned the housing office to accept, telling myself I’d think about Gwen later.
And true to her nature, Gwen did understand. We remained friends, and to my relief, the university did not throw an unknown, loser roommate in with her. She got the very large corner room of Bristol all to herself.
***
My new room in Hadley Hall was small, but I loved it anyway. It was on the second floor, sandwiched between a study lounge that seldom saw any use, and a double housing two bookish sorts of best friends who seemed content to smile in passing, and not much else. Perfect. The bathroom was diagonally across the hall, which meant not having to trek down the hall after a shower. I had my own phone and answering machine.
But the best part about my new room was my window.
My window looked out over the lower quad, and was better than television. There was always something going on outside, no matter what time of day. I loved to sit on my bed with a Diet Coke and an ironed bagel, watching and weaving stories about the random, silent dramas I bore witness to.
One of the gifts I had bought for myself with my Christmas money was a small, knock-off Stairmaster, which fit perfectly against the long wall opposite my bed. With all my newfound privacy, I could finally do something about my once again burgeoning waistline. With the stepper facing the window, and a good mixed-tape on the stereo, I could easily step away an hour without noticing the time tick by at all.
And so my college life continued to evolve. It felt good to be back, about to tackle a fresh semester. True to my system, not a single class started before ten a.m., but unlike the previous semester, I did have to attend classes every day of the week. They were a bit more fun this time around, though. Barring that first semester of my freshman year, I was doing pretty well in college, despite my spotty attendance record. It looked like spring term of my sophomore year would go my way as well.
Chapter Nineteen
In New Hampshire, there is a certain bleakness to mid-winter. The sharp slant of light from the distant sun cuts like a cold knife through the already frozen air. All glare and no warmth. The magic of the first snowfall in December gives way to a sense of dread, of isolation. The bustle and cheer of the holidays fades quietly into a collective hermitage. There are stretches of cold that can make you feel like the four walls keeping you from the icy grip of night are going to turn on you as well. February may be our shortest month, but time, as we know, is relative.
We were only two or three weeks into the new semester. Cloud 9 was a cold, depressing place to be. John’s bedroom, down in the basement of the house, was always freezing. The new carpet, so attractive in August, had been installed directly over the cement floor, offering a flimsy buffer between bare feet and the cold. The cement gray walls did not help to warm the atmosphere. So I did my best to spend time on campus in my comfy and sometimes excessively warm room. John stopped complaining about two people in one twin bed, and occasionally found respite in Hadley when the winds were whipping just a bit too much for even his liking.
It was also around this time that he took a part-time job stocking shelves at a local grocery store in the middle of the night. Maybe it was to have somewhere warm to go in those cold hours of darkness, or maybe it was beca
use his parents had cut him off, financially speaking, quite suddenly right around that time. Whatever the reason, things were slipping back into the patterns of the past. His schedule was in complete conflict with mine. While I was actually attending my classes with startling regularity, he continued his habits of sleeping all day when he was supposed to be on campus.
The growing distance between us became especially apparent on Valentine’s Day. Even though his roommates were throwing a huge party in honor of St. Valentine, John and I decided to head to Boston for a more intimate night of dinner and dancing in the city.
I have absolutely no memory of dinner. Where we ate, what we ate, what we talked about. All gone. And most telling, I have absolutely no idea what I wore, and I always remember what I wore.
What I do remember is going to a club afterward. It was his suggestion, and I assume I was willing to try and pull our romantic night out of its nosedive. It must have been an 18+ show, because neither of us had a fake ID at that point. Anyway, the place was a dive. There was no band, just a DJ. Thumping house music, kids with whistles and pacifiers. I tried to get into it, even when he refused to get off his ass and dance. But that just invited guys to hit on me, and neither of us was in the mood to play those games that night. So we ended up sitting at one of the tables along the back wall, watching all the others enjoy their underground Valentine’s, neither of us saying a word.
I pretended to fall asleep on the ride home, and wondered if he would drop me on campus, or assume that we were to spend the night together. He chose to head to Cloud 9, but I think he was just as relieved as me to see his roommates’ party was still raging. We slipped into social mode, melted into our friends with wide smiles and tales of a great dinner, and proceeded to each get blind drunk.
***
One of the multiple benefits I found to having a window on my little world, literally, was being able to watch people who had no idea I was looking. Not in a creepy, stalker kind of way, or anything like that, but out of plain curiosity. After a month of living in my single room in Hadley, I found myself overly aware of Topher’s comings and goings.
Three dorms made up the lower quad, forming a “U” around an open grassy area where students liked to play Frisbee and Hackey Sack in the nice weather, or stage snowball fights in the winter. Hadley was one of these dorms. The one perpendicular to it, Rice, was where Topher lived on the first floor with his very quiet, almost invisible roommate. Third window from the left from the side door. Not that I could see it from my room. I could not. It’s just something I remember.
Anyhow, I liked watching him walk. It was not something I had noticed before, but now, from my perch above the fray, I could see that he had a happy walk. An optimistic stride, like wherever he was going, he was excited to get there. And he was cuter than I normally gave him credit for. Sort of a young Brando, with those dark eyes and long lashes, mixed with a pleasing disposition and a quirky sense of style. Even in the cold February days, he insisted on wearing shorts at least once a week. And he had a collection of hats that took up the entire shelf in his closet.
Maybe I paid more attention because half the time, his girlfriend, Cheri, was right there next to him. I use the term “girlfriend” quite loosely here, as Cheri was more of what the kids refer to these days as a “friend with benefits.” They slept together on a regular basis, and both seemed contented with that and a casual friendship. She was an adorable little hippie chick, impossible not to like, with her bubbly manner and open personality. Topher was notoriously non-committal with almost every girl he ever dated in college. Cheri had been hanging around for at least three months, which was an eternity for him.
“Greer!” I heard him call out one late afternoon just outside Hadley. There was a light, frozen rain spritzing campus, making the walk home from my art class slick. My cowboy boots were not the smartest footwear.
“Hey there,” I said to him, smiling. Always glad to see him.
“I need you,” he said as he walked up to me.
“I like the sound of that,” I joked, squinting in the rain. “You want to need me inside, though? I don’t want my artwork to get wet.” I held my large, paperboard portfolio by its black handles, and he nodded. He trotted up the three steps to Hadley, and held the door open as I walked into the foyer. Once indoors, we both shook ourselves off like dogs, tiny pebbles of frozen ran spraying from our heads and shoulders.
“What is it?” I asked him. “How do you need me?”
“I need your artistic talents,” he told me. “I need a fictional logo for my marketing class. Nobody in my group of eggheads has a shred of artistic talent.”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding slowly at him. “I can do that. Come upstairs.”
After an hour or so spent discussing his project, and about a million other things, in my room, we decided to go to dinner together. Spaghetti and meatball night. When Cheri showed up to join us, we toweled the door, packed Topher’s pipe, and smoked a bit of weed before hitting the dining hall.
Outside, the sky was still spitting its frozen rain down upon us. It sparkled and danced in the glare of the street lamps lining the large parking lot separating the lower quad from the dining hall. We walked in a huddle, hands shoved into pockets, heads down. We giggled our way inside, loaded up our plates, and sat at a table in the back of the room where our silly banter would not get us strange looks.
It was always so hard to remember to control my eating when I was high, but I was starting to notice that if I kept working out in my room, I could afford to indulge a bit when I wanted to. The weight still came off, though slower. I made up for indiscretions- a candy bar, a bag of Swedish fish, a McDonald’s cheeseburger- in five minute chunks of stepping. A spaghetti dinner earned me an extra fifteen minutes on the stepper. Ten if I didn’t eat the meatball.
After dinner, Cheri had a late study group at the SUB, so I waited for a few moments while they said good-bye. I was intrigued by the notion, wondering if Topher would kiss her? Hug her? Whisper in her ear and make her giggle?
But it was none of those things that you might expect between two people getting naked with each other. She chirped a quick “See ya!” and spun around on her way out into the drizzly, frozen night.
The temperature had been dropping steadily, and what had been a mild pain-in-the-ass freezing drizzle was becoming downright dangerous. The ground was coated in a thin, shiny coat of hard-as-nails ice.
“Here,” Topher said to me as we slipped our way back to the lower quad. “Give me your hand.”
I took his hand and he helped keep me stabilized. My boots had no traction at all. I must have looked like Bambi the first time he goes out on the ice. It took all my effort just to keep my feet underneath me.
Crossing the large parking lot was easier, as long as we took it slow and stayed on the sidewalk. We saw more than one car try and make its way slowly out of the lot, only to spin into one of the towering snow banks flanking the lot on three sides. A tow truck was working hard, its flashing orange lights casting strange shadows on the academic buildings on our left.
“Ok, one more small hill and we’re home,” Topher said to me, squeezing my hand through my black leather gloves. We were approaching the lower quad from behind.
“Wish me luck,” I said, offering a small laugh, but desperately trying to figure out how not to fall on my ass like some kind of spazz.
“I’ve got you. Just try and slide with the hill. Into the hill. Like when you were a kid.”
I followed his instructions, and made it down the hill, sliding slowly as he gently tugged me toward him. Just as I got close to him, my heel caught on an edge of the ice, and I lost my balance. Not only did I go down, but I pulled Topher down with me.
“I’m so sorry!” I cried out, laughing while I assessed whether I had hurt anything. “Are you ok? Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”
“I’m fine,” he laughed, untangling his legs from mine and getting back on his feet. He held out a hand for me.
“You sure,” I asked as the frozen droplets falling around us hissed and fizzed, hitting the frozen pavement. I brushed some crumbled ice off my jeans, and smoothed my damp hair.
“I’ll take my chances,” he answered, pulling me up so we were standing face to face in the hazy, artificial light. We held onto each other’s hands, the world in a coat of ice.
Once we reached the front door, we saw a university employee salting the front steps.
“You got it from here?” he asked, breaking the silence of our concentration.
“Yeah,” I said, with a snort. “I think I can handle it.”
“Hm,” he said, mulling it over. I hit his shoulder. “Lunch tomorrow?”
“Yes, I’ll come by your room.”
I climbed the three steps to the door, said good-night, and went inside. At the top of the stairs inside, I glanced out the window of the landing to watch him enter in the front doors of Rice Hall. I could still feel his grip through my gloves, and that made me smile.
***
Not much more than ten minutes after reaching the warm, dry sanctuary of my room, there was a knock on my door.
“Come in!” I called out, not expecting any visitors. I was curled up on my bed with a copy of The French Lieutenant’s Woman. My door swung open and standing in the doorway was John.
“Hey,” I said as he entered and started peeling off his coat.
“Good God, it’s hot in here,” he said, walking directly to the window and flinging it open.
“Hey!” I cried out, scrambling to close it. “You just need to get used to it. I finally warmed up, and I don’t want my room freezing now.”
Beware of Love in Technicolor Page 21
