They all removed their shoes and the others quickly dispersed to look for their girls. Robert took the housemother’s advice and went to stand in front of the fireplace. The flames threw blue sparks, and the heat slowly licked at the edges of his icy toes. He’d always been fascinated by fire—as boys he and Barry had sometimes set pieces of paper alight, dropping them into an old ashtray in the basement. Why shouldn’t he have a fireplace someday? If he really wanted it? He noticed a hole in his sock, the sole clue that gave him away—Tracey had lent him a navy blazer to go with the shirts he now regularly purloined. His pants were serviceable but not conspicuous. He reached down and pulled the material around his naked toe.
“Say cheeseburger!” someone called, and a flash went off.
No one at home would have believed that such a world existed, except in the movies. They’d have argued with him if he tried to tell them about the polished floors and Persian carpets, the low whisperings and polite laughter. On top of the tree a gold angel tilted precariously. In the corner a middle-aged woman in a dark uniform, her face etched with heavy frown lines, ladled eggnog and handed it to thirsty guests.
That night he met the mysterious Annabeth, her blond hair twisted on top of her head like an enormous pastry, and Claudia Cates, whose large hazel eyes looked out serenely from beneath a fringe of dark bangs, her legs long and shapely in lace tights worn with a short pink dress. There were a few other girls with them as well, but Robert wasn’t introduced; Tracey spent his evening with Annabeth while Cates, Van Dorn, and Pascal kept the others in a tight circle.
Still, there were plenty of pretty girls to go around, creamy-skinned girls in lush fabrics like cashmere and velvet that hinted at the rewards of further softness underneath. Would he have the nerve to kiss one? He would have to try. They were girls, after all, and he knew all about girls. But the place made him antsy. Tracey and Annabeth walked arm in arm around the ground floor, whispering to each other. They seemed awfully friendly for a couple who’d just broken an engagement; he wondered if he’d ever find out what had really happened there.
He wasn’t the only one who was curious. The dining room doubled as the dance floor, and a boy stood in the corner spinning records. The music was wonderful that year—the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Roy Orbison—music that college students would dance to for generations. Robert asked girl after girl to dance and was surprised to find that they all said yes and they all knew he was Tracey’s roommate.
“We saw you come in,” said a girl named Audra, who danced with him to “Look of Love” by Lesley Gore. “What’s it like living with Sanford Trace?”
“He’s nice enough,” Robert mumbled.
“Is it over with him and Annabeth? She came to school with a ring and then a few days later it was gone.”
“I don’t know anything about it.”
“I’m no gossip, but she’s so closemouthed that she invites it. And he’s, I mean…”
“What?” Robert asked.
“Tell me, do you know what kind of cookies he likes?”
“Cookies?!” Robert asked, unable to keep from laughing. “I suppose you can never lose with chocolate chip. But why don’t you ask him yourself?”
Every girl he danced with that night—even those who danced very close; even a girl who’d gone to the balcony with him to kiss—still managed to ask about Tracey and Annabeth, or just Tracey. Until finally he could conclude only that either the girls at Smith College did nothing all day but talk about each other, or Tracey was a more important person than he’d realized. Certain girls talked about Robert’s roommate the way they’d discuss the son of a film star or a rock musician. They told him of Tracey’s attendance as Annabeth’s escort when she came out at something called the Autumn Ball, and of his mother’s appearance in the society papers, but mostly, there were questions—what kind of girl, exactly, was Sanford Trace looking for? Blond or brunette? Northern or Southern? Sporty? Bookish?
Did Tracey know that girls talked about him this way? Was that why he let so few people into his circle? Had Robert been in his position, he’d have used his popularity very differently indeed.
Robert spent much of the night silently casing Claudia Cates. Her brother dogged her every step, dragging her off every time Robert approached, or pushing her to dance with Pascal or Van Dorn. Robert finally got his chance when the Amherst Glee Club arrived to sing in the living room with the Smith singing groups and the dance floor began to empty. Cates left to get a good seat and Robert approached Claudia as she lingered near the door. “I’m the one your brother hates,” he said. “So how bad could I be?”
To his relief, she laughed. “You look just fine to me. More than fine, actually.”
“Dance?” he asked. “Before they close up for the night?”
She nodded and followed him onto the floor. They heard the opening beats of “The Shoop Shoop Song,” by Betty Everett, garbled at first, then loud and clear. He took her hand, silently thanking Stacia for making him and Barry take those dreaded dance lessons. Dancing, he’d known even then, was just a way of touching a certain kind of girl—the kind you might not get near otherwise. Robert spun Claudia round and round, and she laughed and threw her head back in a pretty way.
“Full disclosure, Robert,” she said breathlessly. “I’m engaged to a boy at West Point.”
“Congratulations,” Robert said. “There goes my plan to propose when the song’s over.”
“Was that wrong to say it so quickly?”
“You must love him; you want to do the right thing,” Robert said. “When’s the big day?”
“April.”
“So soon?”
“Charlie leaves for Vietnam just after graduation.”
“Are you worried?”
“Not at all,” she said. “He’s sure it’ll all be sewn up in a few months.”
Robert dipped her half-comically and then pulled her up. She was very close to him now, and then she moved gracefully away. He watched her slim hips moving to the music, her head bobbing up and down. Fiancé or no fiancé, he wondered if he could get her alone.
“I bet women really go for you,” she said.
“Yeah, I’m smooth, all right,” Robert said, moving closer to her. “Maybe that’s why every girl I’ve danced with only wanted to talk about Tracey.”
“They’re all trying to get their hooks into him. No one thinks of poor Annabeth. Engaged one minute, disengaged the next.”
“She doesn’t appear to be suffering,” Robert said. Just then, Tracey and Annabeth were in conference on the edge of the floor. As if hearing his name, Tracey looked up and waved at them in a mocking way, then the two left the room. “I suppose they’re all going to hear the castrati from Amherst.”
“Everyone loves the singing groups,” she said. “It’s a tradition.”
“But you’re in here getting dizzy with me,” he said, spinning her around again.
“You clearly have charms far beyond those of mortal men,” she replied, stumbling and then grabbing his arm for support. “Tracey hasn’t made a friend since the eighth grade.”
“I’m not sure Tracey considers me a friend, more of an appendage.”
“He wouldn’t have invited you,” she said, letting go of his hand, “if he didn’t like you.”
“Can I ask you something? Why do those guys, your brother, Van Dorn, Tracey, why do they do everything together?”
“I suppose you didn’t go away to school,” she said. “Crazy loyalties, like a family in a way. I think it’s worse with boys than girls, and those boys particularly. Van Dorn got picked on as a kid because he’s funny-looking, and Tracey took him up and protected him. My brother thinks Tracey’s the be-all and end-all. They were all supposed to room together at Harvard.”
“And I ruined everything, as your brother so often reminds me.”
“It’s not your fault Tracey flunked out of school,” she said. “When we all know how smart he is, all those deep books of his. It�
��s like he wanted to fail.”
“Maybe he didn’t want to leave high school,” Robert said. “If he was that popular.”
The song was coming to an end. He held out his hand and finally she let him hold her fully in his arms. He slowly moved his fingers up her back, felt the muscles tense. She pulled away and shook her head at him, half mocking as she chastised.
“Any chance we can go somewhere to sit down? Not the living room. I’m not much for the harmonizing Rice Krispies.”
“You’re awfully cynical for someone so young,” she said, as they walked to the edge of the floor.
“This is about musical taste,” he said, slipping his arm around her waist. “I’m no more cynical than you are.”
“Probably true,” she said, removing his hand from her hip. “But I believe in true love.”
“So no regrets about marrying what’s-his-name?”
“Charlie? Not a one,” she said. “Lots of girls get engaged just so they don’t have to be the last ones left single senior year. You can see it in their eyes, you know?”
“But not you.”
“I’d have said yes to him three years ago,” she said, “when we first met.”
“Lucky Charlie,” he said, and bent down, kissing her very lightly on the lips. She let him, but only for a few seconds, then the lights came on and the guy began packing up his records. She looked quickly over her shoulder and, to his amazement, led him down a back corridor and up a staircase off the kitchen, to a landing where it was quiet and they could listen to the singing.
“You can’t go above that step,” she said, pointing to the second from the top. Then she sat on the top step herself. “I’ll stay up here. It goes without saying that you’ll be honorable.”
“Scout’s honor,” he said.
“I doubt you were ever a Boy Scout,” she replied. He knew when he was being flirted with, knew he’d been flirted with for some time now. He did what he would have done at home, got up and placed himself next to her, wedged himself in on the same step. She did not tell him to move, and so he kissed her again on the lips, very softly, the way he’d found worked best with girls when you were first kissing them. Just when you wanted the most to rush things along, experience had told him, was exactly when you needed to hold back. And you needed to listen to them, even when you least wanted to. If you listened, it was like magic—they would do anything you asked. Would she be the same as all the others? She kissed him back, and he took her lower lip gently between his before she pulled away, talking quickly, nervously about Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. The two had stayed on campus the summer before, making a film just outside a house on Green Street.
“What’s the movie about?” Robert asked. Distracted by his desire and her proximity, he told himself to slow down, his arm now around her waist.
“Something about Virginia Woolf,” Claudia said, leaning away from him.
“Sounds kind of slow to me.” He put his nose to her neck, inhaling her perfume.
“A girl I know came back to school early and she saw Elizabeth, I mean Miss Taylor, I mean, Mrs. Burton —” She sighed. “Stop that, you’re distracting me. Anyway, she saw her coming out of her trailer in a bathrobe and slippers.”
“How’d she look?”
“Frowsy. My friend said she looked a little bit fat and very frowsy.” The idea pleased her. She smiled at him, finally looked into his face, and told him he needed a haircut. Then she reached up and, with two fingers, brushed the hair that had been hanging, arched ever so slightly over one eyebrow, back into place. He kissed her once more, touching his tongue to her own. Just below them, deep male voices crooned “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”
“Oh, I love this part,” she said, breaking away again and leaning forward, putting her elbows on her knees. “They pick a girl in the audience and sing to her.”
“It’s usually you, I bet.”
“This year it’ll be Annabeth,” she said. “She’s a freshman. New face.”
She sat back and they began to make out in earnest, lips and tongues touching then darting away. He stroked the back of her knee, and then his fingers made their way slowly up her thigh. She whispered that he should probably stop but he continued to kiss her. He could barely stand it, and so he was hurrying things along much faster than he would have even a few months earlier, when girls were more plentiful and she would not have felt like the last beautiful girl on earth. He had his arms securely around her now, his hand underneath her sweater. His erection grazed her thigh.
“Stop it,” she said, and then louder, “Don’t be disgusting!” She shoved him away with force, and they both stood up awkwardly.
“Claudia,” he stuttered. “That was, I was —”
She didn’t say anything, only moved up almost to the landing on the floor above. He moved to a step below, leaned himself against the banister as if he’d been injured. “I think I misread things,” he mumbled. “I mean —” He could see it all in her expression: moments before he’d been fascinating to her, like no one she’d ever met, and now he was a stranger.
“Please don’t tell Charlie,” she said. “Don’t tell anyone.”
“Of course not.”
“You can love someone and want to marry them and still be curious, I mean —” Her words broke off and she began to cry. “Girls who do more than kiss are not marriage material. That’s what Tracey told Annabeth!” And then she turned and rushed up the stairs.
Only later would Robert wonder why on earth Tracey would tell a girl something so ridiculous, so counterproductive. Perhaps Annabeth had misunderstood. Either that, or Tracey had a different girl stashed somewhere and was looking for a fast getaway.
DOWNSTAIRS IN THE LIVING ROOM, the singing had ended, the groups had left, and couples were saying their last passionate good-byes in the hallways and out on the balcony, as the housemother prowled the downstairs. Cates, it turned out, was too drunk to care about his sister, or anyone else, for that matter; Van Dorn and Tracey lay passed out on either end of the chintz couch. They’d all signed out for the night and were supposed to stay over; Annabeth had gotten rooms for them, but she was nowhere to be found, and Mark Pascal, now at Robert’s side, wanted to go back to Boston. They’d be past curfew, and there’d be no sneaking Tracey and the others into the dorms in their condition, but they could stop at an all-night diner, he insisted, ply them with coffee and food, and get back before dawn, then sleep all day.
Robert was relieved not to have to face Claudia again, but they had to get the others to the cars. He and Pascal half-carried first Cates, then Tracey, and finally the enormous Van Dorn down the slippery steps and across the parking lot.
“I hope you can drive,” Pascal said, holding out Tracey’s keys. “I’ve had a hell of a lousy night. What a bunch of awful girls.” He paused. “I saw you go off with Claudia.”
Robert snatched the keys from Pascal’s hand. “All she talked about was Charlie.”
Pascal laughed, cheered that Robert also had a bad time. Robert was exhausted—he’d done the bulk of the heavy lifting, and getting Van Dorn down the steps just about killed him. But he now held Tracey’s car keys, and the thought of driving the MG did much to erase all that had come before it. He had driven only three times in his life, counting when he took the test, and that was in his uncle’s old Oldsmobile that bucked and stalled every few blocks.
If only Barry could see him now. How easy it was to adjust to a fine automobile, to be the one in control. The snow had stopped long ago, and at 1:00 a.m. there was little traffic. He sped east on I-91 with the radio blasting, ignoring Pascal’s warnings about traffic cops posted along the roads, ignoring the signs to proceed with caution, ignoring Tracey snoring in the front seat. Why had Tracey chosen him to be his friend? It was a mystery. They were all a mystery, the men and the women, so cryptic and yet so certain of how things should be. Who, exactly, had written their rules, and why didn’t he know them? He was enjoying himself too much to give the quest
ion much thought, only floored the gas, racing as fast as he could into the darkness.
CHAPTER SIX
Home away from home
That first year, the kitchen behind the dining hall became exactly what kitchens had been to him his whole life—a respite, a place controlled by older women who spoiled him. Three or four nights a week he ate an early dinner in the back, and then set up for dishes. By October the work was so predictable that Robert found it comforting, for what else at college had a beginning, middle, and end? Often he worked side by side with Zinnelli, who tended, as Robert did, to pick up as many shifts as he could get. Since coming up with his paper-writing business, Goldfarb had all but disappeared from the kitchen, preferring the cleaner work of the ghostwriter.
The students who handed him plates across the pass-through could see parts of him—his eyes and hair and hands, for instance —but he rarely looked up. People moved past him quickly, and he told himself that even those he knew probably didn’t recognize him, seeing only parts of his face and generally rushing by on their way to somewhere else. Tracey had never seen him in the kitchen; he rarely ate there. This suited Robert just fine.
Zinnelli liked to dress up for holidays. Before Thanksgiving, he’d worn a plastic cockscomb fitted like a hat over his ears and now, the week before Christmas break, he wore a Santa hat that hung limply over one eye. As Robert loaded the dishwasher, Zinnelli picked up his towel, leaping across the kitchen on one foot, losing the hat and then bending over and putting it back.
“I don’t see what’s so thrilling about the Beatles,” Zinnelli said. “If money can’t buy you love, then what about prostitutes, huh?”
Robert treated such comments as rhetorical. Zinnelli was a natural-born arguer and he liked to shock. His father had dreams of law school for his son, but Zinnelli had recently confided in Robert that what he really wanted to be was a cop, an unpopular choice for the time. He mentioned it in a whisper, and then asked Robert for strict secrecy. Mostly, though, Zinnelli talked about girls. That was the one thing all the guys he knew had in common—they talked about girls. Confounded by the dorm rules, Zinnelli was thinking of high school girls. “Easier access,” he said, picking up a dish towel. “Boston Latin? Cute seniors.”
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