by Paul Kropp
By Friday night, I had looked up existential and alienation, so I was ready. Okay, I didn’t understand either of them, but I was ready enough. I practised saying the word aridity so it didn’t come out sounding too strange. I even reviewed Maggie’s notes before I left the house, just in case I’d forgotten anything in my general enthusiasm. I had everything a guy might need before a really hot date with a really hot girl.
At 7:05 I was knocking on the door to Rochelle’s shared house. Actually, I could have been knocking on the door ten minutes earlier, but I figured that early was uncool. Above all, I wanted to seem cool.
The door was opened by a roommate who might have been Hannah the Honker’s older sister. “Chelle is almost ready,” she announced casually, then strolled off to another room in the house.
Minutes later, Rochelle came out of the bathroom, bringing with her a wave of perfume and shower steam. She looked magnificent: dark hair tied back; an all-black outfit that matched my all-black sort-of-Jean-Paul-Sartre look, but hers was perfectly fitted. Rochelle was a thin girl who looked like an exotic model for Versace or Gucci. In a very different way, she may have been more beautiful than Taylor Hoskin. Rochelle was so beautiful that looking at her made my teeth hurt.
Really.
“You’re incredible,” I said. My eyes were on her eyes, but I caught all the rest.
“You think?” she said, smiling.
“Oh yeah. If Samuel Beckett had ever met you, he wouldn’t have wasted his time waiting for Godot.”
I thought that was a pretty good line; kind of an artsy, literary joke suitable for a first-year Eng. lit. student.
Rochelle gave me a wan smile. That was a new word for me too—wan. It’s a kind of appreciative, gentle smile; the kind of smile that women would have given to Keats and Shelley.
Rochelle shouted something to the disappeared roommate, and then the two of us headed out the door. Rochelle’s hair glowed in the setting sun, her eyes sparkled, the dust-filled air seemed to glow in anticipation of the night to come.
“My roommate says that Dr. Jones is coming to the play tonight.”
I gulped. Stay cool, I told myself. No reason to panic. Say something witty and in control.
“Well, maybe I can read his eyes and see how I did on the poets quiz.”
Rochelle gave me a strange look for a moment, then it passed and she started talking about a test she’d had in database applications, whatever those are. I kept trying to turn the conversation back to my newly acquired knowledge of Samuel Beckett and his theatre in Montparnasse. I even thought of pretending that I’d once visited Montparnasse, but for someone who hasn’t even been to Parnassus, New Jersey, I figured that would be too tough to carry off.
The best thing about the campus theatre is that it’s really cheap, cheaper than a movie. Of course, Rochelle offered to pay her own way, but I said something about all the money I saved by living at home, so I bought her ticket. Gallant, I said to myself. Going to a play written in Paris, I should certainly be gall-ant, as they say in French.
We were moving from the ticket line into the lobby of Crispin Hall when I was stopped by a familiar face…in fact, by two familiar faces.
“Alan?” I heard. The big rising tone at the end told me that she couldn’t believe my presence here, of all places.
“Uh, Maggie,” I replied. Stay cool, I told myself. No confusion, just be gracious. Be gall-ant.
She looked from me to Rochelle and then back to me. “Well, Alan, I see you’re making good progress all by yourself. Do I get introduced?”
“Sure. Uh, Maggie, this is, uh, Rochelle.” For just a second I stumbled over her name. That was the same moment that sweat began to pop out of my forehead. I turned to Rochelle to explain, “Maggie is, uh, a friend…from high school.”
“Hello,” Rochelle said, perfectly poised, as always.
“And this is Braden, Maggie’s, uh, friend.”
Braden smiled his perfect smile, that Colgate-white-strip straight-tooth smile that always made my own teeth turn yellow with envy. Then he reached forward and shook Rochelle’s hand, effortlessly, as if he’d been shaking hands with beautiful girls all his life.
Maggie just stared at me. “I didn’t know you liked modern plays,” she said.
“Well, uh”—I apologize for all these uh’s, but I kept on trying to buy time with unintelligible grunts and groans—“I, uh, I had a bit of an overload with Keats and Shelley lately.”
“And what are you studying, Rochelle?” Braden asked. The words slipped off his tongue so easily that I had a hunch he’d used it to pick up a hundred girls in a hundred different places.
“Oh, computers. I’m just in first year,” Rochelle said, quite modestly, I thought.
“I’m thinking of going into computers myself,” Braden said to her. “Maybe you could tell me a little about the program.”
And then, I’m not sure how he did it, but somehow he steered Rochelle to one side so they could talk together. It was a pretty slick move, getting my girlfriend to himself for a few minutes, so naturally I wanted to kill him. I was (a) jealous and (b) afraid. The jealousy makes obvious sense, but I was also worried that Braden might somehow blow my whole cover story.
“It’s okay, Alan,” Maggie said. “Braden just likes to flirt with pretty girls. And your new friend really is quite beautiful.”
“Yeah, well. She’s pretty special in lots of ways,” I mumbled. I kept my eye on Braden’s back, using telepathy to beam into his brain: Don’t talk about school, don’t tell her we’re in high school, don’t don’t don’t.
“I’m kind of surprised that she’d go out with a high-school kid,” Maggie added.
“Well, it’s kind of a miracle,” I told her, smiling my very best smile. I suppose I could have told her about Alan the first-year English major, but I had a hunch that massive lying to a possible girlfriend would not rate too high in Maggie’s eyes.
Fortunately, the please-be-seated bell went off before Maggie could ask me any more or Braden could spill the beans. I breathed a very real sigh of relief.
“Well, we better find our seats,” I said, reclaiming Rochelle by taking her arm. “Nice seeing you, Maggie…and you too, Braden.” The perspiration on my forehead suddenly seemed to cool as we walked away.
“Maybe we can meet you after the play,” Braden suggested, looking more at Rochelle than at me.
I pretended a sudden deafness and guided Rochelle into the theatre. I’d sooner perform a coronary bypass on myself with a kitchen knife than meet them after the play.
“Was Braden trying to put moves on you?” I asked, trying not to sound too nervous about it.
She laughed. “No, he just wondered about the courses I was taking. That’s all. And what about that girl Maggie? What about her?”
“Oh, nothing,” I said. “It’s just that, well, Maggie was an old girlfriend once and, uh, I guess I’m still kind of awkward about that.”
“You are just too sensitive,” she said, squeezing my hand. “Don’t be embarrassed. I could tell you were pretty experienced with girls.”
Experienced with girls! Whoa! My experience amounted to three sets of instructions and two actual dates, but somehow Rochelle had been impressed. She thought I was sensitive. She thought I was experienced. Maybe she thought I was hot!
Control yourself, Alan, I told myself. I’d just had a narrow escape; there was no sense thinking that I was home free now. I held Rochelle’s hand as we went down the left aisle and found our seats in the second row. Maggie and Braden, thank God, were seated five rows behind us. Two rows in front of us, on stage, was a bare set with a window and a table.
“Not a very elaborate set,” Rochelle commented.
I was ready. I had studied up on this. “Beckett liked to use sparse settings. He was making a statement about the aridity of modern life.”
“Ah,” she replied.
I had a hunch she didn’t know what “aridity of modern life” meant, and neither di
d I, but I had memorized the phrase, practised the pronunciation and was determined to use it at least once.
After the lights dimmed, two actors named Hamm and Clov started going on and on about, well, maybe it was about the aridity of modern life. After a while, it even began to make a little sense. Maybe, I thought, maybe I really should become an English major. Then again, maybe I should pass high-school English first.
Now before I get to the scary part, let me tell you about the best part. Rochelle. All the time we were watching this play, part of me was very aware that she was beside me, warm, beautiful, and touching my arm with hers. I was very aware of her skin, the smoothness of her skin, and the wonderful smell of her perfume. And there were times when I’d look over at her and see her profile, those perfect features, those dark eyes intent on the play. There were times when I said to myself, Al, you’re falling in love. But I had to snap out of that. I had to concentrate on goal one. Falling in love would be kind of a bonus, like the extra set of scissors they give you when you buy the $129 set of knives on the Home Shopping Channel.
At last the play ended, and the actors got a big round of applause. I thought it was well deserved because the dialogue didn’t make much sense but they managed to make it sound like it meant something. Rochelle was clapping enthusiastically, so naturally I joined her. I was cool, but not too cool to applaud.
When we turned to leave, I saw that Maggie and Braden were already going up the aisle. I decided we’d be in no rush; in fact, the last thing I wanted was to catch up with them. I made a point of looking under my seat, trying to find where my program had dropped. I told Rochelle that I might need it for my English class, so that blew a minute or two—enough time to get Maggie and Braden right out of the theatre.
We were in the clear, almost.
“Oh, look,” Rochelle said as we got to the aisle, “there’s Dr. Jones.”
A brief moment of panic. What did Dr. Jones look like: grey hair, dark hair, dreadlocks; moustache, beard, glasses, knobby nose, what? I stared in the same general direction as Rochelle.
“Don’t you want to talk to her about the play?” Rochelle asked.
Her! Dr. Jones is a HER! No wonder Rochelle had looked at me strangely back at the house when I called her a him.
“Well, I, uh…,” I replied, a kind of multi-word grunt.
Without waiting for an answer, Rochelle marched up the steps to a middle-aged woman with her hair pulled back into a ponytail. There she was—Dr. Jones, my prof. Dr. Jones, the professor who should have been marking my non-existent Romantic poets quiz.
A bold front, I decided, was the only front to put up.
“Dr. Jones,” I said in a loud voice, “you said you’d be here.”
The woman turned and looked at me with a piercing stare. I cringed. I could see her studying my face, wondering who on earth I was.
“Yes, yes, it’s nice to see you here, uh…”
“Alan,” I filled in. She must have figured I was one of three hundred students whom she ought to recognize. Bonus.
Dr. Jones smiled. “Of course, Alan. I’m glad you took my advice and came to see the play. Wasn’t it wonderful?”
“Oh yes,” I said. “I think the actor who played Clov was especially good. And the whole play, well, it really captured the aridity of modern life.”
“Yes,” she said. “It certainly made me wish I’d brought a water bottle.”
I gave a little laugh and made a mental note to look up aridity when I got home. I mean, when a word like that creeps into your vocabulary, you almost have an obligation to know what it means.
Dr. Jones went off with some man who might have been Mr. Dr. Jones and seemed somewhat relieved not to have to talk to me any more. Of course I was equally relieved not to have to talk to her. I’d pretty much exhausted my bank of memorized literary phrases.
As we walked out, Rochelle whispered, “I don’t think she recognized you.” I could feel her hot breath on my ear and, I confess, it started to get me excited.
“Guess not,” I replied, smiling conspiratorially.
“These profs have so many students,” Rochelle said. “I read that one economics prof has almost two thousand students. The TAs do all the work, but still they feel kind of guilty.”
What’s a TA? I asked myself. Is it like T&A? No, not that, I silently replied. All this was part of an extended internal dialogue that took maybe two seconds. Paralyzed by indecision or stupidity or both, I decided to smile and be agreeable.
“So what did you think?” I asked her. Time to go back to Maggie’s list: focus on the girl. No opinion is as interesting to the girl as her own.
“Well, I kind of…to tell you the truth”—she paused—“I think it mostly sailed over my head. I mean I liked it, but, well…”
“Hey, can I tell you the truth?”
She nodded, smiling that wonderful smile.
“Mostly it sailed way over my head too.”
And then the most amazing thing happened. We started giggling, out in the corridor of Crispin Hall, giggling like two kids caught with their hands in the cookie jar. And then I took her hand, and Rochelle kind of angled her head, and I kind of looked down at her—and we were both still laughing—and I kissed her. It was a funny kiss, that first one, full of giggles and smiles, but quite wonderful.
And then there was the second kiss, and that one was serious. I took hold of her with one arm, and she pulled me right up against her body, and our mouths came together in a serious, serious kiss.
When we pulled back, I think we both became aware of people staring at us. Not that there’s anything wrong with kissing a hot girl in public, but it gets a bit awkward when people stare. Rochelle pulled away somewhat and I took my hand off her back but I couldn’t let go of her hand.
“Sorry,” I told her. “I got carried away.”
“I like it when you get carried away,” she whispered back.
Oh my god! I screamed to myself. This is a dream. Don’t slap me, I don’t want to wake up. This is a fantasy turned into real life. This is a Harlequin romance. This is a daytime soap opera. This is my every dream come true…just don’t let it end.
18
Another Bill Arrives, and More Advice
THERE ARE NASTY aspects to real life. I find that they come back periodically to slap you in the face, just when you need them the least. I was still floating in a romantic dream world on Monday morning when Maggie came to my locker and said she wanted to see me at lunch.
“A consultation?” I asked.
“The April bill,” she replied flatly. “I’m just a bit late with it.”
Needless to say, I wasn’t looking forward to our meeting. There was, I suppose, the iffy question of whether I owed her five dollars for a date that I had set up entirely by myself. On the other hand, it was her advice that got me the date, so maybe she deserved the fee. Or maybe she’d have more advice for me. Surely I was getting to the stage where I should know just a little bit more.
Maggie was waiting by herself when I got to the cafeteria. She had her glasses back on and was looking serious.
“Hey,” I said, sitting down.
“Hey yourself,” she replied. “Looks like you’re doing very well on your own steam. And just when I found a girl who thought the whole elevator-grope thing was a laugh.”
“You did?” I replied. “You found me another girl?”
“Yeah, but I’ll hold her in reserve. We’ve got to get the payment issues cleaned up first.”
“Right.”
Maggie slid an envelope across the table.
Maggie McPherson Consulting
Statement of Account for March
Project: Alan
Website revamp $10.00
First date, Taylor Hoskin 25.00
Email editing 10.00
Counselling, aversion therapy 30.00
Total for April $75.00
Installment now due $75.00
Your patronage and prompt payment is al
ways appreciated.
“Website revamp?” I asked.
“I had to add meta-tags,” she replied flatly.
“Ah, yes, of course.” I’ll have to ask Rochelle what meta-tags are.
You’ll notice that I didn’t charge you for Rochelle,” Maggie said matter-of-factly. “I debated whether or not our agreement covered extraneous dates, but decided to give you a break. Obviously you’re doing well.”
“Yeah, thanks, I am,” I blurted. I felt more than a little stupid, and was probably blushing some splendid shade of red.
“And if you want to call this whole thing off after you pay the bill, well, that’s okay with me.” Maggie looked up at me through her glasses with a funny expression on her face.
“No, no. I’m not ready yet.”
“Well, I could have told you that,” Maggie said. “But I find that once guys get a little success in something, they tend to think they’re geniuses and can do the rest on their own. The male ego is an extraordinary thing.”
“Yeah, right,” I agreed, “but with everything going so well with Rochelle I was kind of wondering…”
“What to do next?”
“Yeah.”
She thought about that for a second. Someplace in the background, a toasted cheese sandwich went sailing through the air. Someplace else, there was a PA announcement for the jazz band rehearsal. But right in front of me, Maggie took off her glasses and smiled at me. “That would go into the next billing period.”
“It’s okay,” I replied. “I need a little advice about…third base.”
She just shook her head. “Alan, pretty soon you’ll get to the point where I can’t give you advice any more.”
“Yeah,” I said, “that would be good. Real good.”
—
I got together with Jeremy after school for the usual guy stuff: a little baseball toss, a little talk about sports and the horrors of Mr. Greer’s math class, and a British beer from his dad’s basement refrigerator.
