What She Saw...

by Lucinda Rosenfeld

  “Hello?” he croaked again.

  “Sorry you didn’t get laid this weekend,” she finally blurted into the receiver.

  “Phoebe?!”

  “What?”

  “You sound like you just ran the Boston Marathon. Where the hell are you?”

  “Why does it matter?”

  “Look, I’m sorry I got sick—”

  “I don’t care about you throwing up. I saw your stupid checklist in your stupid bathroom.”

  Spitty groaned before he spoke. “Aw, jeeez,” he said. Then, “Listen, Phoebe, it’s my fuckin’ moron roommates. I swear I never touched that thing.”

  “So how come your name’s up there?” she asked him.

  “Phoebe, you gotta believe me!” he pleaded.

  “I’m sick of believing you. All I do is believe you.”

  “So don’t believe me. What do I fucking care?”

  “But I thought you did,” said Phoebe, her voice shaking just a little. “That’s the thing. I thought you cared about me.”

  “WELL, I DON’T ANYMORE,” Spitty exploded. “THERE’S NO FUCKIN’ POINT. I NEVER SHOULDA COME BACK TO THIS FUCKIN’ TOWN. I FUCKIN’ HATE EVERYONE HERE! I SHOULDA FUCKIN’ STAYED IN MAUI!”

  She’d never heard Spitty so angry. She hadn’t known he had it in him. She was overcome with emotion, though for once in borrowed form. “So go back there,” she whimpered. “No one’s stopping you.”

  “Maybe I will,” grumbled Spitty, suddenly conciliatory, almost childlike. “Listen, I’m sorry I yelled. I just—I’m just not feeling so good. Maybe we should talk in the morning. Hey—I had a good time tonight. I mean, until the end. So I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”

  “Sure,” Phoebe told him before she hung up.

  But it was an empty promise. Everything had changed. She might have gotten past the Weekend Lay List. It was Spitty’s display of fury that frightened her more than the list and the Maggie Green story put together. She wanted him to be the sunshine to her clouds. She couldn’t handle the idea that he had weather patterns of his own, and that he contained within himself the makings of a downpour and possibly even a monsoon. She ran the rest of the way back—past the horses and the chickens, the stables and the coop, until she was standing on the back steps of Delta Nu Sigma, sweating and freezing and hyperventilating all at the same time, turning the key in the lock that separated her from home, as close to a home as she could find back then, back there, back when she was eighteen and three quarters.

  SHE FOUND MEREDITH Bookbinder sleeping peacefully on the top bunk. Meredith hadn’t even gone to the formal. She was the smart one, Phoebe thought to herself as she climbed into the bottom bunk. She fell fast asleep soon afterward, and dreamt she was skiing down the side of a steep mountain with Scummy, Dummy, Scooter, Dukes, and all the rest of the Kappa Omegas trailing close behind—with the exception of Spitty Clark. He was nowhere in sight. He was out of the picture—a piece of the past she had no trouble shirking. That’s what Phoebe told herself the next afternoon when she heard the phone ring. She had a feeling it was Spitty calling to make amends, and it was. She had Meredith tell him she was out. He called a few more times after that.

  Then he gave up.

  She didn’t know he’d skipped town until she ran into Scooter, a few weeks later, waiting in line in the bursar’s office. (There were some student-loan forms that she needed to sign.) “Hey, I remember you!” he declared. “Weren’t you Spitty’s date at the Delta Sig formal?”

  “That was me,” she confirmed his suspicion.

  “Did you hear about Spitty?”

  “Hear what?”

  “He’s gone AWOL from Hoover.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah, he’s down in São Paulo, assistant managing beverage services at the Marriott. Spitty really liked you, I think. Stein. That’s you, right?”

  “It’s Fine. That’s my last name, as in Phoebe Fine.”

  “Fine—that was it. Well, anyway, before he left, Spitty told me that if I ever ran into you, I should tell you—uh, shit, what was it? Oh, now I remember! He said to tell you he was sorry he was such a bad date. Yeah, that was it. He felt really bad about that night, I think. Oh, another thing. He was gonna miss you a lot. He said that, too. He said you were a really fun girl.”

  “That was nice of him to say.” Phoebe smiled placidly, as if her interest in the whole matter was mild at best. In truth, she wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about the prospect of never seeing Spitty Clark again.

  Maybe in the back of her mind she’d been holding out the possibility that the two of them would eventually make up and get married and live in a little shack by the sea in walking distance of a well-lit supermarket.

  5 . Jack Geezo

  OR “Roberta’s Advice”

  NOVEMBER 30,1989

  Bebe!

  Apropos of our phone call this afternoon, I have some further thoughts to contribute! It seems to me that you will not be attracted to the kind of boys who frequent fraternities, where you cannot be totally yourself, since so much of yourself is of a di ferent, brighter, less drinking-oriented, more sensitive, artistic nature, though obviously a part of you is drawn to the glitter and gaiety of frat houses! The contrary sides of you fight for your attention, and when you go to those frat parties you find yourself acting like the others and of course that kind of boy thinks you are that way! Then, as a relationship develops, both of you discover that you are acting and not being yourself! The answer seems to me quite obvious—that you may have all the friends you like within the Greek System, but to find a boyfriend you need someone who is not in the least drawn to that lifestyle and would never have joined a fraternity! I think you have to give some thought to how to get out of your rut—perhaps by joining a campus organization, getting to know boys in your classes, or through nonsorority friends, on blind dates or whatever, and stop trying to be what you are not—a typical sorority girl! The answer is in your own mixed messages and mixed priorities! Just because you are very chic and pretty does not mean that bright, less social boys are not your style! Many of them like bright attractive girls, but you probably seem so sorority-ish, even though you aren’t, that they’re scared o f! Keep in mind that to the average kid, not wealthy, beautiful, or particularly social, the Greek system reeks of wealth, privilege, mindlessness, etc! That is what you are IN, and how your image is construed, whether you like it or not! It seems to me that the nonfrat boys probably think (untruly) that you are beyond their reach! So the answer can only be for you to make yourself less formidable, socially speaking, by hanging out with people who are not necessarily the cutest crew team types around! And when you do meet some shy people, help them out of their shells, if possible! When I met Daddy he was VERY shy! (So by the way have many of Emily’s boyfriends been, and especially Jack Geezo who, as you may remember, had a minor speech impediment!) I think the kind of boy you ultimately will like will be a person you can feel comfortable intellectually and emotionally with, and who is not necessarily that sophisticated or drunk all the time! The fact is that you SEEM very sophisticated, but your lack of experience doesn’t fit that image! Therefore, you need to meet a boy who shares your worldly-wise brightness without having been and done everything! You are a deep person, Phoebe—very insightful and very smart! But the average Joe College is terrified of dealing with that! He will be flattered to have you as a friend but not as a girlfriend! Therefore, look for someone BRIGHT rather than cute, SENSITIVE rather than swaggering, GENTLE rather than athletic, and you may find that the cuteness and the swagger come later! That’s my little sermon for today! I think you have a very similar problem to what I had at Conservatory, where I was constantly being told to be less quick with my tongue and mind and to act sillier (à la your present-day sorority girls) so that the opposite sex would like me! After a while I began meeting older boys who did not feel so challenged by a smart, attractive violist like myself, but young men sometimes found it daunting! According to Emily, you
are a real handful, probably the best-looking and smartest girl out there (I’m quoting Emily), and that is NOT guaranteed to put a shy or sensitive guy into a chase after you! (He might give up before he started!) The opposite is also true—that the guys with a lot of self-assurance but without the other qualities you like are the only ones who are not frightened o f! Ultimately, you will probably find an older guy more to your liking because you can be more yourself! I hope you don’t think this letter amiss! It is what I was thinking after I hung up! So I suggest that you think about the campus literary magazine, the political clubs, and even (God forbid) some of the shy oboists!

  Love and kisses!

  Good luck with all your papers!

  Call soon!

  Love always!

  Mom!

  P.S. I had a similar conversation with Emily during her sophomore year when she was very discouraged at not finding anyone she liked who liked her at the same time, the only di ference being that she had loads more confidence than you, and didn’t find the boys her own age sophisticated enough, which is why I suggested she date graduate students!

  6. Humphrey Fung

  OR “The Anarchist Feminist”

  NOT TWO WEEKS after she and Phoebe met—in Introduction to Biological Sciences 101, a prerequisite for graduation— Holly Flake drove her baby blue Dodge Dart over to Delta Nu Sigma in the middle of the night and helped load up the back with Phoebe’s possessions (plastic milk crate after plastic milk crate of shoes and books, posters and towels, hangers and diuretics). Then she squired the lot of it back to her off-campus apartment, one half of a two-family house next to the Leafy Bean Café. Conveniently for Phoebe, Holly’s roommate had moved out the month before. It didn’t surprise Phoebe. As a general rule, Holly didn’t get along with most other girls. She was too jealous (even though she was positively gorgeous). She was too possessive (even though she wasn’t the slightest bit materialistic). Her mother had been a model. Her father was a well-regarded neurosurgeon. She had a learning-disabled, identical-twin sister inexplicably named Jim. She was exactly what Phoebe needed. Just as Phoebe was exactly what Holly needed. Indeed, the two girls compensated for each other’s failures— Holly’s failure at friendship, Phoebe’s failure of experience. Not that Phoebe ever actually got up the nerve to admit to her new best friend that she was still a virgin. But there was never any doubt about which of the two was the bigger slut. In fact, Holly Flake was a self-identified slut.

  Never mind the used condom she kept in the bottom of her book bag—“in memoriam for all the lost nights.” Holly Flake was convinced she’d invented a new sexual position—she called it “tantric doggie” and was only too happy to demonstrate on her stuffed pig, Wilbur, for anyone willing to watch. And when she was bored, which was all the time—daily life was never quite exciting enough for the Lake Charles, Louisiana–bred redhead—she’d make lists of her thirty-two ex-lays. (A math major, she had a natural affinity for numbers.) Sometimes she’d rank them by the size of their personal fortunes, sometimes by the size of what God gave them. Sometimes she’d alphabetize them by last name, sometimes by first. If she couldn’t remember either—if, for example, she’d screwed them in the parking lot at a Grateful Dead show—she’d give them code names like Deadhead 1, Deadhead 2, and Deadhead 3. Whatever list she made, her differential equations T.A., Anton Abrams, wound up at the top of it. She said he was the heir to a big-name paper-towel fortune. She said he was worth ten million at least. She said it was as wide as a poster tube and as long as a ruler. She said she broke his heart, but Phoebe read through the lines that it was really just the opposite.

  At least Holly had a list.

  Phoebe wanted a list of her own, and she wanted Humphrey Fung at the top of it—she knew it the moment she saw him, across the porch at Gerald Stevens’s Fuck Spring party, leaning back against the balustrade, a cigarette fastened between his lips. He was tall enough and slenderly built. And he was dressed in a tartan kilt fastened with a pewter pin, tube socks pulled up to the knee, and a black T-shirt that read, I DESPISE EVERYTHING YOU STAND FOR. And yet, even despite that outfit, he was easily the most beautiful boy at the party, and possibly in all of Hoover University. He had tawny skin and sculpted cheeks, permanently flared nostrils and impossibly long lashes. But he wasn’t just beautiful, he was tough. He looked like nothing could touch him. That’s probably why Phoebe wanted to. She was thinking some of Humphrey’s audacity might rub off on her. She was desperate to lose her virginity. And she was testing the limits of her newly discovered powers of attraction. In the four-and-a-half months since Spitty had left town, she’d somehow managed to reinvent herself as the darling of the Eurotrash crowd, most of whom spoke scant English, which meant that all she had to do was stand there looking sulky and half starved. Except it got a little boring impersonating an actress in a Godard film.

  Especially since she didn’t speak French.

  She dragged her new best friend into the corner for a second opinion.

  “What do I think of Humphrey Fung?” squealed Holly Flake. “Aside from the fact that he’s got the dumbest name on the planet, he’s wearing a skirt, and he’s a humorless poser?” She dragged Phoebe across the porch, stuck her head in Humphrey Fung’s magnificent face. “I think he’s perfect. Oh, hi, Humphrey! Do you know my new best friend?”

  He looked up slowly from behind a mantle of silky black bangs. “What happened to the old one?”

  “What happened to your pants?”

  “What happened to your face?”

  “Well, I’ll let you two get to know each other. . . . Oh, Gerald!”

  “Yo, Flake,” said a doughy-faced giant in a trench coat and matching bowler. “Have you ever seen The Lawnmower Man? I swear the fractal patterns in that movie are designed to induce a narcotic high.”

  “Gerald, you’d probably get high watching Bambi.” Holly disappeared after the party host.

  A few semiexcruciating moments of silence passed between Humphrey and Phoebe before she thought to ask him, “So how do you know Holly?”

  “She donated powder for one of our demos,” he told her.

  “Demolitions?”

  “Demonstrations.”

  Phoebe breathed an inaudible sigh of relief. It was one thing to deactivate from Delta Sigma; it was quite another to fall in love with a terrorist. “So what was the powder for?” she asked him.

  “A few of us dressed up as ashen corpses,” he answered. “You know, black capes, Kabuki makeup. It was a right-to-smoke thing.”

  “I’m sorry I missed it.”

  “Yeah, it was a pretty serious scene out there. We were up against a pretty substantial counterrally—a bunch of vegan assholes complaining about secondhand smoke. They can eat my secondhand shit.” He took a final, furious drag on his cigarette before tossing the butt into the adjacent bushes. “Anyway, my slogan really put them to shame.”

  “What slogan was that?”

  “Keep your hands off our self-destructive impulses,” he said, exhaling in Phoebe’s face.

  “It’s a good slogan,” she said, waving away the mushroom cloud.

  “Yeah, it’s almost a shame I gave up on anarchy. I was a genius at the signage.”

  “So why’d you give it up?”

  “I’m too rule-oriented a person.” He shrugged before withdrawing a hard pack of Parliaments from a zippered compartment down by the waist of his black leather motorcycle jacket.

  “Would you mind if I had one of those?” Phoebe asked him.

  Humphrey extended the pack in her direction. “I wouldn’t have guessed you smoked.”

  “Only at parties,” she lied.

  In fact, she’d only smoked six cigarettes in her entire lifetime, and the first two had been just the week before—at a local bowling alley where she and Holly Flake and two filthyrich foreign students—one from Venezuela, one from Monaco— had passed a leisurely evening gawking at the tattooed forearms of Vietnam vets. Everyone else had been smoking Gauloises blo
ndes. Phoebe hadn’t been able to think of a good reason why she wasn’t too. That’s how she started. And now that she had, she wasn’t interested in stopping. She liked the way smoking made her feel—as light and jumpy and vaguely nauseated as a buoy tossing in the high seas.

  And she wanted to impress her own self-destructive impulses upon Humphrey Fung, who struck a match with one hand and pressed the resulting flame to the tip of her cigarette. But it didn’t take, it wouldn’t take. The flame crept closer and closer to his finger. She didn’t understand what she was doing wrong. She regretted ever asking for a light. His scowl on temporary hold, Humphrey looked like he was about to crack up. “You have to inhale on it,” he told her finally before he ripped the thing out of her mouth, stuck it in his own, lit it, inhaled on it, handed it back to her.

  “Thank you,” she whispered in defeat.

  But she had it backward. She learned that soon after— that her incompetence made Humphrey feel useful. Just as her naïveté fueled his fantasies of having seen and done it all before the age of fifteen, albeit in a backwater college town in central Pennsylvania. A native of Hoover, Humphrey Fung was the son of Jack Fung, distinguished professor of parasitology, and Greta Fung, a yoga instructor at a nearby New Age retreat. He barely tolerated either parent. He found their back-to-nature values abhorrent. His idea of “alternative” had less to do with smiley faces than it did with alienated frowns.

  Beyond the facial expressions, however, he had yet to identify a subculture that met the needs of his own anomie. He’d tried them all—Goth, punk, surf-punk, skinhead, sk8 (skate-boarding), D&D (Dungeons and Dragons), SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism), and just plain “A,” as in Anarchy, his latest incarnation. None of them ever satisfied. All of them felt like costumes—costumes he slipped in and out of with the ease of a beauty-pageant contestant. Maybe his perpetual identity crisis had something to do with his being half Chinese and half Swedish. Maybe his beauty was to blame. Whatever the case, life had been too easy for Humphrey Fung.