by Rand, Naomi;
Lucy nodded, gratefully.
“That’s what I thought, too,” she agreed. Then stripped off her clothes, grabbed a towel, and headed for the relative safety of the shower.
“WHAT’S COOKING, SAM I am?” Dusty inquired later that afternoon. He sat on a couch in the shabby waiting area of her dorm, one leg casually crossed over the other knee. He was decked out in a camelhair coat and a natty blue and red striped scarf. His feet were shod in Docksiders. Sam detested those shoes and the men who wore them. To her, they were a signifier of social status, indicating the wearer’s affection for sailing and university clubs. In the interests of full disclosure, this meant that she hated a piece of herself. Grandmother Katherine owned a compound in Bar Harbor with its own private beach and two boathouses filled with a mini flotilla of yar sloops, ketches, and dinghies.
Dusty’s leather briefcase perched on the worn-out couch next to him. He looked a completely solid citizen, staid, upstanding, and impeccable. One would never have guessed he liked snorting coke. What Win did for work, he did for fun. One day Dusty might boast about his youthful indiscretions. Will I remember, Sam wondered, or will I conveniently forget that I ever strayed from the straight and narrow? No self-respecting doctor could spend her nights getting high and blaring punk music. They were both going to have give up on being rebellious. Even in the mildest way. Sam saw herself in hospital whites, a stethoscope hanging from her neck, patrolling the halls of Brooklyn Methodist. The vision was real and really unnerving.
“What’s wrong?” Dusty asked, reflexively wiping his mouth to dislodge what he assumed was a stray piece of food. She had been staring at him that fixedly.
“Nothing,” she said, rushing up the stairs.
FOR A WHILE there was no more Sam and Lucy. Sam made friends with three other girls on her hall. They got stoned together when their class-work was done. Without Lucy, she had more time for her own work. She caught up on Jude in all his obscurity and aced her Bio and Chem midterms. When she asked Professor Hartley, her Chemistry professor, if he would nominate her for the Earhart award, he said, “Miss Barry, you didn’t have to ask me. It’s done.”
Sam told herself that those fruit flies were ancient history. After all, no one was entirely honest or morally upright. And the answers were available to anyone who looked up Mendel’s law. Sam knew she’d hidden her mistake so artfully it would never be caught. Yet, every day she saw Kim in the library. She knew the truth and it tortured her. Finally, she stopped Professor Grayson in the hall and said, “Can I see you in your office?” There, she blurted out, “I have something to confess.”
After it was done with, she felt immeasurably lighter. Her heart had been pounding as she recounted the whole sorry, ridiculous incident. Then Sam realized Professor Grayson was trying not to smile. “You’ve come clean,” her professor said, “Good for you.”
“I know I don’t deserve the grade I got.”
“I agree. I’ll mark you down. I trust you’ve learned your lesson.”
“I so have.”
“Well then, you’ll be the first.” That was it. She was dismissed.
Sam knew her chances to win the scholarship were blown. She felt relief, then despair. And there was no Lucy to tell. On the other hand, she wondered if Lucy wouldn’t have tried to talk her out of confessing in the first place. Lucy saw the endgame much more clearly than she did. Sam felt a little idiotic for being so scrupulously honest after the fact. How did she expect to get ahead in life if she wasn’t willing to cut some corners?
After their next class, Professor Grayson said she’d decided to mark Sam down two grades but if she did two further experiments outside of the coursework and followed the directions to the letter, making sure to write her results up clearly and completely, she would get extra credit.
“Yes, oh yes.” And there it was, a second chance.
BY DECEMBER SHE was back on track.
Sam was running one of the extra credit experiments. Her test subjects were white lab rats. There were two groups; one was being fed protein rich food, the other no protein at all. It meant that one group of rats would live, while the other would waste away and die. The animals had been bred for this purpose. Sam didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, but she did feel terrible watching the poor animals weaken. It was odd because more than half a century before, Amelia Earhart had done the same stupid experiment. Back then it had meant something, though. Now, they knew the results. Sam had read how Earhart had made the mistake of naming her rats after Santa’s reindeers. Sam took her charges out of their cages and held them in her lap. They shivered, but submitted. She told herself there was no room for sentiment, that they weren’t pets. If she couldn’t stand lab rats dying, how was she going to manage the rest of it?
But it seemed so unnecessary.
Sam found Professor Grayson in her office.
“I want to thank you so much for giving me the chance to make things right,” Sam began.
“No need. You’re not the first student I’ve had who’s cheated. But you’re one of the few to confess.” Professor Grayson was bent over the stack of papers. Sam waited until she looked up. “Is there something else?”
“I don’t understand. Why let the rats die when we already know the result?”
Professor Grayson sighed. “Because, Ms. Barry, as a scientist you must learn to follow the protocol.”
“I just . . . I don’t see the point. It seems cruel.”
“Life is cruel.” Professor Grayson clucked her tongue. “Have I made a mistake with you? I gave you a second chance because you’re exceptionally good at this. Or so I thought.”
“I know, it’s just that . . .”
“I see that you have philosophical questions about this. That’s commendable. However, if you wish to become a doctor, which you claim you do, you’ll certainly have to learn to cope with the death of a few lab animals.”
Sam nodded.
“Good. One further word of advice for you. Accept that you will not be able to save everyone.”
It was true. She understood as much. Sam found little comfort in her English class. After Jude came Tess. Fate ground poor Tess down. She was doomed, just as Jude had been. The novel was bleak and depressing. Sam searched for a suitably grim musical accompaniment. What befits a wounded heroine most? She set Mother Earth, a bargain basement find, on the turntable. Tracy Nelson belted out Down So Low. “When you went away, I cried for so long. I wanted you to stay, but that was all wrong. The pain you left behind has become part of me and it’s burned out a hole where my love used to be.” Sam wailed away with Tracy. Then she spun Marianne Faithful, who was tearing her cheating lover another one. Wondering why he did what he did to her.
The world was a cold, cruel place and apparently she was going to play her part in it. Where was Michael when you needed him. But she knew where he was, safe in the arms of his real girlfriend.
The door opened and in walked Lucy, who flopped onto Sam’s bed.
“Busy?”
“Swamped.”
“What with?” Lucy asked.
“Work.”
“I can see that,” Lucy said, raising an elegant eyebrow.
“What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing.”
There was evidently something. “Tell me,” Sam said.
“Dusty insists I come to dinner and meet his parents tomorrow night.”
“Out or in?” Sam asked.
“Out. The Tavern on the Green. Please come with me.”
“I don’t think so. I know them already and they make me really nervous.”
“Think of how I feel,” Lucy said.
“Just tell him you don’t want to go.”
“I tried that. He got really upset. He said to understand him I had to meet his parents. The thing is, I need him to slow down a little.” Lucy’s nostrils flared the way an animal’s did, when it scented danger. “He’s kind of freaking me out. You know him so much better than I do.”
“As a friend, not as a boyfriend.”
“I know he’ll hate me if I refuse to go,” Lucy said. “I can’t bear thinking of that.”
“Dusty won’t hate you.”
Where had the other Lucy disappeared to, the one who brimmed with confidence? Lucy had said she acted differently without Sam. Here was the proof. The window was open a crack to counteract the potent steam heat. A bowl of water sat on top of the radiator to keep the air moist and their skins daisy fresh. Their curtain sheets flapped in the breeze.
“He says he loves me,” Lucy confessed. “But how can he love me? He doesn’t know me.”
“Maybe he doesn’t mean it as seriously as you’re taking it,” Sam tried. “Dusty’s had lots of girlfriends.”
“I know. He’s told me about them.”
“And?”
“He said he was always careful. He never said he loved one of them. Not even the one in high school he was with for two years.”
“You mean Natalie? Really?”
“He wants me to say it back to him,” Lucy told her. “But I can’t.”
“Tell him you can’t say it, then. Tell him the truth.”
“It’s not that easy for me, telling the truth,” Lucy said. She looked absolutely miserable.
Above Lucy’s bed were remnants of the super-sticky tape used to hang up posters. The posters themselves had slumped and fallen off. Only one remained, Klimt’s The Kiss. It showed a man and woman’s intertwined bodies built out of specks of gilt and dabs of color. It was a taunt, considering their mutual situations. Sam’s nonexistent, a fantasy that had succumbed to the reality of an awkward one-night stand, and now Lucy’s dance with Dusty. Sam realized that Lucy was clueless in her own way. In fact, they were both naïve when it came to dealing with what was expected of them, lost in the same, treacherous woods.
“You don’t want to break up with him,” Sam said. “On the other hand, you don’t want to start pledging your troth.”
“I guess that’s pretty much it.”
“How many guys have you broken up with?”
Lucy counted back on her fingers and reached the end of both hands, then kept on going.
“Eleven, I think, no actually, twelve. Does elementary school count?”
“If you want it to.” Sam was impressed, and a little unnerved. “Why did you break up with them?”
“They did something to upset me, I guess. But look, I don’t want to do that to Dusty. I mean, he’s nice and besides, well, you’re friends with him.”
“This isn’t about me.”
“I know,” Lucy admitted. “I guess I like him in a different way. It’s just that I don’t know how to get him to stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop pushing,” Lucy said. “How do you get him to listen to you. I mean, really listen.”
Sam smiled. “It’s not the easiest thing,” she admitted.
“So what’s the secret exactly?”
“What happened with the others?” Sam asked, avoiding the question for the moment.
“It’s like a switch gets turned and everything after that is wrong,” Lucy said. “Of course, once they sense I’m pulling away, the guys get frantic. The simplest thing would be to change my name and go into a witness protection program. Instead, I have to see them in the halls at school, or in town. I end up dosing out humiliation and then I hate myself for doing it. Yet, this is who I am. I try to act like a nice girl and in the end I always have to act like a bitch.”
“Just say no to him,” Sam said firmly. The last thing she wanted was the blowback from Lucy breaking up this way with Dusty. Why had she ever taken her to Thanksgiving? Why hadn’t she forced her to leave when they had the chance? This is what comes of having friends date each other, Sam thought.
“I’ve tried that.” Lucy had an odd look on her face.
“What?” Sam asked. It clearly wasn’t just advice that she wanted.
“Dusty invited us to Puerto Rico.”
“Us? Us, as in you and me? You said no on that one. Tell me you did. Luce, come on! I can’t go on a trip with the two of you.”
“I know.” But she was giving Sam a pleading look. “It would be a vacation, though. I mean, it’s nice down there, right?”
“What do you need me for?” Sam asked. But she knew. Lucy had basically said as much to her, Sam would support her, Sam would show her how to fix things with Dusty, Sam would help her be strong, thereby saving her from acting like her worst version of herself. And, by doing that, she would also be helping Dusty. “Shit,” Sam muttered under her breath.
Just then, there was a pounding on the door. Kim yelled out, “Sam! Lucy! You have to get out.”
“A fire!” Lucy said, grabbing Sam’s hand.
But there was no fire. It was an unnatural disaster. Some lunatic with a gun had murdered John Lennon. He’d been shot dead in the street in front of his apartment.
“Why?” Sam asked aloud. As if there were ever a reason.
The TV in the common room played clips of the Beatle who was more famous than Jesus, then a video from his new album. In the video, John ambled through Central Park. They cut to the crowd of fans gathered outside the Dakota.
“My mom was so into Paul,” one of the coeds exclaimed.
“Which one’s Paul?”
“He’s the one with the baby face. You know, the cute one.”
Brooke swore she’d met the Beatles. Sam didn’t believe her. There was no photographic evidence on the wall of shame. Brooke claimed a lot of things that weren’t even close to true. Still, when Sam was little, Brooke played every Beatle album in order and interpreted the songs for her, “This one’s about John’s aunt,” she’d say. “And this one is about tripping.”
“Why would someone sing about tripping? That’s just silly. It’s an accident. All you do is fall down and get up again.”
Brooke started laughing and couldn’t stop. “You are so cute.”
She was a kid. Kids are cute. They don’t know about acid. Or grass. Or hash. Or coke. Or how disappointment can become habitual. How it can turn into a lifestyle choice.
Sam learned all that later.
As did Win. Oh God, Win! He’d be crushed. Win was a total Beatles fanatic. He bought two of every album. One was in the original sealed cellophane wrapping, the other was meant for personal use. When Win listened to their music, he was the sternest apostle. “Quiet,” he’d order Sam if she snuck into his room. The records he spun were treated with consummate care. Win used a special soft cloth to clean them. He held the vinyl cautiously, thumb on the edge, middle finger supporting the disc. That way no fingerprints marred the pristine surface.
He was devoted, but so were millions upon millions of others. John had been the best sort of God. He’d wanted those who believed in him to be happy. Listening to that music, they were.
Sam had the urge to go find Win and try to comfort him. But she knew him too well. He’d shrug her off, shrug her sympathy away. She was his little sister, what could she do for him? The one thing Win had left was his pride.
Tears welled up. Sam tamped them down. She wasn’t going to cry in front of these girls who were asking stupid questions and making ridiculous comments. Sam remembered her own John Lennon sighting. She was on her favorite Central Park bench when he walked by holding his young son’s hand. She was with her friends. They all did that New York thing, feigning disinterest. It was how you were raised, to pretend famous people were the same as anyone else. It was considerate, but more to the point, no self respecting New Yorker would squeal or shriek or demand an autograph like a rube. That just wasn’t cool.
In the common room, plenty of New York City girls crowded round the TV.
“It must hurt like hell to get shot.”
“Who shoots a musician anyway? That’s just weird.”
“Who shoots a Beatle? I mean, if it was someone really famous. Like Clint Eastwood, or Charles Bronson.”
“You can’t shoot
Clint Eastwood. He’d get you first. He’s Dirty Harry.”
Did that girl actually laugh? How was this, in any way, funny?
Sam wanted to smack her. These were supposedly the cream of the crop, top of the Seven Sisters pyramid. She backed out, Lucy at her heels, her own face ashen.
“We should go down there,” Lucy said.
It was past one a.m. They crossed the deserted campus in the rain. The number 104 bus ran erratically after midnight. When it finally pulled up and the doors heaved open, the other passengers were dressed for work. Lucy and Sam took the worst seat, the one over the motor at the very back. The bus cruised past Salter’s Bookstore and the Mill Luncheonette. It dipped down the hill at Ninety-Sixth Street, then climbed back up. Out the window, Sam watched as the Thalia, the New Yorker, and Blimpies rolled by. In Blimpies, once, Sam had ordered a sub. It arrived with stringy lettuce, watery tomatoes and slivers of processed meat. That thing was truly inedible. Why would anyone bother with that when they could walk a block west to Barney Greengrass and eat an overstuffed corned beef on rye, or take a ride downtown to Manganaro’s for a real hero with all the fixings? New York was amazing, the people who lived here eccentric and magnificent and gruff, but kind in totally surprising ways. It was the city that never slept, a place where ingenuity mattered, where being unique was seen as a positive. John Lennon had chosen to live here. He’d loved living here. Why was this his reward?
At Seventy-Second Street, Sam and Lucy merged with a steady stream of people heading for the Dakota. A light rain fell. The reflections from the streetlights gave the wet cement an opalescent sheen. No one spoke. They were numbed to the core.
It was horrible, ghoulish, yet Sam was glad they’d come. Staying in that dorm and watching it unfold, while listening to those stupid comments from those girls, that had been unbearable. At least here everyone was united in shock, pulled along by the tractor beam of fame and senseless death. Ahead of them, an older couple held onto each other. The woman turned, and Sam saw her eyes were puffy from crying. She blinked hard, like a bird after slamming headfirst into a pane of glass.
Stunned.
