Ivy League Stripper

by Heidi Mattson

  The buildings on campus also astonished me. They looked so old and grand. I couldn’t imagine going inside one without being dressed up. The city itself was new to me. I had seen skylines in movies, but here I was, living in one. I already felt more sophisticated.

  My parents and I struggled through the crowded green. My fellow students were a broad mix of exotics; whether from Georgia or Greece, they were new and different to me. I couldn’t wait to meet them. Members of the crew yelled at me from their boat, which they had propped up on the green. I smiled and trudged on with my box of clothes.

  Priority one was finding a job, not joining a club. That was the deal I had agreed to with my parents. They had co-signed my student loans because I was still only seventeen. Regardless, a job wouldn’t matter too much; I would find time for activities, I always had before.

  A Frisbee flew by, a few inches above my head. I stumbled into my mother and we both laughed, clinging to our boxes and balancing off each other.

  The dorm upset my parents. The halls were dirty, the drab walls scuffed, the carpets old and curling up on the edges. My room was worse. The walls had been splattered and dotted with glow-in-the-dark yellow, green, and pink paint.

  What kind of place was this?

  My mom wondered aloud, “You’re paying twenty-two thousand dollars and they couldn’t paint the walls?” Dad was roaming the halls, cheerfully sharing his stories with anyone who would listen.

  I chose one of the two beds (my roommate was still a mystery) and Mom insisted on making it. This struck me as unusual but touching. She worried about me. A lump formed in my throat. I thanked her shyly. She smoothed the daisy print sheets (my favorite) and began to advise me, as nonchalantly as she could, “You’re going to meet kids with things that you don’t have, and some of them won’t have to find a job. Remember, Heidi, you are just as good as they are. You’ll appreciate everything you work for so much more. And be careful, there are people who will take advantage of you.”

  She was right, of course. But by that time I had learned her lessons as well as one can learn from another’s words, and I began to see new things. I met my dormmates — a model from Sweden, a prince’s son from Saudi Arabia, a regular guy from Boston, a newly proclaimed lesbian, chubby Stavros from Greece who could barely speak English, and dozens of others. I was shocked to discover that I was just as interesting to them as they were to me. Most interesting, though, was my roommate. Her name was long and unpronounceable. At her request I called her Khosi. Red tape had eliminated us from the regular matching system, so we were placed together based on our last names having the same first three letters.

  She was Zulu, from Soweto, Johannesburg, and her native language was Swahili, although she had studied proper English — so proper I could hardly understand her. Most foreign to me was the fact she was twenty-seven, ten years older than I. She was married and had a three-year-old daughter. Apartheid in South Africa was the hot sociopolitical concern at the time, so she immediately became an attraction on our side of campus. Just as quickly she became closed-mouthed about the situation back home. The limousine liberals, curious types to me, saddened her.

  Her daughter was being held for some mysterious reason by the South African authorities, pending permission to travel. To make matters worse, her husband was stuck in their hometown and had just been carjacked. The two of us got along fine, although I felt as if I was living with an aunt, an aunt who dressed in her closet and spoke highly charged, emotional Swahili for hours on the phone.

  On my second day of school I declined the invitations of some dormmates and sat alone in the Ratty cafeteria. I had the local paper to look through the want ads. I needed to secure a job beyond my campus work-study, which didn’t bring in more than ninety-six dollars every two weeks. My books alone cost well over four hundred dollars. Two professors had also assigned us to buy Xeroxed packets of material, costing another fifty dollars. I had already filled out job applications at the Xerox shop as well as three other shops, the local cinema, and four restaurants.

  A tall student sat next to me while I scanned the listings. I sensed he was watching me, but, even when he crowded my tray with his, I didn’t dare look at his face until he spoke.

  “Reading the paper? You think the real world is more interesting than school?”

  “I need a job,” I said, looking up politely.

  Wow! He looks like the Marlboro Man.

  “I know a girl who waitresses at the Cafe Brooks. You should ask her.”

  “That could be helpful, I mean, uh, if —”

  ‘Til introduce you to her. My name’s Roger. I’m a junior …”

  Only my second day and I’m already fitting in.

  Most of my new friends didn’t worry about jobs or paying for things. They concerned themselves with partying, studying long hours, and bettering the world — all new concepts to me. They lived in a fantasyland of thinking and learning. It reminded me of Disneyland. To them, my experiences were novel and new. While they could navigate city streets, I could hang out in the woods all day, and while they could philosophize about changing the world and stage demonstrations, I could earn my tuition and apply for loans. The differences didn’t annoy me. I merely observed them and filed it all away. You do what you have to do.

  I accepted a waitress job at Andreas’ Greek Restaurant. It was a half-block from my dorm and the owner, Kosta, was the first person to offer me a job. He instructed me to buy a black leather miniskirt and white shirt. This, combined with one of the restaurant’s red bow ties, would comprise my uniform. I took a bus (my first city bus) to the mall and spent thirty dollars of my summer savings to buy the skirt.

  Although I bought it four sizes too large (I was shy about wearing a mini), I was still attractive enough to the management of Andreas’ to warrant their attentions. Teasing, flirting, and innuendo abounded. This appeared to be standard operating procedure. Many of the women working with me were quite beautiful and receptive to the Greek delights not offered on the menu. Mostly out of ignorance, I didn’t play the game. It wasn’t long before Kosta and his so-called business partners gave up trying to seduce me. But I was kept on.

  I was a good waitress.

  I earned decent tips, mostly due to the fact I worked so hard. I was often assigned the slow sections of the restaurant, but I was scheduled so often that my money couldn’t help but add up. I was working almost full-time. My money worries took the backseat and I became increasingly concerned about my schoolwork.

  I needed to be concerned. One day I nodded off in my political science class. I had stayed up half the previous night in order to skim the pages we were supposed to read. My effort had been for nothing — I missed the entire lecture because I was so tired.

  My work schedule at Andreas’ conflicted with my poli-sci class almost every week. Even if I did the reading and borrowed notes I was still lost when I finally showed up in class. It embarrassed me to be ill prepared. I had resigned myself to the fact that theater and sports were luxuries I couldn’t afford. But classes? Those I could not sacrifice. I would have to work harder.

  Besides time, friendships were limited. While I was thinking jobs, my classmates were planning study groups and beer bashes. I remember returning to the dorm late one night from my waitressing job. Raj, the Saudi prince’s son two doors down the hall, complimented me on my outfit. “That’s so cute, a little waitress outfit.” I didn’t mind the comment, I just wished I had more time to be an Ivy Leaguer and not a waitress.

  I also had a job on campus. For four dollars an hour I loaded paper into the printers at the computer center. Surrounded by dozens of refrigerator-size computers, I lugged pounds and pounds of blank sheets of paper from storage to machine. Out of the machines would spew other people’s work. Faculty reports, theses, research papers, student’s essays. I once collated and stapled the exams for my religious studies course. Twelve hours a week, forty-eight dollars. Every dollar helped.

  Whoever said it would be
easy? Nothing comes free.

  It was nerdy to have a job like this, but it was still one step above food service. I didn’t have to wear a hair net.

  Andreas’ was a hip place, however, filled with pretty people and important-sounding men, either Brown upperclassmen or local businessmen. They talked a lot, but in my mother’s words, “I wasn’t sure they said much.” I was friendly to everyone and easy to get along with. Still, I was the butt of jokes.

  Late October, after one especially humiliating night I considered leaving. I had been assigned to a small section off the bar area. A man was slumped over a table, pushing a pack of matches back and forth across the polished marble.

  “Hello, may I take your order?” I asked.

  Taking his time, he raised his head and looked up at me. One of his eyes was completely missing its pupil and was glazed over with an iridescent whiteness.

  Professionally, calmly, I asked again, “May I take your order, sir?”

  He slowly responded, “Oga la shoocha.” He stared at me expectantly with his good eye.

  “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t understand. Can you repeat that, please?”

  He became angry. Yelling at me unintelligibly, he jumped up from the table and lunged at me.

  Backing away, I let out a gasp and quickly looked to the waitress station for support. Two waitresses, one of them my manager that shift, and the bartender were there — watching the entire scene. They didn’t even bother to disguise their pleasure.

  Dumbfounded, I looked back at my customer. He was laughing, too.

  I decided to quit — but only when I found another job.

  2

  Where There’s a Will …

  Fortune assists the bold.

  — Virgil

  I marched into the Avon, an artsy movie theater next to the campus, and a few doors up the street from Andreas’. I knew I couldn’t leave the restaurant unless I had another job. I didn’t have a choice — I had to be confident. It was nearly December, and I didn’t want to have to put up with Kosta and his crew anymore.

  The theater owner happened to be in the lobby when I asked for an application. He wore a dark suit, well pressed and perfectly tailored to his tall and thick frame. His dark hair was full but slicked smooth, away from his unlined rosy face. He had a cherub’s mouth, smiling eyes, and a politician’s handshake. I liked him right away, although I wasn’t sure why. He was a vaguely sinister but seductively charming Italian. He boomed an introduction at me. “Pauly Bertolucci! Nice to meet you! What can I do for you?”

  “I’d like to work for you.” I almost began babbling about my situation, but refrained, mentally standing my ground.

  “And why would I want to hire you?” he asked, half-challenging, half-teasing.

  I didn’t hesitate. “Because I want to work — and you’ll like me.”

  I was hired.

  I sold the tickets, cleaned out the popcorn machine, learned how to make the pseudo-butter topping, and at the end of the night inventoried the candy bars and did the books. The Avon brought in steady money and I was learning about accounting, but it was a cut in pay. My financial worries increased. Granted, the work was enjoyable and Pauly was a fair-minded, supportive boss. But that wasn’t the point. I needed money.

  I considered applying for more hours through the university, although at four dollars an hour I knew I could make more at almost any other job. Next semester I needed twenty-five hundred dollars for tuition and about five hundred for books. Besides that, I was taking every loan I could qualify for. Work-study and the Avon Theater — even waitressing — didn’t make up the slack.

  Brown University wouldn’t let a bright young student on scholarship fall through the financial cracks, would they?

  My parents were daunted by all this; I was alone with the problem.

  Money was the problem. My classes were the problem. One or the other would have been fine. Together they were too much. Maybe I should go into debt for more than ten thousand? But I didn’t qualify for more loans. Brown was saying I should be fine with what I received. They calculated a certain amount from me, a certain contribution from my parents. Both amounts were inaccurate. My parents didn’t have the cash Brown thought they had. Nor did I. All my savings were going into Brown and it still wasn’t enough. My parents? They didn’t have any savings.

  I can survive the Ivy League experience, but can I pay for it?

  I liked my classes, although they were challenging. My advisor, Ted Sizer, had published books on his educational philosophy. He urged me to experiment: “Expand your horizons, Heidi. Take courses you know nothing about.” So I did. I registered for religious studies and ethics, political science, and semiotics. My fourth course, creative writing, was less foreign than the first three, but the instructor made it exotic and often unintelligible. He was a visiting graduate student from Bangladesh who could barely speak English.

  He was the friendliest of my professors; in fact, he came across more as a fellow student than as an authority figure. His class was the least demanding. One day he struggled for a good ten minutes discussing comma placement with a Japanese student. While their clumsy conversation dragged on I contemplated what I was buying here at Brown. At $22,000 a year divided by eight courses, each course cost me $2,750. At that rate, each class meeting, on average, was worth $125. Every time I missed a class, or wasted it by not being prepared, I was throwing away one hundred and twenty-five dollars! Even figuring that my scholarship covered a third of my bill (this year), my actual cost out of pocket was still huge.

  I decided then and there: I would have to find the best teachers, take the best classes, and always do my absolute best with my time.

  I also decided that I couldn’t afford to let work interfere with my education. I knew this was a catch-22, but I pushed that thought away. I was a Brown student. There was nowhere else I wanted to be and nowhere else I belonged. I would make this work.

  Financially I stuck out, but otherwise I was excited by Brown. My earlier trepidation was uncalled for. The atmosphere was always stimulating: men and women vocally coming out of the homosexual closet, visiting dignitaries and lecturers, sporting contests almost every day, a daily newspaper that lifted campus life to the level of vital news, fraternities and sororities hosting events, and causes, causes, causes, from violence against women to garbage on the green.

  The widely touted diversity of Brown was helpful. I was just as different as anyone, but I was unsophisticated. There were others like me, I’m sure — I saw awkward girls on campus. My nerdiness would have been OK, but I didn’t have the luxury to develop myself socially the way other students could. I was successful at making friends, but I didn’t have the spare time to spend with them and grow closer. Heather and Greg ran every afternoon; I wanted to join them, but I always had to study or work. Nor could I while the evenings away in the dorm studying, talking, playing, or watching the new and hip “Late Night with David Letterman.” I was responsible for my education. An adult.

  I accepted this. I had hoped to be more involved in drama and sports, but I quickly learned not to expect anything different. I refused to be disappointed, although I sometimes felt like an outsider at a very expensive Disneyland. I feared that my reality was far different than their reality. I wondered how Brown would become a place where I belonged. I had no doubt it would. They had accepted me, after all.

  To my delight I was invited to a frat party late that semester. The invitation read: “Semi-Formal, Christmas Party with the Men of Phi Delta.” I wondered who had directed the invite to me. I certainly wasn’t the most sociable of freshmen. Excited, I dressed in my coolest skirt and sweater, tights, and some boots from home (it was cold out). I walked across campus alone, expecting to run into familiar faces and thinking what fun I would have.

  My happy thoughts vanished the minute I entered the house. There were a dozen or so brothers in suits standing about a large, spare living room. Quiet conversation and drinks were being shared. No
one smiled or said hello. I figured whoever invited me would soon find me. A fancy old rug covered the wood floor and beveled glass topped a wall-size fireplace. I forced myself to step into the room. (I refused to be intimidated by my own fear.) I felt immensely inelegant in my boots and cotton skirt. I had to fight the urge to fidget. My insecurity grew when I saw a girl I recognized from my political science class. She was sleek and tall in her black outfit and heels. She didn’t acknowledge my smile.

  I leaned against the fireplace and looked out the window onto the quad. Other students were arriving, some more casually dressed. I was encouraged. Abruptly, a voice asked, “Are you a freshman?”