“Marsha!” cried Andrea enthusiastically.
“Hello, Marsha,” said Vittoria, “you just saved Andrea from the end of my lecture. Sit down and have something to eat—do you want to try some egg salad?”
“Sure,” said Marsha, eyeing the sandwiches. “Do you have any Diet Cola?”
While Vittoria was at the refrigerator, Marsha looked at her friend. “Aren’t you dressed?” she asked.
“No,” said Andrea, “as you can see. Why?”
“I thought we were going shopping! If we don’t leave soon, we won’t get downtown until it’s too late to have lunch.” She nodded thanks for the drink and three sandwiches that Vittoria set before her.
“So that’s what you were going to do today,” said Vittoria to her daughter.
“I forgot,” said Andrea. “Mother—”
“Yes?” said Vittoria, turning with a knowing smile.
“We’re going into Boston, that is, we thought we would go into Boston, and we’ll probably go to Filene’s—”
“I don’t need a song and dance, Andrea. You know where the charge card is.”
Andrea rose and hugged her mother, then motioned for Marsha to follow her through the house.
“Take the one for Jordan’s too,” Vittoria called after them.
While Andrea took a quick shower, Marsha settled herself on the edge of the toilet, smoked a cigarette, and leafed through an old issue of Vogue. Andrea quickly dressed in jeans, a blue work shirt the tail of which she tied into a large knot just below her breasts, sandals, and a quantity of gold bangle bracelets. She stood before the mirror, examined herself critically, applied a light coat of pale pink lipstick, and then gave her hair a final quick brushing.
“Jesus Christ!” cried Marsha. “Let’s go! You look like you’re preparing to elope with the Crown Prince of Denmark!”
“I know, but I feel funny if I’m not dressed right when I leave the house.”
“Listen, what are you doing tonight?”
“Nothing special. You want to go to a movie?”
“I’ve got something better. You want to go to a party?”
There was a suspicious brightness in Marsha’s eyes that didn’t escape Andrea. “What kind of party?” Andrea asked. “Where is it?”
“It’s a party in Boston.”
“Oh?”
“Joanna’s giving it. Come on, it’s a party on Beacon Hill!”
“My parents won’t like it.”
“They won’t be there,” shrugged Marsha. “And besides, we’ll just tell them that we’re just going over there to help Joanna set everything up, and then we’re going out to a double feature somewhere, and then afterwards we’ll come back to help Joanna clean up, and by then the subways will have stopped running, and we’ll just stay over. I mean, my God, you’re going to be a sophomore at Wenham next year, they ought to give you a little freedom.”
Andrea thought for a few moments and then nodded. “You think I ought to pack an overnight bag?” she asked.
15
“Where did you say you went to school?” he asked. Before she could reply, Andrea was jostled from behind by someone trying to get to the plates of potato chips and pretzels that were set out on Joanna’s kitchen counter.
“Wenham,” said Andrea hesitantly.
“What year?”
“I’ll be a sophomore in the autumn,” she answered, with a haughtiness she had not intended.
The young man’s thick black eyebrows raised above his beautiful black eyes by degrees. “Ummmm . . .” he mused, unimpressed.
Andrea flushed with embarrassment and took a quick sip from the large tumbler of wine she held tightly in both hands. It was her second glass, and she was already woozy. She felt the carefully practiced facade of sophisticated coed slip away entirely.
The young man was handsome, tall and well built, with the body of a dancer, or perhaps a swimmer. When he’d first come in the door—alone, she had been pleased to note—Andrea was taken by his thickly lashed black eyes. From a distance they appeared deep charcoal smudges on his face.
“I’ll be back,” he announced suddenly, turned on his heel, and headed for the far side of the room. Joanna’s flat wasn’t large, but with so many people crowded into it—nearly fifty—he was as effectively separating himself from Andrea as if he had flung himself out the window and bolted away down Mount Vernon Street to the other side of Beacon Hill.
Taking another swallow of wine, Andrea looked about the room for her friend. Marsha wasn’t near the stereo in the corner, which was playing a disco album far too loudly, she wasn’t by the makeshift bar set up in the kitchenette, and she wasn’t waiting in line for the bathroom. And Andrea could not make her out in any of the small groups of loudly talking, loudly laughing guests. Andrea had been disappointed by Joanna’s friends—they were neither outrageous, nor sparkling, nor uniformly gorgeous, nor obviously moneyed, nor doing wonderfully crazy things, nor showing their Beacon Hill sophistication in every gesture they made and every word they spoke. Instead they seemed very much like people in Weston or Yarmouthport, only more grubbily dressed. Andrea had very much looked forward to this party, and for a particular reason. She had hoped to extend the range of her social maneuverability to that stratum of persons 25 to 35. It was all very well—and all very easy—to be popular among young women who were one’s own age, but Andrea had had no experience whatever dealing with persons who were five to ten years older. She had come to Mount Vernon Street with more than half a suspicion that she would carry the party by storm and that all Joanna’s friends would turn to one another and say, “Oh my God! Who is she? And you say she’s only nineteen? Why, she’s like one of us!” It hadn’t happened that way: for some reason the guests had been blind to Andrea’s true worth, and she had suffered along in anonymity until Derek had turned and offered to refill her glass. And she had succeeded only in putting him off.
Andrea wore one of the outfits she had purchased that afternoon shopping with Marsha at Filene’s: three-inch cork wedge sandals, black wide-cuffed cords cinched by a clear plastic belt wrapped twice around her waist, and a plaid, pearl-buttoned western shirt with a solid yoke. None of the other women at the party had dressed with half as much care, and certainly none of them, told herself, could match her for poise and carriage. Yet, as she looked around, she saw another difference between her and the other women at the party—and it was a difference that put her deep into the shade. Andrea was certain that if a poll were taken, she would turn out to be the only bona fide virgin present. The other women might not be long on looks or taste or intellectual attainments, but each had had the sense and the energy to get someone into bed—and that, with all her advantages and all her accomplishments, Andrea had not yet achieved. The women all seemed to belong to a sorority from which she had been blackballed.
Joanna Liberman stood near the large plate glass window that looked out over Mount Vernon Street, in serious conversation with the man whom Marsha described as her sister’s on-again-off-again-great-love-of-her-life. Joanna was in her mid-twenties, slender, but with none of Marsha’s prettiness. Her hair was cut short in an unflattering semipixie that only accentuated the sharpness of her features. Joanna’s makeup was always badly done, too heavy and in shades altogether too bright, or too dark, or too colorful.
Andrea made motions to Joanna: Where’s Marsha? Joanna, not pausing in her conversation, pointed to the open hallway door.
Andrea struggled across the crowded room and squeezed through the doorway into the hall. She found Marsha sitting on the steps that led up to the roof. She was contentedly smoking a Camel and sipping from a can of light beer.
“What’s up?” said Marsha.
“Just wanted to get away.”
“What happened to your friend—what a gorgeous number!” It was an expres
sion that Marsha had never used before, and Andrea suspected that her friend had just overheard it at the party and was trying it out on her now.
“His name’s Derek Something,” sighed Andrea desolately. “He’s really nice, and—”
“Yes?”
“And he asked me if I wanted to go back to his place.”
“Tonight?” Marsha’s eyes went wide, and she put her beer can down on the step beside her.
Andrea nodded. “But then I went and fouled everything up.”
“How?” demanded Marsha.
Andrea thought to say something to place her actions in an irreproachable light, but instead told the truth: “Oh I was just a little bitchy, being stupid.”
“What’d you say?”
Andrea bit her lip. “I got flustered. When he asked me to go home with him, I said: ‘Oh, I bet you say that to all the girls.’ ”
Marsha grimaced. “I would have walked away too.”
“Well that’s just what he did.”
Sadly and thoughtfully, Marsha crushed out the cigarette beneath her sandal. “Did he say he was coming back?”
“Yes, but he was probably just being polite.”
“Go find him,” said Marsha firmly. “Drop to your knees in front of everybody and beg his forgiveness. Do it loudly. Then maybe he’ll be so embarrassed that he’ll drag you out of here.”
“It might work,” said Andrea sarcastically, “. . . but I’m not sure I really want him to. I mean . . . I never went home with a man before.”
“Well,” said Marsha, “it’s just like playing around in a car, except that you’re on a bed, and the windows don’t roll up and down.”
Marsha Liberman was not a virgin, having performed the sex act eleven times. This was a strict accounting, she said, but did by no means include fumblings in her parents’ Winnebago with high-school boys. But all her “down-deep” experience had been with her boyfriend, Joshua, a student at Northeastern. In Andrea’s eyes Marsha was an experienced woman and the only person at Wenham to whom she had confided the secret of her virginity. Most of the young men Andrea had dated in her freshman year at Wenham were upperclassmen from Harvard and MIT. Although certainly good-looking and pleasant enough, these men had not elicited in her the least desire to establish a sexual liaison. It was their very pleasantness, their willingness to bend to her whims, their fear of irritating her sensibilities as a young independent female that made her discourage their tentative advances.
“The question is,” Marsha went on, “do you want to? This is your big chance to lose your virginity. It was probably going to happen this summer anyway—it would’ve happened five years ago if you hadn’t been stuck in a goddamn girls’ school—and if you do it tonight, you won’t have it hanging over you through June, July, and August. And he’s so good-looking, Andrea! He’s probably unhooked a bra or two before in his life. How old is he, anyway?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Probably been out of college for three years,” Marsha shrugged. “I’d do it if I were you.”
“How can you be so casual?”
“Remember your first cigarette? Your first glass of wine? Your first period? My God, Andrea, we’ve all got to do these things, and it’s better to get them over with as soon as possible. Remember: it’s your twentieth birthday that’s coming up. And it’s no big deal. It just happens,” Marsha concluded with authority.
Andrea leaned heavily against the banister and thought for a long moment. She finished the wine that was left in her tumbler. “All right,” she said faintly.
“It’s not like you were going home with the Boston College football team, you know. And be sure and do it with the lights on so you can see what everything looks like.”
“Marsha!” Andrea pushed herself away from the banister. “Wait, though: I’m not on the pill or anything. I’m not protected at all. What do I do about that?” Andrea did not confess to her friend that this was her principal hesitation in the entire matter. Pregnancy was a chance that she really didn’t want to take, as attractive as the prospect was of losing her virginity to so handsome and so much older a man as Derek Whatever-his-name-was.
“Just tell him before you do it,” said Marsha. “Men know how to take care of those things, if they’ve got any sense at all.” She took a sip of her beer, wincing as she swallowed the now warm liquid. “You’re building this all out of proportion, Andrea. Derek’s a man—a real man. Not like most of those anemic Harvard types you usually go out with.”
“What do you mean?” Andrea asked uneasily.
Marsha hiccuped. “I’m sorry, I probably shouldn’t have said that. But I’m glad I did. Listen, Andrea, I don’t know why, but you always manage to pick men you can dominate, but then you don’t really like it. At first I thought you were going out with those wimps because you were afraid of sex and they didn’t pose any threat.”
Andrea stared at Marsha. “I am not afraid of sex,” she said finally.
“So tonight you have the chance to prove it. You’ve just hooked the most gorgeous guy at this whole party.”
“If he ever comes back,” sighed Andrea.
16
Derek lived on St. Botolph Street in Back Bay. As they stood in the recessed and unlighted entrance of his building and Derek was searching through his keys for the one that would open the front door, Andrea was sorry that she had come across town with this man. She thought she would have been much happier remaining the night at Joanna’s flat. She wished that she had simply declined Marsha’s invitation to the party. She decided that she did not really like Derek after all, and that his eyes were probably the only really wonderful thing about him—and those she couldn’t even see now, in the darkness and with his back to her. What if her mother telephoned at Joanna’s place?
Yet to turn away now would be embarrassing and inconvenient, if not impossible. Once their taxi had sped off, there was none other about. It was past one o’clock, and the subway had stopped running.
Derek’s apartment occupied the fourth floor of a very small Victorian townhouse. When they entered, he didn’t bother turning on the lights. After latching the door, he took Andrea’s hand and led her carefully through a maze of sharp-edged furniture and unrecognizable objects on the floor, down a narrow hallway, and finally into a bedroom at the back. An alley lamp filled the room with harsh sodium light. Derek dropped the bamboo shade, but this only fragmented the light into garish stripes across the unmade bed—and the bed itself was no more than a double mattress, not even neatly stacked, laid flat on the floor.
Soft music and candlelight might have dispelled the uninviting starkness of the room. Andrea waited for Derek to light the fat red candle that stood atop the clock-radio on the floor, but he did not even glance in that direction as he began to remove his clothing.
Andrea looked about her. On the wall opposite the bed was a large unframed poster of Tutankhamen’s sarcophagus, the gold coloring shining eerily. There was a painted chest of drawers such as might be found in the room of a very small child, with the bottom drawer missing. In the corner was a five-foot stack of newspapers and, betide it, a scarcely smaller stack of magazines. Andrea realized that she had never before been invited into a room that lacked curtains on the windows or a spread over the bed. Her impulse to flee was stronger than ever, but she said nothing.
How far away I am, she thought. Far away from everything I’ve ever known before.
Andrea wondered if this were the right moment to tell Derek that she “wasn’t prepared.” But how could she bring herself to admit something so coarse to a man she had only just met? That would spoil what little romance there was between them.
Derek stood before her, his shirt open to the navel, exposing in the pale, striated light a muscular chest covered with downy black hair. He lifted her chin with one hand, leaned slightly f
orward, and kissed her hard, his tongue rubbing over her teeth, and then drawing her own tongue within his mouth. His other hand rested heavily upon her shoulder, and then slid in one determined motion down to her breast. He caressed it in a manner that Andrea thought rough, but she was startled when her nipples suddenly grew rigid beneath his touch. Strangest of all, she thought, was that he obviously assumed that she wanted him as much as he wanted her. In the way that he held himself against her, he obviously entertained no notion at all that she might be reluctant, or hesitant, or frightened. Simply in fear that he would think her inexperienced, and with the reflection that the sooner she responded the sooner it would all be done with, Andrea mirrored to Derek all the sexual ardor she felt herself confronted with.
I don’t even know if I like this, she said to herself. I don’t even . . .
But that thought was never completed. The sexual passion that she thought only a moment before she would have to feign, suddenly overwhelmed her, and all her thoughts were buried beneath it. She gave herself all the more ardently to this man because she knew she cared nothing at all about him, gave herself up not to Derek, not to this attractive, older, virile man with the beautiful black eyes, but to the passion that lay within her.
“I wish you had told me you were untried territory,” said Derek sullenly over the edge of the sports section of the Sunday Globe.
The rest of the apartment was no better than the bedroom, Andrea discovered the next morning. More outdated newspapers were in dishevelled piles in corners; pamphlets and magazines had been simply tossed against the baseboards. Andrea sat staring out the window; her view consisted entirely of the foliage of a great linden on St. Botolph Street. She lifted the chipped brown mug of instant coffee to her lips. “What?” she said.
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