There were speakers in the windows of our room, Dede’s speakers; her parents had sent her a stereo the second week of school. (Dede’s mother also sent her care packages with cashmere sweaters and French chocolate that came in a box where each piece, shaped like a shell or a medallion, had its own correspondingly shaped nest; Dede gave the chocolate to Sin‑Jun and me because she was always on a diet. As for the care packages from my own mother, I’d learned to wait until I got back to the dorm to open them. Once she had sent three shiny pink cartons of maxi pads, accompanied by a note that said, in its entirety, Kroger was having a sale. Miss you. Love, Mom. ) When I got inside, Sin‑Jun wasn’t there, and Dede was in her industrious mode, hurrying between the bathroom and our room‑filling her water bottle, stuffing her backpack, yelling to Aspeth. From the threshold of our room, she called down the hall, “Is Cross going?” Aspeth said something I couldn’t hear, and Dede sighed and called, “Why not?” Aspeth did not respond. After several seconds, Dede said, “Cross has been so moody lately,” and based on the lowered volume of her voice, it seemed she was speaking to me. “Going out with Sophie is bringing him down,” she added.
Cross Sugarman was the tallest, coolest guy in our class, a white guy who was an even better basketball player than Darden Pittard. Though Cross was a freshman, he was dating a junior named Sophie, which I knew because I’d read it in Low Notes. Low Notes ran in The Ault Voice, the school paper; they were festively mean‑spirited comments about new couples, ex‑couples, and people who had recently hooked up, all written in a veiled way to escape faculty comprehension. There would be people’s initials, and then a pun on their names‑for Cross and Sophie, it had been, “S.T. and C.S.: It feels SO good to Cross the grade divide.” The fact that Cross had a girlfriend had, apparently, not prevented Dede from developing an enormous crush on him, which struck me as both predictable and pathetic‑of course Dede would fixate on the most popular guy in the class. Liking him was like saying the Grateful Dead was your favorite band, or saying chapel was boring, or the dining hall food was gross. But I knew that Dede had no chance with Cross. Yes, she was rich, but she was also Jewish, and, with a big nose and the last name Schwartz, she wasn’t the kind of Jewish you could hide. She took care of herself, her legs were always freshly shaven, her hair always smelled good, but she simply wasn’t that pretty.
Once in the mail room I’d seen Dede and Cross Sugarman and a few other people standing together. Dede had been shrieking with laughter, looking up at Cross and pulling on his arm with both her hands, and the expression on his face had been one of such mildness, such utter detachment, that I’d actually felt a pang for Dede.
“If Cross thought Sophie was bringing him down, he probably wouldn’t be going out with her,” I said.
“He’s almost broken up with her like five times,” Dede said. “The main reason he’s dating her is because she’s a junior.”
I laughed. “That makes Cross sound kind of lame.” To utter such a statement felt pleasingly blasphemous.
“You don’t know him the way I do.”
“I didn’t claim to. I’ve never even talked to him.”
“Exactly.” Dede was standing before the mirror above her bureau. She applied lip gloss and rubbed her upper and lower lips together while looking at her reflection with wide, serious eyes. “He’s trapped in an unhealthy relationship,” she said. “He doesn’t like her that much, but he feels obligated to her.”
“Maybe you should go for someone without a girlfriend.”
“Oh, I don’t like Cross. We’re just good friends.” Dede turned from the mirror. “You’re not going to Boston, are you?”
“No.”
“I am.”
“I can tell.”
“Aspeth and I are going shopping on Newbury Street. And we’re having lunch at this Thai restaurant that’s supposed to be super‑cool. Don’t you love Thai food?”
I had never had Thai food before, which Dede probably could have guessed.
“Like Pad Thai,” she said. “Yum, that’s my favorite. Have you seen my tortoiseshell headband?”
“No.”
“You’re not hanging out here all day, are you, Lee?” she said. “You should do something fun. Surprise holiday only happens once a year.”
“Of course I’m not staying here,” I said.
“You’re going to the mall?”
Without thinking, I nodded.
“It’s kind of a trashy mall,” she said. “Remember that time Aspeth and I took a taxi there? It was a waste of time. The shopping is much better in Boston. Oh, but you’re probably going to the movies, huh?”
I nodded again.
“What movie are you seeing?”
I hesitated. “Actually,” I said. “Actually, the reason I’m going to the mall is that‑well, I’m getting my ears pierced.” As I said it, I felt blood rush to my face. I had never considered getting my ears pierced; I wasn’t even sure my parents would allow it.
“Oh, Lee! That’s great. That’ll look so good. And you’ll wear dangly earrings, right? Not just studs?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“This is going to be such an improvement.”
It occurred to me to take offense, but it was clear that Dede was only trying to be supportive. There was something guileless about her‑all her unpleasantness was close to the surface, like the earth’s crust; once you got below it, she was strangely innocent.
Dede was right; the mall was kind of trashy. The lighting was bright white, and the floor was made of shiny, fake‑looking orange bricks. Several of the spaces where stores had once been had chrome grates pulled over them; behind the grates, they were dark, and vacant except for a few boxes or a lone office chair. I walked past a store selling clothes for plus‑sized women, a music store, and then a string of restaurants: a sub shop, a pizza place, a diner with lit‑up panels of glistening hamburgers. I kept seeing other Ault students in groups of two or three. After the bus had let us off‑it hadn’t been full, and no one had taken the seat next to mine‑I’d hoped that I would be able to blend into a crowd of strangers, but the mall was almost empty. I told myself that the other students were probably going to the movies, which would start in less than an hour, and then I could wander around in peace. First I had to get my ears pierced.
The mall didn’t have the kind of girlish store that sells barrettes and cheap jewelry. My only option seemed to be the male counterpart to such a store‑a place with a motorcycle in the window that had flames running up the back panels, and lots of leather clothing.
A guy in his late thirties, with a long ponytail and a denim jacket with the sleeves cut off, stood behind the counter. “Help you, miss?” he said.
“I’m just looking.” I needed a couple minutes, I thought. I walked to a rack of leather jackets and touched the shoulders. The jackets were very soft and had that deep, bitter smell.
“Help you?” the guy said, and I turned. But this time he was talking to Cross Sugarman, who stood in the entrance of the store looking around. As I turned back toward the jackets, I couldn’t keep from smirking. Cross’s presence didn’t matter to me; what was gratifying was that his absence would matter to Dede. Then I remembered how warmly Dede had acted when I’d told her I was getting my ears pierced, and I wondered if I should feel guilty for being spiteful.
I approached the counter. “I want to get my ears pierced.” I paused. “Please.”
“Piercing’s free,” the man said. “Earrings run from six ninety‑nine up.”
He unlocked a door to the counter, pulled out a velvet tray of earrings, and slid it toward me. There were moons and crosses and skeleton heads, all in both silver and gold. I felt a twinge of loneliness; getting your ears pierced was an activity to do with another girl, with a friend, so she could help you choose. I pointed to a pair of silver balls, the plainest pair I saw.
“Sit there.” The man nodded his chin toward a stool on the outside of the counter. He came around, and I saw the p
iercing gun, a white plastic square‑edged object that was mostly featureless, with a silver rod that would jump forward, through my ear.
“Do you ever miss?” I asked. I laughed, and my laugh came out high and nervous.
“No,” the man said.
“Does it hurt?”
“No.” He set the gun against my right earlobe.
I thought that if I had a friend, even if it were only Dede, I would squeeze her fingers. I felt a pinching sensation, and then a burn. “Ouch,” I said.
The man chuckled.
I wanted to stand and run from him. But if I ran, I’d have only one ear pierced. The idea that I was trapped made it difficult to breathe. I could feel the gun touching my left earlobe, the man’s fingers in my hair. He pulled back on the trigger, and I shuddered, my shoulders jerking up.
“What the hell!” The man curled his body around so we could see each other’s faces and glared down at me. “You want this done or not?”
“Sorry.” As I looked at him, the composition of his face began to dissolve. A glowing, pulsating greenish spot‑like when you look at a lightbulb and then look away‑covered the tip of his nose and part of one cheek. A wave broke in my stomach. “Oh my God,” I said softly.
He moved out of my line of vision and pressed the gun to my earlobe again. The green spot remained in the air where his face had been; it expanded outward, seething. I closed my eyes.
Afterward, I could hear, but I couldn’t see anything. I felt as if I were lying beside a railroad track and the wheels of a train were spinning next to my ears. The whole world was skidding past, everything that had ever happened flipping in circles, and I was responsible. “You know her?” said a gravelly voice, and another voice said, “I don’t know her name, but she’s in my class.”
“She on something?” said the gravelly voice. “What’s she on? Why aren’t you two in school?”
“We have the day off. Do you have a washcloth?”
“Sink’s in back.”
“If you get it, I’ll stay with her.”
I felt the wetness against my forehead before I felt my own body. Then I could see them, but I was being pulled between the spinning green world and the static world of their faces in front of me. “She’s coming out of it,” said the second voice. “Hey. Hey. What’s your name?”
I blinked. I tried to say Lee, but the noise that came out was more of a prolonged croak.
“You fainted.” It was Cross Sugarman‑he was the person talking to me. “Are you diabetic?”
I couldn’t answer.
He turned and said to the ponytailed man, the one with the gravelly voice, “Do you have any candy or soda?”
“This ain’t a 7‑Eleven.”
“Yeah, I realize that.” Cross looked back at me. “Are you diabetic?”
I swallowed. “No.”
“Do you want us to call an ambulance?”
“No.”
“Have you ever fainted before?”
“I don’t know.” My words emerged slowly. The spinning green world was gone entirely. I felt exhausted.
“What’s your name?”
“Lee.”
“And you go to Ault, right?”
I nodded.
“Me, too,” he said. “My name is Cross.”
It struck me, even at that moment, as modest of him to introduce himself. Of course I knew his name.
I tried to sit up‑I’d been lying on the floor‑and Cross leaned over and stuck his hands beneath my armpits.
“Easy,” he said. He turned to the man. “You don’t have any soda?”
“Restaurants are that way.” The guy jerked his head toward the entrance of the store.
When I was upright, Cross peered at my face. “What day is it?” he said.
“Surprise holiday,” I said.
He smiled. “Go like this.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. When I mimicked the gesture, a string of saliva clung to my knuckles. “We’ll find you something to eat,” he said.
We walked slowly toward the entrance of the store.
“Wait,” I said. “I didn’t pay.”
“I wouldn’t sweat it.”
When we had stepped back into the bright humming light of the mall, he said, “Man, what a prick.” After about a minute, he nudged me. “Here.”
We turned into the diner, and a waitress led us to a booth where we sat facing each other. The reality of Cross before me was jarring: his tallness, his pale skin and cropped brown hair, his blue eyes, which seemed to contain both intelligence and boredom. I would not have imagined that Dede and I had similar taste, but Cross Sugarman was the best‑looking boy I had ever sat so close to. And this fact was both thrilling and mortifying. It was as if I had, as in a dream, plucked him from his own world, the world of lacrosse games and sailboats and girls with long blond hair wearing sundresses, and pulled him into mine: a grimy restaurant in a depressed mall, on a rainy day. “Sorry,” I said. “For‑I mean‑I don’t know‑”
“It’s no big deal.”
“But you’re being so nice to me.”
He looked away and made a kind of grumbling sigh, and I knew immediately that I had said the wrong thing.
When he looked back, he said, “This has or hasn’t happened to you before?”
“Once it did, a few years ago. After a soccer game when I was in sixth grade.”
“My sister faints,” he said.
The idea of Cross having a sister was intriguing. I wondered if she thought he was cute, or if she felt lucky to live in the same house he did.
“She fainted on a plane coming back from California. The flight attendants asked if she wanted the pilot to land the plane, but she told them no. I thought she should have told them yes.”
“Yikes,” I said. There was something in the mildness of Cross’s tone and expressions that made me unsure how to react to the things he said. Normally, you could tell just by observing people when you were supposed to nod, or laugh, or frown in sympathy. But Cross’s expressions were all so muted that I’d have thought he was hardly paying attention to what we were talking about. It was his eyes that made me know this wasn’t true‑they were watchful, but not the way I imagined my own were; his was a disinterested, unself‑conscious watchfulness.
The waitress appeared, and Cross ordered a vanilla milkshake. I opened the menu, and the quantity of words was overwhelming. I closed it. “I’ll have a vanilla milkshake, too,” I said. After the waitress left, I said, “I wonder if it’s bad for me to have dairy right now.”
Cross shrugged. “You’ll be okay.” There was something in his shrug I envied‑an ability to prevent misfortune by choosing not to anticipate it.
I looked down at the table and then back at him. “You don’t have to stay here,” I said. “You probably were planning to go to a movie, right? And I’ll be fine. Not that I don’t appreciate‑” The only thing I could think of to say was you taking care of me, and that seemed even worse than you’re being so nice to me. Lamely, I said, “But you really can go.”
“What about my shake?”
“Oh, I can pay for it. Especially after you helped me.”
“What if I want my shake?”
“Well, you can stay if you want to. I’m not telling you to leave. I just thought‑”
“Relax,” he said. Then he said, “Lee.”
In this moment, I understood for the first time in my life what it was to feel attracted to someone. Not to think they were funny or to enjoy their company, or even to find one thing about them cute, like their dimples, or their hands, but to feel that physical pull toward them. I just wanted to close my eyes and have my body against Cross’s.
“Are you a freshman?” Cross said.
I nodded.
“Me, too,” he said.
He seemed so much older, I thought, as old as a man‑eighteen, maybe, or twenty.
“I think I’ve seen you before. Do you live in McCormick’s?”
“No, Brous
sard’s.” I didn’t ask what dorm he lived in because I knew. There were fewer than seventy‑five people in our class, and I knew everyone’s name, even the people I’d never talked to.
“I have Madame Broussard for French,” he said. “She’s kind of strict.”
“Do you know Amy Dennaker?”
He nodded.
“Well, Amy does these imitations of Madame. She’ll be like‑” I paused. I had to do the accent; it wouldn’t be funny without the accent. “Like, ‘There is foie gras on my bidet!’ Or, she’s invented this poodle that Madame keeps, named Ooh La La. So she’ll say, ‘Ooh La La, if you do not stop barking, I shall send you to the guillotine!’ ”
I looked at Cross; he appeared unimpressed.
“I guess you have to be there,” I said. But it almost didn’t matter that he hadn’t laughed, because I had said something entirely unnecessary, I had told a story. For a moment, I had shrugged off my flattened Ault personality. “Where are you from?” I asked.
“The city.”
“Boston?”
“New York.”
“How did you end up at Ault?” Something was definitely different; apparently, I was to be the one carrying the conversation, and this was not even an unfamiliar dynamic. Back in South Bend, both in class and at home with my family, I had been curious and noisy and opinionated. I had talked like a normal person, more than a normal person.
“It was either here or Overfield,” Cross said. “The teachers here seemed more laid‑back. It’s all old men in bow ties at Overfield.”
“So you always knew you would go to boarding school?”
“Pretty much.”
“I guess that’s how it is for people from the East Coast,” I said. “It’s different where I’m from.”
“Where’s that?”
“Indiana.”
“Oh, yeah? You’re a Hoosier?” He might have been making fun‑I wasn’t sure. “You like basketball?”
“I don’t really follow sports,” I said. “No offense.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, since you’re a big athlete. Aren’t you?” As I said it, I realized I was revealing the lie of our introduction in the store; I had already known who he was.
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