Prep

by Curtis Sittenfeld

  I tried to smile.

  “You did say you’re from Indiana, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “From South Bend.”

  “You know, I dated a guy who grew up there,” she said. “Evan Anderson. You don’t know him, do you?” She gave a self‑deprecating laugh, as if to show that she knew how unlikely this was.

  “I don’t think so.” I pushed my essay across the table, stood, and picked up my backpack.

  As I was leaving, she said, “Hey, Lee?”

  From the doorway, I turned around.

  She was standing, too, and she pulled her shoulders back, bent both arms, balled her hands into fists, and thrust her fists forward. “Confidence!” she said.

  Again, when I tried to smile, I couldn’t tell how convincing it was. Walking through the empty schoolhouse and back to my dorm, I thought how exhausting Ault was, all the chatter and the expressions you had to make: Attentive! Inquisitive! I let my face sag, but then I saw someone ten yards in front of me, emerging from the courtyard. It was Charlie Soco, a senior, another person I’d never spoken to. I glanced at his eyes and saw that he wasn’t looking at me, and then I looked down and then as we came closer to each other, I slid my backpack off one shoulder so it was in front of me and unzipped one of the outer pockets and pretended to rummage in it. In this way, when Charlie and I passed, I avoided saying hello.

  Quite a few people made comments to me about Tullis’s haircut, and at lunch one day, Aspeth and Dede were discussing it when I sat down. I waited for them to acknowledge my role in it, but neither of them did.

  “He looks ten times better,” Aspeth was saying.

  “Lee,” said Emily Phillips, who was sitting next to me, “aren’t you the one who cut it?”

  When I nodded, Dede said, “You?”

  I nodded again.

  “But you don’t even know Tullis.”

  It was true that since the start of this school year, whenever we were in English class, Dede had been perfectly civil, even, at times, friendly. Still, I couldn’t help but enjoy watching her work herself up. “He asked me to,” I said.

  Dede narrowed her eyes. “Do you know how to cut hair?” If I had concealed this ability from her during the year we’d lived together, I could see her thinking, what else might I be hiding? I’m a trapeze artist, I wanted to say. I speak Swahili.

  “Of course I do,” I said.

  “Could you cut mine?” asked Nick Chafee, who was sitting at the head of the table.

  “Sure.”

  Dede’s mouth was hanging open, as it did whenever she was confused or outraged. Nick Chafee wasn’t cute, but he was known to be especially rich, and, clearly, Dede doubted my ability to interact with him unsupervised.

  “Can you do it tonight after dinner?” Nick said. “I’ll come to your dorm.”

  “Or I’ll come to yours.” I had never set foot in the common room of a boys’ dorm. But I could hear how I sounded casual, and it was because Dede was watching, because defying her expectations was irresistible. If I made eye contact with her, surely I would laugh and give proof that I was faking it. I concentrated very hard on biting into my tuna melt.

  Emily Phillips said, “Could you cut my hair, too?”

  Before I could respond, Dede said, “Are you crazy? Guys’ hair and girls’ hair is completely different!”

  “I just want to get rid of the split ends,” Emily said.

  “That’s no problem,” I said. In fact, it would be a lot easier than what I’d done for Tullis. “I can do yours tonight, too.”

  “Actually, I have a French test tomorrow, but what about Wednesday night?”

  As it happened, I had a Spanish test Thursday. Not that it really mattered‑I never did that well on anything, so it was a better use of my time to cut hair than to study.

  “I can’t believe this,” Dede said.

  “Want me to cut yours?”

  “No!” she said, and everyone at the table laughed.

  Over the next several weeks, I cut the hair of more and more people, perhaps twenty‑five of them by late October. Certain things I’d done with Tullis became habits‑that I never had them wet their hair first, that I always made them close their eyes when I was standing in front of them, that, of course, I didn’t charge. Around campus, people suddenly talked to me more, especially teachers and boys. Tullis himself always greeted me warmly and by name; once, when I was hurrying through the gym to get to the soccer field, Reynolds Coffey, the male senior prefect, yelled, “Yo, Lee, where are your scissors?”; and another time, as I was leaving the dining hall after formal dinner, Reverend Orch, the chaplain, who was completely bald, set his hand on my forearm and said, “From all that I hear, Miss Fiora, it is my great loss that I cannot employ your services.”

  In such situations, I was always demure, I’d hardly even reply. But when it came to actual haircutting, I felt a confidence that I had not experienced in any other situation since arriving at Ault. Sometimes I didn’t even give the haircut that had been requested, I gave the one I thought would look good‑lopping off an extra few inches, say‑and the individual might seem puzzled (not angry, never angry, just puzzled), but everyone else always loved it. I learned to use an electric razor, which numbers corresponded to which lengths, and even though that was something a guy could have done on his own, some wanted me to do it for them. Oliver Amunsen said, “I trust you more than I trust myself.”

  In my hands, beneath my fingers, people’s heads felt warm and vulnerable, and I had the sense that I could have cut their hair with my eyes closed, by touch alone. I was never nervous; in fact, I’d experience a suspension of any conscious feeling at all. I almost always chatted with them a little, rarely for the whole time, and I never worried either that I was talking too much or that the silences between us were awkward. Afterward, when the person had left and I was alone, vacuuming or sweeping up the hair, I felt a sense of achievement. I was proud of my ability. Though normally I thought pride of any sort was distasteful, this was okay because cutting hair was a neutral act, nothing to brag about. It was like being good at untying knots, or good at reading maps.

  We had finished Uncle Tom’s Cabin shortly before the day of our group presentations. The assignment had been to choose an important scene from anywhere in the book, say why it mattered, and act it out. My partners were Norie Cleehan and Jenny Carter, and we did the part where Cassy and Emmeline hide in the attic and pretend to be ghosts to scare Simon Legree; I was Legree.

  After we went, the only group left was Darden, Aspeth, and Dede. “We have to go put on our costumes,” Dede announced.

  “Great,” Ms. Moray said. No one else had bothered with costumes.

  They left the room, and while we waited, a generous, giddy energy hung in the classroom‑we’d been getting up from our seats and talking in bad Southern accents and clapping for one another at the end of each performance. During one burst of applause, I had thought that we were probably making as much noise as one of those classes you hear down the hall‑usually while you’re taking a math test‑that’s shouting and laughing like they’re at a party. “I must say, I had no idea there was so much acting talent in this class,” Ms. Moray said.

  Aspeth stuck her head into the room. “One thing we have to tell you,” she said. “This is a modern interpretation. That’s okay, right?”

  Ms. Moray nodded. “Absolutely.”

  “It’s the part where the Shelby slaves get together in Uncle Tom and Aunt Chloe’s cabin.” Aspeth was still visible only from the neck up. “It’s while Mr. Shelby is in the big house signing over Uncle Tom and Harry to Haley.”

  “And why is this important?” Ms. Moray asked.

  “We’re showing the sense of community the slaves have and how Uncle Tom is their leader and they rally around him when they know he’s leaving.”

  “Terrific. Go to it.”

  “Just one more sec.”

  Aspeth disappeared, and the door clicked shut. A minute later, D
arden flung it open and strode through, Aspeth behind him gripping his waist like in a conga line, and Dede behind Aspeth. Darden wore a fedora set at an angle, a pair of oversized sunglasses, several gold and silver and pearl necklaces, and a long shiny red raincoat, tight across his shoulders, which I recognized as belonging to Dede. In his right hand, he carried a cane. Dede herself had on a cream‑colored knee‑length silk slip, and Aspeth was wearing a striped bikini top (the stripes were pink, mint green, and pale blue) and a tennis skirt; on their feet, both girls wore high heels.

  “Choo‑choo!” Darden cried. He thrust his fist into the air and rolled it forward a few times, then tipped his head back toward Aspeth and Dede. “Ain’t that the finest‑looking ho train you folks ever seen?” From various parts of the table, I heard snorts of laughter, and someone‑it might have been Oliver‑called out, “Uh‑huh, brother!” As if in response, Aspeth and Dede held their chins in the air, moved their heads all around, batted their eyelashes.

  The three of them slithered and wiggled the length of the chalkboard, until they were between the far end of the table and the windows. Darden leaned over and stuck his cheek down toward Jenny Carter. “You give Big Daddy Tom some love, sugar.”

  Jenny had a look on her face that was both startled and amused. Her gaze jumped to Ms. Moray, and when I looked, too, Ms. Moray was squinting as if confused. This was a confusion I shared. I literally did not understand what Darden and Aspeth and Dede were doing, what the unifying principle was behind their weird clothes, their gestures, Darden’s lingo. I sensed that most of my classmates did understand. Jenny puckered her lips and kissed Darden.

  “Thanks, baby,” Darden said. He took a step back, and Aspeth and Dede rearranged themselves so they were on either side of him, their arms linked through his, gazing up at him, stroking his shoulder or his forehead. “My ho’s, you know why we’re here tonight,” Darden said. “And Daddy might go away, but you know he always gonna be looking out for you. It ain’t easy when Master Shelby‑”

  “Stop it,” Ms. Moray said, and her voice was loud and sharp. It was strange to hear a normal voice. “That’s enough. All three of you, sit down. But first change out of those clothes.”

  Darden and Aspeth and Dede regarded her silently. Their posture was already different‑Aspeth’s arms were folded, she wasn’t touching Darden at all‑and none of them were smiling.

  “We were just‑” Dede began.

  “Right now,” Ms. Moray said. “Hurry.”

  They walked quickly past us, back into the hall. In their absence, the rest of us looked at one another, looked away, looked back; Chris Graves put his head down on the table. When Darden, Aspeth, and Dede returned, they sat without speaking.

  “Would someone like to explain what that was about?” Ms. Moray said.

  No one said anything. I couldn’t tell if she was asking all of us or just them, and I also couldn’t tell if she was really asking for an explanation‑if, like me, she hadn’t understood‑or if she was asking for more of a justification.

  “Really,” Ms. Moray said. “I’m curious‑curious about what could possibly make the three of you think it’s either relevant or appropriate to portray Uncle Tom as a pimp and the other slaves as prostitutes.”

  Of course. I was an idiot.

  “Uncle Tom is a Christ figure,” Ms. Moray said. “He’s a hero.”

  Darden was looking down, and Aspeth was looking across the room, her face blank, her arms crossed again. To watch Aspeth be scolded was odd and not, as I might have imagined, enjoyable. I would have felt sorry for her, actually, except that she seemed unaffected by Ms. Moray’s comments; she seemed mostly bored. Of the three of them, only Dede was looking at Ms. Moray. “We were being creative,” Dede said.

  Ms. Moray smiled unpleasantly. “Creative how?”

  “By, like, we were‑well, with a modern‑day parallel‑we just thought it would be fun.”

  “I’ll tell you something,” Ms. Moray said. “And this is a lesson that could serve all of you well on that day not so far in the future when you find yourselves out in the real world. The next time you’re being creative, the next time you’re having fun, you might want to stop and think about how your behavior looks to other people. Because I’ll tell you, what this seems like to me is nothing but racism.”

  Everyone looked at her then, even Darden and Aspeth. Racism didn’t exist at Ault. Or it did, of course it did, but not like that. Kids came from all sorts of cultural backgrounds, with parents who had emigrated from Pakistan, Thailand, Colombia, and some kids had families that still lived far away‑in my dorm alone, there were girls from Zimbabwe and Latvia. And no one ever made slurs, it wasn’t like you got ostracized if you weren’t white. Racism seemed to me like a holdover from my parents’ generation, something that was not entirely gone but had fallen out of favor‑like girdles, say, or meatloaf.

  “We weren’t being racist,” Aspeth said. Her voice contained none of Dede’s anxious eagerness, Dede’s earnest wish to set things straight. Aspeth knew she was right, and the only question was whether it was worth demonstrating this to an inferior mind like Ms. Moray’s. “How could we be?” Aspeth said. “Darden is black.”

  This was a bold and possibly inappropriate thing to say‑Darden’s blackness, in our post‑racist environment, was not a thing you remarked on.

  “That’s your defense?” Ms. Moray said. “That Darden is‑?” Even she seemed unable to say that he was black, which affirmed Aspeth’s power. But then Ms. Moray appeared to regain control. “Listen,” she said. “Internalized racism is still racism. Self‑hatred is not an excuse.”

  I glanced at Darden, who was looking down again. He inhaled, puffed out his cheeks, exhaled, and shook his head. I didn’t think he was self‑hating, and I certainly didn’t want him to be‑I was self‑hating, and wasn’t that enough? Did there need to be so many of us?

  “There’s also the issue‑” Ms. Moray said, but Darden interrupted her.

  “We made a mistake,” he said. “How about we leave it at that?” He was looking up at Ms. Moray, his mouth set in a firm line. He seemed to me in this moment like an adult‑his deep voice and his physical size and his reasonableness, how it appeared he wanted the situation resolved more than he wanted himself exonerated. I wished that I were friends with him so that I could tell him after class I’d been impressed by his behavior and it wouldn’t just seem like I was trying to get on his good side.

  Ms. Moray hesitated. It had seemed before that she was just warming up, but this was a relatively easy way out. “Fine,” she said at last. “But I’ll make one more point. And that’s that this wasn’t only offensive in terms of the racial stereotypes you guys were playing off. I’m also deeply, deeply troubled by the sexism here. And, no, the fact that you’re women doesn’t make it okay for you to objectify yourselves. Our culture teaches women that our primary worth is our appearance, but we don’t have to accept that idea. We can flaunt our bodies, or we can choose to have integrity and self‑respect.” Ms. Moray’s voice had turned high, she sounded a little too impassioned, and I saw Aspeth roll her eyes at Dede. She shouldn’t have been using the word women, I thought. All of us in the room, except for Ms. Moray herself, were girls.

  Later that day‑news of what had happened in class spread quickly, and even Martha pressed me for details‑I was in the locker room when I heard Aspeth talking about it yet again. “Rah, rah, rah,” she said. “Let’s go burn our bras.”

  The next day, while we waited before class for the bell to ring, Ms. Moray said, “Who’s psyched to learn?” Then she pretended to be a cheerleader, waving her hands in the air, shouting, “E‑N‑G‑L‑I‑S‑H‑what’s that spell? English!” We didn’t have cheerleaders at Ault, and she was making the joke to show that she forgave us; she didn’t seem to realize that she herself had not been forgiven.

  One Saturday afternoon in early November, Martha and I were reading in our room. She was at her desk, and I was lying on my back in bed, o
n the lower bunk, holding up my Western European history textbook until my hands fell asleep, then shutting my eyes and setting the open textbook over my face, the pages pressed to my cheeks, while I waited for the pins‑and‑needles feeling to pass. As the afternoon wore on, the intervals during which I was reading shrank and the intervals when my eyes were closed stretched. It was during one of the latter periods that I heard Martha stand and, it sounded like, pull on a jacket. I lifted the book.

  “I’m going to town,” she said. “You want anything?”

  I sat up. “Maybe I’ll come.”

  “I’m just running some errands.”

  Although it seemed like she didn’t want me to go, I couldn’t imagine this was the case. The feeling Martha gave me, a feeling I got from no one else except, at times, my parents, was that I was excellent company, that almost no situation existed that would not be improved by the addition of my incisive observations and side‑splitting wit. “Martha, don’t you know that buying hemorrhoid cream is nothing to be ashamed of?” I said.

  She smiled. “I promise that if I get hemorrhoids, you’ll be the first to know.” She zipped her backpack.

  “Martha, why are you‑” I began, and at the same time, she said, “I’m getting a haircut.” Then she said, “What were you going to ask?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “You’re getting a haircut?”

  “Don’t be offended. I think you’re a really good haircutter. I honestly do.”

  “I’m not offended.” In fact, I wasn’t yet sure if this was true. “But why are you acting so weird?”

  She sighed and, still wearing her backpack, sat down at her desk. In a regretful voice, she asked, “Am I?”

  “Yes.”

  “I just feel funny about it,” she said. “I mean, why do you cut people’s hair?”

  “Why do I cut people’s hair? I don’t know. Why are you asking me?”

  We weren’t having a fight. Really, it was difficult to imagine fighting with Martha because she was the most un‑angry person I knew. Even in this moment, she seemed, if anything, sad. Still, I felt an unfamiliar tension between us.