Prep

by Curtis Sittenfeld

“It’s kind of hard to find my dorm,” I said. “And they’re weird about letting guys inside.”

  “Gotcha. What about seven o’clock. Is seven good?”

  I nodded.

  “These are gonna be the best mashed potatoes of your life. Poems have been written about these mashed potatoes.”

  By you? I wanted to teasingly ask him. But I couldn’t because my anxiety was exploding, the flower was swirling outward infinitely. “I have to go study,” I said. As I walked down the steps, I could have brushed against him. But there were so many tricks I didn’t know then, so many gestures that I’d have thought would lock you in and represent promises. I turned sideways so we didn’t touch at all.

  When I was on his other side, he turned and patted my shoulder. “You be good, Lee.”

  This is what I want to tell my sixteen‑year‑old self. Say, I’ll try. Say, I won’t do anything you wouldn’t. You’re not promising him anything! What I said was, “Now you have your glove back.”

  When I told Martha what had happened, she cried, “You have a date!” and leaped out of her chair to hug me.

  “But it’s on Sunday.”

  “So what?” She pointed at me and said in a singsong, “You have a date with Dave Bardo, you have a date with Dave Bardo.”

  I wanted her to stop. And it wasn’t because I was afraid that if we presumed too much, we’d jinx it. It was more that it just sounded weird, it sounded hard to understand.

  “I barely know him,” I said.

  “That’s the point. You go out for dinner, and you get to know him.”

  “Why would he have asked me out?”

  “Lee, I can’t read his mind. Maybe he just thinks you’re pretty.”

  I winced. This possibility was not flattering to me; it was terrifying. There were other things a guy could think I was, and he wouldn’t be entirely wrong‑nice, or loyal, or maybe interesting. Not that I was always any of those things, but in certain situations, it was conceivable. But to be seen as pretty was to be fundamentally misunderstood. First of all, I wasn’t pretty, and on top of that I didn’t take care of myself like a pretty girl did; I wasn’t even one of the unpretty girls who passes as pretty through effort and association. If a guy believed my value to lie in my looks, it meant either that he’d somehow been misled and would eventually be disappointed, or that he had very low standards. What I wanted to know about Dave was, had he noticed me before that time in the hospital, or had I piqued his interest during that conversation? But why would he have noticed me before, or why would I have piqued his interest then? Was I the best that he could do?

  “I don’t know about this,” I said. I pictured sitting across the table from Dave at Chauncey’s, and then, as I reached for the bread, knocking over my water glass. The worst would be when he reassured me that it was no big deal. And it would be no better if he knocked over a glass. It would not comfort me if he, or any guy, said softly, with a smile meant just for me (in fact, softly and with a smile meant just for me would be the deadliest parts), You know, I’m nervous, too. Or, I don’t know what I’m doing, either. He should just be competent and shut up‑that would be ideal.

  “What exactly are you afraid of?” Martha said.

  “I know. I’m being weird.”

  “No, really. Answer the question. What are you afraid of?”

  I was afraid that Dave had chosen Chauncey’s because he thought it was nice, when it wasn’t that nice. I was afraid he’d tell some jokey story, ostensibly to the waitress but really for my benefit, and I’d be worrying the whole time about whether it was actually going to be funny, and if it wasn’t funny, would I be able to muster up appropriate laughter? And to compensate, not wanting to miss the punch line, I’d begin tittering halfway through. I was afraid of how even though I would put on lotion before I left the dorm, I’d feel like the skin around my mouth was peeling, and this suspicion would be another conversation under the one we were having, a continuous murmur that would rise in volume as we sat there. It would be demanding more of my attention, most of my attention, then almost all of it, and just before I went to the bathroom to check for sure (as if, thirty seconds after I came out of the bathroom, I wouldn’t start wondering about the peeling all over again), I’d be tilting my head and shifting my chin to prevent him from looking at me straight on. It was so hard to feel comfortable with another person was the problem, and what guarantee was there that it would be worth it?

  “First dates are supposed to be awkward,” Martha said. “And then after you’ve been going out for six months, you look back, and you think about how funny it was when you didn’t know each other.”

  “So I should go?”

  “You definitely should go. And you should wear your turtleneck sweater because it makes your boobs look big.”

  “Yuck,” I said.

  “If my boobs looked as big as yours in that sweater, I’d steal it from you.” Martha wiggled her eyebrows lasciviously, and I thought how liking a boy was just the same as believing you wanted to know a secret‑everything was better when you were denied and could feel tormented by curiosity or loneliness. But the moment of something happening was treacherous. It was just so tiring to have to worry about whether your face was peeling, or to have to laugh at stories that weren’t funny. All I really wanted was this, I thought‑to sit around in the dorm, goofing off with Martha.

  Martha had gone to the library, and I was sitting at my desk, working on algebra‑or, more precisely, gazing at the pages of the textbook in front of me without actually absorbing anything‑when Adele Sheppard, a senior, stuck her head in the room. “Phone call,” she said, then ducked back around and let the door shut.

  I felt myself tense. Friday was not a night my family would call. So what if it was Dave, just wanting to chat? (Could he have gotten the number for Elwyn’s? That seemed unlikely.) Or, far worse, what if it was Mrs. Morino or a nurse from the infirmary calling about Sin‑Jun? They’d been wrong to let her come back to campus, and she’d found a razor, or tied a sheet to a pipe near the ceiling. But when I picked up the phone, it was Sin‑Jun herself who said, “Lee, I have favor to ask. I leaving on Sunday with Father.”

  “For good?”

  “Maybe yes.”

  “Wow, I’m sorry. Or is that‑are you glad?”

  “Maybe it’s better to be home. The favor I ask is for you to get passport. It’s in middle drawer of my desk. You can do this?”

  “Yeah, that’s no problem. Do you need it tonight?”

  “Tomorrow is fine. Lee, I have very fat stomach now. Do you know why?”

  “You don’t have a fat stomach.”

  “It is so full with caramel. I eat a whole bag.”

  “That sounds delicious,” I said, and I suddenly felt how I’d missed Sin‑Jun, how I still missed her in this moment.

  Because of the rush on Saturdays between the end of morning classes and the start of athletic games in the afternoon, the dining hall didn’t make a real lunch but simply set out sandwich fixings and fruit and cookies on a long table, and you could eat the food there or stuff it in a brown bag and take it with you on the bus. I had a home game, so I didn’t need to hurry. I made a turkey sandwich and went to sit at a table with Dede, also on my basketball team, and Aspeth, who played squash, and a couple guys. Sitting there, I could feel the relief of the weekend come over me. I even felt okay about our game‑we were playing against Gordon, whom we’d beaten back in December by more than twenty points.

  I had just bitten into a potato chip when I felt a hand on my back, and I turned‑calmly, I turned, assuming at a level below consciousness that it was Martha or someone else unremarkable‑and when I saw that it was Dave Bardo, the horror I felt made my entire body stiffen. His face above his apron was flushed and sweaty, and perspiration ran in rivulets from his forehead.

  “Lee,” he said. “Listen.”

  I was between Dede and Devin Billinger; to see Dave, I had turned to the left and craned my neck, and Dede had turned
to the right, also gazing up at him. Probably everyone else at the table was looking at him‑at us‑but I wasn’t going to check.

  “Lynn needs the car tomorrow,” he said. “Can we postpone?”

  It took a few seconds for me to realize it was a question that required a response.

  I swallowed. “That’s fine.”

  “Any other night this coming week is fine. I’m not on for Tuesday or Thursday, but if those nights don’t work, Sandy owes me a shift, so I’m pretty open.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay meaning which night?”

  “I don’t‑I don’t know.” I could hear that my voice was deadened and emotionless.

  “Is everything cool?” he said. “Are you…” He trailed off, and his eyes shifted around the table.

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  When his gaze came back to me, he said‑he sounded sarcastic, the only time I heard sarcasm from him‑“All right then. Got it. Didn’t mean to interrupt. See you around, huh, Lee?”

  When he’d walked away, I turned back to the table. Looking at no one, with a shaking hand, I picked up another potato chip.

  “Who’s your boyfriend?” Aspeth said.

  “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  “Are you sure? It kind of looks like he is.”

  “Aww, yeah,” said Devin. He was responding to Aspeth and not to me, but the situation was unbearable. My mind raced: Would other people find out about this‑would Cross Sugarman, who was Devin’s roommate?‑and what would they make of it? Which words would they use to speculate about Lee Fiora’s link to the kitchen guy? But the real question was, what had made me imagine this wouldn’t happen? Why had I assumed that Dave knew we were being circumspect?

  “At least tell us his name,” Aspeth said, and I felt hot and sick and desperate for the moment to pass.

  Beside me, Dede said, “This tuna is totally rancid.”

  “You didn’t see the sign?” said Devin. “It said, Eat at your own risk. ”

  “Hardy har,” Dede said. “That’s so funny.”

  Later, before our game, Dede came up to me in the locker room and said, “Are you going out with that guy?” When I said no, she said, “I’m sure he’s okay, but you’re an Ault student. Your life is here, not at a bowling alley in Raymond or wherever you were supposed to go with him. You can act like I’m being snobby, but I’m just telling you the truth. I don’t think you want to separate yourself from the rest of our grade.” I said nothing. “And you will,” Dede continued. “People will definitely talk if you’re dating a townie.” That’s what Dede said to me in the locker room, later. But in the dining hall, she was the one who changed the subject. And I know that both times that day‑sometimes I pretended otherwise, but Dede did not have a bad heart‑she was trying to help. And even if she was wrong, even if she was only partly wrong, she wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already believe.

  After my game, I went by Sin‑Jun’s dorm room again and was glad that Clara wasn’t there. I found Sin‑Jun’s passport where she’d said it would be and walked to the infirmary, my wet hair refreezing in the cold. I tried not to think about the exchange with Dave, tried to just be a body in the world, moving forward among the trees and buildings, beneath the darkening afternoon sky. From now on, I thought, I would pass over surfaces without leaving a mark, without entangling myself. After I’d been in a place, there’d be no evidence.

  Partly I felt relieved that I wouldn’t be going out with Dave the next night, or ever. Partly I felt angry at him for having approached me so publicly, for having made me act bitchy. (So all along, I’d just imagined that we were colluding in making our interactions occur on the side, at night, behind buildings? It had been happenstance on his part, not discretion‑was that it?) And partly, of course, I felt ashamed. But my shame, being the largest and truest of my emotions, required the least attention; it was a rock in my gut and would remain with me.

  No, it was relief that was most immediate. At that time in my life, no conclusion was a bad conclusion. Something ended, and you stopped wishing and worrying. You could consider your mistakes, and you might be embarrassed by them, but the box was sealed, the door was shut, you were no longer immersed in the confusing middle.

  At the infirmary, I checked in with the same nurse who had been on duty when Mr. Kim and I had dropped off Sin‑Jun three days before. “You girls are good friends to her,” the nurse said. “There’s no way she’ll get lonely with this many visitors.”

  I knocked on Sin‑Jun’s door, then turned the knob, and then I simply stood there, staring. They were both on the bed, writhing and clawing and panting‑they were fully clothed, and if they hadn’t been, I truly think I might have fainted‑and Clara was on top. Because Clara was so much bigger and because I myself had never been part of such an arrangement with another person, the first thing I thought was, Isn’t she smashing Sin‑Jun? Clara was licking Sin‑Jun’s neck and Sin‑Jun was gripping Clara’s backside and the bed was shaking as they bucked against each other. Another thing I thought for a while afterward was that sex was always that frenzied. I’d have imagined, if I’d given it real thought beforehand, that it would be different to see two girls than to see a boy and a girl, but it really wasn’t. I would like to say here that we are all voyeurs, but maybe what I should say instead is that I, clearly, am a voyeur. It was riveting to watch. Who’d have guessed? Even with Clara involved, it turned out, sex was sexy.

  Clara got onto her knees, dropping her face from Sin‑Jun’s neck to her breasts to her navel and just at the moment she lifted Sin‑Jun’s shirt and exposed her bare skin, Sin‑Jun turned her head to the side, opened her eyes, met my gaze, and yelped. Clara reared up, and both of them stared at me‑Sin‑Jun looked frightened and furious and Clara looked disoriented.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Sorry, I just‑”

  “Aigo! ” Sin‑Jun cried. “Nagar‑ra! Get out! Get out!”

  “I’m sorry,” I said again. I tossed her passport onto the floor and ran into the hall and out of the infirmary. How strange, I thought, that freshman year, when I’d been so consumed by the meaning of my preoccupation with Gates Medkowski, I’d had no idea my own roommate not only thought about kissing girls but actually did it. When the image of Sin‑Jun and Clara came back to me later that day, as it did repeatedly, the feeling I had was that I’d seen it in a movie, that a scenario of such passion (what else can I call it?) certainly would never have played out anywhere on the Ault campus.

  I didn’t see Sin‑Jun again before she left with her father, and I thought that maybe I’d never see her again, but I was wrong; she returned the next fall for our senior year. That summer between our junior and senior years, I received a letter from her, the address of my parents’ house in Indiana printed in her careful script on a pale blue international envelope. My mother suggested I save the envelope for my scrapbook, forgetting, I think, that I did not keep a scrapbook.

  You know I have love relationship with Clara, but it ends, the letter read. I will not roommate with Clara next year. I will hope you don’t tell no one what you saw.

  She signed the letter Your friend always, Sin‑Jun, and she drew a smiley face next to her name. And when we saw each other again the following September, our relationship functioned, amazingly enough, just about as it had before she took the aspirin, which is to say we treated each other with affection and never spoke about anything of substance. But later‑Sin‑Jun was one of the few classmates I stayed in touch with after Ault‑after she’d come out to the extent that it was clear to everyone except her parents she was a lesbian (she kept her hair short and spiky, she wore silver hoops up one ear), I did learn the whole story. She was the one who’d pursued Clara. We were sitting on a deck in Seattle, off the apartment Sin‑Jun shared with her girlfriend, Julie, and Sin‑Jun worked by then as a neurobiologist in a research lab outside the city. It was never that we’d had a breakthrough after which we talked candidly to each other; I think it was more
that separately, in college and after, we grew up and certain topics came to seem ordinary rather than forbidden.

  “But why Clara?” I asked.

  “She was my roommate,” Sin‑Jun said. “This was very convenient.”

  I almost laughed. By this point‑she had been one of the first ones from our class‑Clara was married and even had a son. She and her husband had met at UVA; apparently, he was from West Virginia, which was where they moved after the wedding so that he could oversee his family’s coal mines. The photo of them that ran in The Ault Quarterly showed Clara, bosomy in a long dress and veil, standing beside a portly fair‑haired guy in tails.

  Sin‑Jun had believed all along, she said, that Clara was straight. But she had also known that Clara was malleable, and the longer they were involved‑it had started just after Christmas‑the guiltier Sin‑Jun felt. When she’d try to end the relationship, however, Clara would become hysterical. “She says she love me so much,” Sin‑Jun said. “But I think she just love sex.”

  I did start laughing then‑I couldn’t help it‑and Sin‑Jun started laughing, too. Yet it is hard for me not to feel a certain admiration for Clara. I am not so sure that she was merely dumb or horny; I think maybe she was also a little brave.

  I never talked to Dave Bardo after that lunch, and for the rest of my junior year, I avoided him completely. I even avoided making eye contact, and it wasn’t that difficult. But near the end of spring term, I felt a burst of remorse, or maybe it was that the remorse I’d felt all along expanded. I began peeking behind the counter. By early June, his arms were tan‑he must have been spending time outside‑and he often seemed to be kidding around with other staff members. He was never looking at me, and it occurred to me that maybe there was a reason it had been so easy to ignore him for the past few months. By my senior year, he wasn’t working anymore at Ault, though his sister, Lynn, had returned. Several times I was tempted to ask her where he’d gone‑maybe he’d made it out to California, and liked it so much that he’d stayed‑but I was afraid to remind her who I was.