Prep

by Curtis Sittenfeld

  Arthur Zane, a junior, had been busted a few weeks before, in the first month of school, not for drinking or drugs but for breaking into the headmaster’s house late one afternoon while everyone else was at practice and trying on Mrs. Byden’s clothes. The break‑in part of the story was what got announced at roll call; the clothing part they had tried to keep quiet.

  “I doubt I know any more about Arthur than anyone else,” I said. (He had even put on Mrs. Byden’s panty hose and lipstick. And though he’d left the school, he hadn’t technically gotten kicked out‑it was his first disciplinary offense, and besides, Arthur was third‑generation Ault‑as much as encouraged to find a place where he’d feel more comfortable. “What does that mean?” I’d asked, and Martha had said, “It means Mr. Byden was terrified Arthur would be the first student in the history of Ault to come out of the closet.” Both Martha and I assumed then that cross‑dressing was the same as gayness, and also that Arthur was the only gay person we knew‑at that point I still didn’t recognize Sin‑Jun as actually gay.)

  “You’re not a very good liar,” Cross said. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

  I felt the corners of my lips turn up.

  “But here’s the real question,” he continued. “Was he caught in a black strapless dress or a red sequined one?”

  “Mrs. Byden would never wear a red sequined dress,” I said. It was true‑she mostly stuck to long pleated skirts and cropped wool jackets.

  “So you’re going with the black strapless? You’re positive you don’t want to change your answer?”

  “Wasn’t he just wearing a brown corduroy skirt and a blouse?”

  “You’re so busted,” Cross said. “Martha totally tells you everything. I knew it.”

  “She tells me nothing.”

  “She tells you everything.”

  “Okay, fine,” I said. “But if Mrs. Byden did have a red sequined dress and a black strapless dress, any self‑respecting transvestite would have picked the sequins.” Saying this, I felt a twinge of guilt‑calling Arthur a transvestite wasn’t the cruelest remark I could make about him, but it wasn’t particularly nice, either. But what strikes me now is that I had no idea how much I’d give away in the service of flirting. This was just the beginning! For years and years, there would be so many things I’d do for a guy that I wouldn’t do in my usual life‑jokes I wouldn’t normally tell, places I wouldn’t normally go, clothes I wouldn’t normally wear, drinks I wouldn’t normally drink, food I wouldn’t normally eat or food I would normally eat but wouldn’t eat in front of him. I am twenty‑four, and I and the guy I like are with a group of people and the person driving is drunk and the seat belts are buried in the seat and I ride along anyway because, apparently, what I want from the guy is worth more than everything else I want or believe. It must be, right?

  Cross was silent. I wondered if, after all that, he hadn’t even found my transvestite joke funny. Then I wondered if he had fallen asleep.

  That was when, not unlike the way he had that rainy evening in the taxi three years before, he began to stroke my hair. He set his fingers against the top of my forehead and ran them back, smoothing out my hair against the pillow, then set his fingers against my forehead again. Over and over, back through my hair, the glide of his fingertips‑I think that maybe nothing else in my life ever felt that purely, uncomplicatedly good. I couldn’t speak because I was afraid if I did, I might start crying, or he might stop doing it. I shut my eyes.

  After a long time, he said, “You have nice hair. It’s really soft.” He ran his knuckles along the line of my jaw, over my lips. “Are you awake?”

  “Sort of,” I murmured. It was an effort to speak.

  “Can I kiss you?”

  My eyes flapped open.

  I was, of course, obsessed with kissing; I thought of kissing instead of thinking of Spanish verbs, instead of reading the newspaper or writing letters to my parents or paying attention during Indian sprints at soccer practice. But to imagine it and to have Cross next to me wanting to kiss were different. I didn’t know how to kiss. Kissing terrified me, as an actual thing you did with another person, and there was no one it would be more humiliating to kiss badly than Cross.

  He had propped himself up on one elbow. “Don’t be nervous.” He leaned down and kissed my cheek. “See?”

  His lips when they finally touched mine reminded me of the skin of a plum.

  “You can kiss me back,” he said.

  I pursed my lips toward him; we were kissing. It was harder work than I had imagined, and less immediately pleasing. In fact, it felt intriguing more than enjoyable‑the shifting, overlapping wet and dry parts of our mouths and faces, the mild sourness of his mouth (it seemed so personal to be tasting Cross’s mouth), and also the way it was hard not to be conscious of the moment as it happened, not to want to pause and acknowledge it, even if only by laughing. I didn’t find kissing funny, but it didn’t seem that serious, either, not as serious as we were acting like it was.

  He rose and twisted over me so that his legs were on either side of my hips and he was balanced on his knees and the palms of his hands. He had an erection, I realized, and I was slightly shocked. I’d heard, of course, that all boys wanted was sex, that they masturbated endlessly, and that any of them would do it with any girl, even if she was ugly. But I existed outside this world; no one ever tried to do anything with me.

  Except that now, Cross was trying. And was his erection because of me or was it just the situation? And if it was me‑was I supposed to have sex with him? It didn’t seem like that would be a very good idea.

  Over my nightgown, he gripped my breasts, squeezing one, then pressing his face to it, sucking the nipple through the cotton. I did actually laugh then‑it felt ridiculous, like I was nursing him‑but Cross didn’t seem to recognize the noise as laughter, which was probably for the best. “Do you like this?” he asked.

  If I had liked it a lot, I wouldn’t have been able to admit it. But because I liked it only fine‑definitely I didn’t like it better than having my hair stroked‑I said quietly, “Yeah.”

  He leaned down to reach for the hem of my nightgown‑it was white and calf‑length, those were the kinds of nightgowns girls wore at Ault‑and as he started to push it up (was he planning to take it off me completely?) I stiffened.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I want to make you feel good.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” he repeated. “What kind of question is that?”

  So I’d said the wrong thing; really, it had only been a matter of time. “Never mind,” I said.

  I thought he’d press me, that he’d say, No, what?; I had so little idea of how it all worked. Instead, he ran his hand over my abdomen, my left hipbone, down to my thigh, then back to my abdomen. My nightgown was bunched around my waist, over my underwear, and I knew what would happen next‑it was all a combination of suspense and not suspense.

  He used two fingers, and I bucked against his hand, as if I were trying to help him find something inside me. Everything was damp and hot. Abruptly, I was at his mercy, I could sense how things had shifted and I wanted it more, but it felt so good that I almost didn’t care. I couldn’t tell how long it lasted, only that it made me feel wild with greed, ravenous and ecstatic. Then it ended and we were kissing again, and the kissing was easier this time, it was something we were coming back to. And then slowly we grew calmer, I understood that he wasn’t going to try to have sex with me (and how could this have disappointed me, when I had already decided I didn’t want it?), and he lay with his head on my chest, over my heart; his legs must have been dangling off the end of the bed. His body was heavy against mine, almost too heavy, but not. I could adjust to it. This was also something I didn’t know until later, how some guys will never rest their full weight against you, and how with Cross it made him seem sure‑sure I was strong enough and sure that I would want it, which I did. I put my palms on his shoulders and my hands made a hushing noise as I ru
bbed his back.

  After a long while, from outside, we heard a car drive past. The car might have been the night watchman, patrolling the campus‑it was after four o’clock‑or it might have been a teacher coming home very late or leaving very early. Whoever it was, it imposed reality; the moment broke. “I should go,” Cross said. Neither of us spoke, and he didn’t move right away. I looked down at his head. Slightly, very slightly, it rose and fell as I breathed.

  When I woke the next morning, there were a few seconds before I opened my eyes when I remembered that something good had happened, but I could not remember what it was. Then I thought, Cross. I opened my eyes. The room was light‑it was a little before nine, and Sunday chapel, which was mandatory, would be at eleven‑and it all seemed so ordinary: the desks and posters, the futon and the trunk that served as a table, covered by magazines and pens and cassette tapes and an open bag of Chips Ahoy and a rotting orange. There was no evidence of Cross anywhere‑I had thought that if he forgot his shirt or sweater, I wouldn’t say anything, but he’d remembered to take both‑and I began sliding into that familiar state of distrust and disorientation. It was like when I was supposed to meet someone in the library, and I’d arrive and they wouldn’t be there, or I’d get to their door in the dorm and the moment before I knocked, I’d think, Did I imagine we had something scheduled? Sometimes I couldn’t even return phone calls, because I’d talk myself into believing I had made up the other person’s call in the first place.

  But Cross had been there. I knew he had. I rolled over and my body was sore, and the soreness was proof. And it seemed I should feel glad about what had happened‑I had finally kissed a boy, that boy had been Cross‑but the more that sleep, and the night, slipped away from me, the stranger the incident seemed. Who had been the girl who let Cross stick his fingers inside her, then writhed and whimpered beneath him? Certainly it could not have been me. I wanted to talk to Martha, but she wouldn’t be back until the evening.

  Most people skipped breakfast on Sunday mornings, but Martha and I always went. We went around nine and ate slowly and a lot and shared several newspapers with the handful of our classmates who’d also showed up. Among the regulars was Jonathan Trenga, who would lay claim to the serious sections of The New York Times –his parents both were lawyers in Washington, D.C., and no matter what was going on in the world, which unpronounceable countries were at war, what drug or energy or market crisis was unfolding, Jonathan was not only conversant in the subject but had a strong opinion about what needed to be done. Once I had asked, “But are you a Democrat or a Republican?” and Jonathan said, “I’m socially progressive but fiscally conservative,” and Doug Miles, a football player who also came to Sunday breakfast but only ever read the sports section and ignored everyone, lifted his head and said, “Is that like being bisexual?” Which I actually thought was funny, even though I was pretty sure Doug was a jerk.

  Then there was Jonathan’s roommate, Russell Woo, who also didn’t talk much but had a more benign presence than Doug. For reasons I couldn’t pinpoint‑it wasn’t much more than glances‑I had the idea Russell was in love with Martha, which I mentioned to her on a weekly basis, as we left the dining hall, and she always denied. I knew little about Russell except that he was from Clearwater, Florida, but sometimes I wished he were in love with me so that I could visit him there on spring break.

  The other seniors who showed up regularly were Jamie Lorison, the boy who our freshman year, in Mrs. Van der Hoef’s class, had given his presentation on Roman Architecture just before I gave mine; Jenny Carter and her roommate, Sally Bishop; and, on the days she’d gotten up early to study, Dede. On these days, she wore her glasses and her navy blue sweatpants, which I found curious because she was so vain the rest of the time, and even though not many people saw you on Sunday morning, it wasn’t like no one did.

  I never dressed nicely for breakfast, but I didn’t dress nicely the rest of the time, either. That morning, after I’d washed my face and brushed my teeth‑on Sundays, I rarely showered‑I pulled on jeans and a long‑sleeved T‑shirt and a fleece jacket. Then I stood in the room, fully dressed, feeling Martha’s absence. I’d have gone to breakfast alone without much thought if not for what had happened the night before. But was it appropriate now to go as if everything was ordinary? Was everything ordinary? Maybe it was, after all.

  I walked outside, and the farther I got from the dorm, the more strongly I felt it: Everything wasn’t ordinary. My unease was rising around me like smoke. By the time I reached the dining hall, I was choking on it; I couldn’t go inside. What if, by coincidence, today was the one Sunday Cross went to breakfast? And what if he saw me like this, in the light, in the daytime (why had I left the dorm without showering, why was my natural impulse to be such a slob?) and what if he felt surprised to remember I wasn’t prettier, what if he decided he’d made a mistake? Or maybe what had happened was not, to him, even a big enough deal to count as a mistake. That was the thing I wanted to know the most, if it meant something or nothing. I turned around and began walking toward the dorm, walking more and more quickly, and as I hurried‑it felt important, suddenly, not only that I not run into Cross but that I not run into anyone, not even a teacher‑I actually missed my old self, the self I had been until the night before. I had gone to Sunday breakfast with Martha and talked or not talked to the other students, I had gotten seconds on pancakes, and it hadn’t mattered. For the first few weeks of this year, my senior year, I’d felt the calmest I ever had at Ault. There hadn’t been pressure, I hadn’t been answering to anyone, trying for anyone. Or I had‑all along, of course, I’d been trying for Cross‑but in the moments when I’d needed to think he couldn’t possibly notice, I’d been able to. It had all been acrobatics in my head. And now something mattered, there was something for me to ruin.

  In the dorm, I climbed back in bed because the covers were protection, my own closed eyes were protection. Horizontal and cocooned, I could relax, I could even remember fragments of the night before and feel a tiny happiness again‑his voice, his hand in my hair, how nothing had made him hesitate except (and then I cringed, thinking about it) when I’d said, Why? Why do you want to make me feel good? It was mainly that it needed to be dark again, I realized, the bright and unforgiving day had to pass: meals where you chewed food, computer screens, shoelaces, and all the small terrible conversations, even the ones you weren’t participating in and just had to listen to, waiting for them to be over. But in the night you could dispense with everything disagreeable or irrelevant. It was you and the other person, your warm skin, how good you could make each other feel. (Had I made Cross feel good? I could have tried harder, probably, except that I wouldn’t have been sure how.)

  I was in bed when the bells rang for ten o’clock, and I still thought I would go to chapel, or at least I hadn’t decided against it, but then the bells rang for eleven o’clock, and I couldn’t pretend to be surprised. So I was skipping chapel‑a first for me.

  It was two in the afternoon before I got out of bed again, and that was mostly because I needed to pee. I ate a column of saltines, plucking them from their opaque wrapper, and opened my history textbook and sat on the futon, looking around the room and thinking of Cross. By five, Martha still wasn’t back, which meant I couldn’t go to dinner. In the common room, I put on water to boil, and I was standing next to the stove when Aspeth Montgomery walked through. She didn’t live in Elwyn’s, but she lived in the dorm next door, Yancey’s, and sometimes dropped by our dorm to visit another senior named Phoebe Ordway.

  “Did Sug come to your room last night?” she said. I would not have been more surprised if she’d asked to borrow my sports bra.

  “Did what?”

  “When he said he was going to, it was like three in the morning. I was just like, first of all, have some manners. I’m sure they’re sound asleep. And besides that, Martha will freak out if you break visitation. I mean, great idea‑maybe you can both get busted, and Mr. Byden can shit in hi
s pants. Are you making ramen?”

  “Cross was coming to see Martha?” I said uncertainly.

  “Oh, so he didn’t? Good.” She started walking again. “Forget it then.”

  Normally at this juncture in a conversation, I’d have given up, and especially with Aspeth, who made me feel awkward before I opened my mouth. But my interest was intense. “I don’t understand where you guys were at three in the morning,” I said.

  “We were playing poker. A bunch of those guys came over, and Devin and Sug got smashed, of course, and Sug announces he’s going to meet with Martha. It’s like, do you think maybe you’re taking the prefect thing a little too seriously?”

  But Cross had known that Martha was at Dartmouth, he’d been the one who’d brought it up. It was possible he’d forgotten and remembered only in the doorway, when he saw her empty bed. But I felt almost sure that he’d known all along. (I never asked him this. I had plenty of chances, and certainly I wanted to know, but I couldn’t ask because what I’d really have been asking was a bigger question, and I was always afraid that I already knew the answer. You only ever try to pin a person down because they are not yours, because you can’t.)

  “Your water’s boiling,” Aspeth said, and by the time I’d moved the pot, she was walking up the stairs to the rooms. “Don’t get an MSG headache,” she called.

  Of course Aspeth knew how to play poker‑probably five girls on campus did, and it was utterly unsurprising that she was one of them. She was probably good, too, she probably beat the boys and laughed her Aspeth laugh as she took their money. And the worst part was that if I were a boy, Aspeth was the kind of pretty, bitchy, unattainable girl I myself would like; certainly I wouldn’t find a so‑so girl and then stare hard inside her to see all the ways she was worthwhile.

  The wrongness of what had happened between Cross and me‑I could feel it now. Not a moral wrongness, but a screwup, a thing that needed explanation: a bird in the grocery store, a toilet that won’t stop running, that moment when your friend has come to pick you up and you open the door and realize it’s not your friend’s car at all; the person driving is a stranger, and now you must apologize.