Prep

by Curtis Sittenfeld

  “And?”

  “The A.V. is written by a bunch of losers.”

  I looked down at the floor, the painted lines and blocks against the shiny wood. “But is it true?” I said, and my voice caught. I had never wanted to cry in front of Cross, because girls who cry‑especially girls who cry while having talks –are so ordinary. “Is she your girlfriend?” I asked.

  “I don’t have a girlfriend,” Cross said.

  I blinked several times‑no tears had actually fallen‑and said, “Right. How foolish of me.”

  He said nothing, and I understood that whatever I had to say, I’d have to say outright; he wouldn’t tease it from me.

  The knowledge, unfortunately, wasn’t much help‑I still couldn’t say what I wanted to because it was lodged inside me like a bowel movement and all that was coming out was hot stuttering air. “I guess the big question,” I said, “is am I fish or cheese?”

  “Oh, Jesus.”

  “No, I’m really curious.” I made my voice earnest.

  “Devin’s a prick,” Cross said. “And letting him upset you is a waste of time.”

  “If he’s a prick, why do you room with him?”

  “He wasn’t always this way. He’s bitter now because he’s going to Trinity.”

  So Cross had also been experiencing roommate tension this year; all along, we could have commiserated. Surely there were other, ordinary things we could have talked about if only we’d known‑how annoying it was to wait in line to take a shower every morning, for example.

  “Anyway,” Cross said, “that’s trash talk. It’s what guys say in the dorm when they’re showing off.”

  “But you’re the custodian of the list.”

  “The what?”

  “Devin said‑”

  “Lee, Devin’s full of shit. I don’t know how much more plainly I can put it.” Even saying this, Cross wasn’t angry; he hadn’t yet made the investment that being angry would require, and I had the strong feeling that he wanted to go back to shooting baskets. “Frankly,” he said, “I’m having a tough time seeing what this conversation is about.”

  I probably knew then that this was my one chance, which made it harder, not easier, to say what I meant. “I just don’t understand what you were doing with me,” I said. “I mean ever. Sometimes I try to see this all from your perspective, and none of it makes sense. You come into our room and you’re all drunk and maybe you knew I’d had a big crush on you or maybe it was just random. And I’m this dorky girl but I cooperate. I melt at the slightest touch. So we fool around, whatever. But then you come back. That’s what I don’t get. God forbid you ever talk to me at dinner, but you keep coming back for the whole year.” Actually, not for the whole year‑not much past spring break. And wasn’t I only able to say this because he’d stopped coming? It felt like I was trying to salvage something, but wasn’t it all already finished?

  Cross shifted the basketball so he was holding it against his right hip. “Saying that I never talked to you at dinner‑you’re acting like I tried to hide something.”

  “Well?”

  “Are you for real? Lee, people knew about‑about”‑I think he was hesitating to say us –“about what was going on,” he finally said. “You’re crazy if you think nobody knew. And regardless, you’re the one who set the terms. You can’t deny that.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You said let’s not tell people about this, don’t kiss me at breakfast. It never seemed like you wanted a boyfriend.”

  “So is that why you didn’t send me a flower on Valentine’s Day? Because I told you don’t send me flowers, was that it?”

  “That’s exactly what you told me.”

  “You would never have been my boyfriend,” I said.

  His jaw tensed, which meant that at least I was getting to him.

  “You wouldn’t have,” I said. “I’m sure of it.”

  “That must be nice to be sure of things.”

  Simultaneously, I had the impulse not to contradict him‑just to let his comment sit there so that later I could cling to its implication‑and I had the impulse to destroy it for the lie it was.

  “I’m not sure of everything,” I said. “But I’m sure of this. You would never have been my boyfriend.”

  For a long time, we watched each other. Finally‑not meanly‑he said, “Yeah, you’re probably right,” and I began to cry. (When I went over the conversation, and over and over and over it, thinking of that part continued to make me cry. It never made things any better to remember that I had forced the admission.)

  “Lee,” he said, and his voice was pleading. “Lee, it was‑there were a lot of things that were good. You were funny. That was one of the things.”

  I wiped my eyes.

  “You were‑this will sound weird, but you were businesslike. It was as if you expected me to come back and were trying to plan for it.”

  I had been businesslike ?

  “You’ll be happier in college,” he said.

  I blinked at him.

  “I just think you’re that kind of person.”

  “Is this about the Times article?”

  “No. Well, not exactly. It’s not like anything you said in the article surprised me.”

  To be talking about something other than us and whether he’d ever touch me again seemed a waste of time. And yet I was intrigued.

  “Your mistake wasn’t expressing your ideas per se,” he said. “It was expressing them in The New York Times instead of writing an editorial for The A.V., or giving a chapel talk. In the Times, you’re just giving ammunition to people who want to think prep schools are evil, which isn’t what will make anything change on this campus.”

  “So you think things should change?”

  “Some things, sure. On the whole, Ault does a good job, but there’s always room for improvement.” Of course he thought this‑what a balanced perspective!

  “Were you appalled that I said all that stuff to the reporter?” I asked.

  “You could have chosen a different forum. That’s my only point. That, and that I think it’s good you’re going to a big school, somewhere less conformist than Ault. Which isn’t to say you’re as weird as you think you are.” (How bizarre this conversation was turning out to be, what surprising remarks were emerging from Cross’s mouth.) “You confuse being weird and spending time alone,” he continued. “But anyone who’s really interested in anything spends time alone. Like basketball for me‑look at what I’m doing right now. Or Norie Cleehan and pottery, or Horton and ballet. I could give twenty other examples. If you want to be good at something, you have to practice, and usually you practice by yourself. The fact that you spend time alone‑you shouldn’t feel like it’s strange.”

  But I’m not practicing anything, I thought. Or, if I had been: What was it?

  “Also,” he said, “and this gets back to the article, if you feel like there are differences between you and other people, how much you want to play them up is really your decision. Obviously, not in every case, but in most cases. Even Devin will say kike this or Jew you down or whatever. And I don’t say anything, because what would getting pissed off achieve? He’s just talking.”

  “Wait a second,” I said. “You’re Jewish?”

  “On my dad’s side. Which is technically the half that doesn’t count, but with a name like Sugarman‑”

  “Sugarman’s a Jewish name?”

  “It’s the English version of Zuckerman.”

  Cross was Jewish ? Never once had this occurred to me. But he was so popular, he was senior prefect. (Did other people know? Had that always been part of the reason Dede had liked him?)

  “I’m just saying that‑” His tone softened. “That I bet things would be easier for you if you either realized you’re not that weird or decided that being weird isn’t bad.”

  The gym was quiet. I was so flattered and so embarrassed that I couldn’t make eye contact with him.

  I heard him s
wallow, and then‑all this time, he had been holding the basketball against his right hip‑he leaned down and set the ball against the floor. When he was upright again, he said, “Lee‑” and when I dared to glance at him, he was looking at me in a way that was both predatory and tender (I do not think it’s an exaggeration to say that my life since then has been spent in pursuit of that look, and that I have yet to find it a second time in just that balance; perhaps it doesn’t, after high school, exist in that balance) and it was because whatever he was about to do was exactly what I wanted while also scaring the hell out of me that I folded my arms and said, “I’ll have to take this all under advisement.” I knew immediately that I’d sounded sarcastic, and I did nothing to correct the impression. I guess that I had meant to sound that way, because this was the most terrifying thing in the world: that he knew me‑he did know me, after all‑and that knowing each other, we were going to kiss.

  (And this is how I know that it’s all just words, words, words‑that fundamentally, they make no difference. I wouldn’t have been your boyfriend, he was saying, and, it ended between us because of this, and I was saying, no, this, and a good ways through that conversation, he’d still have kissed me. Our relationship, for as long as things were good, and in that moment when they could have been good again, was about the irrelevance of words. You feel what you feel, you act as you act; who in the history of the world has ever been convinced by a well‑reasoned argument?)

  And after I’d folded my arms, after I’d used that terrible tone, his stance‑inclining slightly forward‑reversed. He exhaled through his nose, then crossed his own arms. “Okay,” he said. “You do that.”

  It still wasn’t too late. (Of course it wasn’t too late! But it was so hard to believe that just because he’d have kissed me thirty seconds before, he still wanted to now. Look how easily I’d dissuaded him, or maybe it was that I’d misinterpreted his original intent.) No, it wasn’t too late, but, as with the fire drill, it felt too late. And so, deciding that the moment had passed‑just like that, with me helpless in its tide‑I let the sarcasm come surging in.

  “But enough about me,” I said. “How about Melodie‑fish or cheese?”

  “Jesus Christ, Lee.”

  “Aren’t we friends? I don’t mean Melodie and me, I mean you and me. And don’t friends share secrets and closeness? But you’ve never told me any secrets at all. I feel kind of shortchanged.”

  “Don’t be like this.”

  “Like what?” I laughed, briefly and bitterly. “Don’t be myself? I thought we just established how funny and businesslike I am.”

  “Act however you want, but don’t bring Melodie into it.”

  It injured me that the weight of what he’d just said rested on her rather than on me.

  “So you admit you’re‑well, if you’re not officially going out with her, I’m not sure what to call it. Fucking her? Or I guess, since it’s Melodie, I should say butt‑fucking her.”

  “This is ridiculous.” He scooped up the basketball and walked toward the hoop. Over his shoulder, he said, “I doubt you’ve ever talked to her, but she’s actually a very nice person.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “I haven’t talked to her.” The fact that he’d walked away was by far the worst thing that had happened in the conversation. I raised my voice. “I can’t comment on her niceness, but I do think she’s attractive. She might even be attractive enough for you to associate with in public.”

  He had begun dribbling in front of the basket, his back to me; at this, he stopped, turned to the side‑I could see that with his upper teeth, he was biting his lower lip‑threw the ball so it slammed against the door I’d entered, and glared at me. “You want to know?” he shouted. “You really want to know? Fish! That’s what you taste like!”

  The door he’d hit the ball against was still reverberating; otherwise, the gym was absolutely quiet.

  “I can’t believe you just said that.”

  “You asked me!”

  “Yeah, I guess I did,” I said, and I knew that I was stunned partly because I could hear it in my own voice.

  “Lee,” he said. “I didn’t mean to‑”

  I shook my head, cutting him off. I was about to cry again, but I wasn’t crying yet, and I wanted to use the time I had left. In a very tight voice, I said, “When I was in junior high, I used to think I would turn out to be one of the guys, and boys would say, ‘Oh, you’re so great,’ but they wouldn’t date me. I thought I wasn’t pretty enough. But then I got to Ault and first of all, I’m not really friends with any guys. And then, with you this year, I thought, if Cross will keep hooking up with me, maybe I’m okay after all. But time passed and I never became your girlfriend. And so then I thought, not only was I wrong, but my life turned out the opposite of how I expected. Meaning, it wasn’t my appearance‑that’s not the bad thing about me. It’s my personality. But how do I know which part? I have no idea. I’ve tried to think about if it’s one thing in isolation or everything together, or what can I do to fix it, or how can I convince you. Then I thought, maybe it is my looks, maybe I was right before. And I never figured it out. Obviously, I didn’t. But I’ve spent a lot of this year trying. And the reason I’m telling you all this is that I want you to know no one in my life has ever made me feel worse about myself than you.”

  Was this a pathetic thing to tell him? Was it even entirely true? It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s what I said. Then I said, “So I guess I’ll go now,” and I walked out of the gym.

  “Lee!” he yelled.

  It’s hard to say if I should have turned back. The fact is, I didn’t, and he didn’t chase me, and he called my name only once.

  In the phone booth in Elwyn’s, I lifted the receiver from the hook. On one of my thighs I’d set Angie Varizi’s business card, which I glanced at as I dialed, and on the other thigh I’d set the roll of quarters I would use to pay for the call. On the second ring, a familiar voice said, “This is Angie Varizi at The New York Times. ”

  “This is Lee Fiora,” I said.

  She hesitated.

  “From Ault,” I added.

  “Of course. Good to hear from you, Lee. Forgive me if I seem distracted, but I’ve got a million and one things going on today.”

  I opened my mouth before it occurred to me that I was unsure what to say.

  “Do you want some extra copies of the article?” she asked.

  “No. That’s okay.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “The article‑” I stopped. “Why didn’t you tell me it would be like that? I thought I was just telling you stuff for context.”

  “Lee, unless you specifically identify your comments as off‑the‑record, everything you say when you’re being interviewed is fair game.” Then she said, “No, you can leave it here.” To me, she said, “So are people giving you a hard time?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Is that your problem? Or is it theirs?”

  “I’m graduating in less than a week,” I said. “And I’m this person who aired the school’s dirty laundry.” (I aired the school’s dirty laundry and there was proof. There’s still proof‑go to a library, find the microfiche from the month and year I graduated.)

  “You’re in a really insular community,” she said. “But I’ve gotten a ton of terrific feedback for the article, including from other boarding‑school graduates. It might be frustrating now, but I’m confident that you’ll look back and know you did the right thing. This’ll be something you really feel proud of.”

  Listening to her, I realized how foolish I had been to call‑I had imagined she might say something that would actually make the situation better.

  “Your classmates are defensive,” she said. “It’s hard for anyone, and especially for the privileged, to see themselves objectively. I’ll tell you a story. I did my undergrad at Harvard. When I was a freshman, I had a roommate who bought a beautiful black wool coat with a black velvet collar. Now, less than a w
eek‑”

  The automated voice of the phone company requested that I insert another ninety cents. Angie was still talking; perhaps on her end, she couldn’t hear the voice. The pack of quarters on my lap was two‑thirds full, but I simply sat there listening, motionless, until the call got disconnected.

  There was a special dinner on Wednesday for the faculty and the seniors, welcoming us into the alumni association. In our room beforehand, I sat on the futon, dressed but paralyzed, and Martha said, “We’re not even talking about it. Just follow me.” Walking to the terrace outside the dining hall, I fought the impulse to clutch Martha’s arm. At first, it wasn’t so bad, it was almost possible to pretend this was an ordinary event at which I felt ordinarily skittish, but when I got in the buffet line, I heard Hunter Jergenson, who was two people in front of me, say,”‑then she could have left. No one was holding her hostage, so it’s not like‑” and then Sally Bishop jabbed Hunter in the back. “What?” Hunter said and turned around, and our eyes met. Three days had passed since the publication of the article, but if anything, people seemed to be talking about it more. I’d heard that Mr. Byden had been flooded with calls from alumni, that the admissions office was being contacted by students who’d registered to come for the following year and were having second thoughts, that on Monday Mr. Corning’s second‑period class abandoned their review session to discuss the article.

  When we’d gotten our food, Martha and I went to sit on a low stone wall. After we’d eaten, we threw away our paper plates, and as we passed Horton Kinnelly on the way back from the trash can, she said, “You’re going to the University of Michigan, aren’t you, Lee?”

  I nodded.

  “That’s what I thought,” she said and kept walking.

  I looked at Martha. “What did that mean? Does she think that because I didn’t get into a better college, that’s why I insulted Ault?”

  “Lee, it’s not worth thinking about.”

  “I’m going back to the room.”

  “But the juniors are about to come sing to us.” Martha’s eyes searched my face. “Want me to go with you?”

  Of course I wanted her to go with me. I also wanted, as I’d wanted before at Ault, to be a different person‑this time, to be a person for whom it was perfectly fine to stand there and watch the juniors sing. “You should stay,” I said.