by Tom Perrotta
What was it her father always said? The definition of crazy was doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? Well, that was the story of Amber’s love life so far, and she’d had enough. She’d vowed over the summer to stop the madness, to either start choosing her partners more wisely or, if need be, to opt for celibacy and self-respect over empty sex and the self-hating sadness that came with it.
And then, as if the universe were testing her resolve, she met Brendan at the Activities Fair on the very first day of her sophomore year. He was a bouquet of red flags—a handsome, self-confident, broad-shouldered, inarticulate, politically oblivious lacrosse player—the exact type of guy she’d sworn to avoid. But it didn’t matter: her heart did its usual, incorrigible somersault and gave the middle finger to her brain. It amazed her how weak she was, like a smoker who’d vowed to quit, but couldn’t get through a single day without lighting up.
To her credit, she put up more resistance than usual. Freshman year, she would have texted him right away, inviting him to hang out, maybe smoke some weed and watch a movie. At the time, it had seemed like the feminist thing to do—why shouldn’t a woman pursue sex as freely as a man?—but for some reason it always ended up with her staring pathetically at her phone, wondering why Trent or Mason or Royce (the asshole golfer) hadn’t even sent her a thanks for the blowjob! text, as if that would have made her feel any better.
With Brendan, she hung back, playing hard to get, as her mother would have quaintly put it, waiting for him to make the first move. She didn’t text him, didn’t orchestrate a “chance” meeting in the Higg, didn’t even friend him on Facebook, though she did do a fair amount of stalking. He posted lots of shirtless pictures of himself, and, she had to admit, he looked really good without a shirt.
It turned out to be an effective strategy for not hooking up, especially since Brendan made no attempt to contact her, either. But even at a big school like BSU, they couldn’t avoid each other forever. About a month into the semester, she’d walked into the library with the newly formed Student Coalition Against Racism and Police Brutality, and there he was, cute as ever, reading a book about climate change.
He’d surprised her in the best possible way. She couldn’t imagine any of her former hookups joining her to protest the shooting of Michael Brown, or weeping in front of a roomful of strangers at a meeting for people with autistic siblings. He seemed like a decent guy, and maybe even boyfriend material, definitely worth taking a chance on.
What are you going to do on your date? her mother had asked.
We’re going to a movie. After that we’ll probably go to a party where everyone gets naked.
Ha ha, her mother said. Very funny.
* * *
I didn’t hate the movie. It just wasn’t the kind of movie you were meant to like, and not the kind you normally went to on a date. But Amber was really into feminism, and one of her good friends, a Vietnamese girl named Gloria, was in charge of the Women’s International Documentary Film Festival, so there we were.
It was an eye-opener, that’s for sure. The movie focused on a bunch of depressing third-world hellholes where women were treated like garbage. In one African country, young girls got raped all the time and nothing ever happened to the men who did it. There was this one victim—she was twelve, but looked older—who was raped by her “uncle” who was not actually her uncle. He was a family friend, and a very important man in the village. The white people who were making the film convinced her to press charges, but it backfired. She and her mom ended up getting kicked out of their house and the rapist denied everything.
I am not that kind of person, he said, like the accusation had hurt his feelings.
There were other stories—girls sold into prostitution by their own parents, girls forced into sweatshops to support their families, girls who were “engaged” to be married to disgusting old men before they’d even reached puberty, girls who were genitally mutilated while their own mothers held them down. I could hear Amber sniffling next to me and I reached for her hand. She turned and gave me this sad little smile.
After a while I just kinda zoned out. There’s only so much misery you can take in one sitting. Normally, in a situation like that, I would’ve checked my texts or played a game of Hitman, but the girl who introduced the film had made a big deal about asking everybody to turn off their phones and devote their full attention to the screen.
Please, she said. This is important. Please don’t look away.
The movie was long, which meant I had a lot of time to think. I thought about my mom, and how happy she would’ve been to know that I was watching a serious documentary like this, getting educated about the world, which to her was the whole point of being in college. And I thought about Becca, who wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in that theater, because why should she pretend to care about stuff that happened to people she didn’t know in places she’d never heard of? I understood why she felt that way—part of me even agreed with her—though I knew it was selfish, and not the kind of thing you were allowed to say out loud, especially not at the Women’s International Documentary Film Festival.
Amber was quiet after the movie ended. We left the lecture hall and headed outside. It was a chilly night with a light drizzle coming down, but I think she was as grateful as I was for the fresh air. We were still holding hands, and I wondered if I should try to kiss her. But then I looked at her puffy eyes and stunned expression and realized that it probably wasn’t such a good idea.
“What did you think?” she asked.
“About the movie?”
That made her laugh just a little.
“Yeah,” she said. “About the movie.”
If I’d been totally honest, I would have told her that the movie had made me realize just how lucky I was. To be a guy. To be an American. To have a healthy body and enough money that I never had to wonder where my next meal was coming from, and to know that I would never have to sacrifice my own happiness and freedom for anyone else’s. To wake up every morning knowing that something fun could happen. The movie made me want to get down on all fours and kiss the ground. But I knew that was the wrong way to go.
“It fucking broke my heart,” I told her.
* * *
Amber had been looking forward to the party all week. A lot of her friends from the Feminist Alliance were going to be there, and everybody was excited. It was one of those rare situations where you could have fun and make an important point at the same time, at least that’s what they were all telling themselves. But now, after the movie she’d just seen, the party suddenly seemed ridiculous, a bunch of privileged college kids pretending that they were making a political statement, fighting the patriarchy by getting drunk and taking their clothes off.
“You okay?” Brendan asked, laying his hand gently on her shoulder. They were standing out on the quad, getting rained on.
“Just sad,” she said, touched by his concern. He’d sat through the grueling film without a single complaint, and had held her hand through the worst of it. “The world’s so fucked up.”
“Tell me about it.”
Amber didn’t regret watching the movie. You couldn’t turn away from the truth just because it ripped your guts out. You had to look cruelty and injustice in the eye, to acknowledge the humanity of people less fortunate than you, and accept your obligation to help improve their lives. It was the least you could do.
But it was so little. It was almost nothing.
Some part of her just wanted to say Fuck it—drop out of school, say goodbye to softball and Women’s Studies and Autism Awareness and Slut Walk and her hilarious roommate, Willa—say goodbye to America—and get a job with some NGO that built schools for girls in Afghanistan, or fought human trafficking in Thailand, or provided free surgery for African women with obstetrical fistula. Do something useful, instead of wasting her time reading books and watching movies and liking meaningless shit on Facebook. It would be hard on her mother, thou
gh, and she’d really miss Benjy, who would only understand that she was far away, not why she’d gone. Her generous motives would be lost on him.
“You want to get a drink or something?” Brendan asked.
Before she could answer, her phone buzzed. It was Cat again. She’d texted three times during the movie.
Where rrrrrr uuuuu???? You better get that big fat booty over here so I can spank it bitch!!!!
Amber smiled in spite of herself. Cat was the only person in the world who could talk to her like that and get away with it. And besides, it was ten thirty on a rainy Saturday night, and she had to accept the fact that, right now, there was nothing she could do to help anyone but herself lead a better and happier life.
“I know where we could get a drink,” she told him.
* * *
The party Amber took me to wasn’t a full-blown naked party. It was an underwear party, sponsored by the Feminist Alliance, so of course it had an uplifting name, which in this case was EVERY BODY IS BEAUTIFUL!—a statement that is totally not true.
When we arrived, a feminist at the door handed us nametag lanyards. Instead of your name, you were supposed to write down something about your body that you didn’t like. The idea was that you were supposed to celebrate your flaws and not be ashamed of them. Just get it out in the open, so people could tell you you were beautiful anyway.
Amber didn’t hesitate. She uncapped the Sharpie and wrote DISTURBINGLY LARGE SHOULDERS on the card as easily as if she were signing her name. Then she handed the marker to me. I was stumped for a second, because I’d been working out and felt pretty good about my body. All I could think to write was CALVES COULD BE BIGGER, even though they were perfectly fine, too. Amber laughed when she saw what I’d written.
“That’s it?” she said. “Your calves could be bigger?”
I shrugged. The only other thing I could have gone with was SMELLY FEET, because I did have an occasional problem in that direction, though I didn’t really think it qualified as a physical flaw.
“Mine’s not that different from yours,” I pointed out.
I could tell she didn’t agree, but she nodded anyway and pulled her dress over her head in this totally matter-of-fact way, which gave me an instant half-boner. I had to turn away and stare at a chubby dude in tightey whities until it was safe to start undressing. Weirdly, the chubby dude had listed his flaw as TWITCHY EYELID, which seemed a little beside the point. When I was done, we put our shoes and clothes into a trash bag and shoved it behind a couch.
“You think it’s okay there?” I asked. “I don’t want to walk home in my underwear.”
Instead of answering, Amber grabbed my wrist and pulled me into the crowd. She was wearing regular cotton panties, black with a white border, and a V-neck black top that looked like a sports bra but was lacier in the front. Her body was just like I’d imagined it, strong and sleek, no hourglass but a nice round ass I was happy to follow wherever it led.
*
The house was pretty dark. Some rooms were lit by candles, others had lava lamps, and the dance floor had these swirling disco lights and flashing strobes. It made being half-naked a lot less problematic than it otherwise would have been. In a funny way, you ended up paying more attention to people’s lanyards than their actual bodies. It was really interesting to see what people were ashamed of—MUFFIN TOP, UNIBROW, HUGE NOSE, MAN BOOBS, ASS ACNE—and then kind of casually try to check out whatever flaw they were talking about. Sometimes you could spot the problem right away, and other times you had to take their word for it.
Amber knew a lot of the people there, so mostly I just nodded and smiled while she introduced me to her friends—ECZEMA, TOENAIL FUNGUS, and RIGHT ONE WAY BIGGER, among others. Most of the people I met were nice enough, though a bunch of them seemed skeptical that my non-bulging calves qualified as a bona fide problem. The only person I’d met before was Cat from the Autism Awareness Network, who was alarmingly skinny with her clothes off—all ribs and elbows and hip bones—though, I had to admit, kind of sexy in her leopard-print bra and panties. She was also wearing blue flip-flops and white surgical gloves, all of which added up to an eye-catching package.
“Hey Brendan.” The sign around her neck read, FURRY ARM HAIR. “Good to see you again.”
“You too,” I said, squinting at her completely hairless forearms.
“I wax,” she explained. “A lot. Otherwise I’d look like an orangutan.”
“What’s with the gloves?”
She shrugged and drank some jungle juice from a solo cup.
“Too many bodies.” She gave a small shudder of revulsion. “Way too much skin and sweat and . . . ugh.”
We smiled at each other for a couple of seconds, stumped for conversation. She turned and looked at Amber, who was talking to a black girl who had amazing abs and suffered from ASHY SKIN. The black girl was wearing gym shorts and a bikini top, which seemed like cheating to me, since neither one qualified as actual underwear.
“Amber really likes you,” Cat told me.
“I like her, too.”
“You better not hurt her,” she said, poking her latex-covered finger into my sternum. “Otherwise you’ll have to answer to me.”
* * *
Amber’s room was on the sixth floor of Thoreau Hall. It was even smaller than her first-year double in Longfellow, but at least it wasn’t in the basement.
“We’re in luck,” she told Brendan. “Willa’s away for the weekend.”
“Cool.” He was busy checking out the posters on the pale green walls: Malala, the Dalai Lama, Andy Samberg. “Nice place.”
She hadn’t planned on bringing him home after the party. She’d meant to take it slow, maybe just make out a little, plant a seed for the future, but dancing with someone in your underwear turns out not to be the best strategy for taking it slow. They’d gotten into some pretty heavy grinding toward the end, and it had been an amazing feeling, to be that close to fucking with so many people around.
She dumped her coat on Willa’s bed and then took off her dress, because why not? She’d already undressed in front of him, and he’d clearly liked what he saw. The party had done wonders for her mood—totally turned the night around—and given a welcome boost to her self-esteem. It had been so moving to be part of that community, one imperfect human among many, all those people admitting to their vulnerabilities, making one another feel safe and loved and beautiful. She took her bra off, and tossed it to Brendan.
“Heads up!”
His reflexes were a little slow—it must have been the weed they’d smoked on the upstairs balcony, their bare skin steaming in the night air—but he managed to make a one-handed grab after it bounced off his chest. Then he just stood there for a second, staring at the bra like it was an object he’d never encountered before.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Awesome.”
He was such a boy, she thought—sweet and clueless and weirdly passive. Amber was only a year older, but she was a woman, and had been one for a long time. She didn’t mind the imbalance. She liked being in charge, the only adult in the room.
“I have one question,” she said. “Why are your pants still on?”
* * *
It should be a big deal the first time you hook up with someone new. A momentous occasion. I remember it felt like that the first time I fucked Becca. My hands were literally shaking when I put on the condom.
What you don’t want is for your mind to be elsewhere, stuck on something stupid that has nothing to do with the girl you’re with, especially if she’s down on her knees, giving you a blowjob that you didn’t expect, and didn’t even have to ask for.
What you don’t want to be thinking about just then is your asshole roommate, and the way he’d dissed you at the party.
In a funny way it was Amber’s fault. She’d been grinding on me so hard on the dance floor, I thought I was gonna bust a nut right there. I told her I needed to pee, but she knew exactl
y what the problem was and thought it was pretty funny.
“You do what you have to do,” she told me. “I’ll be right here.”
To calm myself, I took a solo lap around the house, upstairs and down, with my hands crossed—casually, I hoped—in front of my crotch. It was a pretty big place, with a balcony on the second floor and a rickety deck off the kitchen. There was also a small sunporch off the living room, and that was where I found Zack, playing quarters with two people I didn’t know. One of them was a girl in a wheelchair.
“Yo, dude,” I said. “Didn’t know you were coming to this.”
“Oh, hey.” Judging from the look on his face, he didn’t expect to see me there, either. “Brendan, wow.”
He put his hand on the wheelchair girl’s arm—she was sitting right next to him—and whispered something in her ear. She turned to me, a funny little smile forming on her face.
“Holy shit.” She sounded pretty drunk. “The famous roommate.”
“That’s me,” I said. “The famous roommate.”
“I’m Lexa.” She had straight dark hair and a cute face, though one eye seemed kinda squinty or something, like it had frozen mid-wink. The sign around her neck read, LEGS DON’T WORK.
“I’m Brendan.”
“Riley,” said the other dude at the table. He was short and angry-looking, with ridiculously big biceps, pimply shoulders, and a tag that read, VERY SMALL BLADDER.