Anatomy of a Boyfriend

by Daria Snadowsky

But I’m just so tired of it. Maybe I’m also just nervous about this semester. I’ve been looking over the syllabi for my classes next week, and, Dom, I’ve never been assigned so much reading in my life. Who knows how I’ll be able to do track next semester?

  I also really miss Jessica. She’s been with me forever, and now that she’s older and can barely move

  around, I’m gone when she needs me the most.

  Hmmm…just writing you has made me feel better about everything. I think I’ll go out to that party after all. W

  Subject: I love you!!

  Date: Saturday, August , : a.m.

  Oh sweetie!! I just called your cell and got vm, so I’m assuming you’re still out partying.

  It’s totally normal to feel out of place and nervous about classes. In a few weeks you’ll be completely adjusted. I’m also sorry you’re missing Jessica and that her arthritis is getting worse, but I’m sure your parents are taking good care of her. You know, “missing” seems to be the theme of this week. By my count, of the girls on my hall have long-distance boyfriends too. It’s nice to know I’m not alone, but one of the girls, Julia, is in an “open” relationship. I mean, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!

  She claims she loves and misses her “boyfriend,” yet she’s already screwed one of the guys on the third floor! Just the thought of even looking at another guy makes me want to hurl. I’m not kidding.

  What else? Oh, I don’t remember if I told you that our room’s on the tenth floor, which is the top, so we have one of the best views on campus! I can’t wait to show you in person, but until then, attached is a JPEG.

  Love you always, kisses, and more kisses, Dom P.S. Btw, Amy’s loving Amherst, and it looks like she may be dating someone for real! I know, hell just froze over. I just hope he makes her as happy as you make me.

  Subject: We miss our little girl!

  Date: Saturday, August , : a.m.

  Dear Dommie,

  Thank you for your sweet e-mail. We got in late last night, and we continue to be impressed by how well the station wagon is holding up. It’s hard to believe it’s been seventeen years since we bought it. It’s also hard to believe it’s been seventeen years since you came into our lives. It was our pleasure to help you move in, and it is our joy to watch you embark on this next chapter of your life. I don’t know if you noticed, but your father got misty-eyed during the president’s convocation speech yesterday morning.

  We’re both so proud of you.

  It’s going to be sad to start a new year at Shorr on Monday without my Dommie there, and our weekly excursions to Grandma will feel incomplete without your presence. Try to send her a postcard if you can.

  I know she’s always looking for things to display on her fridge. I don’t think she’s added anything new since your beautiful prom pictures.

  We miss you and are looking forward to Thanksgiving.

  Love, your empty nester mother

  It’s seven weeks into school when the roof caves in. Literally. I’m in a deep sleep, but my eyes fly open at five forty-five a.m. to water splattering against my forehead and the sound of thunder directly overhead. The bottom half of my blanket is drenched, and before I can process what’s happening I hear Caitlin yell, “What the fuck?” We both leap out of bed and are horrified to find ourselves splashing around in an inch of rainwater.

  “Oh shit!” we scream in unison as I grab my flashlight, which Dad bought for me to keep by my bed in case of blackouts. I switch it on and point it to the ceiling, revealing a massive brown water mark. The top layer of paint is creased and hanging in jagged pieces, and water’s dripping down through a million tiny cracks. Our dorm room is raining.

  “Fuck! Fuck!” I keep screaming as I plod to my closet and take out trash bags to drape over our computers and her viola case. As Caitlin starts picking up our shoes and moving them to higher ground, it occurs to me to get our RA, so I slosh into the hall and knock on Meagan’s door. She must see the panic on my face because she runs into our room before I can even explain.

  “Holy shit!” she shouts.

  The three of us just stand there for a few seconds, our mouths agape at the surreal scene, before Meagan springs into action and phones the Res-Life director. After assuring us an emergency crew is on its way, she unlocks the janitor’s closet and drags in six empty trash cans, which we position under the heaviest leaks. The workmen are here just twenty minutes later, but it takes them the next four hours to plug up the ceiling and vacuum out the water. In the meantime, Meagan lends Caitlin and me her futon, but I’m too on edge to sleep. I just lie there cold and wet, thinking how sunnier weather was one of the pros I put in the Tulane column and not in the NYU column.

  We’re finally allowed back in the room later that morning, and it’s a disaster area. The carpet’s a marsh, the smell is noxious, Caitlin’s stack of sheet music is indecipherable, my Herophilus poster is ripped and crinkled, and my biology textbook, which I had left on the floor open to the chapter I was studying last night, is so saturated the pages are completely glued together. Luckily, our clothes are dryly tucked away in dresser drawers and the recessed closets. Most of all, I’m just grateful my prom photos are protected in frames.

  Our alarm clocks aren’t running, since the workmen had to shut off our electricity, so I don’t realize I’m late for biology until I find my water-resistant Seiko under the bed, where it floated away overnight.

  Meagan advises us to skip classes today and offers to treat us to breakfast on Res-Life’s dime, but I’m too nervous about getting behind in my notes.

  When I finally make it there forty minutes late, the professor looks down at his seating chart and points at me.

  “Ms. Baylor, you know I count tardiness as an absence. And you’re allowed only one absence before I

  mark down your grade.”

  “I know, I’m so sorry, there was a floo—”

  “I don’t need to hear excuses. Robin has your midterm,” he says, motioning to our TA in the front row.

  My face feels as red as my hair. Nothing like this ever happened to me back at Shorr. I walk hurriedly toward Robin, my head bowed in mortification. When I reach his desk, he looks at me blankly and drops the paper in my hands. At the top in a big red circle is my grade. Seventy-two.

  My jaw drops. This is the first C of my life. I thought Shorr was supposed to prepare me for college-level work. Oh my God! My scholarship. I need to keep a . GPA for my scholarship.

  “Is there a problem, Ms. Baylor?” the professor asks flatly.

  Startled out of my trance, I whip around and realize everyone is staring at me. I scurry to my seat and fight back tears the rest of the class, trying not to think how the scholarship was Tulane’s biggest pro.

  Later in lab, I accidentally contaminate my tissue cultures and have to redo the entire experiment. Thank God it’s Friday.

  When I finally get back to my room that evening, Caitlin’s packing a duffel bag.

  “Are you going to Chapin’s?” I ask weakly.

  “So are you. Meagan said the workmen will need all weekend to fix the roof and plaster and paint this sardine can. We gotta be outta here by tonight and can’t come back till Monday. So get your stuff together.”

  I rub my temples with my hand, too weary even to speak all the four-letter words I’m thinking. “Okay.

  Thanks, Caitlin.” I muster up enough energy to wrench my suitcase out of the cramped cinder-block closet, and I think how awesome it would be if I were packing for my boyfriend’s place rather than my roommate’s boyfriend’s place. I perk up. Of course! I have plenty of money for plane fare from working for Amy’s mom this summer, and this weekend’s Columbus Day. Wes and I had decided to try to stick it out until we saw each other over Thanksgiving, but why suffer? Could this curse be a blessing in disguise?

  I pull my laptop from its protective trash bag, and I have just enough battery strength left to send out an SOS.

  Subject: Shipwrecked!
>
  Date: Friday, October , : p.m.

  Ahoy Captain Wes,

  This is my message in a bottle. My room has capsized (flooded with rainwater), and Caitlin and I are abandoning ship. They’re forecasting storms all weekend, and I have nowhere to dock. Can you offer me a dry, comfy harbor? New York has a great (air)port!

  Your first mate, Dom

  Sure, it’s a little cheesy, but I know Wes will think it’s cute. After I pressSEND , I leap up and start thinking about what I should pack for a weekend in the Big Apple. That’s when the fire alarm sounds.

  “Oh God,” I wail over the siren as I press my hands to my ears. “What next?”

  “As if anything could burn in this bog,” Caitlin shouts as she grabs her umbrella.

  I sling my knapsack over my shoulder, and we file down all ten flights of stairs with a hundred other disgruntled freshmen. When we get to the lobby, Caitlin tells me she’s going to dash across campus to Chapin’s, and after his Sigma Nu meeting they’ll drive his pickup truck back here to get me and our luggage.

  In the meantime, I scout out a dry patch of pavement under the awning of the dorm’s back entrance. I sit down cross-legged, take out my books, and try to study while the firemen take their time checking all the rooms.

  A few minutes later I hear, “Hey, little lady. Aren’t fire drills annoying?”

  Wincing at the hokey pick-up line, I mumble, “Hey” without bothering to see who the guy is. I’ve been hit on a couple times since school started, and I learned that if I don’t react, boys quickly lose interest and go away.

  “Studying hard?”

  I don’t respond.

  “You have a white streak on your hair. You look like a redheaded Cruella De Vil.”

  “Excuse me?” I shoot back, finally looking up at him.

  He’s about five foot nine, stocky, and not especially cute. He has curly, mousy brown hair that matches his eyes, and he’s wearing the archetypal male student wardrobe of plaid boxer shorts, a Tulane sweatshirt, a baseball cap, and Birkenstock sandals. He clearly hasn’t shaved in a couple of days.

  “Your hair.” He gestures. “There’s a white stripe on top.”

  He reaches out to touch my head but I instinctively slap his hand before he makes contact.

  “Ouch, woman!” He recoils.

  “Sorry, but you invaded my comfort zone.” Hitting him may have been a little much, but I’ve had a nightmarish day, after all.

  “Damn, you are Cruella De Vil.” He massages his knuckles. “I was just going to remove it for you.”

  I pat my hair with my hand and peel off what looks like a chalky white strip of paper. “Oh. Um, there’s a leak in my room and the paint’s coming down. Some of it must have just fallen on me. No biggie.” I look down at my textbook again.

  “That was your room? Man, that sucks. Don’t worry, though. Res-Life’s quick about fixing this kind of stuff. I’m the RA on the sixth floor, so I know these things.”

  I want to say that banishing Caitlin and me from our room all weekend long isn’t “quick,” but it’s not worth my energy.

  After a silence he says, “So, are you going to introduce yourself? Or should I continue calling you Cruella?”

  “Listen.” I glare at him. “I don’t mean to be bitchy, but I have tons of work and I’d appreciate it if you let me study.”

  “You’ll hurt your eyes. There isn’t much light back here.”

  “I’ll be fine.” I focus on the page and pretend to read.

  He seizes my textbook from my lap.

  “Hey, give that back!” I stand up and shift my gaze from the book to his hopeful face. He smiles, obviously unaware he’s being a creep.

  “I first saw you during orientation, and since then I’ve been working up the courage to speak to you. I finally have it, so give me a break, all right?”

  I look away in response, taken aback by his candor. Then he continues, “So I’ll start. Hi, I’m Calvin Brandon.”

  I sigh before murmuring, “Hey. I’m Dominique.”

  “That’s more like it. So, let’s see, what are you studying? Ah. Chemistry. Let me guess. Premed?”

  “Maybe.”

  He hands my book back to me. “I started as premed myself, but it was way out of my league. Now I’m a double in econ and poly sci, with a minor in French.”

  I want to say I couldn’t care less about those subjects, especially the French.

  “So, where are you from?” he persists.

  I sigh again before answering.

  “Florida?” His eyes widen. “That’s nice and warm. I’m from Chicago.”

  “So?”

  “I see we took our happy pill today, Cruella. Are you at least excited for the freshman semiformal tomorrow?”

  “One, I already told you my name is Dominique. And two, I don’t think I’ll be going.”

  “You gotta! We have a great DJ who plays all the eighties classics. And this year The Gumbo Shop’s catering. Personally, I can’t wait. Why wouldn’t you go?”

  Because I’m going to be with my studly track star boyfriend in New York City!

  I ask him, “Why would you be going to a freshman dance? If you’re an RA, you must be a junior or senior.”

  “Junior, and it’s precisely because I’m an RA. I have to be there to chaperone…and dance with you.”

  “I don’t like to dance.”

  As if answering my prayers, the firemen give the all clear.

  “Okay, Calvin, see you around,” I say mechanically as I put away my textbook. I’m anxious to resume my packing upstairs.

  “Not so fast.”

  Calvin actually digs his hand into my knapsack and fishes out my cell phone.

  “Hey!” I’m raising my voice at him. “What gives you the right?”

  “Just one second….” He punches some buttons. “There. Now you have my number. Don’t be afraid to call it.”

  I don’t answer or even look at him as I grab my phone and dart into the building. Being on the receiving end of some tool’s unabashed flirtations while I’m missing Wes so desperately is nauseating—like being force-fed milkshakes when all I want is a glass of water. I call Wes and leave a voice mail.

  That night I lie on Chapin’s futon gripping my cell phone in both hands. Wes and I have been talking every two or three days since we started school, but it’s the weekend now and we haven’t spoken since Monday. Why hasn’t he gotten back to me?

  Could he have had an accident? Maybe his phone’s broken and his Internet’s down. Is he having sex

  with Jessica? Stop doubting him, Dom! I can’t start living in a constant state of paranoia, not with four long years of distance still ahead of us.

  When Amy calls me around midnight I seriously consider not answering. The last thing I want to hear about right now is her storybook romance with Joel and all the mind-blowing sex they’re having. But I know Amy would never deliberately dodge my calls, so I begrudgingly clickTALK . After I fill her in on the leak, she says I’m welcome to fly out to Amherst and stay with her and Soo May if New York doesn’t work out. I wish boyfriends could be as reliable as best friends. After leaving Wes a second voice mail, I drift off to sleep trying to tune out the sound of Caitlin and Chapin screwing in the next room. Apparently, Caitlin has no trouble reaching the Big O.

  The next night, Saturday, Caitlin jumps on my futon and pulls my arms until I finally agree to go to the freshman semi with her and Chapin. I’m in no mood to party, but it’s something to do besides waiting for my cell to ring. Surely he’s received my desperate messages by now. Or has he?

  While Caitlin and Chapin are getting dressed in his room, I Google Wes’s name on my laptop. I’m half-hoping and half-afraid I’ll come across bad news, such asNYU FROSH FOUND DEAD.

  CONTACT WITH LOVED ONES UNSUCCESSFUL . But all I find are old Fort Myers Tribune articles reporting his track scores. The pathetic thing is, reading them actually makes me feel closer to him.

  Next I checkAmazon.
com , where he keeps a long wish list of books. It says he added three new novels today, so I’m relieved he’s probably okay…but how can he think about literature when he knows I’ve been trying to reach him?

  I sigh as I turn off the computer and open my suitcase. I step into my black halter-top slip dress, which I wore to Wes’s graduation dinner four and a half months ago and which I had packed in the hope of sporting it at some hip SoHo restaurant with him this weekend. But after I pull up the back zipper, I’m startled to find that the skirt section rides up over my hips as I walk. I tug it back down and it feels really tight. Too tight. I think back to orientation when Meagan warned us about gaining weight on crappy cafeteria food, and I can’t believe I succumbed to such a cliché. Flood, fire drills, and the freshman fifteen all in one weekend! I sigh again as I change into my pink sundress, which isn’t really semiformal, but it’s the only other dress I packed, and at least it’s not form-fitting.

  A few minutes later I’m on the buffet line in the student union ballroom when Calvin practically corners me in front of the cheese dip. Tonight he’s clean shaven, and he doesn’t look so bad in his black pin-striped suit. But he’s wearing suspenders, which I always thought were dorky.

  “Hey, Cruella. I didn’t know you did Science Quiz.”

  Apparently, he’s been doing some Googling of his own.

  “Are you stalking me?”

  “No. I’m in charge of recruiting, so I had to do some student body research.”

  “Recruiting for what?” I ask absently as I scope out the room trying to spot Caitlin.

  “Some friends and I play team trivia every Thursday night. It’d be great if you could join us one time.

  We need someone for the science questions.”

  “I don’t know, I’m so busy with schoo—” I jump when I feel my cell vibrating in my purse.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I just need to take this call,” I mutter as I race to the ladies’ room, still holding my food plate.