by Paul Kropp
Then the most extraordinary thing happened. Maggie started to cry. I’ve known Maggie for ten years, gone out with her for an entire year of high school, but I’d never seen her cry before. Even when she’d fall flat on her face playing soccer, or when she got dumped, Maggie didn’t cry. But now a tear was gathering in the corner of her right eye, and slowly dripping down beside her nose. Then a tear appeared in her left eye, and another in her right, and finally Maggie sobbed.
“I’m an idiot!” she cried.
“Oh Maggie, Maggie,” I said, wrapping my arms around her. I could feel her body shaking as the tears fell. She felt skinnier than I remembered, and she was trembling as the sobs came out.
“It was awful,” she wailed. “Christmas was awful.”
That afternoon I found out how awful it had been. Maggie had gone off to a ski chalet in New Hampshire, with a senior named Pinney. I assumed that was his last name, since no other name came out in the story. Maggie was thinking about romance and candlelit dinners after days of invigorating skiing on the easy slopes of Killington. Pinney was thinking about sex. He provided just enough romance, candlelight, and skiing to move quickly to the sex.
“He got me drunk the first day,” Maggie said. “Can you imagine that? This dumb little nineteen-year-old broad wasn’t even smart enough to watch her liquor.”
“And then?”
She looked at me, hard, her eyes still brimming with tears, and couldn’t speak. The words for what happened just couldn’t come out, only tears.
I held her as she cried. Poor Maggie. I had never seen her so weak, so vulnerable.
I must have held her for ten minutes before she could say a word, and then the words were still punctuated with tears and anger. “All last year, Al, I wouldn’t let you do it. You. A nice guy. A guy who really cares about me, and I wouldn’t let you.”
I remembered that quite well.
“And then I slept with him. I’m such an idiot.”
“It’s okay, Maggie.”
“No, it’s not okay. It’ll never be okay.”
I got sad along with Maggie, and then I got angry. I reacted like a jealous father, or maybe a jealous boyfriend, ready to go off and beat this guy to a pulp. Of course, I had never beaten anyone, much less to a pulp, but that’s what came immediately to mind. We are simple creatures, we humans, with simple emotions in some primitive part of our brains.
“I made him fly me home,” she told me.
“I’m glad you’re here with me,” I said.
“Me, too,” she replied, snuggling against me. “You make me feel safe.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“You are so decent, Al. I mean, you want to get laid just like all the other guys, but at least you’re decent about it.”
Maybe not always so decent, I thought.
“I’m giving up on men,” Maggie announced.
“Really? Like, forever?”
“Forever. Men are pigs and idiots. All of them.”
“All of us?”
“Present company excepted,” Maggie said.
Ah, Maggie, I thought. It felt like we’d spent our whole lives together, from the days when we played soccer—her a skinny little redhead and me a stumbling and uncoordinated kid. And then high school, through the dating-advisor stage, to the dating stage, to the girlfriend-but-no-benefits stage. And now this.
“Now what about your Christmas?” Maggie asked, breaking into my thoughts. “And what’s the story with this ring?”
I told my story well, I thought, emphasizing the funny parts and leaving out the activities of Christmas morning. My story made Maggie laugh, and she needed to laugh. Her life had gotten far too serious over Christmas.
During the rest of the holiday, more details kept bubbling up from both Maggie and me, though I still kept the most sensitive aspects—make that, the most indecent aspects—to myself. By New Year’s, we had shared all the stories and characters of our first semester. When we went to our friend Scrooge’s New Year’s party, Maggie and I kissed at midnight. It was a wonderful, serious kiss that reminded me of everything I had ever felt for Maggie.
“Hey, can I get another one of those?” I asked her.
“Don’t get carried away,” she said.
“Why not?” I asked her. “What’s wrong with getting carried away?”
“Distance.”
I knew the answer to that one. “Distance makes the heart grow fonder.”
“Pretty conventional line, Al,” Maggie sighed. “But in the real world, distance and absence are the same thing.”
17
The Great Unfolding of the World
KIRK AND I RETURNED to campus with new dedication to our studies. My roommate was developing quite an obsession with sin and the fall of man. I was developing a real fondness for the movies of John Wayne. Admittedly, there was an intellectual gulf between these two interests, but there was a surprising amount in common. Kirk would tell me about Eve, Jezebel, and Satan. I would tell him about Jane Russell and Mae West and the evil Nazis in Germany that were heroically defeated, film after film, by the mighty efforts of John Wayne and the troops. Kirk would tell me that the movies of John Wayne showed a Manichean world view. I would nod my head and vow to look up Manichean.
Like Maggie, Kirk had decided to give up on the opposite sex. I couldn’t say I blamed him. Once a man is betrayed by the world’s most perfect girlfriend, how can he trust any woman? Perfidy, thy name is Kathy!
Got to look up perfidy, too.
Because the Chamberlain family had banned the Internet, all I heard from Pug came via letters and the occasional phone call. She was obviously having trouble with the concept of true love waiting. Her sexual frustration might even have been affecting her spelling, judging from the letters she sent.
Al,
I get so hot thinking about you. This wating thing is driving me crazy. When can you get back here so we can do it? There are so many guys at school who just want to hook up, but I tell them I’m devoated to you. I’m counting the days to the summer. Come back to me, lover, and we can have some swetty spring sex.
Patti xxooxx
I did not share these letters with Kirk, who would have found their contents disturbing. When Patti really got into her fantasies, her girlish handwriting and creative spelling seemed at odds with the pornographic content. Thank goodness her missives didn’t come in by email—her material would have been deleted by the college’s web server.
I was obviously under some pressure to fly back to the ranch for Spring Break, but I feared that my strength and resolve would break down with even a few days of Pug’s temptations. I kept dodging that issue, wondering if I could claim heavy studies as an excuse to stay in the dorm.
It was my old friend Scrooge who gave me a better way out.
To: amacklin@BU.edu
From: scroogedude@um.org
Got an idea to bring you out of the sexual wasteland. A couple guys here are planning a Spring Break trip down to Puerto Vallarta. That’s in Mexico, in case you’re geographically challenged. There will be free margaritas, cheap cervezas, and maybe excellente señoritas. What do you think, amigo? And what about that roommate of yours? Or maybe somebody else from your dorm. The more guys we get, the cheaper the trip.
So I emailed back:
To: scroogedude@um.org
From: amacklin@BU.edu
Familiar with Mexico. Looking forward to margaritas and señoritas. Will work on finances and get back to you.
There was some back-and-forth emailing about the trip. It turned out that the cost would come in at nine hundred dollars, or less if I found some other guys, and that included all the margaritas I could drink. Since I had never had a margarita, that sounded quite enticing. What’s more, if we were doing the spring break in Puerto Vallarta, I couldn’t very well go off to see Pug in the middle of Alberta. This trip would preserve her virginity and perhaps give me a chance, in Mexico, to lose my own.
For a fleeting mo
ment, I thought my parents might be disappointed if I didn’t come home, but my father didn’t sound the least bit upset when I brought it up. “Your mom and I were thinking of a little holiday just by ourselves,” he said, suggesting that the house would be mostly empty should I fly home. What’s more, Maggie’s Spring Break didn’t coincide with mine. She’d be home the week before me and back in school by the time I got to town.
So my decision was simple. My problem was the nine hundred dollars. Now this is not a large sum of money in universal terms. There are people out there, driving around in Rollses and Bentleys, for whom nine hundred dollars might be a tip for the car park boy. But for those of us surviving on a Macklin family scholarship—and who were fully reminded of that with each weekly phone call—then nine hundred dollars is a considerable sum. I needed some very creative way to come up with that kind of money. So I went to the university website and took the link to “grants and bursaries.”
There it was: Continuation of Studies grant. Just complete a form, submit a transcript of your marks, write a pleading letter, and the committee could give you up to a thousand dollars for books or expenses. Surely Puerto Vallarta would fall in the category of expenses, but I decided “books” would look better on the form. I wrote an excellent letter about expenses being higher than anticipated, and my poor parents stretching every nickel to pay my tuition. I suspect neither Keats nor Shelley could have written a better begging letter.
Since Scrooge wanted some deposit money quickly, I decided to take my application letter right to the Dean’s Office where I was asked to sit and wait for a few minutes. I opened a copy of Burrard Life, a publication about our school that had obviously been sanitized for alumni reading. I had never, on campus, seen as many handsome, smiling undergraduates as I found on the first twenty pages of the magazine.
I was midway into a piece called “New Academic Laureates on Campus” when the receptionist called my name.
“Mr. Macklin,” he said, “Ms. Thayer will see you now.”
I gulped. “Ms. Thayer?”
“Yes, she handles all grant applications.”
Oh my. I suppose I could have backed away and started running somewhere, anywhere but here. But Gloria must already have my name and a retreat at this point would look more cowardly than…well, more cowardly than I had shown myself to be a few months back.
So I steeled myself and walked down the row of tiny cubicles to the one marked “G. M. Thayer.” I tried to compose myself before going in. Exactly what expression should I have on my face? The last time I had seen her, I was lying naked on her couch while she put a sick child to sleep and her angry husband pounded on the door. So should I present myself with a smile, a look of apology, a look of deep sadness? I decided that a poker face would be best. Reveal nothing. Say nothing to remind her of that night.
I knocked on the door and went in.
Gloria looked up over some half-glasses. She was just as fabulous and sexy as the last time I had seen her.
“Ms. Thayer,” I said. It wasn’t a question, just a recognition.
“Alan,” she replied, equally serious. “We meet again. What can I do for you this time?”
My mind played with that question. Perhaps I’d been listening too much to Pug and her double entendres.
“I’m…uh, applying for a continuation grant.”
“You have the paperwork?”
“Right here,” I said, handing the envelope to her.
“Just have a seat while I check through this.” It was all so businesslike. Who would ever expect that this woman and I had shared a few very intimate moments? “No other scholarships?”
“No. My parents are footing the bills.”
She gave me a look. Somehow the difference in our ages and stations in life, never very important before, seemed to loom between us like the Great Wall of China.
“And you need the money for…?”
I cleared my throat. “Books.”
She smiled. “You know, Alan, a few students come in about this time to see if we’ll finance a Spring Break trip. You wouldn’t be thinking about that, would you?”
“Oh, no,” I lied. “I’m too broke. Besides, I have to study.”
She smiled, then went back to looking at the form I’d completed. I noticed that there was now a ring on her left fourth finger. I wondered what that might mean.
“Okay, Alan. I’ll send this through and email a response by the end of the week.”
“Thank you,” I said, rising from my chair. I turned and had reached the door to her tiny office when she stopped me.
“Alan,” she said, her voice taking a new tone. “I am sorry about that night.”
“You are?” I gulped.
“Yes. Of course, all that is over now. But you might be interested to know that I’m back with Geoff again.”
Geoff the jerk must not be that much of a jerk, I thought. “Oh,” I said.
“So it was all for the best,” she told me. “Thank you. You restored my faith in myself.”
“I did?”
“You did. Wait for the email and have fun over Spring Break.”
So I left the Dean’s Office with a considerable smile on my face. Perhaps my years of sexual frustration all had a purpose, perhaps they were part of the great unfolding of the world. Perhaps they were evidence of divine intervention or at least of a divine design to the otherwise random events of life.
Or maybe not. When the grant notice came in on Thursday, I suddenly had nine hundred and forty-five dollars to apply to Spring Break…and maybe to buy a book or two.
I emailed Scrooge to tell him that I was in, then sent him enough money to cover my share of the deposit. In reply, Scrooge asked again about Kirk and other guys on the floor. Apparently adding them would drop our cost by another hundred dollars. “Enough for a full night of debauchery, señor,” Scrooge wrote.
So I approached my roommate that night.
“I was wondering if you might want to join me on an expedition over spring break,” I began. “A week-long anthropology course.”
“Could be interesting,” he said. “I wasn’t looking forward to going back home. Where’s the course?”
“Puerto Vallarta.”
“In Mexico?”
“Si, señor.” I was getting as bad as Scrooge with the Spanish. “An anthropology course?”
“An unofficial course,” I explained. “A chance to study the habits and habitats of college students on vacation. You could do some direct observation of their activities, take field notes, perhaps get some personal experience to augment the fieldwork.”
Kirk shook his head.
“It would tie in nicely to your study of sin and temptation,” I went on. “Years from now, you could do a bunch of sermons about the evils of drink and the flesh. And while you’re there, you can enjoy the sun, the surf, and some splendid relaxation.”
“How much?” he asked.
“Eight hundred if you’re in. Seven hundred if we find one more guy.”
“You need company?” he asked.
“I always enjoy your company,” I told him, since that was the truth.
Kirk gave the entire concept about thirty seconds of thought.
“Sun, surf, and drinking?”
“And a chance to observe sin from up close. At least, I hope so.”
There was a pause. Kirk got one of those inward looks, the kind where he stops focusing on the world around him and begins thinking deep thoughts—about morality, the self, the soul, sin, redemption…whatever. Since I never have those thoughts myself, I could only speculate what went through his mind. But I did know how to wait patiently, and my patience was rewarded.
“Alan,” he said at last, “count me in.”
My very religious roommate sometimes managed to surprise me.
18
Two Blasts of Heat
WE ACTUALLY FOUND one more guy to join us on Spring Break—Fuji from the room beside us in the dorm. Like Kirk, it had
taken Fuji all of ten seconds to make up his mind. Unlike Kirk, he brought his laptop with him for the trip and managed to annoy us by playing video games all the way.
When we finally stepped off the plane, Kirk, Fuji, and I were hit by a blast of dry heat. Mexico in March is hot, very hot. We sweltered in the customs line, then dripped while waiting for the prearranged taxi that would take us to the hotel. We were staying north of the old city, in a suburb called Nuevo Vallarta, a complex of hotels, restaurants, and marinas that was created entirely for tourists. The taxi dropped us at our hotel, one of ten virtually identical high-rise hotels that lined the Pacific shore. We called upstairs to Scrooge and found that the others, our roommates for the week, had already arrived from their various schools.
Scrooge greeted us at the door. “Alan, my man,” he said affably, “and Kirk, I’ve heard you’re one cool dude. And you must be Fuji,” he added, eyeballing the computer under Fuji’s arm. “Here, have a cerveza,” he said, handing us all a beer. “Cerveza numero uno.”
“Did you ever study Spanish?” I asked him.
“Irrelevant, Alan,” Scrooge replied. “All romance languages are basically the same as English. You just add an “o” wherever it sounds good and sprinkle in a few local words like cerveza and margarita. Don’t they teach you anything at BU? Now come in and meet the other guys.”
There were eight of us in Scrooge’s crew, six of us legally booked into two rooms at the hotel and two guys who bought air-only tickets and were basically camping out in sleeping bags on the floor. Introductions were quick. In the other room there were four buddies of Scrooge. The first was Aiden, a guy who looked quite Irish with his dark curly hair and bright eyes. He even seemed to speak with something of an Irish lilt, though he was actually born in Detroit. Beside him was Matt, a short guy whose hair kept flopping down over his eyes. Matt was an aspiring artist, he said, who got sidetracked into an art history major under pressure from his parents. Flopped on a chair was an enormous guy called Biff, short for Beefsteak or Bismark or something like that. While it is a cliché to say that very large, athletic guys are stupid as bricks, it would only be accurate to say that Biff was large, athletic, and stupid as a brick. Their last roommate was called Goofball, which must have been more accurate than his real name since that real name was never used. Goofball had the look of a man seriously brain-damaged by drug use—and he was only twenty.