“This is such an honor, Sam,” she said. “I’ll do my best.” Rebecca rolled her eyes at this, Sam noticed.
“Thanks, but don’t get your hopes up,” he said. “The singing can be kind of horrendous.” Rebecca laughed, and Mrs. Desmarais shushed her, and said she was sure the singing would be fine.
“I mean, it’s a nice tradition, it’s been going on for a long time, and everybody does their best, it’s just—”
She stopped him with a hand to his arm. “I get it. I’m still happy to be here.”
Behind her were two more judges: Professor Jernigan from the math department, his hair every which way like a ten-year-old’s; and Mrs. Martin, the provost’s wife, who could have been a friend of Sam’s mother, with her poufy blond hair, frosty lipstick and pink knit pantsuit.
And last, Jerry. “Thanks, man,” Sam said.
“You owe me big-time, man,” Jerry said. “Giving up my Sunday afternoon for this. Do not tell anyone at Topos about this.”
“No, man, I’d never do that.” He did owe Jerry big-time, and not just for Spring Sing. He handed the judges their clipboards, mimeographed papers and pens attached. Dougie had made a grid on the paper: frats and honor societies listed down the left, with spaces for notes and numbers. Each group would sing two or three songs, Sam told the judges, who all gazed at him, listening, even Jerry. “You decide the points for songwriting, musicianship and showmanship, so to speak. I appreciate your willingness to do this,” he said. The four judges laughed and said reassuring things, that they’d do their best, and Jerry patted him on the back, as if Jerry were one of the grown-ups too.
Now Sam stood at the side of the stage, watching as people trickled in to Frazier Hall. The exchange girls were seating themselves in the front row. There were a lot more girls here this year; maybe the others were girlfriends cheering on their boyfriends.
Dougie poked his head out from behind the curtain. “Five minutes, man.”
Sam nodded, and went to tap the microphone to test it once more. Most of the sound in Frazier Hall came from backstage, where two-thirds of the school population was right now. He heard shouts and bursts of laughter, as guys shuffled and stomped around on the back stairs.
Dougie flashed the houselights. “Two minutes,” he called.
That nauseated feeling Sam always got before going onstage rose up in him, along with a heavier sense of resignation. He’d get harassed and be the butt of a new round of jokes at the next house meeting, all for agreeing to stand up here like a jackass. He hated stupid Frazier Hall with its uncomfortable folding seats and its narrow balcony in back. He hated this whole fucking place. He didn’t belong here. He started to turn around, to say, Sorry, man, I quit, I can’t do it this year, when a flash of something, a movement at the door, caught his eye.
Elodie.
She stood near the back of the hall, taking in the scene. She walked up the aisle, cool and contained, her long silvery -brown hair loose over her shoulders. She didn’t sit with the other exchange girls, but alone.
Elodie was back at Clarendon. For whatever reason, Elodie was here and he was caught, paralyzed, stuck onstage. But Dougie, behind him, had just called out an okay for Sam to get started. As he pulled his notes out of his blazer and walked to the center of the stage, Sam wished like hell that he could beam his thoughts to her—You know I’m not one of them, he’d say, I don’t belong here. But all she’d see on the stage was another fraternity jackass. Unless she’d come to see him. He felt a prick of hope.
“Welcome,” Sam called, his too-loud voice bouncing back at him. “Welcome to the sixty-first annual Clarendon Spring Sing Competition,” he said. “We have some stellar groups competing today. But first, let’s give a round of applause for our excellent judges!” He named them, pausing to let the audience clap as each judge gamely stood and waved to the crowd.
“The groups will perform in random order, as selected by the head of the Interfraternity Council, Dougie Perkins. And now! I give you—” he paused again, as if to build up suspense “—the Phi Rhos!” He faked a smile and stepped off the stage.
The curtain rose on the Phi Rhos. In their coats and ties, hair slicked to the side, the Phi Rhos stared out at the audience. Sam felt a moment of pity: these guys were scared. One of them stepped forward and started snapping, and the group launched into “Under the Boardwalk.” Their voices wobbled and went off key, but they weren’t terrible. The next song was a version of “All Shook Up,” the lyrics changed but indecipherable. The Spring Sing tradition was to take current hits or old standards, rewriting the lyrics to mock other fraternities or teachers, or Clarendon itself.
Theta Chi followed, with a decent performance. The boys whooped and elbowed each other as they exited, pleased with their bawdy lyrics about road trips to find girls who were willing, about the Dekes who went looking for sheep and cows to screw, and lonely Saturday nights in the observatory.
Then Robe and Mortarboard, a senior honor society. They harmonized well, probably because they had two Granitetones and two glee club members. Then Sig Ep, who sang bland old Clarendon songs, but at least they sang on key. This was going okay. When Lambda Chi’s turn came around, he’d slip over and sing with them.
Kappa Alpha took the stage. Assorted preppy assholes and burly guys who played hockey or lacrosse. Each of them held a piece of paper. Most groups didn’t use props, and KA didn’t usually take part in Spring Sing. They started a song, to the tune of “Farmer in the Dell” and lifted their little signs so the sparse audience could see. NO CO-HOGS, the signs said. The song was about co-hogs, they didn’t want any fat, ugly co-hogs at Clarendon.
Sam took in the judges’ reactions. Mrs.—Professor—Desmarais’s eyes were wide, her cheeks red. The provost’s wife frowned and raised herself out of her chair to look around the auditorium for help, and Jerry had a hand to his forehead, shielding his eyes. Then, from the audience, a ripple of movement. The exchange girls were bending down to reach under their seats. They stood as a group, lifting their own posters over their heads, to face the stage and the KAs, then slowly pivoted toward the small audience. “Coeducation Now” and “Join the 20th Century, Clarendon,” their posters said. It seemed everyone had a plan for today, except Sam.
The KAs began another song, shouting instead of singing about college girls trying to be boys, and how no Clarendon guy would ever want to get it on with them.
Dougie raced up the side stairs onto the stage, pulling Sam back to the center. “Say something,” Dougie hissed. “Before we get completely screwed and the whole school gets put on probation.”
Sam flipped the microphone switch. “We’re going to have a brief intermission,” he said, as the second stupid KA song wound down. Guys from other frats emerged from backstage; some shook the KAs’ hands, while others grabbed at the signs.
“What do we do now?” Dougie rasped, then leaned into the microphone. “Guys! Only one group on the stage. Give the others their turn! Come ON!” But no one was listening, and the exchange girls began to shout in unison about coeducation, running a kind of protest march down the aisle to loop around the front and back up again.
“We’ve gotta stop them, we gotta get everyone off the stage.” Dougie moved into the fray, but Sam hesitated. Why was it up to them to corral all those assholes? And now he took in Elodie marching up the aisle with the other girls. He didn’t know if this was her gig, or if she was just helping out, but he had to do something to show his solidarity with her. If he had to get violent to bring these guys under control, then he’d do it. He stepped into the fray, and as forcefully as he could, he grabbed at the nearest navy blazer. The guy spun around: Teddy Burnham. Of course. Teddy Burnham, number-one asshole.
“Don’t touch me, you fucking pansy-ass,” Teddy Burnham yelled, and before Sam could duck, Teddy had punched him in the nose. Sam reeled back, bending over in pain that sparked outward from his nose to his eyes and head. H
e put his hands to his face, wet with blood and snot now. He had to clobber Teddy, that was all. He straightened up and started to swing. But Teddy had moved away to wrestle with someone else, leaving Sam alone. His vision wavered and shimmered, the floor tilting up at him—and then he was horizontal, down on the hard floor, dizzy and cold. He let himself lie there, eyes closed.
He heard someone shouting, mouth too close to the microphones. It was one of the class deans, who must have been in the audience all along. “That’s enough, that is enough,” the dean shouted into the microphone, but the brawl kept going behind him, loud and stupid. The auditorium was a roar of noise, the boys onstage yelling, as the exchange girls chanted, “Coeducation’s time has come! Coeducation’s time has come!” Elodie. Where was Elodie?
From the floor, he opened an eye, squinted out at the exchange girls. Elodie watched him from the aisle as she chanted and marched with the protesters. She moved away from the protesters, took a step toward him, then another. She was going to come to him. Yes, and she might even be proud of him. At last, they would be together.
His field of vision was blocked by someone leaning over him. Professor Desmarais. And behind her, Professor Jernigan.
“Sam?” Professor Desmarais yelled. “Are you okay? Looks like you fainted.”
“I’m fine.” His voice sounded thin and lame.
“Let’s just get you upright here,” she said. Professor Jernigan lifted him by his armpits so that he was half sitting against the wall just beyond the stage. Professor Desmarais pulled a pack of tissues from her purse and dabbed at his face, as if she were his mom. “Henry’s going to get ice, he’ll be right back.”
It wasn’t as noisy onstage as it had been a minute before; some of the guys must have left. Sam could see Jerry and another guy standing like rock-concert roadies at the front of the stage, arms crossed. The girls moved in a slow line back down the aisle and out of the auditorium. Elodie hadn’t climbed onto the stage to check on him; that had been too much to hope for.
He scanned the auditorium, his vision blurry in his right eye. Elodie was gone.
“Mom, what are you doing?” he heard someone say. “You’re not even—” It was Professor Desmarais’s daughter, peering at him. “Eww, that looks bad.”
“I don’t know where Henry’s gotten to. Maybe you’d better go on to the infirmary,” Professor Desmarais said.
She didn’t need to fuss over him like this. He just wanted to find Elodie. “I’m fine, I’ll just go to the gym and get some ice from the trainer. It’s no big deal.” He started to stand, getting to one knee and then lifting himself up. He felt like shit, his nose throbbing, right eye blurred, head ringing.
“I can at least give you a ride,” Professor Desmarais said.
A dean and a campus policeman ran up the aisle toward the stage, where only two other students remained, Clarendon guys not being as stupid as they looked. Sticking around would mean they’d get written up for ungentlemanly behavior, and their frats put on probation.
“Sorry, son, I’m going to have to write you up,” the policeman called to him.
“Don’t you dare—” Professor Desmarais got to her feet, propped her hands on her hips. “This boy did his best to keep the peace and got beaten to a pulp for trying. I don’t know where you’ve been all this time but you’re definitely talking to the wrong person. Go talk to the Kappa Whatevers, they started this whole mess. Honestly. For goodness’ sake.” She bent down again. “Come on, Sam, we’ll give you a lift.”
Sam didn’t want a lift, he wanted to find Elodie. But he didn’t want to talk to the police or the deans, either, to answer their questions because they were too moronic to figure things out on their own. “Okay,” he said. “Thanks.”
Professor Desmarais walked on one side of him, Rebecca on the other, both of them seeming to think that he might pass out again. She’d parked close by, along the college green, and it started to rain as he slid into the back seat. A minute later, as they turned the corner, his eye caught Jerry on the green in the rain, talking to someone and using a newspaper as an umbrella. Elodie: Jerry was talking to Elodie. He had to get out of the car.
“Um, would you mind letting me—” he began, but then Jerry leaned in to say something to Elodie, holding the newspaper over both their heads. No, Jerry was leaning close to kiss her. Not a you-take-care-of-yourself-old-friend kind of kiss, either. The kind of kiss that was real and long, a deeper connection with her than what he’d ever had.
“Yes, Sam?” Professor Desmarais met his eyes through the rearview mirror, and Rebecca, next to him, looked at him too.
Sam needed to jump out and run across the green, to belt Jerry and grab Elodie. But he reached too fast for the door handle and the movement made his eyes swim, his head and nose throbbing at the sudden movement. Jerry and Elodie. Elodie and Jerry. Of course. It had been that way since before he’d met either of them. And she wouldn’t have been proud of him for being part of such a stupid, establishment kind of thing; that was a joke. He slumped back against the seat. Everything he did turned out wrong. “Uh, nothing. Never mind.”
* * *
At home, Mom steered Sam to the couch in the den, saying, “There now, sweetie,” just as she did whenever Rebecca was sick, then hurried off to get a bag of frozen peas for his nose and eyes, calling over her shoulder for Rebecca to turn on the TV, an unnecessary reminder. Rebecca found the Red Sox—a college boy would like the Red Sox, she figured. She asked him if he wanted a soda, and he nodded, looking at her through his uncovered eye. She went and grabbed two from the fridge, and now Mom had returned to the den, telling Sam to take these aspirin and put these cotton balls in his nostrils. Yuck.
“You just rest for a bit, Sam, and we’ll get some supper ready,” Mom said.
This was so weird. Rebecca wanted to call up Molly and say, So there’s a college boy in my house! Right now! The singing competition went completely nuts today and he got beaten up. He was in the jazz band with Dad, and Mom was worried about him, so... No, it sounded too weird. Anyway, she had to show Molly that she got it, she understood that Molly didn’t want to be friends anymore.
Over spaghetti, Mom peppered Sam with questions. Sam held the ice pack against his nose, answering politely. Rebecca could see that he didn’t want to be here, that he just wanted to go home, and Mom was being her usual clueless self talking too much.
Mom was getting ready to drive Sam back to his dorm when the phone rang. “He’s fine, just needs to keep some ice on the eye, maybe visit the infirmary in the morning,” Mom said into the phone. “Yes, if you don’t mind.” Mom covered the mouthpiece and told Rebecca and Sam to hang on, go watch TV in the den for a few minutes, as if she and Sam were both eight years old. They both obediently left the room.
The Red Sox were over, and Wonderful World of Disney had started. Tonight it was a mystery about a teenage girl. Sam wouldn’t want to watch that, so Rebecca got up to change the channel.
“You can leave it there,” Sam said. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I don’t watch that kind of—”
“Your dad was a good guy,” he said.
“Oh,” she said, surprised. “He was—” She heard her voice start to waver. “I always cry a little when I start to talk about him but then I’m fine. My dad was weird, but he was the best.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Sam said.
“Thank you.”
“Your mom is nice too,” he said.
She felt herself shrugging, not quite willing to agree. “She’s not doing so well. I mean, she doesn’t have many friends.” Neither did Rebecca, but she didn’t want to admit that.
“Ha, I don’t, either, these days,” Sam said.
Rebecca laughed. “I was just thinking the same thing. My best friend isn’t talking to me.”
“My best friend was kissing the girl I like,” he said. “Maybe
best friend is a stretch, but still, he’s a friend and it was a blow.”
“That’s terrible,” she said. “He’s not a very good friend, then. Maybe he’s just a jerk.”
“Maybe.” Sam smiled at the TV, where the teenage girl was arguing with her dad, who wore a policeman’s uniform.
Rebecca considered whether she’d kiss him if she were his age, and decided no. But maybe that was because of his scary black eye and his gross swollen nose. Still, he seemed like someone she might be friends with if she were in college. “So why do you like this girl?”
“I don’t know, it’s a little hard to put into words,” he said. “She has nice eyes, she’s smart. She always has a cause. You know, things she cares about. She wants to make a difference.”
“Like today?”
“Yeah, kind of. So how about you?”
“Me? Oh, no, nothing. Well there’s this one kid, Josh. He seems kind of nice, but I...” She stopped. She wanted to explain how she sometimes wished she were a different person, in a different family. Maybe like Molly’s family, with big sisters to advise her on clothing and makeup, and a strict dad, well, maybe not like Molly’s dad. But a dad.
Sam nodded. “Yeah, I know what you mean, it’s hard to know sometimes.”
Mom was still on the kitchen phone, talking too loudly. Why did Mom always have to be so embarrassing? Rebecca apologized for Mom, then heard herself starting to tell him about Mom’s meeting that was in the newspaper, as if he was a friend and not some strange guy. She blurted out that her friend Molly had stopped talking to her because Molly thought Mom was a radical.
“Ah, so your friend isn’t very open-minded, is she?” Sam said. “Let’s make a pact. We’ll hold out for friends that aren’t jerks.”
“Ha,” Rebecca said. He had his hand out, and she slapped him five. She felt herself blink at the strangeness of sitting here, talking to this guy as if they were the same age. She was glad Mom rescued Sam today, she realized, not that she could ever in a million years say that out loud to him.
The Wrong Kind of Woman Page 17