Charmed Thirds

by Megan Mccafferty

  “I can't believe you have nothing to say,” I mumbled as he put the key in the door and slid into the driver's seat. He fastened his seat belt, put the key into the ignition, turned it on.

  The door was still open.

  “You're not listening,” he said, finally.

  I looked into his eyes and saw that they were shiny with tears.

  “Most people talk when they have nothing to say,” he said. “I'm not talking because I have too much to say. None of which I'd want you to hear.”

  Then he shut the door, backed the car out, and drove far away from me.

  * * *

  December 31st

  Dear Hope,

  Four years ago on this date, you moved to Tennessee.

  Three years ago on this date, Marcus confessed that he only befriended me so he could have sex with me, and I told him to go fuck himself.

  Two years ago on this date, I did ecstasy with Scotty, almost lost my virginity to Len, and wished out loud that Marcus was the one I was (almost) having sex with.

  One year ago on this date, Marcus visited me in New York for the sole purpose of leaving a party early so we could have sex in my skinny college bed.

  I can't help but wonder if any of this would have happened if you had stayed. I used to tell myself not to think about it, and just accept my past as it was because there was nothing I could do to change it now. I told myself, and others, that I was happy with how I'd ended up and that's all that mattered. But that was just naïveté talking. It's really easy to convince yourself that you're just so goddamn evolved when you don't have a clue. Because the truth is, I'm not all that happy with who I've been these past few months, and I'm not quite sure where I went wrong, or whether there's a resolution strict enough to fix me.

  Commemoratively yours,

  J.

  * * *

  the fifth

  I was flattened on the floor in shame.

  “You cheated.”

  Bridget was sprawled out on my bland beige bedspread, staring at the ceiling, still reeling from my news. She'd come by to tell me that the release date for Bubblegum Bimbos had been pushed back yet again, which meant that its suck-ass, straight-to-video future was practically guaranteed. Compared with my cover story, her gossip was like the teeny sidebar hidden in the back of a magazine next to the horoscopes.

  “Jess, you cheated.”

  “I know.”

  “I don't like cheaters,” she said gravely. “I was so hurt when I found out that Burke had cheated with Manda.”

  “I know.”

  “And you were so upset when Len cheated with Manda . . .”

  “I know.”

  “What's wrong with everyone?” she asked. “Why does everyone cheat?”

  “Everyone doesn't cheat . . .”

  “I just don't get it,” she continued, ignoring me.

  “What don't you get?”

  She puffed up her cheeks, then blew all the air out in agitation. “Let's say a girl is attracted to someone who has a girlfriend. And then the guy with the girlfriend decides, like, What the hell? We're not married, we're just hanging out. I can hook up with this other girl if I want to. It seems obvious to me that any self-respecting girl would realize that the guy's decision to cheat on his girlfriend would make him an undesirable person to hook up with, right?” She paused for a moment to give this profound inquiry its due gravitas. “And the guy who wants to cheat should be turned off by any girl who is so willing to hook up with someone else's boyfriend. Being so, like, morally bankrupt should cancel out all the attractive qualities that tempt you to cheat.”

  I pressed my forehead into the scratchy sisal rug, branding red pockmarks into my flesh.

  “The cheater's paradox makes perfect sense, Bridget. Really. But humans are irrational creatures, especially when it comes to matters of the heart.”

  It's true. Studies have shown that people convince themselves that they're acting rationally when making major decisions—where to go to college, what to major in, who to kiss or not to kiss—when they're really acting on unconscious impulses. The human brain simply can't handle all the complexities that life offers, so emotions kick in and end up making the call. And when that call blows, people don't understand why.

  And when I say “people,” well . . . you know who I mean.

  “You and your research,” Bridget said dismissively. “You're getting so . . . clinical.”

  She sat up and shook her head. Tsk-tsk. I rolled over on the rug, and read the bumps on my forehead like Braille. Here's what they spelled out: YOU FUCKED UP.

  “Have you talked to Marcus?”

  “No.”

  “Are you, like, officially broken up?”

  “I don't know.”

  I've decided not to force a confrontation with Marcus, leaving it up to him to contact me. The uncertainty is torture, and I deserve each excruciating second of silence.

  “I never thought you guys would end like this,” she said.

  “How did you think we'd end?”

  Bridget twisted her hair into a bun on top of her head.

  “I didn't,” she said, letting go again, the golden waves spilling over her shoulders.

  That was not what I wanted her to say. I would have preferred it if she had seen our demise as inevitable. She must have picked up on this.

  “But if I did, like, hypothetically think about it,” she said, “I would have thought that he would've been the one to cheat, you know, because of his history as a male slut and all.”

  This also did not make me feel better. And I think Bridget saw what she was up against and gave up on trying.

  “This is just so not like you, Jess,” she said. “Who's the guy? How did it happen?”

  I sighed. And then I told her the whole sick, sordid story.

  Since Columbia University went coed in 1983 there has been a glacial relationship between the women of Columbia College and the women of Barnard College, the women-only school located right across Broadway. It has everything to do with the scarcity of single Columbia men. Between the two campuses, guys are outnumbered roughly two to one, which makes for very heavy competition on the hookup front. Columbia women claim that the Barnard women are (1) preoccupied with appearances, (2) dumb, and (3) slutty. (That is, the ones who aren't stereotyped as man-hating lesbians, making them a versatile group, indeed.) Columbia women generally concede that this combination makes Barnard women irresistible to Columbia men. The Barnard women claim that they are indeed (1) cuter and (2) more stylish than the Columbia women, but are (3) equally smart, all vehemently unslutty explanations for their attractiveness to Columbia men.

  I got into this debate with my suitemate William, the F-Unit punk who helped create the Breakup Pool.

  “Not that I care, because I already have a boyfriend, but I think it's pathetic that guys don't hit on me because I go to Columbia,” I said. “They know I'd be more of a challenge than a Barnard girl.”

  “You've got it all wrong,” William said. “Guys don't hit on you because you give off an unavailable vibe.”

  “I don't broadcast to total strangers in a bar that I've got a boyfriend,” I said. “How would they know?”

  “It's your whole demeanor,” he said. “Everything about you says, ‘Don't even think about it.'”

  This was an unnerving moment of truth. I mean, I know how much people annoy me, but was it so obvious to others? I was worried that William might be right, but I wasn't ready to back down.

  “Oh yeah? Let's see what happens when I wear a Barnard T-shirt at the West End tomorrow night.”

  We saw this as an anthropological experiment. Would men find me more attractive simply because I was wearing a Barnard T-shirt? Or would I be as off-putting as ever? So I hung out at the bar on a Thursday night in my baby pink Barnard teeny T. And much to my simultaneous delight (to be right) and disgust (to be right about something so sexist and gross), several guys tried to get me very, very drunk.

  After I
'd been flirting for about two hours, William approached me at the bar. Even through beer goggles, he looked the same as he always did to me: pale and wan and wearing a Misfits T-shirt and more black eyeliner than I did.

  “Ha! Look how drunk I am! Being a Barnard girl pays off after all!”

  “You're very fetching in that T-shirt,” William replied.

  “See? It's even having a pheromonic effect on you. Men cannot resist the arousing powers of the Barnard T-shirt!”

  “Actually, it's not the T-shirt . . .”

  And then, surrounded by dozens of beer-swilling witnesses, he leaned in and kissed me. And as much as I was expecting another boy's mouth to feel and taste strange, it didn't.

  So I kissed him back.

  At this point in the story Bridget asked the obvious.

  “Did you sleep with him?”

  “No!”

  She placed her hands on her hips defiantly, knowing there was more to it than that.

  “We . . . uh . . . did go back to his room and we . . . uh . . . hooked up . . .”

  “Hooked up,” Bridget said dryly, knowing full well that its unspecific, open-to-interpretation definition makes it a very popular term in situations like this.

  “Right,” I said breezily. “Then I fell asleep.”

  “Passed out,” Bridget corrected, most accurately.

  “Same difference!”

  I neglected to mention the part about hurling into his wastepaper basket before I passed out. I'm a puker. It's not an attractive quality. Though in this case it was good, putting a damper on the mood and guaranteeing that William wouldn't take any illegal, licentious liberties with me while I was out cold. Not that I think he would, but you can never be too careful. Date rapists in real life aren't as obviously simian and sinister as they are in made-for-TV movies.

  “So what's up with you and this guy now?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “It was a onetime thing. And it got hostile between us after it happened.”

  “Hostile? How?”

  My words were strangled by disgrace.

  “What?”

  “Christ. I can't even say it . . .”

  “What?” Bridget said, grabbing my arm and pumping it up and down. “What?”

  “He's a GOPunk!”

  “A what?” she asked.

  “A Republican!”

  Bridget's face clouded with bafflement. “A punk Republican?”

  “We call him Mini Dub.”

  “Why? Because he's got a small penis?”

  “No,” I said. Though in my brief handling of it, I did notice his penis was on the petite size. But I hadn't thought of that connotation simply because I had tried not to think about his penis at all because when I did it nauseated me. “It's short for Mini Dubya.”

  “Ohhhhhh,” Bridget said, nodding her head.

  “I felt like I was promoting tolerance by putting our political differences aside. We would spar with each other on the issues and it was all in fun. To tell you the truth, I kind of admired William in a strange way because his conservative politics were extremely unpopular with most punks, and his punk appearance scared most conservatives. He caught shit from all sides, and he still didn't change to please anyone.”

  “But . . . ?”

  “But kissing him? That crossed some kind of ideological line that I just shouldn't have crossed. Just thinking about it makes me want to rip out my tongue and scrub it with sandpaper!”

  “It would serve you right,” Bridget said firmly.

  “Well, he must have felt the same way about kissing me because he started turning purple whenever we crossed paths.”

  “Red and blue make purple,” Bridget pointed out.

  I groaned and buried my head into the rug.

  “Why did you do it?”

  “I don't know,” I replied without lifting my head up off the floor.

  “You, Miss Psychology Major at Columbia, have had all these months to obsess over every little detail of this huge, probably relationship-ending event, and overanalyze it the way you overanalyze everything, and you're telling me that you don't even have the slightest idea why you did it?”

  I shrugged.

  And that's when Bridget lost patience with me and said I should spend time alone until I made some sense of the totally insensible thing I had done.

  Bridget was right about one thing, as she usually is. I had tried applying my newfound knowledge in trying to come up with an answer to her question. A considerable aspect of social psychology is trying to figure out what internal and external cues influence people to act the way they do. Suffice it to say, I've provided myself with my own case study. Because all actions have numerous motivating factors, any single explanation for my misdeed would be an overgeneralization. And so . . .

  A Collection of Theories Trying to Explain Why I Kissed a Republican and Fucked Up My Relationship with Marcus

  The Deindividuation Theory: I felt anonymous in the bar mob, wearing my Barnard T-shirt “disguise,” so I kissed a Republican.

  The Conformity Theory: I was the only one in my suite who hadn't broken up with or cheated on my high school boyfriend, so I kissed a Republican.

  The Passive-Aggressive Theory: I was bothered by Marcus's extensive sexual history and wanted to even things up a little, so I kissed a Republican.

  The Aversive Event Theory: I was still reeling from my pregnancy scare, which made my relationship with Marcus feel too intense to handle, so I kissed a Republican.

  The Cultural Force Theory: I have been taught by repeated viewings of The Real World that hooking up with someone who isn't my boyfriend is a de facto component of any long-distance relationship, so I kissed a Republican.

  The Proximity Theory: I was here and Marcus was three thousand miles away, so I kissed a Republican.

  The Cognitive Dissonance Theory: I missed Marcus, and I didn't want to miss him so much anymore, so I kissed a Republican.

  The Biological Pull Theory: I recognized that with his good genes and Ivy League education, William could be a better provider for future offspring, so I kissed a Republican.

  The Bipartisan Theory: I want liberals and conservatives to work together for the best of this great nation of ours, so I kissed a Republican.

  The Immunoglobulin Theory: I was run-down and sniffly, and sexual activity helps boost microbe-fighting antibodies, so I kissed a Republican.

  The Sensory Deprivation Theory: I hadn't had any physical contact with the opposite sex for three months, making me desperately crave such contact, so I kissed a Republican.

  The Childhood Attachment Theory: I learned from my parents that people who love me will do so unconditionally, even when I fuck up, so I kissed a Republican.

  The Psychosocial Theory: I am in the identity versus role confusion stage of development, during which it is perfectly normal to want to try out a skanky persona, so I kissed a Republican.

  The Reciprocal Influence Theory: I flirted with William, making him want to kiss me; in turn, he flirted with me, making me want to kiss him, so I kissed a Republican.

  The Social-Cognitive Theory: I was flattered by William's superficial compliment about my hotness, so I kissed a Republican.

  The Freudian Theory: I subconsciously want to have sex with my father—a retrocon—so I kissed a Republican.

  The Situational Theory: I was drunk off my ass, so I kissed a Republican.

  The Humanistic Theory: I have a history of doing things I otherwise wouldn't do when under the influence of mind-altering chemicals, so I kissed a Republican.

  The Dispositional Theory: I'm a malcontent by nature and wanted to fuck things up for myself, so I kissed a Republican.

  The Rational-Emotive Theory: I'm young! I'm not married!! I've got a city full of people and possibilities to explore!!! The world won't stop turning if I cheat on Marcus!!!! So I kissed a Republican.

  None of my analysis has resulted in a theory that rings true. The closest I've come is this:

 
The Fight-or-Flight Theory: I was aroused by the danger of the forbidden, of getting caught, and I wanted to take that exhilarating risk, like taking a leap off of a soaring, breathtaking cliff, so I kissed a Republican.

  And the only reason this one feels right is because every bone in my body aches from just recently smash-landing into the depths of the darkest crevasse.

  the eighth

  15 DOWN: BIGMOUTH STRIKES AGAIN

  The media has been on Britney Spears's case for “ruining the sanctity of marriage” with her whirlwind wedding/annulment weekend, but I think matrimonial monogamy is a seriously flawed concept. Roughly half of married couples split up. Those odds suck. Think of it this way: Would you buy a car if you knew there was a 50 percent chance it would blow up somewhere on the road of life? I think not.

  “But what about the fifty percent who do stay together?” you ask. “What about them?”

  Well, they should probably break up, too. Exhibit A: my parents.

  My parents have been married for thirty-two years. They are the exact opposite of Bethany and G-Money. They're always in the same house, but never speak directly to each other. They talk around each other, and almost always through other people. I never really noticed this before, but since I'm trapped in the house with nothing else to do, I've had ample opportunities to observe my parents' dysfunctions up close and personal.

  Like this morning, when I was brooding over coffee and the New York Times crossword puzzle. I wasn't really doing it. I was just filling in spaces with titles of songs by The Smiths and Morrissey as a solo artist. I wasn't even checking to see if I had the right number of letters. When 7 DOWN came up short, I just added three exclamation points to SUEDEHEAD. When 13 ACROSS proved too long, I let THE LAST OF THE INTERNATIONAL PLAYBOYS dangle off the edge of the puzzle like a suicidal jumper.

  My mom breezed in with a handful of swatches in a variety of plaids.

  “Do you know when your father plans to take down the Christmas tree?”

  And I said, “Uh, no.”

  16 ACROSS: GIRLFRIEND IN A COMA

  And she said, “Well, he needs to take it down today if he wants to put it out on the curb for recycling tomorrow.”