Higher Education

by Lisa Pliscou

  “He said that?”

  “No, no, no. I just meant that it’s exactly the kind of thing he would do.”

  “Oh, no.” She fingers the ends of her hair.

  “Anyway.” It looks to me like she’s got about a million split ends. “Weren’t you asking me something about the assignment?”

  “Uh, yes.” Now her fingers play over an inflamed-looking pimple at the corner of her mouth. “Was I assigned to read one of my stories for next week?”

  “Nope. Guess you lucked out this time.”

  “Oh, okay. Great. Thanks.”

  “Come on, Steph, pull up a seat.” Clark smiles at her. “Plenty of room.” He smashes his chair up against Roald’s.

  “Ow,” Roald says faintly.

  “Thanks, but I’m with somebody. Thanks again, Miranda.”

  John stares at her as she walks toward the sunny tables down by the windows. “Cute girl.”

  Jessica looks at me. “The great Oz has spoken.”

  “Oh, not in a flashy way, like Miranda here.” John points at me with a grubby forefinger. “Or in a more understated way, like Jessica, but in a—in a—”

  “I think it’s time to go back to Kansas.” Jessica stands up. “Let’s go, Dorothy.”

  “Okay.” Hastily I swallow three spoonfuls of yogurt and stand up too. “I’m ready.”

  “So long, boys,” Jessica says, waving her silverware at them. “Try not to fall out of any trees today.”

  “Thanks for the advice.” John rips a jelly doughnut in two.

  As Jessica and I near the end of the dining hall, Roald gives a sudden bray of laughter. “Dead!”

  “Sad, isn’t it,” she murmurs. “And to think he scored sixteen hundred on his SATs.”

  “Yes, but I hear his father still had to pay off the admissions office.”

  When we reach the foyer Jessica touches my arm. “Listen. About the test. I’ll be in the history library all afternoon.”

  “Okay.”

  “History library, got it?”

  “That’s H as in hangman, right?”

  “Jesus, Miranda.”

  “Jessica?”

  “What?”

  “I think you’re going to be late for your ten o’clock class.”

  She checks her wristwatch. “Oh, shit.”

  “Have fun.”

  “Call me.”

  “Bye.” I wave and head for the stairs.

  I try telephoning Michael to see if he wants to go to the Coop with me, but there’s no answer. I lean back against the sofa and something crackles familiarly at the base of my spine. It’s my little note from this morning. Stifling a yawn, I cross my legs and squint down at my spidery handwriting. It seems that there are only two options open to me this morning: I can either go to OCS-OCL or I can do my laundry.

  “Hmm,” I say aloud. I could go outside and make the ten-minute trek to the Career Services building. There, crowded on all sides by every known species of job hunter, internship seeker, med-school applicant, potential fellowship nominee, and other equally unsavory types, I’d sooner or later end up in an ill-lit corner sifting through a stack of outdated job listings, too overwhelmed to even think of trying to approach one of the ostentatiously harried counselors, most of whom are austerely dressed Wheaton College graduates with tight chignons, who in the past have been less responsive to my courteous little questions such as How do I select an appropriate grad school? or Where’s the bathroom? Now, folding my arms under my head and staring up at the ceiling, I remind myself that one outdated job listing is pretty much indistinguishable from any other outdated job listing.

  Then again, I could carry about a hundred pounds of laundry up and down the narrow Adams House stairwells, hoping to god I don’t meet anybody in transit. And of course there’s the matter of quarters and detergent, of which I have neither.

  “Hmm,” I say again, peering at my list. Then I crush it into a tiny ball and pitch it into the fireplace. Sighing, I kick off my sneakers, plump up the end cushion, make the appropriate mental adjustment to my schedule, and curl up on the sofa.

  Angela is late. Closing my Roget’s, I mull over the words generate, propagate, and procreate, poking at the remaining half of my blueberry muffin until finally it’s reduced to a drab, distinctly unappealing little pile of crumbs.

  Making a face, I wipe my fingers on a napkin and push my plate away. Within seconds the waitress arrives to take the plate and pour more coffee into my cup. “Thanks,” I say with a polite little smile. She ignores me and I watch her whisk off in her brown apron, coffeepot held like a truncheon. Then I look back down at my notebook, contemplating some lines that came to me this afternoon while I was running.

  “Hi, am I late?” Angela sits down in a cataclysm of jacket, beret, shoulder bag, books, and an enormous canvas tote. “I’ll have a bran muffin, please,” she says to the waitress, who’s already pouring her a cup of coffee. “Toasted. Extra butter.”

  Then Angela turns to me, her lip gloss shimmering in an anticipatory smile. “Wanda, did you know that bran muffins have fewer calories?”

  “Fewer calories than what?”

  “Than the other kinds.”

  “Ah.” Suppressing a sigh, I try to remember exactly how she fell into this little habit of addressing me as Wanda.

  “Listen, I stopped in at Ann Taylor on my way over and they had these discount coupons for John Dellaria. Wouldn’t it be fun if we hennaed our hair?”

  “No thanks. I’m not the redhead type.”

  “No, no. I don’t mean the red henna. There’s this neutral henna that just enhances your own natural color. Want to?”

  “I think I’ll pass.”

  “How about a pedicure? I’m getting one done tomorrow morning.”

  “Well, I can’t say I’m not tempted, but—”

  “And then there’s a sale at J. August we could go to afterwards.”

  “I’d love to, sweetie, really, but—” I sit with chin in hand, wondering why it is that she keeps pressuring me into these little get-togethers. Beyond the fact that we both live in Adams House, our sole mutual interest seems to be a certain attachment to the Coop’s cosmetic counter. I sip at my coffee and look at the clock hanging on the wall in the smoking section. “But I’m way behind on my work.”

  “This place has eyelash tinting too.” Angela leans forward. “I thought we could get our lashes tinted at the same time we were getting our pedicures done.”

  “Forget it. They’d probably clip my eyelashes and tint my toenails.”

  “Oh Wanda.” Her face droops. “I just thought it would be so much fun for us to do together.”

  “I know, but look, sweetie, is this a study session or what? Get out your nudie photos of B. F. Skinner and let’s get cracking.”

  “Wanda,” she says reproachfully. Clucking, she sorts among the books and papers contained in her various impedimenta. Eventually she extracts a single textbook and places it on the table in front of her. As she’s uncapping a yellow highlighter her muffin arrives. “Oh god.” She pushes the book aside and reaches for her plate.

  I curve over my notebook, my right hand meditatively twisting a spiral of hair between my fingers. Genesis, fertility, proliferation …

  A spray of brown crumbs scatters on the page. “Hey.”

  “Oh, sorry, Wanda.” With the pads of her fingers Angela plucks up the crumbs, which leave behind little amebalike grease stains. She smiles, sucking on a forefinger. “Delicious.”

  “Your teeth are rotting, even as we speak.”

  “God, you’re morbid. What have you been writing?” She pulls my notebook toward her. “I’ll bet it’s really depressing.”

  “I really don’t—”

  She pushes my hand away and bends her head over the page. “You’re always so secretive about your work, Wanda.” She reads my half-dozen lines, mouthing the words to herself, and then she closes the notebook and returns it to me.

  “Oh, Wanda.”


  “It’s just a little something I’m throwing together for poetry class. D’you think it’s literary enough?”

  “Well, I—I mean, it really is kind of morbid.”

  “Morbid? Me?” I fold my arms over my chest.

  “It’s just that—” She hesitates, then leans forward. “I guess the part about not sleeping really hit home.”

  “Oh?”

  “I haven’t been sleeping well lately.” Her breasts lie on the table in two neat cashmere-encased spheres. “I haven’t been sleeping well at all.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it.”

  “And I’m tired all the time.”

  “Maybe you should go to UHS.”

  “Wanda, can I tell you something?”

  “Sure.”

  She fidgets with her pearls. “It’s about Philip.”

  Oh shit. “What about him?”

  “Well, you know we’ve been having some problems lately.”

  “Sure, but almost everybody has problems.” I take a big swallow of coffee. “I’ll bet even B. F. Skinner has a problem every once in a while.”

  “I know, but—”

  I’m trying as surreptitiously as I can to signal our waitress for a check. “But what?”

  “Well, it’s about our sex life.”

  “Oh?” Please look. Please turn and look at me right now. Yoo hoo. Check, please.

  “Well.” Angela takes a deep breath, which makes her chest appear to miraculously inflate on the tabletop. “Last night we’re making love, right? The usual stuff. And then he starts saying. ‘Please come, please come.’ Over and over again.” She’s capping and uncapping her highlighter pen, click-click, click-click. “It was so horrible, Wanda. I didn’t know what to do. The more he kept saying it, the worse it all got. So finally—well, I—” Now her voice sinks to a whisper. “I faked it.”

  “Oh?”

  “Then he starts asking me all these questions again, after I told him a million times they embarrass me. No, he’s got to get his little checklist out and find his favorite Cross pen. Do I like it this way, would I prefer it if he did it that way, should we try it in weird positions I know he got from some awful book somewhere. I swear I just wanted to scream.” Click-click, click-click. “I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in days.” Click-click, click-click.

  “Have you tried taking naps?”

  “I tell you, Wanda, I feel like I’m at the end of my rope.”

  “Oh?” Where the hell is the goddam waitress when you really need her? I sneak a glance around.

  “Sometimes I really wonder about this relationship.” Click-click.

  “Well, sweetie.” Gently I remove the pen from her grasp. “Is everything else okay?”

  “Oh god yes. We spend all our time together.” Now she tinkers with her knife and fork. “I had to tell somebody, though. My shrink appointment’s not till tomorrow, and I thought I’d go crazy if I kept it inside another minute.”

  “What are friends for?” I stand up. “Excuse me for a minute, will you?” I walk toward the telephone, repeating the UHS number in my head as I extract a dime from my pocket.

  “Yes, can I help you?”

  “I’m calling for the results of a pregnancy test.”

  “Did you bring your sample in this morning, hon?”

  “Yes.” I loosen my hold on the receiver. “They told me I could call after four-thirty for the results.”

  “What’s the last name?”

  “It’s Walker. W-a-l—”

  “Hang on a minute, hon.” She puts me on hold.

  While I’m waiting I hear the toilet flush in the men’s room. Seconds later a man emerges with a hand at his crotch, having not quite finished zipping his fly. He sees me and glares, sinking his jowls into his collar.

  I nod. “Nice day, isn’t it?”

  “For you maybe.” He stumps off, wiping his hands on his pants.

  “Yeah.” I grimace rudely at his bald spot, and then the phone clicks.

  “Hello?” says the voice.

  “Yes?”

  “Your test came out negative, Mandy.”

  “I’m Miranda.”

  “Oh, right. Let me look at this again.” In the background I hear a voice saying, “Leukemia, I guess.” Someone laughs. “Miranda? Walker, right?”

  “Yes, that’s me.”

  “Right. Sorry, hon. I was looking at somebody else’s chart.”

  “Ah.” Do I know anybody named Mandy?

  “Anyway, your test came out negative too.”

  “That means I’m not pregnant, right?”

  “That’s right, hon.”

  I let out my breath, softly. “That’s great.”

  “But only as much as can be determined within the first two weeks.”

  “Oh.”

  “If you still haven’t gotten your period in the next week or so, you might want to come back for another test.”

  “Oh?”

  “Just to be sure.”

  “I see. Thanks.” I hang up.

  Back at our table Angela is back to capping and uncapping her pen. “Wanda, I feel fat. Let’s go play squash.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Why not?”

  “I hate squash.”

  Click-click. “How about racquetball then?”

  “I hate racquetball too.”

  “There’s a five-thirty aerobics class at the IAB.”

  “I wouldn’t be caught dead in an aerobics class.”

  “All right, we’ll go jogging.” Click-click.

  “Can’t.” I take the pen away from her again. “I’m due at Robbins by six.”

  “But Wanda, we’d have so much fun zooming around together. Besides, I just bought a new Gloria Vanderbilt jogging suit at the Coop.”

  “Sweetie, you hate to exercise.”

  “That’s true.” She brightens. “Oh well. I tried, didn’t I?”

  “Yep. Hey, do you know anybody named Mandy?”

  “Mandy? No. Why?”

  “No reason.” I slip a dollar bill under my coffee cup and start gathering up my belongings. “Let’s go.”

  As we walk along Mass Ave I feel myself pierced by the soft keen melancholy of impending Cambridge twilight. The sidewalk is crowded with late-afternoon traffic, mostly students streaming in and out of the copy shops and ice-cream stores.

  “I don’t suppose some course or another had a paper due at five o’clock?”

  “Fine Arts 13.” Angela looks over at me. “How did you know? Philip’s been upset about it for days.”

  “He should try to relax more.”

  “He just wants to do well, that’s all.”

  “Well, sure, don’t we all?” Neatly I avoid stepping in a small mound of dog shit.

  “God, for a double-double chocolate cone.” She’s waving at somebody inside Steve’s Ice Cream. “I can’t though. I’m saving myself for dinner.”

  “You know, if you really want to get some exercise, Jessica’s been taking tennis lessons. You could play a few sets with her.”

  “That’s okay. I don’t feel like it anymore.”

  “She’s probably home by now. Why don’t you give her a call?”

  “No thanks.” Her face is set in lines of such rigid civility that I remember anew the conspicuous lack of rapport that exists between them, although Angela is always scrupulously affectionate whenever they’re in the same room together. Jessica ignores her. “I’m not in the mood.”

  “Really? I’m sure she’d love to get out there and have a few rollies with you.”

  “Rallies.”

  “Whatever. Why don’t you give her a buzz? She’s probably sitting by the phone just waiting for something fun like this to come along.”

  “I’m really not in the mood anymore.”

  “Oh well.” Smiling, I picture Jessica’s features going completely blank, her eyes shuttering to pale empty blue discs. “She’s not very good yet anyway. Mostly she goes to stare at the instructor’s legs.”r />
  “Oh look, there’s Philip.” Angela tugs at my arm. “And Bryan too.”

  My smile dissolves. “Where?”

  “They just went into Schoenhof’s.”

  “Speak of the devil.”

  “I want to make sure he got his paper in all right, okay?”

  “Go right ahead.”

  “Oh Wanda, do you mind?”

  “Look, I’ve got a million things to do.” I pull my arm away. “You just run along.”

  “Thanks, Wanda.” Her lip gloss is glimmering again in that breathless smile. “I knew you wouldn’t mind. I’ll see you later, okay?”

  “Sure, okay.” God, I hate it when she calls me Wanda. Shaking my head, I walk on toward Robbins.

  “Excuse me,” someone whispers, “but do you have the reserve reading for Phil 169?”

  “Huh?” I look up from my notebook. Jesus, this guy’s posture is even worse than mine. Languidly I flip through the manila folders on the shelf next to the desk. “Sorry. It’s checked out.”

  “Uh, do you know when it’ll be back?”

  I’m at my notebook again. “No, sorry.”

  He shifts his feet for a few moments. Then, with a scarcely audible sigh, he turns and leaves the library, closing the door quietly behind him.

  I’ve had at most five minutes of peaceful concentration when somebody returns the Phil 169 reading and shows me the contents of his backpack to be checked, which receive the briefest of inspections from me. After nearly eight semesters of working in the philosophy library, I’ve adopted a somewhat laissez-faire attitude toward my role as desk attendant. What thief, I ask myself, stows the books where he knows perfectly well they’ll be examined on his way out? In the finest spirit of Rousseau, I rarely waste my time in lengthy scrutiny; and now with an imperious nod I permit still another patron to depart more or less unchallenged. God only knows how many books Robbins has lost because of me.

  I squirm in the chair, the bones in my derriere aching, and look up at the clock. It’s nine-thirty: in another quarter-hour or so I can start ushering people out. It’s far too late into my shift to begin reshelving books, and anyway it’ll give Charles something to do tomorrow morning. Charles is a student at the Divinity School and seems to feel obliged to actually do some work while on duty here at the librarian’s desk. Carefully I straighten the stacks on the cart next to the desk, figuring that he’ll be bound to appreciate my little contribution to his spiritual growth.