by Amy Bryant
“Maybe I’ll take life drawing,” I said. “I like to draw. Sam says people who are good at geometry are usually good at drawing.”
Ian turned away from the TV. “Sam doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“It makes sense when you think about shapes and proportions and stuff,” I said.
“Since when are you interested in art?”
I thought about my Introduction to the History of Art class. I usually fell asleep when my professor turned off the lights to show us slides. “I like art.”
“Like what?”
I stretched my legs out behind me. My toes touched a crate of records. “Well, I like Impressionist painting,” I said.
Ian shook his head back and forth as he turned back to the TV. “Everybody likes the Impressionists,” he said. “That’s not really liking art. Give me something else. Something modern.”
I shut the catalog. “What about you? Aren’t you supposed to be figuring out what to do next semester?”
“In the scheme of things, formal education means very little,” he said. “You should know that.”
I got to my feet. “I have to go home,” I said. “I have a test tomorrow.”
I took the bus home for Christmas break. I hadn’t been on a bus since I had gone to North Carolina. It was pretty much the same as that time, except there were people my age on the bus and my mother and William knew where I was. I stared out the window at the dense rock that lined the highway like the walls of a fortress and let myself think about what it would be like to be at college without Ian. I hadn’t really been on my own since the first few weeks of school. I had friends now. It might be fun.
William picked me up at the bus station. We shared an awkward hug and then he helped me lug my laundry to the car.
“Don’t throw your back out,” I told him. “I’ve been saving this laundry for over a month.”
“My parents didn’t let me bring my laundry home from college. They made it clear from the day I left that they expected me to act like a grown-up and take care of myself.”
“Well, sorry to disappoint you. Again.”
I spent the evening following Mom from room to room. I told her about Ian and Julie and Andrew and the radio station. I told her about my dorm room. She had heard it all on the phone, but I told her again. I had pictures of campus and the radio station. I had one of Ian doing his radio show. He was wearing headphones and staring at the console, pretending not to pose. When I showed the picture to Mom she nodded with approval.
“Well, he seems nice at least,” she said.
I wondered what she meant by “at least.”
“He’s really serious about music,” I said.
I went Christmas shopping at the mall with Carrie and Lyle.
“You missed like, six good shows,” Lyle said over lunch in the food court.
“Whatever. I can’t wait to go to school and get the hell out of here,” Carrie said.
Lyle put down his Coke. “And leave me all alone?”
“What’s Ian like?” Carrie asked.
“I already told you.”
“Are you in love?”
“What kind of question is that? He’s my boyfriend. We sleep next to each other practically every night.”
At night I pretended Ian was in bed with me. If I thought about it long enough I could almost feel him there beside me, could almost smell his orange-vinegary smell. He was coming to visit for a few days after New Year’s, but he would be in the guest room down the hall.
Theresa and I went to the new movie theater complex. While we waited for the movie to start, Theresa told me about why she was wearing glasses now instead of contacts
“I’m not going through all that shit for vanity’s sake anymore,” Theresa said. “I want to be the real me.”
Her glasses were horn-rimmed. I thought they looked cool.
For Christmas I got a boom box, three sweaters, a black wool winter coat (it actually fit, unlike the sweaters), an instant camera, a stack of blank tapes, and three rolls of quarters for laundry. My father sent me flannel pajamas that were two sizes too big. I gave my mother a John Irving novel and a pair of silver hoop earrings. I got William a brown leather wallet and a Beethoven piano CD Mom said he wanted. I sent my dad a gray sweater that Mom helped me pick out and some pictures of my dorm and the rest of the campus. He had promised to visit me in the spring, but I wasn’t expecting him. I hadn’t seen him since North Carolina.
On the phone I told Ian about the trouble I was having picking out a Christmas present for him.
“I take that as a compliment,” Ian said. “You can’t just get me any old thing at the mall.”
I laughed. “Then I can’t get you anything. Reston is one big mall.”
My report card arrived in the mail two days after Christmas. I was hoping it would take longer. It was mostly made up of D’s, with a couple of C’s thrown in. Even though I knew it was going to be bad, I still felt shocked to see those grades next to my name.
“It’s your life,” Mom said at dinner. We were still eating turkey leftovers from Christmas. “If you want to squander your education and wind up scraping to get by the rest of your life, I guess there’s nothing much I can do about that.”
I set my fork down. “You think I wanted this to happen?”
“We’re not going to just keep paying, you know.”
Her voice had a hard, dramatic edge to it that I couldn’t stand. The only sounds coming from William were the noises his knife and fork made against his plate—he hadn’t so much as looked at me since my report card had come.
“What are you going to do, pull me out of school and make me live here?” I asked. My voice shook.
“We can’t make you do anything,” Mom said. “But we’re not paying all this money for you to hang around and go to parties.”
I fought back tears. “I said I’ll do better, and I will.”
“I don’t know where you’re getting all this confidence.”
“Not from you guys, that’s for sure.”
William bent his head further over his plate. I stared at the stark white line of his part, slashing through his dark brown hair like he’d measured it with a ruler. He probably hadn’t gotten a bad grade in his life.
The next day I met Andrew at the mall for lunch. He lived nearby in Woodbridge, and I was excited to see him. He was exchanging everything he had gotten for Christmas. We sat in the food court, eating Philly cheese steaks and fries, and I told him about my bad grades.
“Yeah, it’s hard to study when you’re going out with someone,” he said. He smiled.
I squirted more ketchup onto my fries. “What, are you seeing someone?” I asked.
He nodded.
“How come I don’t know this already?” I asked.
Andrew stared at me before he answered. “Because I go out with Sam.”
I tried to make a blasé expression as I took a bite out of my cheese steak. I thought about Sam, pouring salt into Mark’s drink in the dining hall. A crowd of teenagers pushed their way by our table, knocking over a plastic chair.
I lowered my voice. “What about Mark?” I asked.
Andrew raised his eyebrows. “What about him?”
“Gay or straight?”
“Straight.” He tilted his head. “Yeah, definitely straight.”
“So, how long have you guys been together?” I asked.
“Pretty much all semester,” Andrew said. “But we just started telling people.”
I shrugged. “Well, that’s cool,” I said. “I mean, I don’t care either way.”
Andrew rolled his eyes. “Polly, you’re doing fine. You should have seen my parents when I told them.”
When I got home from the mall I called Julie.
“What’s the matter with you?” she asked. “I thought it was totally obvious.”
I spent New Year’s Eve in the city with Carrie and Lyle. We didn’t have anywhere to go and it was too cold to get out of the car, so we drove
around to the memorials on the mall, watching crowds of drunken revelers run around under the streetlights. At midnight I looked out the window while Carrie and Lyle kissed.
“Why couldn’t there have been a party?” I asked.
“I’m sick of having parties,” Lyle said.
When I got home I took the phone into the downstairs bathroom so Mom and William wouldn’t hear me and called Ian. He answered on the first ring.
“I knew it was you,” he said.
“I miss you.”
“I’ll be there the day after tomorrow.”
I leaned into the sink and peered into the mirror. My skin looked even pastier than usual. “Things are tense around here with Mom and William,” I said. “They’re really pissed about my grades.”
Ian sighed. “It’s such a freshman thing to do,” he said.
“I’m glad you find me so predictable.”
“Well, Polly, what do you want them to say? Of course you should have done better.”
I straightened up. “What kind of thing is that to say?”
“It’s not like I think you can’t do better,” Ian said. “You’re certainly smart enough.”
“I’ll see you in two days,” I said.
Ian arrived an hour and a half later than I expected. I watched with irritation from the dining-room window as he got out of his car and ran to the door. He stood on the front steps, shivering in his thin army jacket. When he handed me his jacket to hang up I noticed his sweater. It was royal blue with a wavy yellow stripe across the front. It reminded me of the paint job in my high school lunchroom.
“Christmas present?” I said, pulling away from his embrace and staring at the sweater.
“Yeah, isn’t it funny? It’s like, so ugly it’s cool.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
Mom was just around the corner, in the kitchen. William was skulking around in the basement, protesting the visit because of my grades.
I brought Ian into the kitchen. Mom stood at the sink beaming, her hands clasped together. She was wearing the yellow rubber gloves she wore when she washed the pots and pans. Her half empty glass of white wine sat on the counter next to the sink.
“This is my mom,” I said.
“Hi Eye-an, are you hungry from your trip?” Mom asked.
“Mom, It’s Ee-an. Not Eye-an.”
“Actually, either pronunciation is technically correct,” Ian said. A fresh wave of contempt washed over me.
“Can I fix you something?” Mom asked.
“I could eat.”
I stole a sip from Mom’s glass of wine while she pulled Tupperware out of the refrigerator and put it in the microwave. I hadn’t noticed until now that Ian wasn’t one to say please or thank you.
I watched Ian in his ugly sweater gobble down the rest of the Christmas leftovers. The turkey and stuffing were mashed together on a small plate, the gravy congealing in places that hadn’t heated all the way. It was weird to have him here, in this world, seeing where I came from. I didn’t like it.
But this was Ian. After he finished eating we would put his bag upstairs in the guest room and then we’d go for a ride in his car and smoke cigarettes, and everything would be back to normal. I was looking forward to smoking. Mom and William still didn’t know, and I’d had to make do on only a couple a day. And Lyle was having people over. I was anxious to show Ian off, ugly sweater and all.
Carrie was the first one to greet us. She rushed forward with her arms outstretched, like she hadn’t seen me in years. When we hugged I could smell her Finesse shampoo.
“Mike’s here,” she whispered into my ear, and then louder, “Is this the new boyfriend?”
Ian squeezed my hand. “He’s not new,” I said. She was worse than my mother.
“He’s new to us,” Carrie said. Mike was hunched over the stereo, examining a record. His hair had grown out some since I had last seen him.
Ian accepted a Milwaukee’s Best from Lyle and took a seat on the couch. Then he hooked his fingers through my belt loops and pulled me onto his lap. I opened my beer and slid off Ian’s lap into the space beside him. People were scattered here and there throughout Lyle’s basement, drinking beer and stepping outside every few minutes to smoke. There were a couple of younger guys there I didn’t recognize, but other than that Lyle’s basement was the same as ever.
“How’s the band?” I asked Lyle. Mike looked over at me and then back down at the record he was holding. I had gotten a postcard from him the second week of school. The front of the postcard was a picture of the Washington Monument. On the back he had written, I hope we stay friends, even though you’re in college now. I won’t say that I miss you ’cause I don’t want you to get the wrong idea but I don’t want there to be anything bad between us either. Next to his words was a doodle of a guitar.
I was impressed by the gesture, even though he’d managed to find a way to reject me at the same time. It was the most Mike had said to me about our relationship since we had broken up. I sent him back a postcard of an aerial view of campus. On the back I wrote, I hope we can stay friends, too. I’ll never forget you or think anything negative about you. I pondered whether the last sentence was too dramatic, but ended up mailing it anyway. I didn’t hear back from him, and we hadn’t spoken since. I had taken his drawings to school. Instead of hanging them up I kept them hidden in my desk drawer, as if he might surprise me in my dorm room one day. Once in a while I took them out of their hiding place and thought about what Mike might be doing. If there was a girl he liked.
Lyle nodded toward the drum set that was set up in the corner. “I’m thinking I’m going to officially switch from singing to drums,” he said.
The Minor Threat album that had been playing ended and Mike put on the record he was holding, which turned out to be Dag Nasty. I hadn’t listened to Dag Nasty in months.
“Wow. So Reston really is all hardcore all the time,” Ian said. He said it like it was something I had told him. Mike looked over at Ian with interest, and I felt myself blush.
“Sit tight,” Lyle said. “We’re gonna break out the disco as soon as we get drunk enough.” He thrust his hip out to the side and pointed one finger into the air. Carrie rolled her eyes.
“Hi, Mike,” I called out.
Mike waved but didn’t come over. If Ian guessed that Mike was my ex-boyfriend, he wasn’t saying.
Theresa arrived just as we were leaving.
“Hi and bye,” she said.
“Cool glasses,” Ian said.
The next day while Mom and William were out at the grocery store Ian and I had sex in my bedroom. My room was exactly as I had left it, from the hardcore flyers to the gray bedspread to the faded gray rug. I couldn’t get over the feeling that Ian didn’t belong here.
“Is something wrong?” he asked afterward. I was already out of bed, pulling my jeans back on.
“No, it’s just, you know, it’s just weird being in my parents’ house. In my room and everything with you here. I mean, what if they come back?”
Ian propped himself up on the bed on one arm. “Haven’t you had sex in here before?”
“No,” I said. I shoved my hair into a ponytail and hurried downstairs to the kitchen.
I turned on the TV and plopped into one of the kitchen chairs. General Hospital was on. A woman I didn’t recognize was lying in a hospital bed, crying to a nurse.
“I can’t lose my baby,” the woman moaned. Her mascara was running.
Ian came downstairs and opened the refrigerator. I watched him get a glass down from the cabinet and fill it with orange juice. He was barefoot.
“Want anything from the fridge?” he asked.
“No thanks.” I could hear the garage door going up. Mom and William were home.
Ian came over and stood by me. “I don’t know how you can watch that crap,” he said. “It’s absolutely soul-killing.”
William came through the doorway, holding two bags of groceries in his arms. Mom was righ
t behind him.
“I couldn’t have put it better myself,” William said. He set his bags down on the counter and straightened back up. He and Ian were looking at me with identical expressions of contempt. I turned back to the TV, feeling sick to my stomach.
That night I stayed awake long after everyone else was in bed, listening to Dag Nasty in the dark on my Walkman. Tomorrow we were going back to school. I moved my pillow out of the way and lay flat on my back. My breath felt tight in my throat.
I took off my Walkman and crept down the hall to Ian’s room. I could hear William snoring. I pushed open Ian’s door and sat on the edge of the bed. Ian had rolled himself up in the blankets like he was in a cocoon. It was the way he liked to sleep. This was the room where Mom sewed. I could make out the shape of the sewing machine in the corner and the wicker picnic basket under the window, where she kept spools of thread and needles and scissors.
Ian stirred and sat up, tilted forward to kiss me.
I leaned away from him. “That’s not why I came in here,” I whispered.
“Are you all right? What’s the matter?”
It didn’t seem possible that he wouldn’t know what was coming. But as I said the words, “I don’t want to go out with you anymore,” his face crumpled and I understood he hadn’t known. I was tempted, watching his face slip into sadness, to take it back, to say something that would make him feel like this was a fight instead of a breakup.
“I just don’t feel the way I’m supposed to feel,” I said.
Ian clenched the blankets in both hands, but kept silent.
“It’s like we don’t get each other,” I said. I stood up.
At first I slept lightly, awakening with every sound, worrying that it was Ian coming to confront me. Finally I fell into a heavy, dreamless sleep, only to be awakened a few hours later by sounds from the kitchen. I threw back the covers and slunk downstairs.