Diana has been my on-off girlfriend throughout Baird. I never envisioned myself staying with the same girl for all of college, but whenever Diana and I broke up, life turned into an exhausting series of long, drawn-out conversations that stalled my productivity in other areas. Our worlds had become so intricately intertwined on the tiny campus of Baird—same friends, same schedule—that I literally couldn’t imagine my life without her.
Diana was a sociology major, so most of her classes were in the Edmonds Center, and as a political science major mine were mainly in Fielding Hall. Our routine was on lockdown. I left class in Fielding and walked across the quad to Edmonds, where Diana waited for me to walk to lunch. Charlie or Evan or one of the science majors saved the corner table in the dining hall. All the buildings were made of the same pale gray slate. All the quads were well-kept squares of kelly-green grass year-round, the Southern California climate void of seasons. I ate at the same lunch table with the same kids. Had the same shitty beefsteak sandwich on rubbery bread. And the same unwavering girlfriend.
No wonder I’d become restless. But last time Diana and I did take a time-out, she went into a histrionic state, everyone else got involved, and it was all completely draining. I escaped by going into town and eating lunch alone at the deli, which was fine except that paying for my own meals started to get expensive. But if I ate at another table in the dining hall, I’d spend the entire meal being stared down by Keaton and Josie and all of Diana’s friends (who are my friends, too, I should add). I could have made Wrigley come sit with me, but then everybody would’ve hated him, too. It was just a big mess.
So dating Diana made everything easier. And we got along well when she didn’t hate my guts. At times I have even loved her. Not in the way most people portray love, which is fine by me, because that kind of love is just a form of weakness. It holds people back.
I’ve always been attracted to Diana, even though she isn’t Miss America. She has curly, caramel brown hair that falls just above her shoulders and almost precisely matches the color of her eyes. Her chin is a little too prominent, but it gives her character. The thing is, I know I’m no movie star. I’d be better looking if I lost fifteen or twenty pounds, but I carry most of the extra weight around my middle, so it’s not as noticeable, and most girls don’t seem to mind. That was another good thing about Diana—she didn’t nag me about going to the gym like my ex from high school had. And though Diana knew about Nicole, she was willing to talk about it—which probably meant that she didn’t know about the others. Hence the overly dramatic breakup that was four hours of a precious September Saturday.
Diana: I know you slept with Nicole Hart after Hawaiian Luau last year. Don’t even try to deny it, because I know.
Me: It was a mistake, but I did. I did.
Diana: You’re a fucking piece of shit.
Me: I am. I am.
Diana: Seriously, you are beyond selfish.
Me: I know. I knew.
Diana: You’re a disgusting, worthless excuse for a human being and I hope you rot in hell.
Me: I understand why you say that. I understood.
Diana: This is over.
I hate when Diana tries to call the shots in our relationship. It was a month ago that she called me out, right when we got back to school, after Wrigley’s party. She didn’t even come to Lake Mead she was so mad at me, despite the bouquet of white lilies (her favorite) I’d placed on her doorstep alongside a heartfelt, handwritten letter. But now that some time had passed, I could tell she was ready to forgive me and get back together. Diana is emotional, and emotional people count on time for fucking everything. It takes time for them to regain their so-called sanity. Diana was always testing me with her so-called needed time, as though time may or may not be enough to save our relationship. It was hypocritical. She always came back. Despite her threatening declarations, she would never have the final call—I made sure of that.
Diana finally stopped by yesterday afternoon, while I was sitting on my couch reading articles online. I love being by myself in the afternoon, after class is over and I’ve eaten a good lunch. My roommate, Evan, was normally at lacrosse practice until dinnertime, so I usually had the room to myself.
I was reading about the guys on the “30 Under 30” list in Forbes, about how they climbed the corporate ladder quickly and effectively. I’ve always known that I wanted to be a lawyer, and I know I’ll make a good one. Everybody says do what you love, and I love the law. It’s fun—it’s like a game, the way you work your way around the different constitutional limits and push the boundaries to work in your favor. People like to speak about justice as some fantastical idea, some invisible measure of what is “right,” but justice is following a fair procedure—that’s all. In that sense, the most successful lawyers craft justice. They configure it. What many people fail to understand is that the world is carved by nature’s laws, not moral values.
Plus if there’s one thing I’m sure of it’s that I’ll make a shit ton of money. My father has never been successful—he’s a very mediocre accountant who’s poured most of his energy into dealing with the nutcase that is my mother. My mother was diagnosed with bipolar disorder the year after I was born, and they thought it was going to be manageable, but she refused to take her damn medication. So you’d have thought my father would’ve divorced her then, but no, my parents decided to stay together and to have a third child together—my little sister Sadie—before finally splitting up when Sadie was four. When my parents did divorce, the judge took one look at my mom’s medical history outlining her numerous manic episodes, and full custody went to my father. My mother proceeded to buy a house on the water in Port Jefferson with her half of the divorce settlement, which had been most of our college savings. The house is nothing insane, but a place ideal for one person, and my father didn’t even put up a fight. He borrowed money from my uncle to cover our mortgage, and my older brother Luke and I had to take out student loans. We’re not in poverty or anything, but we’re not exactly rolling in it, and I sure as hell am not going to have a life like that when I’m out on my own.
Anyway, I was dreaming of seeing my own picture on the “30 Under 30” list: a twenty-nine-year-old associate at a top firm, well on my way to partnership, a brownstone in the West Village and a wife with a banging body who cooks me steak. Who lets me fuck her in the ass once a week. Maybe we have a kid on the way or something. That’s the dream.
The fantasizing was getting me pretty turned on. So I was just about to put on some porn when my door flung open and Diana stood there, her curls damp from the rain.
“You could knock.” I hate when people barge in without knocking.
“Sorry,” she said.
“What’s up?” I eyed her, trying to gain a read. She stood in the doorway, her bottom lip trembling a little. “Di? Come here.” I knew she was going to start crying.
She closed the door and sat down next to me on the couch, and it was already waterworks central. Porn would have to wait, but that was okay. Crying girl next to you on the couch leads to sex, regardless of the circumstances. I swear. Ask any guy.
“I miss you,” she choked through tears.
“I know. I miss you, too. But you broke up with me, remember?” I smoothed the side of her wet hair. I knew it; she was considering a reconciliation. Probably because Nicole was the only cheating episode she knew of.
“I know, but I think I made the wrong decision,” Diana blubbered, her toffee eyes watery and red around the rims. “I just want everything to be okay again. Like it was in the beginning.”
In the beginning. I only remember things when someone reminds me—I’m not a naturally reflective person. But when Diana said that I suddenly saw her, two years earlier, standing in Charlie Rosen’s dorm room wearing jean cutoffs and a white tank top, drinking a red plastic cup of something. Her soft curls were tangled where they hit her shoulders, and she wore a clump of silver bracelets on one of her arms. I remember admiring her small, athleti
c build, thinking she was cute in a messy sort of tomboyish way. There was something about the manner in which she carried herself that drew me in—I think it was the way she smiled at the things she thought were worth smiling about, and not about the things she didn’t. I could tell she did that, just by observing her in conversation. At the end of the evening I walked her home and kissed her in front of Kaplan. I was pretty confident she’d let me. She did, and afterward I asked for her phone number.
When I decide I like someone, my first step is to gather as much information as possible about every aspect of her life in order to more closely resemble her ideal partner.
I found out as much as I could about Diana: she was born and raised in the suburbs of Milwaukee, wanted to be a sociology major, had two younger brothers, went to Lake Winnebago in Wisconsin every summer with her family, had a cocker spaniel named Lola and a cat named Madge, went to sleep-away camp every summer until she was fifteen, loved hiking, canoeing, the Green Bay Packers, and baked brie. Her father was a high school history teacher, her mother a real estate agent; they had some money but not tons; one of her brothers had Celiac disease, and she tried to support him by avoiding gluten; she’d read Hooking Up over the summer and adored anything by Tom Wolfe; her favorite storybook character as a child was Stuart Little; she loved silver jewelry, not gold; she’d had a boyfriend junior year of high school but it had lasted only three months.
I memorized the clothes she wore; the titles, times, locations, and professors of her classes; where she lived on campus; who her roommate was; who her friends were; and where and what she ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner most days. I knew she put milk and two Sugar in the Raw packets in her coffee, liked whiskey, hated cigarettes, and that she’d made out with two guys so far that year, one of whom, a skinny sophomore on the track team named Joel, was interested in her.
It wasn’t difficult information to find. Some of it I garnered through that first conversation with her, from people I knew who knew her, and bits and pieces were obtained through a variety of accessible sources: our class directory, Facebook, and a thorough Google search.
The second time I saw Diana was when I invited her to pregame in my dorm room the following week. She seemed hesitant about coming, so I mentioned that I’d recently finished reading A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe. Did I like it? she wanted to know.
“I thought it was an engaging commentary on American culture.”
Diana looked impressed, so I continued.
“I mean, Tom Wolfe is first and foremost a social commentator, and this book is no exception. I generally avoid modern authors, as the contemporary ones are weak writers, but this book is awesome.” (Full disclosure: My rave review came from a random reader, extracted from a random Internet website.)
“Hey, Princess Diana, why don’t we take a shot of tequila in celebration of the greatest American novelist, I mean, social commentator, of our time?” I suggested.
“Princess Diana?”
“Princess Diana of Wales, duh.” I touched the tip of her nose and she smiled at the nickname. They always do.
There was no tequila, so we did Bailey’s instead. And that shot of Bailey’s went down as easy as the start of our relationship—creamy and sweet, so much so that you couldn’t taste the toxicity underneath.
I reminisced while Di cried on my shoulder, her tears soaking my shirt. I studied the back of her head as her face convulsed into my armpit. I did miss having her around. I would’ve tried some tears out myself but knew it was hopeless. I recall crying only once in my life, when I was five years old and ran into a hornets’ nest in our attic. I got about forty bee stings and was rushed to the ER. My dad was away for the weekend, so my mom had to take me, and I remember her yelling at me that I was ruining her day because she was supposed to go into the city with some friend. I don’t remember if I was crying because of that or because the bee stings hurt so fucking much, but I haven’t cried since. Not even any of the times my mother came home out of her mind during an episode, screaming at all of us to be silent because she was “being chased,” and shattering dishes against the wall next to my father’s head when he’d try to calm her down.
Since I couldn’t cry I kissed Diana; kissing counts as an emotional gesture. Minutes later we were having sex on my bed. I didn’t end up needing the porn.
5
LUCY
OCTOBER 2010
The week after the trip to Lake Mead, I lay in my bed feeling restless. Jackie’s bed was empty. She’d met a guy, a freshman named Stuart, and they’d been spending more and more nights together. The other day, she’d called him her boyfriend.
Pippa and Wrigley were still an item. She said he lit candles and dripped the hot wax on her when they had sex. Bree had made out with two different sophomores (still no sex). I had yet to even kiss anyone at Baird.
It’s always been like this for me with boys. I’m not picky, per se—I don’t need a bunch of specific boxes to be checked. I just need a feeling to be there, and if it isn’t, then I can’t do it. Some girls play it safe and look for uncomplicated, but uncomplicated can be a death sentence—I learned that after the Unforgivable Thing, and after Parker. I gazed out the window at the fading sunlight, wishing that things could be different, that I could be different. But I made that big promise to myself after I broke up with Parker, huddled under my quilt, still in my dress the night of spring formal, eyeliner smudging my face in a mask of black tears; I swore that I’d never date anyone again unless I had that feeling—the feeling that everything had been flipped inside me, for the better.
I went out with Parker Lines for a year and a half because I had to. It was getting late in the game and I still hadn’t had a boyfriend and Parker was so cute and so nice and I was crazy not to. I maintain that we never really had chemistry, but maybe Lydia was (partially) right in saying that the real reason I wasn’t ever into Parker is because I was hung up on Gabe Petersen.
I met Gabe the summer after eighth grade (the summer before the Unforgivable Thing). It’s ridiculous, but I loved him before I even talked to him, and that’s the only time that has or will ever happen to me—I’m sure of it. It’s the kind of thing that’s only possible when you’re fourteen and delirious from the dramatic effects of pubescent hormones.
I knew who Gabe was—the Petersens lived in Oyster Bay, and their daughter Macy was my year. Our families were both members of the Cove Club, the country club where I’d become friendly with Macy during childhood summers of camp and swim team. But Gabe was significantly older than us and never around when we were kids; I only knew of him in passing as Macy’s older brother, and had a vague idea of him from the Petersens’ Christmas cards. Macy told me once that she was sure she’d been an accident, since Gabe and her sister, Eleanor, were so much older.
The first time I saw Gabe in the flesh he was playing golf with Lydia’s cousin, Andrew Montgomery. Lydia and I used to spend every summer day sunbathing by the club pool, charging Arnold Palmers and Caesar salad wraps to our parents’ accounts and watching boys come in for lunch after eighteen holes. Gabe was wearing a white polo shirt and seersucker shorts. Macy had her father’s deep red hair, but Gabe looked more like his mother, with light brown hair and honey skin. His face was so perfect I could hardly look at it. Blue eyes, a ski-jump nose like Macy’s, and full, ultra-kissable lips. I loved him instantly.
“That’s Gabe Petersen, isn’t it?” I asked Lydia while I watched him and Andrew order lunch at the snack bar.
She glanced up briefly. “Yeah.”
“Is he Andrew’s year?”
“I think so.”
“And how old is Andrew?”
“Like, old,” Lydia said, eyeing me. “Already-out-of-college old.”
Andrew came over to say hi when he noticed Lydia and me on our chaises, and Gabe followed. We were introduced. He looked at me in a way that made my stomach wobble so badly I had to sip my Arnold Palmer and stare at my fingernails. I listened to Gabe explain that he wa
s in between jobs and would be teaching tennis at Cove Club all summer. He’d played at UNC.
“Lucy and I won the girls’ doubles championship three years in a row,” Lydia bragged.
“Oh yeah? Well it doesn’t sound like you need ’em, but if you ever want lessons I teach a mean backhand.” Gabe smiled, and he was looking at only me.
That was how things worked in eighth grade. Subtle insinuations that felt more romantic than anything. Gabe was the most perfect guy I’d ever seen. I went home and told CJ I needed tennis lessons.
“I should take them with Gabe Petersen, though,” I said. “Macy’s brother. He played at UNC, so he’s really good. Apparently.”
CJ shrugged and said I was already a fine tennis player but that she’d love to see me do something other than lie by the pool all day.
I signed up for weekly lessons with Gabe. Every Thursday afternoon we went out on one of the green clay courts, just the two of us. Gabe was cinnamon brown from spending his days in the sun. When he lunged for the ball, his shorts rode up and I saw the white skin of his thighs. I could’ve melted right into the court. When I practiced my serve I could feel him watching me, standing closer than he had to. Sometimes he’d come up behind me and place his giant hand over mine, repositioning my grip on the racket handle.
“Like that,” he’d say gently, his breath prickling my neck and shoulders.
I played sloppy, nervous tennis that summer because I was too preoccupied with being near Gabe. Our lessons always flew by, and I almost couldn’t stand it when the hour was up and I’d have to wait a whole week to be near him again, to be close enough to smell his perfect Gabe smell—a mix of sweat and new tennis balls, fresh from the can.
My feelings for him swallowed me whole. I thought about him constantly—his perfect hair and beautiful face and the way he smiled at me and the magnetic way my body responded to him.
Tell Me Lies Page 4