STEPHEN
OCTOBER 2010
It was a Saturday evening and I was staring at the familiar paisley print on Diana’s quilt—orange and yellow and pink swirls—and focusing on my arousal. I love sex, but I’d fucked Diana so many times that it had become as familiar as jerking off. It was good, but no longer unreal—the word we’d once mutually used to describe it. I pulled her on top of me, but she wasn’t having it. Yet again she was too pissed at me to focus on having an orgasm. So I sped up to reach my own end, came inside her, and rolled away.
I felt the stirrings of another argument. That is what my relationship with Diana had become: argue, sex, argue, sex, argue, argue, sex, argue. Nothing else in between.
“We have to stop doing this,” she mumbled, propping up on one arm. Her messy hair fell in front of her eyes, and I pushed it behind her ear.
“Maybe if you concentrate on something other than being mad at me, you could actually enjoy yourself one of these times.” I climbed off the bed to look for my boxers.
“Fuck you, Stephen.” She picked up the box of Kleenex sitting on her bedside table and chucked it at my head. “Maybe if you stop sticking your dick in everything with a pulse, I wouldn’t be so worried about getting some gross STD and I could enjoy myself.”
Diana was crying now. I put on my clothes, grabbed the open can of beer on her desk, and chugged it in a single take. Then I sat down on the edge of the bed and dried her tears with my thumbs.
“Princess Diana, stop it. Nicole was a mistake, I’ve told you. I love you. How many times do you want me to tell you? I want to be with you.”
“I’m not ready for that.”
“So why are you sleeping with me?”
“I don’t know. I ask myself that question every day. Maybe we should cool it for a while.”
“Is that really what you want?”
“Yeah.” The sheets had fallen below Diana’s breasts and I stared at them, small and pale with rose-pink nipples, as familiar to me as my own hands.
“Diana, c’mon. I’m going to Wrig’s birthday party. Will you come with me? Hold my hand? Be my girl again?”
“Go with you and watch you flirt with freshman sluts?”
“Oh Jesus, Diana.” I pinched my sinuses. I didn’t have the energy to stick around for another two-hour fight, so I grabbed my jacket and left. Let her call me selfish and mope around her house all night. She and Keaton and Josie would drink a case of red wine and talk about how much they hated me. Give it a week or two and she’d be calling me again, begging me to come over.
I let the screen door slam shut behind me, louder than usual, and walked south down Perry Street, toward Wrigley’s house on Hutchins. It was a hot night, and I walked quickly toward the shelter of the air-conditioning unit at Wrigley’s. His twenty-first birthday was bound to be a big bash. I stuck my hand in my pocket and cupped the little baggie of coke I’d bought him as a present. Maybe it was a good thing I was going by myself. I could do as much blow as I wanted. And according to Wrigley, Lucy would be there.
7
LUCY
OCTOBER 2010
Pippa dragged me to Wrigley’s birthday party.
“You have to come. Wrigley has cute friends. You should really go for Stephen DeMarco, Luce. He’s single now, and Wrigley says he likes you. And I hear he’s good in bed.” We were walking toward Wrigley’s house near the south side of campus, Pippa clomping along in her wedges, towering above me. Pippa is only a couple of inches taller than me, but in heels she’s a giant.
Even though the sun had set hours earlier, the Southern California heat was unrelenting, and I wiped a layer of sweat from my brow line. Pippa handed me a Nalgene filled with vodka.
“How do you know that?” I took a swig and winced at the taste. We always bought the cheap stuff.
“Wrigley says. It’s just a known thing. Plus he looks like he’d be good at sex.”
“And you believe Wrigley?”
“Come on, Lucy. Besides, how long has it been?”
I wasn’t going to answer that question, so instead I asked if she thought Stephen was attractive.
“Maybe not conventionally, but yes. He has nice green eyes. And his personality makes him more attractive.”
“He’s kind of fat.”
“All boys are fat. And they’re just going to get fatter.” Pippa seemed to know everything.
“Wrigley isn’t fat. He plays water polo.”
“Have you seen his stomach?”
We were late for the party, but Pippa wanted to be late because she and Wrigley had had some tiff and she was “playing it cool.” Like most of the off-campus houses at Baird, Wrigley’s place on Hutchins was falling apart. Beer bottles littered the floor, and there was no furniture except for a worn brown couch and a huge flat-screen TV. The Chops logo was painted on one of the walls. A keg stood in the corner next to the bar, which was a flimsy fold-up card table supporting cheap handles of liquor and liters of flat soda.
By 1:00 a.m. the keg was done and the plastic bottles of liquor were empty except for the raspberry Burnett’s, which no one dared touch. Someone would have to make a liquor run soon, or everyone would begin to filter out to other parties.
Pippa was in the corner talking to Wrigley, their bodies pressed close together like Twizzlers in a pack. They’d gotten over their tiff apparently. Pippa ran her hands through Wrigley’s blond crew cut. Sometimes I couldn’t tell with Pippa—did she really like Wrigley, or did she just enjoy the attention of an older guy on the water polo team with an abundant supply of cocaine? I still hadn’t tried coke, but I could tell when Pippa had done it, the way she clenched her teeth afterward.
I wished Jackie was there, but she had a team dinner for tennis, and Bree was in the library studying for her statistics exam. I’d meant to work on my application for a staff writer role at The Lantern, Baird’s student newspaper, but Pippa was dreading going to Wrigley’s party alone—she claimed the junior girls hated her—so instead I found myself at 404 Hutchins Street in a room full of people I barely knew.
I scanned the bottoms of the bottles for remaining traces of alcohol— I needed one more drink—when I heard the voice, familiar in its level of unmerited confidence. “What, you don’t like raspberry vodka?”
I turned around to meet Stephen’s face. His dark hair was thick with wispier pieces falling past his ears, and his chin was covered in dark stubble. He stuffed a hand into the pocket of his jeans and produced a silver flask.
“You want?” His eyes scorched mine.
I held out my empty cup, and he poured. I sniffed the rim.
“Tequila.” I took a small sip and felt it burn the back of my throat.
“Do you like tequila?”
“Sometimes.”
I stood on my tiptoes to try to spot Pippa. She was hanging on to Wrigley’s arm like a tree monkey. We made eye contact, and she flashed me the thumbs-up.
“Looking for someone?” Stephen asked.
I shook my head. He poured more tequila into my cup.
“So, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, what do you think you’ll major in?”
“English. Journalism minor.” I looked up at him, his plain yet oddly captivating face. Those thick dark eyebrows, the small bow-shaped mouth. I had those wishy-washy butterflies in my stomach again, but felt drunk enough to ignore them.
“English and journalism. Are you sure?”
“Yes. I want to be a travel journalist. Why?”
“You sound very sure.”
“Well, I am. Is that so bad?”
“Not bad at all. It’s good to know what you want.”
“I mean, I don’t know everything I want.”
“Of course you don’t. You’re not supposed to. You’re only, what, eighteen?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re an infant.”
“You’re probably only two years older than me.”
“I look older than I am, though.”
“You do look older. No off
ense.”
“None taken. I bet you’ve never even voted.”
“Why are you giving me shit about my age?”
“She swears!” He fake gasped. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“I swear more than you would think.”
“You surprise me then.” He grinned. “I just thought from the Barbour jacket and the gorgeous, preppy face that you were, you know, a little straight edge. Joey Potter meets . . . Blair Waldorf?” He cocked his head.
“How did you know I have a Barbour jacket?”
“I’ve seen you wearing it around,” he said. “On cooler occasions, I suppose. It’s a sauna out there. I’ve been sweating all night.”
“My mom gave me that jacket, all right? And I don’t have a preppy face.” I hate when people automatically assume that I’m preppy. My dad is from a Waspy family and I used to wear cable-knit sweaters and pearls in middle school, but now I hate pearls. I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing them.
“I said you have a gorgeous face. You don’t listen.” He tapped his ear with his pointer finger.
“You said preppy, too.”
“You’re very hard to please, do you know that?”
“Your compliments are backhanded. I’m not an idiot.”
“I know you’re not.” He poured me another shot of tequila.
I’d had a lot to drink. There was a tingling sensation at the base of my spine. Half of me wanted to ditch my cup and make a run for it across campus, back to Kaplan. But my feet felt heavy, glued to the ground. A magnetic force suctioned them down from inside the floor.
“We’re both from Long Island, you know,” he was saying. “I noticed when Pippa gave me your number.”
“I noticed when you called me. What town?”
“Bayville.”
“Bayville? That’s twenty minutes from my house.”
“Let me guess. Oyster Bay?”
“Cold Spring Harbor.”
“I was close. Giants or Jets?”
“Giants, duh. I have an Eli Manning poster in my room. Is that embarrassing?”
“As long as it’s not on the ceiling above your bed and you get off to him every night. Actually, that would be kind of awesome.” He parted his lips and looked me hard in the eye. Stephen made more overtly sexual comments than anyone I’d ever met.
Picturing Stephen picturing me getting off to Eli Manning made my insides stir deep down.
“I bet you have an Eli Manning poster, too.” I smiled dumbly.
“Actually I do. But I don’t jerk off to him. I have the Penelope Cruz poster for that.”
“Can we change the subject?”
Stephen laughed, and I felt a warm glow coat my chest. He ran his fingers through his thick, glossy locks.
“You need a haircut,” I said, feeling bold.
“I was at the barber two weeks ago. My hair grows like I wash it with fucking fertilizer.” He pulled at the ends.
“That’s a pain.” I laughed softly.
“Well, Lucy, it’s a shame you won’t go out with me, given that we have so much in common.” He sounded amused rather that disappointed. “New Yorkers in LA need to stick together, you know. These new age, hippie sun chasers are not our people.”
I shrugged and smiled, thinking of Pippa, who was from Pasadena. I had only known Pippa for six weeks, but she already felt like my people.
“You really won’t go out with me?” Stephen leaned in a little too close to my face. He smelled like tequila and Old Spice. His eyes—the eyes—settled on mine.
I suddenly realized that everyone else had disappeared from the party. Even the music had stopped. It was just the two of us, standing against the white Formica countertop in Wrigley’s dimly lit kitchen, the AC unit humming.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“I dunno.”
“Where did everybody go?”
“Probably to another party.”
“Oh.”
“Do you want to go find another party?”
I was suddenly nervous. I hadn’t meant to get myself into this situation.
“Or we could hang out in my room,” he said before I could answer. “It’s in Copeland, right around the corner, on Carroll.”
It was one of those moments I would look back on for years to come: a blurred image in a magnifying glass; a memory distorted in a fishbowl. Maybe everything would have been different if I had listened to the half of me that wanted to run away.
“Or we’ll do it some other time,” he started to say, but I was already nodding, because the other half of me was proving stronger, the half of me that wanted to see what would happen with this stranger who was not my type but who was making my spine melt like a candlestick. I hadn’t felt that in years—not since Gabe.
I followed Stephen outside and down the street and into Copeland, one of Baird’s older, smaller dormitories. The wooden staircase creaked loudly as we climbed up to the third floor and walked down the hallway.
“This is me,” he said, cranking the door open. “You’re in luck. I have the AC blasting.”
“Why does Wrigley live off campus and you don’t?” I stopped in the doorway to his room.
“Because he’s luckier than me.” Stephen leaned down and kissed me, so suddenly it caught me off guard. His mouth was warm and wet and the kiss felt surprisingly good. He whisked me up off the floor in one fluid motion, kicking the door shut behind him, and carried me over to his bed.
“You have a roommate?” I asked, glancing toward the other bed.
“Yeah. Evan Donovan. Do you know him?”
I shook my head.
“He’s all right. He plays lacrosse, and he has a girlfriend, so he’s never really here.”
“You don’t like him?”
“I do. We’re just different. He can be difficult. He’s my friend, but he wouldn’t have been my first choice as a roommate.”
“Then why do you live together?”
“We got similar numbers in the housing lottery and it just worked out.”
“Why is he difficult?”
“Lucy . . . ,” Stephen whispered. “I don’t really want to talk about Evan right now.” He leaned in, the edges of his lips brushing mine. “I’ve thought about kissing you since the moment I saw you on that houseboat.” He tasted like tequila and something minty. His hands slid underneath my bra, fumbling with the clasp. His mouth was hot on my neck, then my abdomen, then lower.
“I don’t want to have sex,” I said.
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
“I can just tell.” He laughed. “It’s not a bad thing. No reason to rush it. I just want to go down on you.”
I’d never loved the feeling of a guy going down on me, but maybe it was Parker’s ineptitude. Pippa loved it. So did Jackie. Even Lydia liked it. Still, the idea of Stephen doing it didn’t sit right, not then. I barely knew anything about him.
I shook my head, suddenly feeling too drunk. The room seemed to be rotating. The sour taste of old tequila filled the back of my throat.
“I just need to sleep.”
Stephen laughed. “Okay. You’re the boss.”
He kissed me again, sliding his tongue expertly into my mouth. He was such a good kisser, but the bile was already rising, and I pushed him away.
I knew I wouldn’t make it to the bathroom in time. I covered my mouth and pointed to the trash bin. Stephen grabbed it and moved it under my face just in time.
“Shit,” I managed, mortified by the intensifying smell. “I’m so sorry. I need to go . . . home. I’ll go wash that for you first.”
“Are you crazy? Lucy, I am not letting a young inebriated girl walk across campus alone in the middle of the night. There could be rapists lurking in the shadows.”
I mumbled something incoherent. He left the room and came back minutes later, with a clean trash bin and a bottle of Listerine that he made me swish around in my mouth. He handed me a glass of water.
“S
leep here tonight. No funny business, I promise.”
My eyelids drooped, singeing with exhaustion. I could fall asleep there. Just one night.
“Good night, pretty girl,” I heard him say as sleep tugged me under.
When I opened my eyes the next morning, pain split through my head like a bolt of lightning. The inside of my mouth tasted like a dead frog. I propped up on one elbow and glanced around, disoriented until horrifying snippets of the night before began to surface. Stephen’s dorm room was a mess and smelled like old Thai food and dirty laundry. He lay asleep next to me, snoring as loud as a lawn mower. His mouth parted over a double chin, and drops of sweat clung to his forehead despite the air-conditioning. With another thunderous snore he rolled over. My palms felt damp; a fresh wave of sickness swelled inside my stomach, and I racked my brain for a silent exit strategy. What had I been thinking? I wasn’t attracted to Stephen. I was just a drunk idiot mistaking nausea for butterflies. Pippa was going to be thrilled, though. I pulled out my phone, which was miraculously still intact, and texted Lydia.
LUCY: I just hooked up with the randomest guy. And I puked in his trash bin.
8
STEPHEN
OCTOBER 2010
I spotted Lucy in the library, down on the second floor, bent over a notebook in her olive-green Barbour jacket, her chestnut hair a shiny coat across her back. I watched her write carefully in a notebook for several minutes until she rose up out of her chair and headed toward the staircase. She trotted up to the third floor, her hand sliding up the varnished banister, and around the corner, toward the spot where I stood. She bumped right into me.
“Oh, hi,” she said, her gaze unsteady. She chewed the edge of her thumb.
“Hello.” I leaned in close to her. She smelled like freshly sharpened pencils. “A jacket in eighty-degree weather?”
“They crank up the AC in here.”
“I never noticed.”
“I’m looking for a book.”
“For what?”
“A book.”
“I know. I meant, a book for what?”
“For a paper for my Russian literature class.”
“Oh. Russian lit with Professor Tittyman or whatever?”
Tell Me Lies Page 6