by J. Minter
“It just says the bed was a gift from the Rockefellers—it’s originally from Versailles,” Mickey, who was standing on the balcony, told him nonchalantly. “What do we have here?” he added, gesturing toward the tumbler.
David handed Mickey the scotch as he joined him on the balcony.
“Whoa,” Mickey said. Then he swigged from the scotch, coughing satisfactorily when it was gone. He looked toward David with glassy eyes, but David was looking at something else.
Below them, in the fifty-meter pool that was housed in this remote corner of campus, a group of women in matching black bathing suits and funny white bathing caps were splashing around and making a lot of noise.
“What are those things on their heads?” David said absentmindedly as he watched a pair of perfectly muscled calves break the surface of the pool.
“Well, I was reading in my welcome packet that Vassar was a women’s college until 1969—it was one of the, um, six sisters colleges? Anyway, maybe they have some weird former girls’ school tradition about wearing old-timey bathing caps.”
“Uh, that would be seven sisters to you…,” David said. He had been half-listening to what Mickey was saying.
“Really? How do you know that?” Mickey asked.
“Seven. Definitely seven. Smith, Barnard, Wellesley …” David paused and looked at Mickey who was smirking unabashedly. “Shut up.”
“David, I just had no idea you were such a proponent of women’s higher education. That’s awesome.”
“I said shut up. And they’re playing water polo, you dumbass. Those aren’t old-timey bathing caps. They’re like special water polo helmets.”
“Oh.”
They were distracted by some loud screeching and name-calling below. One of the girls seemed to be dragging another girl around by her bathing suit. This went on for a few moments, during which David wasn’t sure if he breathed or not. Finally someone blew a whistle and the girls all moved to the edge of the pool for a time-out.
David and Mickey were staring unabashedly when one of the girls noticed them on the balcony. “Hey,” she yelled, “are you a professor?”
“Me?” David called down. “Um, no.” The girls propping themselves up with their elbows on the side of the pool all started to laugh, but it didn’t seem like mean laughing to David. They were all looking up at him, and they all had glowing athletic skin and bright eyes.
The tall brunette who had blown the whistle yelled: “Are you an FBI agent?” which caused the girls to erupt again.
“I was just kidding,” the first girl went on. “You don’t really look like a professor. Or an FBI agent. Especially with that art project on your chest.”
David looked down at the red splotches on his shirt, and then at Mickey, who was nodding to himself with satisfaction. “Told you,” he said.
“Hey!” One of the other girls exclaimed. “It’s that nude photo artist guy.”
“Oh yeah,” said another. “And that’s the cute guy from the photos, too.”
“Are you really the cute guy from the photos?” said a girl who had pushed herself out of the water and pulled off the cap to release a cascade of bleach-blond hair.
“Um, I guess. One of the guys …,” David mumbled, feeling his ears growing hot.
“Oh, I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” the girl with blond hair said. “I just think you look really good in a too-small suit, too.”
David touched his flaming ear and smiled boyishly. It suddenly looked like he didn’t have to worry about leaving the attention from girls behind, after all.
arno in outer space
“Are you sure this is where we’re supposed to meet them?” Arno yelled over “Under Pressure,” which was reverberating against the walls of the Mug, Vassar’s basement, on-campus bar. That was when he noticed all the glitter-encrusted signs on the walls proclaiming Friday night “Space Disco Night.”
“Yeah,” Patch said, “hold on a sec.” He was texting something, and since he’d only learned to text a week ago, it was taking all his concentration. Patch had insisted on taking an actual tour of the campus, so that he could report back to Greta, and Arno had tagged along.
He still hadn’t figured out how he was going to get depth, although he could feel that it must be somewhere nearby. There were quads filled with girls out there. Surely some of them had to have depth.
Arno surveyed the scene. Many small cafeterialike tables were set up around the dance floor, which was reflected in the mirrored ceiling. The guy with Buddy Holly glasses who had served them their beer was currently dancing across the floor—or at least sort of dancing, although the word “hopping” also occurred to Arno. Girls with sparkly eye makeup, frizzed hair, big jewelry, and short-shorts were swaying with guys who had apparently used the sparkly eye makeup, too. It occurred to Arno that a lot of work had gone into Space Disco Night.
He surveyed the girls and tried to imagine taking one of them out for a walk across the quad and a talk about life. He was having a hard time imagining which one of these girls would actually be down for that, though. There were two leggy creatures wearing identical little gold dresses and dancing cheek to cheek, pretty close to them, and though Arno didn’t think they looked like the greatest conversationalists, he had to admit they were pretty hot.
“Don’t you think Bowie is a genius?” Arno called out to them.
The girls looked back and appraised him. After a long, weird moment passed, Arno realized that he was being ignored.
“Sorry, dude,” Patch said, finally putting the phone down and taking a swig of his PBR. “Damn, these things go down quick, huh?”
The two gold-covered girls were paying attention again. One of them looked at Patch and whispered to the other. Then they both looked at him, and kept dancing, except in a slower, more touching, attention-hungry kind of way.
“I know. Sometimes college kids have no taste,” Arno said, crushing his empty can under his foot. He should have known girls like that would care about superficial things, like who New York magazine wanted on its cover. “You want another one?”
Patch nodded, and they moved through the crowd of dancers to the bar at the end of the room. A line had formed, and as they joined the end of it, Arno noticed that a girl had replaced the Buddy Holly guy. She had long dark hair that twisted around near her waist, and she was wearing jeans and a wife beater.
“This is pretty cool that they have a campus bar,” Patch said.
Arno looked back at the dance floor. Everyone looked like they were having a great time, but Arno tried to concentrate and tell himself that it was all frivolity. Depth, he silently reminded himself. That’s what he needed.
When they reached the head of the line he smiled at the girl bartender—she was even prettier than he had thought before. She pointed at him and jutted her chin like a person too busy for niceties.
“Two beers,” Patch said, laying another bill on the bar.
She reached into a bucket of ice, put two beers on the counter, and took Patch’s twenty. As she was counting change out for them, Arno said, “I bet you’d rather be hidden in the library somewhere, reading a French novel.”
“Huh?” she said, looking nervously down the line.
“Or studying whatever you study,” Arno said. “What do you study? Maybe we could hang out later and talk about it.”
She squinted at him. “I don’t,” she said. “I graduated three years ago. But if you want to get together and talk about how hard it is to get a job with a bachelor’s degree from a liberal arts college, I guess I’d be up for that.”
“Oh,” Arno said, taking his beer and moving slowly away from the bar, “Yeah, maybe I’ll come back some night when it’s not so busy.”
“I’ll be here,” she barked at him, turning to the next customer.
Arno caught up with Patch, who was walking around the perimeter of the dance floor and who hadn’t seemed to notice his friend’s botched pickup. “Hey, I wonder what happened to Jonathan and
Ted …” He twisted his head around to make sure that they weren’t somewhere in the crowd, and was met instead with the sight of a very large, fratish-looking dude with a flashlight and a plastic badge. He was also yelling.
“Hey!” he shouted at them. “Let’s see those armbands!”
“Um, armbands?” Patch looked at him coolly, like a person who has just been spit on and is trying not to be irritated about it.
“Yeah, kiddo, there’s no drinking in here if you don’t got an armband. And you can’t get an armband if you’re under twenty-one.”
“Well,” Patch frowned, “I’m over twenty-one, and I don’t have an armband.”
This seemed to confuse the guy for a few beats, but then he returned to the idea that an armband equaled ability to drink. “My job is to kick out anyone out who has a beer but doesn’t have an armband. And that’s just what I’m gonna do,” he grunted. Then he grabbed Patch by the wrist and seemed about to pull him out of the bar when a blond girl in converse high-tops and a sleeveless dress that looked like it could also have been a tube-top came skidding up next to them.
“Lou,” she squealed excitedly, “you caught him!”
“Who?” asked Lou. He was confused again.
“The real Hottest Private School Boy. Can I have him, please?”
“He’s underage,” Lou said, “At least, I think he is.”
“Of course he is. He’s the HPSB. He’s still in high school, duh!” She sighed in exasperation, and turned toward Patch. “I see that you’re trying to hide underneath that old baseball hat, but I would have recognized you in a paper bag.” The blond grabbed Patch by the hand and pulled him into the crowd on the dance floor. Arno looked up at Lou disgustedly, and realized instantly that he wasn’t going to get any sympathy there.
As he was being dragged toward the door, “Rebel Rebel” started up, so Patch couldn’t even hear his friend calling for him. Arno felt his mood sink and rise at once. Getting kicked out—that made him an outsider, didn’t it? And all outsiders had depth, didn’t they?
i am now known as …
“Ted’s brother!?” squealed the pretty, neo-boho girl my brother had just introduced me to. She had a wide, genuine smile on her face, and she twisted her head left and right so I could give her the double-cheek-kiss treatment. “I can’t believe there are two of you.”
“Naw,” Ted said, and to my embarrassment he seemed to be blushing. But then I realized that this was different blushing—not the full-on, please-shoot-me blushing of high school. It was more like his face had just gotten some flattering coloring. “I’m like a paler, very unexciting version of J.”
This was the kind of thing I’d been angling to hear by coming to visit my brother, but hearing it now, I was filled with a queasy suspicion that it just wasn’t true anymore. I smiled weakly at the girl, trying to show her that I did have some humility. She patted the lush patch of grass next to her.
“I’m Zelda,” she said as I sat down in the spot she had indicated. There were a bunch of other people sitting around on the field, too, smoking cigarettes and looking pretty relaxed for college students at the end of a semester. They were all dressed like Zelda, in loose-fitting peasant gear that looked kind of comfy and expensive at once.
We had been slowly making our way from Lathrop to this campus bar, where everyone supposedly hangs out, but we’d been stopped on the way by a lot of people who wanted to talk to Ted, a surprising number of them hoping he could tell them what was happening that weekend.
So we were running a little late.
Ted sank down on the lawn, and I sat down, too—hesitantly, because grass stains could be potentially disastrous for my jeans—and I smiled at Zelda, who was no longer looking at me. She was carefully pushing Ted’s hair behind his ears.
“So how’s New York?” one of Zelda’s guy friends called out to me. He was wearing a cord vest over a white V-neck shirt and jean shorts. Weird.
“Busy, you know,” I said with a shrug.
The guy nodded. “Everyone is so formulaically unconventionally busy there.”
“Um, right.”
I turned to survey the lawn. Students were everywhere, walking on the paths that led between the big, brick buildings. Night had fallen, and there was laughter everywhere. Two girls were walking toward me, wearing long, crinkly A-line skirts and silvery collections of bangles on their wrists. They had faces like little foxes, snuggled close to each other, telling secrets. When they had almost reached our group, the one in the belted cardigan, who was wearing her hair in two long braids, dropped her bottom lip in mock horror and yelled, “Get your hands off my boyfriend!”
For a moment I thought she might be referring to me, but then I saw Zelda jump away from my brother. She had been giving him a head massage—at least, that’s what it looked like.
“I wasn’t …,” she began, stammering.
“I know, you goose,” the girl with the braids said. She sat down next to Ted, folded her legs up underneath her, and kissed him. The other girl, whose dark hair was arranged in one of those artfully messy ponytails, sat down, too, and gave me a crooked smile.
“I’m Lara,” she said. She was sharper looking than the other pink-cheeked girl who was currently rubbing noses with my brother. “I’m visiting for the weekend—that’s probably why you don’t recognize me.”
“Oh yeah? I’m visiting too. Is your high school in the city?”
Lara laughed and put a hand over her mouth. “High school? No, no. I’m visiting from Sarah Lawrence, which isn’t quite the city.”
“Lara, this is my brother, Jonathan,” Ted said, looking up from Lara’s friend’s neck. Lara smiled at me like I was a whole new person. “And J, this is my girlfriend, Margot.”
The girl with the long braids leaned forward and kissed me. For a moment I thought she was going to kiss kiss me, but then she just gave me the double kiss that seemed to be the clique norm. “It’s so good to finally meet you,” she said. “Ted has just told me so many great things about you.”
All I could think of to say was, “Oh, yeah?” because I had never heard of Margot, or even imagined that Ted had a girlfriend. But then, it really had been a while since we’d talked. I hoped my mouth wasn’t hanging open as I took in the sight of Ted as half of a couple—a really, really good-looking one. Luckily, Margot was still beaming despite my lack of words.
“So, are you going to apply to Vassar?” she asked.
“Maybe—it’s really pretty here. And the people seem …” I broke off because Margot’s face had gone from happy to horrified.
“Jonathan, what are you wearing?”
“Excuse me?”
Everyone in the little circle stared at my feet. I did, too—I couldn’t help but think, yeah, they’re garish, but they’re not that bad. The silence, meanwhile, continued for an uncomfortably long time.
“Margot’s a vegan and really committed PETA person,” Ted said gently.
“I mean, are those crocodile?” she said. “Do you know what kind of torture they put those animals through, just to get some flashy shoes?”
“Uh, no … I mean no they’re not croc. Croc-o-dile.” Margot was looking at me in disbelief, but I couldn’t help but continue. “They’re vinyl, in fact. I only buy vinyl and other, um, non-hide clothing items.”
Lara, the girl sitting next to me, let out a long, snide, “Ha!”
Now people outside of their little group were staring, not in an exactly understanding way, and none of them were saying anything. You could’ve heard a chestnut fall, and I probably would have if I wasn’t listening to the blood pumping to my cheeks. Just when this whole silence/staring thing was getting a little ridiculous, Margot tossed her head back and laughed. It was a long, lovely, ringing laugh. I looked around for a reaction, but everyone waited until Margot leaned forward and took me in her arms. Like, actually hugged me, filling my nose with this very pleasant gardenia smell.
“Oh, Jonathan,” she said, “those are so o
bviously not vinyl.”
The group around us sighed and laughed, too. They had a good, long laugh at my expense.
“You can’t tell Jonathan what to wear,” Ted said with a chuckle. “He takes all of that really seriously.”
My embarrassment must have been printed all over my face, because Margot continued, “It’s okay, buddy. Even I wear—horror of horrors— fur sometimes. But you should be careful who you buy from, especially if you’re buying new. There is a lot of cruelty in this world, and we should do our part not to support it, you know?”
Then everyone went back to talking and laughing and loudly enjoying the summer night, but I couldn’t help but be flushed by a feeling of total, and very public, lameness.
patch (almost) loses his cool
“Hey man,” the guy with the angled bangs and the fitted red-and-white striped T-shirt was saying. Then he said it again, “Hey, uh, hey man.”
Patch came to terms with the fact that he wasn’t going to be able to ignore this guy much longer. He shook his phone a few more times, as though that might somehow get him service in the bathroom of the basement bar, and then considered throwing it against the wall, before realizing that would mean that he would never get to talk to Greta again. Or for the rest of the weekend, at least.
“Hey man,” the guy said again. “I know who you are.”
Patch resignedly put the phone back in his pocket and looked up. “Hi,” he said.
“You’re that guy that New York magazine wanted to name Hottest Private School Boy,” the guy continued excitedly. “I just wanted to say I think that is just camptastic.”
“Huh?”
“Like, campy fantastic!” the guy continued. As he spoke, he nervously reformed his bangs so that they crossed his forehead and partially covered his right eye just so. “And fascinating. I’m writing my senior thesis on the phenomenon of celebrities who are famous for being famous, like Paris Hilton, you see what I mean? So I really know a lot about this. I actually think it was very savvy of you not to have accepted the initial offer to be HPSB. It’s sort of like you’re hiding your hand a little bit longer, it gives you a certain caché, and it only makes the eventual blowup that much more inevitable. I think you have a 95 percent chance of being internationally recognizable by early 2007.”