Joe College

by Tom Perrotta

  I glanced at Nick, curious to see what he was making of this face-off, which looked like it might go on for a while. After a few seconds, he turned to meet my gaze, then got up and walked across the room. He sat down in the chair to my right, scooting it closer so he could whisper in my ear.

  “Am I confused, or is that guy wearing a cape?”

  “Either that or a really big handkerchief.”

  I thought it was a pretty good line, but Nick didn’t crack a smile. He just grunted quietly, as if in confirmation of his own thoughts.

  “Live and learn,” he said. “Live and learn.”

  By midnight it was a whole different scene, not a blowout but at least a halfway respectable party. Kristin, Djembe, and Sarah had arrived around eleven, along with half a dozen of Sarah’s friends, from the Slavic Chorus. They were followed a short time later by a contingent of dining-hall workers that included Lorelei, Brad Foxworthy, Milton, and Dallas Little, the three-hundred-pound dishwasher, and now Matt’s apartment was humming with activity. Lance had escaped from Eric’s clutches and had installed himself by the garbage can, where he was ladling out the Love Juice and happily explaining its supernatural powers to anyone who cared to listen. In the meantime, Eric had glommed onto Djembe, who was nodding without enthusiasm and glancing around anxiously for assistance as he bobbed and weaved to avoid Argument Man’s jabbing index finger. Kristin couldn’t rescue him, though; she was too busy dancing with Brad and Lorelei, and Dallas in the big empty room that separated the Conceptual Patio from the actual kitchen. I was watching all this from my lawn chair, while carrying on a conversation with Nick and a member of the Slavic Chorus who’d introduced herself as Katrinka, though I’d known her freshman year as Michele.

  “Have either of you been to Russia?” she asked, fixing us with her urgent green eyes. Her thick eyebrows formed a single emphatic bar across her forehead.

  “Russia?” Nick snorted. “Why would I want to go to Russia?”

  “Me neither,” I said, leaning forward to get a better look at Lorelei, whom I’d never seen dance before. Her jeans were tight and her eyes were closed. Her leotard top looked like it was made for a much smaller girl, and all the sexual energy in the house seemed to have gathered around her like a halo. “I’ve never even been on an airplane.”

  “You’re kidding,” said Katrinka. “I’m going to Moscow this summer.”

  “Why would you want to go there?” Nick asked.

  “I’m in love with Russia.” She said this with real emotion in her voice, as if Russia were a person. “The music, the language, the history.”

  Nick looked offended. “What are you, some kind of Communist?”

  “Not at all,” Katrinka explained. “I’m a Russophile.”

  I had to lean forward at an extreme angle to see around Dallas, whose enormous body was blocking my view of Lorelei. He barely moved at all when he danced, yet he had a way of standing not quite still that was oddly graceful, as if he were completely at one with the music, as if dancing were less an activity than an attitude toward the world.

  Nick tugged on my shirt. “Yo, Pencil Dick, where’s the bathroom?”

  “Through the kitchen,” I told him. “There’s no light switch, though. If you need to see what you’re doing, there’s a flashlight in the sink.”

  Nick smiled uncertainly. “You’re shittin’ me, right?”

  “See for yourself.”

  “Unbelievable.” He smiled at Katrinka as if she, at least, would understand. “A flashlight in the sink.”

  Nick headed out the room and across the dance floor. Lorelei caught me looking and waved for me to join her. I waved back, pretending not to understand.

  “Who is that guy?” Katrinka asked.

  “Who, Nick? He’s a cook in the dining hall.”

  “You hang out with a cook? That is so cool.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Just like Russia.”

  Her smile faded. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Luckily, Matt sat down in Nick’s chair before I had a chance to answer. He shoved a fat white envelope in my face like he was serving me with a summons.

  “This is for you,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  “The letter.”

  “Oh, right.” I accepted the envelope. On the front, in elegant calligraphy, Matt had inscribed the words, Mea Culpa. “You really didn’t have to.”

  He watched with a peculiar half-smile as I tucked it into the back pocket of my jeans.

  “Aren’t you gonna read it?”

  “Now?”

  “What is that?” Katrinka asked.

  “A letter of apology,” he told her.

  She seemed pleased by the concept. “What are you apologizing for?”

  “I was bad.” Matt grinned. “I committed a heinous act of solipsism.”

  Lorelei had slipped back into view on the dance floor and was beckoning me with her index finger, a sweetly pouty expression on her face. She seemed oblivious to the fact that Brad Foxworthy was lying at her feet, waving his arms and legs in the air like an insect. I held up one finger, trying to buy some time. Beside her, Kristin was staring down at Brad with a gaze that mingled pity and disgust in equal measures.

  “Give her the letter,” Matt told me.

  “What?”

  “Give Katrinka the letter.”

  On the way back from the bathroom, Nick walked past Brad without a glance. I pulled the letter out of my pocket and surrendered it to Katrinka.

  “You sure it’s okay?” she asked, glancing nervously at Matt.

  Matt didn’t answer, though. He was staring with dismay at Lance, who had leaned over the rim of the garbage can and lowered his head into the Apollo Love Juice as though bobbing for apples.

  “Oh shit,” said Matt, rising suddenly from the chair.

  As if the move had been choreographed, Nick reclaimed his seat the instant Matt vacated it.

  “First time I ever pissed with a flashlight,” he announced with a smile. “It’s a little confusing.”

  Katrinka smiled at him, still clutching my letter.

  “Are you really a cook?” she asked him.

  All hell was breaking loose. Matt had his arms around Lance’s waist as though he were trying to yank him out of the garbage can. Djembe was clutching his ears, shouting at Eric to leave him alone, to go find someone else to torment. Dallas Little was standing over Brad, attempting to pour a beer into his open mouth, though much of the liquid was missing its mark. Kristin looked on, utterly appalled by this display. Lorelei seemed to have disappeared.

  “Are you really a pinko?” Nick shot back.

  “Excuse me,” I said, though by that point neither of them seemed to know I was even there. “I’ll be right back.”

  She was waiting in Matt’s room, sitting on the edge of the bed in total darkness. I shut the door behind me and sat down next to her. After the chaos of the party, it was a relief to be someplace calm and private.

  “Took you long enough,” she said. Her voice was playful, but there was a hint of irritation in it as well

  “What do you mean? You couldn’t have been here for more than a couple of minutes.”

  “I don’t mean tonight. I’ve been trying to get your attention for weeks.”

  My eyes were just beginning to adjust to the darkness, and I could have sworn Lorelei was glowing a little around the edges, this nearly invisible corona of sex lighting up the air around her head and shoulders.

  “Well, you’ve got it now,” I told her.

  She put her hand on my knee, a gesture more comradely than seductive. I felt light-headed and wondered if the grain alcohol was finally kicking in. Maybe Matt and Lance were right; maybe two glasses of the Love Juice really did put you on the dark side of the moon.

  “So how’s your townie girlfriend?” she asked. There was a taunting note in the question, but I decided to ignore it.

  “It’s over. She’s not my girlfriend anymore.”

/>   “Too bad.”

  “What about you? What’s up with you and Eddie?”

  “Nothing. He won’t even talk to me.”

  “He got beat up pretty bad,” I pointed out.

  I’d only seen Eddie once since he’d gotten out of the hospital, and he looked awful. He was using a cane to get around, and one side of his head had been shaved for reasons that were unclear to me. He said he was having trouble concentrating and was thinking of taking a medical leave.

  “He was kind of a pussy about it,” she said. Maybe it was the moonlight leaking in around the edges of the shade or something, but she seemed to be burning a little brighter than before. Her eyes had an odd catlike gleam. “He didn’t even try to defend himself.”

  By that point, I couldn’t help myself. I reached up and began stroking her hair, surprised to discover that it wasn’t giving off heat. She leaned into the caress, pressing her head into my palm. She closed her eyes and let out a low moan of pleasure.

  “That’s nice,” she said. “Don’t stop.”

  I brought my face down to hers. Like her hair, her lips felt unexpectedly cool against mine. Her tongue explored my mouth with strange thoroughness, as if she wanted to make contact with every nook and cranny in there, every taste bud and ridge, the whole topography of teeth and gums and skin. I pulled away from her, trying to get my bearings.

  “Why am I doing this?” I asked. “I don’t even know you.”

  “You don’t have to know me,” she laughed.

  I kissed her again. She reached down and tugged my shirt free from my pants. Her hand slid over my belly and onto my chest. She pressed her lips against my ear.

  “Aren’t you worried about my brothers?”

  I touched her breast. There were only two weeks left in the semester. Her brothers had never laid eyes on me. They didn’t even know my name.

  “I love how tight your clothes are,” I told her.

  “This is nothing. I’ve got stuff way tighter than this.”

  “I want to see you in it.”

  “You like the way us townies dress, don’t you?”

  “You know I do.”

  She pulled off her shirt and lay down on the bed. Her breasts were perfect.

  “You’re an easy one,” she told me, reaching down to unbuckle her jeans. “I’m gonna make you so happy.”

  We might have been in there for twenty minutes or two hours. All I knew was that I was lying on top of her, dazed and naked, when the door creaked open and the light came on. I rolled over in a panic, blinking through the glare, and saw Matt standing in the doorway, scrutinizing us with drunken interest.

  “Here you are,” he said. “I’ve been looking all over.”

  “Go away,” I yelped, snatching up a pillow for a fig leaf. “Leave us alone.”

  “Get your clothes on,” he told us. “Everyone’s waiting for you.”

  “Leave us alone.”

  “Hurry up,” he said. “I don’t want to start the entertainment without you.”

  “The entertainment?”

  “Come on. Just get your clothes on.”

  Lorelei was sitting up, arms crossed over her breasts, the lower half of her body concealed by a sheet, her expression hovering somewhere between anger and embarrassment. When I glanced back at the doorway, Lance was peering in over Matt’s shoulder, scrutinizing us as though we were a museum exhibit. There was a towel wrapped around his head like a turban.

  “Shut the door!” I snapped. “We’ll be right out.”

  We dressed as quickly as we could, pausing occasionally to trade shy smiles of disbelief. Lorelei’s face was red; her hair was a mess. She had already wriggled into her jeans by the time I located her panties inside one of my sneakers.

  “You can keep them,” she told me.

  I shoved them into my pocket and followed her out the door.

  It seemed like a different party than the one we’d left. Order had been restored. The dancing had stopped and everyone was packed into the Conceptual Patio, staring at us as we entered, as if we were the entertainment.

  There’s nothing you can do at a moment like that except pretend that everything’s normal. Holding hands, Lorelei and I walked past our friends and co-workers and acquaintances as if we’d just returned from a quick trip to WaWa’s. Although a number of people were standing, one empty seat remained, a bronze folding chair with the number twenty-two stenciled on it in faded black paint. I sat down in it, and she made herself comfortable on my lap.

  “Excuse me,” Dallas Little called out. He was holding Lorelei’s pink panties in his enormous hand, dangling them in front of his face like a handkerchief. “I think you dropped something.”

  The whole room burst into laughter as Dallas handed me the panties. I was mortified, but all I could do was smile and act like I was in on the joke.

  “I always carry an extra pair,” I mumbled. “Just to be on the safe side.”

  My quip was drowned out by a noise that sounded something like a herd of cattle being driven up a flight of wooden stairs, or a football team charging out of a locker room. When the door opened, though, what it disgorged was not cows or football players, but a dozen or so clean-cut college boys in tuxedos. The Whiffenpoofs surged into the apartment, then drifted over toward the edge of the Conceptual Patio, their faces collapsing into assorted degrees of confusion as they took the measure of our unlikely gathering. I made momentary eye contact with Trip, who shot me with an imaginary gun, his hand encased in an immaculate white glove. Through a gap between two tuxes, I saw Matt hugging the Pitch, the two of them clapping each other on the back like old buddies.

  Relieved to no longer be the focus of attention, I let my eyes stray around the room as the Whiffs began to assemble themselves into their usual formation, in the shadow of the potted palm. Nick and Katrinka were right where I’d left them, though I saw that they’d removed my letter from the envelope and appeared to be reading it with great interest and amusement. Sensing my gaze, Nick looked up and wagged his finger at me, as if scolding me for being a naughty boy.

  Standing behind Nick and Katrinka, also peering in my direction, were two guys I hadn’t seen before. They were scrawny and criminal-looking, definitely not Yalies. One of them wore a leather biker vest over a black T-shirt with a skull and crossbones on the front. His hair was long and greasy, and when he smiled at me I saw that one of his front teeth had turned brown. The other guy had a denim jacket and the ducktail hairdo of a 1950s juvenile delinquent. He gave me a little wave that didn’t make me want to wave back. Something about their faces seemed oddly familiar.

  “Lorelei?” I said. “Do you see those guys?”

  She looked where I was looking.

  “Oh shit.” She stiffened in my lap. “What are they doing here?”

  At that same moment, the Pitch tooted on his little pipe. The Whiffenpoofs looked at each other. A hush settled over the room, but it wasn’t an ordinary hush. It was an almost miraculous absence of sound, the kind of quiet that seems to begin in your body and spread outward, a silence trembling with possibilities, the kind you only ever notice the instant before something terrible happens, or a large group of singers burst into song.

  What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain until you see their specks dispersing?

  —Jack Kerouac, On the Road

  Also by Tom Perrotta

  Election

  The Wishbones

  Bad Haircut: Stories of the Seventies

  Praise for Joe College

  “Tom Perrotta gets it right … . One of the few convincing portrayals of college life I’ve ever come across … a comic novel so enjoyable you’ll find yourself turning the last page in no time.”

  —Newsday

  “It takes a sharp eye and a light touch … to take on the back-to-school genre as knowingly as Mr. Perrotta has … . An overwhelmingly pleasing book.”

  —The New York Times

  “Proves
yet again that Perrotta’s books are sheer pleasure.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  “Joe College is funny, honest, and a fabulous read, especially for anyone who’s tried to fit in and let go—and to figure out which parts of themselves to hold on to in the process.”

  —Salon.com

  “Another perfectly pitched, subversively hilarious chronicle of prolonged adolescence … Joe College almost makes you wish you could relive the whole god-awful mess all over again.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “If Salinger’s Holden Caulfield had hit the books a bit more assiduouly, and gotten out more, he might have turned into this story’s engaging … narrator and protagonist Danny.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “I have a new favorite book, Joe College, and this is why: Tom Perrotta wrote it; an irresistible and accidentally heroic voice narrates it; angst has never been more delicious, food funnier, or Yale more accessible. What a great pleasure.”

  —Elinor Lipman, author of The Inn at Lake Devine

  “Perrotta serves up a hilariously satirical eighties cocktail, with an Ivy League twist.”

  —Glamour

  “Perrotta … is in full control of his quirky comic sensibility.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “With his new novel, he has delivered another sweetheart … Perrotta has established a slightly befogged comic landscape that’s his alone.”

  —Newsweek

  “With perfect pacing and dead-on detail, Perrotta never lets you forget that growing up is the most emotionally explosive and morally fraught story around. I loved this book.”

  —Antonya Nelson, author of Talking in Bed

  “Perrotta … has drawn Danny so exquisitely … that you feel as if you know him pretty damn well … Danny is delightfully likeable—a Huck Finn of higher ed.”