Sixteen, Sixty-One

by Sixteen, Sixty-One- A Memoir (epub)

  Though I felt happy to see my friend smiling and gushing about how she and Angelo would move in together after she graduated and no longer have to keep their relationship a secret, I also felt betrayed. Each morning and evening I sat in front of Matthew’s latest eight-page email with less and less conviction. I wondered what was real, whether I had made a mistake, whether perhaps he was right (perhaps I was a child with no brain and no thought of anyone but herself). I tried moving around the furniture in my room, playing Alanis Morissette at full volume, walking aimlessly through the snow and watching House on the communal television downstairs, but Matthew’s vile and violent words leapt from my laptop screen into my head, followed me around and crawled beneath my skin. How could I have imagined I could be normal? It had seemed possible with Jess and Greg and a play to work on, but when it was just me and my library books in a strange country with the only person in the world I hadn’t lied to wanting me dead, the whole notion seemed absurd.

  Without Jess to demand food and wine, I also spent less time at Greg’s. I think it struck us both as less acceptable if it were just the two of us, and I feared the conversation wouldn’t run as easily without our brazen Texan mediator.

  Still, after a few weeks of sad ‘goodnights’ at the end of Tuesday evening classes, I was whining loudly about having no kitchen and being bored with campus food, and Greg finally invited me over alone.

  ‘Thanks, I’ve missed this,’ I murmured as he handed me the things to lay the table.

  ‘I only miss you when I think about you.’

  I hiccupped an unsure laugh.

  ‘I have been very nice to Jess and answer all her emails promptly, but she’s a fool. Doesn’t she know he could lose his job? Doesn’t he know it? And all this business with the wife.’

  I responded appropriately, venting my anger at my friend but trying not to fuel Greg’s rage. Jess did know he could lose his job and she also knew how much dating her last language professor had screwed her up, but I understood her desire for drama and the thrill of something so illicit.

  Greg’s criticism turned to the independent study Jess was supposed to be writing with him and the meetings she kept cancelling. He raved about the department and the miserable students who didn’t turn up to his classes and I realised, in the weeks I hadn’t spoken to him, Greg had become more misanthropic and lonely than usual.

  ‘You and I, my dear, we know that theatre is not just egomaniacal clowns singing musicals, but also Robert Wilson and Beckett. And that “acting” – or “smacting” as Richard Maxwell describes it – is something that is constantly being renegotiated and examined.’

  He paused to drain his glass.

  ‘What do you want to do with your life, Lucas?’

  I sighed automatically, ‘I dunno.’

  ‘Do you want to direct? I’ve put so much effort into you, don’t let it be a waste.’

  ‘I like it, but I’m not sure I’m so good at it. Academia seems safer.’

  Greg looked at me. ‘I am, of course, very biased, but I think you should be an artist and take chances and work with your imagination and heart.’ He broke his gaze as I blushed and began to clear the plates. ‘What are you doing in the summer? You should come to my house in the country and swim in the beautiful river and meet my friends and family who would enjoy you as much as I do. My friends like to get drunk and float down the river and eat. They are all very nice and smart but being older means you are not so worried about being intelligent. You would find them dumb and friendly.’

  I helped him wash up and walked back to my dorm alone. I curled onto my bed under the eaves with my laptop and stared at the number 6 beside the word Inbox. In a neat column of blue I read each repeated ‘Matthew Wright – RE: Your decision.’ I knew I should leave them until the morning or ignore them altogether, but Greg’s kind words had left me feeling warm and I suddenly felt a masochistic urge to destroy that feeling by reimmersing myself in my own illicit world. Clicking at random, I read:

  From: Matthew Wright

  To: Natalie Lucas

  Sent: 15 November 2003, 11:14:52

  Subject: I’m not throwing you a lifejacket

  You’re even more foolish than I thought if you think you can reinvent yourself.

  I never tried to stop you growing and I always knew you would grow away from me. I knew my situation was a doomed one. But I asked for one thing: respect. And you haven’t been able to give me that.

  I’m old and I’ve read and seen a lot, but I know nothing. Nothing except love. That’s all that matters. And that is the only thing I tried to teach you. You will learn it one day. But it will be too late for me.

  Most men will not swim before they are able to. Ring any bells? It’s Hesse.

  If you carry on this pig-headed search for a new, super, independent you, who doesn’t need Uncles and turns left when a friendly stranger suggests right …

  … well then, Natalie, you will not swim:

  you will drown.

  19

  Rosella was to give us three days off for Thanksgiving. To me this didn’t seem like very long, but others considered it an adequate length of time to fly to Oakland, Houston, Chicago or Orlando, eat some of Mom’s pumpkin pie and fly back again in time for classes on Monday. As the holiday drew near, I realised I was going to be stuck on campus all by myself and, unless I wanted to learn how to knit with the other international students, I needed to make plans.

  ‘Why don’t you go to the city?’ Greg asked. ‘You’ve been here for almost three months and you haven’t visited New York. You’re crazy, Lucas. You could stay at my place if you liked, feed my cats while we’re in the country.’

  ‘Really?’ I gaped at him, wondering a) if he was serious and b) if there was something ‘weird’ (as defined by this new world of appropriate nineteen-year-old behaviour I was trying to adapt to) about this offer.

  ‘Sure. I mean, you should find someone to go with you, might be a bit strange on your own and I wouldn’t want our nice little Brit getting lost in the big ol’ city, but you’d be doing us a favour.’

  My heart sank. Who would go with me? Everyone at Rosella was returning home.

  After an hour or two of moping in my dorm room and wondering why my exciting year abroad was proving so unexciting, I wandered down to the room shared by three freshers I sometimes hung out with. They were each sprawled on their beds with their laptops open, various Target comforters, ‘husband’ pillows and posters defining their three separate areas of the room.

  ‘Hey, what’s up?’ the girl with a chic blown-up black-and-white photograph of a Parisian street above her head asked.

  ‘Not much,’ I replied. ‘I’m still wondering what to do for Thanksgiving.’

  ‘Oh, poor you,’ cooed the brunette surrounded by images of Justin Timberlake. ‘I wish I could invite you to mine, but we’ve already got fourteen for dinner and my mom would freak.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t mean it like that,’ I blurted, embarrassed. ‘Someone’s offered me their apartment in New York and I really want to see the city, but I don’t have anyone to go with.’

  ‘Oh wow, you should definitely do that,’ piped up the skinny blonde with kittens on her comforter. ‘I love New York.’

  ‘Hey,’ JT-girl bounced into an excited sitting position. ‘You could put a thing on Rosella Social.’

  ‘Is that the weird internet thing you were telling me about before?’ I replied, dubious.

  ‘It’s not weird,’ cut in kitten-girl. ‘It’s really cool. It’s this new thing where you can talk to people on campus and arrange events and things. Like MySpace, but just for us.’

  ‘I never really got into MySpace,’ I mumbled.

  ‘Whatever,’ dismissed JT-girl. ‘Anyway, you can use these event organiser things. Like, you can set up a whole party and invite everyone. Or you can just post messages or questions to all your friends. We could totally set up a note or somet
hing to see if any of your friends want to go to the city.’

  I took a little more persuading, but eventually I was lured onto the French-photo-girl’s bed and quizzed about my favourite films, books and hobbies so they could set me up a profile. I didn’t correct them when they automatically listed ‘Men’ under the category of ‘Interested in’ and, unsure how it might connect but nevertheless worried about Matthew and his emails, I insisted they set my security settings to the highest available level and that I’d add a photo myself some other time. Twenty minutes later, I had a rather generic sounding profile next to a picture of a cat, my supposed representation of myself. Reminded of Harriet Moore’s Gaydar quest, I swallowed a heavy lump in my throat.

  ‘Add me as a friend.’ Kitten-girl grabbed the laptop and punched something in until her own, much more detailed profile came up.

  ‘Yeah, and me,’ said Frenchy. ‘Then we’ll search for all your theatre friends and anyone else you know from classes and stuff.’

  It felt weird to list the names of someone I’d only said a few hellos to in Dr Broderick’s Lit 307 class, the girl in the room directly beneath me who’d lent me her hair-straighteners and the lighting designer for ’Twas the Night Before … , whose name I only remembered because she had the same surname as a girl I’d known at primary school. But with each search, a photo and list of interests appeared and I couldn’t help but be intrigued. After finding Rachael Rose, Martha Haas and Jackie Handsford’s profiles, it was easy to flick through their friends and add the rest of my classmates, dorm neighbours and those involved with ’Twas. Within an hour, I had thirty-six friends pending.

  ‘Now for the note,’ said JT, dragging the mouse over to a sidebar. ‘Here you go, write something about wanting to go to New York, and all your friends will be able to see it.’

  ‘Uh, okay.’ My fingers hovered over the keys for a while until I eventually typed a clumsy:

  Hey,

  So this little international student has no turkey to eat and the use of an apartment in Manhattan – anyone want to ditch the Brit bashing and head to the city with me?

  ‘That’s really cool,’ giggled Frenchy. ‘Now we just click send, and hopefully you’ll get some replies.’

  I left the girls to their homework and took a shower before dinner.

  It was two days before I remembered about Rosella Social again and, thinking I had nothing to lose, I keyed in my password and logged on.

  All thirty-six of my friends had been confirmed and, to my surprise, I had three more requests. Nobody had replied to my message, however, and I logged off feeling excruciatingly lonely.The next day, though, I had an email from Dylan, the co-ed student Greg had described as ‘eminently fuckable’ even as he danced around the stage in an elf costume.

  Hey little Brit

  I was hanging out with Jackie and she showed me your message on the social thing. I’m not sure about ditching the Brit bashing completely, but my family only lives in Kingston, so, if you like, you could come to mine for Thanksgiving, then we could drive down to New York on the Friday. Where’s this apartment you have available? Is it central?

  Let me know. It’d be rad to hang out with you.

  Dylan

  x

  Dylan. I hadn’t imagined going to Manhattan with a boy. After all, I’d only met three since landing in this country. But Dylan seemed nice. We’d danced at the after-show party and I remembered him asking what part of England I was from while we both topped up our drinks. Rumour had it he’d gone home with Katy that night, but there was also some gossip that he wouldn’t kiss a girl he wasn’t in love with. Of course, I wasn’t looking for anything, but Dylan was undeniably sexy and it might be fun to get to know him better. Yes, Dylan could be a suitable companion. And if he was offering to drive, that was even better. As the girls down the hall might say: awesome. I had plans.

  Dylan’s mom made a fuss of me and his brothers shot cheeky smiles that made me wonder what he had told them about us spending the holiday together. After an evening of ‘Oooh, I love your accent’ and ‘Have you really never tasted pumpkin pie before?’ Dylan drove us back to his dad’s place and I snuggled into the warm wooden-framed bed, imagining what it would be like to have three brothers, a dog and a grandma who cooked secret-recipe stuffing and poured you warm apple cider as you walked in the door.

  I woke on Thanksgiving morning to find six inches of snow. The first proper falling since I’d arrived. Tiptoeing excitedly to Dylan’s door, I listened to see if he was awake and knocked as soon as I heard a stir. With scarves and coats over our pyjamas, I dragged him through the kitchen and out into the white blanket. The sun had sprinkled gold dust onto the cotton-wool ground and I kicked my boots through the powder as I made my way out into the surrounding fields. Dylan followed and scooped up a handful of snow, deliberately missing me but laughing as I squealed and spun around. We chased each other clumsily, our shoes squidging into the soft ground, compacting the snow and leaving asymmetric patterns in the neat blanket.

  ‘You’ve done it now,’ I growled as one of Dylan’s snowballs hit my cheek.

  ‘You’ll never get me!’ Dylan took off to an untouched corner of the field and I tried to follow, slipping and thrusting out my arms to break my fall.

  ‘Eat it,’ he giggled, gently pushing my face into the ground after having doubled back on himself.

  ‘Enough!’ I rolled over and gasped for breath between giggles. Dylan sat down in the snow beside me and we both lay back to make snow angels.

  ‘I can’t believe it snowed for you on Thanksgiving,’ Dylan spoke after a while.

  ‘Yeah, it’s pretty amazing,’ I said, still out of breath.

  ‘New York’s going to be so pretty like this. I have to take you to Central Park.’

  ‘Definitely.’ My feet were sweating in their boots and in comparison I was enjoying icy trickles against the back of my neck and the gaps of wrist between my gloves and coat. ‘Hey, do you mind if I check my email when we get inside? I think Greg was going to send me some instructions about the cats.’

  ‘Sure. Whatever you like. My dad’s cooking dinner for about three.’ Dylan rolled over to face me and added with a wink, ‘So we can do what we like until then.’

  ‘As if!’ I punched him lightly and began to scramble to my feet.

  Back in the house, Dylan showed me to an ancient PC in the den and I waited while it booted up and Dylan keyed in the password for the dial-up internet.

  ‘I won’t be long,’ I promised as I directed the browser to the Sweetmail page.

  ‘Take your time, I’ll make some coffee.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I typed my username as Dylan shut the door behind him.

  My inbox loaded with an accusatory ‘26’ at the top of the page. I had braced myself for this. I was looking for an email from Greg and I was just going to ignore Matthew until I got back to campus. This was my holiday and I wasn’t going to let him ruin it.

  But as I scanned the list of senders, my eyes accidentally brushed the subject column and saw in neat repetition that every message but one was labelled: ‘PLEASE READ: Our friend Rose.’

  It was probably a trick. Just another way to shout abuse at me. He was probably telling me how awful I was and how disappointed Rose was in me. Again. But twenty-five times? I shouldn’t click, I knew that. I should open Greg’s email (impotently sandwiched halfway down the column of Matthew’s), then go and drink coffee with Dylan and enjoy my Thanksgiving. But I clicked on one.

  From: Matthew Wright

  To: Natalie Lucas

  Sent: 24 November 2003, 06:37:29

  Subject: PLEASE READ: Our friend Rose

  Natalie

  Rose died last night. In her sleep. She suffered no pain.

  I thought you should know.

  Despite my ever more desperate quest for queer love, I found myself enjoying Dylan’s company that weekend. With his kind smiles and gentlemanly gest
ures, he reminded me of Tim and, for a fleeting moment, I wondered what I was missing in Durham this year. For three days we ate nothing but bagels. From Greg’s third floor apartment, we wandered all around Greenwich Village, checking out market stalls and lingering in bookshops. We took the subway up to an Egon Schiele exhibition Greg had recommended, giggled in the bustle at Times Square, took pictures of each other beneath signs for Actors’ Square, hopped over to Long Island to visit PS1 and watched two Pinter plays off off Broadway. Though I occasionally imagined I saw a figure cloaked in red in the shadows beneath fire escapes and in the windows of passing cabs, and I wondered absurdly as I fell asleep in Greg’s daughter’s bed whether the dead could hear my thoughts, I enjoyed the weekend. By the time we left on Sunday, I’d decided to be in love with New York.

  20

  I tumbled towards my check-in desk at 8.15, resigned to the fact and half wishing that I was too late and would not be able to fly. It was 23rd December. I’d spent the night on Greg’s couch and left plenty of time to get to JFK, but this was the day the metro staff had chosen to strike. My carefully planned trip from Manhattan to Brooklyn and on to Howard Beach had been interrupted by mandatory train and line changes, and here I was with just forty-five minutes until my flight took off.

  Matthew and I had managed to be civil via email for the past week and we’d decided to stick to the plan of surprising my mother. A couple of days in the same country might even give us a chance to clear the air, I thought, to begin the friendship I still hoped we’d have. He’d requested I spend time with him in London before driving back to Sussex, as per the original plan. I’d refused his offer of a night in a hotel with some woman he was ‘lining up’ and endured a brief series of abusive emails as punishment, but we finally settled on a plan to meet at Heathrow, have lunch on the South Bank, see a matinee and drive back together. Nobody else in England knew I was coming home: I was going to hide in a box on my mother’s doorstep and, when Matthew rang the bell, pop out as a living Christmas present.