What It Was Like

by Peter Seth

  “So why did Eleanor ground you this time?” I asked.

  “Oh, that was completely ridiculous!” she exclaimed. “I got caught drinking beer at school with a couple of other girls.”

  “Beer?” I half laughed. “You don’t even like beer!”

  “I know!” she said. “That’s what’s so ridiculous! But Lydia Sherrow’s boyfriend sneaked a six-pack through the fence during a very boring field hockey game, and I thought maybe it might remind me of Bailey’s or something. A bunch of us got in trouble. It wasn’t just me.”

  “But if it was everybody, that’s no reason to ground you!”

  “I know! I was barely involved!” she said. “It’s so unfair. I really don’t think I can stand it much longer.”

  “Oh, baby! Who else knows that you ditched school?” I asked.

  “Nobody,” she said. “Just Nanci. When Eleanor dropped me off, I waited until after homeroom, and then I called Nanci and had her drive me straight to the train station.”

  “Wow,” I said. “Good for you.”

  “I was going to make her drive me into the City,” Rachel said. “But she had some class that she just couldn’t miss. I couldn’t believe she wouldn’t take me.”

  Of course I was beyond happy to see her, yet I couldn’t not worry about what new crisis her class ditching would bring.

  “So,” she said, drawing me toward her with her soft, loving smile. “Aren’t you glad to see me?”

  I thought of all the questions I had to ask her: Had she seen Eric that weekend? Or someone else? Was she concealing something else from me? Should I tell her everything, even about my encounter with Herb and what he said, something I had never told her?

  Instead, I moved into her embrace, ignoring all the questions swirling in my brain, and took her strongly, saying, “You have no idea.”

  ≁

  I guess we were dozing afterwards when we were awakened by the sound of the door to the room being shaken roughly, and someone trying to turn the doorknob repeatedly.

  “Hey! What’s going on in there?”

  It was Roommate A. He had used his key, but I had bolted the inside lock shut, thank goodness.

  “Oh!” I stalled him. “Hey! Wait a minute, man! I didn’t know you were coming back! . . . Dammit, it’s my roommate. Get dressed.”

  “Where did you think I would go?” he said archly. “I live here!” He pounded on the door hard, twice.

  “Oh, great,” muttered Rachel, already hurrying into her clothes. I tried not to stare at her, even though she looked very sexy, all disheveled and loose. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m hurrying!” I whispered, scrambling into my jeans.

  “Come on!” pounded Roommate A on the door. “Zip up and open the door!”

  Rachel gasped even as I snickered at his wisecrack.

  “You ready?” I whispered to her as I pulled a shirt on over my head.

  “Yeah,” she breathed as she had herself dressed – and beautiful – almost instantly. “OK.”

  I pulled open the bolt and turned the lock as Roommate A burst into the room.

  “Well, it’s about time, dammit!” he huffed, bulling his way into the room and throwing his book bag up onto his bed.

  “What the –” Then he caught sight of Rachel. “Whoa! Now who is this?” he said with a wolfish grin, instantly understanding the situation. “Why, freshman, I didn’t think you had it in you!”

  “Thanks,” I said with maximum sarcasm. With no choice, I introduced Rachel and Roommate A.

  “So this is why you tear ass out of here every Friday for ‘Lawn GI-land,’” he said, looking her up and down, practically licking his lips. “Now I completely understand, you old horndog!” (Once again, Roommate “A” earns his name.)

  “Do you have to stay here?” I asked. “Can’t you maybe vanish for, like, an hour?”

  “Are you mad?” he said, slamming his books down on his desk and climbing up the ladder onto his bed. “I just came back from two tests – one in calculus – and I need to rest!”

  He threw his shoes down onto the floor loudly, one penny loafer at a time, and lit up one of his stupid Gauloises which filled the room with his smoke.

  (Oh, do I have to tell you that I missed the Protestant Reformation test? What was I supposed to do? She was crying hysterically in my arms half the time. I wound up making some chicken broth for her on my illegal hot plate, the possession of which is the only crime to which I will gladly plead guilty.)

  With no other choice, Rachel and I left my room and went down the hallway to the lounge, with its plain, stained furniture and bad TV. But at least we were alone, at least for a few minutes on the gray, uncomfortable couch.

  “I really don’t like that guy,” I said. “He’s a slob and a snob. I think he’s used to having people clean up after him.”

  “Don’t think about him,” she said. “Think about us.”

  She leaned toward me, closing her eyes, wanting to be kissed. And believe me I wanted to kiss her, but first, I had something that I had to say; something I had been thinking the whole time.

  “Wait,” I said. “You’ve got to call them and tell them where you are.”

  “No.”

  The look on her face hardened as she turned away from me.

  “They’re going to be worried about you,” I reasoned.

  “I really don’t care.”

  “They’re gonna call the police, and you don’t want that.”

  “This is such a big dorm. Maybe someone is gone,” she pleaded. “And you could get your roommate to switch beds? Or I could sleep in here. You could sleep with me! It would be like a camp-out at the end of the lake! Or the Quarry!”

  “Oh, baby,” I said, trying to hold her closer to me. “Just hold onto me, and it’ll be like in The Zone –”

  “No!” she said, pushing me away. “You don’t understand! I don’t want to go back there! Herb has been very creepy, and I’m afraid if I go back there something might happen.”

  “What do you mean, ‘creepy’?” I said, suddenly feeling that blank-white rage I felt on the Princes’ porch begin to rise. “What’s he done?” Mental pictures of that hairy sleazeball peeking in at Rachel, doing things to her, flashed through my mind, and I was infuriated. “Tell me.”

  “Nothing specific,” she said. “I mean, he didn’t rape me or anything yet.”

  “What do you mean, ‘yet’?” I said.

  “It’s the way he looks at me,” she said. “He leaves his bathrobe open during breakfast, and it’s disgusting. And sometimes some of his greasy gangster friends come over to watch TV, and they look at me too.”

  “And what does Eleanor do?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” she said. “She laughs as usual, and blames it on me.”

  Then I brought up something that I had been going to let pass.

  “Tell me one thing, honey. . . . What’s that mark on your arm?”

  “Oh,” she said, trying to turn her upper arm around so she could see the back of it, to see the dark purple bruise that I saw before when we were in my room. “Is there something still there? Eleanor pinched me a couple of days ago. Hard.”

  I felt flushed with anger. That must’ve been one wicked pinch, to cause that kind of a bruise.

  “You’ve got to call your father,” I said.

  “He really doesn’t care,” she said, waving her hand in the air.

  “How can he not care??” I almost shouted, “He’s your father! Make him care! Do you think he wants Eleanor to leave marks on your skin? Do you think he wants a skeeve like Herb hanging around you? I don’t care if he is connected to the Mafia. If I had a daughter and she was bothered by some old pervert, I’d cut out his throat, with absolutely no hesitation.”

  It had never occurred to me until that exact point, b
ut I realized right then that I would indeed kill for Rachel. But only if it were justified. If she needed protection, and if nobody else would protect her, I would.

  ≁

  I waited with Rachel on 116th Street for Manny to come pick her up. It was cold and dark, and we held hands as Rachel shivered.

  “I’m not going to let them win,” she said, shuddering against me. “I told you that at Mooncliff. I’m not going to let them control my life.”

  Her blue-blue eyes were shining with brave tears as Manny drove up in the biggest, blackest Cadillac I’d ever seen.

  “This is good,” she said. “This is going to force their hand.”

  “Don’t let them come between us,” I implored her.

  She turned to me with no verbal answer, just fear, as Manny, double-parking, ripped open the driver’s side door and emerged. He looked directly at Rachel, who was squeezing my hand as hard as she could.

  “I had your mother on the phone four times today!” Manny yelled, as if he had a mouth full of acid. “You know how much I love that!”

  Rachel shouted right back at him. “They’re mean to me, Daddy! You know they are! She never lets me do anything! What if I came and lived with you?”

  “Forget about that right now!” he cut her off, as he came right toward her. “You know that ain’t happening.”

  From his abrupt answer, I could tell that he really didn’t want his daughter. That seemed so foreign to me: my father always gave me unconditional love. (And does to this day, even after everything that’s happened.)

  “What are you looking at, smart guy?” he said to me suddenly. “You’re half the cause of all this!”

  Before I could say anything, Manny grabbed Rachel’s wrist and pulled her away from me.

  “Get in the car!” he ordered her, half flinging her toward the front end of the huge Caddy. “I have an early meeting tomorrow, and I have to deal with this nonsense!”

  Rachel looked at me with desperate sadness as she moved to get into the car.

  “Call me,” I said directly to her, trying to send my love and compassion directly to her, one last time before she went.

  “Shut up!” Manny barked, pointing a finger straight into my face. “Stay out of this.”

  I had to say something.

  “This is just wrong, Mr. Prince,” I began with.

  Manny’s head swiveled away from me, shouting at Rachel, “GET IN THE CAR, RACHEL!!!”

  Rachel flinched and got straight into the car, rabbit-scared at Manny’s outburst. Then he refocused on me.

  “You listen to me and listen to me good,” he said, his index finger aiming right between my eyes. He lowered his voice, for the first time. “Stay away from her. I am not kidding.” His quiet tone was even more sinister. “Don’t make me tell you twice.”

  He was trying to scare me and he did, but only by half. Outside, I might have looked terrified – he was so much bigger and angrier than me – but inside, I knew that he could never scare me away from Rachel. No one could. At least not permanently.

  He slammed back into the Cadillac and drove away fast. I think she turned toward me again, to look over the backseat, but I’m not sure. It was dark and streetlights reflected off the car’s back window. In any case, I was left shivering, standing there very much alone, as Manny turned a hard right as the yellow light turned red, and the big black Caddy disappeared down Broadway.

  Record of Events #26 - entered Tuesday, 11:17 A.M.

  ≁

  She didn’t call me the next day. All day, through all my classes, I thought about calling her, but I didn’t even know where to call – Manny’s or her mother’s. I also thought about my father’s rule: “Don’t make things worse,” and how much sense it made. I should just let things cool down. I couldn’t fight both Manny and Eleanor (and Herb, for that matter), at least not right now. But I tried not to get too negative about the overall future for Rachel and me. Sure, they could make it difficult for us, but they couldn’t make it impossible for us. We would win in the end because we were younger, and we had love on our side. All it took was patience and a belief in each other. So I didn’t call her the next day. I just thought about it, over and over again.

  I considered what I would do when I went back to the Island that weekend. (I certainly couldn’t stay in the dorm all weekend with Roommate A.) Would I drive over to Eleanor’s house? Or Manny’s place in Garden City? How would I find her? I could call Nanci. I could get her to find out what was going on. I could probably get her to do anything.

  ≁

  I went to all my classes and tried to pay attention, but despite my best intentions, my thoughts keep circling back to Rachel. With everything in danger of being lost – or at least threatened – my anxious mind couldn’t concentrate on anything but her. I thought about all the angles of our separation and how to get around the barriers that Eleanor had and would raise against us. I thought about how much worse they might be now, after Rachel’s little trip into Manhattan to see me. Then I would banish those thoughts and try to think of better things. I remembered all the wonderful times we’d had together, times in The Zone. Like a kaleidoscope, my mind flashed through scenes of Mooncliff, moments of intense memory, intense pleasure. Bright mornings on the Mess Hall porch and hidden moments under the pines . . . rowing on the lake and “Honor your partner!” . . . sunsets at the Quarry. Bailey’s and the backseat of the Super-Coupe. Walking with the Doggies and her girls all around us. The Burning of the Lake and “Promise you’ll love me forever!”

  In the midst of one of these self-debates, one of my teachers called on me with a direct question. I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about – it had something to do with The Book of Job and forgiveness – but I couldn’t even fake an answer. A couple of kids snickered, and my teacher shot me a sharp look of displeasure that I well deserved.

  So you’ll understand that I was pretty blue when I straggled back to my room to change books during lunchtime. I had picked up my usual roast beef hero with extra ketchup and can of Nehi grape soda at Mama Joy’s, figuring that I’d eat at my desk. Roommate A was usually out and I could have the room to myself. I could eat in peace, not like in the bedlam of John Jay or one of the nearby greasy spoons, and check my notes in case there was a surprise quiz – which was not out of the realm of possibility – in my afternoon’s French class.

  “Phone!” Somebody pounded on my door twice and shouted my name, shocking me out of my trance of Flaubert.

  “OK!” I yelled. “Tell ’em to hold on!” Not that anybody would have told anybody to hold on to anything; the phone was just hanging there in mid-air, swinging on its cord, knocking against the wall. Nobody really cared about anybody else on the floor.

  I raced down the hall, pulling my Keds on. The hall floor was cold. In fact, the whole dorm was cold unless the radiators went bananas, which happened sometimes, and then it became as hot and moist as a rain forest. I grabbed the phone, hoping it was –

  “Hello?” I said, out of breath.

  “Hello?” said a voice I could hardly hear, but I thought it was Rachel.

  “Hello?” I said louder. “Is that you?”

  “Thank God,” she said, her voice suddenly more audible, as if she had just closed the door of the phone booth she was in.

  “I was hoping it was you,” I said. “But I was afraid to hope.”

  “Oh, baby,” she said, the ever-present music in her voice taking on a minor key. “Oh, my sweet boy.”

  “I was thinking a million times of calling you,” I said, even as I remembered why I didn’t. “But I didn’t even know where to call.”

  “It’s probably good that you didn’t,” she said heavily. “At least for now. They want me to stay away from you. They think that you’re a bad influence on me.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I said.

  “I kn
ow,” she agreed. “But you wouldn’t believe what they’ve put me through! I had to go see this family court judge and –”

  “No! Really?” I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate on her words.

  “And I have an appointment to see this therapist,” she continued. “They’re the ones who need a therapist! They certainly could’ve used a marriage counselor!”

  She huffed one laugh, but I could tell how upset she was.

  “Where are you living now?” I asked her.

  “Back with Eleanor,” she snapped. “Manny doesn’t want me. Where else can I go? I can’t live in your dorm room, and the couch in that lounge was very uncomfortable. So tell me what choice do I have?”

  She sounded so forlorn and resigned, even as she tried to make a joke.

  “Maybe I could live in your parents’ house,” she said. “In your room.”

  “They would let you, if I asked them,” I said, and I meant it.

  But she just laughed sadly.

  “Thanks,” she said. “But no thanks. I have to figure out a way to get through all this.”

  I didn’t know exactly what to do or say, but I knew that we were at a critical moment. I didn’t want to push her too hard.

  “Let me help you,” I said. There were some guys in the hall, passing by, and I had to turn to the wall.

  “They really want me to stay away from you for a while,” she said. “They say that I’ve developed a quote-unquote unhealthy attachment to you. They say that I’m obsessed with you.”

  “Is that supposed to be a bad thing?” I said. “I’m obsessed with you too!” She didn’t respond immediately, so I prompted her. “And what did you say to them?”