And then, just like that, class was over. I had used the Internet for the first time and probably the last. It wasn’t very fun. Why would anyone sit in front of a computer screen when they could find the answers using real-life experience? I waltzed out of the room with my poem in hand. The class filed out with me, and my teacher left with us, probably to find a deserted grassy knoll to roll a joint.
I headed off to lunch in the dining hall, where I was still getting over having unlimited access to Lucky Charms and chickpeas. After eighteen years of living in an exclusively Kellogg’s All-Bran household, I couldn’t believe that Ithaca College left out unsupervised Lucky Charms for our taking anytime we wanted. And the dining hall seemed incredibly encouraging of my vegetarianism, keeping a well-stocked salad bar complete with artificial bacon bits, my favorite. My mom was probably really happy right now; she wouldn’t have to make special meals for me anymore—the dining hall would take care of me now. This was much better for me, too. I had always had suspicions that the chicken-free broths that she served me came from the same pot as the chicken broth. No longer would I have to be vigilant of foreign meat substances sneaking their way into my meals. No longer would my boss at the drug store call Vito and Vinnie at the pot/pizza parlor and ask them to slip some ham into my vegetarian calzone as his version of a hilarious joke. Now, I was in charge of my food intake. Chickpeas and Lucky Charms it would be.
I entered the dining hall and right away saw Jean Claude finishing his lunch at a table across the room. I thought about how this French poem would be a good way to strike up a conversation. I approached the table where he and his artist friends were finishing up their chicken fingers.
“Hi, Jean Claude,” I said, making my best effort at being sexy without caring.
“Oh, hello, Mare-geau,” he said, making me want to rip off my clothes.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but I was just in writing class and we used this thing called the Internet. Have you guys ever heard of it?”
“Yeah, we’ve heard of the Internet; we use it, like, every day,” said one of Jean Claude’s friends with paint on his artsy man hands, snickering as he said this.
“Yes. Is this the first time you’re hearing of it, Mare-geau?” asked Jean Claude, confused by my ahead-of-its-time off-the-grid-ness.
“Well, yeah. Sorry. I think I get it now, though. My teacher said I could type in anything and facts would come up. So I typed in my name, but the first thing that came up was in French, and I was wondering if you could translate it for me? It’s a poem.”
“Uh, sure,” said Jean Claude, as he wiped the fried grease from his hands with a crumpled used napkin, which was such an artist thing to do. He looked at my printout and paused. “Mare-geau, are you sure that you want me to translate this for you?”
“Totally, go for it!” I said, looking at his cool artist friends, wondering if they would accept me into this clique once I was Jean Claude’s official girlfriend.
“Uh, okay,” Jean Claude said with hesitation, looking sheepishly at me. “It says, ‘Mare-geau, she is a dirty girl. Mare-geau she likes it really rough. Mare-geau she likes it all the time. Mare-geau she likes it from behind . . .’ Shall I go on?”
I snatched back my pornographic poem and tried to remain calm. “That’s okay. I get the gist. Thanks for translating.” I walked away hearing his friends erupt in laughter as soon as I was gone. My poor attempt to connect with the hot French guy had completely backfired. Why did I decide to be Mare-geau? Why couldn’t I have stuck with the original plan to be cute Maggie? I was going to be the same gigantic dork I was back home. I was still good old Maggot.
I grabbed a salad with extra chickpeas, canned beets, and Bac-Os and sat down with Adriana, trying not to cry. It was all that stupid Internet’s fault. Was this what the Internet was? People’s names with dirty things written next to them? I thought everything on there was supposed to be facts! That poem was not factual. I had never taken it from behind; how could someone write such a thing, albeit in French? I had really blown it with Jean Claude. I had humiliated myself in front of all his friends and now I was never going to get the guy. Why did I even think I would? Just because I was slightly cooler in my first week of college than I’d been in high school didn’t mean shit. It was impossible for me to have been less cool here than in high school. I had nowhere to go but up. But this poetry incident was ranking up there with my Gulf War protest. Maybe not that much had changed for me after all. I wanted to fake sick for a few days just as I had after no one joined me in my cafeteria sing-along.
Why were my most humiliating moments all set in cafeterias?
That night, I sat alone in my thirteenth-floor single with my blue Christmas lights, replaying the humiliating-poem moment over and over again as I listened to the Indigo Girls harmonize about lesbian heartache. I tried to do research for my Shakespeare paper, but I couldn’t focus. I smelled and resmelled my father’s old books to get inspired, but nothing seemed to work. I knew I’d blown it with Jean Claude and that slowly but surely everyone here would learn what a huge dork I was. This wasn’t my Cloris Leachman–jumpstarting-boring-old-Facts of Life moment. This wasn’t my Laverne & Shirley Hollywood moment. This was just another stale season of Maggot, the Story of a Hulking Loser.
As I wallowed in my self-pity, clutching the smoothest rocks of my collection to calm my anxiety, there was a knock on my door. I opened it, thinking it would be Adriana stopping by to show me her new Ithaca College sports socks and Maybelline eye shadow. It was Jean Claude. Crap! There was no time to turn off my embarrassingly indulgent music. No time to check my teeth for remnants of canned beets. No time to fix my blonde half–Jew fro. No time to put down my piece of rose quartz. I stood in the doorway trying my best to look as though I was the type of girl whom boys wanted to spontaneously visit.
“Jean Claude, hi! What are you doing here?”
“Well, I wanted to . . . Can I come in?”
“Sure,” I said, secretly beaming that a full week of interior designing my concrete sanctuary was not all in vain. Jean Claude entered my world of mood lighting and fairies, shutting the door behind him.
“Well, I wanted to . . .” Jean Claude stopped midsentence, grabbed me passionately, and kissed me. This was my first post–high school kiss. And I couldn’t believe it was a kiss from a man with a foreign passport and a penchant for Matisse. The chemistry was on. I was game.
Finally we stopped, although I could have kissed him forever.
“What was that for?” I asked, quickly regretting it, realizing that was something only dorky girls not used to being kissed would say. Seriously, Margot? “What was that for”? I might as well have puffed out the neck of my shirt while saying “Hot enough for ya?” God, I couldn’t stop myself sometimes. Then I got it together and assumed that by now he had noticed my prominently displayed rock collection and known exactly the level of uncoolness he was dealing with here. I’d never in my life heard someone say, “That college freshman’s got a totally rad rock collection.” Well, at least my mood lighting was on.
“Mare-geau. Ever since I met you that night outside the theatre building I’ve been so intrigued by you. But I was so confused as to whether or not you liked me. I couldn’t tell. But then you came to my table with that dirty, dirty poem and I thought, She’s definitely flirting with me. This is a girl who knows how to get what she wants.”
This was too cool. He was right—somewhere buried beneath years of bullying and teasing was a girl who knew how to get what she wanted. He channeled something in me that had been waiting for years to come out. I kissed him again, this time to prevent myself from saying something embarrassing like, “Wow! Jeepers, thanks!” and also to prove I was the girl he said I was. Jean Claude stayed for a long while that night, making out with me while the Indigo Girls sang with every ounce of power behind those flannel shirts.
CHAPTER 19:
Losing My Relevé
I loved my new life. I was actually going
to get the guy!
That being evident, I knew that all ties left hanging behind must be severed. Even though Adam and I ended things before we left for school, I wanted to make sure he understood that I really just wanted to start over. We talked on the phone after Jean Claude’s visit and it erupted into an argument.
“Look, Adam, I’m really sorry. What we had was fun, but after what I’ve experienced here, I just don’t think there’s a connection anymore.”
“What do you mean? Of course there’s a connection,” he whined.
“Well, for one, I’m a dancer now. How can you possibly understand that?”
“I don’t understand it, but that doesn’t mean—what do you mean you’re a dancer now?”
“I make art with my body, Adam.”
Silence.
“Maybe you’re right,” he finally declared, after an undeniably long and awkward pause. “I make art with my body” was just pretentious enough to enable Adam to cut the cord a little earlier than he had hoped. My last-minute high-school-boyfriend experience was left in high school. I was almost free of home. I tried to break the awkward silence.
“It’s amazing,” I said, using a chipper tone, “there are so many vegetarian options for me to eat in the dining hall. Soy meats and a salad bar. You can’t beat it!”
“I gotta go study,” he replied. “See you over Thanksgiving.”
And with that, Adam hung up the phone, making it clear he had no interest in making small talk about soy meat with the girl who just ditched him, again.
My schedule at school was jam-packed and I became incredibly busy with schoolwork, memorizing lines for acting class and going to late-night choreography sessions in the studio with my new dancer friends.
After the poem misunderstanding, Jean Claude and I began what I believed to be dating. We saw each other here and there, and when we hung out, we kissed. That’s dating, right? I wanted to go on romantic picnics backdropped by the Cayuga Lake, but I settled for an occasional group lunch in the dining hall. I had memorized his schedule to the minute and would show up in strategically chosen spots not too near his classrooms, and I’d pretend we were accidentally running into each other, using quips like “What, are you stalking me?” We were nowhere near walking hand in hand across campus or attending “Free Tibet” rallies in the commons as I had hoped we’d be by this point. I figured things were pretty vague in the college world, unlike back home. In high school there was “hooking up” (a onetime thing), “going with” (a multiple-time hookup with no commitment), “seeing each other” (pretty sure you want to be exclusive but keeping your options open just in case Jon Bon Jovi gets divorced), and “going out with” (a committed relationship that is most likely consummated).
I was pretty sure that if I initiated the dreaded relationship talk, I would seem cooler to Jean Claude if I added the caveat, “But you know me, I’m totally laid-back. I mean it’s not like I need a label.”
The truth was, every journal entry I wrote was about Jean Claude; every time I came home to my answering machine blinking I hoped it was Jean Claude. When I succeeded at “accidentally” running into him, I would feel a rush of adrenaline in the same way my heart had raced after narrowly avoiding a car accident. I tried to remain cool in his presence. I ignored him in front of his friends in the dining hall and waited for him to say hi first. I wanted it to seem like I was “fine with whatever,” and when I’d find myself getting too worked up about how much more serious I wanted things to be with him, I refocused my attention on my studies. This happened a lot, and I ended up writing A+ papers, doing kick-ass script analyses, and reading way ahead in the Twyla Tharp biography required for Modern Dance I. So even when Jean Claude slept over one night and half asleep said, “Good night, Diane,” I let it go. I didn’t know who Diane was, but who was I to ask? Jean Claude was an artist and could not be tamed. And I was an artist dating an artist—an older, worldly, French one no less. I looked in my bedroom mirror and recited my new artsy mantra inspired by Twyla: I have not chosen this lifestyle, it has chosen me. If I’d wanted stability, I would have stayed with Adam. Not every young girl from Jersey gets to be schooled by a wise, experienced Frenchman. Who cared about Diane?
Classes were a dream. While doing a rond de jambe one day in ballet, my teacher called me a “long-stemmed beauty.” I liked that, and it made me wonder if I could now lead a “long-stemmed life,” filled with perfect posture, self-acceptance, and unlimited vegetarian menu options. No one here knew anything about my awkward and humiliating teen years. I was a new woman. For the first time ever I felt grateful to be tall. And I thought I had possibly even found my true calling—as a dancer. That made sense. The only thing I had stuck with all through my awkward phase was modern dance. No one made me do it, the way I was forced to sign up for church volleyball. It was a hobby that I enjoyed, and it seemed as if some of what I had learned stuck with me. My turnout was positioned properly, I already knew the first through fifth positions, and I had taken just enough French in high school to understand that pas de chat meant “step of the cat.” My ballet teacher even had me demonstrate the moves a few times—and moved me from the back line to the front! (Although, as I headed to my new spot, she said, “You are not a noodle. Stop walking like one.” Had I been walking like a noodle? How exactly does a noodle walk? A cooked or raw one? Because walking like raw spaghetti would be a positive thing, I think.)
I felt great passion for my art. I took time to plan out fun dance ensembles each night and got to class early every day to warm up. I even bought a Flashdance sweatshirt downtown and wore it over my unitard on cold days. I looked cooler in that unitard than I ever did in my lesbian shoes.
Life was so good, so right, that I basically forgot that I ever had a life before this. Chad Decker? Who’s he? Until, one late September night, when I came home from set painting for The Pirates of Penzance to find my AT&T answering machine with the ladybug stickers flashing its little red light.
“Hi, Margot, it’s Mom. Sorry to bother you. I know you’re busy with whatever it is you’re always so busy with there. What is it you do there? You don’t tell me anything. Anyway, I wanted to remind you to start asking around for a ride home for Thanksgiving. Call me back. Love you.”
Ah yes, home. I would have to go back there soon and revisit the past. Maybe this wasn’t a clean break after all.
A few days later it was my birthday, which always made me feel lonely, especially because it comes at the beginning of the school year. It was only October. My friendship with Adriana was great but still establishing itself, and my relationship with Jean Claude was confusing. I didn’t have a defined group of friends to celebrate with, and I was worried I would spend my special day alone. On my way to modern dance, walking all alone in my wraparound dance sweater, I thought about my big-boobed neighbor Alyssa. I missed her. Even if my new friend Adriana tried to throw me a surprise party like Alyssa had, there would be barely anyone to invite. I was feeling sad and lost in my thoughts as I walked into the theatre building and bumped into Jean Claude.
“Hello, Margot,” he said, perfectly accenting the geau, as always.
“Hi,” I said, as I nervously tried to walk into the building without embarrassing myself by choosing the door that always remained permanently locked. Why couldn’t I ever remember which door that was? Every day I’d yank at the wrong door like an idiot, almost falling over when it wouldn’t budge.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
“Good, I guess . . .” There was an awkward silence. We hadn’t hung out in at least a week, and I was starting to think he had ditched me for “Diane.” As we shifted our feet in uncomfortable silence, I had extra time to become increasingly aware of my makeshift dance ensemble, my unitard with a skirt over it, which seemed like a fabulous idea in my dorm room, but less fabulous in front of the guy I was obsessed with. I waited for him to say something, anything.
Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I blurted, “Today’s my b
irthday.”
Well, it was. I had never been one of those people who were indifferent to their own birthdays. Once my paternal grandmother was visiting and my dad casually asked, “Mom, isn’t it your birthday?”
My grandmother looked at her watch with the tiny calendar feature and replied, “Oh yeah. That old thing?”
How laid-back to think of your own birthday as “that old thing.” I was more a walk-through-the-hallways-with-a-clump-of-balloons-I-had-bought-for-myself-in-the-school-store type of birthday celebrator. But to Jean Claude, I wanted to give the impression that I was relaxed and carefree. I also didn’t want to scare him off, acting as if I expected to spend it together. I had heard acting too needy was an easy way to die alone.
“Wow, really? Well, maybe I’ll stop by tonight and say hi in honor of your birthday.”
“Sure, that would be fun,” I said nervously. “Thirteenth floor.”
“Thirteenth floor? Is that really where you live? Wow, all these times I never noticed that. I’ve always just walked up the stairs a few flights. We have a thirteenth floor? That’s unlucky. Most buildings don’t—”
“I know, it’s fine. I like it. Good views.”
“Okay, cool, I’ll try to stop by around nine or ten. See you then.” Jean Claude walked away, and I ran down the stairs to my modern dance class feeling as high as I did when I first smoked pot with Jackie Angel. Jean Claude was coming over tonight for my birthday! Maybe he would bring me flowers or, even better, a bouquet of handmade paper flowers he had slaved over tediously because he was an artist.
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