* * *
But wait, a voice pipes up, just before the gavel comes down.
Yes?
Just one thing, though. I have a question.
Go ahead.
What about the sex?
Uh . . . what about it? Ted and Rachel did not have sex. He wanted to be very clear with the tribunal about that. Ted did not take Rachel’s virginity. (And Rachel did not take Ted’s.)
Did they hook up?
Yeah, obviously. They dated for four months.
When they were hooking up, did Ted “do exactly what was required of him, but no more”? Did he “play dead” with Rachel, so to speak? Was he the polite, slightly distant, withdrawn person that he was with her otherwise?
Um. Well. No.
What was he like?
. . .
What were you like, Ted?
I was . . .
You were . . . ?
I was . . . kind of . . .
Yes?
. . . mean.
Mean?
Mean.
* * *
Before Ted got old and sexually experienced, before he mastered a range of fetish keywords on Pornhub and started paying for a yearly subscription to Kink.com, “mean” was the word he used in his head for the things he did to (with?) Rachel, that squirmy, compelling dynamic. The word predated her. He’d used it when he was a kid to describe certain kinds of comics and cartoons and movies and books where people were “mean” to girls. Wonder Woman was chained to the railroad tracks. On the cover of one of his sister’s Nancy Drew mysteries, Nancy was gagged and tied to a chair.
Young Ted liked stories where people were “mean” to girls, but that didn’t imply he wanted to do mean things to them. When he imagined himself into these stories, which he only rarely did—being mostly content to watch them play out—he, Ted, was never the one tying girls up. No, he was the one who was rescuing them. He untied the ropes and rubbed their wrists to get the circulation flowing, gently undid the gags, stroked their hair as they cried against his chest. To be the villain, the tie-er up-er, the inflictor of pain? No, no, no, no, no. Meanness had nothing to do with Ted’s love life, or his fantasy life, either. Until Rachel came along.
As far as possible, Ted avoided hooking up with Rachel. He rarely touched her affectionately, and he kept his mouth closed when they kissed. Though he recognized that it bothered her, he felt like he was being a good person when he did this: since he didn’t like her, he had no right to pressure her into doing sex stuff. After all, if he made an effort to hook up, and then later he broke up with her, she’d be justified in returning to the tribunal and accusing him of using her for sex. By this logic, therefore, the only way he could exculpate himself from guilt was to require Rachel to prod and nag him and push him to be alone with her, to ask him two or three or five times, so that, in the end, no one could claim that it was his fault.
Once they were in her bedroom, with her door closed, she’d start kissing him in that way that never ceased to feel fake: those light pecks, those melodramatic sighs. Ugh, Rachel, he would think, as the annoyance he’d been fighting all day pushed to the surface. Why are you so bossy and pushy and oblivious? Why do you like me? Why can’t you tell I’m not that into you? But she would keep throwing herself at him . . . and eventually, surrendering to temptation, he would channel his irritation into a pinch or a bite, or even, later, a light slap.
She claimed to be into it when he was “mean” to her, and he guessed she must be, if how wet and flushed and wriggly she got meant anything at all. Yet he still felt, gut-deep, that there was a patina of falseness over everything she did, and that in claiming to enjoy what he did to her, she was telling him what she thought he wanted to hear. Part of what it meant to be “mean” to Rachel, therefore, was to scrape away that falseness, to dig under it, to force her to show a true reaction: he wanted to catch that real part of Rachel, but it kept slipping away from him, like an eel dipping under the water, and chasing it drove him up the wall with lust. I hate you, I hate you, he’d think, pinning her bony wrists above her head and biting the meat of her shoulder and dry-humping her leg until he came.
“That was amazing,” she’d sigh afterward, cuddling up to him, but he did not, could not, believe her.
Sometimes, he wondered if, more than the hookups themselves, she liked their aftermath, because in those brief periods he was different with her. He needed her to salve his guilt over what he’d just done so badly that he was vulnerable, open and raw. He’d kiss her and bring her water, and afterward he’d lie beside her and hide his face in her hair. In those moments, he could look at Rachel’s face and see her not as ugly or pretty or good or bad or loved or hated but just as a person lying next to him, stripped of all the judgment he was continually imposing on her, his obsessive critical analysis of everything she did. What if he could like Rachel? If he liked her, then he wouldn’t be a bad person for dating her. He’d have nothing to atone for. They could be happy. He’d be free. The thought made him feel fantastically light, like some sponge inside him, heavy with poison, had finally been wrung dry.
It never lasted. As the postcoital bliss began to fade, Anna would manifest beside him like a ghost. Think about me, think about me, she’d whisper in his ear, and he would. His brain would rev up again, thinking, churning, judging. He’d fucked up by hooking up with Rachel, letting Rachel see him like this, exposed. Now she’d be even more sure that he liked her; now she’d be even more hurt when he dumped her; now he had even more sins against her to expiate; now it would be even harder to get away.
He’d sit up, pull on his underwear.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just have to get going.”
“Why don’t you just lie here with me for a little while?”
“I’ve got homework.”
“It’s Friday.”
“I told you before, I have a lot to do.”
“Why do you always get like this?”
“Like what?”
“Like this. All cranky. After.”
“I’m not cranky.”
“Yes, you are. Mr. Cranky. Cranky-pants.”
“I’ve got a calculus midterm, a project due for history I haven’t even started, I told a friend I’d help her study for the SAT, and the final draft of my college essay is due to the guidance counselor on Monday. I’m sorry if I seem stressed but it doesn’t exactly help for you to pester me and call me Mr. Cranky-pants when I’ve already wasted like an hour here.”
“Just come lie down for a minute. Let me rub your back.”
“Rachel, I don’t want you to rub my back. I want to go get my work done. This is why I said we shouldn’t do this.”
“Oh, come on, cranky. My mom won’t be home for another hour. Here, just let me . . .”
“Hey, cut it out!”
“What, you don’t liiike it? Because it seems like you liiike it. Oooh, yes it does.”
“Stop, I said!”
“Make me, baby.”
“Goddamnit, Rachel—”
“Oh, Ted!”
And above them, like a heavenly chorus, the girls of the tribunal would resume their chattering: Look at them, those two uggos, doing their weird ugly-person shit, oh my God, he’s so nasty, did you see that, did he? I think he just . . . yes, he did, he did, oh no, I think I might vomit, oh, gross, that’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen, I don’t know who’s grosser, her or him, how could she, how can she bear it, I would never, ever, ever let him do anything like that to me . . .
* * *
While Imaginary Anna remained Ted’s constant companion, helpfully sharing her detailed opinions on the evolution of his relationship and the state of his soul, Actual Anna continued obliviously on at Tulane, receiving a friendly email from her good friend Ted every couple of weeks—none of which, notably, mentioned the existence of an Actual Rachel.
Ted’s self-presentation to Anna was as carefully curated as a museum exhibit, and he wrestled un
successfully with the question of how to incorporate Rachel into the display. The problem was that while an abstract “sophomore” could conceivably be a sexy rival to Anna, raising Ted’s status in her eyes, Rachel herself could be nothing but a liability. If Anna asked him follow-up questions he couldn’t avoid, he feared that the discovery that he’d been romantically linked with Rachel Derwin-Finkel might be enough to taint him forever with her loser’s stench.
Rachel, on the other hand, knew all about Anna. Boy, did she. Sometimes, Ted suspected that Rachel was a very low-level clairvoyant, her psychic powers limited to a tiny and useless handful of realms. The slightest flicker of discomfort on his face would be immediately met with “Ted? Ted? What’s wrong? What are you thinking about? Ted?” Since he was usually thinking about how annoying Rachel was and/or daydreaming about Anna, he had no choice but to lie when this happened; he lied more to Rachel, on a day-to-day basis, than he’d ever lied to anyone in his life. And yet every once in a while, she would interrogate him in a way that sent him spasming, unable to keep himself from revealing a piece of the truth.
For example, he once—once—mentioned Anna to Rachel, but he might as well have tattooed ASK ME ABOUT MY FEELINGS FOR ANNA TRAVIS.
“Gilda Radner was basically an underrated genius,” he said that night in the Blockbuster, as they browsed past a rack featuring The Best of SNL. “My friend Anna is a huge fan of hers.”
“Your friend, Anna?” Rachel echoed.
Ted froze. “Yep.” He felt as though he were walking across a lake in winter, and the ice had begun to crackle all around him. No sudden movements, he told himself. You can still get yourself to safe ground.
“I don’t think I know Anna,” Rachel said. Her voice was studiedly casual.
“Probably not,” he said. “She graduated last year.”
“How do you know her?”
“I don’t remember. I think we had class together one time.”
There was a silence. Side by side, they gazed at the movies under the bright fluorescent lights. Rachel picked up the case for Steve Martin’s The Jerk and studied the back of the box. Was it over? Had he escaped?
“You mean Anna Zhang?” Rachel asked.
The ice gave way, plunging him into the water.
“No.”
“Anna Hogan?”
“No.” Dammit, he knew Anna Hogan! Why hadn’t he just said Anna Hogan? YOU ARE SUCH A FUCKING IDIOT, TED, his brain screamed at itself.
“Well, which Anna is it?”
Ted felt his throat starting to close up. “Anna Travis,” he managed.
“Anna Travis!” Rachel was ostensibly still reading the box, but she raised her eyebrows in such a way as to evince dramatic skepticism at the idea of Ted moving in the same exalted social circles as Anna Travis. “I didn’t know you knew Anna Travis.”
“Yup.”
“Huh.”
A pause.
“How come you never mentioned her before?”
“I don’t know. It just never came up.”
It occurred to Ted that if Rachel flew off the handle and gave him an ultimatum about Anna, he would have to break up with her, because obviously if he had to choose between Rachel and Anna, he’d choose Anna, and since nothing had ever happened between him and Anna, Rachel would be the unreasonable one, and the breakup wouldn’t even end up being his fault.
But Rachel was savvier than that. She put The Jerk back on the shelf, and they wandered through the Blockbuster in silence.
“She’s pretty,” Rachel said after a minute.
“Who?”
Rachel’s face twisted briefly into a sneer. “Who? Gilda Radner. No, Anna Travis, dummy. She’s hot.”
“I guess so,” he said.
“You guess?”
“We’re just friends, Rachel,” Ted said, with exaggerated patience.
“I mean . . . obviously,” Rachel said. “Anna Travis.”
Rachel, Ted thought, you are a fucking cunt and I hope you die in a fire.
“Did you go to her good-bye party? Over the summer?” Rachel asked.
“Yeah. Why?”
“No reason.” Rachel took another movie off the shelf and thoughtfully read the description on the back. Without looking up, she said, “I just heard this rumor that at that party she banged Marco Hernandez in her parents’ bedroom while her mom was getting the cake ready downstairs.”
Image: Ted is strapped to a gurney with Rachel standing over him, perusing a selection of knives, as she decides which one to jab into his tenderest parts.
“That’s ridiculous,” Ted scoffed. “Who told you that? Shelly?” Shelly was Rachel’s flighty, obnoxious best friend. Ted thought maybe he could start a fight about Shelly that could serve as a distraction. Or maybe he should just knock over the nearest video display and flee the state.
Rachel did not take the bait. “It wasn’t Shelly, actually. But everybody knows Anna Travis is obsessed with Marco. Like genuinely, crazy obsessed.” For the first time, Rachel looked directly at him, her eyes blank behind her glasses. “I heard that she’s been writing him all these messages from college, and calling him all the time at his dorm, and it got so bad that he had to have her number and email address blocked.”
Ted felt sick. How long had she been carrying this piece of information around, and how had she known she should use it?
“Oh my God, Rachel,” Ted said. “It’s like honestly embarrassing the way you do this, gossiping about people you don’t even know. You treat people you think are cool like they’re celebrities or something. Anna’s just a regular person and you don’t even know her, so maybe you and Shelly should stop obsessing about her love life like a couple of dorks.”
“Well,” Rachel said, pursing her lips. “I actually do know her. So.”
“You do not.”
“I do,” she said, coldly triumphant. “We went to nursery school together and our moms are friends. It was her mom who told my mom the thing about Marco blocking her number. She said Anna’s been so messed up about it that she might need to take a semester off. I guess your friend Anna just didn’t tell you.”
Ted’s stomach contracted around the knife Rachel had just shoved into his gut.
Rachel wrapped her cold hand around Ted’s limp one. “I don’t think I’m in the mood for a movie, actually,” she said. “My parents won’t be back home until midnight and my brother is at a sleepover. Let’s go.”
* * *
A few nights later, Ted sat in front of the computer, trying to compose an email to Anna. He’d written and deleted twenty variations on the question Are you sure everything’s okay? but nothing had come out right. He’d already sent her two emails that had gone unanswered, and he knew he should just chill. The problem was that he didn’t just want to find out if Rachel’s story was true; he needed to find out—his itch to know felt like bugs crawling under his skin.
Driven by anxiety to unforeseen heights of bravery, Ted found himself picking up the phone. He had Anna’s number at school memorized, even though he’d only ever called her once before—on her birthday, when he’d sung the entire “Happy Birthday” song into her voice mail. She’d never called him back, but he did get an email eventually (subject line: Thank you SO much!!) that she’d signed with a bunch of x’s and o’s, which had felt significant at the time.
Anna picked up on the first ring.
“Hello, Anna, it’s Ted calling,” Ted said, as though he were speaking directly into her answering machine.
“Ted!” she said. “What’s up?”
“Uh . . . I was just thinking about you,” he said. “Are you doing okay?”
“I guess,” she said. “Why?”
Because my girlfriend, whose existence I’m keeping a secret from you, told me a secret you’re keeping from me, because she was jealous of the crush I have on you, which I’m also keeping secret from you, though I was unable to keep it a secret from her?
“Um, I’m not sure exactly. It’s weird, but I
just had the . . . feeling . . . that something was wrong.”
Using covertly acquired information to feign a mysterious psychic bond was a new realm of deception for Ted, and he didn’t fully understand the potency of what he’d done until Anna started to cry.
“I’m not okay,” she said. “I’m not okay at all.” Between sobs, she began gasping out a tangled story that involved not only Marco, but a guy in a frat who’d treated her badly, a nasty fight with her father’s new wife, an ongoing war with her roommate, and the fact—which she mentioned as almost an afterthought—that she was failing most of her classes and would be on academic probation next year.
“I’m sorry,” Ted said, stunned. “I’m so sorry. That sounds really hard.”
“I can’t believe you called me,” Anna said. “Nobody else from home has called me in forever. It’s like they forgot about me. You think you’re so close to people but when it comes down to it, they just forget.”
“I didn’t forget about you,” Ted said.
“I know,” Anna said. “I know you didn’t forget. You were always there for me, always, but I never appreciated it, I took you for granted. I was so selfish. I hate who I was in high school, God, I wish I could change everything about myself but it’s just—it’s too late to do anything, that’s the problem. It’s all so fucked up, and I just don’t know who I am anymore, you know? Like, who is this person who made all these choices that I just have to live with? I look back at that person and I hate her, I hate her so much for what she did to me, that person is like my nemesis, my worst enemy, but the problem is, that person is me.”
As Anna poured her heart out over the phone, Ted’s own heart lit up like a solar flare. He wanted nothing more than to show Anna how he saw her: how beautiful and perfect she was in his eyes. He needed to let her know that he was going to carry that memory—that knowledge—of her inside him, so that no matter what happened between them, no matter how down she got on herself, he could do this for her: he could love her, selflessly and unceasingly, with total commitment and purity, for the rest of his life.
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