Been There, Done That (11 page)

Frank and Cherie, the hall Goths, found each other right away and briefly formed a club of two. They had everything in common, it seemed: black clothes, black lipstick, black hair and pale makeup that didn’t quite hide their equally virulent acne. Like Amelia, they had pierced tongues. In addition, Cherie had pierced her eyebrows, while Frank had too many piercings to count—at least without getting woozy. Within a couple of days, however, Cherie worked herself away from Frank and into the polo shirt-clad masses, muttering that Frank was “utterly humorless,” while Frank wandered off to find some “real” Gothic life on campus.

Four days into the party, I called Tim. (Tiffany had brought along a cordless; mercifully, pink had been unavailable, so it was standard issue white.) “You can’t believe the noise,” I whispered. “Stereos, giggling, shouting—it goes on till two in the morning every goddamn night.”

“So you’re tired.”

“Actually, no. I go to bed at two, get up at eleven. I figure I’m on California time.”

“Any leads on the story?”

“Can’t even work on it yet.” I tried to sound disappointed, like I couldn’t wait to start sleuthing. “It’s just freshmen here now. Of course, the R.A.’s are upperclassmen, but if they were making big bucks as prostitutes, they wouldn’t have to live with a bunch of freshmen just to cover their room bills.”

“Talk to the R.A.’s. They might know something, heard some rumors.”

In truth, the reason I’d waited four days to call was because I knew Tim would tell me to do something I didn’t want to do. The imposter bit was turning out easier than I’d expected. The real eighteen-year-olds that surrounded me were so self-conscious, constantly worrying about their appearance, wondering what everyone thought of them, and obsessing over finding a significant other (the girls) or a truly meaningful one-night stand (the boys). As long as I kept conversations focused on them, they were happy. Getting information out of Jeremy and Amber might not be so easy.

I told Tim I needed a laptop computer.

“Isn’t there some computer center you could use?”

“There is, but no one uses it. I’m the only person on the hall without a laptop. We’re supposed to take them to class. It looks suspicious.”

The first day, I had been dense enough to stick a memo board on our door, only to realize, too late, that e-mail and instant messaging had long since replaced the quaint traditions of my college years. I was all set to pull it down, when Katherine, the girl from next door, gave it an approving nod. “Cool. It’s, like, retro.”

 
The final event of orientation week was line dancing. Yes, line dancing. We arrived en masse at Andrews Hall, probably Mercer’s grandest building. Situated at the end of the college green, it had all the pillars a grand building needs, and then some. Inside, the floors were wide-plank wood, the windows large and drafty, the ceilings sky-high. It looked as though Andrews Hall had been standing since the American Revolution, or at least the Civil War, though in truth it was constructed during the nineteen-fifties.

The hall was already full of perspiring teenagers when we got there. It was dimly lit, although spots of light twirled around the floor. Some well-meaning entertainment chairman, ill-informed about country and western, had hung a disco ball. I sidled over to a long folding table, where paper cups of non-alcoholic punch were lined up like soldiers. The punch was red—perfect for staining all these hundreds of Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirts.

“Want to make the punch more interesting?” Katherine, the girl who lived next door, opened up her mini backpack to reveal a pint of vodka. While I hadn’t met any other Katies yet, I’d come across two Katherines, one Catherine, three Kates and a Kat. As a kid, my official school name was “Kathy H.,” meant to set me apart from the Kathies B., S., and T. None of the Katherines I met at Mercer went by Kathy. Apparently, the name had died from overuse.

At the sight of Katherine’s vodka, I forgave her cruelty to her mother: I wasn’t sure I could get through this night sober. I held out my half-empty cup. She filled it to the top.

Tiffany’s eyes bugged out. “Where did you GET that?” She held her cup of virgin punch closely to her chest.

It hadn’t even occurred to me to wonder how an eighteen-year-old had secured vodka. There’d been so much booze floating around the dorm, I’d all but forgotten about the drinking age.

Katherine reached into the pocket of her too-tight jeans and pulled out a laminated card. “North Dakota driver’s license.”

I studied the card. “Is this really what they look like?”

“Who the hell knows?” Katherine flipped her long hair over her shoulder. “Have you ever been to North Dakota? Have you ever even met anyone from North Dakota?”

I thought for a moment. “Actually, I’ve never even heard of anyone from North Dakota.” I gulped the punch and smiled. “Maybe no one really lives in North Dakota.”

“Why would they?” Katherine asked.

“Right. Especially when they can live in South Dakota instead.” We both cackled. Katherine spilled punch on her jeans. We laughed even harder. Of course, the vodka hadn’t had time to take effect yet, but we revelled in the knowledge that we would soon be woozy.

Tiffany’s head darted back and forth between us. “But someone must live in North Dakota!” she squeaked. “They have senators from there!”

Katherine gave me a look and a smirk. She sipped her red cocktail and rolled her eyes to the ceiling, feigning interest in the disco ball. Democracy was crumbling. Really, Katherine wasn’t any prettier than Tiffany: while lean, she was big-boned, and her long hair was a dull and kinky brown. But she knew what to wear (one of those belly-baring tops—never mind the chill) and she knew when to smirk.

Were I a real freshman, I would have taken her cue and ditched Tiffany as quickly as possible. Another drink, and Katherine would be doubled over by tales of my Clay-infested life. But somewhere along the way, while acquiring a job, car and apartment, I’d also acquired a conscience. I pretended to miss the message.

Jeremy picked a cup of punch off the table and joined our circle. “How’s it going?” He was wearing a green T-shirt, khakis and sneakers, probably trying to look like a benevolent camp counselor. It wasn’t his fault that he looked more like a J. Crew model.

“No one’s dancing,” I said. It was true. “Achy Breaky Heart” was blasting, but all seemed immune to the rhythm.

“There’s supposed to be some kind of lesson,” Jeremy said.

“What? You need a lesson? Don’t you line dance in—where are you from? Vermont?”

“New Hampshire. No, we try to stick to the really cool dances. Like the hustle.”

Snickering, I drained my punch, wondering if our resident assistant would be upset to know it was spiked. I half expected Katherine to offer him vodka, but she had grown strangely quiet. “Do either of you know how to line dance?” I asked the girls.

Tiffany, mute, smiled in wonderment and fear. Jeremy grinned at her. “How about you, Tiffany?”

She emitted a giggle that was almost a wheeze then said, with some effort, “No. I’ve never learned.” Sweat gleamed on her forehead.

Jeremy turned to Katherine. “You?”

She wrapped one arm around her waist and shook her head with what she probably meant to be nonchalance but which looked an awful lot like Parkinson’s. Like Tiffany, she was looking at Jeremy a little too intently.

The music stopped, and an angular man-boy stepped on stage. He had greasy, shoulder-length brown hair and a soul patch—one of those tufts of beard-hair that sits marooned somewhere between the lip and chin of any guy who is foolish enough to think the seventies were cool. His T-shirt and jeans hung off his scrawny frame. Poorly fitting clothes were high-fashion, I’d noticed. The boys preferred pants that were two sizes too big, while the girls favored shirts three sizes too small.

He picked up a microphone that immediately assaulted our ears with an unbearably high pitch. “Can ya HEAR me?” The young man asked.

“Yes!” answered the crowd.

“Are ya SURE?”

“What an asshole,” I muttered—too soft to hear, I thought, but Jeremy turned to me and grimaced.

“You have no idea.”

The guy held up a Coke can in a toast and said, “Welcome to Mercer College, party capital of New England!” The crowd hooted and clapped with excessive enthusiasm. Apparently, Katherine wasn’t the only one to smuggle in booze. I’d be willing to bet, too, that this kid’s can held something other than cola. “I see you’re havin’ a
rockin’
time here at—what is this? Square dancing?” Laughter from the audience. “But if you’re still in the mood to
partay
after you’re done do-si-do-ing, then head on over to the party house!” At that, a pissed-off-looking college official appeared and snatched away the microphone. The guy yelled out a street address, but I missed it.

“Who was that jerk?” I asked.

“Troy,” Jeremy said, grimacing.

The lady who’d taken the mike away from Troy was doing her best to pretend that things were going well. I’d been here less than a half hour, and already the crowd was thinning. “Now that you’ve all mastered line dancing,” she piped, “it’s time for learning the two-step!”

I saw my opportunity to interrogate Jeremy. “Care to dance?”

He grimaced. “I’m awful.”

“So am I.”

He looked at the floor. “I hope your feet aren’t sensitive. Because they’re going to get stepped on.”

I looked him in the eye. “I don’t even have feet. These are artificial. Bad frostbite incident on Everest—I don’t like to talk about it.” It was a dumb joke, really, but the booze was making me silly. Back when I really was eighteen, I wasn’t silly nearly often enough.

Jeremy laughed and looked to Tiffany and Katherine to add to the joviality. Tiffany looked miserable. Katherine looked stunned. Guess she wouldn’t be giving me any more vodka tonight

 
 
I shrieked when Jeremy stomped on my foot. He looked mortified. Remembering my fake foot story, I shouted, “Phantom limb! Phantom limb!”

His eyes crinkled in appreciation. “I told you I was bad.”

“But I thought you were just saying that.”

On stage, some guy in a cowboy hat was counting, “One! Two! One-and-two-and . . . !” We shuffled our way through the rest of the music. “I’m glad . . . I don’t . . . make you . . . uncomfortable.” He was trying to listen to the cowboy and talk at the same time.

“Why would you? Here. Just follow what I’m doing.” I took the lead. Even tipsy, my rhythm was intact.

“The other girls on the hall . . .” He’d given up stepping and was now just swaying. “They clam up whenever I’m around. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, but that happens to me all the time, not just in the dorm. I guess it’s me—I don’t know how to relate to women. I don’t have any sisters. Maybe that’s the problem.”

Had I been sober, I would have spewed something sensible: in the dorm, he’s in a position of authority, and that makes some people nervous. Or, in college people are continually checking each other out; girls act unnatural around all guys, not just him. But my single glass of punch had contained as much vodka as you’d expect in three typical drinks, so I did the unthinkable. I told the truth.

“Because you never had any sisters? Are you serious?” I arched my neck to look up at him. The lights from the disco ball made me blink.

His forehead was all scrunched up in thought. “Maybe I’m getting a little too psychoanalytical.”

“You don’t know? You can’t not know.” I took two steps back. We still held hands, making a little bridge between us. “Jeremy.” I gazed at him with mock seriousness. “Here’s the thing: you’re hot.”

“Oh, come on.” He pulled me back to him and resumed swaying almost in time to the music. Another couple collided into us, and we all laughed.

“You’re more than hot,” I said, once the other couple had galloped away. I craned my neck so I could see Jeremy’s face. He had the cheekbones, the long straight nose, the wide, well-defined mouth of every teenage girl’s fantasy. One of Jeremy’s front teeth was just the tiniest bit crooked and gleamed in the light. “You’re smokin’,” I announced. “The way girls act around you—it has nothing to do with what you say or how you act. You could be reciting sonnets or football stats. It wouldn’t matter. Girls can’t get beyond your looks.”

“That’s ridiculous.” He blushed underneath his tan. He’d all but stopped swaying and was having trouble looking at me. “I’m okay looking, I guess—”

“Okay looking! Jeremy, you look like Tom Cruise’s more masculine younger brother.” We’d stopped dancing entirely by now, two figures amid a sea of stomping adolescents. “Are you honestly saying that you don’t know how handsome you are? Because that just makes you cuter.” In truth, I liked making him squirm. Had he been my age—or I his—I would have been as mute as Tiffany. I was enjoying my new brazen self.

“Okay! I know I’m . . . okay looking. But so are lots of other guys on the hall. Mike, Jake—”

“Not in your league.” I took his elbow and led him off the dance floor and to the punch table. It wasn’t until I had my first sip of the sweet red liquid that I realized that I needed Katherine and her bottle if I wanted to keep feeling this happy.

Jeremy picked up a paper cup. “In high school, Mike was All-American in soccer.”

“That impresses guys, not girls. Girls just go to soccer games so they can see who’s got the best legs. Why do you think girls hate football so much? Bunch of fat guys with no necks. Where’s the fun in that?”

“That’s ridiculous!” He was laughing now. “If that’s true, why aren’t there more girls at swim meets?”

“We like a certain sense of mystery. Those Speedo’s.” I wrinkled my nose. “So Euro-trash.”

He chugged his punch, crushed the cup and tossed it in an arc toward the garbage can. It missed.

“Nice shot,” I said.

“I’m a natural athlete.”

I grinned. He grinned.