Charmed Thirds (24 page)

Everyone always thinks that getting me out of hiding and back into the world will do me some good. This, of course, makes no sense, when it’s the world that makes me
want
to go into hiding. But remarkably I said, “Okay.”

Partying in general exhausts me. But I’ve come to the conclusion that partying at college exhausts me, like,
existentially
even more than parties in high school. High school parties exhausted me because I always felt like I was the only thinking person in a room mostly full of morons obliterating precious IQ points with every gulp of whatever booze they managed to steal out of their parents’ liquor cabinets. College parties are exhausting in a diametrically opposite way. They are full of smart, funny people who are all used to being the smartest, funniest person in the room, so they spend the whole party talking over one another, overlapping and overtaking the conversation to prove that they are the smartest, funniest person in the room, if not the entire planet.

I figured that hitting a bar with Bridget and Percy wouldn’t be such a burden on my brain, which is how I found myself in Seaside Heights, New Jersey, at a bar called Tiki Tiki Tonga. Triple T, as it’s known, is a bar that’s got sand on the floor, leering tribal masks on the walls, and wooden torches topped with swirling disco lights. It’s a jungle jumble of Club Med and The Rainforest Café.

Obviously, the décor isn’t the main attraction. Every season there’s one bar on the Cheezeside strip that quickly establishes itself for its lax attitude about fake IDs and therefore becomes the favorite hangout for underage drinkers until the
ABC
busts up the party. This year, its Triple T. Pineville High has no need to throw a reunion: Its graduating class of ‘02 could be found there in near-perfect attendance because most of us have yet to turn twenty-one.

No surprise, then, that we’d barely gotten past the bouncer before we saw none other than Sara and Scotty heading our way. She was still unnaturally brown and skinny, and in a yellow-and-red-striped tube dress, I’ll be goddiggitydamned if she didn’t look exactly,
exactly
like a Slim Jim. Sara had trouble making her way through the crowd, so Scotty was putting his pounds to good use by acting as her own personal offensive line, with emphasis on
offensive.
He wore a T-shirt bearing a message that might have explained what he was doing in her company:
LIFE
IS
SHORT
. GO
UGLY
EARLY
.

“I’m
so
outta here,” I said.

“Come on,” Bridget said. “We’ve already blown fifteen bucks just to get in the door.”

“I need a strong drink.”

“A bottle of Grey Goose and a straw?” Pepe suggested, on his way to the bar.

“OMIGOD!!!”

I shot Pepe a look that said,
Make that a double.

Sara was saying something, but I couldn’t hear her over the tribal drums beating through the sound system. I nodded and smiled, hoping it would placate her. But that wasn’t the desired reaction to whatever she had said, so she repeated it at a volume that would have otherwise seemed impossible through sheer vocal power alone.

“
HOW
ARE
YOU
HOLDING
UP???!!!”

Pepe and Bridget returned with my drink. It was antifreeze green and garnished with a gummy monkey climbing a sugarcane straw. I took a sip and six teeth rotted out of my head. I didn’t see how such a sweet concoction could possibly get me drunk enough to endure the rest of this conversation. The tribal drums did drop to a more survivable level as I slurped it down, though.

“Take it easy,” Bridget warned.

“Yeah,” Pepe said. “They don’t call it the Monkeyfucker for nothing.”

“What?” I asked, smacking my lips.

“
TWO
OF
THOSE
AND
YOU’LL
QUOTE
FUCK
A
MONKEY
UNQUOTE
.”

Scotty, who had been quiet up to this point said, “Go ahead, Jess, live it up. Drink it down.”

Bridget punched his meaty arm. “You are so obvious.”

“What?”

“You still want Jess so bad you can’t stand it.”

I expected him to deny it. So he surprised me when he fessed up.

“We’re all adults here, aren’t we? Sure, I’d tap that ass,” he said, as if he would be doing my ass a favor. “What’s the big fucking deal?”

In high school, a comment like this would have sent shock waves through the entire Pineville High community, from the Upper Crusters down to the miscellaneous Bottom Dwellers Unworthy of Names. But college has a way of democratizing bad behavior. No one really cares what anyone else does, just as long as you don’t lose control. There was a guy on our hall last year who everyone knew was a major cokehead. But he could tell a good joke and had a 4.0
GPA
, so no one was really bothered by it. He seemed like he had his shit together. But if he had barged into my room and begged to snort lines off my bare titties—okay, it would’ve been time to get the RA involved. Another good example would be Dexy, whose sluttiness would have been an impediment to our friendship in the past. But as long as she isn’t getting gangbanged on the floor of our shared bathroom, it’s like
whatever.

The point is, after Scotty spoke we all looked at one another like, “What
is
the big fucking deal?”

And in a flash, I had a vision. I saw myself finishing one Monkeyfucker, then a second, and a third, until I’d consumed twice the volume necessary to engage in sexual activity with a tree-swinging primate. And in that state, I would get on the dance floor and start grinding into Scotty until he dragged me across the sand by my hair and out of the bar and into the back of his pickup truck, where I’d ride him so hard he’d have to replace his shock absorbers.

I was a free woman. He was an unmarried man. No big fucking deal. Right?

Sara took my mind off this disgusting track.

“AS I
WAS
SAYING
BEFORE
. IF
MY
BOYFRIEND
JOINED
A
CULT
IN
THE
MIDDLE
OF
THE
DESERT
I’D
BE
DEVASTATED
. . .”

“Who did that?” Bridget asked.

“
MARCUS
.
RIGHT
, JESS?”

“It’s not a cult. He’s at a school run by Buddhists . . .”

“
ARE
YOU
SURE? I
HEARD
SOMETHING
ABOUT
HIM
QUOTE
GETTING
NAKED
AND
DANCING
AROUND
A
FIRE
WITH
A
BUNCH
OF
GUYS
UNQUOTE
. . .”

“I heard that shit, too,” Scotty said, nodding what would’ve been a neck if he still had one. “Gay shit.”

“From who?” I asked.

Scotty shrugged. “Don’t remember,” he said, checking out a hoochie in a cheerleader miniskirt. “Gay shit like that just has a way of getting around.”

“I
HEARD
IT
FROM
MANDA
,
WHO
HEARD
IT
FROM
LEN
.”

“Well, they’re both wrong,” I replied.

“
WHATEV
.” And then she yanked up the top of her dress, which had been dangerously close to a nipple slippage.

“So,” Scotty said lasciviously, resting his hand on my ass. “Do I have a shot?”

I should thank Sara for reminding me that when it comes to my past, everything is still very much a big fucking deal.

“Unfortunately for you, Scotty,” I said, removing his hand, “they don’t serve a drink called the Idiotfucker.”

This cracked everyone up, and Scotty surprised me by laughing harder than anyone else.

“They do have the Idiotfucker,” Pepe said sagely, gesturing toward a hobaggy huddle at the bar. “But it’s better known as Natty Light.”

And then we all surprised ourselves by laughing our way through another round. If you didn’t know any better, you just might have thought we were all the bestest of friends.

the twenty-eighth

The cicadas are gone and I’m still here.

Why the hell am I still here?

This is what I was thinking tonight, as I swung on the hammock in the backyard. The only light came from swirls of tiny fireflies switching themselves on and off and on again.

“Jessie!” my mom’s voice called. “Is that you out there?”

She flicked on the floodlights, blinding me, the world, with the obnoxious glow of a bizillion artificial suns.

“Come inside,” she said. “We need to talk.”

I knew better than to resist. And with the lights on, the yard had lost its appeal anyway, so I pushed myself out of the hammock and followed her inside.

Mom was sitting at the kitchen table. My father was actually sitting next to her. This was not a good sign for me.

“Your father and I are concerned about your disappointing work ethic,” she said.

“What? I’ve been busting my ass at school!” It was true. I had never studied harder in my life.

“I’m not talking about your classes,” she continued.

“We’re very proud of your grades,” my dad added.

“Very,”
my mom said emphatically. “But I’m referring to how you complain about not getting enough money from us, and yet you don’t find it necessary to hold up your end of the financial bargain. This is your second summer of unemployment!”

“I had the internship last summer! For my résumé!”

“What about now?”

“I haven’t been feeling well,” I replied meekly.

“You were fine enough to go running this morning,” my dad argued.

“I thought the fresh air would do me good,” I replied.

“You were fine enough to go out with your friends.”

“Studies have proven that an active social life boosts the immune system.”

“Is that so?” my mom asked with a moderate, passing interest. “Well, at any rate, it seems like you feel like you don’t need to make any of your own money, when we
warned
you when you picked Columbia that you would have to contribute to its costs.”

“I worked all last month,” I said lamely.

“But what about this month? You left your job, which was bad enough. But then you didn’t even bother finding a new one at home,” she said.

“I’m going back to my job at school . . .” My energy was waning by the second.

“When?”

“Uh . . . soon?”

My parents made a sound that I can only describe as
harrumphing,
a word I have never used before that describes the noise perfectly.

“You need to start earning money as soon as you can,” my mother said. “Because once we take on the new mortgage, we won’t be able to help you anymore.”

I rattled my head, unsure I’d heard correctly.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“We can’t give you any more money.”

“But I’m almost out of Gladdie’s inheritance. And I’ve already got a full course load
and
work study
and
student loans . . .”

“Which is why your laziness for the past two summers has been so upsetting to us,” my mother interrupted.

“How can you do this to me? For a house?”

“We’re doing it
for
you, honey,” my mom said. “Waterfront property will only increase in value over the years. It’s your inheritance!”

“But I need the money now, Mom,” I said. “Not thirty years from now when you’re . . .”

“Dead,” my dad said bluntly.

I turned my attention to him, as the saner of the two. “Dad? Are you for this?”

He rubbed the top of his head like a worry stone.
“You
made this choice,” he said.
“You
chose Columbia over a full scholarship to Piedmont.
You
chose to accept certain financial responsibilities. . . .”

I usually zoned out when my parents launched into this particular spiel, but this time every
“You”
hit like a bullet to the chest. Was I being selfish and lazy? Was I taking them for granted? Despite my bitching, my parents
had
been throwing a few thousand bones my way each semester. It wasn’t enough to forgo student loans or work study, but it did take the edge off. But that’s all irrelevant now that I’m right back on the edge, staring into the fiscal abyss.

“You
have been lucky to benefit from our assistance up to this point . . .”

“Stop,” I whimpered, resting my forehead on the kitchen table. “Just stop. I can’t take any more.”

Having run out of ways to ruin my life for the time being, my parents left the room. I looked down at the pile of mail on the table. Sticking out from underneath the AmEx bill and the Restoration Hardware catalog was a beat-up but unopened envelope. It was the letter I sent to Marcus at Gakkai at the beginning of the month.

The post office had helpfully stamped an explanation across the front:

ADDRESSEE
UNKNOWN
.
RETURN
TO
SENDER
.

the twenty-ninth

I’d decided that I couldn’t hide anymore.

“Come in, come in,” Mrs. Flutie said, waving me inside her home. Every time I see Marcus’s mom, I am struck by her commanding height, as she has the self-effacing demeanor of someone half her size.

“I wasn’t expecting to come,” I said, “but . . .”

My eyes flitted around their modest living room, searching for a sign. Everything I saw was useless: plaid couch, blue wall-to-wall carpet, brick fireplace . . .

“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Flutie said, her six-foot frame slumping. “He’s not here. Did you think he was here?”

“Uh, not really but . . .” I didn’t finish.

As she bustled out of the room, she gestured toward an overstuffed chintz armchair for me to sit in. The chair would have been wholly unremarkable if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve sat on it once already—or rather, Marcus sat on it last summer while I straddled his naked lap until I brought myself to a writhing, roaring orgasm.