I Am Charlotte Simmons (60 page)

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Authors: Tom Wolfe

BOOK: I Am Charlotte Simmons
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Only when he was practically right there did it occur to Hoyt that he didn't really know what he was going to say to the girl. He couldn't very well say the usual, because the closer you got, the more she looked like an actual woman. She must have caught him in her peripheral vision, because she turned her head toward him. Her face was like her hair, which is to say, perfect …
done …
The way that full and glossy lip of hers played against her lean face … the high cheekbones … the brilliant eyes … Like most males, Hoyt knew nothing about the subtleties of makeup. Not that it mattered. Nothing could challenge his confidence, not at this point on the graph. He was now quite close to her, and he leaned on the bar with his forearm and spoke with the utmost certainty.
“Excuse me, don't mean to interrupt …” He gave her the most charming of smiles, and then he looked at her companion and gave him one. “ … but I just had to ask you”—now he was looking straight into
her
eyes—“you must—I swear, where I'm sitting, you … get tired of people saying you look just like Britney Spears.”
The woman—holy shit, she was good-looking! She didn't giggle. But she didn't look annoyed, either. She smiled, but in a cool way, and said, “Britney Spears is blond. Do you get tired of people telling you you look just like Hoyt Thorpe?”
The great playa was speechless. The playa's light in his eyes went out. “Hey … How'd you do that? You know my name?”
“I wasn't sure,” she said, “but you do look like Hoyt Thorpe.” She glanced at her companion, and he nodded in confirmation. Then she looked back at Hoyt, still smiling. “We were looking at a photograph of you this afternoon. I hope you didn't notice me staring at you just now.”
Hoyt tried a chuckle and gestured with his hand casually—cool—and said, “Well, I mean …” He didn't know what to say beyond that.
“This is quite a coincidence.” She glanced toward her companion again. As before, he nodded confirmation. “I'm Rachel Freeman,” she said. She extended her hand in a businesslike way.
Hoyt shook her hand and, feeling exceptionally smooth all of a sudden, gave it an extra little squeeze before they disengaged. He looked deep into her eyes and said, “Dya have a ride back?”
“A ride back?” said Rachel Freeman. She didn't seem to find the question worth answering. Without a pause she gestured toward the man. “And this is my associate, Mike Marash.”
So Hoyt shook hands again. The bald, baby-faced Mr. Marash smiled politely.
“We're with Pierce and Pierce,” said the most gorgeous woman in the world.
“Pierce and Pierce?”
“We're an invest—”
“
I
know,” said Hoyt. He didn't want this Rachel to think he was so inexperienced as not to know what Pierce & Pierce was. Even somebody who had cut as many econ classes as he had knew what a position Pierce & Pierce occupied in the investment banking industry. He was merely surprised. The crummy I.M. was not the sort of place you expected to find people from Pierce & Pierce knocking back a couple of drinks on a Monday night.
“We're in town on a recruiting trip,” said the rutrutrut-eyed Rachel. “That's why this is such a coincidence. You're on our Dupont list! I'm supposed to call you! That's why I was so surprised to see you. We were supposed to call you up tomorrow and arrange an interview.”
“Me?” He meant to say it coolly, without the one-octave-up note of surprise.
She assured him yes and suggested they meet for lunch at the Inn at Chester. The Inn at Chester … he'd bet anything that was where she was staying. He looked into her eyes. They were glistening … sizzling … aflame … with the inner fire you couldn't see at first, thanks to the perfectly composed façade of her
done
hair, high cheekbones, glossy lips, swan's neck, tiny twinkling chain of gold … What were those eyes saying? …
“In at the Inny!” said Hoyt. He was aware that the diction problem was getting worse.
“What?”
“In and out, in and out at the Inn!” This was so bad he laughed to cover it up. He was saying stupid things, but so what? Score! Victory! He nodded yes and gave her a smile, a sincere smile.
Pop
.
—he'd been pouring lust into her eyes for many beats longer than he should have … before he walked away and returned to where Vance was sitting.
The diction problem getting worse, but he was able to get across to Vance the gist of the business side, the Pierce & Pierce side, of his conversation with the gorgeous V-neck brunette.
“I'll be damned,” said Vance. “That's great, Hoyt. Pierce and Pierce …”
Hmmmmm … Vance's voice sang a note of happiness for his brother Saint Ray and comrade-in-arms. He knew how bad Hoyt's grades were. Hoyt had moaned about them many times. Then Hoyt felt so sad. He was overcome with sympathy for the Vancerman. Sure hoped he wouldn't get jealous.
If the sexy little i-banker had Vance Phipps on her list, she obviously hadn't been studying
his
picture …
The objective Hoyt, the one looking over his shoulder, had begun to wonder if this wasn't just a stroke of dumb luck … but the inner Hoyt made sure the sound of the gale drowned out and overpowered the outer Hoyt and his chronic case of the Doubts.
Over the speaker system, a country rock singer named Connie Yates was singing. The drums, the bass, and the electric guitars were banging and sloshing away. Hoyt sang along with Connie Yates for a while. Vance was looking straight ahead into the mirror behind the bar. Vance Phipps of the
Phipps
Phipps … It would be just like Vance not to get it, listening to someone who can't sing, sing. Get what? Hoyt felt like some essential part, the part that made it all clear, had blown away in the gale. So he cast a sideways glance at Rachel, who would get it … but she and the guy weren't there anymore.
S
uch excitement! The Lounge Committee had never before convened in Charlotte's room, where the boarding-school-cool and aloof Beverly ruled. But these were special circumstances. A senior, a member of the coolest fraternity of all, Saint Ray, had invited Charlotte, a freshman, to be his date for a Saint Ray overnight “formal” in Washington, D.C. The questions before the committee were two: should she or shouldn't she go—and what was a “formal,” anyway?
Bettina and Mimi gawked at this side … and the other side … and this side again, where Beverly's galaxy of electronic wonders rose up from a jungle of cords plugged into big cream-colored junction knuckles … a plasma TV that turned on a stainless-steel base, a recharger stand on the desk, a refrigerator, a fax machine, a makeup mirror framed in LED lights—there was no end to it all—compared to what the other side of the room looked like … well, abandoned … plain wooden Dupont dorm-issue desk, straight-backed chair, the bureau, and a single electrical device, an old, rusting gooseneck lamp on the desk.
“Which side is yours?” said Mimi.
“Take a wild guess,” said Charlotte.
Beverly's clothes and towels were strewn across her unmade bed and its twists and tangles of sheets and covers, and down on the floor in a field of
dust balls were vast numbers of shoes, not always matched up, littered this way and that.
“Where's Beverly?” said Mimi.
“I don't know where she goes,” said Charlotte, pulling the straight-backed chair over a few feet, facing the beds. “She never comes back until two or three in the morning, if she comes back at all.”
Thus assured, Mimi sat in the techie-looking swivel chair at Beverly's desk, gave it a spin, and came rolling over beside Charlotte, who was sitting on her wooden chair. Bettina sat on Charlotte's bed.
Charlotte was beginning to regret that she had told Bettina or Mimi about the formal. But how could she not? They were her closest friends; and the unspoken, taboo function of the Lounge Committee was to boost one another's morale until they figured out a way to ascend from loser status. Besides, one thing she really wanted to hear them all say was that there was nothing wrong with going off on a fraternity party like this … and if it showed everybody that she was already on the ascent … that was all right, too.
“I've heard of formals,” said Bettina, who was sitting on the foot of Beverly's bed, “but I don't really know what they are. What are they?”
Charlotte said, “I don't really—”
“Wait a minute. Back up. Rewind,” said Bettina. “I want to know how this all happened. The last thing I remember was that brawl at the tailgate. And so now he invites you to his fraternity's formal? You must have seen him since then—or something.”
“Oh, sure,” said Charlotte, as if it were both obvious and insignificant. She kept looking at Mimi—to avoid looking at Bettina, who was her very closest friend. She hadn't told them … anything about seeing Hoyt after that. “Afterward, I went over to the Saint Ray house to thank him. I mean, he could've like … gotten himself killed.”
“You went over there
that night
?” said Bettina.
Now Charlotte was forced to look at her. Oh God, the consternation on her face! Charlotte read it as not merely a look of surprise, but rather, the surprise of one who has been betrayed. “We brought you back here and stayed with you for two hours while you lay down on that bed and cried.”
“I don't mean that night,” said Charlotte. “It was a couple of days later.”
“So that was
before
he hit on that blond girl at the I.M.?” said Bettina.
“I guess—I don't know.”
“Funny, you didn't get around to telling
us
that.”
Charlotte felt so guilty, she
knew
her face was crimson. “I was just being polite. I felt like I just owed him—I mean, if it hadn't been for him …” She didn't try to complete the sentence. The more words she uttered, the more guilt oozed out.
“Wow,” said Bettina, “that was a nice thing to do. You neglected to tell us what good manners you have.”
That made Charlotte feel so small she couldn't even muster the strength to combat the sarcasm. “It didn't seem like a big thing at the time.” Her voice sounded worse than defensive. It sounded fugitive.
“And so
then
he invited you to the formal,” said Mimi. Her face wore an expressionless mouth below a pair of big, guileless eyes, the classic attitude of Sarc 3.
“Noooooo,” said Charlotte, just as fugitively as before. All the while her brain was crunching prevarication equations. “I've like … hung out with him a few times since then.”
Bettina and Mimi must have said it at once: “What does
that
mean!”
“We sort of—you know—hung out.”
“Oh, you
hung out
,” said Mimi. A pause. “Where?”
“Mostly at the Saint Ray house, I guess. But nothing happened. I swear! There were always a lot of people around. Everybody was just hanging out. I never went upstairs in that building. I pledge you my word.”
“I
don't care if you went upstairs,” said Mimi.
Oh God, thought Charlotte. I've betrayed them. Why didn't I tell them anything, any little thing, about seeing Hoyt? Aloud: “Well, anyway, I didn't. All these girls—they're
fools
, the way they just go
hook up
with guys. It's so … so
demeaning
. I've straightened Hoyt out on that point.”
“Are you saying you've never hooked up with him?” said Mimi.
“Noooooo …” As soon as she said it, she realized it was about as indefinite a no as anybody ever came up with. “I was never
alone
with him in the Saint Ray house.” She emphasized the
alone
to draw attention from the rhetorical flexibility of the rest of the sentence. Already her amygdala—or was it the caudate nucleus?—was aflame with the memory of the explorations of
the hand
in the Little Yard parking lot.
“And he never
tried
?” said Mimi.
“I guess he sort of
tried
,” said Charlotte. “I guess they all do. But I was very
clear
about that?” She could see Bettina flicking a Sarc 3 glance at Mimi. “I don't think you believe me, but he's been a gentleman ever since that first night at the Saint Ray house?” Why was she reverting to statements
accented like questions? Part of her knew she was beseeching them to accept all this at face value and say that going off on this fraternity formal sounded like fun. “He already knows how I feel. But does it look terrible to go off to Washington with him like that?”
“Hah,” said Bettina without mirth. “What does look terrible around this place anymore?”
That wasn't the answer Charlotte wanted.
“But what exactly's involved in a formal?” said Bettina.
“Oh, the fraternities and sororities have them,” said Mimi, who prided herself on being knowledgeable in such areas. “The idea is, the guys wear tuxedos, and the girls wear party dresses, and they have a party away from the campus at some place like the Inn at Chester. Or they go out of town overnight, and that's supposed to like make it really special.”
“Yeah,” said Bettina, “but what do they do at a formal?”
“I don't know,” said Mimi. “I've never been to one. But I bet they do what they do at every party. The guys get drunk and yell a lot, and the girls get drunk and throw up a lot, and the guys try to get a little somethin' somethin', and the next day the girls claim they can't remember what happened and the guys remember all kinds of shit, regardless of whether it happened or not—except that the clothes and the food are better.”
All three of them laughed, but even amid the trilling merriment, Charlotte knew she heard a voice—talking on a cell phone—outside in the hall, which could only be—
The door opened, and in came Beverly, her head leaning into the cell phone she held up to her ear, and right behind her was Erica. Beverly stopped in her tracks, the cell phone still at her ear, glowering, especially at Mimi—in
her
room—in
her
chair. Mimi sat up very straight on the edge of the chair—Beverly's chair—as if ready at any moment to depart the nest, like a barn swallow.
Beverly now stared at Charlotte. Into the cell phone she said, “Jan … Jan … I know … Gotta go. Call you back.”
She took a few more steps into the room, staring at Charlotte but saying nothing. Erica came in behind her, and Charlotte seized the moment to stand up and sing out, “Hi, Erica!” Mainly she didn't want Beverly to advance into the room looking down at her—and she didn't want to stand up as if out of respect.
Erica gave Charlotte a stone-cold smile. Charlotte thought of it as the Groton smile. Before Beverly could say anything, Charlotte said, “Sorry,
Beverly. I just didn't think you'd be here. We … we're having a sort of meeting.” She didn't dare get into what for.
Charlotte said, “This is Erica?—Mimi? Bettina?”
Erica at least looked at everybody long enough to freeze their bones with a withering, bone-dry preppy smile. Beverly glanced at Mimi and Bettina, just those two, and that was it.
“Well—” said Beverly, looking at Charlotte with a neutral expression. Charlotte decided it must be Sarc 2. “So what's going on?”
Charlotte had no idea what to say, but Bettina piped up, “It's major, Beverly.”
Charlotte could tell immediately, from Bettina's loud tone and the ultrafamiliar way she used Beverly's name, that she was tired of everybody giving way before this supposed paragon of the boarding-school elite—and that her anger actually came from her realization that despite all the ways the Lounge Committee had of dismantling the status, the worth, of this elite, down deep she still regarded them as … the elite.
“Wow,” said Beverly in a completely careless, Sarc 3 tone of voice. She was not looking at Bettina, either, but straight at Charlotte. She flipped her palms upward in an idle fashion and said in the same tone, “Must be big news. So what is it?”
Rather than appear to Mimi and Bettina that she was ducking from Beverly, Charlotte just blurted it straight out. “I've been invited to a formal, and I'm trying to decide whether to go or not.”
“Really? Who with?”
“Hoyt Thorpe.”
It was Erica who chimed in, “Hoyt—Thorpe?” She had a big, incredulous smile on her face and popped-open eyes. “Are you
serious
?” It was the first time she had ever responded directly to anything Charlotte said or did.
“Yeah …”
“Where is this going to
be
?” The same popped eyes and an expression on a crest between laughter and astonishment.
Charlotte's voice cracked slightly as she said, “Washington …” This stuck-up … bitch … rattled her.
“D.C.?”
“Yeah …”
“How on earth did this happen to you?” said Erica, whereupon she broke into a chilling boarding-school laugh.
Beverly said, “Oh, Charlotte
knows
Hoyt Thorpe.” Not even Sarc 3; straight-up-front Sarc 1.
Erica put on a Sarc 3 look of seriousness and concern. “You know who they invite to formals, don't you—especially the Saint Rays and …
Hoyt Thorpe.
”
“Hope you get along with all the Saint Ray frat whores.”
“I'm not the least bit worried about Hoyt,” said Charlotte. “Not for one second. Hoyt knows better than to try—to—whatever you're talking about—with me. And I don't know anything about any … ‘frat whores.'”
Erica said, “Okay, just make sure you don't become one of them.”
Beverly said, “Ha! Charlotte! A frat whore? She'll probably bring her pajamas and bathrobe with her and insist on sleeping on the couch!”
“You know I'm still in the room,” Charlotte said. “Plus, it's none of your business where I sleep.”
“Ooh, getting a little testy, aren't we?” said Beverly.
“Well, sorry if I don't broadcast where I sleep like you do,” said Charlotte.
“Oh, please!” said Beverly. “Not that I'd tell you anything, but at least I do get some play every now and then. Be careful at the formal, Charlotte. No one likes a goody two-shoes.”
 
 
So anxious was he to be on time, Hoyt got to the lobby of the Inn at Chester, where he was to meet Rachel—Rachel—Rachel—he couldn't remember what she said her last name was—nobody had last names anymore anyway—Rachel—she of the lips—he could close his eyes and see those teasing, serpentine lips—so eager was he to make this stroke of luck pay off, he got to the lobby fifteen minutes early and sat down in a commercial knockoff Sheraton armchair in a lobby cluster, as hotel franchise decorators called them—clusters of couches, armchairs, side tables, and polyurethaned coffee tables, all calculated to domesticate the lobbies, which these days were usually like this one, cavernous spaces caked with marble and plasticized-shiny showy-grain wood.

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