Monkey Business (12 page)

Monday, November 3, 9:10 a.m.

“I
will be grading you on attendance,” Professor Small-Penis Matthews says. “Organizational Behavior is not optional.”

It is to some, I think, looking around.

Only ten of us have made it to class today. Ten out of sixty-six. Oy.

I'm not sure what amazes me more, that only ten people decided to come to class or that I'm one of them.

Those absent are most likely nursing hangovers from last night's continuing Halloween bash. The student council bought too much beer for Friday's party, so it decided to keep it flowing all weekend. Last night the common room was humming until three a.m.

“Can someone define Expectancy Theory for me?” Matthews asks.

Layla raises her hand. She has a really nice hand. Her fingers are long and thin, and her nails French-manicured. I'm surprised I haven't noticed them before, considering she's always raising it to answer Matthews's questions. And Douglas's. And Gold's. And Martin's. And Rothman's.

Nick and Russ have taken to rolling their eyes every time she opens her mouth.

The professors love her. Especially Rothman. He's always eyeing her. For all I know they're involved. It wouldn't surprise me that a top student would hook up with the young and hip professor.

“Yes, Layla?” Matthews says.

“The force of motivation is equal to Expectancy times Instrumentality times Valence.”

“And all this time I thought it had something to do with pregnancy,” I say.

Matthews glares at me.

I don't know how I didn't recognize Layla's voice that time in the shower. It's so distinct. Throaty and sexy. If she weren't in B-school, she could be a phone sex operator.

Strange how Kimmy and Layla have become so close. The two of them are definitely the odd couple. I'd love to be a fly on the wall for one of their conversations. It would be like listening to Mary Ann and Ginger from
Gilligan's Island.

Kimmy, as well as the rest of my group, are conspicuously absent from class today.

Organizational Behavior rolls into Accounting, and still none of the others show up. Apparently my group has declared November 3 a holiday. The bell finally rings, and Layla stretches then returns her hole puncher, ruler, pink Hi-Liter, yellow Hi-Liter and purple pen to her furry pink pencil case. At the beginning of OB, I watched her remove these items in exactly the reverse order. Pen, yellow Hi-Liter, pink Hi-Liter, ruler, hole puncher. I find her attention to orderliness intriguing. And sexy.

She secures the pencil case in the front pocket of her school bag, then puts away her Accounting binder, the Accounting textbook, the Accounting course pack, and finally, her tape recorder. Layla's schoolbag isn't any ordinary schoolbag. With its wheels and handle, it looks more like a piece
of luggage. She rolls it behind her wherever she goes, and I'm beginning to want to know why. I'm beginning to want to know everything about her.

We cross paths at the door. She does an unenthusiastic little wave, as if she's just been crowned Homecoming Queen but has no energy. I try to think of something funny to say, but all I have is, “Good morning.” Which just isn't funny. Even with a Spanish accent. Which is what I do, for no reason that I can think of. I am nowhere near Spanish. I don't look Spanish. I've never even been to Spain. Or Mexico. The only Spanish encounter I've had was when a burrito went down the wrong way and I nearly choked.

“Did you have a good weekend?” I ask, quickly losing the accent.

“Yes, I did. You?”

I'm probing my brain for a wheelie-bag-related joke, but my brain's find-key has finished searching the document and the search item has not been found. Lightbulb! Maybe I'll be chivalrous and offer to wheel the bag for her. I open my mouth and close it again. What's wrong with me?

“I'll see you in Stats,” she says, and does her little wave again before disappearing down the hallway.

“Bye,” I say. And then it hits me. I should have said
When's the flight?
Maybe I can use it later?

Before going to the cafeteria, I pick up the pictures I dropped off on Saturday at the campus drugstore. I sit on a bench in the middle of campus and flip through them. First are the ten pictures of the Halloween party, which didn't come out that well. Too dark. Then there are a few from last week's beer bash. A little brighter. Next, Kimmy's breasts. Covered by a fuchsia shirt, of course. I took it last week in an attempt to liven up our group meeting.

The next ten pictures are of Nick's skinny butt and Lauren's jiggling breasts from their post-spin-the-bottle streak.

Now that was a night to remember. Not that I remember
much of it. The four shots of vodka went straight to my head and made me cranky. The next morning all I could remember was why I shouldn't drink.

I flash back to the accident I had in the ninth grade. I was riding my bike, and the car was making a left turn. The driver didn't see me, and I was thrown right across the street. I was in the hospital for two weeks with a broken jaw, leg and arm. The drugs made me sad and crazy. The days weren't so bad. I got to watch movies. But the nights were unbearable. I stared at the ceiling, imagining myself in a coffin. I thought a lot about death. About what it feels like to die. About the moment just before death. I'd been knocked out immediately when the car hit me. What if I had died? Which is worse, knowing or not knowing the end was coming? And what difference would it make? When you're dead, you're dead.

Did Dara know?
Can
an infant know?

Why does God let a six-month-old baby die?

I should never have worked at the hospital after college. My mother got me the job—she became a nurse after Dara died. She still works at that hospital, loves it there. She claims it makes her feel stronger. In control. But working there had the opposite effect on me. It brought me right back to that horrible frame of mind. After getting laid off, I realized I never want to be in a hospital again.

My grumbling stomach snaps me out of my depressing trip down memory lane and propels me toward the cafeteria line.

Smiling at the lunch-line lady in the hair net, I do my best Brando. “Stella!”

“Hi, sweetie. Take the pizza today.”

“Done.”

Carl rings up my meal. “Jamie, my man. How are you?”

“Splendid. You?”

“Can't complain.” He reads my number from my temporary card and types it into a computer. “You ever going to get a real one?”

“Damn bureaucrats.” Fortunately, Carl is the only one who's noticed my sketchy student card. I definitely must amend the situation before it becomes an issue.

Except I don't have a clue how to do it.

Nick, Kimmy and Lauren are sitting by the window. “Good morning, gorgeous,” I say to Kimmy, and squeeze in beside her. “And a good morning, oh, I mean, good afternoon, to the rest of you. How are we all feeling?”

Lauren shakes her Snapple in the air above her head. “I slipped in puke. Someone upchucked all over my floor's bathroom again last night. That's three nights in a row. How do you think I feel?”

I cover her quaking hand with mine and ease it down to the table. No one wants a juice shower. “Jealous that you were put on a different floor from us?”

“I'd rather bathe in puke nightly than make conversations with you three when I brush my teeth.”

Nick snorts. “Bet you have shit morning breath, Lauren.”

I pass the envelope of photos to Kimmy. She howls at the post-spin-the-bottle shots. “These are hysterical,” she squeals. “You guys actually streaked?”

Lauren grabs the pictures. “What, you have amnesia, Kimmy? You don't remember?”

She blushes. “I forgot.”

“You pervert,” Lauren says, focusing on the close-up shot of Kimmy's chest. “Bet Jamie is planning to blow this one up and staple it to his ceiling.”

I massage her shoulder. “I've already stapled the naked ones of you, dear. And Kimmy, if you let me take you on a date, I'll give you the negatives as well as all the prints.”

Everyone laughs.

“It'll be your dream date,” I press on, joking. “I'll rent a limo. Buy you strawberries and champagne. A five-course dinner at Dolce Vita's. You'll never look at another guy again.”

With Kimmy it's a routine: I flirt shamelessly, she loves the attention, everyone laughs. It's our own version of the Expectancy Theory. She's come to expect my flirting, and I've come to accept her rejection. Not that I care. Okay, I wouldn't kick her out of bed if I found her there naked, but it's not her I've been thinking about lately. It wasn't her smile that kept me up last night and woke me up this morning. Not her eyes that made me want to be early for class.

Kimmy gives me a
get real!
look and continues flipping through the remaining pictures. “Why didn't anyone tell me I looked so gross on Halloween?”

My turn: “You could never look anything but drop-dead gorgeous.”

Through the window, I watch Layla wheel her bag. She catches me staring and does her wave, only this time it's with windshield-wiper high-speed intensity.

I think I'm in love.

Thursday, November 6, 8:40 p.m.

I
hope Kimmy's not here. I hand my beer-bash ticket to the student guarding the door, and peruse the makeshift bar. Forty students are milling around, plastic cups in hand. There's something odd about drinking beer under the glaring halogen lights of a school cafeteria.

I pour myself a cup and make my way over to an already hammered Nick.

“Russ, dude,” he says to me. “What took you so long? You only have twenty more minutes to get plastered.”

I look around the room for Kimmy, and I feel both relief and disappointment at her absence. I've been doing my best to avoid her since the spin-the-bottle fiasco. Seeing her reminds me of what a jackass I am. Ignoring her reminds me of what a jackass I am.

What should I do? Tell Sharon? Tell her I met someone else? Tell her I hooked up with someone else but it doesn't mean anything? Either way, she'll never speak to me again. Maybe I should talk to Kimmy. Tell her it was a mistake, a one-time blunder.

Why can't I get the taste of her mouth out of my head?

At least I didn't sleep with her. We didn't even take off our clothes. We just kissed. Don't I get credit for that? I feel a small pimple under my chin and play with it.

Nick empties his cup and burps. “Kimmy was just looking for you, but she took off.”

Must be obvious that I'm thinking about her, if even the drunk guy can tell.

Sunday, November 9, 9:30 p.m.

“S
o assets equals liabilities plus stockholder equity.”

I wonder what Russ is doing right now. Is he thinking about me? I bet he's thinking about me.

“The stockholders' equity is therefore the difference between a firm's assets and the firm's liabilities, right?”

He is the best kisser ever. Not too rough, not too soft, a little bit of tongue, but I didn't feel like I was playing in a hockey match. His lips were round, plump and warm.

Layla taps me on the head with her course pack. “Kimmy, you're not listening to me. What are you daydreaming about?”

Oops. “Nothing.”

“Liar. Tell me.”

Can't tell, can't tell, can't tell. “I can't.” How has she not figured it out?

It's Sunday night and we're lying on our stomachs on Layla's floor, teacups, textbook and calculators beside us. “Sounds juicy,” she says.

Can't tell, can't tell, can't…what the hell. I've held it in since
my birthday and that was almost a month ago. That must be a world record. I swing my feet in front of me and sit up. “Okay. I wasn't going to say anything, but I'm exploding.”

“What happened?”

“Russ.” Even his name sounds sexy and wonderful.

“Russ happened? Is that like an earthquake?”

I give her my best knowing look.

“Did he cheat on his girlfriend with you?”

Yikes. Does she have to put it like that? What about, did you finally physically express your feelings? I shrug, suddenly uncomfortable. “Kind of.”

“Kind of? How does one kind of cheat?”

I wish she'd stop using the C-word. It makes me feel whorish. “We didn't sleep together. We just fooled around. Kissed. Some non-friend appropriate touching, but no sex.”

She picks up her teacup and, pinky out, takes a long sip. Is she avoiding looking at me? “So what does this mean?”

An excellent question. “I don't know, Layla.”

She takes another slow sip, pinky still out. “What about his girlfriend?”

“Don't know.”

“Do you think he told her?”

I snort. “Not likely. Men never come clean unless they're leaving.” My mother realized my father had cheated only after she heard the message he'd left on her answering machine, telling her he'd moved his belongings to his ho-bag mistress's apartment. But Russ seems more decent. He's probably not the sort to walk out on someone that way. What if he's planning to break up with her but he doesn't want to do it over the phone? Maybe he fell in love with me after we made out, and the reason it hasn't happened again is that he wants to be split up with her before we hook up again. “Do you think he'll break up with her?”

She balances her tea on her Accounting textbook and looks me in the eye. “Kimmy, I don't think what you did was right.”

I shouldn't have said anything. Now Layla thinks I'm a big slut. “I'm not in the mood for a lecture, thanks.”

She sighs. “What do you expect to get out of this?”

What kind of question is that? What does she think? A record deal? “I want him to break up with her and start dating me.”

“But…if he cheated on her, don't you think he'll cheat on you?” she asks, her voice rising.

They all cheat anyway, so what's the difference? “He might. But I would keep a better eye on him.”

“That's your long-term strategy? Buy him a leash?”

Can it have rhinestones? “No. Maybe. But giving in to temptation wasn't entirely his fault. I kind of pushed it.”

She shakes her head. “There will always be someone like you, pushing it. To be entirely safe, you'd have to keep him under house arrest.”

I'm not going to show her my Steal Russ project plan, but she should understand what he was up against. “I got him drunk and orchestrated a game of spin the bottle. Please don't repeat that we played spin the bottle. Or about Russ.” Truth is, I want Layla to tell. If everyone knows, he'll have to break up with Sharon. I roll a Hi-Liter between my fingers.

“Who played spin the bottle?”

“My work group.”

“Your group has more fun than mine does,” she says, sighing.

I don't doubt that. Her group looks like their idea of a fun night is getting together and watching
Star Trek
reruns. (I shouldn't jest. Russ has a Mr. Spock pencil case.) “Anyway, Russ and I kissed during the game. And then when everyone left, we kissed again. And again. We made out for like an hour. And then he left.”

She sighs, louder this time. “Has anything happened since then?”

“No. And we haven't even talked about it, either. He's act
ing totally weird. Sometimes I think he's avoiding me, but then other times he flirts. Like at the Halloween party. We were both drinking, and he would stand a little too close to me, so I thought, for sure we're going home together. But then he left with Nick. So what do you think I should do?”

Layla downs the rest of her tea. “Honesty is usually the best policy. Talk to him. He owes you an explanation. And he certainly owes Sharon an explanation.” She puts down her cup. “But now we have to get back to work.”

Work, shmurk. “Talking about Russ is much more fun.”

“Balance sheets are fun.”

I worry about her sometimes.

“I think we should talk about the midterm Economics assignment, which I bet you haven't started yet,” she snaps. “It's worth sixty percent of our final grade.”

Despite the attitude, she really is a godsend.

By ten-thirty, I (unbelievably) have a basic understanding of what I have to do for the assignment, and I pack up, then leave her to transcribe today's tape-recorded lessons. Yes, she's a freak. My eyes are killing me from the excessive reading, and I need something to drink that does not involve hot water or chamomile. I check for change in my pocket and skip down to the basement to buy a bottle of apple juice from the building's sole vending machine.

And look what we have here. Russ staring at the machine. A balm for my sore eyes.

He spins around, surprised. “I forgot this doesn't take loonies,” he says, fingering a gold coin, which I assume is Canadian.

“I don't think so.”

He laughs and says, “You don't happen to have an extra dollar do you? I'm not sure why I think we're in Canada.”

“Oh, but I do,” I say, and hand him one. I pat his arm. “See anything good?”

“I had a craving for Pringles, but all this has is pretzels.”

“I have salt-and-vinegar chips in my room.” He doesn't respond. I backtrack. “You don't like pretzels?”

He gives me a lopsided smile. “I like chocolate pretzels.”

“Those sound gross.” I'm trying hard not to point out the massive elephant in the room that we're both ignoring: the fact that he has a girlfriend and we hooked up.

A candy bar pops out of the machine, and he bends down to pick it up. “I shouldn't be eating this,” he's saying as I get an eyeful of his perfectly sculpted behind.

“Why?” I ask, very much distracted.

“Bad for the body.”

“Your body looks fine.” Oops. Didn't mean to say that. I buy a bottle of juice. “Where do you want to sit?” Wasn't that clever? I've implied he wants to sit with me.

“Here?”

We slide down to the floor. I wish there were chairs. No one's stomach ever looks good when we're crouching on the floor. He unwraps his bar and breaks it in half. He consumes his portion in one bite. I nibble on the corners and ask, “How are you doing?”

“Busy. You?”

“You know.” You know as in you know I'd rather be naked in my room with you.

He fiddles with the wrinkled wrapper. “I wanted to talk to you about the other night.”

Why is he staring at his hands? I'm getting a bad feeling here. He's going to tell me it didn't mean anything. I need to take a different tack. “What night?”

He blushes. How cute is that? “You know,” he says, looking at me sideways. “Spin the bottle?”

“Spin what bottle?” I scoot close to him and tap my shoulder against his. “Like this?” I put the lid on my juice and spin it. It hits my knee and stops. “First it's a kiss on the cheek.” I kiss him on the cheek, quickly, then spin the drink again. It stops against his thigh. “Second it's a kiss on the lips.”

Before he realizes what I'm doing, I lean over and kiss him. He doesn't stop me.

“That's—” more kissing “—what I wanted—” more kissing “—to talk about.” His lips are juicy. Sweet like chocolate milk. “I have a girlfriend,” he continues. And then kisses me again.

Tongue in my mouth, tracing my teeth. “And?”

“Who I care about.”

“And?” I finger the dark hairs on his arm.

He's still kissing me.

I move my hand up to his chest and press my nails into the cotton of his shirt.

“I think we should stop,” he says.

“Do you want to stop?”

“No.” And then his hand is on the back of my head, pulling me closer, into him, under him. My back is flat against the stiff, cold, basement floor. Something sticky is in my hair. I'm thinking spilled liquid detergent from the laundry room down the hallway. I want to tell him that we should go to his room, but I'm afraid of breaking the spell.

I hear the sound of someone skipping down the stairs, change jingling in a pocket.

That decides it. “Let's go upstairs,” I say. He helps me to my feet and I lead him like he's a puppy. (That rhinestone leash would come in handy right now.) We pass someone from another Block and nod hello. Three flights later, we're alone in the hallway. When he pulls his key from his pocket, I rub myself against his back. He moans and opens the door. He doesn't turn on the lights. Instead, he shuts the door behind him and pushes me up against it, then rubs his hands up and down my arms, legs, breasts, stomach, like he's trying to rub off my clothes.

My body's on fire. I pull his hair and kiss him.

He pulls my shirt over my head and discards it onto the floor, undoes my bra and then bites my neck. I squeeze my
hands between our bodies and unbutton his shirt and drop it next to mine. Now we're getting somewhere. I squeeze in again for his belt, but he blocks me. Strike one. “Don't,” he says, but continues sucking my neck. What is
don't?
What guy says
don't?

His mouth descends to my nipples. Well, that's better. At least now we're progressing. Last time we hooked up, there was zero nipple action. I take his move as a sign to try for his belt a second time, but again he stops me. Strike two. I've never been on this end of the tug-of-war. In high school it was always me doing the hand block. The guy would stick his hand under my shirt, I'd use a Karate Kid move to stop him. He'd try again two minutes later, and again I'd do the block.

Interesting stat: since coming to B-school, I've tried and
failed
to have sex with two different men, on two different occasions. Is this normal?

My next move is the back-door move—I gently squeeze his ass through his jeans. Is he going to stop me? Nope. Not stopping me. He squeezes mine. Wahoo! We've successfully moved to our body's lower quadrants. I push him to his bed.

He presses Play on his CD player. The song “Hero” from
Spider-Man
comes on.

I go for his belt again.

He doesn't stop me. In high school, I used to give in at round three, too.

Three strikes and Sharon's out.