Principles of Love (21 page)

My love life is no longer decaf. I am officially in a relationship — one that’s spelled out for me in music via the mix I am now putting through overplay. I write Robinson an email that I don’t send after rereading and deciding that it is way too mushy and more of a journal entry to myself, talking about how all the songs are amazing and oddly a handful of them are on my private list of favorites and how he just gets me, and how comforting that is.

Right before driving over to meet Mable for coffee, I check my account and find, to my surprise, an email from DrakeFan! A line of the message replays over and over again as I start the ignition.
It’s been a long time — I’ve missed you.
I’ve missed DF, too, and now have the old feeling of looking forward to the next message again.

Mable wants to discuss my maid of honor dress — I guess the wedding is actually happening — and shows me fabric swatches in citrus hues.

“I’ll look like a mango,” I say and neg the first one.

“You look great in orange and yellow,” she says.

“Are you wearing white?” I ask.

“Planning on it — why? You think I’m not pure enough? Too old?”

“I was kidding. But now that you mention it, I could see you in more of a flowy kind of…”

“You mean hippy, weird gauzy thing,” she cuts me off. “Not this time.”

“This time? You mean there’ve been others?”

Mable sighs. I wonder where she went inside her head. Then she explains. “A long time ago. I was married for about five minutes.”

“Did he have a green Volkswagen Van?” I ask, suddenly remembering mustache man and the photo with the camper van in the background.

Mable’s face changes. “How did you know that?” I can’t tell if she’s pleasantly surprised or feels betrayed somehow, like her secret past is now not so undisclosed.

I mime photographing and say, “I found some stuff.”

Mable nods and bites at her fingernails, considering something. She sighs. “Yes, as a matter of fact he did have a green VW.
We
did.”

“And what happened?” This is better than movies or tv — how crazy that people have these enormous histories that just lurk underneath and you never know.

“David — his name was David. Davy back then. I don’t know,” she chews on her coffee stirrer. “He just wanted to hang out and go to California, surf and do God knows what — not anything productive.”

“But you loved him?”

Mable sighs again. She looks so tired these days — even wedding planning seems to take its toll on her. “At the time I thought I did.” She sips her drink. “But I think I liked the idea of love more than actually being in it.” She sits up and shakes off the memory. “But I do love Miles — and it’s a different kind. More real.”

“You mean mature?” I ask, putting on a teacher voice.

“Something like that,” she says. We go back to nuptial talk, and settle on having a dress made for me in a teal color that matches some of the flowers Mable wants to carry.

“You should give little gift bags of coffee beans or something,” I suggest.

Mable perks up, “Good idea. I think I’ll put that on the list of Things Miles Can Organize.”

I want to say sorry for looking at my dad’s old photos and stuff, so I try to find him on campus. Most buildings are locked, so I hunt around for him. His note on the kitchen table says he has a faculty meeting, which I assume means he’ll be with the other administrators in his school office, but he’s not there. I check the student center (locked) and the dining hall (faculty meetings often involve baked goods and lukewarm coffee) but to no avail. On the way back, I try to cut through Rollinson Hall, reminiscing about that first day of school with Robinson — who is now my boyfriend. Too funny/weird. The back door is open, so I go inside and past my bad-vibe math room. Only when I see people inside, do I backtrack.

Thompson sits grading tests, circling errors with her red pen, and behind her is none other than my father, who leans down and kisses her cheek.

Bucket please. I don’t need a Blue Whale Beverage. I’m going to be sick just at the sight of them.

Faculty meeting my ass. Who’s breaking the honor code now? That’d be you, Dad. I decide to confront him when he comes home, which he does only after my solo dinner (Stouffer’s French Bread pizza, still a classic in my book). Plopping down next to me on the couch he asks about Mable, about my day. I tell him Mable seems tired and he nods, saying how tough it is to run her own business how maybe I should work there for the summer to help her out. I neglect to mention my musical ambitions and focus instead on being the barer of news.

“So, how long have you guys been dating, then?” I ask. It’s clear from my tone and my dad’s surprise that he’s more than a little embarrassed at being found out. I don’t wait for him to answer. “I mean, not that I haven’t tried to get you to have some semblance of a romantic life — like, forever — but with her? She’s so not who I’d picture you with. Not to mention that I figured you’d tell me when you had a — you know — a…” I can’t make the word come out. I can’t say girlfriend in reference to pole-up-ass Thompson and my dad.

“Love — I’m sorry. You’re right, I should have said something, but I — we…” Gross, they’re already a
we
?

“I just don’t get how you can expect me to be all forthcoming with my thoughts and feelings or whatever but basically be dishonest yourself.”

Dad agrees with me and we sit with the sound off on the tv and slowly chisel away at the details of our respective love lives. Skirting around the details of the parietals incident, I talk a little about liking Robinson and how it sucks to be here on campus while everyone — even Cordelia (who wrangled an invite to Colorado’s Anguilla beach house) is gone — is on vacation.

Dad stretches his arms above his head like he’s dunking an imaginary basketball and launches into his paternal version of the MTV confessional room. “I liked Patty right off the bat.” Could he have more sports analogies?

“Really?” I say and it comes out shocked, like how could he possibly have had good, warm feelings about Trig Witch immediately when the rest of the world — okay — the Hadley campus — thinks of her class as a prison sentence?

“Really, Love, she’s not that bad.” He watches my face for signs of life. “At least, not out of the classroom.” I give him the half-laugh he’s looking for, some assurance I’m not going to disown him.

“So,” I say leaning in, “Give me the dirt — you know, the behind the scenes look at the weird and wonderful world of Patty Thompson and… my dad.” When I say it, I can hardly fathom the reality.

“She speaks very knowledgably about wines.” Apparently, this is an adult aphrodisiac version. “She lived in Italy — Portofino — and.” He stops. “And… and the upshot is, we like each other. A lot.”

And…and…I’m half disgusted and half happy for him — maybe not in that order. But I know, I’ve seen and been around him my whole life and he’s never seemed lonely, but maybe he is. And I can’t wish that on him, even if it means accepting his offer to join him and Thompson — Patty — for dinner.

I stand up and pull him up from the couch. We hug and I say, “I’ll consider it, but only if we go for Chinese.” There’s lots of chopstick handling and pancake rolling, which could make conversation less of a necessity. But I add, “I just can’t get enough of that Changsho pea pod dish.” I walk to my room, knowing full well my lame
maybe
is a
yes
.

Change just keeps happening, I guess, whether you’re up for it or not. Whether you feel prepared or vulnerable.

My feet drag on the stairs and, without warning, find the inspiration I need to finish the Hadley Hall essay. I write about the evolution of song and self — from Gregorian Chants and not knowing who you are to Classical and Folk and expressing oneself through lyrics and notes. I try to relate all this to my own life, to the parts I imagine and try to predict, how I am my own constantly morphing song.

At three in the morning, when I’m finished, I save the paper, email it to myself for safekeeping, and go to bed. I dream of California and being in the sun, singing, with citrus-colored flowers and giant ripe oranges. Robinson is there, and various people I don’t recognize. Just when I am about to drive a green Volkswagen Van, I look down and see that I’m topless. I have to choose between covering up or steering the van — and just when I’m about to veer off the road, Jacob takes control. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I didn’t see anything.”

Waking up to the sounds of birds enjoying the first days of spring makes the whole dream come back to me — even the part where Jacob and I got together. I semi-dream-cheated on Robinson and now have that weird post-nocturnal intimacy feeling. Not only was I subliminally unfaithful, I also got it on with Jacob and know that I have to face him in class. That’s always so bizarre — when you get into a fight with someone in a dream and then see them the next day and recoil, or if you get it on with some random guy and then see him — it’s like it really happened. Even though it didn’t.

It didn’t, I remind myself when Robinson comes back from break a day early (praise be to the foul weather systems that moved through the tropics and returned him to New York and then to me) he sucks up coming back to campus early just to hang out with me. We go to the Museum of Fine Arts and take turns sounding educated (note the brushstrokes and how Chagall conveyed his message through the images and the medium by which they were delivered) and stupid (Oh my God — check out the ugly dude in this painting!), stopping in the Egyptian wing to make out by the ancient urns and vases. Our kissing is witnessed only by mummies. I have one of the songs from the mix stuck in my head and I proceed to sing bits of it during the day. Robinson finally clamps his hand over my moth and smiles. “I get it,” he says. “You like that song. I’m glad. But we’ve got to find something else for you to sing.”

“Don’t YOU like that song?” I ask.

He shrugs. “It’s okay, I guess.” If it’s just okay, why would he put it on my mix to convey his feelings to me? This bugs me on the drive back to Hadley Hall from the city, but then I let it go.

Thompson tries to break the ice by sliding a box towards me. Inside are retro postcards — most with movie images from the original film ads — including my favorite,
The Philadelphia Story
.

“Thanks,” I say and put the box next to me on the booth. Isn’t it too soon for bribe gifts to the daughter?

“Your father mentioned you liked old movies,” she smiles her toothless math teacher smile and takes a sip of her wine. Times like this I wish we had a legal drinking age of fifteen. I swirl my straw in my Coke and try mind-melding to will a splash of rum — anything — into the liquid to make the night more palatable. Kudos for the cool postcards, they will be good for summer correspondence, but she could’ve given me the promise of an A in math and I’d be happier.

To make my dad happy, I make small talk and only escape to the bathroom twice; once for actual lavatory purposes and once to call Robinson. We talk for all of three minutes and then I have to go, retreating to the alterna-world of school and home life becoming one.

Now that spring has sprung and I have my car and driving privileges reinstated, I take meandering routes on the weekends and back from WAJS. Lila, with two college acceptances (Vassar and Amherst) and one wait-list (Brown), comes with me to drive along Massachusetts Ave — all the way from Cambridge and where we double-dated this fall to the far end where Berklee School of Music is located. We sit at a café and watch the students heft their instruments from practice to home. They all seem content — sure that this is where they want to be and what they should be doing.

“You’ll have to start looking at schools next year,” Lila says. “Any thoughts?”

“Not really,” I say. “It sort of depends on the music thing — if I want to study formally or go out to LA and try to be an idol or jingle-rocker. Or if I drop it all.”

Lila rolls her eyes. “It’s impossible not to see you doing something with music.” We sit and watch the smokers exhale and cough into the sunlight, and Lila tells me about her uncle who is somewhat connected in the music industry. She reaches into her wallet and pulls out his card. “Here,” she says. “Just in case you ever get out there. I saw him over break and thought of you. He’s head of scouting at Gala records. Can’t hurt.”

“Thanks,” I say, knowing I’d never call some random guy and be like
Hi, can I make a demo? Can I be a star?
I mean, even the word star is too — I don’t know — pointy for me. I’d be more like a planet — or the Milky Way (space version not candy bar one) — the kind of vision that maybe people don’t notice at first when they look up, but then, given the right telescope, they see how awesome it is.

I watch Lila clip and reclip her hair. “I’ll miss you next year.”

“I know. Me, too,” she says. “It’s so weird to know I won’t be back here in the fall. It’s like starting over.”

In this way, I don’t think college will feel that new to me — I’m sure the freedom will — but the newness, the clean slate part won’t. I’ve done all that before — and, just like with this year, it always turns out differently than I first expect.

“So,” Lila says flinging her hand in the air to get a bee to go away, “you like him, huh?”

We haven’t really spoken of Robinson much. Just the sort of quiet acknowledgement that it’s okay between us. “Yeah,” I say. “I do.”

“Just be careful,” she says, instantly annoying me in only the way that a parent or the girl who got to your boyfriend first can. I nod and crunch sugar granules in my back teeth. “Did you go to New York during break?”

“No.” I am pea-sized. She had two years with him. I’ve had like a month. She’s slept (not with him, but in close proximity) in his beach house, the townhouse, God knows how many state lines they’ve crossed together. “Not yet,” I add for good measure.

Lila raises one eyebrow and gathers her hair into a messy-sexy pile. “Well, let’s talk after you do.” What is Lila hinting at? I raise my eyebrows back at her, but probably look dorkier than she does in this gesture. Lila responds with a cryptic, “Let’s just say that Robinson isn’t…totally organic.” I wonder if this is a reference to some obscure drug addiction or a potential love of aspartame and processed cheese or just Lila’s way of being just a tad jealous.