The Third Child (7 page)

To each report, Rosemary would append comments and queries specific to that offspring.

That was a lie, but so what? Nobody in the dorm went to bed that early. It was too noisy for one thing, with everybody’s TV or CD player booming, and they all had classwork. She caught up on sleep weekends.

She enjoyed lying to her mother. She had begun doing so around twelve, usually to shelter Billy from the consequences of something he had done or not done. With protecting herself, usually it was not so much a matter of avoiding punishment as of denying visibility. She protected her desires, her true interests, her feelings by pretending they didn’t exist. It was one of the ways she felt she was real: because she had secrets. Because she hid a picture of her most recent crush under the paper that lined her drawers. Because she hid sexy books Emily lent her. Other girls went around talking about their rock or movie stars, the hunks on TV they adored. She kept her fantasies to herself. Once in a while she had confided a little crush to Emily, who was blatant about her adorations. Emily had always kept lists: first it was, Men I would marry; then it was, Men I would lose my virginity with; then it was, Men I would go to bed with. Emily had really been into Chandler, who played in a local white rap band, for a couple of months. Melissa could barely call up Jonah’s face now. He seemed so callow and crude next to Blake. Still, it was good to have some kind of past, no matter how pitiful.

Sometimes Melissa made such lists, but always she erased them at once, for fear someone might see them. It felt hot and dangerous even to write down who she really liked or desired. Perhaps the core of herself lay in secrets she tried to shelter, to nurture. Blake was her biggest secret now. Her parents would try to break them up the moment they saw Blake. Emily would never tell on her, for she had protected Em’s adventures from everyone—family, school—for years. That no one in her family could know about Blake made him even more her own. Except for Emily, this was the first time since Floppy disappeared that she had something of her own, a being she passionately cared for.

M
elissa followed Blake into his room, at the end of the dormitory hall. His bed was covered with a southwestern print spread. His desk was laden with computer equipment—a desktop and a laptop, speakers, a scanner, two printers, various zip drives—that overflowed onto the stripped bed of his departed roommate, the top of his chest of drawers and a card table set up making an L with the desk. “You’re really into computers.”

“They’re a tool,” he said defensively, placing his leather jacket over the back of his desk chair.

“I wasn’t criticizing.” She wanted to wander around his room examining everything, looking at his comb, his toothpaste, his clothes—put away far more neatly than hers, she noticed. The major mess was caused by connecting cables stretched here and there. She must be careful not to trip on them and bring down some delicate pricey computer thing.

“I got tired of being called a nerd in high school. If you put time into your computer, you get results. You put time into people, the results are mixed.”

“You’re not in a good mood.”

“I’m in a fine mood. I’m just being honest.”

She drifted over to his desk, crammed with machines. “What’s this?” She picked up a gadget.

“Don’t touch that!”

She snapped her hand back. “If you didn’t want me to touch anything, you shouldn’t have brought me up here.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have. Would you like me to go rummaging through your drawers?”

“I wasn’t rummaging! But I can’t be in a place where I can’t touch anything. Blake, we kiss each other, we fuck all the time. We exchange bodily fluids. Isn’t that a little more intimate than looking at your computer equipment?”

“I don’t think it is. One is just physical. The other is really personal.”

“Oh, it isn’t personal to fuck? It is for me.”

“I didn’t mean that. Of course it’s personal. I’m just not used to anyone else in my space.”

“What’s with you? You invited me here. It’s cold outside now, and I have a roommate. If you didn’t mean it, you shouldn’t have brought me here.”

“I just don’t like anybody else handling equipment. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I sure don’t know what I’m doing with you, the way you’re treating me.” She went to the door and opened it. “I can’t stay here like this. If you want me here, then decide you really do, and act accordingly.” She paused, but he didn’t look up at her. “See you in class!”

She hoped he would come after her, but he didn’t. At the end of the corridor she stood waiting for him to appear, but after she had loitered there long enough for various occupants of the floor to pass and look her over, she ran down the stairs. She wasn’t sure if they had just broken up. She kept herself from bursting into tears on the way across to her dorm by biting the insides of her cheeks, by inhaling sharply. Then she stopped at Emily’s room and motioned her to come away. They went into the stairwell to talk, and at once, she started to cry.

“I told you,” Emily said. “He’s just too weird.” She stroked Melissa’s hair and shoulder. “Don’t cry over him. He’s an asshole. We’re surrounded by men here. He isn’t your only choice.”

“I screwed up, Emily. I screwed up my best chance. I fucked up a relationship with the most attractive man I’ve ever seen and the only man who ever made me feel anything. I love him, Em!”

“You just met him!”

“We’re soul mates. The way it’s supposed to be. And now I’ve lost him. Because I screw up everything in my life. My mother’s right about me.”

An hour later, he called. “I apologize. I told you, I’m not used to being so close to anyone. I have to learn how.” When she was silent, unsure what to say, he went on, “Don’t you want to teach me?”

“I don’t know,” she said, but her voice was already softening. “You made me feel worthless today.”

“You aren’t worthless to me. You’re precious. Don’t you know that?”

“Not when you treat me that way.”

“I said I’m sorry. I don’t want to push you away.”

“Don’t you?” She knew she was already forgiving him, but she could not resist making him plead a little more. “You did a real good job.”

“I want to bring you closer. But I need to learn how. I’m serious, Melissa. Will you teach me?”

She stayed silent a minute, hoping that the suspense was building. “I’ll try.”

“HE APOLOGIZED,”
she told Emily. “He told me I’m precious to him.”

“He should apologize. Are you going to see him again?”

“Of course,” Melissa said. “Where would I ever again find a guy so sexy and he makes a fuss over me? Besides, if I break up with him, I’ll probably never have another orgasm in my life.”

“I don’t know.” Emily was rubbing antiseptic ointment into her belly button, where her new ring had given her an infection. “I think it’s like riding a bike. Once you learn how to do it, your body remembers.”

“I think it’s chemistry, Em.”

“Yeah, then I’ve had chemistry with some real losers, believe me. Guys you wouldn’t want to spend an evening doing your laundry with.”

Melissa was reading her botany assignment when her conscience began to pinch. Hadn’t she done the very thing to Billy, not to mention to Merilee and her mother, that had made her so angry with Blake? Hadn’t she laid down the law with Fern just last week about not touching her dresser? She was extremely private and possessive about her things. She could not endure having anyone casually poke through her desk or dresser top, even
if there was nothing available that might embarrass or reveal her. She was fiercely protective of anything remotely personal. Why couldn’t she accept that in Blake? Because of the sex: after feeling so intimate, everything should be open to the other. But maybe in a real adult relationship, there were always off-limits areas.

She had the urge to call him and apologize in turn, but she decided that would be way too neurotic. She would be extra nice to him tomorrow. Still, she felt better, for she understood and truly forgave him. They were more alike than she had realized. Knowing that turned a bad thing into a good thing. She hadn’t lost him after all. It was just a little bump in the road. He cared enough for her to apologize, prideful as he was.

She lay in bed that night trying to decide what she should call him to herself—her boyfriend, her lover, her mate? What was her secret word for him? Blake was such a strange name. She must ask him about it. She didn’t think there was another Blake on campus, whereas there was even another Melissa in her government class. And another in this dorm. Emilys flourished by the dozen. She had always envied Merilee her name that nobody else had, even though to Emily she made fun of it as cobbled together from her mother’s name and her father’s middle name, Lee. He claimed to be a collateral descendant of the general. Dick’s father kept elaborate genealogies of the Dickinson family. If Dick said he was related to Robert E. Lee, no doubt he was. She had always detested the Civil War. It had far too many battles, and she had been dragged to various battlefields, where her father posed for photo opportunities with his children—herself in every picture on the far end, her more photogenic siblings flanking Dick. They hardly ever got to see much—just arrangements for the photo op, though sometimes when the photographer or the newsmen were setting up, she and Billy got to run around and jump in old trenches or climb embankments and run down.

THAT WEEKEND
Blake said he had to go to New York. “I’m seeing this dude who has a program I need.”

They were in Mocon having breakfast. She had spent the night with him for the first time—in his room. He had insisted that happen to make up for how he had behaved.

“Can’t he just send it to you?”

“I need to see him to get it. It wouldn’t be cool for him to send it to me.”

“Is it like a hacker thing?”

“Something like. Want some more coffee?”

“What does it do?”

“What it’s supposed to, I hope.” He got himself more black coffee and hers regular, with skim milk and saccharin.

She liked his remembering how she took her coffee, but she didn’t like not seeing him all weekend. “You aren’t going to tell me?”

“It’s on a need-to-know basis, babes. When you need to know, I’ll show you. But I promise, you’ll like what it does.”

“Blake, I like what you do. I’ll miss you. Can’t I go along?”

“Not this time. This is kind of a delicate negotiation.” He finished his coffee quickly. “Some other time we’ll go together.”

She had the sense she might be pushing him too hard. He was a prickly guy, ready to pull back into his shell. After all, it was just one weekend, and it wasn’t like he was going to see another girl. At least she didn’t think so. “You said you wanted me to teach you to be close.”

“Close, but not standing on my foot.”

She had to back off. Sometimes she had the sense about him that she was out of her depth, that she didn’t have the skills and experience necessary to get her way with him. A more sophisticated girl would know what to do. But her experience with boys, even her years of dealing with Billy, was limited and useless in this context. Emily would have known how to handle Blake.

He grinned suddenly. “Don’t look like I just killed your puppy. It’s only computer stuff. You know I’m into that. Aren’t there any computer junkies in your family?”

“We all use them, but no. Rich—that’s my older brother, Richard Junior, while Dad is Dick and he’s Rich—he’s into politics. Merilee is
into law. And Billy—he’s usually into trouble. Alison is my mother’s pet computer nerd.”

“Alison? Another sister?”

“She’s my mother’s assistant. Like secretary, scheduler, errand runner, spy on us kids, sycophant, yes-woman, whatever it takes.”

“Your mom isn’t computer savvy?”

“She uses one, sure. She gets about a hundred e-mail messages a day. But Alison puts programs on and takes them off and all that stuff. When something’s wrong, she can usually fix it.”

“A hundred messages a day? You’re exaggerating.”

“Not by much, believe me.”

“Does she send you e-mail?”

“Every Friday she e-mails us kids.”

“Why don’t you show me? I’m curious. If it isn’t too personal.”

“There’s hardly anything personal about it, believe me. Sure, you can read one if you want to. I usually erase them after I answer them.”

“That’s no problem. I can retrieve them. But next time, don’t.”

“How come you’re so curious about my mother?”

“I want to know everything about you. Your family’s been a big deal in your life. I want to understand them so I can understand you better. You’re a complex creature, babes. Did you know Melissa means ‘bee’?”

“Yeah. I never thought it was sexy or anything. Like busy as a bee.”

“Well, you stay busy while I’m gone. Be good.”

“I have to be good. You’re the one going to New York.”

“Business, little honeybee, a program I want, I need, I got to have.”

“TWO STEPS FORWARD
and one step back,” she said to Emily. “Looks like the movies for us this Saturday night.”

“Why couldn’t he take you along?”

“I don’t think he wanted to. He’s been a loner, you know. He hitchhiked all around Europe by himself.”

“He’s a funny dude,” Emily said, but she sounded rather happy about
the weekend. “We can go with the guys—” That was what Emily called the little group she had been hanging with. “I might be interested in Kurt.”

“I thought he and Amy were an item.”

“No longer. Her old boyfriend’s coming from Cornell next weekend. We’ll all go. It’ll be great.”

Melissa didn’t think it would be so great, but she wasn’t going to say that and hurt Emily’s feelings. Emily had been out of sorts about the amount of time Melissa was spending with Blake, so she wanted to compensate. Melissa wasn’t crazy about “the guys,” but she could hardly complain if Emily had found people to hang with. She’d stop feeling guilty about Em and they’d have a good time together. After all, she’d existed for almost her whole life before she met Blake. But that was just existing. Now she was fully alive. She could handle the guys better than she had last time. She had her own boyfriend now. She felt more confident, and she knew she exuded something, because Ronnie had been friendlier of late—before she had treated Melissa as an appendage of Emily—and so had Carol, whom Emily always referred to as Queen of the Hall. Carol had won a beauty contest in high school and been homecoming queen. She was bucking for something here. Now she actually said “Hey” when they passed in the hall. Melissa had more confidence in herself, and it must show.

She also put time aside for Fern, who had taken up serious Frisbee and was also playing soccer with other first-year women. “You know, Fern, it’s not like we’re trying to build résumés. In high school we all had to accumulate these lists of activities and accomplishments. So long as you keep your grades up, they won’t take your scholarship away.”

“You told me to go out for sports to make friends.”

She was embarrassed. She gave Fern advice freely and forgot it five minutes later. She had to be more careful with Fern—there was a fragility to her that contrasted with her athleticism and physical strength. Fern was thin but wiry. She exercised with free weights four mornings a week. “Is it working?”

Fern bowed her long neck. “I think so….” She looked up after a moment. “Whitney doesn’t like me. She calls me Fern Bar and Weed.”

“Buttercup? Ignore her, Fern. She’s an idiot.”

“She’s been talking about you and Blake. I heard her. She doesn’t think enough of me to lower her voice when she’s being vicious. She says you’re slumming and that you couldn’t get a white boyfriend.”

She wished Fern wouldn’t repeat the nasties she heard, but Fern was only doing it to show she was on Melissa’s side—and when had Melissa begun to have a side? Whitney could just choke on her own malice. “I have exactly the boyfriend I want, thank you very much. I think she’s jealous.”

Buttercup had a nasty streak that reminded Melissa of girls who had picked on her in grade school, the vicious pretty girls who ran the cliques. They bullied her because she was too tall, too chunky. And because they could. She had been bitterly unhappy then. She would have done anything to be accepted by them, but nothing she did made a difference. God, how unhappy she had been for years. She had suffered a recurring dream where she had gone into the woods with her family, then got lost. Instead of searching for her and finding her, they left her there, as if they had forgotten she existed. They abandoned her like Hansel and Gretel; they left her in the woods and the rest of them returned home without her. She would wake frightened and cold. That nightmare had felt so real; in a way it was.