What It Was Like (23 page)

“The magic doesn't work every time,” Nanci shrugged her round shoulders.

“That sucks! . . . She can't do that!”

“Well . . .” she said, looking sad for me. “For the time being, she can.”

“I know she
can
!” I replied. “It's just not right!”

I paced around the room, kicking at the fluffy shag carpet, looking at Nanci's drawings of imaginary insects and pebbly landscapes and her posters of Janis and Dylan, trying to decide what to do.

“Do you know what she did, to deserve the grounding?” asked Nanci, in a sympathetic voice.

“It doesn't matter what she did!” I exclaimed. “Her actions are irrelevant! They want to keep us apart because they
can
. Reason is incidental! Reason is their enemy.”

I realized that I was sounding less than logical, but I was angry. All this wasted energy and opposition; all I wanted to do was spend a few hours with my girlfriend. What was so horrible about that?

“It's funny, when you first meet Rachel,” I said. “You think she has everything. Looks, money, brains, everything.”

“No one has everything,” Nanci countered.

“If they want to break us up,” I said. “This is precisely the wrong way. Morons! Don't they realize that they are doing exactly the opposite of what they want to achieve? . . . They're making a big mistake with Rachel. She's not gonna take this forever. You can push a person too far; even Rachel has limits.”

“Lots of people do stupid things,” said Nanci, watching me from her bed. “Just look at the world. There's an epidemic of stupidity out there.”

“And that's why you stay in here and draw pictures and smoke hash?” I asked. In some ways, I had to admire Nanci. She had her own little world, all under her control, with no interference, it seemed, from anyone.

“That's
one
reason,” she said, looking at me with a sly smile as she filled the little pipe with little crumbs of the hash. “It's not the best thing for someone with asthma, but . . .”

She sort of wiggled in place on the bed and said coyly, “So why don't you sit here, right next to me, and I'll light up this
leetle
bowl, just for you.”

I think she was flirting with me. I don't know, maybe she was just being nice and friendly. And while I liked her, I was certainly not attracted to Nanci. Even forgetting about Rachel, which was impossible, Nanci was just not the kind of girl I was attracted to. I'm sure there was a guy out there for her, someone who liked art and a little weirdness, and didn't mind the extra poundage; it just wasn't me. And anyway, I was there for a reason: to help Rachel-and-me.

“No, thanks,” I said, backing away from her and sitting up on the high chair in front of her drawing table. I spun around on it, back and forth. “I have to keep what's left of my wits about me.”

Nanci started to fill the pipe with more hash from a plastic bag on her night table and said, “You know I have a cousin who works at Ultrasonic and he's gonna show some of my drawings to the manager of the Critters and I might be able to do an album cover for them.”

“That's cool.” I didn't really believe her, but you never knew. She could have been telling the truth.

I looked at Nanci and wondered how much I could trust her. Then I thought that Rachel and I were sort of involved with her now, and she seemed to have a good heart inside her defensive exterior, so I decided to take a chance.

“Nanci?” I said. “Can I ask you something?”

She snickered at that. “You can ask me anything you want. It doesn't mean I'll
tell
you!” She laughed, a little wheezy laugh, and that's when I noticed the little plastic thingie on her nightstand that must have been her asthma inhaler.

“Tell me about Eric,” I said, trying to sound casual but watching her reaction carefully.

The mention of the name made her flinch. Which both pleased and troubled me: pleased, because I knew that Nanci had information I could garner, and troubled, because of that flinch. What if the information she had for me was bad?

“Eric . . . ?” she repeated with a careful smile, obviously stalling. “What do
you
know about Eric?”

“All I know is that I hate his guts,” I said. Which made her laugh a big, hearty loose laugh.

Eric. Every time I said that name, it left a bad taste in my mouth.

When her laugh died away, Nanci looked me straight in the eye and said, “I'm sorry you know about him.”

“So what's the deal with him?” I asked straight back to her.

“You have to ask Rachel about that,” she answered.

“Why?”

“Let her tell you,” she said. “I shouldn't say anything.”

“What?” I challenged her. “Suddenly you're getting shy about expressing your opinions?”

“I don't want to spoil things,” she said simply.

“Telling me the truth won't ‘spoil things,'” I insisted, but she didn't respond.

I waited her out. I just sat there, looking at her until she said something else.

“Look, I like you,” Nanci sputtered. “But I'm on Rachel's side. You'll have to ask her.”

“So the answer is yes, he has been hanging around.”

“I'm not saying anything. You'll have to ask Rachel.”

By saying that, she gave me my answer.

“Thanks,” I said grimly. “I suppose I can't blame him. Rachel is Rachel.”

“She goes through people quickly,” Nanci said. “Either she loses patience with them, or they can't keep up with her. And frankly, her attitude turns them off. I'm the only friend in Oakhurst she has left.”

“Good!” I said. Perhaps it was not the most generous thought, but I wanted Rachel to need me as much as I needed her. Simple as that.

“If I were you,” Nanci said deliberately. “I'd be careful. I don't think you know precisely what you're involved with.”

“Thanks,” I snickered. “But don't worry about me. If you want to help me, help Rachel.”

I meant that too. I had no intention of “getting hurt,” and I would defend my relationship with Rachel by any means possible.

“I should go,” I said.

“So
go
!” she said, not looking at me.

The room looked darker than ever, with the one little bedside light.

“Thanks for trying, Nanci,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”

“It was nothing,” she muttered, putting the pipe down on the table by her bedside with a clank. “Literally nothing.”

“Well, I should split.” I hopped down off the high chair. “You know, it just hit me: Eleanor and Herb are so selfish, they probably won't stay home all Saturday night to make sure Rachel stays grounded. They'll go out after a while, and if I just wait long enough, I bet I will get to see her tonight.”

Nanci flopped back against her pillows. “You really are an idiot. You know that?”

I shrugged, “What can I say? I'm just trying to listen to my heart
and
my head. Giving credence to both of them. At the same time.”

“Like I said,” she grunted a laugh. “An idiot.”

“Everyone's entitled to an opinion, Nanci,” I shrugged. “So I'll see you again soon, right? . . . Nice pictures.”

And I walked out of the room, closing the door behind me. I think I heard Nanci start to sniffle. I was sorry about that; I didn't want to hurt her or anything. Maybe it was just her asthma. She reminded me of some girls in my high school: nice enough girls, but no one you'd want to go out with, no one you'd lust after, nothing special. I wanted special. I
had
special, and I was determined to keep it.

When I walked down the long, curving stairs and across the foyer to the front door, I could see that Pauline was watching me with suspicious eyes from around the corner in what looked like the dining room that had a table with maybe sixteen chairs around it.

“Bye, Pauline,” I said, seeing that I didn't surprise her, not in the least. “Take care of her.”

Nanci was definitely a strange girl, but there was something I liked about her. Her honesty, I think. And I liked that she was Rachel's friend. Rachel seemed so isolated; she needed all the support she could get. That's why I was worried about this Eric. I wasn't around all week. Maybe he was.

I opened the door and was outside in a moment, happy for what I had said. I slammed the door closed and trotted down off the front porch, lighthearted. I was a few steps down the perfectly manicured front walk when I realized that I didn't know where I was going.

Yes, I did. I would do what I told Nanci: I'd go over to Rachel's house and wait to see if Eleanor and Herb would go out that evening, leaving Rachel alone. I was
sure
that they would want to go out to the Costa Brava or some other swanky place. Maybe even a Mafia hang-out, if what Rachel said about Herb was true. In any case, they wouldn't stay home, even to enforce their punishment. They'd go out, and then I'd ring Rachel's doorbell and surprise her.

I walked from Nanci's house down the block toward the Princes', staying in the shadows as much as I could. I wasn't doing anything illegal and yet I felt as if I were somehow trespassing. What was a poorish boy like me doing in this fancy neighborhood anyway, scheming to steal a local princess? I didn't belong here. And yet, here I was, gliding through the shadows, staying close to the wall of tall hedges, those perfectly trimmed, impervious hedges, to get my way.

Of course I was wrong. Again. I stood outside for a long time, behind a fat tree in front of one of their neighbors' houses with a good view of the Princes' front door and driveway, freezing my butt off. Finally, I walked back to my car and moved it to a spot two houses down from the Princes', where I could just see her house and whoever went in or out. There was the risk of detection, but I needed the car heater. And finally, after almost two hours, with no Eleanor or Herb emerging to go out on the town, I just went home, having successfully killed the entire evening.

But no Eric showed up at the Prince house, and I wasn't seen by anyone. At least there were two things to be glad about.

≁

I killed the next day too, plowing through my reading, knocking out some papers (a couple of which were, to be truthful, already late), and studying my notes and textbooks for some important tests coming up, including one on Monday afternoon on the Protestant Reformation – I really needed a good grade. Mainly though, I was waiting for Rachel to call me and tell me to drive over there and rescue her, even if only for a few hours.

That didn't happen. I finally gave up in the late afternoon so my Dad could drive me to the 5:38 train. That way, I could get back to my room, get some dinner, and be in place for my 8:00 call. As if Eleanor would let her answer the phone. (This is how deluded I was, but I had to make the effort in any case. It was never about succeeding; it was always about
trying.
)

My Dad drove me to the train and didn't say anything until we were almost there.

“So,” he broke the silence. “How you doin', money-wise?”

“I'm OK.”

“I'm sure you'll run into some cash around the holidays,” he said, dropping a hint.

“I
said
I was OK.” I repeated, sounding annoyed with him when I really wasn't. I was thinking about everything else.

“Well, it's funny you should say that,” he said, talking louder than he usually did. My father was a soft-spoken man. “Because . . . you don't seem like yourself lately.”

“I'm more myself than I've ever been,” I answered, just as he pulled the Chrysler to the curb by the door to the station. He stepped on the brake and threw the car into park.

He turned to me and said straight out, “Tell me: Is this girl messing up your life?”

I just laughed out loud at that. “No!” I scoffed. “I'd say it's the exact opposite. Rachel is the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Well . . .” my father said, with his eyes looking sad and concerned. “I hope she is.”

As I got out of the car and got my things out of the back seat, he tried to give me a couple of twenties, but I said, “Thanks, I'm really OK. And thank Mom for doing my laundry. I forgot.”

I grabbed my stuff and had to run up the stairs for the 5:38, but I made it just before the doors closed on me.

True to my plan, I got back to the dorm in plenty of time. Fortunately, Roommate A wasn't there, so I had a little privacy and space for a while before I got my dinner and was in place at the phone booth in the mailroom for my 8:00 call to Rachel, exactly on time.

But untrue to my plan, Mrs. Prince answered the phone.

“Hello?” she said sharply, as if accusing the caller of something.

“Hello, Mrs. Prince,” I said in the politest, most nonconfrontational voice imaginable. “May I please speak to Rachel?”

And before the “
L
” died in my last word, she said right back, in this overpronounced way, “Don't you understand? Do you
want
to get her into
more
trouble? Please don't call here again tonight!”

And she slammed down the phone.

“At least she said ‘please,'” I said out loud, to try to make a joke of it. But it wasn't funny, not when I thought of what Rachel might be experiencing on the other end.

But it was what I expected.
At least
, I thought,
I'm not going to be surprised by things anymore.
That fake-comforting thought did not last for long.

≁

I got to all my Monday morning classes even though I stayed up till almost 4:00 a.m. finishing two papers for Brilliant (one overdue), another one in French, and studying for three other tests – one that afternoon.

“Can't you turn off the light?” Roommate A whined from the top of the bunk bed. “Or go into the lounge?”

“Sorry, man,” I said. “All my stuff is spread out here. Turn your head the other way.”

He groaned and huffed, but he was turned over and snoring inside of five minutes. (And, to tell the complete truth, he never showed much consideration for me, as you will see.)

I hit my three morning classes in a row and headed back to my room to change books before I grabbed some lunch. I'll admit that I was dragging; I was a little demoralized. First of all, it was a Monday morning. And it was cold and gray. The clanking radiators hissed steam in the old dorms, but nothing got warmer. And I hadn't seen Rachel all weekend, so I felt this
void
within me, this unfulfilled need. I had gotten myself addicted to Rachel Prince; now I was having some kind of withdrawal.

As I slogged up the three flights of stairs, I couldn't help but think about what I had said to my Dad the night before, about Rachel being the best thing that ever happened to me. All my life I had gotten mostly As in my classes, and now I was getting Bs and Cs and worse. All my teachers in high school liked me, but some of these teachers seemed to take a disliking to me for no reason that I could understand. I had never been behind in my studies before. Everything had come pretty easily, but I now was in a different place. I had always been one of the smartest kids in my class, and now I was just one of the guys, and not even that. At least I had Rachel. No matter how tough my week was, there was always Rachel-on-the-phone during the week and Rachel-in-the-flesh on the weekends . . . until now. Now everything was in question: How could I wait until next weekend to see her, and would she still be grounded then? How far would Eleanor go to keep us apart? And how far would we push back, in order to see each other?

≁

I couldn't get her on the phone for the next two days. Both 8:00 calls – I was staying true – failed: once Eleanor said that she couldn't come to the phone, and once Herb said “she's out with her mother. Sorry, kid,” and hung up.

I didn't know what to do: Write her a letter? Eleanor would probably get the mail before Rachel got home from school anyway. And what would I say in a letter? I love you, I miss you, and I want to see you? That was understood.

Then, Tuesday night, in the middle of memorizing Mohs scale of the hardness of minerals, I got a call on the dorm phone in the hallway.

“PHONE!” Someone pounded on the door for me.

To say that my heart jumped would be accurate. It jumped because the loud door knock shocked the hell out of me, but it also jumped because I thought that it would be, might be, must be Rachel. I raced down the hallway, pulling on my Keds, hopping as I ran.

“Hello?” I said into the phone, closing myself against the wall for “privacy.”

“Hello?”

“
Nanci
?” I said, instantly recognizing her voice, instantly disappointed. “How did you get this number?”

“What do you mean, ‘How did I get this number?'” she shot back. “Rachel tells me everything. I thought you knew that.”

 
Not
everything
, I hope
, I thought, but I let it go.

“OK,” I said. “Good for you. When did you last see her?”

“This afternoon.”

“How was she?”

“Not that good, to tell you the truth.”

Nanci seemed to have a lot of answers and she gave them to me: Rachel had been fighting with Eleanor over “a bunch of things; not just you.” I didn't know whether that was good or bad news.

“The harder Rachel pulls away from Eleanor, the tighter Eleanor tries to yank the leash –” said Nanci.

“Why can't she just call me?” I interrupted. “Did she tell you to call me?”

“No –” she started, which dropped my heart. “I mean,
yes
! She asked me to call you and tell you to hang on.”

“‘Hang on'?” I repeated. “That's it? Why doesn't she call me from a pay phone at school? I'm here in my room, during the day, between classes. Why doesn't she call me then, when Eleanor isn't around?”

“You'd have to ask her that,” said Nanci.

“I
would
ask her that, but I can't talk to her!” I shot back. “Do you see my problem, Nanci?”

“Heyyy,” she said, in a low, long note. “You don't have to talk like that. I'm on
your
side.”

I realized that there was no point in yelling at Nanci. There was really no point in yelling, period.

“She told me to tell you that she loves you, and you'll get through this.”

“That's what she said?”

“In so many words.”

“Well, what
were
her words?” I demanded.

“Her
exact
words?” she replied tartly. “I don't know her
exact
words. Next time, I'll use a tape recorder.”

She was breathing heavily, sounding a little exasperated, and maybe she was right to be. And she did have asthma.

“OK, Nanci,” I muttered. “I'm sorry – I'm just a little, uh –”

“I understand,” she cut me off. “No apologies necessary. No one said this was going to be easy, right?”

Of course she was right.
But
, I told myself,
Rachel is worth it
.

Nanci and I hung up after she assured me that she'd try to keep “the lines of communication open” between Rachel and me. Which I had to thank her for. But I went back to my room – still worried, still uncertain about our future – back to my geology textbook, wishing I could become as hard inside as a diamond. Or at the very least, corundum.

But I have to hand it to Nanci: the next afternoon, just at lunchtime, while I was changing books and eating a roast beef hero with extra ketchup and Nehi grape soda from Mama Joy's at my desk, there was another “PHONE FOR YOU!”

It was Rachel.

“Hi, baby,” she purred. “At . . .
last
! Do you know that song? Oh, you can't believe how much I've missed you!”

I was whipsawed by two simultaneous reactions: extreme happiness to hear from her and extreme resentment that it took her so long.

“Try me,” I said.

“Aren't you glad to hear from me? . . . Because if you're mad at me for some reason . . .”

What was I thinking? Here she was, finally on the phone, and I was wasting it.

“No-no-no, I'm not mad at you, honey,” I stammered. “I-I-I just need to hear from you. . . . I guess I'm just mad at myself for needing you so much.”

“That's ridiculous,” she scoffed.

“Yes, I know it is,” I agreed. “But that's the way I am.”

“Good,” she said, satisfied.

I didn't know what was “good” about things, but I let it go.

“What are you doing?” I asked her. “And where are you now? I have to know everything.”

She laughed that musical laugh of hers, as if nothing were wrong, and said, “I'm nowhere. I'm at someone's house for lunch.”

“Whose house?”

“Nobody's.”

I thought I heard some laughter –
male
laughter? – in the background, but I couldn't be sure.

“There has to be a way that I can call you and not have to go through your mother,” I said.

“I was just in study hall,” she said, ignoring my statement, “in the library, reading about poison. Actually, poison
s.
”

She seemed to be talking to me and to someone else at the same time.

“Why?” I asked her, trying to listen deeply into the phone.

“Oh, no reason,” she trilled. “Just something to do.”

“And you do ‘poison'?” I said deadpan, not playing with her.

“I can dream, can't I?” she sang back, laughing at something in the room.

“Listen,” I said sharply. “Do you want to talk to
me
, or whoever's there?”

There was a long pause. What was she thinking? And was that the right tone for me to take? Was she mad at me now?

“If I didn't want to talk to you,” she said simply. “I wouldn't have called you.”

That put me in my place. What was
I
thinking, fighting with the girl I loved and missed so much?

“Sorry,” I said. “I'm crazy.”

“Me too,” she murmured, and for a moment, we were back in The Zone.

We made plans for Friday. Tentative plans. But, as I hung up the phone, it seemed to me like everything was going to be tentative from now on.

≁

Leading up to that date on Friday night, all I thought about were two things: one, seeing Rachel on Friday night, and two, everything else. No matter what I was doing, what class I was trying to concentrate on, what book I was trying to read, what paper I was trying to finish, my mind kept reflexively flipping back to Rachel. Actually, that's not really true because my thoughts of Rachel were actually subdivided into many sub-worries: How was she getting along with Eleanor and would she be allowed out on Friday? Was Herb still hassling her, and should she tell her father? And, lurking behind all these spiraling thoughts, where was Eric in all this? Was that who was in the room with Rachel when she called me?

My mind kept spinning like that, on and off, for days. Nothing else seemed to matter as much.

≁

Friday finally came around. I fidgeted, dreamed, and backtracked through my morning classes, then subway-and-bussed to the Island through the Valley of Ashes. That night, I was, as true as I could be, at the curb in front of the frightful Prince mansion at 7:58 p.m. sharp. Lucky me, she came running out the door so that I didn't have to do my Eleanor-and-Herb-Happy-To-See-You Tap Dance. But, unlucky us, Rachel had been crying, her mascara running down her cheeks.

She didn't want to go where I wanted to go (my room), and I didn't want to go where she wanted to go (a movie.)

“I don't want to go and sit in a dark room with you. I want to
talk
to you and
be
with you! Besides, haven't you've already seen
Anne of A Thousand Days –
twice? That's two thousand days.”

She didn't laugh. Instead, after some more back and forth between two stubborn people, we went to Jones Beach. I thought the beach could make everything right, but we sat in the car in the parking lot, fighting for too much of the night. Fighting and making up.

“I know you're under a lot of pressure –” I would begin.

And she would cut me off with, “You have no idea what I live with.”

One topic interested her and got her excited.

“I have a new hobby,” she said. “Breaking up Eleanor and Herb.”

Her blue-blue eyes sparkled in the light they caught from the floodlights in the parking lot.

“They're making trouble for us,” she said with glee. “
I'm
going to make trouble for them.”

“Oh,” I groaned. “Don't get involved with them!”

“No,” she said. “It's fun. She deserves it. She messes with
my
life? She knows
nothing
about how I can mess up hers!”

She machine-gunned all these stories about life with Eleanor and Herb.

“They both have these nasty, controlling tempers,” she said. “Maybe it's what they have in common. . . . But anyway, it's easy to get them fighting. The other day, she threw a glass at him, but I think she missed on purpose. Still, I'm waiting for one of them to draw blood. Then I'll get my father involved.
That
will be interesting!”

I didn't like seeing her so amped up on anger and spite.

“Don't be like them,” I said, reaching for her, to pull her close. But she pushed my hand away.

“Why shouldn't I pay them back in the same way that they're treating me? I mean, what do they expect? . . . And do
you
expect
me
to
deny
my experience?”

She had a point, but that didn't make me any happier. And it certainly didn't make her amorous or physically responsive. Which was always my objective. I'm sorry, but I'm a guy.

I finally made us get out of the car and walk on the beach. That made things a little better. We took off our shoes and walked down the sand, holding hands. It was romantic and everything, with the stars and the blackness and the glory of the waves, rising up and destroying themselves and all that, one after another after another. But something felt wrong. We were together, but we should have been happier.

“I'm so alone at school,” she said.

I kind of liked the sound of that – no Eric – but I was sympathetic.

“I want you to have friends,” I said. “Just as long as they're not boys.”

“Ha!” was all she said.

Without further elaboration, there was nothing I wanted to add. “
Don't make things worse
”
 
my father always says. I should have been content to be walking on the beach at night with the girl I loved and who loved me. I think.

I didn't ask her about her “grandma money” or if she contacted that lawyer yet. I didn't ask her about her anti-college plans. I didn't ask about when and if she were getting that new Mustang because that would have brought her back to complaining about her father. I didn't want to say anything to upset her. I just wanted to
be
with her, with no complications or shadows. Maybe that totally carefree state doesn't exist, but that's still what I longed for. The Zone.

Even though the beach is eternal – especially this beach at night, when you're alone with the black waves – I was constantly aware of the time. I knew I had to get her back by midnight. I was not going to be responsible for Rachel breaking her curfew. I wasn't going to give them another reason to punish her.