What It Was Like (24 page)

“We should go,” I said.

“I don't wanna go,” she said, walking close against me.

“I know.”

When we got back to the car, she leaned against the fender, and I cleaned the sand off of her feet, brushing them lightly.

“Stop tickling,” she squealed, wriggling her foot, but I could tell that she liked my touch. Most times, she was a very affectionate, physically responsive girlfriend. I had to make sure that continued.

I had enough time to take her home by way of Nathan's. I thought the carnival atmosphere – the people, the games, the noise – might distract her into some kind of happiness. It was a good try. She liked the ice cream sundae we shared. I liked the way she wiped some hot fudge off my cheek and licked it clean from her finger.

I tried to give her a good pep talk on the way home – how she should try to do better in school (she told me that she was flunking a couple of courses, which was completely absurd for a girl of her intelligence), how she should try to stay out of fights with her parents and lay low, how she should avoid dark thoughts and be positive about our future. Actually, it was not so different from a pep talk I needed to give myself.

When we pulled up to the curb in front of her house, we just sat there for a moment.

“I'm sorry about tonight,” she said. “I don't mean to be mean. But sometimes everything that happens just gets all jumbled up. I'll make it up to you, I swear.”

“What about tomorrow?” I asked her. I knew that the possibility of an affirmative answer was remote, but I couldn't help it. I had to ask. I had to make the effort.

She snickered once, bitterly. “No, she's already told me that I have to do all my overdue schoolwork tomorrow, and she's going to
check
me. She got a letter from this obnoxious assistant principal who has it in for me, so I'm really trapped. ”

“Oh.”

I didn't tell her that I was probably going to do the same thing, minus Eleanor's supervision.

“I'm just trying to keep everybody happy,” she said. “And not drive myself completely insane. Everybody wants something.”

“I'm not everybody!” I felt a chill as I said the words.

She took a long pause, then started to apologize. “I know that things weren't supposed to be this way, baby,” she half whispered. “I'll try to call you, but they've been watching me all the time lately. You
know
her.”

“It's OK,” I said, touching her hand. “As long as we have each other, we just have to be positive. We're
young
. Time is on our side.”

She looked into my eyes and said, “I don't think I can wait that long.”

Then, fighting back tears, she jerked open the car door handle – I thought she might rip the damn thing off the Ford – and ran up the clattering flagstone path and into the house.

I watched her all the way. I wondered if Eleanor and/or Herb were at a window, watching me watch her. At that moment, I really didn't care.

I waited there a good long minute, looking at the house, that phony fortress, wondering what was really going on inside there, what they were doing to her.

Then I drove away.

Another night of love, shot to hell, with my beautiful, complicated, troubled girl.

≁

I waited the next day for the call that never came. I tried to concentrate on the work I had – the papers to write, due and overdue, the reading to do, the tests to study for – but Rachel was always somewhere in my mind. When I was not with her, I was simply not exactly myself. Something was missing: I felt her absence as if it were a part of me, a part of me that was
gone
. And there was so much that worried me from last night. What was happening to us?

What got me out of the house was a favor I did for my Dad. He had spent most of the morning trying to fix the downstairs toilet and needed a replacement part that he tracked down at some obscure plumbing supply place that happened to be open on a Saturday. It was on Rockaway Turnpike, not too far from Rachel's. Not close, but not far. If I moved quickly, I could swing by Rachel's house. Not for any particular reason. I mean, I wouldn't knock on her door, or anything. Just to check things out. Of course, there was the risk of being spotted by Eleanor and/or Herb, but that was a risk I was willing to take.

“Try to be fast,” my Dad said. “I want to have this thing put back together by tonight.”

Which meant that I couldn't drive by the Princes, if he wanted me back that soon. Which was probably for the best. I could only get myself into trouble, driving over there. I could find out only two things: either nothing, or something bad.

“Don't speed!” yelled my mother from the front door as I backed down the driveway. I had the address of the plumbing supply store and the part number written down. My Dad had called first, so there should be no problem getting it and getting back.

As I drove over to the plumbing supply store, I wasn't really tempted to detour over to the Princes. This was a direct errand for my father, time was a factor, and I was glad to get out of the house. Actually, I needed a break away from my desk; I was between papers for Brilliant and had to – what was that word? – think.

It didn't take me long to get to Rockaway Turnpike. Traffic was light on a Saturday afternoon. It wasn't even a full inning of the Mets' radio broadcast from Shea. I had to hunt for the address on Rockaway Turnpike. It wasn't as far down as the airport; it was in that middle skeevy area with the all-night diners and auto supply shops and bars and gas stations and vacant lots: the real Long Island.

The plumbing supply place was in a cluster of stores between this big Greek diner and a junkyard with a fence decorated with used hubcaps. As I got out of the Chrysler, I could see a plane coming into JFK. It couldn't have been more than a couple of hundred feet off the ground, and it was loud enough to bust your eardrums.

There were actually a couple of customers waiting at the counter of the plumbing supply place and I had to take a number from a machine, like at a bakery. While I waited, I looked around at the racks of plumbing tools and the high shelves of cardboard boxes of parts, grouped by type and manufacturer, all labeled with part numbers and letters. Two young guys, guys not much older than me, were working behind the counter. They didn't seem to be having too much fun, working on a sunny Saturday afternoon, fetching one pipe fitting or another, one flange or another, from the shelves in the back. Whatever happened to me, I didn't want to wind up working in a place like this: so dark, so dusty, so dead end. I certainly was not fond of the schoolwork I had left at home, but if it led me to a life different from
this
one, I would do it gladly. Anything but this.

On the plus side, the guy behind the counter found me the correct toilet part promptly, and I found myself outside the plumbing supply store in a few easy minutes. Nothing to do but go back home. To cruise by Rachel's house would be wrong – on several levels. I had to concentrate on doing right – on several levels as well.

Then I heard a voice.

“Hey, kid!”

Somehow I knew
I
was the kid being called. And somehow I instantly recognized the voice.

“Mr. Perlov!”

It was Herb, standing with a bunch of other men in the parking lot of the Greek diner that was right next to the store. All the men looked at me with the same neutral/unfriendly stare. One was tall, and the other two were pretty fat, but they all had that same intimidating look, standing around Herb. And they all had cigars and big, heavy watches on their fat, hairy wrists. Rachel could have been right; maybe Herb
was
in the Mafia.

“What are you doing over here, in this neck of the woods?” he called.

All I could think of to say was, “Buying a ball cock.” Which was the actual name of the toilet part, but it made them all explode into laughter. They laughed and laughed. One of the fat guys doubled over, coughing so much from laughing.

“I don't think you can buy one of ‘dose, kid!” one of them yelled, creating another avalanche of laughter. I just stood there and took it, politely. I mean, what else could I do?

“Nice to see you,” I said faintly, with a weak wave, and started to walk to my car. I didn't see any need to go over and engage with them.

“HEY!”

Herb's voice stopped me in my tracks. There was a sharpness in it which commanded me to turn and look back at him. So I did.

Herb pointed straight at me with his index finger, and said – and this was the weird thing: his voice was softer and almost
kind
– “Don't be a sucker.”

Then he “fired” his finger at me like a gun and snorted.

I just nodded and mumbled, “OK.” At least I think I said OK.

I got right back in the Chrysler, as I heard Herb and the men guffawing again, probably still at my expense, and drove straight home without looking back. With the ball cock on the seat right next to me.

The whole way, I couldn't stop thinking about what he said.

What kind of a way is that to talk to a kid? If he wanted to say something to me, he should have said it directly, like a man. But making some kind of oblique joke in front of his goomba friends, well, that was pretty low.

“Don't be a sucker.”

What did that even
mean
? There were so many different ways to take that: That I shouldn't be so devoted to Rachel? That Eleanor was so against me that my future with Rachel was nil, so why was I wasting my time? That Rachel was indeed still seeing Eric on the sly, or someone else I didn't even know about? And on and on. I didn't know which, if any, of these insinuations were true, but all of them made me feel small and defensive and taken advantage of; there was nothing good in any of them.

As if I hadn't seen it clearly before, I now saw what hateful people Rachel was living with: Eleanor
and
this guy? How could she – how could
we
– survive them? These love-killers.

The one good thing is that my father got the downstairs toilet put back together – and working – by nighttime. That was vital. I couldn't have them tromping up the stairs in the middle of the night. I needed my privacy, and I'm sure they appreciated theirs. Funny, I never even asked my parents how they felt about my going back and forth, to and from Columbia like a yo-yo, the way I wanted, without even consulting them. Maybe they
liked
having the house to themselves, with me away. Maybe they had been waiting for this day for
years
. They seemed to like having me around, but you never knew. But I couldn't really think about that; I had enough on my mind.

When I went to bed that night, no matter how I tried to banish the words from my mind, Herb's “
Don't be a sucker
!” echoed in my mind. I fell asleep quickly as it repeated and repeated and repeated in my brain, but I didn't sleep well.

My father tried to get me to go bowling with him that next afternoon, but I honestly couldn't (my never-ending schoolwork and the never-ending possibility that Rachel might call). Unfortunately, I got into a fight with my mother about it.

“Your father asks you once in a blue moon to go out with him, and you say no?” she nagged.

In a way, she was right. My father seldom asks me for anything, outside the odd errand (see above), so I should have said yes and gone with him. But I could tell that he was just asking me to go
for me
– as a way to distract me from what was obviously going on with me.

“Leave him alone!” my father said. “It was just an idea. Forget about it!”

Later, he drove me to the train station.

“I knew you didn't want to go,” he said.

“I know,” I said. “I actually have a lot on my mind lately.”

“That's why I asked you,” my father said, as if I'd proved him right. “But forget it.”

When he dropped me at the station, I could tell that there was something he wanted to say to me.

“What is it?” I asked him. “The train is coming.”

He hesitated. My father was always reluctant to give me advice, especially now that I was older. Maybe it was because he didn't have much of an education, and he generally lets me do things my way. And, the truth is, I had done pretty well so far. But this time he wanted to say something to me. He turned and faced me straight-on.

“You know,” he said. “You have a choice in things.”

That was it.

“OK,” I said. “Thanks. I know that.”

I got out of the car and ran up the stairs just in time for the arriving train. I really didn't think about what he said, I was in such a rush to get on the train and get back to my life at Columbia, but truly I wish I had.

≁

I didn't get Rachel on the phone Monday or Tuesday night. It's semi-ridiculous how I remember every detail – every phone call, made or missed – but I'm sorry, I do. On Monday night, Eleanor said curtly, “She can't come to the phone now,” and hung up, even before I could say, “Thank you, Mrs. Prince!” with the appropriate touch of sarcasm. On Tuesday night, Herb answered and said, “Sorry, but she's doing her homework. She'll call you if she finishes.”

At least he had the courtesy to say, “Sorry, but.” And I didn't expect her to finish whatever they wanted her to. So I was truly surprised when someone banged on my door a while later and said that I had a call.

But it wasn't Rachel; it was Nanci Jerome.

“I hope you don't mind me calling,” she said.

“No,” I said. “That's OK,” trying unsuccessfully not to sound disappointed.

“I'm better than nothing, right?” she laughed self-deprecatingly.

“It's not that,” I said, although she was right. “I just haven't been able to get through to her since the weekend.” (With Nanci, “her” automatically meant Rachel.)

“I know,” she said.

“How do
you
know?” I asked right back.

“I know everything.”

That stopped me a little.

“OK,” I said. “Then tell me everything.”

“You don't want to know everything,” she said. “Believe me.”

But I just waited . . . waited for her to resume. Some people just can't keep their mouths shut, and if you wait long enough, they'll go on.

“It's not good over there,” she said. “They've really been fighting. I've tried to help, but those are two stubborn females. Like mother, like daughter.”

“Don't say that,” I snapped. “Rachel is nothing like her mother.”

“If you say so,” Nanci cracked back.

“Well, she's not like her mother
to me
,” I added, for good measure. And I meant it. “That's what she's trying to
get away
from!” I concluded.

Nanci didn't say anything. But I guess I really had no business, raising my voice to her.

I softened my tone. “So, uh, Nanci, why'd you call me?”

There was a long pause on her end. I got the feeling that she was changing her mind about her reason for calling me.

“I, uh, I just thought you might want to know
why
she hasn't been able to call you,” she said. “That's all. And she told me to tell you that she loves you.”

“Yeah, well,” I said. “Thanks. . . . You think they'll let Rachel out for our date on Friday night?”

Nanci laughed once. “You never know,” she said. “Let me work on Eleanor.”

“Why do they do this?” I asked – not really asking her, asking the world.

“You know why: because they can,” she answered, and that was as good an answer as any.

“Tell her to call me from school,” I said. “Away from Eleanor.”

“OK,” she said. “I'll do that.”

I waited for her to say something else.

“You should just be careful,” she said.

“About what?” I asked.

“Everything.”

It took me two days to get that call out of my head (and, as you can see, in some ways I never really did.) She was trying to send me some kind of message, something between her words, but I never really got it.

≁

Things, I'm sorry to say, began to get worse between Rachel and me. I didn't want it to, and I don't think she did either, but it was happening gradually, and neither of us could seem to do anything about it. Oh, we still loved each other as intensely, maybe more than ever, but circumstances aggravated our situation so that on every other phone call, or every
third
phone call, one of us would say something to annoy the other. I wouldn't be sympathetic enough to her, or vice versa. I would listen for little misstatements she might make, looking for some kind of slip-up, thinking that she might reveal something, perhaps
someone else
. Or she would hear an edge in my voice that wasn't really there and take offense. Sometimes we would end a call on a bitter note. Then, the next time I talked to her, it was as if nothing was wrong: The Zone, the same as ever. But then she'd remember something I said – or didn't say – and relive the hurt. The worst stretch was when she was “late.” There was quite a bit of tension between us for those few days, but everything was OK eventually. Perhaps my greatest mistake was my continual failure to read her mind.

The fact is that she was increasingly fragile, and I had to be more careful than ever with what I said to her, just hoping for a good Friday. Fridays: when we could be together and forget the whole world and everything in it. With what she was living with – Eleanor and Herb and her father and school and just about everything else – I had to be the “one good thing” in her life, no matter how tough it was.

“Senior-itis!” she said. “That's all anyone talks about. How much fun they're having, where they've applied to, and where they're going. I just couldn't be more uninterested.”

“You just have to hang on, baby,” I said. “Things will get better.”

I had no proof for my assertion, so it just hung in the air, like a big lie.

≁

This one gray Tuesday morning, on and off through two straight classes, I just couldn't concentrate. Coursing in and out of my mind were thoughts of how to stop this drift that was occurring, the rift that was happening between Rachel and me. It felt so wrong; I knew that the fundamental love was still there. It was just the rest of life –
both
of her parents,
and
Herb, my schoolwork, the distance, the not-seeing-each-other-every-day – that got in the way. And that was just
wrong
. Rachel and I had something beyond special, and it would be a shame to lose it. I walked all the way back to my dorm, coming up with no better immediate plan than telling her and myself to be patient. Friday wasn't that far away . . . assuming I'd be able to see her. (This was after another weekend that she had been grounded by Eleanor.) Who knew what was going to happen? I was not in perfect control of my own life anymore. I realized that, to a greater extent than I might have ever wanted, my happiness depended on whatever Rachel Prince did.

I got to the top of the stairs and turned down the hallway. There, sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall with her long, dark hair cascading down her shoulders, was Rachel. My heart and breath stopped. I was surprised and excited and fearful, all at once.

“Oh my God,” I said as I approached her. “What in the world are you doing here?”

“Aren't you glad to see me?” she said.

“Of course, I'm glad to see you,” I said, dropping my books. “I'm
more
than glad!”

“It takes forever to get here by train!” she said. “I don't know how you do it.”

“Millions of people commute. It's really nothing,” I said as I pulled her up from the floor and into my arms. “But I'm very glad you did.”

We kissed and held each other for a few minutes, long enough to attract some attention from a couple of guys in the hallway.

“Hubba-hubba!”

“Can't you two find a
motel
room?”

“Let's go inside,” I said, digging in my pocket for my room key. “Jealous bastards!”

I opened the door and let her inside. She was wearing a thick coat with a fur collar that framed her face like a snow angel. But as she swept past me, she smelled like spring.

“This is such a small room!” she trilled. “I can't believe they put two people in here!”

“Neither can I,” I said. “I think they used to be for one person, but that was years ago.”

“This
is
a pretty gross dorm,” she said.

“It's an old school.”

“Still, you'd think they would at least
try
to make it nice. I mean it
is
the Ivy League.”

“That means nothing. It's all about making money, cramming two guys in here. The Ivy League isn't different from anybody else. It's still a business.”

“And this is where you are all week?” she asked, looking around at the cramped, plain, overstuffed little room. “You poor baby.”

“Honey!” I said, taking her by the shoulders. “What in the world are you doing here?”

That's when she started to tear up. She spilled out her story in waves of rushed talk, punctuated by sobs and choked-back laughter.

“They're making me see a therapist,” she said. “I got called down to the principal. My grades completely suck. I have absolutely no interest in logarithms, not even with a math tutor. I did crappy on my SATs
again
. I keep telling them that I have
zero
intention of going to college. They don't believe that either! The applications sit there in my room, not filled out. And I'm not going to fill them out!”

I watched her standing there in my small, narrow room, taking off her gloves, her coat, her scarf, and a sweater. Her hair was a little messy and her eyes were streaked with dried tears as she did this kind of striptease in front of me. I have to admit that I felt torn between my concern for her troubled soul, which made me want to listen to and comfort her, and my desire for her body, which I missed so much.

“So why did Eleanor ground you this time?” I asked.

“Oh, that was completely ridiculous!” she exclaimed. “I got caught drinking beer at school with a couple of other girls.”

“Beer?” I half laughed. “You don't even
like
beer!”

“I know!” she said. “That's what's so ridiculous! But Lydia Sherrow's boyfriend sneaked a six-pack through the fence during a very boring field hockey game, and I thought maybe it might remind me of Bailey's or something. A bunch of us got in trouble. It wasn't just me.”

“But if it was everybody, that's no reason to
ground
you!”

“I know! I was barely involved!” she said. “It's so unfair. I really don't think I can stand it much longer.”

“Oh, baby! Who else knows that you ditched school?” I asked.

“Nobody,” she said. “Just Nanci. When Eleanor dropped me off, I waited until after homeroom, and then I called Nanci and had her drive me straight to the train station.”

“Wow,” I said. “Good for you.”

“I was going to make her drive me into the City,” Rachel said. “But she had some class that she just couldn't miss. I couldn't believe she wouldn't take me.”

Of course I was beyond happy to see her, yet I couldn't
not
worry about what new crisis her class ditching would bring.

“So,” she said, drawing me toward her with her soft, loving smile. “Aren't you glad to see me?”

I thought of all the questions I had to ask her: Had she seen Eric that weekend? Or someone else? Was she concealing something else from me? Should I tell her everything, even about my encounter with Herb and what he said, something I had never told her?

Instead, I moved into her embrace, ignoring all the questions swirling in my brain, and took her strongly, saying, “You have no idea.”

≁

I guess we were dozing afterwards when we were awakened by the sound of the door to the room being shaken roughly, and someone trying to turn the doorknob repeatedly.

“Hey! What's going on in there?”

It was Roommate A. He had used his key, but I had bolted the inside lock shut, thank goodness.

“Oh!” I stalled him. “Hey! Wait a minute, man! I didn't know you were coming back! . . . Dammit, it's my roommate. Get dressed.”

“Where did you
think
I would go?” he said archly. “I
live
here!” He pounded on the door hard, twice.

“Oh, great,” muttered Rachel, already hurrying into her clothes. I tried not to stare at her, even though she looked very sexy, all disheveled and loose. “What are
you
doing?”

“I'm hurrying!” I whispered, scrambling into my jeans.

“Come on!” pounded Roommate A on the door. “Zip up and open the door!”

Rachel gasped even as I snickered at his wisecrack.

“You ready?” I whispered to her as I pulled a shirt on over my head.

“Yeah,” she breathed as she had herself dressed – and beautiful – almost instantly. “OK.”

I pulled open the bolt and turned the lock as Roommate A burst into the room.

“Well, it's about time, dammit!” he huffed, bulling his way into the room and throwing his book bag up onto his bed.

“What the –” Then he caught sight of Rachel. “Whoa! Now who is
this
?” he said with a wolfish grin, instantly understanding the situation. “Why, freshman, I didn't think you had it in you!”

“Thanks,” I said with maximum sarcasm. With no choice, I introduced Rachel and Roommate A.

“So this is why you tear ass out of here every Friday for ‘Lawn
GI-
land,'” he said, looking her up and down, practically licking his lips. “Now I completely understand, you old horndog!” (Once again, Roommate “A” earns his name.)

“Do you have to stay here?” I asked. “Can't you maybe
vanish
for, like, an hour?”

“Are you mad?” he said, slamming his books down on his desk and climbing up the ladder onto his bed. “I just came back from two tests – one in calculus – and I need to rest!”

He threw his shoes down onto the floor loudly, one penny loafer at a time, and lit up one of his stupid Gauloises which filled the room with his smoke.

(Oh, do I have to tell you that I missed the Protestant Reformation test? What was I supposed to do? She was crying hysterically in my arms half the time. I wound up making some chicken broth for her on my illegal hot plate, the possession of which is the only crime to which I will gladly plead guilty.)