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“A cruiser,” I corrected. “It gets me around.”
Joe laughed. “Tell the truth. Too many female hormones on campus. You just had to get out of there.”
I rolled my eyes. “You know it’s nothing but constant talk about our periods.”
He gave me a grin that was already identifiable as his alone, a mismatched alignment of teeth, a dimple that appeared in the hollow of his cheek. “You headed in here?” He jerked his head in the direction of the coffeehouse, and I nodded. It had become my own little oasis on the lazy afternoons when I didn’t have class.
I didn’t tell Joe that part of the reason for wanting a bike was wanting this, the chance to bump into him again. In the weeks since I’d arrived in Scofield, he had begun to seem like a conjuring of my travel-addled brain, but here he was—floppy dark bangs, the long eyelashes that my mom would have said were wasted on a man. Joe Natolo, in the flesh.
Remembering the promise I’d made when he’d dropped me at Stanton Hall, I paid for his coffee. Joe took one sip and grimaced, reaching for a canister of sugar. He asked about Keale, and I told him about my classes, my work-study job at the switchboard, life with Ariana.
He stirred his coffee elaborately with a tiny spoon and sipped, testing its sweetness. “Have you been to any good parties?”
I laughed. “Um, no. I basically study all the time, and still, I’m hardly keeping up.” As proof, I unzipped my backpack and took out my notebook and dog-eared copy of The Awakening. My paper wasn’t due for four days, but I was already starting to panic about my thesis, and my ideas weren’t coming together. On my last essay, the professor had written “Remember, there are tutors available in the writing center.”
Joe reached for my notebook, spinning it around so that my scribbles were facing him. “‘In fact,’” he read, loud enough to get the attention of a frowning woman at the next table, “‘through penile penetration, she both finds and loses her identity.’ Writing an autobiography?”
“Very funny.” I slapped the notebook closed before he could read any of my other observations, such as the one about Edna Pontellier confusing orgasm with independence.
He sat back, arms folded across his chest. “Tell the truth, Midwest. The lack of men is killing you.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m managing. Besides—” I took a careful sip of coffee and leaned forward “—you do know that everyone at Keale is a lesbian, right?”
The smile he gave me sent a rush down to my toes. “Not everyone, surely.”
No, not everyone. Just sitting across the table from Joe was enough to confirm my own sexuality, not that I’d ever been in doubt. I hadn’t come to Keale to find a boyfriend, but I had a sixth sense dedicated to Joe alone, marked by hairs that stood up on the back of my neck when he entered a room and sweat glands that seemed to sprout from nowhere. Through Joe, I could easily find and lose my own identity.
* * *
We started bumping into each other more regularly—at Common Ground, at the Stop & Shop, where I loaded up on off-brand crackers and jars of peanut butter, and once when he pulled up next to my bike at a stoplight, revving his engine. “Race you,” he’d called through the open window.
It was impossible not to laugh when he was around, impossible not to feel a thrill when his knees bumped against mine under a café table.
“We should get dinner sometime,” he said, and I didn’t overthink it.
“We should,” I agreed.
We made plans to meet during Parents’ Weekend, to get me away from campus while it was overrun with families. I hadn’t mentioned the event to my mom—it seemed too far to come for two days of scheduled activities that wouldn’t have interested her. Ariana’s parents had flown out, and I’d unsuccessfully dodged their presence on Friday, surprised when they burst into our room after sharing a meal in the Commons. I kept my nose in a book as Mrs. Kramer worried over Ariana’s chemistry grade—an A overall, although she’d received a B on a recent quiz—and turned a page noisily when Mr. Kramer wondered whether it would be beneficial for her to find a tutor.
By now I knew Ariana well enough to recognize her controlled fury, like a toy that had been wound too tight and was ready to spring loose. “I do not need a tutor,” she said, each word bearing staccato weight.
This was easily verified—several times Ariana had tutored me, making precise notations in the margins of my work—but I decided to stay out of it.
“Maybe this isn’t a conversation we should be having right now in front of Ariana’s friend,” her dad interjected, and I looked up from where I was sitting on my bed, as if I’d been summoned. Were we friends? I felt closer to the girls I saw twice a week in my American lit seminar.
Ariana’s mom looked at her watch. “Well, we can talk on the way to the lecture, I suppose.” She cast me the same pitying smile she’d given me in August, when she learned I’d taken the bus all the way from Kansas, alone. “Maybe you’d like to join us for dinner afterward?”
I noticed the spark in Ariana’s eye, a silent pleading. She didn’t want to be alone with her parents any more than I did. I mouthed a sorry in Ariana’s direction and explained that I’d made other plans.
“Maybe you could meet us for ice cream, then,” Ariana’s mom pressed. “We’re going to go to that cute place in town, the one with the giant cone on the marquee? Maybe around nine?”
I smiled. By nine o’clock, I hoped to be in Joe’s Honda, the windows fogging from the heat of our kisses. “I’ll definitely try.”
* * *
I changed clothes five times before meeting Joe, deciding on my most flattering jeans and a shirt that was tight across the chest and too sexy to wear around Keale. We’d planned to meet at Slice of Heaven, and Joe was already there when I arrived, breathless from my bike ride into town.
He whistled, spotting me through the window. We hugged, same as we’d done the last few times we’d seen each other, but this one lasted a few beats longer, and our bodies were pressed just a bit closer.
“I hope you don’t mind. I got here a bit early and ordered for us,” Joe said, gesturing to the glass of soda in front of him, the empty glass in front of my spot. “Just regular pepperoni and breadsticks.”
“Just regular pepperoni and breadsticks sounds great,” I said.
“I was trying to beat the rush,” Joe said, nodding to the line that had formed at the register, snaking halfway to the door. Most of the booths were already full. “I mean, this town is typically overrun with WASPs, but during Parents’ Weekend, the BMW-to-human ratio is especially skewed, if you know what I mean.”
I laughed at his description.
“Well, what about you? Don’t you have parents, Midwest?” When I hesitated, he covered quickly. “Did I put my foot in my mouth? Sorry. It’s none of my business.”
“No, it’s fine. It was just too far for my mom to come.”
“What about your dad?”
I shook my head, my throat suddenly clogged. Since coming to Keale, I’d managed to avoid any mention of my dad. It was easier that way, although the omission implied that he’d never existed at all.
“I am an ass,” Joe said. “Remember?”
I stood up quickly, grabbing my frosted red cup. “Be right back.”
By the time our pizza came, we’d already refilled our bottomless sodas twice. Joe laughed as I blotted the top layer of grease from the pizza with a handful of napkins. It’s not a real date, I told myself. It’s pizza and Coke. Beneath the table, his leg brushed against mine, but instead of pulling away like a reflex, it lingered there. Or maybe it is.
While the restaurant filled up, we talked about our jobs. I mentioned the woman who called the switchboard fifteen times in one night, insisting that there must be a problem with the phone lines since her daughter hadn’t picked up. Joe said that a former coworker at the body shop had opened a place in Michigan, and he’d offered Joe a job.
He shrugged. “But, I don’t know. Michigan. It’s pretty far away.”
“Right,” I said, picking off a pepperoni. I felt his loss as keenly as if he’d already packed up the Honda and left. So far, Joe was the only good thing about Scofield. “And you’d have to leave all this.”
“Some things would be harder to leave than others,” he said, and although he wasn’t looking at me when he said it, my cheeks burned. “Anyway—it might not pan out. There are a lot of things to figure.”
“Right,” I said again. Someone at the next table stood, jostling my elbow. The restaurant was crowded now, the line out the door. I recognized some girls from Keale with their families and felt a stab of longing for my own family, back when it had been intact and perfectly imperfect. We would never again order a pizza, bicker over our choice of three toppings, then load up our leftovers to eat later that night in front of the TV.
“Whoa,” Joe said, tapping me on the arm. He gave a subtle head tilt in the direction of a family standing by the door.
I half turned, pretending to casually glance at the line. “Who are we looking at?”
“The guy in the button-down shirt.”
“You’ll have to be more specific.”
Joe laughed. “With the lady in the sweater.”
“Again, you’ll have to—”
“And the dark-haired girl with legs up to her neck.”
“Ah,” I said, glancing again toward the door. The man was tall with a full head of salt-and-pepper hair, a striped shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The woman wore a patterned sweater set, a giant diamond glinting from her finger. They didn’t look familiar, but I recognized the tall girl from Stanton Hall. I associated her with the summer camp crowd, as I’d come to think of them, girls who played lacrosse and rode horses and moved around campus in tight cliques. “That’s Lauren somebody. She lives in my dorm, but not on my floor.”
Joe leaned forward, conspiratorially. It was hard to hear him over the general noise of happy families. “Her last name is Mabrey.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And?”
“Her father is Senator Charles Mabrey of Connecticut.”
“Seriously? A senator?” I craned around, getting another look.
“Be cool,” Joe said, his thumb and forefinger reaching for my chin, steering me to face him. “People will think you’ve never seen a senator before.”
I burned under his touch. “I haven’t.”
“Well, I suspect they’re just like you and me, only they live in a nicer home—or more likely homes, plural—and they drive better cars if they drive themselves at all, and they’re on a first-name basis with the president of our freaking country, but other than that, no reason to stare.”
“Got it,” I said. We were close enough for me to see a tiny red fleck caught between Joe’s front teeth. “Did you learn all this in your civics class?”
Joe released my chin and reached for his tumbler, taking a long swig. “They’re probably all douchebags, but Mabrey at least seems to be a douchebag of the people.”
I snorted, choking on a bite of cold pizza. “You should volunteer to write his campaign slogans.”
“You know what?” Joe said, wadding his napkin into a ball. “Want to get out of here? There’s a better place down the road, one that won’t be overrun with all these hoity-toity types.”
“Do me a favor,” I grinned. “Say that again. Hoity-toity.”
Instead, he stood up and pulled me to my feet, threading his fingers through mine. I shot a last glance over my shoulder and saw Lauren’s father, the senator, bantering with a cashier. It was the same way married men had talked to me at the Woodstock Diner, as if he were saying, Look how young and virile I still am. In that split second, Lauren turned and our eyes met. She smiled in a faint, pleasant way, as if she didn’t recognize me at all. And why would she? Girls like that moved in their own circles, existed in their own worlds.
* * *
We ended up at a place called Moe’s, too shady for the Keale crowd with its dim, low-ceilinged interior and the haze of smoke that hovered just above our heads. Joe navigated the rowdy crowd at the bar and returned to our table with a pitcher of beer. I thought briefly about pointing out that I was nineteen, and then let it go. It seemed like an incongruous fact, unrelated to this experience. I felt older and wiser, like a more mature version of Megan Mazeros, one who didn’t have to worry about basic rules and regulations.
For a while we drank and watched a vigorous game of darts unfolding between a tiny, dark-haired woman with dead aim and her towering, tattooed companion; with each throw, they razzed and taunted each other. It was like watching an elaborate mating ritual, one based on catcalls and innuendos. When she won, he pulled her onto his lap and whispered into her ear. She stood, tugging him toward the door.
Joe drained his glass. “Do you play?”
“Do I ever.” I slid off my stool, feeding off the charge in the air. We were an extension of the couple who had just left, playing off their energy, becoming more sexualized versions of ourselves. Between throws, Joe’s hand lingered on my elbow, my waist, my hip.
I hadn’t played darts since before Dad got sick, but we used to have a dartboard in the garage, our throw lines taped to the cement. Once I got good enough to be competitive, I’d lost the handicap and he’d eliminated my line once and for all. After a few warm-up shots, Joe and I were evenly matched, going head-to-head, throw for throw. We brushed against each other deliberately, laughing, when we retrieved our darts. When he beat me by three points, I conceded the loss with a mock bow.
“An honor, sir,” I said.
He hooked an arm around my neck, pulling me into him. Our kiss felt effortless, a natural progression of the evening. He trailed one finger down my spine, coiling it in my belt loop. “Want to play another round?”
“Not particularly,” I said.
Our faces were so tight together that I saw his beautiful, crooked grin up close. It was like looking at him through a magnifying glass, all his good parts becoming even better.
* * *
According to the clock on Joe’s dashboard, it was just after nine. He agreed to drive me back to campus, so I could leave a note for Ariana. I didn’t know what I would say, just Sorry I didn’t make it to ice cream or Don’t wait up. I planned to stuff my backpack with toiletries and a change of clothes, just in case. The night was ripe with possibility. At each stoplight on our way out of town, Joe and I kissed like we were perfecting what we’d started earlier. In the parking lot of my dorm, we reached for each other again, his hands inching beneath my sweater, palms hot on the small of my back.
“You know what I like about you, Midwest?”
I murmured, “No.”
“What I like the most is—”
“I meant no, don’t talk,” I said.
“You see? That’s it.”
The car windows began to fog, and Joe’s hand was on my bra, my nipple hard beneath his thumb. It was so close to what I’d imagined that it hardly felt real. Nearby, a car started, headlights springing to life.
“Hold on, cowboy,” I said, pulling back. “Give me five minutes.”
He groaned. “Five minutes is eternity.”
I gave him a teasing kiss and grabbed my backpack from the floorboard. “Five minutes.”
The night was cool, but I felt warm and reckless and happy. I took the side stairs and was breathless by the time I reached the third floor, where I paused to look down at the parking lot. Joe’s car was there, idling with its headlights on. I spotted my reflection at the same time—blond curls wild, cheeks flushed. I’m doing this, I thought. I’m doing it.
In the hallway, I waited for a group of parents to pass. They were chatting loudly about how college had changed since they were in it, how the cafeteria food was better, the exercise facilities first-rate. After I passed, I heard one of the men say, “And the girls are prettier, too.”
Our door was unlocked, although the lights were off. Ariana and her parents must have come and gone, forgetting to lock it behind them. I flicked on the light switch, moving fast. Fresh underwear, a tank top to sleep in, a clean shirt for the morning—if that was how it played out. I hesitated, momentarily frozen by the practicalities. Would he have condoms? Of course. This experience wasn’t the novelty for him that it was for me. Still, I cursed myself for not refilling my birth control. It had seemed a silly, extravagant expense to pay thirty dollars a month for pills I wouldn’t need at an all-girls school.
I was zipping up my backpack when I caught the movement from Ariana’s side of the room and jumped a foot. She was in bed, her body a slight hump beneath the covers. Maybe she’d skipped out on ice cream and come back early, exhausted by her parents’ constant nagging.
Then she moaned, a ragged and gasping sound that made me look closer. Her head was turned to one side, hair plastered against her face and half-covering her mouth. Across her pillowcase was a trail of vomit.
Fuck. Not now.
“Ariana?” I asked, then repeated her name louder. When she didn’t respond, I dropped to my knees, shaking her shoulder. “Are you okay? Should I call someone?”
Her head flopped backward, mouth open. Flakes of white powder stuck to the corner of her mouth.
“Did you take something?”
I had to put my ear almost to her face, wincing from the stench of her breath, to understand what she was saying. Your pulse. Yourpilse. Your pills.
My pills.
* * *
