The Rules of Attraction (Page 24)

“Yeah,” he said, looking modestly at the ground, still trying to kick something off his boots. I wondered suddenly if he was Catholic. My spirits rose: Catholic boys will usually do anything. “I’m sorry too.”

“Did you stay there?” I asked him.

“Stay there? Yeah, I guess,” he admitted, embarrassed, confused. “I stayed.”

“I’m really, really sorry,” I said.

“Oh, don’t worry about it. It’s okay. Some other time,” he said.

I felt so shitty about ruining his date that a rush of sympathy (or horniness: the two were interchangeable) went through me and I said, “I’ll make it up to you.”

“You don’t have to,” he said, though you could tell he had not wanted to say that.

“I know I don’t, but I want to. I really insist.”

He looked down and said he had to use the restroom and I said I’d wait.

I wondered if we were going to sleep together tonight, but then I tried to push the thought away and pretended to be rational about the whole thing. In the meantime, four gorgeous Dartmouth guys came into the party. When I went back to the keg to get another beer for Sean (if nothing else, I was going to succeed in getting him drunk) they all walked over to him and started a conversation. Jealously I hurried back. When I handed him the beer, almost protectively, the one that was the best-looking went off dancing with the student body president (“The Vagina Lady,” Raymond always seemed to call her). The Dartmouth boys thought that this was the annual Dressed To Get Screwed party and they were quite disappointed that they had driven all the way from Hanover to come to the Camden Early Halloween Ball. They said this sarcastically and I thought it was a little mean. But I asked them, flirtatiously, “Aren’t you all a little far away?”

“It’s really not all that far away, I guess,” the blond said.

“So, what’s going on in the real world?” I asked, laughing.

“It’s cool,” the one with a slight double-chin said.

“The same stuff,” another one said.

“You guys are kind of in the middle of nowhere, aren’t you?” the blond asked. They were all looking at the dance floor, nodding their heads.

“Kind of,” I said.

Then Sean made some rude comment that I couldn’t hear. I realized then that I was making Sean jealous by talking to these guys, so I immediately stopped talking to them. But it was too late. He was so jealous that he ended up telling them off. He told them it was the Get Fucked party and that they should bend over and get f**ked. I hoped I wasn’t playing too hard to get, but it was sort of erotic to hear him say that, yet I still showed no emotion. I was afraid that the Dartmouth guys were going to beat him (actually, me) up but they just walked away, too stunned to say anything, their suspicions about this place confirmed by Sean’s brash actions. After a while, when it was nearing midnight, I asked him if he wanted to come by my room. I had asked Raymond to stop at Price Chopper on the way back from the hospital so I could pick up a six-pack, especially for this occasion. But I wasn’t sure if we’d even get around to drinking it since he was fairly drunk by now anyway. I first made sure he was interested by asking him if he wanted to go to his room first.

“We could,” he said. “My roommate’s gone a lot. His girlfriend lives off-campus, so he’s there a lot.” He was slurring his words. He bumped into someone’s drink, oblivious.

“Do you have any alcohol?” I asked, laughing.

“I have alcohol?” he asked himself. “Do I?”

“You do?” I asked.

“I don’t … have any,” he said, starting to laugh also.

“Let’s go to my room,” I said. “I have beer.”

We walked out of Booth, past the Dartmouth guys. Someone had stuck pieces of paper with the word “Asshole” on them to their backs. We started for Welling.

“Are you a Catholic?” I asked him.

We walked a little while before he finally answered. “I don’t remember.”

LAUREN I don’t know why I sleep with Franklin. Maybe it’s because Judy likes him, or is just sleeping with him, occasionally. Maybe it’s because he’s tall and has brown hair and reminds me of Victor. Maybe it’s because we’re at a Sunday night party and it’s dark and I’m bored but what am I doing at Booth anyway. I should know better. Maybe it’s because Judy went to the movies over in Manchester. Maybe it’s because when I asked the boy from L.A. after poetry class to meet me at the Beverage Center at dinner tonight he didn’t show and when I saw him later at Booth he told me he thought I meant the Beverly Center. I don’t know. Maybe it’s because Franklin’s … just there. But he’s not the only possibility. There’s the cute French guy who comes up to me and tells me he’s in love with me. But he also reminds me that maybe I should go to Europe and just find Victor and bring him back home. But then what would that do? We talk, Franklin and me. But not about much. Some great-looking but utterly bland Dartmouth guys crash the party (How can you tell they’re from Dartmouth? Franklin asks. They’re wearing green, I explain. Franklin nods, impressed, and wonders what our school color is. Easy, I guess. Black.) I really hope (but not really) that Judy comes back so I won’t end up doing this. We dance to a couple of oldies. He pays for drinks he brings me. When he sweats he’s really handsome. What am I talking about? This is Judy’s geek. But then I get mad at him: what a jerk to cheat on Judy like this. But I get drunk and too tired to argue and I crumple into his arms and he doesn’t quite know what to do with me. I decide to leave it all up to him. We walk back to his room. How easy this all is. Will Judy ever know? Will she even care? Doesn’t she like his roommate instead? Michael? That’s right. I look over at Michael’s side of the room: a fern, Hockney print, poster of Mikhail Baryshnikov. Definitely not for you, Judy. Forget him. It makes me remember a boy I was in love with last term, part of last summer. B.V. The time Before Victor. And maybe that’s why I go to bed with Judy’s lover. But she should have been here to stop him. And maybe he shouldn’t have touched my neck that way, a cruel but familiar sensation. Even before he’s in me I know that I will never sleep with him again. And maybe Franklin reminds me of that lost boyfriend, which is good but maybe bad and now we’re in bed, actually on the bed.