The Rules of Attraction (Page 46)

“Are you?” I ask, sitting up.

“No, I’m not. Christ, you call me up to check on who I’m going with to the party?” he yells into the phone. “You’re sick!”

“I thought … I had a very vivid … image of you.”

“You’re also a bad judge of character,” he says, calming down.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I apologize.”

“It’s okay.” I can hear him yawn.

“So … who are you going with?” I ask, after a while.

“No one, you idiot!” he yells.

“I was only joking. Calm down. Can’t you take a joke?” I ask. “Don’t people from the South have a sense of humor?”

There’s a long pause and then he says, “When we’re around funny people.”

“Scorcher, Sean. Scorcher.”

“Rock’n’roll. Deal with it,” he mutters.

“Yeah.” I try to laugh. “Deal with it.”

“Listen, I’m going to the party, okay?” he says, finally.

“Well….”

“I’ll see you next week,” he says.

“But I’m coming back on Sunday,” I say.

“Right. Sunday,” he says.

“I’m sorry for calling,” I say.

“Sunday. Bye.” He hangs up.

I hang up too, then touch my face, and drink another beer; wonder why Richard’s late.

LAUREN Judy’s room. Judy and I decide to wear togas to The Dressed To Get Screwed party. Not because we want to all that much, but just because we look better in the togas. At least, I look better in the toga than in the dress I was going to wear. Judy looks good in anything. Besides I don’t want to go back to my room to get the dress since Franklin might be there, though he also might not, since I told him I thought The Fate of the Earth was the most boring book he’s made me read yet (worse than Floating Dragon) and he had this violent seizure (capital S: he shook, he turned red) and stormed out. Plus I don’t want to see if my mother called back. She called earlier today and demanded to know why I haven’t called her in over three weeks. I told her I forgot my Calling Card number. But I’m in a good mood anyway, mostly because Vittorio, my new poetry teacher says I show a lot of promise and because of that I’ve been working on more poems, some of them pretty good; plus Judy and I might buy some Ecstasy tonight and that seems like a good idea and it’s a Friday and we’re in front of her mirror trying make-up on and “Revolution” is on the radio and I feel okay.

Judy says that someone put a cigarette out in her box the other day.

“It’s probably the Freshman, Sam,” I say.

“His name’s Steve,” she says. “He doesn’t smoke. None of the Freshmen do.”

I stand up, look at the toga. “How do I look? Do I look like an idiot?”

Judy checks her lips, then her chin. “No.”

“Fat?”

“Nope.” She moves away from the desk and over to the bed where she finishes rolling a joint, singing along with “Revolution.” She tells me that she went off the Pill on Monday and says that she’s already lost weight and I guess she looks thinner. Health Services supplied the diaphragm.

“Health Services is disgusting,” Judy says. “That doctor is so horny that when I went in for an earache he gave me a Pap test.”

“Are we going to buy the Ecstasy or not?” I ask.

“Only if he takes American Express,” she says. “I forgot to cash a check today.”

“He probably does,” I murmur.

I look good, standing in front of the mirror, and it makes me sad that I’m surprised by this; that I haven’t really gotten excited or dressed up to go out to a party since Victor left, and when was that? Early September? Party at the Surf Club? And I don’t know why, but “Revolution” on the radio reminds me of him, and I still have mental pictures of him, standing around Europe, somewhere in my mind that resurface at the strangest moments: like a certain soup served at lunch, or flipping through GQ or seeing a jeans commercial on TV. Once, it was a book of matches from Morgan’s in New York that I found beneath my bed last Sunday.

Judy’s ready to light the joint but she can’t find any matches so I go next door to the boy from L.A.’s room. Someone’s written “Rest In Peace Called” in big red letters on his door. I can hear The Eagles playing inside but no one answers when I knock. I find some matches in the bathroom from Maxim’s and bring them back to Judy. “Revolution” ends and another Thompson Twins song comes on. And Judy and I smoke pot, get high, make bloodys, try to list all the guys we’ve slept with at Camden but the list gets screwed up by hazy memory and the pot and the nervous expectations a Friday night party brings, and often we just write down “Jack’s friend” or “Guy from Limelight” and the whole thing depresses me and I suggest we head over to Wooley. Maybe I should sleep with that French guy, like Judy keeps saying. But there are other options, I keep telling myself. What? I ask myself. The orgy in Booth tonight? But I’m high and feeling good as we leave Judy’s place and from upstairs in her hallway we can hear the music calling to us from across Commons, accompanied by shrieks and muffled shouts in the night.