The Rules of Attraction (Page 77)

I sigh and tell him, “I like someone else.”

He plays pinball again. I go to the bathroom again hoping someone will take our table. I’m in line with the same people that I was in line with last time. When I come back to the table he’s there. “What’s going on?”

“I like someone else,” I tell him.

Cute Joseph who Alex-nice-girl-from-Rockaway is sleeping with—walks in and hands the Brazilian boy something. Then I notice Paul. He’s looking at Joseph, then the Brazilian. Paul has a new flattop which looks okay, sexy in a goofy way and he looks over at me and I raise my eyebrows up and smile. He looks at Sean and then at me and waves tiredly. Then he looks back at Sean.

“I want to know you,” Sean whines.

“What?”

“Know you. I want to know you.” Pleading.

“What does that mean? Know me?” I ask him. “Know me? No one ever knows anyone. Ever. You will never know me.”

“Listen,” he says, touching my hands.

“Will you calm down,” I tell him. “Do you want some Motrin?”

A fight starts over near the jukebox. Seniors want to put tapes on and unplug the jukebox. Freshmen don’t want to and I try to concentrate on that. The Freshmen end up winning just because they’re bigger than the Seniors. Physically bigger. How did that happen? “Boys of Summer” comes on. Think of Victor. Sean gets up to play more pinball with an unhappy Franklin. Royal Flush is the name of the game. There’s a King and a Queen and a Jack lit up, all looking straight at the person playing pinball and the crowns on their respective heads blink off and on whenever the player scores. It’s amusing for a while.

I look back over at Paul across the crowded Pub. He looks miserable. He’s looking at Sean. He’s staring at Sean. Sean keeps looking over at me, like he knows Paul is looking at him, and then I’m looking over at Paul and Paul is still staring at Sean. Sean catches this and, blushing, rolls his eyes up and turns back to the pinball machine. I look back at Paul. He crumples his plastic beer cup and looks away, agonized. And I’m starting to catch on to something and then I’m thinking no way, oh no way. Not that. I look back at Sean, semi-realization hitting me but then it leaves because he’s not staring back at Paul. And then I get angry, start remembering how awful it was with Paul and Mitchell. Paul denying everything, how pathetic I seemed, wondering how I was supposed to act when there was no real competition. If it had been another girl with Paul that weekend on Cape Cod instead of Mitchell, or another girl here in The Pub right now, mooning over Sean, that would have been fine, great, easy to “deal with.” But it was Paul and it was Mitchell and there was nothing I could do. Lower my voice? Casually mention I need to shave, Judy and I suggested, hysterical, one night last term, but in the end it wasn’t really funny and we stopped laughing. Now the possibility hits that perhaps Mr. Denton is staring at me and not at Sean. “Boys of Summer” ends, starts again.

Rupert sits down next to me wearing a David Bowie T-shirt and a fedora, still hasn’t taken off the horrible mask he’s wearing, and offers me some of his coke. I ask him where Roxanne is. He tells me that she went home with Justin. Just smile.

VICTOR New York was a real hassle. I ended up staying with some girl who thought her mail was coming from Jupiter. She had no hips and was a Gitano jeans model from Akron, but still it was a drag. She caught me going out with Philip Glass’s daughter anyway, and kicked me out. I stayed at Morgan’s for a couple of nights and split without paying the bill. Then I stayed at some Camden grad’s place on Park and unplugged all the phones since I didn’t want the ’rents to know I was back in town. Tried to get a job at Palladium but some other Camden grad got the only job left: coat check. Got into a rock band, dealt acid, went to a couple of okay parties, went out with a girl who worked at Interview and who tried to enroll me into Hunter, went out with another model, one of Malcolm McLaren’s assistants, tried to get back to Europe, but decided on a cold partyless night in November to head back to New Hampshire and Camden. Got a ride with Roxanne Forest, who was in town for some movie premiere or the opening of another Cajun restaurant and I stayed with her and Rupert Guest Drug Dealer at their place in North Camden, which was cool since he had unlimited supplies of great Indica pot and Christmas Tree bud. Besides that I also wanted to get in touch with Jaime. When I called Canfield, a girl with an unfamiliar voice answered the phone.

“Hello? Canfield House.”

“Hello?” I said.

There was this pause and then the girl recognized my voice and said my name, “Victor?”