I Am Charlotte Simmons (74 page)
Read I Am Charlotte Simmons Online
Authors: Tom Wolfe
She was so wretched, so completely ruined, the only possible course left was to stop resisting in this doomed struggle with misery. O how knotted her throat was! Not just sore but
twisted into a knot
! Surrender, Charlotteâeven though she could tell that this crying jag would be different from all others,
this jag would have its own head, this jag would rack and wrench her body and soul beyond all hope of relief through surrenderâand here they came, the tears,
scrunching
the muscles of her lips, her chin, her neck, her brow,
bursting through
her optic chiasma to force their way out between her eyelids,
flooding
her nose, her entire rhinal cavity, in a stinging rageâ
twisted into a knot
! Surrender, Charlotteâeven though she could tell that this crying jag would be different from all others,
this jag would have its own head, this jag would rack and wrench her body and soul beyond all hope of relief through surrenderâand here they came, the tears,
scrunching
the muscles of her lips, her chin, her neck, her brow,
bursting through
her optic chiasma to force their way out between her eyelids,
flooding
her nose, her entire rhinal cavity, in a stinging rageâ
What was that!
She could swear she heard a girl's voice syncopating in the sort of onesided conversation you overhear during other people's cell-phone callsâ
Never was there a quicker-acting antidote for a crying jag. Off went the waterworks. Charlotte rolled toward the wall and pulled her knees up into the fetal position, feigning sleep, barely in timeâ
The door swung open and, “Ohmygod! ⦠Yeah, totallyâ” Good and loud.
Charlotte could see every inch of her roommate in her mind's eye, the very angle at which she canted her head into the cell phone, the way her eyes lolled, focusing on nothing, the cockeyed dip her new Takashi Muramoto bag took as it hung from the crook of her elbow, with all this
stuff
about to fall out of itâ
stuff
about to fall out of itâ
“Yeah ⦠yeah ⦠yeah ⦠like
totally
! I can't wait to hear about it!” Beverly shrieked into the phone. “Where are you studying tonight?âwait, hold on a secâCharlotte, you bitch! That's my CDâohmygod, sorry, babe, my roommate's playing my fucking CDs now”âas she simultaneously yapped into the phone and went to the CD player and stopped Ben Harper and switched the CD to Britney Spears's
In the Zone
â“Okay, yeah, going to the café tonight, definitelyâoh, wait, he'll be at the library? Maybe we should go thereâooooh, we can sit next to them! Awesome, okay, meet you at seven.”
totally
! I can't wait to hear about it!” Beverly shrieked into the phone. “Where are you studying tonight?âwait, hold on a secâCharlotte, you bitch! That's my CDâohmygod, sorry, babe, my roommate's playing my fucking CDs now”âas she simultaneously yapped into the phone and went to the CD player and stopped Ben Harper and switched the CD to Britney Spears's
In the Zone
â“Okay, yeah, going to the café tonight, definitelyâoh, wait, he'll be at the library? Maybe we should go thereâooooh, we can sit next to them! Awesome, okay, meet you at seven.”
Whereupon she clicked the phone shut and let her bones collapse on her swivel chair, by the sound of it.
“Hung over?” Beverly said in a hearty voice not to be denied.
“Yeah,” croaked Charlotte, as if Beverly had interrupted an afternoon hangover nap. She didn't dare turn over and let Beverly see â¦
Beverly's response to that was, “Soâspill it!” She really barked it out. She wasn't about to let her roommate hide behind this nap shit, as she would have no doubt put it.
Charlotte could hear Beverly making little breath sounds in time to Britney Spears.
Britney Spears!
No doubt Beverly's head and shoulders were
bobbing to the beat, too. Part of her was deep inside the music, half whispering, half singing, “Come on, Britney, lose control!” The rest of her was right here in the room with a real lungful: “I can't hear you, Charlotte!”
Britney Spears!
No doubt Beverly's head and shoulders were
bobbing to the beat, too. Part of her was deep inside the music, half whispering, half singing, “Come on, Britney, lose control!” The rest of her was right here in the room with a real lungful: “I can't hear you, Charlotte!”
“It was fun,” Charlotte said, extra-foggily.
“Fun? What else? What'd you do?” Under her breath: “Shake it, Britney, shag and roll ⦔
The groggy fog who faced the wall: “Do? We went to dinner and went dancing and stuff.”
“You must have stayed up all night! You sound like shit! You're all curled up on the fucking bed in the middle of the afternoon with the sun shiningâohmygod, I can't believe you! You! Of all peopleâ
hung over! My
roomie! Got fucking ripped with Hoyt Thorpe! I mean where did little Miss Charlotte Library Stacks go? What were you doing all night, anyway?”
hung over! My
roomie! Got fucking ripped with Hoyt Thorpe! I mean where did little Miss Charlotte Library Stacks go? What were you doing all night, anyway?”
“I told you, Beverly.”
“You didn't tell me anything! I want details. Come on! Ohmygod, I never thought I'd be fucking living vicariously through
you
! I mean, you have to tell me everythingâI mean everything!”
you
! I mean, you have to tell me everythingâI mean everything!”
“There's nothing to tell. I'm so tired, really, I just have to take a nap.”
“Well, I mean, you shared a room, right?”
Awkward pause ⦠Charlotte wanted to lie, but she couldn't even imagine what the lie would be. She now realized that no Saint Ray, least of all Hoyt, would be caught dead providing a private room for a date. It wouldn't be so much the cost as the ⦠whipped, unmanly wussiness of it. Beverly would see right through that one.
So she gave in and said, “Yeah.”
“Welllllll ⦔
“There were other people in the room, too.”
“So?”
“So there were four of us in the room. It was like a ⦠a ⦠an encampment. So there's nothing to tell.”
“Wow, an encampment. You mean nothing happened? You're such a fucking prude!”
“I didn't say that. But nothing really major or anything.”
“Ohhhhhhh! So something did happen!”
“Look, I don't even remember. I got so drunk I can't remember anything.”
“Ahhh, a blackout baby. Our Miss Charlotte! Who'd a fucking thought
it! Don't you realize that every blackout baby tries to cop out with this can't-remember shit?”
it! Don't you realize that every blackout baby tries to cop out with this can't-remember shit?”
“I'm not copping out. I can't remember.”
“You're not going to tell me, you little bitch.” Beverly giggled. “You're not going to tell your own roommate? Come on!”
The fog, closing in thicker: “No ⦠I just have to get some sleep; then I have to go write a paper. I'll tell you another time.”
Silence. Long pause. Sarcastic sigh with much musical expelling of the breath between the teeth. Finally: “You know what I say to that, Roomie? That blows.
Eccccchhhhh
. Pardon me while I take my finger out of my throat.”
Eccccchhhhh
. Pardon me while I take my finger out of my throat.”
Beverly departed. She didn't slam the door, she merely gave it a smart
clack
.
clack
.
Charlotte lay there with her eyes closed, trying to dream up better evasions, smoother lies, credible lies, nimble lies, numbing lies, tranquilizing lies, and then she fell into the arms of the Sandman.
The telephone was ringing
. It was dark! She felt disoriented. What time was it? It was dark outside and dark in here. No Beverly. The whole thing descended on her. Was it Hoyt? He's apologizing! She knew inside that wasâwasâbut she rolled off the bed and leaped for the phone. “Hello?”
. It was dark! She felt disoriented. What time was it? It was dark outside and dark in here. No Beverly. The whole thing descended on her. Was it Hoyt? He's apologizing! She knew inside that wasâwasâbut she rolled off the bed and leaped for the phone. “Hello?”
“Hello-o-o-o-oh!” sang Bettina's voice. “So-o-o-oh? How was it?”
“Oh, hi,” Charlotte said in a dead, toneless, obviously disengaged fashion.
“What's wrong with you? If it was anybody but you, I'd say you sound hung over. Was it fun?”
“Yeah, it was fun.”
“You don't exactly sound excited.”
“Well, I'm just so tired.”
“What happened?”
“You know, I just can't talk about it right now. I'm in the middle of an English paper.”
“Oh, come on,” pleaded Bettina. “I'm calling from the library. I'm dying to know.”
“Seriously, I'm so late getting to this paper. I can't talk to you now.”
“Okay. Fine. See you later, I guess.” Bettina hung up, obviously offended.
The phone rang several times that evening, but Charlotte didn't answer it again. All she wanted to do was sleep and forget Dupont ever existed, or go home to Momma and Daddy and forget Dupont ever existed. Forget? Forget
about forgetting in Sparta. The one and only thing everybody in the county would want to talk about would be Dupont. What grand lie could she dream up to explain away Charlotte Simmons's dusty, scuffling, bungling hangdog retreat from the other side of the mountain, where great things had awaited ⦠Charlotte Simmons's return to Sparta and the three stoplights ⦠Up her brain stem bubbled Lucien de Rubempre's ignominious return to Angoulême from Paris on the outside baggage rack of a carriage, hidden beneath a heap of suitcases, carpetbags, and boxes in
Lost Illusions
⦠which in turn detonated a startling reminder of the paper she had to hand in tomorrow morning. Susan Sauer's interpretation of Melanie Nethers ⦠She didn't agree with the stupid thing in the first place, but the seminar leader, a T.A., meaning not a real teacher but a graduate student, meaning her knowledge of pedagogy was nilâthe T.A., the irritable Ms. Zuccotti, regarded Susan Sauer on Melanie Nethers as a piece of critical genius. She had gone so far as to hand out a pamphlet
about
Susan Sauer on Melanie Nethers. Charlotte had scanned it and sized it up immediately as metaphysical sentimentality multiplied by itself, and how was anybody supposed to derive the square root of metaphysical sentimentality taken to the second power and hidden behind a veil of cynicism? ⦠The whole thing was a whiff of some old lady's breath ⦠She was
damned
if she would devote another second of her concentration to some old biddy's gauzy exegesis of another old biddy's gauzy exegesis that no one needed in order to understand that Melanie Nethers was a sick joke. So she sat down at her desk and took some lined loose-leaf notebook sheets and a pencil and wrote out a hasty, half-baked attack on both of them. Who was this Sauer idiot, anyway? And who was this ponderous old Renee Sammelband who wrote the pamphlet? When she finished, she picked up her three pagesâshe had never turned in a paper shorter than six or seven beforeâand read them over. She knew immediately that she had written something witless that gave every indication of having been slung together in a rush. But it was done. That was the main thing. In any case, it was the limit of her energy and patience. All she wanted right now was a little oblivion. Of course, she'd have to go over to the library before she crashed, to the computer cluster, and transcribe and print it out. But first she needed a break. She lay down again. In no time, the Sandman carried her back to the Land of Nod.
about forgetting in Sparta. The one and only thing everybody in the county would want to talk about would be Dupont. What grand lie could she dream up to explain away Charlotte Simmons's dusty, scuffling, bungling hangdog retreat from the other side of the mountain, where great things had awaited ⦠Charlotte Simmons's return to Sparta and the three stoplights ⦠Up her brain stem bubbled Lucien de Rubempre's ignominious return to Angoulême from Paris on the outside baggage rack of a carriage, hidden beneath a heap of suitcases, carpetbags, and boxes in
Lost Illusions
⦠which in turn detonated a startling reminder of the paper she had to hand in tomorrow morning. Susan Sauer's interpretation of Melanie Nethers ⦠She didn't agree with the stupid thing in the first place, but the seminar leader, a T.A., meaning not a real teacher but a graduate student, meaning her knowledge of pedagogy was nilâthe T.A., the irritable Ms. Zuccotti, regarded Susan Sauer on Melanie Nethers as a piece of critical genius. She had gone so far as to hand out a pamphlet
about
Susan Sauer on Melanie Nethers. Charlotte had scanned it and sized it up immediately as metaphysical sentimentality multiplied by itself, and how was anybody supposed to derive the square root of metaphysical sentimentality taken to the second power and hidden behind a veil of cynicism? ⦠The whole thing was a whiff of some old lady's breath ⦠She was
damned
if she would devote another second of her concentration to some old biddy's gauzy exegesis of another old biddy's gauzy exegesis that no one needed in order to understand that Melanie Nethers was a sick joke. So she sat down at her desk and took some lined loose-leaf notebook sheets and a pencil and wrote out a hasty, half-baked attack on both of them. Who was this Sauer idiot, anyway? And who was this ponderous old Renee Sammelband who wrote the pamphlet? When she finished, she picked up her three pagesâshe had never turned in a paper shorter than six or seven beforeâand read them over. She knew immediately that she had written something witless that gave every indication of having been slung together in a rush. But it was done. That was the main thing. In any case, it was the limit of her energy and patience. All she wanted right now was a little oblivion. Of course, she'd have to go over to the library before she crashed, to the computer cluster, and transcribe and print it out. But first she needed a break. She lay down again. In no time, the Sandman carried her back to the Land of Nod.
Some hours laterâshe had no idea how manyâshe was aware of Beverly returning to the room in the dark ⦠aware, and that was all ⦠This time she didn't have to feign sleep, and Beverly didn't contest the matter.
The next day, Monday, Charlotte couldn't get out of bed. Her alarm clock sounded its grating buzz over and over again, and she kept hitting the snooze button. Beverly? Gone, thank God. What was the point of getting up? What was there to look forward to except a lot of uncomfortable questions from Bettina, assuming she would speak to her again, and Mimi, plus, sooner or later, the inevitable interrogation, inquisition, by Beverly, who had picked up the scent of blood. Between now and the beginning of Thanksgiving breakâFriday after this-comingâshe didn't have a great many choices. In fact, it came down to one: hide in the library, do the schoolwork, and avoid everybodyâ
Ohmygod, it was already 9:50âand modern drama started at 10:00! Wellâmight as well just blow it off. For a moment, she was Self-destruction on a pedestal, smiling at Grief. But cutting a class and sleeping would only make her feel more depressed later on. She jumped out of bed. Her jeans were still on the floor where she had left them last night. Diesel â¦
the
jeans she just had to have ⦠She couldn't abide the sight of them. She pulled her wrinkled old print dress over her head, and over that a heavy old pale blue sweater her aunt Betty had knit for her ages ago, and put on her sandals. She didn't even have time to brush her hair. She darted toward the door. Wait a minuteâthe paper. She wheeled aboutâ
damn!
âshe'd never gone to the library and typed it in and printed it out! She retrieved the three loose-leaf sheets from the desk. Once outside, she started to runâsprintâto the library.
Damn!
Couldn't run in sandals! So she took them off and put them in her left hand. She had the sheets of paper in the other.
Now
she ran, she flew, across the courtyard, out onto the sidewalk, across the Great Yard toward the three-story-high majesty of the entrance to Dupont Memorial Library tower. Students laughed at the spectacle as she rushed past, distressed sheets of loose-leaf paper in one hand, a pair of sandals in the other, barefoot, hair wild.
O-kaaaaaaaay
⦠She came barreling into the library and sprinted to the computer clusterâ
sprinted
across the grand lobby, beneath the great Gothic-beribbed dome, barefoot. She heard students laughing. A lot. The soulless carcass of Charlotte Simmons, her frantic bones, her pale, pale hide, her bare feet, were a scream, so far as Dupont was concerned.
the
jeans she just had to have ⦠She couldn't abide the sight of them. She pulled her wrinkled old print dress over her head, and over that a heavy old pale blue sweater her aunt Betty had knit for her ages ago, and put on her sandals. She didn't even have time to brush her hair. She darted toward the door. Wait a minuteâthe paper. She wheeled aboutâ
damn!
âshe'd never gone to the library and typed it in and printed it out! She retrieved the three loose-leaf sheets from the desk. Once outside, she started to runâsprintâto the library.
Damn!
Couldn't run in sandals! So she took them off and put them in her left hand. She had the sheets of paper in the other.
Now
she ran, she flew, across the courtyard, out onto the sidewalk, across the Great Yard toward the three-story-high majesty of the entrance to Dupont Memorial Library tower. Students laughed at the spectacle as she rushed past, distressed sheets of loose-leaf paper in one hand, a pair of sandals in the other, barefoot, hair wild.
O-kaaaaaaaay
⦠She came barreling into the library and sprinted to the computer clusterâ
sprinted
across the grand lobby, beneath the great Gothic-beribbed dome, barefoot. She heard students laughing. A lot. The soulless carcass of Charlotte Simmons, her frantic bones, her pale, pale hide, her bare feet, were a scream, so far as Dupont was concerned.
By the time she finished furiously typing the pages into the computer and printing them out, sweat was running down her face from her temples and her forehead. She knew she must reek from the frenzy of it all. No time for a stapler. She sprinted as fast as she had ever run in her life to Dunston, where the class was, clutching the flapping printout pages in one hand and
her sandals in the other. It was chillier out than she thought. She reached the classroom door almost twenty minutes late. She hastened to put the sandals back on, opened the door, and entered.
Damn!
The strap of the left sandal had twisted so that the sole was half on her foot and half off. But how could she stop now and correct it? So she came limping in, as if crippled. She was breathing with huge, audible heaves, and she shook spastically as a chill hit her. Sniggers all around. Her face was splotched with red and streaked with sweat, which continued to pop out on her forehead and stream downward. Her hair was mashed flat on one side, from sleeping on it, and shaggy as a patch of ragweed on the other. She had obviously thrown her clothes on with no other aim than to cover her body rapidly. The sweater turned out to have a particularly unfortunate stain that made it appear as if she had just dribbled something down the front. A big moth hole on the side made one wonder if she were wearing a bra, which she wasn't. More sniggers. Her face was a picture of fear ⦠of what everybody else in the room must surely think of her. Every inch of Ms. Charlotte Simmons gave off waves and waves of shiftlessness, incompetence, irresponsibility, sloth, flabby character, and the noxious funk of flesh abloom with heat, sweat, fear, and adrenaline. Then there was the ⦠thing ⦠the splayed-apart piece of paper she clutched ⦠crumpled thanks to her fierce grip, wet from sweat. It looked like something the cat dragged in. Sniggers and more sniggers. Ms. Zuccotti broke off in the middle of a sentence and said nothing more until the embarrassment settled herself into a chair at the seminar table. The other twenty-five or -six of them had ample time to concentrate on the creature as it sat there sweating and heaving and gulping air.
Ecce
Charlotte Simmons! âshe who was about to turn in a paper that was purposely, angrily calculated to offend every critical and aesthetic standard she knew Ms. Zuccotti to possess, and was whipped off in an archly juvenile display of cynicism unalloyed by wit, mellifluousness, or pertinent content. Down at the other end of the table, one boy was writing a note for the amusement of another, and the recipient glanced her way and then grinned at the note writer. Who was he? Charlotte was certain she had seen him once at the Saint Ray house. Monday morningâand he already
knew
!
her sandals in the other. It was chillier out than she thought. She reached the classroom door almost twenty minutes late. She hastened to put the sandals back on, opened the door, and entered.
Damn!
The strap of the left sandal had twisted so that the sole was half on her foot and half off. But how could she stop now and correct it? So she came limping in, as if crippled. She was breathing with huge, audible heaves, and she shook spastically as a chill hit her. Sniggers all around. Her face was splotched with red and streaked with sweat, which continued to pop out on her forehead and stream downward. Her hair was mashed flat on one side, from sleeping on it, and shaggy as a patch of ragweed on the other. She had obviously thrown her clothes on with no other aim than to cover her body rapidly. The sweater turned out to have a particularly unfortunate stain that made it appear as if she had just dribbled something down the front. A big moth hole on the side made one wonder if she were wearing a bra, which she wasn't. More sniggers. Her face was a picture of fear ⦠of what everybody else in the room must surely think of her. Every inch of Ms. Charlotte Simmons gave off waves and waves of shiftlessness, incompetence, irresponsibility, sloth, flabby character, and the noxious funk of flesh abloom with heat, sweat, fear, and adrenaline. Then there was the ⦠thing ⦠the splayed-apart piece of paper she clutched ⦠crumpled thanks to her fierce grip, wet from sweat. It looked like something the cat dragged in. Sniggers and more sniggers. Ms. Zuccotti broke off in the middle of a sentence and said nothing more until the embarrassment settled herself into a chair at the seminar table. The other twenty-five or -six of them had ample time to concentrate on the creature as it sat there sweating and heaving and gulping air.
Ecce
Charlotte Simmons! âshe who was about to turn in a paper that was purposely, angrily calculated to offend every critical and aesthetic standard she knew Ms. Zuccotti to possess, and was whipped off in an archly juvenile display of cynicism unalloyed by wit, mellifluousness, or pertinent content. Down at the other end of the table, one boy was writing a note for the amusement of another, and the recipient glanced her way and then grinned at the note writer. Who was he? Charlotte was certain she had seen him once at the Saint Ray house. Monday morningâand he already
knew
!
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