Principles of Love (10 page)

I hug my dad hard, twice and do a dorky little I-have-a-car dance.

“I’m going out this afternoon. Or maybe,” I look at my watch. Only one more class left today. “Maybe right now.”

My dad’s face sours. “Love, you know that there are no car privileges during the day.” With all the handbook rules, it’s impossible to keep them straight — you can drive to and from school, but you can’t leave campus during academic hours, you must get written permission from a dorm parent to drive a boarding student anywhere, blah blah blah. I have a car! I can tell he’s about to go into principal mode so I skirt around it by nodding so vigorously I nearly do whiplash damage and thank him again.

I eat my sandwich next to Cordelia and fade in and out of Halloween conversation (not really bobbing for apples so much as bobbing for boys), all the while thinking of myself behind the wheel.

After I finally complete my ten page outline for my history term paper (the paper itself has to be twenty-five pages long. I can’t even write ONE song and yet I’m supposed to produce a tome on treaties and taxes — Oh well), I skip the pumpkin pie dessert my dad’s offered and head over to main campus — courtesy of my new car — for the mid-week All Saint’s Social. The title is from back in the 1930s when Hadley Hall still had a boys’ school and a girls’ school, separated by geography and academics, but united by dating potential.

Just like back then, the rotunda is turned into a sort-of barn dance meets horror show, with blindfolded apple-bobbing and donuts strung up on strings that you have to jump up and try to catch. Masked students (only partially masked these days, due to safety concerns) and vampire-fanged faculty members stroll around offering punch that looks like blood. Rumor has it that the broom closets and music practice rooms fill up on social nights such as these — people hook up underneath pianos or while leaning up against cleaning supplies. I have to say, I’ve never fantasized about getting together with anyone with the scent of ammonia and Lemon Pledge wafting in the air. Then again, the opportunity hasn’t really presented itself.

“Candy apple?” Robinson asks, stretching out a silver tray dotted with bulbous red and caramel Macintoshes. He’s dressed in peach-colored long underwear (who ever thought long johns could be so sexy?) with green silk leaves sewn over the crotch. He notices me staring.

“I’m supposed to be Adam,” he says.

“Oh, I get it,” I say and divert my eyes. “Thus the apples?”

“Yes,” he says. “They’re three dollars — to raise money for the annual class gift.”

He sees me rummage in my pocket for money, but come up empty-handed of change or cash, only my license. Robinson sets the tray down on a bale of hay (the campus clean-up crew will have their hands full later) and studies my photo-id.

“Not bad,” he says. Hey, just like the Springsteen song I like — she isn’t a beauty but she’s okay. In this context, it’s not what I’m hoping to hear. Then he reconsiders his word choice. “Just kidding. It’s a great shot.” He hands me an apple from the tray. “Don’t worry about the money. I’ll chip in for you.”

“I’ll owe you,” I say and it comes out suggestively, at least to my ears.

“And I’ll hold you to that,” he says. “You can give me a ride some time.” I nearly choke on my caramel until I realize he means, of course, in my car. He gives my license back and I slip it into my back pocket.

Thursday in morning assembly, Lila Lawrence strides over to me and crouches by my desk.

“I heard you got the forbidden fruit from Adam last night,” she says. When I ask her what she means and worry that she overheard my slightly flirty apple conversation with Robinson last night she says, “I was Eve, but I had too much work to actually put in much of an appearance in the garden. I must’ve just missed you at the end.”

“It was fun — but you didn’t miss anything huge. Just a couple of your teammates dressed as the Hilton sisters, which didn’t require much costuming,” I say. The Nicky and Paris wannabes also made some snide comment about my showing up costumeless and refused to believe I didn’t know about the dress-up factor (which I DIDN’T) and insisted because my dad is the principal, that I feel I’m somehow outside of the rules and regulations (um, is wearing a costume a regulatory situation?).

Before we can get shushed by my awful math teacher Ms. Thompson who lords over the assembly with her check list of attendance and discipline records, Lila tells me Robinson wants a date…with me. And I’m sure I’m going to puke until she explains.

“So, are you up for it? Robinson’ll be so psyched — I guess Channing has sort-of admired you from afar. He’s Robinson’s best friend — well, at Hadley anyway.” Borders always make the distinction between their lives at Hadley and their home lives, like the realities were totally separate.

“Oh, Channing. He friend. A double date.” I nod. “He’d be my date?”

Lila nods, eyes wide. She’s clearly eager for this to happen. “He’s so sweet — and pretty cute, don’t you think?” I hadn’t really noticed, but sure. She senses my hesitation, but I doubt she knows why. Do I really want to subject myself to a first-hand account of Robinson and perfect Lila drooling all over their mutual flawlessness? “Come on, it’ll be fun.”

“Okay, sure. Why not?” I say and before I know it, I’ve agreed to drive

“And you’re sure your dad will let you?”

“Pretty sure. Yeah.”

And can the maxi-pad ad I recorded make its debut during the date? You bet.

Me, Lila, Channing and Robinson are parked outside Bartley’s Burgers, the place I went with Aunt Mable, and are about to head inside when the ad comes on and Lila’s like, “Wait a second — can we just listen to the end of this song? I love it.” The guys think this is semi-annoying but humor her, and I completely understand — you can’t leave “Helplessly Hoping” in the middle.

Unfortunately, the song leads seamlessly into me singing “If protection’s what you need, maxi-pads are friends indeed…” and so on. I reach for the volume but Lila swats my hand away.

“Wait a second…”

I try again to get to the volume button but Lila has inserted herself in front of the control panel. “Shh — you guys, listen!” she says. Channing and Robinson lean forward and soon Robinson is cracking up.

“Love, this is you, isn’t it?” Robinson asks. The guys begin to laugh.

“Maybe,” I say. I’m not one to cower based on some menstrual marketing.

“No, it is,” Channing says. “You have a really distinctive voice.”

I make light of the potentially heavy flow of comments — heh. “Yup, that’s me, cramp girl.”

“I think you mean Cramp Woman, no?” Robinson asks.

Lila laughs hard and then chokes on her own giggles. “Hey, when you’re famous, we can hear this clip on E! when they dig up your past.”

Robinson pokes my waist from the back seat. “Hey — if you get lucky, you think they’ll let you hawk hemorrhoid creams? They take away the swelling…”

I turn around and peer at him from between the seats. “How do you know so much about rectal ointments?”

Lila smiles. “Foiled again, Rob,” she says and we go inside for our burgers.

Lila and I share fries and swap burgers half-way through, which the guys find funny. Channing, Lila, and Robinson are all boarders and they talk about Thanksgiving plans which involve going home to the Upper East Side of Manhattan (Robinson) to visiting his dad out in Denver (Channing) to spending the first half of the day at the teenage shelter where she worked over the summer (Lila) and the second half of the day with her mother at Elizabeth Arden Day Spa to prepare for the formal dinner at her ancestral home in Newport (also Lila). The house is, in Robinson’s words, kick-ass with phenomenal views of the harbor. Hearing this makes the reality of their relationship hit me — they’ve probably had sex in the water, in her mansion, under the crystal and china-set table in the dining room of Robinson’s parent’s “flat” (for some reason, he uses the British word for apartment, which could be affected and maybe is, but still strikes me as cute. The guy could vomit on me and I’d still be attracted to him.). I say how I’m destined to be marooned on campus, trapped in faculty housing with multiple turkey dinners and the English exchange student (the school gets one per year from St. Paul’s School in London) who has to stay with us until the dorms reopen.

After we drop the guys off at Whitcomb, Lila and I drive around the campus for a while before I circle in front of Frukner House, where she lives.

“You think you can do me a favor?” she asks.

“Sure,” I say. “Of course — and thanks for tonight, by the way. It was actually fun.”

“Oh, shock of all shocks Love has fun! Anyway, I have an, um, appointment in the center of town tomorrow afternoon — can you drive me? If I walk, I won’t make it to practice in time.”

“Yeah, just meet me at the back parking lot,” I say. “And don’t forget to sign out.” Lila makes a face that says
duh
but doesn’t say it and gives a wave as she walks to her dorm.

Winded and with that simultaneously hot and freezing feeling (freezing thighs, hot face) of a nearly-winter post-run, I collapse onto the high jump mat and tuck my hands into my sleeves for warmth. I’m wearing a Hadley Hall sweatshirt — my first — and I let myself drift ahead in time to when the thing is worn and faded. How many days and years will have passed? How many kisses delivered to my mouth? Tears wiped on the sleeves?

Suddenly, the mat dips behind me and makes my head tip back.

“What the hell?” I ask and prop myself up.

“Oh, hey, Love,” Robinson exhales and breathes hard. “Quite the coincidence.”

“What brings you to my special running recuperation place?” I ask. “Stalking me, are you?”

“Yes, you found me out, I am obsessed…” He makes a crazy face with wide eyes and claw-hands and then we lie in silence as the wind whips the empty-limbed tree branches back and forth. “I love it here.”

“Here, Hadley Hall or here, the blue squishy mat?”

“Both, I guess,” Robinson keeps his body still but turns his face so it faces mine. We’re maybe two feet away from each other on the mesh surface. “I mean, my whole family’s gone to Hadley Hall— four generations. So, yeah, I think it’s pretty cool. Even though it’s too much work and I hate my dorm parents.”

“I thought the Von Tausig’s were supposed to be cool,” I say.

“In theory — but not to me. Somehow they got it into their heads that I’m this uptight New Yorker with a chip on my shoulder about listening to authority. Which is complete bullshit since, if anything, I’m way too play by the rules.”

“So they’re out to get you?”

“In a word — yes. I think it’s their goal for this year. They’re placing bets; will Robinson fuck up before he graduates?”

“And what are the odds?”

He shrugs. “Don’t know.” He moves his arm so the edge of his jacket brushes my sweatshirt sleeve. He sits up and looks down at me. “Wow — it’s so bright.” He stops short of touching the Hadley Hall lettering on the sleeve of my sweatshirt.

“I just got it at the bookstore,” I say. “It’s very, very new. Like me.”

Robinson smiles and tilts his head. “You’re not as new as you think,” he says.

“Oh, really?” I look up at him and wish the rest of the world would sink into the ocean and I could reach up and pull him down to me.

“You play up the New Girl thing, but I think you get it — you have your place here.”

I think about asking what place that is, what my role is in his mind, but I don’t. For once, I don’t prod and poke, I just enjoy my few minutes of morning with this incredible guy. This incredibly taken guy.

I lean up on my hand. “I’ve got to go,” I say and roll my way off the mat. Robinson doesn’t say move. He just does what guys do really well; watch you walk in such a way that lets you know they haven’t taken their eyes off you for a second without saying anything.

It’s not without irony that I am offered the holiday series of ads for Mattress Discounters. I belt out their jingles and pump up their slogans, enthusiastically record the slashed prices and pre-Christmas deals with my best future-singing sensation voice. The manager at WAJS calls me after the double session with some news. I figure my run is up and I’m fired, but instead, the bedding big shots are so psyched about my performance that they give me a bonus of…no, not money. NO, not fame. The mattress of my choice.

I take Mable with me to pick out my first queen-sized bed and we’re given the spiel about different coils and ticking (ticking = the thread color on the mattress — um, who cares? I do, I pretend, since I’m now a mattress world insider).

“This one’s cushier,” I say flopping down on a sheetless bed.

“But this one is firm — and as you get older — don’t look at me like that, Love. As you get older — and you will — a mattress with support is key,” Mable says.

“What’s the point of even having a queen-size if I’m destined to spend the rest of my life alone?” I ask, full of mock-woe-is-me. The store manager asks if I’ve made my decision. I tell him I need a minute.

Mable says, “It’s not so bad sleeping alone, Love.”

“Hello? I have ALWAYS slept alone,” I say a bit too loudly, drawing attention from nearby shoppers who flee from me.

“Speaking of which, I want you to meet my coffee distributor,” Mable has a goofy look on her face. “You’ll really like him. I do. I think.”

“Has he made it over the three-date hurdle?” I ask. Mable has a habit of chucking men out after the third date when she says they stop listening and asking questions and just wait to, well, count the coils on your mattress.

“Actually,” she admits, “We’re way past that.”

“Sounds like I should meet him,” I say. At least this explains why Mable’s been slightly less available of late. She’s busy having a love life. While I, Love, have none of myself.

I wind up choosing the semi-firm queen-size with the extra layer of quilted padding on top and need to then spend money on deep-fitting sheets. Sheets that might only ever know me. The ticking is aqua-colored.

“One, two, three, four!” Harriet Walters leads in with the bass and Jennifer With Some Unpronounceable Last Name drums. I follow the lead guitarist, Chris the MLUT of all people, and miss my cue. Again.