Principles of Love (15 page)

Waking at five in the morning with Jacob’s head on my shoulder, my arm twisted and cramped on the chair, makes me wince in pain and then gasp with the rush of reality: I never went home. I slept here. With him. Not slept with but next to, and oh my God I need to magically fly into my window (Peter Pan where are you?) and be able to walk down the spiral stairs and into the kitchen where in a couple hours my dad will be making his traditional Sunday morning shape pancakes (letters, weirdly shaped animals, Pollack-esque designs made from dribbling batter from a fork).

“Shit,” I say and nudge Jacob.

“I know,” he says sheepishly, but grinning. It was worth it — I think. I hope.

“We’ve got to get out of here. Now.”

I do a thirty-second tidying up when Jacob goes to the bathroom and then we slink out the side door. We lock up, and book it back towards the T. Of course, the T doesn’t start running this early on Sundays, so we’re screwed. Jacob saves the day by calling a taxi with his cell phone and we get the car to stop several blocks away from campus. The light is just shifting from night to morning and soon the smoke will curl from the dorms and my dad will wake up.

Jacob and I stand in the clearing in back of the library and wait for one of us to do something. My heart is racing from the way he’s staring at me — he’s got dark blue eyes rimmed with yellow, and he’s tall, so when he hugs me I feel enveloped and safe.

Unlike I do when I decide to tell my first nose-growing whopper lie to my dad. Sure, I’ve done the “no, I don’t have any homework” line to avoid being sent upstairs during Thursday night tv, but until this moment I haven’t ever crafted an intentionally big lie. I haven’t had to. Even the car thing was more like an oversight, a part of life I left out explaining. But this I can’t get out of, especially after finally winning back regular Dad (as opposed to militant principal Bukowski).

I unlock the front door and sit at the kitchen table, waiting for my dad. First I sit in my jacket, going over my lines. Six-thirty. He’ll be emerging in his robe soon, with his hair sticking up on one side. Seven. I hang up my jacket on one of the brass hooks that poke out from the hall closet. Seven fifteen and I’m changed into sweats and by seven thirty I’m drinking coffee and reading a day-old Boston Globe. Then I reconsider and go out the front door onto the porch and pick up the blue-wrapped Sunday Globe — it gets delivered each week. If my dad came down now, would he know that I didn’t just wake up and trot downstairs having slept soundly in my bed all night?

I’m weighing the pros and cons of trying my hand at that — it’s conceivable that he fell asleep at eleven and figured I’d returned really late after closing up Slave to the Grind and tiptoed in. But would he have checked on me? Hard to say.

Before I can decide which tack to take (“Boy, late night” versus the “I slept at Cordelia’s”), the key turns in the lock and, instead of coming out from his bedroom, Dad comes in wearing jacket and hat, fully dressed. He looks embarrassed and then covers it by taking out the frying pan and Aunt Jemima mix before even removing his gloves.

“Morning,” he kisses the top of my head and gets cooking. The pancakes are just circles this time, nothing out of the ordinary, and so is the conversation. No direct lies on my part (“How was the open mike night?” “Great!”) and no clarifying on his part as to his prior whereabouts. Out for a morning jaunt? Out all night? Neither of us says. We just pass sections of the paper back and forth and take turns with the syrup.

In my journal, tiny fragments of what I can only call My Night with J. (why am I so lame that I have to abbreviate him even in my own journal?!) are turning into yet another (probably) unfinished song. But at least I’m writing something. And I know I’ll want to look back on this feeling, to remember the way he moved my hair out of my eye and gave me the first bite of his crispy treat, the way his body moved on stage. Either I’ll look back on this and have a record of the early days of my relationship with Jacob or I’ll have notes on a wishful-thinking level of something that never panned out.

The phone rings while I’m sorting laundry (more unmatched socks and a now-pink bra that until I washed it with a red tee-shirt was white) for school tomorrow. Lila’s voice comes through, and I tell my dad to hang up, I’ve got it.

“I’m, like, so sore from skiing,” is the first thing out of her mouth. She relates the trek to the chalet, the black diamond trails, the hot Swiss
garcon
she eyed from afar, and then stops, letting silence fill up a full minute.

“So,” I say to Lila, trying not to sound like I’m bursting with news of her possible-pregnancy, “are you…” I don’t complete my question, figuring she’ll do it for me. While I wait for her response, I type quietly to DrakeFan, asking how his break was, telling him (without really telling him) what I did — the movies, the squash, the open mike night that I describe as “amazing” but leave it at that.

“Lila?” I ask. “Are you okay?”

Finally, after what seems like ages, Lila says, “I’m actually — I gotta go.”

“You sound like there’s more to say — did you…?” I start but she cuts me off.

“Shit — my mom’s outside my door — I have to go catch the shuttle back. See you tomorrow.”

Maybe because of my very early morning before or maybe because my head is going to explode, my eyes open — windows to my state of minor panic — at six. Seventies music fails to chill me out so I go for a run. I head right for the high jump mat and lie there, flat, gazing skyward and watching the small flakes fall. I try to catch them on my tongue, but they’re too light.

In the movie version of this moment, there are so many songs that could play over the opening shots, so many ways this film could begin; Jacob finds me and pulls me up, we try to stand on the mat but collapse into the squishy mesh and kiss, his hands exploring my hair, my body, sliding under my Gortex. Or Robinson, back from break and searching for me, finds me at what he calls “our place” and without saying anything, just takes me face in his hands and his kiss explains how long he’s wanted this to happen. Or maybe Aunt Mable comes and apologizes for deserting me lately, and tells me she’s planned girlie time for this weekend, with vintage clothes shopping and burgers. Or my dad — who with a tear-jerker song playing in the background, appears to tell me he knows about my tryst (does not kissing but sleeping next to someone count as a tryst?) and it’s okay, that he just wants to know me better, know my life.

I’m so crazy confused right now that I don’t even know what I’d pick if I had the chance. I get up and jog home, shower and scarf a Cliff Bar (chocolate chip = the best flavor) and head to assembly.

I prepare for English not by going over the first couple of chapters of
The Moviegoer
(by Walter Percy, our required reading) but by fixing my hair in the huge women’s bathroom upstairs and wishing my nose weren’t quite so red from the cold. I slather on the Burt’s Bees lip salve from my pocket and do an ass check (as in, any VPLs? No. Sit in anything gross? No.)

But in class, Quiet Jacob — just Jacob now — isn’t there. Massive let down and minor grey cloud looming overhead. And just when I’m doodling the lyrics to that song he sang at the coffee house, Mr. Chaucer chimes in with the due date for the final essay competition and how — he stands behind me and, I swear, gives a tap on my chair — he hopes some of us will consider submitting.

I lug my ridiculously heavy book bag over to Slave to the Grind and am set with a decaf (yes, easy on the caffeine when the mind is a sea of sloshing worries) and my newly purchased Spanish textbook. I’m in Advanced French but starting Spanish this term with the hopes that since I already understand how to conjugate in one romance language, earning another won’t be too hard. But I feel like an idiot starting over with the “my name is” vocab and learning to say useless things like “Senora Velázquez lives in a yellow house” and “Marta likes to purchase peppers at the green grocer.” Our first assignment is to do a collage. A
Family Circle
-inspired craft project involving cutting images from magazines or drawing and filling two halves of construction paper with one side representing “Me Gusta!” (I like!) and the other “No Me Gusta!” (yes, say it with me, I don’t like!).

So far, I have a kitten cut-out and pasted on the No side and a photocopy of Fiona Apple’s first CD cover and a Swedish fish wrapper on the other. A ways to go. Giving me inspiration, however (at least of things to put on the No Me Gusta side) is the view in front of me. Robinson and Lila ordering coffees and taking them to the very chair Jacob and I sat in the other night. Fine, so they don’t share it — but still — I’m at the back where they don’t notice me and, since they have neither books nor laptops, this visit is not work-related. I sink further down in my couch spot and try to think of the Spanish words for
jealousy
,
lust
, and
love
— oh I know that one — Amor. It’s the same in many languages.

From the open window near my bed I can hear a faint chorus of “Walkin’ in a Winter Wonderland” as sung by the Hadley Hall Girls’ Octet. Lila and the other chirpy singers are no doubt boot-clad and frosty-lipped singing into the microphones that project the tunes campus wide via speakers. I keep my window open despite the below freezing temps outside because I like to burrow under my comforter for warmth and still feel the refreshing blast of cold air.

I’m about to leave my room and head to main campus for the annual Mid-Winter Carnival but decide to give in to my email addiction — one last check before tromping through the snow.

This is what I have in my in-box: Spam asking me if I want to enlarge my penis (Um, no, thanks), an offer to meet singles in my area (nope, not THAT desperate yet — give me a couple years of this nunlike existence and we’ll see) and a message from DrakeFan that reads:

Love —

Enough is enough, don’t you think? After months of this electronic friendship/courtship, don’t you think we should meet face to face? I’m not much for amusement rides, but what about the Grease-inspired shake box at the Winter Carnival? Or the ice sculptures? I’ll check my in box in a bit and see if you’ve gotten this message — Hope you’re up to it — nothing ventured, nothing gained.

—DF

Shitshitshitshitshit. Why did I think DrakeFan would let me live in the comfort of anonymity forever? Granted, he (or, ah, SHE?) is the anonymous one anyway — I’m Love and they know it, so the problem is… Me. I am the rate-limiting factor here and I shake my way (thanks to the cold and my nerves) over to the rush of rides and cotton candy-scented air.

My dad’s already in place as a the target for tinted snowballs; small pink, medium orange, large purple — for the mere price of five for three dollars, all to benefit the scholarship fund. Ms. Thompson, taking a break from rubbing my ass in math and terror, takes aim and whaps him in the chest. She obviously has it out for me and any friends or relations of mine. I wave to dad but bypass pelting him and head for a snow-cone. Scooping the blueberry crushed ice into my mouth I’m aware of the fact that I will look like a Muppet soon, sky-hued tongue and lips.

Robinson comes up to me as I’m standing near an ice sculpture heart. It stands on the bottom point and rises upward about eight feet, dwarfing me in its clear, cold form.

“Aren’t you quite the vision?” he asks and gives me a thump on the shoulder. “I haven’t seen you around much lately — what’s up?”

“Work — busy — you know,” I say, uninspired by my own words but enjoying my sugary mess. Robinson opens his mouth like a bird and moves in for a scoop. I feed him one and manage not to drip the blue goop anywhere (nor to drool on him; a feat in itself). “I would have been here sooner, but I was on line.”

Robinson looks at me and winks. “Me, too.”

Heart rate = way too fast. Lips = numb. Silence = awkward. I break it. “Really?” I grin at him. “What were you doing?” I stretch out each word so it’s clear I know he’s up to something and he knows I know.

Robinson grins and chucks my empty dish into the trash, then pulls me closer to the heart sculpture. “Try this,” he says and presses his lips to the ice heart.

“No way,” I say. “I saw that movie where the kid gets his tongue stuck to the lamppost.” Robinson pulls back from the sculpture and shows me the outline of blue from his mouth. I want to press my own mouth against the mark just to feel the shape of his lips, but of course, that wouldn’t be the most subtle thing to do so instead I ask again, “Robinson — what exactly were you doing on line?”

“Ah,” he says, “That’s for me to know and you — maybe — to find out.”

As if I don’t know already. Sculptures, on line, Robinson is DrakeFan but clearly wants to keep up the charade a bit longer. And so I go along with it.

All the hot cider, sno-cones and cocoa has made peeing a complete necessity so I go to the bathroom in the science center. On my way outside via the back door, I hear giggles and see four legs wrapped around each other, kicking in the snow. In a decidedly nonangelic position, Lila and Channing roll around on each other, kissing and cracking up. So much for finding and confronting Lila — I’m not about to break up the snow party she’s having with my one official campus kiss. Not that I regret not following through with Channing — he’s still kind of a wet mop in my eyes — but it feels funny to see them together just the same.

However, one thought that does become clear is that if she’s making out with Channing, she’s probably not going out with Robinson anymore. But why the coffee talks and her seeming avoidance of me? She’s either going to be showing soon and asking me for a ride to the maternity shops on Newbury Street or she’s not pregnant or she’s been pregnant and isn’t anymore. Whatever the situation, I wish she’d tell me.

I ride on the tilt-a-whirl with Cordelia and Chris the MLUT.

“How’s things?” Chris asks at full volume.

“Fine,” Cordelia and I say at the say time.

“I never really told you,” Chris says, “But I liked your band audition.” I’d forgotten about Tastes Like Chicken and Chris’s guitar playing.