Principles of Love (7 page)

I’m thinking about what I might write to DrakeFan tonight while I jog. Past the health center and funny fish statue and the lower day school, I cut across the back of the science center and make my way towards the real track, even though I have no intention of hauling ass around the blue oval like a track-star wannabe. I like the feel of my sneakers on the cold morning pavement, then how my ankles get icy from the fall dew on the grass. I make the high-jump poles my end mark and sprint the last quarter mile, hoping there’s a bench or somewhere I can have my asthma attack in peace when I’m done. Winded and wiped out, I get to the poles and find the ultimate in resting spots (not as in graveyard, I am not Goth enough for that); the three-foot thick blue mesh pole vaulting mat that’s just starting to warm in the sun. I lie flat on it, staring up at the sky and trees, and catch my breath.

“Which is exactly why the roles of women throughout much of literature condemn females to be either saintly or — for lack of a better word — slutty,” Mr. Chaucer continues and keeps us all captivated. He’s that teacher I imagine looking back on as an adult when someone asks
who’s the best teacher you’ve ever had?
He drops movie references (
Caddyshack
yesterday,
Freaky Friday
— the original one — today) to make points that resonate. He knows everything from TRL to MSG, and — if I must say — has the Harrison Ford circa
Raiders of the Lost Ark
good looks (minus the whip).

“But don’t you think the dichotomy of virgin-whore is overplayed? An academic male construct?” says Harriet Walters without raising her hand. Actually, few people raise hands at Hadley Hall— it’s like some unwritten code that the quasi-intellectual debate we’re capable of doesn’t warrant a kindergarten-style Q&A. Harriet is most likely to go to Smith or Mt. Holyoke, where she’ll dominate the women just like she tramples the guys at Hadley Hall with her pseudo-feminist rantings. Actually, she’s not too annoying. I like her knowledge of Anais Nin and her Dorothy Parker quotes, and the way she changes the underside of her hair every other week — blonde, maroon, blue — this week, she’s got Kermit-green poking out.

“Interesting point,” Mr. Chaucer says. “One you might explore in the next essay. I’d like everyone to try to investigate the parameters of being female in Jane Austen’s
Pride and Prejudice
and
One Hundred Years of Solitude
.” It occurs to me that half of the books that are assigned in high school have titles that convey my typical fears. Heh. “And, if time allows — feel free to watch
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
and
The Piano
and throw those in as focus points, too.” Ah, a mere seventy hours of reading and viewing.

“What about the portrayal of women in teen movies — you know, either the hot girl or the less-obviously attractive friend,” Jacob the Quiet asks from under his lovely shaggy mop of curls. He looks up. “You know — isn’t that pretty much the same thing as the virgin whore scenario?” A) Very cool point and B) Was it my imagination or did Jacob look at me when he said
virgin
?

I complain about the amount of work I have to my dad who does the understanding smile n’ nod combo while circling a beat up Hadley Hall handbook with his infamous red marker. He’s had the two-sided (thin for mere incidents, thick for massive fuck-ups) felt tip for a long time.

“Finding spelling errors?” I ask and tuck my feet under thighs for warmth.

“Changing some language, actually. There’s some outdated stuff in here — and some that needs reiterating, like parietals,” he gives me a look when he says this, as if I’ve even had ONE occasion to go to a boy’s room so far.

“Don’t worry about me, Dad,” I say and reach for
One Hundred Years of Solitude
(aka Love’s Love Life).

“I don’t,” he says and gives my hand a pat. “You’ve always known how to be — you don’t need a guidebook.” He gestures with the Hadley Hall manual. “And I’m proud of you for how you’ve done settling in. It can’t be easy.”

“I’m totally overwhelmed by the amount of work,” I gesture with my book to make my point. “It’s like each teacher thinks they’re the only one assigning reading or problem sets.” Problem sets make me think of Trig and Thompson and how my heart sinks every time I even go near the entryway to her room, but I continue. “Did you have this much to do when you were my age?”

Dad ponders for a second, chewing on his pen cap. “I’m not really sure — I don’t remember, but maybe we did,” he says.

“Well, obviously not enough to make an impact,” I smirk.

“I blocked it out, I guess,” he says and thinks of something but doesn’t say it.

“What?”

He shakes his head and pats my knee. “Nothing. You keep reading.”

I nod, and get back to Marquez and the author’s surreal descriptions and dreamlike images. Part of my wants to keep talking with my dad, find out how
he’s
adjusting to prep school principalhood. He’d no doubt tell me, and even let me in on some behind-the-faculty news and information, but I know that if I neglect my reading I will lag behind and not be able to catch up. And I know that if I attempted to slide into the subject of my mother, he’ll rebuff me.

Plus, according to Cordelia, I
have
to go to the next off-campus bash that falls this Friday, before Columbus Day, which will still give me the rest of the long weekend to immerse myself in fine literature, Blockbuster rentals, and lattes at Slave to the Grind.

Dad looks over at me as he recaps the red pen. “Need anything?”

I think for a minute before responding, “Dad —”

“Love, you know full well I mean from the kitchen,” Dad says, already defensive. Crap — his Scooby-sense is very strong when it comes to times I’m about to ask about my mother.

“Wait — Dad. Just one thing. When she, Mom, was in school, what was she good at? You know, like did she get all As or try out for plays…?” I hate myself when I unintentionally rhyme. “Sports?”

“I didn’t know her in high school,” Dad says and his face lets me know that this case is closed for the night. You’d think that with Google and internet-related answers I’d be able to find out more about the woman who got me into this mess of life in the first place, but to be honest, I haven’t even tried that route. Okay — maybe I typed in my name a couple of times, hoping (hoping = totally panicked about) for an easy link to from Love Bukowski to birthmotheroflove.com, which of course there wasn’t. Which was and is kind of a relief. I guess I know that there’s a reason or plural thereof as to why my dad and Aunt Mable don’t fill me in. But there might come a time when I need to know, when just poking around for clues (did she have copper-colored hair, too? Did it go white in the front in the summer like mine when I’ve been at the beach? Did she love artichokes?) isn’t enough.

“Correct, correct, incorrect, correct,” my math teacher (doesn’t math teacher sound a bit like ass teacher?) hands out our equation sets, each with a check or check plus or, in my case, a check minus (minus = minus the fun)…the only comfort I have is in noticing the red marks are scripted in the same red that my dad uses.

While listening to another go-round of sin and cosign, I rummage in my bag for a Swedish fish. I’m slightly addicted to the individually wrapped chewy red fish, despite their tendency to get jammed in my molars. My candy-fishing leaves me empty-handed, but produces the WAJS card from the voice-over guy. I decide to call him and spend the rest of the class (rest = twelve minutes) scripting the conversation in my head. I’m bad that way — I’ll imagine the way a day or interaction will go and thus be disappointed when it goes differently, or I’ll try and map out what to say and it comes off sounding so sure and determined that it’s more like a speech. Note to self: must mellow. That said, I don’t mellow and proceed to call WAJS from the hallway phone that resembles a Superman-style booth, but made of wood circa 1915.

I emerge from the booth as my own superhero (no, not Friend Girl — she’s been skulking down in the depths recently) but Voice-Over Woman, able to sell zit cream and bowel cleanser like no other. Well, maybe. I am set for an audition on Saturday. That means I can’t stay too too late at the party tonight, lest my lungs suffer from second hand smoke and screaming so as to be heard over the obligatory high-decibel music. Plus, I’ve been falling prey to that mid-fall syndrome of wanting to sleep the shorter days away, waking only for meals.

“Left foot, red. Left hand, green. Oh, Cordelia’s lookin’ good,” some guy working the Twister spinner narrates.

Cordelia’s board game (or, in my case, bored game) partner is one of the MLUTS (Hadley Hall male sluts) of whom I’ve been debriefed (as in given the info on, not as in anything remotely connected to underwear — although, given the guy’s current position on the board, ass-up, hands in an army push-up mode, it’s clear he’s a boxer boy).

“Oh, shit!” Cordelia says, unsteady. Spence Stiller Heller (aka SShhh…), the back-end of the cow in the Hadley Hall fall production of
Into the Woods
comes to join the fun, sloshing beer (pumpkin-flavored in honor of autumn) as he literally bends over backwards to be near Cordelia. “Love, Love! Come on!” Cordelia shouts when she sees me leaning on the railing, watching safely from the sidelines.

“No thanks!” I say, trying for cheery and upbeat, not at all snubbing, even though I wouldn’t want to be caught dead playing Drunken Twister. First of all, I’m not drunk. Second of all —

I cut my own thoughts off when I notice I’m leaning my ass on a wet patch. Please be just beer, I wish silently to the growing splotch of wet on my backside as I take off my fleece and tie it around my waist. I’m like that girl in the old tampon ad who happens to wear white pants at an inopportune moment, but rather than looking menstrual, I look incontinent. Yummy! I make my way inside in search of a bathroom, but have to go upstairs to find one that’s unoccupied (what is it about bedrooms and bathrooms at parties —wait, I’m not an idiot, I know people like the idea of getting it on in small spaces. Nothing more romantic than left foot, toilet, right foot, sink).

“Hey — Love, right?” I bump into a guy I vaguely know is friends with Robinson Hall. Luckily for me, Robinson is not here to witness my peed-in-pants look, and his friend knows my name!

“Yeah — I’m Love,” I say.

“I’m Channing.” Another one of those only-at-prep-school names, but he’s adorable in a Real World way (as in he’d be the nice, cute guy who hooks up with the cute girl and then drops her in week five of the show). “And this is Chris.”

Chris, the top MLUT at Hadley, is apparently notorious for marking his conquests with a special hickey (he’s English so he calls hickies Love Bites — an omen?) on the belly. This is all courtesy of Cordelia, who has received the belly-mark on two separate occasions.

“Hi,” I say, copying my dad’s nod n’ smile.

I make my way past Channing and Chris finally get to the bathroom, open the door and turn on the light only to reveal Harriet Walters, the English class feminista straddling Spence Stiller Heller (aka SShhh), which is bizarre for any number of reasons, not the least of which is SShhh’s rather back end of the cow-like stance on the floor. It’s unclear whether they’re rehearsing for a scene in the play or hooking up.

“Sorry,” I blush and back out. Never underestimate the power of a keg and high school hormones to override any burgeoning political views. SShhh is one of MLUTS on campus — and I’d have thought that Harriet would steer (ha! Steer — as in cow!) clear of him, but I guess not.

Outside, I begin the long walk back to campus. The noise of the party seeps out from the house and dwindles as I get further up the road. It’s funny how far away the party house seemed that first time, but now that I’ve gradually been learning my Hadley Hall geography and getting to recognize the various Victorian and ranch houses on the outskirts of campus, clocking the distance from my house to the T station to Slave to the Grind, the walk back is only about twenty minutes.

Ten minutes into it, with my underwear officially stuck to my butt cheeks, I’m nearly to the intersection near the very south end of campus.

“Hey — Love!”

I spin around. If this moment were a John Hughes movie, Robinson would be sauntering up towards me, hands shoved deep in his pockets so I wouldn’t see him shaking and he’d cup the back of my head, tangle his fingers in my hair and pull into him so that we could —

“Oh, hi, Chris,” I say to Hickey MLUT.

An ambulance whizzes by, sirens breaking the quiet campus night. Chris points to the blaring and says, “AP — bad scene.”

“Excuse me?”

“Alcohol poisoning — some freshman. Pretty lucky for her someone found her passed out in the master bedroom and called 911.”

Chris shuffles along next to me. Life is so weird sometimes. I know useless trying to plan out conversations (even though I’ll probably do it forever) or predict what will be. I sure as hell never pictured walking along in the brisk night, my feet scraping the sidewalk, heading home from a lame party with a MLUT for company. Chris talks and talks, his English accent alluring and distracting. He talks about English sweets (candy = sweets) that he misses form home and whips out — no, not that — a Curly Whirly, a sort-pf braided caramel rope covered in chocolate. He walks me back up to my house and we sit in the circle of the field hockey playing grounds.

“You’d look good in one of those little skirts,” Chris says, chewing and miming a field hockey face off.

“I don’t think so,” I say, not in the way that says
bad body image
, but in the
that’s not gonna happen
way.

Just as I’m thinking Chris isn’t such a slut after all, and our conversation is good, he tries to feed me the remaining bit of Curly Whirly, sliding it into my mouth in a decidedly un-Wonkalike fashion.

“Whoa, there,” I say as if I’ve somehow stumbled into a Western flick.

“What?” Chris has that guy dopey look on his face, and is leaning in to kiss me when I stand up. He follows my lead like what I’m really saying is
I prefer to be tongue-kissed standing up
.