What It Was Like (21 page)

Confident that I was thinking maturely and productively, I finished my Linzer cookie and milk, went home, showered, and got into bed. There, I stayed awake until the early, gray dawn, telling myself lies. I missed her everyday and couldn't go for any extended period of time without returning to thoughts of her.

I will admit that I was feeling a little depressed when I got back to the dorm on that cold, drizzly Sunday night after a delayed train and having to ride with a homeless guy asleep in his own urine-soaked pants on the Broadway local. When I slogged into my room half drenched, Roommate A and a couple of the other freshmen were sitting around, talking and smoking Gauloises. I had to shoo one of them, a heavy guy named Harlan, off my bed. I disliked feeling another person's warmth on my bed, but what could I do? I had been gone all weekend.

They were talking about this mixer a bunch of them went to at Fordham on Saturday, looking for “easy Catholic girls.”

“Isn't that redundant?” Roommate A remarked.

“How did you do?” I asked.

“They weren't so easy.”

We all laughed, guys complaining about girls, something we all had in common.

Roommate A pointed at me with a stab of his thumb and said, “This guy disappears every weekend for home nookie. He has no right to laugh. He willingly crawls back down, down, down into the cultural sewer that is
Lawn-Giland
!”

“I'm not laughing,” I laughed along with everybody, in spite of myself.

I have to say that I despise that Manhattan hipper-than-thou thing, whether they're preppies or hipsters, Collegiate or Dalton. On the one hand, I, like all good Long Island boys, couldn't wait to get the hell off the Island and its unremitting flatness, both physical and spiritual, and escape the stifling boredom of the suburbs to the Glittering City and all its glamour and potential rewards – and here I was, going
back
to the Island every weekend. Because, on that other hand was Rachel, who gave me a reason, a very good reason, the
best possible
reason to go back. Didn't the Beatles plainly say, “All You Need Is Love”? That seems to be what all this great literature I've been studying says. And if I avoided engaging in the social challenges of Columbia and competing with all these other smart guys, well, that was just a side benefit of my greater emotion.

He continued, “Did you ever get one of her calls for him on the hall phone? This tiny princess-y voice – ‘
Is he there?
'
–
I hope she's worth it, kiddo.”

“Oh, she is . . .” I answered. “Kiddo.”

These poor privileged schnooks, all looking for a girl, any girl. They would die for what I already had.

≁

My hope for a positive week, anxiously nurtured through a Monday of dreary classes, vanished Monday night. I called Rachel at 8:00 sharp from one of the phone booths in the mailroom – my “lucky” booth, the one on the right – and could instantly tell that something was wrong.

“Wait a second,” she said, and put the phone down for long time, at least five minutes.

She came back on the line just as I was about to hang up.

“Sorry, baby,” she whispered as she picked up the line.

“What's the matter?” I asked her.

“Nothing. Everything,” she said softly. “She's on the warpath. They want me to go to this College Night for Seniors. I've already been to a bunch of these stupid things, and I just refuse to go to any more.”

“OK,” I said. “Do what you like.”

“What?” she reproached me. “You
agree
with them?”

I tried to be calm and said, “I just want you to be happy. But I don't want you to be constantly fighting with them.”

“Well, you're not here!” she said, her voice raised in frustration.

I let there be a silence and then muttered, “No, you're right. I'm not.”

Then there was another silence, for a longer time.

Trying to keep things going, I asked her, “So what have you been doing tonight?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Sitting in my room, not doing my homework. Reading
The Group
, looking for the dirty parts.”

“How are they?” I snickered.

“We can do better,” she murmured.

“So just hang on until Friday and –” I said.

“I'll be happy
on
Friday,” she said firmly. “When we're together. But until then –”

“Until then,” I interrupted in an affirming voice. “We're both going to be positive and do what we have to do and make the best of everything. It's what
I
try to do.”

“Well, you're better than me,” she muttered.

“No, I'm not,” I said. “I'm the same as you.”

There was a pause. Then I continued, “We have to find ways to be happy when we're not together.”

“
Why
?” she asked.

There was another space of silence.

“I haven't been sleeping much lately,” she said. “I'm going to steal some of Hell-eanor's sleeping pills. She won't miss them.
Or
I could just give her an accidental overdose.”

“Don't do that,” I said. “Why haven't you been sleeping?”

“Would you just make the week go faster?” she said in a small voice.

“I'll do what I can,” I said, trying to sound warm and reassuring. That's what she needed, and I tried to channel all the comfort I could through the phone. “You'll see: we're going to be
fine
.”

“I know we are,” she said back listlessly.

“No,” I said. “We
are
!
 
I want to hear some enthusiasm!”

“I have to go,” she sighed.

“Don't do this,” I said.

“I'll call you tomorrow,” she said. “I love you.”

And she hung up before I could get out an “I love you” back to her.

≁

The rest of the week was like that: sweet-and-sour phone calls, separated by long bouts of studying and worrying. She told me that she went to the College Night with Eleanor, just as I had asked her to, but it was a disaster. (“I told you I wasn't interested in all that junk. I don't know why I listen to anybody.”) She told me that the family lawyer postponed the meeting with her, which I thought sounded strange but didn't tell her that. Other than that, she said that she tried to stay in her room as much as possible, reading trashy novels (“I was up until after three in the
Valley Of The Dolls.
Jacqueline Susann is just an OK writer, but I'm learning so much good stuff about pills!”) and not doing her homework.

Eleanor and Manny were also fighting over where Rachel would spend Thanksgiving.

“They don't even like me when I'm around,” she fretted. “But they keep fighting over me just so they have something to fight
over
.”

“Forget about them,” I said. “Think about us.”

“I
do
!”
 
she said. “All the time! That's what keeps me going. My love for you.”

When she said things like that, why on Earth should I moan? It made it easier to get through the week until Friday.

≁

I was late getting out to the Island on Friday afternoon. I hated getting out late, having to fight the crowds on the subway, fight the crowds in Penn Station, and fight my way to a seat on the Long Island Railroad, all the while carrying my small suitcase, which made everything clumsier and annoying for me and everyone around me. The problem was that I'd had to see Professor Brilliant, and he had office hours only on Friday afternoons, from 2:00 to 4:00. How considerate. He said it was to build character. I think it just built resentment. I don't want to get into too much detail about my relationship with Professor Brilliant because he testified at my trial, but later I may have to, if I'm going to tell the absolute truth (which, by the way, I have been doing all along).

Sitting in the moving train, nodding as I gazed out the window at the grayness of the landscape, the bleakness of Queens, I realized that this was like
Gatsby's
“Valley of Ashes.” That's really where I lived, in a grungy netherworld, suspended between the intimidating glamour of Manhattan and the promise of a perfect love on Long Island. No, I lived in my mind, wrestling forever with my problems as the LIRR conductor waddled through the car, droning out the stations: “Wantagh . . . Seaford . . . Massapequa . . .
Massapequa
 
Paaarrkk
.” Nothing was ever resolved, no matter how many times I was forced to “change at Jamaica.”

My Mom was nice enough to pick me up at the station, and I rushed home to grab some food, shower, change, and get to Rachel's by 8:00. I simply rejected the idea of being late. All week long, I was subject to other people's demands and timetables.
This, tonight, being on time
was something I could control. A couple of nights, Rachel and I missed our phone call. Twice she called me back on the hall phone in the dorm the next day, but I wasn't there. Roommate A took the messages. (“Girl called.” “Girl called X 2.”) Overall, it had been a frustrating week. I had not done well on a big geology lab test, and I was not used to getting bad grades. I admit it; it hurt my ego. That's why I was especially looking forward to seeing Rachel: we were very good for each other's egos.

I had to make a quick stop for peppermint Life Savers to counteract my mother's radioactive meat loaf, but I still got to the Princes' house before eight. I was hoping that Rachel would just be able to come right out when I knocked on the front door – no little tap dance, no insincere small talk with Eleanor and/or Herb. They seemed to want to make me pay a price in humiliation, every time that we went out. But no matter:
they
were not important – only Rachel was.

Zipping up my leather jacket because it was getting really cold at night now, I fast-walked up the Princes' long path, ready to ring the bell at eight on the dot, collect my girl, and get out of there

Bing-bong
!
 
Even the sound of their doorbell was pompous, but I didn't care. I loved Rachel, not her family. Nor her doorbell.

The door opened suddenly, but it was Eleanor who was standing there. Her face was taut with animosity.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “But Rachel's grounded tonight.”

And she closed the door in my face.

I stood there for a moment, my mind at first blank, then flooded with a white rage.
Grounded? What? She couldn't do that!
I don't know if my eyes were open or closed, or how long I actually stood there. My thoughts and feelings all jumbled together. It sounded like there was a jet from JFK flying overhead, but I don't think anything was there in the sky. There was just the big, silent brick mansion and me, standing outside, alone.

I was about to knock on the door and demand at least an explanation, but I realized there was nothing to explain. Eleanor had decided to escalate her war against Rachel and me, and things were now going to be different. Very different. It was one thing to hassle us a little, the way incompetent parents sometimes do in the name of “discipline,” but this was outright obstruction. Hostile action.

The question was: What exactly to do? I slowly backed off the porch, looking up the wide façade of the house, the wall of brick punctuated by black shutters and draped windows. I knew that Rachel's bedroom was on the second floor because of all the times that she'd say that she had to go upstairs to get away from “them.” I figured it must be in the back of the house.

Carefully and without making too much noise, I stepped over the little hedge that lined the flagstone path up to the front door and started to cross the broad lawn, to circle around to the back of the house. The grass crunched under my feet as I kept my eyes on the house to see if Eleanor – or worse, Herb – was watching me. But I didn't see any of the drapes inside the big windows move, so I kept walking. As I curved around to the side of the house, I thought that if I could see where Rachel's bedroom window was, maybe she'd be looking out of her window, looking for me. In fact, I was certain that she'd be wanting, even
expecting
me to be looking for her. She would know that I wouldn't just walk away, grounding or no grounding. I flashed on the cigarette burn on her arm and hoped that she was all right physically. No, I couldn't just abandon her; couldn't just walk away. That would be just what Eleanor would want.

But as soon as I got halfway down the path on the side of the house, where the Princes' garbage cans were all lined up nice and neat, before I could even scope out the upstairs windows, all this high-pitched dog barking started.
Max
! I forgot about the damned dog! I guess they kept her in a back room, but wherever she was, she heard me and started a huge racket. I turned and hustled back down the path to my car, running away, just like a scared little dog.

I got back to my car and turned on the motor, revving it loudly several times so that Rachel would hear me . . . (and also, to tell the truth, so that it wouldn't stall out – the Ford had trouble starting in cold weather). I sat there, trying to get warm, cursing myself for my cowardice and impotence, trying to think of what to do. I couldn't just drive away and do nothing; that was out of the question.

What I did was drive back into the town of Oakhurst, found a pay phone on a corner by the train station, and called the Prince house. It rang ten times before someone picked up, my heart pounding harder with each ring. Finally, someone picked up.

“Hello,” I said calmly. “Can I speak to Rachel, just for a – ?”

“
Don't
,” said Eleanor curtly. “Call. Here. Again. Tonight.”

And she hung up with a slam before I could say anything. Not that there was anything to say . . . to her.

Unfortunately, it was just about what I expected. But it didn't make me any less angry or frustrated. I drove back to the Lexington, to regroup and have something to eat. I cursed myself for making the call, a call that I
knew
wouldn't get through to Rachel. It was highly unlikely that Eleanor would've let her talk to me, if she were “grounded.” Still, when Rachel heard the phone ring, even if she wasn't allowed to talk, she would know that it was me, trying to break through to her. I wanted her to know that I was making the effort, any effort. The results almost didn't matter.

That's what I told myself, sitting alone in a corner booth in the Lex, drinking coffee and treating myself to a piece of seven-layer cake. I ate it just the way I used to when I was a little kid, taking the cake apart and eating it one layer at a time. I almost made myself laugh, when I realized that I was eating like a Doggy. Little kids are demented, and I was really no different.

From the corner booth, I could see everyone who came in and out of the Lex. Unfortunately, no one came in; at least no one I knew. No one to take me out of myself. I just sat there brooding, turning over the events in my mind, going all the way back to that first meeting at the Costa Brava. And even before then, even while we were still at Mooncliff, Rachel told me that her mother would give us trouble. Since then, there had been so many instances of disrespect for us – shortened phone calls, cancelled dates, sudden changes in Rachel's schedule – that it was impossible to feel anything but disrespect for the person who had such little regard for our relationship. You would think a mother would want her daughter to be happy, especially when she was going through a painful divorce. But Eleanor Prince was not that kind of mother. And with each recollection of one of Eleanor's snubs, I felt a wave of the same white rage that I felt on the front porch when she slammed the door in my face, and on my life.

So what was I going to do?
Nothing
? I couldn't do nothing; I had to do something. But what?

So I paid my check, leaving a good tip for my waitress Adele for good luck, and went outside. It was freezing cold; I could see my breath in the light from the Lex's bright marquee. I couldn't go home, so I took a middle course of action: I drove. Driving, even driving the old Ford, always took some of my tension away. And even if I wasn't doing anything productive, at least I was
moving.
The radio was still good and loud, and it was so late that there weren't many cars on the road as I blew out my frustration at eighty mph on the Southern State Parkway till I was halfway out to the Hamptons.

I couldn't stop thinking about Rachel and this grounding. What did it really mean? How long would it last? Would she be grounded all weekend? I had had a tough week at school: lots of work, lots of papers, and a couple of quizzes. Earlier in the semester, I had referred to the attractive female graduate student with a blonde ponytail in charge of the geology lab as “Pebbles,” and she had heard me. It was actually a compliment, but somehow she didn't see it that way, and lately was getting her revenge on me with pointed questions and extra scrutiny. So I was really looking forward to being with Rachel that night; I needed the comfort and sympathy that only she could provide.