Falling for Hamlet (17 page)

My father tried to circle back to why my being with Hamlet was a mistake.

“Dad, I’m not asking, actually. I’m telling you. I’m going tomorrow and I’ll be back Sunday night. I’m taking the train because I can get some work done, but I am going.” I shakily lifted my chopsticks and concentrated very hard on picking up the food. The adrenaline rush created a momentary high as I congratulated myself on standing up for myself.

I heard my father say, “I love you, Ophelia. You’re my baby. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“I love you, too. But Dad, you have to let me grow up.” I grabbed the bottle of wine and poured more into his glass. “Maybe you ought to try for a romance of your own.”

“My dear, ‘An old man in love is like a flower in winter,’ ” he said, raising his glass to his lips.

“Swahili?”

“Chinese. I’m done with romance. Your mom was my one and only.” He toasted the picture of her, which hung on our fridge, and put the glass down again.

“Dad, no one’s saying you have to get married. But a little fun never hurt anyone.”

“You’re not thinking this through, my dear. If I went out, how would I find the time to memorize quotes for our little talks?” He winked, and I kissed him on the cheek.

When I finally reached Hamlet’s frat house, I was amazed, as I had been the year before, at how run-down it was. The floors were warped; the carpet was threadbare and stained; the banisters shook if you grabbed them too hard. Food containers were left in all the common areas—and the smell seemed to indicate they’d been there for some time. Not exactly the place one expected to find a prince, but I suppose that had been the point when Hamlet chose it.

I knocked on Hamlet’s door and no one answered. I pushed it open and the stale smell sent me back a few steps. “Hamlet?” I called, but still no reply. I crept forward and saw him at his desk, hunched over and scribbling. “Hamlet!” I said loudly, and he swiveled in his seat.

He rubbed his eyes. “Ophelia? Is that you?”

I had a moment of utter confusion. “Yeah. Didn’t Horatio tell you I was coming?”

“Oh, was that today?” he asked. “I guess… I’m sure… How are you?” He took out his earbuds and came to hug me.

I hugged him back but asked, “Hamlet, when was the last time you went out… or showered?”

He ran his fingers through his greasy hair and looked like I was waking him up from a peculiar dream. “I don’t know. What day is it?”

“Saturday,” I said, my stomach tightening. How had he gotten to this point? “Hamlet, what are you on?”

“Me? Nothing. I’ve just been… I haven’t wanted to go out.… I kind of lost track of time, so…” His eyes scanned his room and he suddenly looked embarrassed.

“Listen,” I began, setting my bag against the wall and closing the door, “why don’t you shower? I’ll open the windows, and we’ll do some laundry. Then you can tell me what’s going on and… yeah, we’ll start with that, okay?”

He nodded, looking relieved that someone was taking charge of his well-being. He grabbed his towel and started for the door. I brought him the basket that contained his shampoo and razor, then watched him make his way up the stairs to bathe. I thought of the afternoon the past summer when we walked through the Museo Firenze for the private viewing he’d arranged. Could that solemn, dazed person walking up the stairs be the same Hamlet I had hung out with months earlier?

I picked up my cell and texted Horatio.

wtf?

Hamlet returned after I had already gathered the dirty clothes strewn around the room and changed the sheets. I didn’t even change my own sheets, so this was quite a feat. He looked much more mentally present as he entered, and he crossed the room immediately to kiss me. “Hey, baby.”

“Hey, yourself. You better?” I asked, touching his wet hair.

“Yeah.” He breathed deeply and looked at the fluttering papers on his desk. “That breeze feels good.”

“We should go out. Get some air and something to eat. I’m starved, and you look like you haven’t eaten in a while.” I was trying not to sound like a mother hen, but I was failing miserably.

He shrugged. “I ate… yesterday, I think.”

“Think? Come on, sweet prince,” I said, taking his hand in mine. “Let’s dump the laundry somewhere in town and get—”

“Coffee.”

“And food. Man cannot live on coffee alone.”

He threw the laundry bag over his shoulder and led me down the stairs. “I could just trash all this and buy new stuff,” he joked.

“Where would you get the money?” I teased.

Hamlet’s phone
bing
ed. “Horatio,” he said to me. “Where should he meet us?”

“Well, how about my favorite place, I Don’t Go to School Around Here.”

He hip-checked me, typed, “Dolly’s,” and snapped his phone shut. “I’m surprised your dad let you come.”

“I didn’t exactly ask,” I said.

He looked impressed but added, “Did he have you followed?”

I smiled. “Probably.” I put my arm around his waist and soon we found a pay-by-the-pound laundry service. Hamlet usually did his own, but that would have meant staying in the stinky house, and that was something I just didn’t want to do.

While Hamlet ordered at the counter, Horatio had a few minutes to fill me in. “I’ve been basically living at Kim’s, so I didn’t notice at first that Hamlet was MIA. I mean, his door was closed, so I thought he was out. Actually, he never used to close his door half the time when he did go out, so I should have known.…”

“Don’t blame yourself. Look, I’m here for the weekend and you know to keep an eye on him from now on—”

“He’s messed up.”

“He’ll be all right,” I reassured him. “You worry too much.”

“And you have too much faith,” he said gravely.

As if on cue, Hamlet returned, followed closely by a slim brunette who seemed rather proud of her very tight shirt. “Hey, Hamlet. Been missing you in class. You going to the party at G’s tonight?”

He looked at me and answered, “Uh, maybe. We’ll see. This is my, uh…”

“Girlfriend.” I glowered, pulling back my arm, which had been around Hamlet’s chair.

“Ophelia. Of course. You can come, too,” she said in her very pert voice. “Later,” she said to him, then bounced back to her friends, who immediately giggled upon her return.

I tried not to look at Horatio, who was looking embarrassed for me. “A party sounds good,” I said, swallowing my pride.

“I’m not drinking—” Hamlet started.

I interrupted, “You don’t have to. Or you can. One night couldn’t hurt, right?”

He nodded. “I could use a drink… and some fun.”

“It’ll be like before,” Horatio said, getting swept up in the plan.

The lights were flashing red, blue, green, yellow, red, blue, green, yellow. The whole place smelled of beer with a vague hint of socks. It smelled like college heaven. “Woo!” I shouted, grabbing Hamlet with one arm and Horatio with the other. We pushed our way past a thick-necked guy who took our tickets toward the crowd on the other side of the entryway. The band was singing something about “being easier to play on than a pipe,” which might have been more suggestive if they weren’t screaming and pounding on their guitars and drums and one another. Horatio made a cup motion and ran off to the basement to get beer. Hamlet and I waded farther in.

Some girl, not the one from Dolly’s, recognized Hamlet and whispered in his ear. I couldn’t hear, but he looked at me sidelong, which was worse than her talking to him. I decided not to worry about it too much. Every girl wants to save the brooding guy, but he was mine to save, so I yanked him in the other direction. She screwed up her face and mouthed something at me that I pretended not to see.

We stood listening to the hideous music, if you could even call it that, for another minute. He gestured like he was going to hang himself, which made us laugh, and he pointed toward the basement. I really didn’t want to go down, but I followed him, anyway. In the half day I had been with him, he’d seemed to transform back to his old self, or at least to the one who had left Elsinore a couple of weeks prior. Even so, I thought I ought to stay close.

Horatio was in the middle of a very long line. When we reached him, Hamlet leaned in and yelled, “Screw this. I brought my own.” He pulled out a fifth of whiskey.

“What the hell did you let me wait all this time for?” Horatio laughed, grabbing the bottle and taking a swig. He passed it to me, and I wrinkled my nose. “It’s this or crap beer.”

I grabbed it and did a dance of pain as it charred its way down to my stomach. “Christ, what is with you boys?” I gasped, fanning air into my mouth.

“That is quality stuff. Stolen right from Claudi-ass himself,” hissed Hamlet.

“No talking about him tonight. That was the deal,” Horatio said, playfully shaking Hamlet by the shoulder.

Hamlet grabbed the fifth and drank deeply, then handed the bottle to me again. I rolled my eyes and held my breath. I hoped I wouldn’t need to drink much more before I was drunk. It had been a long time since I’d really cut loose, and I wanted to take my mind off all the crazy stuff that had been happening. I figured if Horatio and Hamlet were going to drink themselves silly, I might as well, too. And it was a perfect time. No slinking into my apartment and avoiding my dad. No worrying about class the next day. Most important, I was with Hamlet, so no guy was gonna try anything if I got wasted. My face was still burning as I passed the bottle to Horatio. The black lights made the iridescent wall paintings glow brightly, and the whiskey made them swirl. I stepped in a puddle of something as we headed back upstairs and was really glad the weather hadn’t been warm enough for sandals.

A new band was setting up, so someone had put on a stereo. “How Like an Angel” was blasting, one of my favorite songs to dance to. I started leaping up and down and spotted an empty table pushed in the corner. I climbed up and, to my surprise, Hamlet and Horatio hopped up, too. The table was pretty small, but we all managed to fit. The music was in me and all around, and the lights flashed faster. I did not think about the flashes of white coming from a few feet away.

The next band was either really amazing or I was really drunk. Probably both. They played a long set. Everyone in the room seemed to know who they were because they screamed out the musicians’ names between songs and knew all their lyrics. I guess the band went to Wittenberg.

They played a few slow songs, which was a great chance to sit down and lean against the wall. I sat wedged between my two guys, happy that Kim didn’t want to come with Horatio, and closed my eyes for a while. Soon, Hamlet leaned close and whispered, “Let’s get out of here.”

Keeping my eyes closed, I replied, “It’s still early, Hamlet.”

I looked over at Horatio, who suddenly snored, which seemed outrageously funny. As our laughter died down, Hamlet pulled out the whiskey again and offered it, but I waved it away. With Horatio asleep, I suddenly felt free to climb onto Hamlet’s lap. He pulled me into a kiss, and there were more white flashes.

“Get out of here!” Hamlet yelled, waving at someone in the dark. He tried to get up, nearly knocking me off the table. Whoever it was vanished into the crowd while we struggled to keep our balance.

“Who was that?”

“I don’t know. The university promised my father that I wouldn’t be hassled here. Promises,” he spat.

The band started playing a faster song. We looked at each other and knew we were too tired to keep dancing. We patted Horatio awake and steered him back out through the crowd. He stopped in the bushes to puke and then fell to his knees, luckily not landing in the former contents of his stomach. “Why do I let you drag me into these things?” implored Horatio.

“You did this willingly, my friend,” replied Hamlet, hoisting Horatio back onto his feet.

As we rounded the corner, we nearly bumped into two guys, both of whom were wearing absurd beanies. “Rosencrantz! Guildenstern!” shouted Hamlet too loudly.

“Good party?” asked the tall one, eyeing Horatio.

“Decent music. Foul beer. What the hell are those?” Hamlet asked, gesturing sloppily to his own head.

“Pledge thing.”

Hamlet stumbled as he cackled, dragging us away. “Good luck with that,” he yelled over his shoulder.

I woke up the next morning in agony. My head pulsated, and my mouth was furry. As I rolled over to get out from under Hamlet, my stomach burned. I moaned and tried to shut out the day with my hands. Why Hamlet was unable to hang a simple curtain or shade was beyond me.

I dug into my overnight bag and grabbed a pair of jeans. That amount of movement was too much, so I put my head back on the pillow. I wanted to shower and get all the grime off from the night before, but I dreaded the comments I knew I would hear if any of the frat brothers were in the hall. They always had off-color remarks for any girl who spent the night.

I stood up and shoved on the jeans, deciding to take my chance with the hall and the guys’ bathroom. I grabbed Hamlet’s towel, which we had neglected to get laundered, and smelled it. A little mildew but clean enough. When I entered the harshly lit hallway, some guy was sitting on the stained carpet steps that led up to the showers. As he scooted aside to let me pass, he said, “Nice pictures,” not bothering to look up from his paper.

“Excuse me?” I scowled at him, wishing I’d brought some toothpaste with me, knowing there would be none I would want to touch upstairs.

“Nice pictures, I said. Front cover. Impressive.” He swiveled around and let me see the front page of the paper he was holding. His eyes danced with excitement. There above the fold were two startlingly clear pictures from the party the night before. One was of Hamlet, bottle in mouth, me dancing in a skirt I had not realized looked so indecently short, my hair flying every which way, and Horatio, arms in the air, head back, making him unidentifiable. The other picture was of me sitting astride Hamlet on the table in the corner, his tongue down my throat. The white flashes of light.

“Crap,” I whispered, my legs weak. I grabbed the sticky banister to steady myself.

“He’s the most famous guy around. Why are you doing anything you don’t want the whole world to see?” He smirked and handed the paper to me. I clutched it and sat. The guy bounded down the creaky steps and disappeared into the living room.