Higher Education (24 page)

She pinches me again.

“Ow!”

“Keep going,” she hisses.

“Oh.” I stifle a sigh. “Well, I mean, look. Maybe somebody should tell me why Angela wants to get breast implants in the first place.”

“Some jerk claiming to be from—”

“A senior photographer from
Playboy
has asked me to—”

“Wants her to take all her clothes off—”

“‘Girls of the Ivy League' pictorial—”

“Take her picture standing stark naked in the middle of Harvard Yard—”

“
Tasteful
partial nudity—”

“Right in front of my freshman dorm—”

“And he'll help me get a modeling contract.” Angela smiles gloatingly. “He says he knows Eileen Ford personally.”

There is another silence. I look down at the green mush in my bowl, wondering if this was such a good idea for my stomach after all. I push my tray away and use one of my napkins to blow my nose.

“He's so self-absorbed, Wanda. He doesn't pay attention to my needs at all.”

“Well, if it comes to that, she never—”

“Him and his little hidden agendas—”

“How does she expect me to get my work done?” Philip leans toward me, his round little wire-rimmed glasses glinting in the overhead light. “How am I supposed to study for my finals? My thesis review is on Thursday—”

“I've got emotional requirements too, you know.”

“And the final paper for my psych seminar is due in two weeks.”

“Hopes and dreams like everybody else.”

“And I've got med school to start thinking about—”

“Is it such a terrible thing to want to be on the cover of
Vogue
?”

“And right after my finals are over I've got to register for my psych classes at summer school—”

“They're not
his
breasts.”

“And all she can do is worry about her cleavage—”

“Sandy Duncan has breast implants.”

“Eye implant,” I say absently, rooting around in my shoulder bag to see if maybe I overlooked the aspirin the last time I checked.

“You're missing the point,” she wails.

I look up to see if her lips are trembling again, but she's gazing at Philip.

“Barbra Streisand got her nose fixed,” she says tremulously. “I'm sure there are dozens of girls who'd feel the same way if a chance like this came along.” Angela knits her brows and then gyrates her head toward me. “Wanda, wouldn't
you
get breast implants if a senior photographer from
Playboy
wanted to use you in a ‘Girls of the Ivy League' pictorial?”

I shrug. “I avoid major surgery at all costs.”

“But if it meant a modeling contract—”

“Well, if we're going to talk about ignoring needs.” Philip's eyeglasses are glinting my way again. “Back me up here, Miranda. Put yourself in my shoes.”

“I hate Topsiders.”

“What would
you
do if you were trying to get your work done, trying to
focus
, trying to
concentrate
, and your girlfriend kept running around without her shirt on, crying and carrying on like it's the end of the world?”

“I'd probably offer her a Kleenex.”

“Wouldn't
you
go to the library to study?”

“Sure. Listen, you don't happen to have any aspirin on you, do you?”

“See?” Philip turns to Angela. “She says I'm right.”

“She does not. She said she'd go to the library and do you have any aspirin.”

“Yes, do you?” I look from one to the other, but they are busy frowning at each other across the table. As if for the first time, I find myself noticing the startling resemblance between them, with their wavy blond hair flowing off handsome broad foreheads, their clear gray eyes, their smooth pale skin ever so slightly freckled from summers on the Cape. My stomach gives another stabbing cramp and I lean my elbows on the table and prop my forehead in my hands.
What next
, I ask myself.
My nose, my stomach. I wouldn't be surprised if my arms were to fall off
.

“She says
I'm
the one who's passive-aggressive.
I'm
the one who's sending out subliminal messages of rejection—”

“Wanda.” Angela nudges me. “Philip's talking to you.”

“Ouch.” I raise my head. “What.”

“She keeps telling me how insensitive I am, right? So the last time we had sex, you know what she said to me?”

Oh god no
. “Well,” I say, shifting in my chair. My nose tickles in a panicky sort of way. “I think I'd better be—”

“She has the gall to—”

“Hate to eat and—”

“—the absolute gall to—”

“—studying to do—”

“—comment about the size of my—”

I sneeze, clapping my hands over my nose, and in the hush that follows I peek over my fingers to see if my arms are still attached to my shoulders. I give a little sigh of relief, and then my stomach cramps again. “Pardon me,” I say faintly.

“Bigger this, bigger that,” Philip goes on irately. “She'll probably want us to move to Texas after we're married.”

“Eh?” I tilt my head in despair.
This is it. My goddam hearing is going
.

“Didn't you know?” Angela says gaily. She waves her left hand in front of my face. A round little diamond twinkles on her fourth finger, glittering yellow, pink, violet, blue. “We're engaged. I thought everybody knew that already.”

I feel my jaw drop. As I'm looking back at her, a riptide of fatigue suddenly overwhelms me; it's all I can do to move my lips. “Congratulations.”

“Isn't it wonderful?” She is glowing, two spots of pink blooming on each patrician cheekbone. “We're going to Italy for the honeymoon.”

“Italy.”

“Assuming my first year in med school goes well, of course.” Philip finishes the last of his coffee. “Otherwise we'll have to postpone until after my second year.”

“That's what
you
think, buster. Mummy's already reserved space for the reception hall.”

“We'll see,” he says austerely.

“So what do you think, Wanda?” Angela turns to me.

“About what?” I'm still staring at her ring.

“About the breast implants.”

“I think—” Blinking, I draw a long breath. “I think you should—”

“Yes?” She's giving Philip a victorious little smile.

“I think you should remember that my name is Miranda.” I push my chair back and slowly stand up. “Not Wanda. Miranda.” I turn and start walking toward the exit, so tired I feel as if I'm moving in slow motion against some powerful current. Behind me I hear their voices, floating toward me as if from a vast distance.

“What's wrong with
her
?”

“She just walked out on us.”

“She left her tray.”

“Wanda!”

Limping a little, as though I've run too hard or ignored burning calf muscles, I keep walking. I make my way out of the dining hall, through the foyer and past the mailboxes and up the C-entry stairs, pausing at each landing to rest for a moment, just as if I were an old, old woman.

7

TUESDAY

“‘And as he stood there in the snow looking at her, he found that he had nothing more to say. No words, no sounds, just the snow falling everywhere, covering the ground, falling lovingly on their heads, caressing their faces like little white fingertips. And he knew, as he watched her, that somehow his life had changed in such a way that he would never be the same again. He wanted to reach a hand out to touch her but it seemed unnecessary somehow, so he just stood there and watched her, and felt the snow falling onto his head, white and inviting, soft white fingers somehow cold and warm at the same time.'”

Kerry pauses for a moment and then slowly lowers the last sheet of paper onto the table. She looks around the ring of faces and when nobody says anything she adds in a loud voice: “That's all, folks.”

Then come the sounds of rustling papers, yawning, coughing, people stirring in their chairs. Gradually it all subsides into another deadly quiet.

Kerry looks around, frowning. “Hey, it's your turn now, remember?”

There's a sharp crackle of gum, and somebody laughs quietly. I'm sitting chin in hand, gazing across the table at Stephanie Kandel, who keeps her eyes fixed on her lap, when Winky whispers into my left ear: “Miranda?”

“Yeah?” I whisper back.

“I was supposed to hand something in today.”

“Yeah?”

“Writer's block,” she murmurs. “I had writer's block.”

“Again?”

Mr. Tate finally looks away from the window, pushes his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose, and tries to smile at Kerry. “You're done reading?”

“Yes.” She frowns at him too. “I thought it was obvious.”

“Well, these days it's hard to know for sure.” Mr. Tate shakes his head, and his glasses slip down again. “The new fiction and all. Can't tell if you're coming or going.”

“It seemed pretty clear to me that the story had ended.”

“Well, you're the author. You had some inside information.”

At the word
author
Kerry has brightened, but doggedly she pushes on. “I tried to make the ending dramatic. You know, memorable. Memorable and—and compelling.” She draws an invisible circle in the air. “Strong sense of closure.”

“Oh, really?” Harris says. “I thought you were parodying the ending from ‘The Dead.'”

She stiffens. “What's ‘The Dead'?”

He gives her a sardonic look. “It's the book they made
Dawn of the Dead
from.”

“What?” She glares at him. “Are you implying that my story is about a bunch of zombies?”

“Oh, for god's sake, Kerry, relax.” One arm thrown over the back of her chair, Erin blows a shimmering pink bubble and pops it between her teeth. “He's pulling your leg.”

“Well, he'd better stop.”

Harris runs a hand through his curly red hair. “Say, are you threatening me?” He looks like he's about to laugh.

“Hey now.” Mr. Tate rotates his head in a dilatory semicircle. “Let's just confine our remarks to the text, okay?”

“I refuse to sit here and be attacked.” Kerry's earrings swing chaotically against her cheeks.

“You're the one who's getting all hot under the collar,” Harris points out. “I simply made a teeny-weeny literary comparison and you jumped all over me.”

“I wouldn't jump all over you if you were the last man on earth.”

He simpers. “Fresh.”

Mr. Tate lifts his hand about six inches off the table and lets it drop again. “Let's talk about the story, okay?”

“Great idea.” Erin's jaws are working rhythmically, reminding me of an oil derrick pumping at full speed.

“Miranda?” Winky whispers.

“Yeah?”

“How come you keep staring at Stephanie?”

I look over at Winky. “Because,” I say, very, very softly, “she's got a huge hickey on her neck.”

“Really?” Winky puts her glasses on and gapes across the table. “Oh my goodness.”

“Since it seems to be something of a point of contention,” Mr. Tate is saying in his soft, enervated voice, “maybe we should start with the ending.”

“Or maybe we should end with the start.” Harris snickers.

Mr. Tate goes on as if he hasn't heard him. “Let's talk about the very last scene.”

“I tried to make it dramatic and compelling—”

“No, no. It's their turn, remember?”

“Oh. Right.” Kerry subsides unhappily.

Winky is still gawking over at Stephanie and finally, turning away from her myopically bulging eyes, I crane my head to get a look at Mr. Tate's watch. My neck crackles and he catches me peering at his wrist.

“Miranda, why don't you begin the discussion?”

“Discussion? Me?” Studying his drawn, not unattractive face, I find myself speculating if it's really true that he's on antidepressants.

“Miranda?”

“Do I have to?” I wonder if anybody has bothered to tell him that he's got a short story in this month's issue of
Esquire
.

“No,” he replies with that sad sweet smile of his. “But I wish you would.”

I sigh. “Oh, all right.”

“Big of you,” Harris says.

Something goes off inside my head, like a tiny internal firecracker, and for one confused moment I think Erin has popped another bubble. But when I glance at her I see that she is in fact doodling quietly on the back of Kerry's story, her mouth for once perfectly still. I lean back in my chair. “Frankly, I thought the ending was derivative and contrived.”

“And just what do you mean by that?” Kerry is bristling again.

“Oh, come on.” I cross my arms over my chest. “Snow falling like little fingers? I'm sure.”

“It's a simile,” she says hotly. “Personification.”

“It's a cliché. Boring.”

“What do
you
know about snow? You're from California.”

“Well, I'm no meteorologist,” I drawl, “but I know what I like.”

Harris snickers again. Mr. Tate's back to gazing blurrily at the window, and Erin pops another bubble. Stephanie Kandel is still staring down at her lap, her lank brown hair straggling over her shoulders. There is a small dreamy smile on her face.

Kerry's earrings are batting about. “I was talking about innocence and—and knowledge.”

“I thought you were talking about snow.”

“It's a simile!”

“It's a cliché!” I mimic her querulous intonation.

“Ooo-ee,” Harris says. “What's with you today, Walker?”

“What do you mean,
Frick
?”