Higher Education (3 page)

After a moment I take my hand off his shoulder; strangely, my palm feels hot, as if it's touched coals. Leaving the practice room, I jog upstairs and go outside to catch the next shuttle bus back down to Harvard Square
.
Huddled in my coat, I look out the window at the white snowy streets, wondering why it is I don't seem to feel like crying
.

Jessica, after threatening to move off campus and tell the housing office that I'd been keeping snakes in our room, then lapsed into a silent treatment which had me thumbing through Dante's
Inferno
in an effort to see where she derived her methodology. Finally, after two days of her icy glances and stubbornly pursed lips, I cornered her in the bathroom, planted my body as a barricade against the door, and swore to her that I spent the entire night retching into Tim's baseball helmet, which, as far as I was concerned, was only the merest distortion of the truth. Relenting, she snickered at my woeful face, and then we shook hands in a manly sort of way and I took her out to Steve's for ice cream.

But with Bryan it seems that it's more than a simple case of pique. Our freshman-year friendship began in a shared fondness for tiny dark cafés, crashing Fogg Museum art openings, the Talking Heads, and picking the raisins out of the granola tin, and was nourished over the semesters by long telephone conversations at all hours and by our study sessions holed up in his room at North House, him tinkering with a score for composition class, me at my notebook muttering over my Roget's. All this easy camaraderie has somehow been displaced by a tense void between us, looming wider every day; and it's all the more trying since Tim keeps phoning me, and I haven't got much to say to him, except perhaps to inquire if he's ever heard the old expression about loose lips sinking ships.

And so I stand here by the salad bar with my yogurt getting warm, Carlos offering no refuge, and out of the corner of my eye I can see Beatrice and Alicia in their matching leather trousers rustling my way. Grimly I consider handing over my tray to the dishwasher and bagging dinner entirely.
Homemade baklava, chérie
. I try to recall what I had for lunch today. Did I have lunch today?

Then I spot Michael and Walt at a small round table not fifteen feet from the salad bar. Quashing a sigh of relief, I drift toward them as if my destination had been ordained before birth, taking care to avoid all unnecessary and potentially fatal eye contact en route.

After setting down my tray, I pluck a chair from a nearby table and slide into the seat. “Thank god.”

“Howdy, you long tall drink of water,” Michael says, half-rising and tipping an imaginary ten-gallon to me. He's from Texas and can get away with things like wearing pointy Tony Lamas and opening doors for women. Not many people would guess that he's attended East Coast prep schools since he was ten. “How are you, gal?”

“Oh, I can't complain.”

“Miranda,” Walt says, shaking his head at my tray, “don't you know what nutrition spelled backwards is?”

“Noitirtun.”

“R-e-l-i-e-f.” Michael winks at me.

“M-o-n-e-y.” Walt is waving his fork for emphasis. Little brown blobs of gravy dot the tabletop.

“Oh, Walt. You're beautiful when you're angry.” Smiling, I wipe a little globule of gravy off my arm. After untold hours of computation, Walt has determined exactly how much food he must consume at each sitting in order to get full value for his board plan, which, as for most Harvard students, boils down to three all-you-can-eat meals a day. He does fairly well with lunch and dinner, but breakfast proves to be another kettle of fish, as it were. How much oatmeal, after all, can one person eat? Walt compensates for his physiological limitations by smuggling out several single-serving boxes of cereal a day, thus, he insists, getting his money's worth from his meal plan. This satisfaction is never plainer than when he is showing off an entire wall of his room lined with row upon row of carefully stacked Rice Krispies, Cocoa Puffs, Sugar Smacks, Bran Buds, and Special K boxes.

“I'm not angry, Miranda. But I'll be honest with you, I
am
somewhat concerned.”

“Is it because I have food between my teeth?” I smirk radiantly at him, in deference to his avowed intention of becoming a dentist. “Something huge and disgusting?”

“Just a small tree in the very front, darlin'.” Michael taps my chin. “It's kinda cute, though.”

“I'm not joking, Miranda,” Walt persists. “That's barely one, one point five dollars you've got on your tray there.”

“I'll steal some silverware, okay?”

“Y'all take some dishes, too.”

“No respect.” Walt shakes his head again and turns his attention to a large half-eaten piece of meat, the animal source of which I don't care to guess at, that rests on his plate gleaming with an obscenely brown sauce. “Pass the salt, please.”

Michael complies, then pushes back his imaginary ten-gallon, smiling at me. “How goes it, kitten?”

“The usual.” I shrug, listening to a girl behind me saying, “Every time I'm in France I get sick. Isn't it funny?” Sipping my coffee, I keep my eyes fixed on Michael's face. “What's new with you?”

“Well now, funny y'all should ask. My latest Cobol program just about blew up the Science Center, an' my professor's gonna string me up the next time I show my red ol' face in class. 'Course I got three hundred pages of tutorial readin' due tomorrow, an' I've gotta run over to the phone company first thing in the mornin' an' beg 'em not to disconnect my phone just because my roommate used the phone money to buy marijuana. But other than that, not much to report.” An eyebrow arches, sleek and orderly. “Oh, an' my folks are threatenin' divorce again.”

“Oh.”

“All very well and good,” Walt chimes in. “But what are you planning to wear to the Spee's pajama party?”

There is a tremendous sound of phlegm-rattling wheezing and then Andrew descends upon us, his cheeks blazing with an alarming red flush. “Hi, guys.” Breathlessly he leans his palms on the table. “Anybody got a cigarette?”

“No, asshole.” Walt glares at him. “Bug off.”

“Shit.” He whirls and clatters off, leaving a pungent scent of Gitanes in his wake.

Walt stabs his fork into his meat. “Dirty son-of-a-bitch bastard.”

“Well, gal, I thought I'd wear pajamas.” Michael winks at me again.

“What a concept.”

“No-good rotten stinking moron,” Walt goes on, bitterly. “Decaying scum-of-the-earth douchebag.”

“Now Walt.” I repress a smile. “It's not nice to talk about your roommate like that.”

“He's a putrefying baboon and I hope he drops dead from lung cancer. The sooner the better.”

“Then you really should keep a supply of cigs around for him, don't you think?”

A voice rings out from the end of the dining hall: “Panty raid!” Somebody cheers, and the master's baby starts crying again. Sighing, Walt inserts a large chunk of meat into his mouth.

A brilliant flash of crimson catches my eye, and I twist around in my chair to watch Robbie and Adolfo gliding out of the kitchen wearing handsome red frocks—new Kamalis, if I'm not mistaken. Their earrings, necklaces, stockings, and pumps are all charmingly coordinated in varying shades of red.

Robbie and Adolfo are certainly among the most prominent Adams House residents, although it's hard to say whether it's because of their tireless activism for gay rights or because of their exquisite taste in clothing. Nobody bats an eye at them, from Master Ackerman on down; after a few days of confusion, the incoming sophomores catch on too. Even Virginia remains unfazed, sometimes cooing over a particularly dazzling outfit. I eye them speculatively, wondering if it's true, as rumor will have it, that the boys are just good friends. Really.

“There.” Walt drops his fork onto his plate and leans back with another sigh. “Six dollars and forty-two cents.”

I tear my envious gaze away from Robbie's superb Italian shoes. “As opposed to six and a half.”

“Every penny counts, Miranda.”

“And a hundred or so makes a dollar.”

“That's right.”

“Maybe I should have been a math major.”

“Why?”

I blink at him. “Hey, you want my apple for dessert? I'm not going to eat it.”

“No thanks, Eve.” He grins. “Get it? Eve?”

Michael touches my shoulder. “Eat something, gal.”

I look at him. “Don't you know this is Oxfam night?”

“Yep.” He is unmoved.

“Don't you see? I feel too guilty to eat.”

A fourth tray is planted on the tabletop, nearly pushing Michael's tray off the edge into his lap. He steadies the tray with a quick hand. “Hey now.”

“Oh, I'm so sorry.” Anne Devereaux sits down, and I smell L'Air du Temps. “It's such a crowded little table.”

“Isn't it though?” I stand up. “Luckily, I was just leaving.”

“Really?” Walt says in surprise.

“Oh well.” Anne sidles her chair an inch or two toward Michael. “I just love your belt buckle. Is that a cow's head? I didn't know cows had horns.”

“Bye guys.” I pick up my tray.

“It's a steer.” Michael grits his teeth at me and scoots his chair closer to my vacated spot. “Ain't y'all ever been to a feedlot?”

On my way to the garbage bins I manage to avoid speaking with another former roommate of mine, Melissa, who used to and for all I know continues to dissolve into baby talk when under stress, an irritating habit that contributed little to the general morale of an already volatile rooming situation. Feigning sudden interest in my sneakers, I am able to sidestep yet another tortuous encounter with Nevill Barth, the house English tutor, who keeps asking me out for coffee so we can talk about Hemingway and poststructuralist criticism over
baba au rhum
, undeterred by my chilly assurances that I have an antipathy for sweets. Next, executing a subtle pirouette around a little yapping cluster of Eurofags in their handsome black overcoats, I relinquish my tray, and finally stalk toward the exit. Bryan and Carlos are standing by the salad bar, laughing. As I pass by them Carlos calls out: “Hey, surfer girl!” I catch a glimpse of Bryan's suddenly frigid face and I say “
Qué pasa
, guys?” and keep moving.

Nursing my shinsplints as I walk up the four flights to my room, I tally up the varying sensory offenses of six blaring stereos, one screaming match, two whiffs of pot, and the frenzied clatter of a popcorn-maker. At the door to C-45 I hear an electric typewriter and the Dazz Band. In the living room, Jessica is sitting perfectly straight over her typewriter, the stereo tuned to her favorite funk station.

“Hi, honey, I'm home.” I toss my books and jacket onto the couch. “What's for dinner?”

She doesn't turn her head from the keyboard. “What's another word for
repressed
?”

“Suppressed, restrained, constrained, inhibited.” I sprawl on the couch and pick up the
Crimson
. “Stifled, curbed, subdued. Why do you ask?”

“Guess,” she says sourly.

“You're doing the crossword puzzle?”

“Very funny.” She taps a few keys and then sighs hugely. “Hey, d'you think I can get away with implying that Jane Austen was bisexual?”

“Why not? You live in Adams House.”

“Oh, Christ.” She leans over and rests her forehead on the typewriter. “Lord help me.”

“I'm serious. You'll get an A for sure.”

“Goddam fucking son of a bitch.”

“I hope you're referring to your thesis.”

“I'm sure you do.”

Tossing the
Crimson
aside, I get up and stroll over to where she sits. I place my hands on her shoulders and start massaging her deltoids.

“Harder harder,” she murmurs. “Faster faster.”

“Don't be disgusting.”

When I sense that she's about to slide onto the floor, I give her neck a final squeeze. “Try to relax.” I return to the couch and pick up
The New Yorker
. Jessica subscribes.

She's typing away with renewed vigor. “You're an animal,” she tells me, cheered.

“Call me Fido,” I say absently, in the middle of another unintelligible
New Yorker
poem. Finally I throw the entire magazine into the empty fireplace. “God, I hate this pretentious crap. I know several monkeys who—”

“Hey, speaking of crap.” Jessica reads aloud from her notes: “‘Jane Austen as social critic. Early feminist writings reveal precocious awareness—'”

The phone rings from underneath my coat. “I'll get it,” I say loudly, poking around for the receiver. “Hello?”

“Hi, is Jessica there?”

“Hi, Steve. How's everything?”

“Fine, thanks. Who's this?”

“Bella Abzug. It's Bella Abzug.”

“Oh, I guess I have a wrong number.”

“I was only joking, Steve. Bella Abzug lived here last year.”

“Oh. Who am I talking to then?”

“Here's a little hint. Seven letters, sounds like veranda. Tall gal who lives with Jessica, blue eyes, dishwater-blond hair—”

“Oh, hi, Miranda. Is Jessica there?”

“Just a minute.” I bring the receiver right up to my mouth. “Jessica,” I scream, “it's for you.”

Jessica takes the phone and sits at the other end of the couch. “Well, hi, Steve.” She rolls her eyes at me. “I'm fine, thanks. How are you?”

“Be nice to him,” I whisper, standing up. “He can't help it if he's a peabrain.”

“What did you say, Steve? I couldn't hear you. Miranda was telling me something.”

Abandoning her to Steve, I go into the bathroom to brush and floss my teeth. Then I dispose of the floss by flicking it out into the air shaft, which has wonderful acoustics and makes for some stimulating eavesdropping now and again. A couple of floors down someone is singing “Misty” in his bathroom. His voice, a wistful tenor, floats dreamily upward, and I turn away from the mirror, checking the impulse to tilt close and see if I've gotten any blemishes since the last time I looked.