Youth in Revolt: The Journals of Nick Twisp (33 page)

Vijay had a more difficult time. The alluring Taggarty (short dark hair, intense green eyes, Manhattan sophistication cloaked in fragile ripeness) seemed more intent on demonstrating that she possessed the largest forebrain in the group than succumbing to his exotic, subcontinental, right-wing charm. In her gratingly shrill, overcultivated voice, she trotted out more scholarly allusions than an entire month of my letters to Sheeni. It’s a wonder she finds any time for sexual conquests what with all the fact-cramming she must do.

To his credit, Vijay more than held his own, especially after he commenced a long, florid recitation of Urdu poetry. Taggarty tried to steer the conversation toward a historical analysis of the
Ramayana
(she must have read the trot on that one), but desisted abruptly when Vijay tripped her up in a glaring factual error. Still, Taggarty is such an intellectual heavyweight she makes everyone except the supremely formidable Sheeni nervous about expressing an opinion. I pity her future fact-riddled husband.

Sheeni is more alarmingly mature and beautiful than ever. She wore a
soft, wine-red velvet dress that made her long hair glow like aged bronze. For me, our moments together pass in a fog of exquisite anguish. I want to clutch her to me, lest she pass beyond my humble orbit like some brilliant comet streaking across the heavens. These sentiments, as you might expect, often render normal speech difficult. Plus, François is forever reminding me not to look so lovesick. He says it’s bad for our image.

Everyone exclaimed over Fuzzy’s rad ’60s wheels, so he had to drive like a maniac to the restaurant. (A fancy one, specializing in expensive Mediterranean peasant food. At these prices, no wonder the peasants are impoverished.) Naturally it was Taggarty’s choice.

From 8:35 to 10:05 the check lay untouched on the table like an unexploded bomb, its menacing presence delaying our departure until it was too late to continue on to the boardwalk. Finally François coughed nonchalantly and turned it over. The numbers blew up in his face: $167.23.

Fearing the worst, the waiter had added in a generous 15 percent gratuity. The three men huddled and, after rifling all of our pockets (Fuzzy, to his surprise, found three crumpled twenties and a used condom in his varsity jacket), came up with $135.74. I was forced to write a personal IOU to our companions for the balance. They grumbled but coughed up the cash. Two hundred miles from home and we’re now totally broke. Thank God we had the foresight to fill up the gas tank.

Fuzzy drove back to the dorm at 20 mph to conserve fuel. Perhaps he also wanted to prolong his enforced proximity to his nubile jockette. This time I made Vijay sit in the front with them so I could sit next to Sheeni in the back. I held her warm hand and tried, in between interruptions (in French) from the jealous Taggarty, to converse privately with My Love.

“So, Sheeni, how do you like Santa Cruz? Isn’t it excessively damp being this close to the ocean?”

“Not at all, Nickie. I’m liking it more and more. The experience has been so broadening. My years in provincial Ukiah now seem like a fast-retreating nightmare. Of course, I do miss you and Albert. How is my darling dog?”

“A bit sluggish these days, I fear,” I replied. “He pines for you dreadfully, you know.”

“I’m so selfish,” she sighed. “Always thinking of my own happiness first. I promise to make it up to you both when we’re all reunited in Paris. Did I tell you Taggarty and I have an opportunity to study there next summer? Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

“Next summer!” I exclaimed. “But that was our time to be together in Ukiah.”

“I know, Nickie, but this is too extraordinary an opportunity to pass up. I’ve never been abroad you know. Why don’t you come and visit us there? We could go to all the museums and you could work on your French conversational skills.”

“And how am I supposed to finance this excursion?” I demanded.

“With the savings from your job, silly,” she answered. “You must begin to economize, Nickie.”

With some effort of will I let that point drop. “Is Trent going to be studying in Paris also?”

“I believe he’s submitted his application,” she replied. “But he’s trying to find out if they have facilities on the Seine for windsurfing. He’s become quite tiresomely fixated on that sport. His poetry is suffering.”

“Isn’t the Seine polluted?” I asked, entertaining a rapturous vision of a lapsed poet felled by hepatitis.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Sheeni answered wistfully. “It looks so poignantly blue in the photographs.”

11:30 P.M. (written by flashlight). We are all chastely bedded down for the night (at least some of us are). Taggarty, feigning severe menstrual cramps, distracted the matron while Vijay, Fuzzy, and I—carrying our grips and sleeping bags—sneaked in through the side door. Sheeni and Heather led us on tiptoes up to the third floor. Despite extreme stealth, our presence became known instantly among the occupants of the floor, exciting much giggling in French and running about in near-undress. Why, do you suppose, confining large numbers of teenage girls in one place produces such aberrant behavior? And why is it always the plain ones who take off most of their clothes?

Sheeni and Taggarty share a cement-block cubicle just big enough for a bunk bed, two small desks, one army surplus dresser, and a diminutive overstuffed armchair. As the more intelligent and beautiful, Sheeni claimed the bottom bunk. On the wall above her desk she has taped her Jean-Paul Belmondo
Breathless
poster and a photo of Albert and me. Taggarty’s wall displays several dozen bus station photo machine mug shots of sullen-looking youths, all of whom, presumably, have known her intimately. Written on each photo was a letter from A to F. Taggarty is a hard grader. Most of the guys, I noticed, earned a C-or below.

“There’s your competition,” I whispered to Vijay.

“A distinguished group I would be happy to join,” he whispered back.

To relieve the overcrowding, Heather suggested Fuzzy come sleep in her room.

“Your roommate won’t mind?” he asked, surprised.

“Oh, Darlene went home for the weekend,” Heather replied nonchalantly.

Fuzzy gulped. Vijay and I exchanged glances. “That sounds fine,” Fuzzy said, picking up his grip. “Well, see you guys in the morning.”

Ten minutes later, as we were unrolling our sleeping bags on the floor, we heard a woman’s scream through the wall.

“Sounds like your pal plays rough,” observed Taggarty.

“We are all of us quite hot-blooded,” confirmed Vijay.

We got even more hot-blooded a few minutes later when Taggarty, ostensibly searching for her misplaced nightie, revealed her contempt for bourgeois modesty by walking about with her bra off. She gets a B+ for size, but I would have to subtract points for the droop and nipple hairs. Vijay, though, clearly was awarding her an A. Thankfully, at that moment my discreet girlfriend was in the closet changing into her nightgown (undiaphanous as usual). So Vijay and François felt free to stare brazenly. Taggarty didn’t seem to mind.

Since the bathroom was down the hall, Taggarty (now clothed provocatively in pale green babydolls) stood guard outside the door as Vijay and I leaned over the grungy sinks and brushed our pearlies.

“I am in a state of sexual frenzy,” he confessed.

“Welcome to the club,” I said.

“What is your plan?” he asked.

“We drape a blanket over the lower bunk for Sheeni and me. You tackle Taggarty on the top bunk.”

“Do you have any condoms?”

“Let’s see. I slipped two to Fuzzy. So I’ve still got eight in my pack.”

“That should do,” said Vijay, gargling. He looked stricken. “What if they don’t go for it?”

“They’ll go for it,” I said. “You can cut the sexual tension in that room with a knife.”

Sheeni didn’t go for it. She whispered, “Don’t be silly, darling. Not with others in the room,” gave me a peck on the cheek, and slipped—alone—into her narrow bed.

Taggarty climbed laboriously up to her bunk in the sky, flashing her guests a stimulating eyeful in the process. “Good night, boys,” she cooed. “Do you need the light on to take off your clothes?”

“No,” I said, flipping off the overhead light. “We can find our zippers in the dark.”

Gloomily, we stripped down to our underwear and crawled into the sleeping bags. The concrete floor was cold and hard.

“This is most disconcerting,” whispered Vijay. “I shall not sleep a wink. Do you think I dare sneak up to Taggarty’s after everyone’s asleep?”

“It’s worth a try,” I whispered. “I don’t imagine she’d object.”

Too tired to write any more, and Vijay keeps looking over and scowling impatiently at me. I wish I hadn’t nervously sipped all that water at the restaurant. I have to pee again already.

SUNDAY, October 14 — 6:45
A.M
. A disastrous night! We are on the road back to Ukiah. Vijay and Fuzzy are blaming me, but I don’t see what they have to complain about. Fuzzy, thanks to some skillful ball handling by Heather, is now a certified nonvirgin. Vijay is about 65% certain he qualifies as one too. I should be so lucky.

The difficulties started when I got up to go to the bathroom. Yes, I was careful and made sure no one was in the hallway or rest room before I ventured forth. After pissing about three gallons, I suddenly developed a killer T.E. Maybe it was from being alone in a girls’ bathroom with the exotic ambience and gleaming sanitary napkin dispenser. Anyway, I decided to take a nice hot shower and deal with the T.E. while I was at it. This I did, and as I was toweling off (with a towel I found labeled “Darlene’s, Touch It and Die!”), I heard the outside door open. Feeling somewhat exposed, I slipped on my underpants, wrapped the towel around me, and tried to sneak out.

“Who are you?” asked a thin girl with short platinum hair and six earrings per lobe, glancing up from the sink into which she was vomiting.

I paused. “I’m Nick, a friend of Sheeni’s. Sorry to disturb you.”

“Wait! Don’t go!” she gasped, in between heaves.

“Are you OK? Should I go get some help?” I asked, alarmed.

“I’m OK,” she said, rinsing out her mouth from the tap. “It was just something I ate. Uh, could I borrow your towel for a second.”

Reluctantly, I handed over the damp towel. She wiped her mouth and looked me up and down with some curiosity. “So, what—are you Sheeni’s boyfriend or something?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“You’re staying the night? Where’s Taggarty?”

“Uh, she’s …she’s sleeping. A friend and I are just, just camping on the floor.”

“I get it. A slumber party. Any more boys on the floor I should know about?”

“Well, there’s my friend Fuzzy in Heather’s room.”

“Fuzzy. That’s a cute name. My name’s Bernice, by the way, not that you asked. Not that anyone does.”

“Nice to meet you, Bernice,” I added hastily. “I just feel a little, uh, uncomfortable standing here in my underwear.”

“What for? You have an OK body.”

“Thanks,” I said. François added, “You do too.”

“I’m totally gross,” she replied with a sneer. “So, you really like Sheeni, huh?”

“Yes, don’t you?”

“Personally, I hate her guts.”

“Why?” I asked, shocked.

“I have my reasons.” She read my mind. “Don’t worry, I won’t snitch on you. Well, pardon me, Nick. I feel like throwing up some more now.”

“You’re sure you’re OK?”

Bending over the sink, she frowned and waved me away.

When I got back to the room, Vijay’s sleeping bag was empty. The room was quiet except for some heavy breathing up near the ceiling. Exhausted, I crawled into my sleeping bag and dropped immediately into an uneasy sleep.

I awoke 20 minutes later—the beam of a powerful flashlight in my eyes and high-decibel French expletives in my ears. The matron! Behind her, peering into the room and smiling diabolically, stood Bernice. And to think just a short time before I had kindly lent her my towel. What ingratitude!

Two confused, frenetic, nightmarish minutes later, we were standing by the car in a cold rain waiting for Fuzzy, dressed only in a Marauding Beavers varsity letter jacket, to put on his pants so he could look for his car keys. Vijay, barefoot and naked from the waist up, was shivering uncontrollably from fright, the cold, and undischarged sexual tension. I had managed to toss on most of my clothes, but had misplaced my jacket. Fortunately, I remembered to grab my sleeping bag, which I was now wearing poncho-style. Vijay, distracted by his naked climb down from Taggarty’s romantic mountaintop, had not been so quick-minded. He was without shirt, socks, shoes, jacket, or poncho. Worse, at that moment, we knew, our dates were somewhere locked in an office, being harangued in high-volume French.

Sheeni, through the tumult, displayed her usual magnificent poise. She rose placidly from her bed, replied to the matron’s diatribes in demure, sedate French, and even had the presence of mind to hold a blanket up while Vijay stumbled into his shorts and trousers.

As we were bolting the premises, she spoke to me rapidly in French. Vijay translated after we got into the car and he had wrapped his shivering nakedness in my damp sleeping bag. “Sheeni said-d-d it would b-b-be wise for us to d-d-depart im-m-mediately,” he chattered. “Sh-sh-she expressed a f-f-fear the ma-matron m-m-might call the c-c-co-co-cops.”

But Fuzzy was already laying rubber, as he floored the aged V-8 and pointed our fleet Falcon homeward.

As we sped up the mountain road leading out of town, we reflected on that evening’s developments.

“I did it three times,” announced our driver. “Two quick ones, and then the last one lasted a long time.”

“But I only gave you two condoms,” I pointed out.

“I had to borrow the last one from Heather,” Fuzzy replied. “She swiped it from her roommate’s private stash.”

“So how was it?” I asked, trying not to sound too envious.

“Great,” he replied. “I thought it might be like riding a bicycle—you know, something you have to fall down a few times learning how to do. But it really does come naturally. I mean, you’re lying there on top of her. She’s squirming around, naked as a clam. And you say to yourself, ‘This really does feel right. I know what to do next.’ Didn’t you find that was true with you and Sheeni?”