Chapter Eight: Unexpected relations
The Greek columns of the main entrance were being power washed by a maintenance crew as we sidestepped the mist drifting off. We crashed through the double doors and the girl manning the front desk didn’t bother looking up. We drifted over to the staircase marked West.
We climbed in rhythm.
Our feet clapped the cement stairs as the echoes bounced up to the top floor. The walls were plastered with notices of upcoming campus events and crooked construction paper posters advertising new rentals or computers for sale with tear off phone numbers. Elyssa went up before me, her footsteps as light as brushstrokes across the steps, and I stared at her athletic legs under her billowy, alabaster sundress.
The beast I managed to cage before began to fight its way free. Thinking of baseball didn’t help as I thought of her in a uniform doing a strip tease.
Sweat spit out of my pits and my heart pounded in my ears. With a fake cough, I stopped to restrain the beast. We got to my room and Erin and George headed to his room and at the end of the hall.
Erin yelled, “Come down here in about a half hour.”
Elyssa shouted, “Okay!”
The echo of her voice lingered in the narrow hall.
WA-KING DEAD was written on my door in thick black marker.
“Bullshit from guys on the hall,” I said, jammed the door open and stepped in. I extended my arm and said, “Voila.”
I knew it was stupid when I said it. She stood right hip forward in the doorway and scanned my dirty nest as she entered.
“This is the double bed. Not made very well. This is my new computer that I purchased, or should I say my mother purchased from the school. I still do not know how to use it except for the Golf and Solitaire games. These are my half empty closets. Over there on the wall, under the Dali “Don Quixote” print, is my acoustic guitar, which I would be lost without. This is the ugly windowsill. This concludes the day’s tour and I hope you come again.”
She tossed her hair back.
She gazed into my eyes.
The floor gave way under my feet.
I wanted to be an ostrich.
“You’re really strange, but funny. Cool room. So jealous of your closet space,” she said, looked me up and down and continued, “Are you bringing girls back here and getting them drunk? You’re a Casanova aren’t you?”
She was making fun of me. My shoulders lowered.
“Yup, that is me. Joaquin Casanova. Actually you are the first girl to step foot in here,” I said.
“I’m honored,” she said as she sat down on the edge of my bed placing her arms behind the perfect curve of the small of her back with her palms flat on the bed.
I was doomed.
I couldn’t think. The side of her right breast bulged out right below the slipping strap of her dress. This tickled the inside of my stomach and something else quivered. I couldn’t let the beast out again so I bit my lip. We started to talk about some places in Westport and I couldn’t stop spinning my ring.
She stopped after a few minutes and asked me if I liked being here and I said, “Yes, but it was hard being alone sometimes.”
She slid her lip balm out of her pocket with two fingers and slowly polished her lips just once. My heart felt like it was being crushed in a vice and I turned away, pretended to yawn and I lifted my left eyebrow up to look more serious. We talked about home a little longer and with a long sigh let me know that conversation should end. She looked at the guitar resting on the wall next to the stacks of unopened books and boxes.
I gulped and was able to make out that the ring on her left hand was a sapphire.
“Nice ring. Looks a little loose.”
“It’s my father’s pinky ring. I’ve worn it since forever.”
“When did he give it to you?”
Her eyes rolled back to the left and rubbed above her right eye.
“I can’t remember,” she said.
“Would you play something for me?” she asked as she leaned forward with flirty eyes and rubbed her legs together at the knees.
An explosion was building. I couldn’t think straight.
“I really need new strings. Those sound horrible. How about another time?” I asked.
“That’s okay. You don’t have to play for me now. Most guys jump at the chance to show off. But not you,” she said.
“The guitar strings really need to be changed.”
“No they don’t. My ex used to play. I’m glad you don’t want to show off. Makes me think you’re not some creep. My dad died when I was little so I’m weary around guys and you’re insecurity is, well, nice.”
“I am so sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was a long time ago. I bet our lives are a lot alike coming from where we do. I bet your parents worked all the time, like my mom, but I had my German nanny Gertie. Did you have a nanny? Do your parents work in NYC?”
“My mother commutes and no, I did not have a nanny.”
“What does your dad do?”
“Fades as a memory.”
“Did he die?”
“No, he left. I make him fade.”
“You shouldn’t. You still have a father.”
“Some fathers are not fathers. He loved his suits more than me and my brother.”
“Sucks, I know guys like that. Any stepfathers?”
“No.”
“My mom had lots of men in her life. I still haven’t forgiven her for some who were touchy feely. Some were nice though and bought me stuff. If they wanted to get to mom, they had to get through me. So I learned to handle them.”
“My mother had some men around, but she had two sons.”
“What’s your brother’s name?”
“Hunter, he is out there finding himself.”
“Aren’t we all? You’re lucky your mom never got remarried. Mine got remarried twice, and might be on her third. They’ve always been gold diggers. I don’t know why she just doesn’t live with some one.”
“Traditions die hard.”
She bent down to tighten the oversized white laces on her pure white Nikes. She straightened, tugged, tied and primped the floppy bows of the laces and her bountiful cleavage fought with gravity. I tried to look away but it was a reaction, a twitch, and got a good look at her skin toned bra. Her breasts were full, firm and bigger than I expected as they fell into the sagging dress and I desperately wanted to see her nipples but no.
Her head snapped up and caught me.
At that moment I went deaf for a second as I tried to play it off by staring over her back. Elyssa straightened up and smiled, I was confused, as she read the clock.
“You’re embarrassed. That’s cute. Just wanted to see if you were interested, next time, show me yours,” she said.
My eyes fluttered, I couldn’t think.
“Uh…Okay…Better go to George’s room,” I said. She bumped into me as she went through my door. We bumped into each other a few times on our way down the white tile hall. Thank You God!
Anxiety gripped my neck every time she touched me but I felt light. It was a strange sensation I never felt before and looking at her hurt. When we got to George’s room, the door was cracked so I pushed it and there were people were being naughty on the couch but George was not one of them. Tim and Erin were fooling around.
I smiled a crooked smile. She nodded and pushed the door wide open. I looked at Elyssa as she puckered her lips and Erin rushed to straighten her dress.
“What the fuck are you doing man?” Tim yelled as he fixed his wife beater t-shirt and rotated his cutoff jean shorts in the right direction.
“We were coming to see what was happening. Erin told us to come down here in a half hour,” I said. Erin then rose up and said, “I figured you two would hang out longer than that.”
We stood there looking for the next direction to present itself and Tim said, “Joaquin, let’s take these lovely ladies to the Red House party tonight. That’s if you two will let
us?”
I looked at Elyssa and she grinned and said, “Yes” and Erin belted out, “Time to party tonight.” I grabbed a smoke from George’s pack on the desk. Elyssa asked for one, so I gave her the last straight cigarette in a bent pack.
I sat down on the floor and slid George’s brass free standing ashtray from beside the wall in front of me and said, “What are we going to do right now?”
Tim did not respond but Erin said, “We should go study so we can go out tonight.”
Elyssa agreed but before they left to begin their trek up the hill across campus to their dorm, Elyssa said, “Come and get us at my room around nine. It’s 405 Donner hall. Se ya later.”
I stood. I levitated. Tim’s eyes became slits as he looked at me. So after we heard the metal doors to the stairs clamp shut with a crunch, he said, “You can’t get her. Every junior and senior is after her. You are but an ordinary freshman. You’re lucky she’s even talking to you.”
“Tim, I am not ordinary.”
He sneered. I walked back to my room and was struck by a thought that I squandered the opportunity to play bashful and then rip on the guitar. Instead I looked timid. A chance at paradise lost and I was the walking decapitated.
JOAQUIN DEAD.
Five guys from the dorm gathered after dinner in George’s room to play poker for money and smokes until eight. Then the mad rush to get showered and prepared for evening’s events unfolded. It was an act I was getting better at.
George, Tim, James, Cyrus and I decided to go out together. Outside George’s room, James stood silent rubbing his elbow. He was a towering tree of a man cut from the Scandinavian forests. Cyrus knelt down next to James and tied his expensive hiking boots. He was known as Chill and was a politician’ kid from DC. First thing Cyrus ever said to me at a hall meeting was “Good, you don’t wear a hat. They make you go bald.”
We headed out and right before reaching the stairs, Tim told George we were going to get the girls. George tucked in his t-shirt, crossed his arms and flared his nostrils as he snorted a breath in disapproval.
We tracked up the path toward the Donner Hall and saw a flock of neatly dressed girls jaunting up to Fraternity Row. I scanned the group as my Calvin and Hobbs t-shirt began to stick to me. We circled up in front of the dorm’s main entrance.
“Walk-man, this is ridiculous for all of us to go up there. You and Tim go and get those chiquitas and the rest of us will meet at the house. We’ll be at the keg,” George said.
I looked at Tim and he said, “That’s a good plan. They can save some places.”
We collectively nodded and George, Cyrus and James took their leave. Tim’s pupils dilated.
“Walk-man, I get it. Man, I’m glad George said that,” Tim said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“He tried to hook up with Erin last year but she eyed me when we hung out. Glad he moved on,” he said.
“Dude, you were in his room.”
“Yeah that was dumb.”
We got to the third floor and Elyssa and Erin were waiting. Elyssa’s hair was down and tight jeans accompanied an even tighter thin black sweater made a bead of sweat roll down my back. Erin’s royal blue dress caressed her smooth legs and was accessorized to the teeth, bobbles and charms dangling everywhere.
Looking at Elyssa made my knees buckle. I thought it was a figure of speech but there I was being almost knocked over by beauty.
“Hello. Love those khakis you’re wearing but don’t you think that long sleeve shirt is a little too warm. Looks nice though, love the blue on you. By the way Joaquin, there’s a girl who says she knows you who is going to be there,” Elyssa said.
Erin bounced up and down on the soles of her feet.
“Tim, some professors are supposed to be at the party early, and I want to see who’s drinking. Oh yeah, Jane! You remember the girl who went to rehab last year, she’s back for a visit,” Erin said to Tim.
The elevator ride down was elbow to elbow.
After exploding out into the night, we practically jogged to the party a half mile away. We were in the South at the end of September but it was still summer hot out. A flood of fear came over me as I felt that my deodorant was going to fail me soon and could ruin it all. I would be the nice-funny guy she met in the beginning of the year, but then one day I smelled.
We entered the party through a rickety white picket gate and paid our three bucks before going up the front stoop. The Red House was a weathered barn red. The inside was orderly, real framed art hung on the walls, and the plush furniture was clean. We found the guys right where they said making offerings to Dionysus around the most precious keg snuck in the corner of the bright white kitchen.
Erin and Tim took off to find the professors and didn’t even acknowledge the guys. So Elyssa and I went over to them and I introduced her, “Cyrus, James this is Elyssa, and of course you know George.”
Cyrus dipped his tortoise shell glasses and bowed. James waved his enormous right hand like a child.
“Do you want a beer?” I asked her.
“God yes.”
I fought my way through to the keg and filled her cup. The room began to lose space and rose ten degrees in five seconds. My sight became narrow and in every cluster of guys walking by I saw raptors swooping down on Elyssa. I knew some older guy was going to try and put his talons into her. I handed her the beer and we talked about how the leaves were changing color in Connecticut. She finished her beer and told me she was going to find the girl she mentioned. She was absorbed by the crowd.
After chugging a few brews, Elyssa bounded back over with two girls and a guy who introduced himself as Phil from Philly. He wore a single gold chain that slid and coiled as a golden serpent in his briar of chest hair under open collars. The hair on his head was smattered down with gel, as he scanned the party with a Billy Idol sneer.
“Hello,” the two girls said in unison.
“These two lovely ladies are Jennifer and Dawn and this is the guy from Taylor hall,” she said.
Dawn was short, too short for my liking, but cute as she was sporting granny glasses that glinted with amber in the dapples of light and a plaid skirt, which I thought was quite daring for this school. She folded a small piece of blue paper as her bobbed auburn hair scattered as people nudged by. She was doing Origami.
Jennifer didn’t look at me through her cornfields of hair swaying across her face. Her beak kept pointing in the other direction. For some reason, I wanted to spill a beer her but Dawn reminded me of the Bumblebee girl in the “No Rain” video by Blind Melon but part Japanese. I had the feeling I had seen her at a Ska show in the City? Niceties were shared and then Elyssa pointed at me with her eyes. Dawn’s right eye winked back to her. Elyssa stepped closer to me and sent a cold shudder all the way out to my fingers.
“Dawn says she knows you from home. Did you go to the same school?”
“I, I do not know,” I said as Dawn approached me and slid the granny glasses to the tip of her petit nose.
“I know you, but you never paid any attention to me. I took guitar lessons at Pro Music just like you,” Dawn said.
“Oh yeah, you played the Martin. I am sorry about not recognizing you, but I thought you were a couple years younger. Sorry. Glad to meet you Dawn. I really like your glasses.”
She blushed with one strum of the ego strings.
“It’s cool that you don’t recognize me from then because I have changed a lot since. I got my braces off,” she said and smiled a toothy smile and continued, “We also went to the same high school.”
“Oh, really. It was a huge school,” I said and thought this girl might create complications.
Phil left. Cyrus spilled and was brushing the beads of beer off his blue button down oxford as James pulled out a tissue for him. They were putting beers down faster than they could be poured. Jennifer kept nodding in the other direction to Elyssa. She turned to me and said, “I’m going to search for my other friends now but
I’ll come back later.”
The three of them turned and dissolved into the sea of people. I hoped Elyssa would come back but I didn’t know if she would.