Been There, Done That Page 18

  I sobbed some more and finally pulled away because we were still in her open doorway, and I didn’t want the neighbors to see. Also, my nose was starting to run, and it would have been rude to get snot on her dress even though, given her extensive experience as a mother, she probably wouldn’t have minded all that much.

  She led me into her living room and settled me on a velvety moss green couch, then spread a blanket over my lap even though it wasn’t cold. She darted off to the bathroom and returned with a box of tissues (the kind with lotion), which she set on her cherry coffee table. “Comfortable?” she asked. I nodded, still unable to talk. She headed for the kitchen with a promise to return with a cup of tea.

  Marcy came back with a huge glass of wine. “I thought you could use something stronger than tea.” She handed me the glass. “I turned on a video for the boys and gave them a plate of cookies. With any luck, that’ll keep them happy until bedtime.” She sat next to me on the couch and waited for me to speak. When I didn’t, she quietly asked, “Is he getting married?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t know if it’s even serious.” I took a mouthful of wine and swallowed. “He’s sleeping with Jennifer.”

  Marcy shook her head in confusion. “Jennifer who?”

  “Jennifer from work.”

  Marcy squinted at me, still confused. “Not your secretary? The tacky one?”

  “She doesn’t like it when you call her a secretary. But, yeah—that’s her.”

  Marcy snared the wineglass from my hand and took a swig, murmuring something about how the fetus was fully formed and in Europe women drank all through their pregnancies. Clearly, she was trying to remember if I’d ever mentioned they knew each other. She was stumped. “But how did Tim ever meet her?”

  I was all set to be vague, cover my tracks, keep my promise to Tim not to divulge our big secret. And then I thought: why? I was nervous, though. “Where’s Dan?” I asked.

  “It’s Saturday night,” she said. “Where do you think he is?”

  “At the office?”

  She nodded. “To make up for staying at home with the boys while I was at the shower. Don’t ever marry a lawyer. You’ll spend all your nights and weekends alone.”

  “I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

  She stared at me, waiting. I looked at the deep yellow of my wine and ran a finger along the rim, making a little squeaking noise.

  “I don’t mean to be insensitive,” Marcy said. “But we’ve got maybe twenty minutes before the boys come tearing in here. And that’s if we’re lucky.”

  “Okay,” I said, finally. “Tim called me a couple of months ago and asked me to work on a story with him. I’ll get into the details later. Basically, I’ve spent the last month undercover, living as a freshman at Mercer College.”

  For once, Marcy was speechless. Finally, she managed a “What?” and I launched into my tale. When I got to the part about pretending to be Jewish, Jacob came in and said, “Josh is stinky.”

  Marcy blinked at him. “It’s probably just gas.”

  He held his nose. “Uh-uh. He’s poopy. Joshy’s a pooper.”

  “Okay, okay,” Marcy said hurriedly. “I’ll come get him in a minute. Just go back in the playroom and let Kathy and me talk.”

  He shook his head. “No! I don’t want to sit next to him! He’s stinky! P.U.! P.U.!”

  Marcy sat up straight and spoke slowly. “Jacob. If you’ll go back in the playroom now, you can have another cookie.”

  “I don’t want a cookie. I don’t like that kind.”

  “Okay,” she said, her voice rising. “You can have one of the chocolates in the pantry.” He stood very still for a moment, and then scurried off to the kitchen.

  “So she actually believed you were Jewish? Who would believe you were Jewish?”

  “I told her I was half Jewish, half Irish.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Marcy laughed. “That was a popular match in our parents’ day.”

  “Does your mother still refer to me as your shiksa roommate?”

  “It was once she said that. Once! I never should have told you.” When we were in college, Marcy’s older brother, Larry, came down for a weekend. Tim and I were temporarily on the outs—every year or two, we split up for about a week—and Marcy’s brother expressed an interest in filling the vacuum. I didn’t find him the least bit attractive (I never actually told Marcy that), but when Marcy’s mother heard he’d started calling me, she got in a tizzy envisioning little Catholic grandchildren and all the attendant baptisms and First Communions. I truly hated her for her bigotry—moot though it was. In time, however, she acquired Pamela as a daughter-in-law instead, so I guess she’s been punished enough: Pamela is not just a bitch; she is a Methodist bitch.

  Over the years, I’ve occasionally wondered if I was too quick to write Larry off. I mean, he was a nice man who later showed himself to be a good husband and father. Also, having hit it big in the Internet boom, he owned not only a mansion in Brookline, but a waterfront house on the Cape.

  “It gets worse,” I said, continuing my Mercer saga. “Next I was supposed to be a lesbian.”

  Marcy was leaning toward me, utterly absorbed, when Jacob reappeared in the doorway. “The chocolates are all gone.”

  “They were there yesterday,” Marcy said desperately.

  “Daddy ate them.”

  “When? He’s never home.”

  “Today, when you were at your party.”

  Marcy lowered her voice. “Please, Jacob. Please. Go. Back. To. The. Playroom.”

  “It’s stinky,” he wailed.

  There was a heavy moment of silence. She looked at me beseechingly. It had been a long time since Marcy had found me this fascinating. She looked back at Jacob and took a big breath for strength. “If you’ll go back to the playroom, tomorrow I will take you to Chuck E. Cheese.”

  Jacob’s eyes lit up. He jumped in the air. He ran out of the living room, and we heard him say, “Joshy! We’re going to Chuck E. Cheese!”

  “You have no idea how much I just gave away,” she said to me.

  “I think I do,” I said. Jacob’s third birthday party had been held at Chuck E. Cheese.

  “So now you’re a lesbian,” she said, returning to my story.

  “I’m not anymore,” I said. “And, really, I never was. It was just this rumor. And there’s this guy, Jeremy, who’s just so amazing but way too young.”

  Jacob appeared once again in the doorway. “This better be good,” Marcy said.

  “Josh stuck a cookie in the VCR,” he said.

  “There’s a video in the VCR.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Okay. I’ll get it later.”

  Jacob turned and began to walk out. “Oh, yeah. And Joshy took off his diaper.”

  twenty-eight

  It was almost midnight by the time I got back to the dorm. It was Saturday night, though, so for many, the party was just getting started. The hallways echoed weirdly from the noises behind closed doors: loud, bass-heavy music, drunken male laughter, girlish shrieks. Walking down the hallway, a door swung open and the noise jumped out. Jake—of Mike-n-Jake—called, “Hello,” his face flushed from alcohol. Inside, Katherine, in her usual uniform of jeans and a baby doll shirt, sat on Mike’s bed, leaning against his bent knees.

  “Mike likes my belly button ring!” she called out.

  He reached forward to touch her exposed midriff, but she swatted his hand away playfully. “Careful! It still hurts!”

  “Want a brewski?” Jake asked me, holding up a bottle. “Keith’s at his parents for the weekend.” Keith was Mike’s studious roommate.

  “Thanks, but I’m beat,” I said. In truth, I was wide awake but in no mood to complete a foursome chez Mike.

  Turning the key in my door, I checked our erasable memo board. Now that I had a laptop, I mostly received e-mails, but I still got the occasional note on my door. I liked the memo board because it showed all the world that I was loved. From Kathe
rine: “Party in Mike’s room! Come with?” From Vanessa: “Hiya! Don’t you ever check your e-mail? Thought you might be up for an ice cream. Call me on my cell.” There were no phone messages from Tiffany. Apparently, my Uncle Tim had not called. Then again, maybe he had called, and she just wasn’t in. I said a silent prayer that she’d gone out with Ethan. I wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and fall into a blissful coma.

  The room was dark, which I took to be a good sign. I turned on the light. Then I saw the lump under the covers. I turned the light off quickly, but not before I caught a glimpse of Ethan’s pasty, guilty face.

  “I was just leaving,” he said, moving in the dark.

  “No!” Tiffany yelped.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Just dropping off my backpack. I’m headed over to Mike’s room.” I shoved my key in my pocket and tossed the backpack in the direction of my bed. It hit the side and fell to the floor. Leaving, I closed the door as quietly and as quickly as I could.

  I leaned against the cold cinder block wall, willing myself not to cry. Mike’s party—such as it was—was a possibility, I told myself. At least I could get drunk. But I’d risk designating myself as Jake’s woman for the night, a chance I was unwilling to take. Besides, I didn’t want to get drunk. I was tired of the fuzzy feeling and the excruciating mornings-after. Alternatively, I could simply go back to my car and drive home. I’d be in my apartment before two. Of course, there was the problem of my car keys; they were in my backpack. I couldn’t bear to open that door again. Also, I had a singing rehearsal the next morning.

  I was about to lose my battle against the tears when I heard the orange fire door at the end of the hall swing open. It was Jeremy. I was unreasonably glad to see him. “Hello!” I said brightly, scurrying toward him.

  He beamed. “You locked out?”

  “I should be so lucky.” I leaned toward him and lowered my voice. “Tiffany and Ethan are doing it.”

  He gawked. “No way!”

  “Make room in hell,” I murmured.

  “So what are you going to do?” he asked carefully.

  I shrugged. “Keith’s away, so Mike’s having a party. If you can call three people a party.” I looked down the hall, then back at Jeremy. “I’ll go if you will.”

  He thought for a moment. “Or we could go to my room, where we won’t have to drink cheap beer and listen to bad music.”

  “The beer’s imported,” I said. “I saw the bottles.”

  Jeremy shook his head. “Mike saves the bottles, then refills them with the cheap stuff. He thinks no one notices.”

  “Doesn’t that make the beer flat?”

  “Extremely.”

  We looked into each other’s eyes, and then I looked away. “I don’t want to keep you up,” I said, forgetting for a moment that twenty-one-year-olds don’t actually need sleep.

  “I’m not tired,” he said. “Come on.” He loped down the hall. I followed.

  He flipped on his overhead light and hit a switch on his CD player. A familiar song filled the room. “Have you ever heard the Beatles?” he asked.

  Surely he was kidding. “You mean that hot new group out of Wisconsin?”

  “Sorry.” He grinned. “But when Katherine heard this the other day, she asked if it was early Justin Timberlake.”

  He pulled two beers (imported) from his minifridge, twisted off the tops and handed one to me. “To the first boy band.”

  Okay! Okay! I should have known better. But what was I supposed to do? Tiptoe into my bed, pull the covers over my ears and try to block out the sounds of Tiffany copulating? I couldn’t face the party in Mike’s room. I couldn’t go home. I really had no choice.

  Okay. I wanted it to happen, too. I wanted him to fluff the pillows on his bed so I could be comfortable leaning against the wall. I wanted him to ask me who my favorite Beatle was (John) and to hear that his, against all odds, was George. I wanted him to play the White Album. I wanted him to turn the lights down low, but as the fluorescent lacked a dimmer, I wanted him to turn them off completely. I wanted him to kiss me on the eyelids and cheeks and ears and lips, while running his hands up and down my back. And then I wanted us to lie down together and fall quietly asleep in each other’s arms.

  It was all going so well until we got to the sleep bit.

  His breathing grew ragged. He continued to caress my back, but under my shirt this time, working his way up to my bra. That slowed him down a bit, as it took a few moments for him to realize the bra possessed a front closure. He made up for lost time quickly, however, undoing the clasp with one hand. One hand!

  A little voice inside my head told me, “Now! You should stop now!” My loose, flopping bra felt ridiculous inside my shirt. But a second, more forceful, voice snarled, “Oh, the hell with it. Have a little fun.” I tried to clear my mind, become one with the moment. After all, if a person is going to do something completely immoral—and this was, wasn’t it?—she should at least have a good time. But I kept getting these pictures in my head: Tiffany with Ethan, Jennifer with Tim. I don’t know which yucked me out more, but the thought of Tim and Jennifer together egged me on. Tim wasn’t the only one who could land a young hottie.

  Jeremy drew away slightly and pulled off his rugby shirt. Oh, my! The vision, dim as it was, temporarily cleared my mind. The only chests I’d ever seen like this were on billboards. It was almost worth turning the fluorescents back on. I plunged back to his lips with renewed vigor and ran my fingers through his tousled curls. He pulled my shirt over my head, and I let him, yelping only briefly when it caught on an earring. The bra slid easily off my back. Now I was glad the lights were off. It’s not that I have an especially bad body image (which is to say that I dislike my body about as much as most women I know); I just hated the thought of having to see myself half-naked with a twenty-one-year-old. My God! This was wrong! It was!

  “I like you,” he murmured into my neck. “I really do.”

  “I like you, too,” I said, seeing a glimmer of hellfire in my mind. I tried to concentrate on his astonishing chest but couldn’t. I had to get out of this. Suddenly, inspiration hit. This was the age of safe sex! Birth control pills weren’t good enough. Diaphragms were out. Foam wouldn’t do. We needed a barrier, or the deal was off. “I don’t have any protection,” I said, feigning disappointment and reaching for my shirt.

  “That’s okay. I do,” he murmured. In two steps, he was at his desk. He opened the drawer, rummaged quickly and easily. Two more steps, and he was back with a foil packet. Pretty impressive for a guy in a dark room.

  He pulled back the covers of his bed, pausing when he reached me. I stood up obligingly, and then sat down on the sheet. I tried to think of a nice way to say, “I didn’t mean to lead you on,” but then he had me flat on my back and was nibbling at my neck, and the words didn’t come.

  So it happened. The clothes came off, the caressing and stroking and rubbing intensified. Bodily fluids were—well, you get the picture. I waited for some swelling emotion to transport me to ecstasy. It didn’t. As aroused as I was, I still felt extremely self-conscious and extraordinarily guilty.

  And then it was over. He gave me one final kiss on the mouth, nuzzled his head into my neck and went to sleep. I panicked, knew I’d never sleep, wondered how I was going to get out of there. And then I fell asleep anyway.

  I awoke to pins and needles in my right calf. Jeremy’s legs were slung over mine (his bed was a single, after all). It was as dark as it had been when we’d fallen asleep. Green lights from the CD player, now quiet, cast an eerie glow. I checked the digital clock next to his bed: 3:30 A.M. I carefully slid my legs out from under his. He sighed and shifted and did not wake up.

  I fished around the dark floor until I found my underpants. I pulled them on, and they immediately filled with a warm wetness. I felt myself blushing in the dark. I yanked on the rest of the clothes and took a last look at Jeremy before leaving. A faint glow from the streetlights filtered through the Venetian bl
inds and illuminated his face. He really was beautiful, like some perfect boy in a movie. Sleep softened the curves of his face, making him look even younger than he was. My throat constricted as I imagined how he would feel when he learned the truth about me.

  If Ethan hadn’t left my room, I’d retrieve my car keys from my backpack, drive back to my apartment and sleep all day. I’d call Vanessa and say I was sick. Perhaps I’d stay sick, or perhaps I’d just disappear. Maybe I’d tell Tim that I didn’t want to work with him anymore. I’d tell Richard that I was chasing a non-story. On Monday, I’d file for unemployment.

  I pulled Jeremy’s door softly behind me. Then I turned and gasped. Across the hall, Mike’s door was just opening. If it was Katherine, I was cooked. There was no time for me to run away.

  But it wasn’t Katherine. It was Jake. He was wearing jeans, the top button undone. Tropical print boxers showed above his waistband. He froze in the doorway. I expected him to laugh at me, to say, “You tramp!” I assumed he’d passed out earlier and wondered why he didn’t just sleep off his hangover in Mike’s room. But then I noticed his expression: caught. He shot a quick look back into the room, where Mike lay sleeping under a white sheet, one naked leg spilling off the side of the bed.

  Jake and I stared at each other. Finally, I said, “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

  “Wow,” he whispered. “If I’d bagged Jeremy, I’d want everyone to know.”

  twenty-nine

  There was only one lump under Tiffany’s pink bedspread when I peeked in the door, so I abandoned my plans of deserting my career. Instead, I crawled, fully clothed, under the covers and somehow managed to sleep.

  Tiffany was gone when I woke up in the morning, which was just as well since she doesn’t approve of swearing, and I uttered some choice words when I realized I was late to my singing rehearsal. As I was already dressed, it didn’t take long to get out the door (just a quick brush of the teeth and a rearrangement of the scrunchy), but the girls were singing when I entered the lounge, and Penny gave me a dirty look.