Been There, Done That Page 9

  “Totally,” I said. “Ready to go?”

  In the cafeteria the next morning, Jeremy ambled over with a tray crowded with toaster pancakes, toaster waffles and a package of Pop-Tarts. I was sipping milky coffee, wondering if upping my stomach’s acidity was worth the energy boost. My hair was unwashed, my face gray. I was eating alone; had anyone been looking for an overaged imposter, my solitary status would have given me away.

  “You should have drunk a lot of water before bed,” he said. “It keeps you from getting a hangover.”

  “I did. It didn’t.” I smeared cream cheese over a freezer bagel. “So you knew I’d been drinking.”

  He opened a packet of syrup and dumped it on his waffle. He smirked. “I had a hunch. I was kind of hoping you’d offer me some.”

  “I’d have thought you were above such illegal activity.”

  “Nothing illegal about it. I’m twenty-one.”

  “But you’d be encouraging illegal behavior in your—what are we, anyway?—your charges?”

  He grimaced. “You make me sound like a nanny. I’m just there to help out in the dorm—answer questions, make sure things don’t get out of hand. Once we’re out of the dorm, I’m just another student.”

  Any other girl on the floor would kill to be having breakfast alone with Jeremy. Truly, I just wanted to be left in peace, but it was clear he wasn’t leaving till he’d finished loading the carbs. As long as I was stuck, I figured I’d do some digging. “You missed quite a party last night.”

  “At Troy’s? You went to that?”

  I shrugged. “I didn’t have anything better to do. Besides, isn’t that what college is supposed to be about? Wild parties?”

  “For some people it’s about getting an education,” he said primly.

  “I was joking,” I said, suddenly caring more about Jeremy’s opinion than I did about investigating.

  He looked at me carefully, little flecks of gold sparkling in his eyes. “I know you were,” he said. “Well, at least I hoped you were. How was it, anyway? The party?”

  I shrugged. “Okay. Loud.” Actually, it had been awful. I’d had a vicious case of the spins, and the music was so loud that even today my hearing was slightly muffled. There were too many hot, sweaty, drunken, hormonal bodies crammed into a living room devoid of furniture, everyone jumping up and down to the pounding rhythm. Here and there, boys and girls clutched each other, exploring each other’s mouths with their tongues. I felt like shaking them all and yelling, “For God’s sake, use protection!”

  As for research, it was useless. It was just another house party, indistinguishable from thousands of others in college towns across America. The girls on the dance floor weren’t charging for sex. They were giving it away for free.

  “I guess you’re glad to have your classmates back,” I said to Jeremy. It was the Saturday before classes began; upperclassmen were flooding the campus.

  He speared an enormous, dripping chunk of waffle into his mouth and shrugged.

  “So, what are the older students like? More wild partiers?”

  He reached for one of his three glasses of milk. “There’s all different types.” The dining hall only offered one size of glass—small—so everyone helped themselves to at least two glasses of whatever they were drinking.

  I tried again. “What are the different crowds like?”

  He thought for a minute. “The jocks hang out together, give keg parties. A pretty easygoing group. The theater crowd is pretty much what you’d expect—black clothes, clove cigarettes. They tend to keep to themselves. There are a bunch of preppies here, kids with money who were supposed to go to Harvard like their fathers and grandfathers but couldn’t get in. Not real studious,” he said, laughing. I immediately had images of white convertibles and polo ponies. Plenty of room for debauchery but probably not the desperation needed to turn to prostitution. Unless it was done for thrills? Or if someone was trying to keep up with the Joneses—or the Cabots and the Lodges, as the case may be?

  “Most people are pretty normal,” he said. “They just hang out with their friends, do whatever interests them. What kind of stuff are you interested in?”

  The table rattled next to Jeremy as someone set down a plastic tray: black coffee, water and Special K. I looked up just as Amber pulled out a chair and plunked down her skinny butt. “Thank God,” she said. “Everyone in the hall left for breakfast at, like, sunrise. I thought I’d be sitting here alone.” With her thumb and index finger, she made an L and held it up to her forehead. Without translation, I knew this signified “loser.” One week as a freshman and I was already hip. I even knew enough not to use the word hip—unless, of course, I was talking about the part of my anatomy that would most greatly benefit from liposuction.

  “Jeremy was just telling me about all the different crowds,” I told Amber, hoping for more input.

  “So what kind of stuff do you like to do?” Jeremy asked me again. Damn. I was hoping we’d skip over that part.

  I tried to remember what I’d told Tiffany and drew a blank. Instead, I grasped back to my adolescence. “I like to sing. I was in a couple of groups in high school.” For once, I wasn’t lying.

  “You mean, like in a band?”

  “No, nothing that cool. Just choir. And some a cappella.”

  Amber guffawed. “Now that’s a nice group of girls.”

  “Who?”

  “The . . . I can’t think of their name. The girls’ singing group. What are they called? Jeremy, you’d know.”

  “Can’t help you out,” he said. “Be right back; I’m going to get some more milk.” Good God: this would be his fourth glass. The boy’s bones must be like iron.

  “Tell me about this group of girls,” I said to Amber, not really expecting much but hoping I could pass it on to Tim as research.

  Amber rolled her eyes to the acoustic ceiling and shuddered dramatically. “I don’t think they’re in it for the singing, if you know what I mean. It just gives them an excuse to hang out together and get sent on trips around New England. They’re known for being a little, like, adventurous.”

  “You mean—with guys?”

  Amber smirked. “Bunch of whores.”

  I tried not to look too interested, although my heart was pounding. “Do you mean that literally?”

  Amber’s mouth twitched. She tore open her single-serving cereal box, poured half into her bowl and set the rest aside (probably for dinner). She spilled a little water in the bowl to dampen the cereal and stirred. “Nothing would surprise me,” she finally said.

  When Jeremy came back (the milk was chocolate this time), I tried to pry some information out of him. “Amber said the girls in that singing group are wild.”

  “That’s a group you should stay away from,” Jeremy said quietly. “That’s all you need to know.”

  I didn’t get to eat dinner alone, either. As lonely as I’d often felt eating in front of my television set, I longed for solitude. There was no place to be alone here. In my room, I had to make small talk with Tiffany. (“It must be really hard to live this far away from your dog.” “I don’t think Clay Aiken will ever do a concert in Mercer, but maybe he’ll come to Boston some time.” “No, those jeans don’t make you look fat.”) I had to make small talk every time I walked down the hall. (“Just going to the bookstore, hope the lines aren’t too long.” “Thanks, I like your scrunchy, too.”) I even had to make small talk in the bathroom. (“I got my towels at Marshall’s. I wanted to get fluffier ones, but my mother was too cheap to spring for them.”)

  At least tonight’s food promised to be better than the swill they served in the cafeteria. Dr. Archer and his wife, Evelyn, had invited me to dinner. I didn’t want to go. (Would he once again bug me about my marriage prospects?) I didn’t think I should go. (What if someone saw me?) Still, I couldn’t really say no. After all, I’d worked my way into the college by deceiving him and taking advantage of his good nature. In a few months, I would betray his trust and ca
st his school in a shameful light. In the meantime, didn’t I at least owe him the pleasure of my company?

  I tried to sneak out of the dorm unseen but ran into Amber at the front door. “Everyone’s going to dinner at six. Don’t you want to come with?”

  “Ugh.” I rolled my eyes. “I got so hungry this afternoon that I ate one of those gigantic cinnamon rolls from the convenience store. You know, the ones that are all hot and gooey.”

  Her hand flew to her mouth.

  “I think it was, like, seven hundred calories. So, anyway, I figure I better skip dinner.”

  “Yeah, you’d better,” she said somberly.

  As for the dean’s residence, I’d envisioned an old ivy-strewn house made of stone or brick and scented with pipe smoke. After walking a half mile from campus, though, I finally came upon a structure that I believe is called a raised ranch and which, in my opinion, represents the darkest hour in twentieth-century American architecture.

  Evelyn Archer opened the door, accompanied by two enormous dogs. She grabbed the collar of a black one (it looked like a cross between a Labrador retriever and a tractor) and pulled back as she opened the door for me. As soon as I was in, she released the dog, which immediately reared up on its hind legs and threw its weight on my chest. I took a step back to keep from falling over and said, “Hey, big doggie!” in a manner meant to indicate a love of dogs.

  “This is Bitty,” Evelyn said. Bitty’s tongue lolled out of the side of her mouth in a way that some people might consider cute. Saliva dripped from her mouth, just missing my arm. Instead, it landed on my shoe. “And this girl here”—she rubbed the head of a dull-eyed German shephard—“this is Cream Puff.”

  “Cute,” I said. “And cute names, too.”

  Evelyn, an attractive, forty-ish woman with short, frosted hair, was smartly attired in brown slacks and a tan crewneck sweater, a clever combination that undoubtedly camouflaged the layers of dog dirt that accumulated during the course of a day. She slapped the German shepherd on the back in a way that looked overly aggressive but that the dog seemed to love. “Altoid is out back.”

  “Altoid?” I patted Bitty’s head. She snapped at my face. I stumbled back in terror.

  “Oh, sweet!” Evelyn chirped. “Bitty’s trying to give you a kiss. She’s always loved people. Altoid’s . . . different. He needs to work on his social skills,” she said. “He gets a teeny bit upset when he meets new people. He’s very loyal, though.”

  “And an excellent watchdog,” Dr. Archer said, entering the front hall with a scotch in one hand and a glass of white wine in the other. He held out the wine. “This is for you.”

  I took the glass. “Aren’t you going to check my ID?”

  “Oh, I’d say you’re at least twenty-one.” He held up his glass in a toast, and we both drank.

  “There has been a string of break-ins around here, and we consider ourselves lucky to have Altoid on our side,” Evelyn continued, deftly steering the conversation back to her dogs. Apparently, she and her husband heard Altoid barking wildly one night. “Altoid doesn’t bark without a reason. Altoid is not a barker.” They turned on the outside lights but didn’t see anyone and went back to bed. The next morning, they learned of a robbery a couple of streets away.

  They led me into the living room. I was still holding out for an enormous stone fireplace, mahogany paneling and shelves crammed with books. The books were there, but an awful lot of them were about dogs. Also, they were held in mismatched bookcases, most of which were laminate. And not white or black laminate, either, but brown, faux-wood laminate. Unforgivable. I read some of the books’ titles, because, really, the written word matters so much more than the artificial trappings of a well-done house. Once again, I pretended to be interested in dogs. Evelyn offered to lend me some of her dog books, and I smiled without saying yes or no. I peered at the framed photographs arrayed among the books and was relieved to see that some were actually of people. “These your children?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Dr. Archer replied.

  “They’re Donald’s children,” Evelyn corrected, though not unhappily. “My children are all the four-legged kind.” She rubbed Cream Puff ’s head with devotion.

  “Oh,” I said. “That’s nice.” The room fell silent just as I finally thought of the things I really wanted to ask: How long did the first marriage last? How do you get along with the children? Are previously married men “damaged goods,” or are they better for having learned from their mistakes? After all, the older I got, the smaller my chances at first wifedom were becoming. I really did want to know what it would be like to be number two.

  We didn’t talk about that, of course. We talked about the guide dogs Evelyn was currently training and those she kept as pets. Bitty, Cream Puff and Altoid were all reject Seeing Eye dogs. “Bitty is too exuberant, Altoid is too aggressive, and my baby Cream Puff, well . . .”

  “He’s retarded,” Dr. Archer laughed, draining his scotch and going to the freestanding bar to pour himself another. I didn’t think people had bars in their living rooms anymore. I thought people worried that it would make them look like alcoholics.

  “You know I don’t like it when you use that word,” Evelyn said.

  Their eyes met and they glowed. Dr. Archer crossed the room with his full drink and plopped next to her on the couch. He rubbed her thigh and said, “Oh, my flower. You have such a sensitive soul.” For a moment, they were the only two people in the room. And I decided that second wifedom might not be so awful, after all.

  Dinner was, astonishingly enough, takeout Chinese. And not fresh takeout, either. Evelyn retrieved the cartons from the fridge and stuck them in the microwave. “I’m so busy with the dogs, I just can’t be bothered to cook,” she said without a trace of apology.

  “Who can, these days?” I said nonchalantly, my inner child sobbing at the loss of a home-cooked dinner. I burned my tongue on the hot and sour soup (she should have only nuked it for about a minute and a half rather than three, I deduced). After that, I couldn’t taste much, anyway.

  Against my efforts, the dinner conversation revolved around my “research.” I blabbed about how technology was changing student life and how today’s students were more focused on future careers than in my day. It was a load of crap. From what I’d seen, college kids were still the idealistic screwups they had always been. They still drank too much and took off their clothes more often than they should. They had more toys than in my day—cell phones, televisions, computers, flashy cars—and their fashions were simultaneously uglier and more provocative. Above all, they took themselves too seriously and all too often forgot to seize the moment. Just as we had. Or I had, at any rate.

  Unfortunately, Evelyn didn’t forget about the dog books, although, mercifully, she only forced one on me. On my way out the door, she pressed a volume into my hands: Soul Mates: Choosing the Perfect Dog. “I sense there’s something missing in your life,” she said with a gentle pat on my head.

  sixteen

  When I told Tim what I had learned about the singing group, he said, “You’re a genius!” I knew he meant it as a hyperbole, but I got all stupid and tingly nevertheless. I’d sent the details of my breakfast conversation with Jeremy and Amber over e-mail; with dorm walls this thin, I didn’t dare say much over the phone. Since I still didn’t have a laptop yet, I had to go to the computer center. The center was virtually empty, as all the parents who could afford to send their children to Mercer could afford to set them up with a whizzy laptop and color printer (which came in handy for advertising keggers). I coded the message in my best teen-speak:

  Tim! College is fab! Like one big party! Real work starts this week (BUMMER!) and then I’m going to check out the extracurriculars. I wanted to join a singing group like in high school, but this one girl I talked to said the girls in the group were “a bunch of whores.” I can’t believe the language they use around here!

  I deleted the message right after sending it, of course, but worried nonet
heless that it would somehow be traced back to me.

  Tim called me right away. I was out, so Tiffany took a message: my Uncle Tim had called. I waited till she went to the bookstore and phoned him back. “Uncle Tim?”

  “Think it’s clever?”

  “Brilliant. Like anybody’s uncle really calls them at college.” I was whispering, worried that Katherine might hear me.

  “Her,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “‘Like anybody’s uncle really calls her at college.’”

  I ignored his correction. “Anyone more worldly than Tiffany—which is basically anyone—would assume there’s something tawdry going on,” I chastised him.

  “Oh, right. They’d know you’re an undercover journalist, just because you happen to have an unusually attentive uncle.”

  “She’d know I’m an undercover journalist,” I purred.

  “Really?”

  “Of course not,” I hissed. “But you’re not the only one who can correct grammar. More likely, she’d just assume that I’d been having an affair with my high school math teacher, and we were staying in touch.” I was sitting on the floor by now, slouched against my bed.

  “Actually,” he chirped, “that kind of rumor might work in our favor. Make you appealing to the right kind of people, if you know what I mean.”

  We went on like this for a little bit longer. Then he called me a genius for having sleuthed so well, and I melted. My e-mail had implied that I’d been digging relentlessly when I finally struck gold: no need for him to know that everything had fallen into my lap after asking a couple of vague questions.

  I’d already figured out the obvious plan of attack and how to implement it. In other words, I knew what Tim was going to make me do, and even though I didn’t want to do it, I suggested it before he got the chance to present it as his idea.

  “The auditions are next week,” I told him. “I think I’ll use ‘You’re Mean to Me’ as my audition song.” It had been easy enough to track down the singing group, which was, ironically, called the Wallflowers. There were audition posters all over campus.