The St. Ambrose School for Girls(62)

He’s now standing next to Ms. Crenshaw in front of the bleachers, and it’s a repeat of the Mountain Day picnic scenario, just with a bigger crowd, a music track, and a teenage dating movie unfolding around them. I can imagine the conversation, and I’m willing to bet it started with another entrée about car windows and weather. With the winter coming, she’ll have a problem. It’ll be cold enough so that he’ll want to conserve interior warmth when he drives. What will she monitor so that she has something to discuss with him, some new kind of update she’s got to share? She’ll need something more current than that touch football game I lost for Greta. Maybe this dance?

As Ms. Crenshaw chatters at him, Nick’s focus is on the crowd again and his hands are in his pockets. He is jazz music, I decide, cool and smooth and sexual. Ms. Crenshaw is the theme to a sitcom with a laugh track, choppy and desperate and falsely cheerful. I don’t understand why she keeps throwing herself at his wall of polite disinterest, and then I recall his book in my hands and my eyes tracing those words that I cannot say I’d otherwise choose to read. I realize now that I didn’t pick the Ellis book, he picked it for me in a roundabout way. I was leaving his apartment after speaking with Dr. Warten, and I trolled Nick’s shelves because I wanted an excuse to stay a little longer. He pointed out to me what he’d been reading in the last six months, indicating various spines with his long, lovely forefinger. He stopped at the Ellis book. He said it had come out in March and he’d devoured it even though he’d had schoolwork to do for his master’s program. I was motivated by his enthusiasm, by the look in his eye as he took it out of the lineup and fanned its pages. I wanted to feel like that when I read it so I could feel him inside of me. So I could have a part of him even if he was unaware of the piece that was borrowed.

Nick’s books are my car windows.

But at least I am not going to be cut off as the temperature drops.

I’m no longer looking at the girls and boys melding around the dance floor, groups now splintering up into pairs that move together to the music. I’m staring at Nick and Ms. Crenshaw. I want to tell her to stop, just like I did on that picnic table. But then I want to borrow another book from him, and another, and another, carving out a special space that is unique to him and me in comparison to all the other girls. In this pathetic folly, I completely understand where Ms. Crenshaw is coming from, and I’m sad for the both of us. We’re window-shopping with no cash in our pockets, no hope of even trying on that which is so far outside of our price range.

When Nick takes his leave of Ms. Crenshaw, his departure reminds me of someone peeling a name tag off a lapel. There’s great resistance, and what comes off is thrown away and forgotten.

I, too, am nearing my limits with the dance, both in terms of invested time and sensory overload. I have learned the hard way that there’s only so much loud music I can take, only so many flashes on a movie screen or strong smells in a kitchen before my brain begins to think independently. I’m surprised I made it this long. I think I was waiting to see Nick and talk to him. Now that I have done both, my reason for being here has been served.

“Hi.”

When the greeting is spoken to my left, I pay no attention. It is then repeated: “Hi.”

I look over. There’s a boy standing next to me. He’s tall and he’s wearing the navy blue blazer with the St. Michael’s crest on the breast pocket. He’s paired this with a white shirt—they’re evidently allowed to choose between white and pale blue—and khaki pants that have been pressed. His tie is a black/blue with interceding, angled white stripes that sport a repeat of that crest. His shoes are polished loafers and there’s a pop of red color from his socks. I focus on his clothes because I don’t want to look at his face.

“Yes?” I say. If he asks me to move, I’ll tell him I’m leaving anyway, although I can’t imagine what personal space I’m infringing on in this far-off corner.

“I’m Reynolds.” He puts out his hand and smiles. “What’s your name?”

I glance around the dance. Some version of this introductory inter-action was what spread throughout the crowd about twenty minutes ago, the boys going up to the girls and sticking out their hands, growing some forced confidence because they realize they’re running out of time if they’re going to kiss someone tonight.

Reynolds is late to this stage of things. But being out of better options is not why he approaches me.

Through the crowd, I see Greta standing with her back to me in a new co-ed group of which she is, naturally, the leader. But the Brunettes are staring over in my direction, and their faces are rapt with banked delight. They’re watching me, watching the boy.

He drops his hand. “So, what grade are you in?”

I look at him properly. He is very handsome, with sun streaks in his hair that probably came from sailboat excursions off of Cape Cod. His eyes are blue as a summer sky and his cheeks are bright and marked with the occasional mole.

“I’m a sophomore.” He pauses. “At St. Michael’s?”

My eyes narrow as I think of Strots. As I think of myself. “Tell Greta to fuck off. Does she think I haven’t seen Carrie?”

I walk out of the dance, leaving him, and so much more, behind.





chapter EIGHTEEN