Jen
was
walking funny as she lugged her bag toward the dorm's back door. As it closed behind her, I wondered if I'd ever know if she landed Jake, or just nailed him.
That's what Facebook is for, idiot.
But now it was back to the grindstone. I barely made it to the psych lab by 8:45 and found Anna, my grad student boss, already there. "We should go over the script, since you've been otherwise engaged lately."
How could she know about Jen?
"Why don't you do the first one, I'll watch you closely. Then you watch me and tap on the window if I get something really wrong."
While she did her interview, I mused on what she meant by "otherwise engaged" and decided it was the time I'd spent in the hospital, recovering from the slashing I'd gotten from the Lone Ranger mask, not my fuck-fest with Jen.
Anna's interview was pitch-perfect: even-toned, absolutely on script, and 45 minutes long. Mine started out a little shaky but by the end I was completely in the groove. The pang of seeing Jen walk away dissipated, and by the end of the day I was stoked about dinner with Margery. Jen may be gone and Martha would be by Wednesday, but Margery was my constant.
It was nearly Thanksgiving of my sophomore year when I saw Pete's ad for an off-campus roommate. Moving in with him was my salvation — within four months he got me into this club which met weekly to select who among them they would sleep with in the coming week. It compressed the three-step dating process into one — first date, fuck.
My first date was with Margery, who made everything perfect, and we became good friends. With both of us on campus for summer research jobs, we had a standing Monday night date.
She was waiting on a bench outside, all smiles. "Good weekend?" I perked, and we began walking toward a restaurant we liked.
"
Great
weekend," she perked back. "By Friday I'd nailed down every little niggle Carlucci had about
both
her articles, so she treated Tom and me to dinner. Today I started working on her book about the South Dakota photographer, which is really interesting."
"How is Tom doing?" Margery and Tom hadn't known each other when I recruited them to a picnic I'd been asked to enlarge. I figured they'd meet someone there. They disappeared for two hours and re-appeared sporting big grins, surprising me.
"He's crazy busy. In fact, that's something I need to talk to you about," and suddenly she was all verbal thumbs.
"Tom and, uh, I, uh, we've, uh, been, uh, sorta hanging out together, ever since you dropped us off." After the picnic I'd driven Margery to her dorm and they both got out. A couple of days later Tom asked me if I'd mind him dating Margery.
"He's asked me to go steady."
"You mean exclusive?" The e-word had consequences for club members. Since we were expected to have at least one date per week with a member, going exclusive with someone meant you both had to leave the club, never to return, even if it didn't work out.
"Well," she fumbled, "it's only for the summer. And he's not a member." She blushed. "But yes, exclusive.
"Oh Carl, I've never been exclusive with
anyone
! It's so nice. I wake up every morning with him. I don't have to remember where I am or who's next to me. He goes to work, I go to the library. I've even moved some things into his place."
"Damn!" I mock-grumped. "I am so
pissed
at losing you to an AV nerd!" I was keeping it light.
Margery giggled. "That 'AV nerd' made you the man you are today." It was true. I'd been pointed to Tom for help in getting rid of an obtrusive video setup in the psych lab, but I was the one who got credit for making the huge technical improvement. We became friends and even talked about how we might troll for women together.
Guess not, eh, hotshot?
"Do you think that you'll continue with the club? There're going to be a lot of vacancies to fill. The picnic at Ruth's was a good start, but with Pete dropping out" — he'd met this girl over Spring break and she was transferring here so they could live together — "we're gonna need experienced people to keep things going."
"Ruth has this network of people who scout out new recruits. Same thing with Amanda in the library. I know she's got three or four on the string. And Ruth has a couple of other scouts like her.
"Besides, Tom and I may not last. I think he wants to settle down, get married even, and I don't know if I'm ready for that."
By now we'd reached Literratica, where Lisa, the only other club member still on campus, waited tables. Lit was a coffeehouse, like Starbucks but with real food, a real bar, and live entertainment.
"I heard your musician buddy got raves last Friday," Lisa said when she brought our food. I'd met Martha, a summer mandolin student, and took her to dinner at Lit. She and Lisa had hit it off and the upshot was a Saturday-night fill-in gig at Lit for her class. The positive word-of-mouth led to them playing a lunchtime gig at the student union last Friday. It was her class's picnic that I'd taken Margery and Tom to.
"She's decided to drop out of school and take a flyer at being a professional musician. After the show she took off to some county fair where a group she knows was playing." Martha and I were scheduled for a farewell dinner tomorrow.
"Another Literratica successful launch. We're good," Lisa grinned, then headed for her next table.
Margery and I had a routine. We'd banter, catch up on our week, toss around double-entendres, eat, and play footsie, warming up for later. Now we ate and caught up, me about how my wounds were healing, she in more depth about her research.
Afterwards we walked to her dorm. "I'm sorry Carl. Your week's not starting off well, is it?"
"Lisa's got the right attitude. Lit launches artistic careers, you launched me. I'll miss you but I'll be okay."
"What about Carrie? And Lisa, for that matter?"
Margery had recruited Carrie to the club, but too late in the spring for her to join. Like the members of the club, Carrie wanted a sex life but had no time for the vagaries of dating. She had to support herself, which meant taking as much work as she could tending bar at SOL, a juice joint and competitive music venue to Lit, and managing SOL's string of open-air summer food concessions around campus. Outside of work and class she played softball, since she'd been a varsity walk-on. Carrie, with Margery's help, had selected me to take her virginity.
Lisa was even more driven than Carrie. She too was self-supporting, and like Carrie worked nights, in her case waitressing at Lit. Outside of work and class, she wrote. I'd confided an incident about my social zero-ness and she'd turned it into a short story that