I Am Charlotte Simmons

30. A Different Preposition

Adam assumed a role completely foreign to him. He became Charlotte’s “bad” camp counselor, the one who couldn’t care less about being known as “a good guy,” the one who insists that the campers not only obey the rules but also realize that the rules have the force of righteousness, which is to say God, behind them.

Charlotte was like many another depressed girl before her. Come the dawn she would still be wide-awake, all too alert, all too alarmed by the thought of having to get out of bed. There was the drag of inertia and the fatigue of insomnia and, worse than either, fear. The insomniac’s period of sleep, whether she falls asleep or not, is like Charlotte’s eight-hour, nine-hour, ten-hour interstate bus ride. In that period she has no duties, no obligations, no responsibilities, no one to confront, because there is no one to confront. She has official permission from God to take care of nothing for the duration.

The morning of Charlotte’s modern drama exam was the worst. Adam had set the alarm for eight, because the exam was at nine-thirty and he intended to make sure she took a shower, yes, in the hall bathroom, and did her hair, and dressed neatly. The alarm went off, and Charlotte didn’t budge, even though she was clearly not asleep. She responded to Adam’s exhortations with indecipherable grunts. He climbed over her and got up and turned off the alarm. She lay there the next thing to comatose; her eyes were open, but the lights were not on.

“Damn it, Charlotte!” said Adam. He stood before her in T-shirt and boxer shorts, elbows akimbo. “I’ve gone to a lot of trouble for you! I didn’t want to get up at eight, either, but I did. And you’re going to, too. You’ve got an exam ninety minutes from now, and you’re going to take that exam, and you’re going to arrive at that classroom looking like a person who cares about herself, and you’re going to eat enough to provide enough blood sugar to be able to concentrate on that exam. So let’s…hop—to it!”

Charlotte didn’t move a muscle, but her lights turned on dimly. In a tiny, groggy voice she said, “What difference does it make? I stay here, I go there…either way I get an F.” With that, she moved a muscle, two muscles, in fact, the frontalis muscles, which enable a girl to lift her eyebrows in a shrugging manner.

“Oh, really?” said Adam. “Now, why is that? And please provide some pity for yourself in your answer.”

The little voice said, “It has nothing to do with self-pity. Mr. Gilman is absolutely—I don’t think the way he does. I can’t think the way he does. He thinks this poor all-messed-up little woman, this ‘performance artist,’ Melanie Nethers, is the most important thing there is in modern drama. Shaw, Ibsen, Chekhov, Strindberg, O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, they’re all passé? They’re not cool? He thinks ‘cool’ is a concept? What am I supposed to—”

Adam wouldn’t let her finish. Gesturing at her inert, horizontal form with both hands, he said, “Charlotte—this is not right!”

“It’s not a matter of—”

“It’s simply not right! Do you hear me?”

“Whether it’s right—”

“You can’t just blow off a final exam! Who do you think you are? How dare you be so thoughtless?”

“Well, the plain truth is—”

“You have no idea what the plain truth is!” This time Adam clenched his teeth and gestured at her with both hands, fingers curled as if they had claws on the tips. “WHAT YOU’RE DOING IS PLAIN WRONG! YOU’RE THROWING AWAY A GREAT MIND AND A GREAT OPPORTUNITY! WHO GAVE YOU THE RIGHT TO DO SUCH A THING! WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?”

“I think—”

“THIS IS NOT RIGHT!”

“I—”

“GET UP! GET UP! THIS IS NOT RIGHT, YOU JUST LYING HERE LIKE THIS!”

“Will you—”

“NO! I WON’T! THIS IS NOT RIGHT! IT’S WRONG!”

“Will you let—”

“NO! I WON’T! WE’RE ON THE EDGE OF A KNIFE HERE AND WE’VE GOTTA JUMP ONE WAY OR THE OTHER, THE RIGHT SIDE OR THE WRONG SIDE! THERE’S NO MEDIAN STRIP!”

Something about Adam’s avalanche of implacably moral stuff got to her, resonated with some of Christ’s Evangelic creed she had brought to Dupont without meaning to, sewn, as it were, into the very lining of her clothes. There was also, unbeknownst to either of them consciously, a woman’s thrill!—that’s the word for it!—her delicious thrill!—when, as before, a man expands his chest and drapes it with the sash of righteousness and…takes command!…upon the Heights of Abraham.

That moment was a turning point. Charlotte pulled herself together, did as she was told, and made it to the exam with time to spare. She returned to Adam’s apartment convinced that she had butchered this exam, too, and complaining about the weird, warped mentality of Mr. Gilman. She did not break into tears; she did not despair. Scorn, contempt, and hatred were her métier. She registered not woe but anger, a deadly sin perhaps but a positive sign in this case.

Adam continued to go to bed with her every night. He pressed his body upon hers every night, at her bidding. As the night wore on and Charlotte finally drifted off into two or three hours of sleep, he slept with her—ever more bitterly conscious of the irony of that little phrase. If he had ever uttered such a thing in the company of, let’s say, Greg or Roger or Camille, any of them would have assumed Charlotte was draining his testicles for him every night. “Draining his testicles” was Camille’s term for a girl’s “living with” some boy. Camille wouldn’t say, “That little idiot has been living with Jason for a month now.” She would say, “That little idiot has been draining Jason’s testicles for a month now.” If the truth be known, the kinetics of Adam’s “living with” Charlotte hadn’t changed in the slightest. He still embraced her like a mother holding a five-foot-four baby on her lap. Charlotte never lay facing him in bed. He held her from behind, not as a lover, but as that vapid soul, the loving friend who sees to it that a poor troubled girl feels protected and secure—and not alone in this trough of mortal error where all mortals must abide. Many was the time the loving friend had an erection beneath his boxer shorts. Many was the time that stiffened giblet had the urge to thrust itself forward—two or three inches would have been enough—and let her know it was there…that was all…merely acquaint her with that pertinent fact. But how could he risk it? What had chased her into his bed but…somebody else’s mindless, wandering erection, a battering ram who had knocked her door down and ravaged her.

Irony, irony, all too exquisite, the irony—and then one night something entirely unexpected happened. Charlotte fell asleep within one minute after they had climbed into bed and he had put his arms around her.

She had her first full night’s sleep in six weeks or more. She awoke refreshed and even betrayed signs of optimism. The same thing happened the next night. The next morning she wanted to get up. The end of insomnia was pretty solid evidence that she was pulling out of her depression.

After a few days, Charlotte suggested that they return to the original arrangement, with him on the futon and her on the bed, or vice versa, since she felt much better and was no longer afraid at night. Adam was of two minds. How could he give up the tantalizing, if so far frustrating, prospect of having her body next to his every night and in the fullness of time sleeping with her in the metonymical meaning of the expression? At the same time…it was damned uncomfortable, two people in that one narrow bed; and besides, playing nurse without compensation in kind or in money was impossible to enjoy much beyond ten days.

And so there came a day when the second semester began, and Charlotte decided she should return to her own room in Edgerton and rejoin her clothes and other belongings. She and Adam were by no means splitting up. In fact, Adam walked her back to Little Yard and went up the elevator in Edgerton with her right to the door of her room on the fifth floor. She opened the door—it wasn’t locked—and invited him in. So he went in.

A big blond-streaked head of hair—filled up the room. Spectacular! Such a tall, slender girl! On second thought, the word was…skinny…and her nose and her chin—Charlotte’s roommate. Adam knew immediately from Charlotte’s description.

“Hello, Beverly,” said Charlotte. It was about as cold and wary a greeting as Adam had ever heard, especially in light of the fact that this was a roommate she hadn’t seen or spoken to, so far as he knew, in ten days. Then Charlotte added in the same cold voice, “This is Adam.” Still looking at her roommate, she said in the numbest of tones, “Adam, this is my roommate, Beverly.”

Adam forced a big grin, a very big one, and said, “Hi. Nice to meet you.”

Beverly gave him as dead a smile as he had ever seen in his life. Her lips extended about ten millimeters on either side, but the rest of her physiognomy was having no part of it. In that same half second her eyes gave him the once-over, head to toe and back up to his head. Enough of him—she devoted the rest of that second to Charlotte.

“So…the roommate returns,” said Beverly. Her expression said, My, how you do amuse me. “I thought you must have turned right around and gone back to North Carolina. But then I saw you on campus a couple of times during finals. So then I figured you must be staying out on Ladding Walk or someplace.”

Charlotte’s face turned absolutely scarlet. She was speechless. Adam was afraid she might cry. The silence stretched out out out out before Charlotte responded. “I’ve been staying at Adam’s.”

“Oh,” said Beverly. Her voice struck le chant juste of fake sarcastic surprise and interest. She gave Adam another flick of the eyes, going head to toe and back to his head again with an expression that couldn’t have said A PERSON OF NO CONSEQUENCE any louder if she had shouted it. Adam felt wounded and furious before his mind could even process the particulars.

Pretty soon, in due course, at the doorway, Charlotte gave Adam a hug good-bye, but it wasn’t the hug he had come to cherish—and live for—the one in which she threw her arms around him and laid her head on his chest. In fact, it wasn’t much more than a social hug. She gave him a kiss, but he could only imagine it touched his cheek. It was definitely not more than a social kiss. Whispering, she said, “Call me? Or I’ll call you? Promise?”

As the Edgerton House elevator descended, Adam weighed the pluses and minuses and decided the result was very much in the plus column. Of course she hadn’t given him an ardent embrace as he departed…not with that snobbish bitch—the bitch had deigned to look at him exactly twice and speak to him not even once and clearly found him A PERSON OF NO CONSEQUENCE—no preppy pink button-down, no creaseless Abercrombie & Fitch khakis—was that it, you bitch?—no fratty swagger, no fratty smirk?—no inchoately flirtatious fratty twist of the lips and significantly too-long eye-lock, as if to say if the circumstances should happen to change, let’s fuck?—was that it, you bitch?—you sorostitute…you Douche in the larval stage, you cum dumpster for Saint Rays and Phi Gams only—discriminating anorexic bitch, aren’t you—you pus-boil lump of conventional thought, conventional taste, and stillborn conventional passions selected like one of those whatthehellsthename handbags from some giddily expensive purveyor—too true, isn’t it!—that’s what we have here, isn’t it!—and ten years from now, as you sit in your summer place in…in…in Martha’s Vineyard with your Saint Ray clone consort watching a 60 Minutes segment with Morley Safer—he’ll be about a hundred, it occurred to him—Morley Safer interviewing Adam Gellin, creator of the New Matrix of the Twenty-first Century—that will be the title of the segment—you’ll turn to the big cloned jut-jawed titanium head—big but very light—sitting beside you and say, “Oh, I’ve known him for a long time—he was my roommate’s boyfriend at Dupont”—not with that snobbish bitch looking on was Charlotte going to demonstrate the depths of her…her…her feelings for him. That would be too much to expect. But!—she had said frankly, openly, “I’ve been living with Adam—and I don’t care for a minute if you know…you snobbish bitch…I’m proud of it! That’s the way things are! Get used to it!” And she had whispered—he could feel that angelic whisper of hers as well as hear it—“Call me? Or I’ll call you? Promise?” Promise, oh yes…promise me, promise me.

Adam departed Edgerton, the Little Yard, and the Mercer Memorial Gate with visions of loamy loins dancing in his head.

The telephone exploded, and Charlotte woke up from way down deep, wondering where she was. That became clear soon enough.

“Who the fuck is that?”—from beneath a roil of bedclothes, Beverly, groaning, surly, angry over being awakened by your fucking phone call. Groggy voice: “What the fuck time is it?” Whuh the fuck time’sit?

Eight o’clock on the dot, it was. Charlotte picked up the receiver in the middle of the second ring.

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s—”

She didn’t get the rest of it, because Beverly’s growl rose up so loudly from her winding sheet of covers. Her head remained mashed flat into a pillow and her eyes remained closed—but I command you to hear my voice: “Drag it the fuck outta here! I mean, shit, it’s the middle of the fucking night!”

Charlotte cupped her hand around the receiver and said, “Hello? I’m sorry?”

“It’s me, Adam. Who was that? Beverly? Want to grab some breakfast at the café before you go to neuroscience?”

“I guess I—I have to think a second.”

Going to the café, which meant Mr. Rayon, would cost her three or four dollars, and she remembered how fast her five hundred dollars had melted away during the first semester. On the other hand, eating alone in the cathedral gloom of the Abbey…More than that, she was feeling guilty about the way she said good-bye to Adam last night…the sort of hug and non-kiss you’d give a cousin…He had clearly been hoping for something more, but she hadn’t wanted to show any more emotion than she did. Why? Well…Beverly was looking, and embraces are intimate…Oh sure! You wish that were the reason! It was because Beverly was looking on, all right—but specifically because Beverly didn’t think much of Adam. She made that clear without saying one word. Adam—one glance, and Beverly ranked him very low on the Cool scale and the Up scale, that being the measure of how much one understands about the higher life, the Up life, the circles where people live a style of life that revolves about the protocols of being rich and the sophistication that wealth can subscribe to, play with, and afford—and she, Charlotte—face facts!—did not choose to be seen throwing her arms around a guy that low on the scales of Cool and Up…She was immediately overcome by guilt…and contempt for herself and her lack of backbone…after Adam had just about saved her life…and for her snobbery—unfortunately, that was the term for it—where Adam was concerned. She was guilty! As guilty as Beverly!…guiltier—inasmuch as she knew Adam, knew how wonderful and charitable and loving he was, and owed him so much.

All of that went through her mind in a rush, and she put maximum enthusiasm into her voice and said into the receiver, “That would be great!” But she hadn’t said, “That would be great, Adam”—because that might arouse Beverly’s contempt all over again.

It aroused her wrath, in any case. She started doing one of her classic bed-thrashing numbers.

Adam’s voice in the receiver: “How soon can you be ready?”

Charlotte, aloud: “Fifteen minutes?”

From the bed: “Shit, Charlotte, drag it the fuck outta here!”

In the receiver: “Okay! I’ll swing by in fifteen minutes.”

Charlotte, aloud: “Thanks! Bye.”

“Goddamn it, Charlotte!” Beverly had now propped herself up on one elbow and was looking right at her. Her head had canted over at such a groggy angle, it rested on her shoulder, and her hair was in her face. “I asked you nicely! I’m trying to fucking sleep!”

Charlotte looked at the big woozy face before her—and she surprised herself. She wasn’t intimidated or even timid. She wasn’t sorry, and neither was she angry. She didn’t even feel like pointing out the absurdity of the word “nicely.” She looked down on the face before her. She existed on a different plane. She had risen from the ashes. I am Charlotte Simmons again, but a Charlotte Simmons who has walked over the coals and through the flames and emerged with the strength to let you know that and, for the first time, to be candid.

“Beverly,” she said, “there’s something I want to ask you.” She said it with such a calm, unapologetic voice and with such a level gaze that Beverly’s expression went from cross to wary. “You said you wanted details about what happened at the Saint Ray formal. Since then, have you heard what happened? Has anybody told you about it?”

A trace of alertness stole into Beverly’s face. “I heard something…” She shrugged.

“What you heard was true,” said Charlotte. “And if you heard any details, they were true, too. And if you didn’t get enough details, any details you can imagine, they’re true, too. So now you know everything? Probably more than I do myself? I gotta meet somebody for breakfast. I’ll see you later.”

Beverly stared at her with as blank a look as Charlotte had ever seen on her face. Whereupon Charlotte went into her closet and found her old bathrobe, the one she had been cowed out of wearing soon after she got to Dupont. She put it on with a flourish of the belt, stepped into her banished old fuzzy slippers, picked up her old vinyl kit, and headed for the bathroom. Beverly slowly sagged down off her elbow prop and sank back into her bed without another word.

When Charlotte and Adam reached Mr. Rayon, the breakfast crowd was just beginning to build. It always built slowly because the typical student didn’t wake up before ten a.m. if he could possibly avoid it. Charlotte still felt strong. She was Charlotte Simmons again. All the same, she looked around to see what she could see. She and Adam got in line. How shiny and slick and light and bright and white the walls were! And overhead, what fierce martial colors the banners had! The laughter of girls and the pings of stainless-steel table utensils against earthenware crockery spiked up through the doggedly manly roar of boys in the season of the rising sap. Charlotte was relieved to be with Adam rather than alone in this crowd. She dreaded the thought of somebody seeing her alone and knowing the story and pitying her.

Adam was right behind her, and she turned to him and said: “Adam—I hope I don’t start crying when I tell you this, but you’ve done so-o-o-o-o much for me. I didn’t think I could ever show my face again. I felt like I was caught in a…in like the maelstrom in the Edgar Allan Poe story, and there was no way I could get out of it. But you got me out, Adam. I feel like a human being again. You really—well, I’m more grateful than I can ever put into words.”

Even as she said it, she realized it was for two reasons, and one of them made her feel devious. She said it because she meant it—but she also said it so that if any Crissy or Gloria or Nicole or Erica or Lucy Page or Bettina was looking at her, she would see her in animated conversation, indicating that Charlotte Simmons had not been reduced to a little forlorn and universally scorned cum-rag of a country girl.

Adam slipped his hand around the inside of her elbow, gave it a gentle squeeze, and brought his mouth close to her ear and said, “Thanks, but I really didn’t do anything for you. All I did was remind you of who you actually are and what you can become. I just reminded you.”

For an instant, when Adam drew so close to her face, Charlotte was afraid he was going to plant a kiss on her cheek or maybe even shoot for her lips or intertwine arms or put his arm around her or make some otherwise embarrassing expression of his ardor. She didn’t want that. But he withdrew his hand after the little squeeze and was as decorous as you could ask for.

A big joyful smile spread across her face, and she said, “You didn’t just remind me of anything. You absolved me. You really did. You got me back on my feet.”

Her beaming, tickled-pink smile didn’t go with the gravity of the sentiment. Puzzled, Adam drew his eyebrows together, and his head twitched. Her harmless—well, wasn’t it?—duplicity was accumulating. Once more she meant it—but at the same time she wanted anyone who happened to be watching to see that not only did she have company but she was also in excellent spirits, not at all laid low by anything that had happened. The resurrected Charlotte Simmons…a happy girl.

And someone was watching! As she moved ahead in the line, she felt a tap on her shoulder and turned about to see Bettina.

“Hey! Where’ve you been?” An upbeat, sunny Bettina.

“Around,” said Charlotte, moving forward and picking up a tray.

“Hey, what’s wrong? You pissed at me?”

“No,” said Charlotte in a noncommittal tone, and she kept moving forward.

“Well, Mimi and I are sitting over there if you want to sit with us.”

“I’m already sitting with someone, thanks.”

“Who?”

“Adam is his name.”

“Who’s he?”

“He’s right back there—plaid shirt.”

Bettina glanced back and took her time about it and then said to Charlotte, “What is he, a T.A. or something?”

“No, he’s my friend.” The way she said it cut off any further discussion.

“Ohhh,” said Bettina. Her nostrils flared slightly and curled, as if Adam gave off an odor from afar. “Okay, then, whatever. See ya later.” Bettina left, miffed, presumably to rejoin the other snake, Mimi.

Charlotte was offended by Bettina’s tacit verdict on Adam—and worried by it. Was he that obviously dorky? She tried to work it out in her mind. Even if he was, it wouldn’t take much to change that. Some contacts or laser corrections…and get rid of those glasses. That would be the first thing. Cut back on all that curly hair and shape it and get rid of that part. That would focus attention on his face. He had fine features. In fact, he would be handsome, if only he would let himself be handsome and un-dork—such a word?—un-dork his clothes. What are those dark blue wool pants with the pleats and cuffs…wool?…no guys wore wool pants…and that old man’s belt with that sort of fake-silver sleeve instead of a normal belt buckle, and the plaid shirt with green and tan and rust-red stripes going this way and that on an oatmeal-gray background? She had the sneaking feeling that he had decided to get dressed up for breakfast with her, and this was the result. Those plaid shirts gave off whiffs of Engineering Geek or Chem Major. And those brown moccasins with soles like rock ledges—what was this unerring eye for just the wrong thing? Some simple, plain button-down shirts, some khakis, some jeans, some flip-flops, some loafers, although she would have to choose the loafers—nothing to it, and he’d be a different person!

Charlotte’s breakfast came to $3.25 for orange juice, cereal, berries, and toast. Much too much—did she really need toast? Could she conceivably return it and get her money back? Not she. She knew she wasn’t the sort of person who could pull something like that off…Her rehabilitated spirits were sinking. Tray in hand, she led Adam over to the same out-of-the-way table behind the Thai food wall divider where she had her first talk with Jojo; only this time she sat with her back to the room. As to why she had done so, chosen this table, chosen this chair—she knew but fought its rising to the level of conscious knowledge.

They sat down, and Adam looked very happy. She had never seen him look so happy. She had seen him in a good mood before—but only after an odd and in its way exhausting form of combat. He loved to compete with Greg and the other Mutants in conversation—but it was a struggle, because they were good at it. He had a passion, obviously, for her, but he didn’t know what to do with his glasses if he was going to try to kiss her—another struggle. He got all balled up trying to figure out some way to sound passionate without sounding dorky—yet one more struggle. No one on earth would call Adam laid-back, but that was what he seemed to be at this moment.

“I don’t know if I ever told you,” he said, rocking back on two legs of his chair and smiling like a man who just shot the moon, “but I went to Japan the first semester of my junior year, and I spent a week with a family in a little fishing village two hours from Tokyo by train, way out by the ocean. For breakfast they didn’t have an entirely different menu the way we do. For breakfast, you know how we—or most people—have things we never think about the whole rest of the day? Juice, cereal, sliced bananas, eggs, pancakes, French toast, English muffins, cheese Danish.” He chuckled, quite delighted with himself. “Hmmm! Never noticed all that pan-European breakfast terminology before! That’s completely American, using all those foreign names for simple food. Greek coffee? Nahhh. I don’t know anybody who has Greek coffee for breakfast. Anyway, we have our special breakfast foods, and we never think about them again until the next morning. But you know what they have for breakfast out in a little village like the one I was in? They have leftovers from dinner the night before. Fish soup, warmed-over rice, stir-fried dumplings if there are any left; they’re really good. Now in that one thing, breakfast, you can read the story of the difference between two peoples, two cultures. For a start—”

And off he goes, thought Charlotte. It was endearing, this tendency of his…for the most part…after all, he did have the most wonderful intellectual curiosity.

“…things we’re trying to deny ourselves”—she realized she had lost track of what exactly had led to things we’re trying to deny ourselves.

“…the calories, the carbs, the bread, the butter, the cheese Danishes I mentioned, the eggs, whereas in Japan there’s nothing ‘scientific’ about it—”

A delicious aroma was wafting over from the other side of the salmon-colored LithoPlast divider. With the extraordinary power the olfactory sense has—Mr. Starling had talked about this—it went straight to a receptor in her memory, bypassing her “logical mind”—the very way Mr. Starling pronounced the words “logical mind” put them in quotation marks—the aroma summoned up a vision, in detail, from the time she and Jojo had sat at this very table and the same aroma had come wafting over from the Thai food counter on the other side of the LithoPlast divider. It was absolutely “ambrosial,” the adjective Momma used for food that was out of this world—in fact, Momma used to serve a dessert she called ambrosia, slices of orange with white coconut shavings and a little bit, no more than a sort of glaze, of molasses covering the bottom of the bowl—Momma used cereal bowls—but why was she putting ambrosia…and Momma…in the past tense? Did this—

“…and the yang of life, the passive and the aggressive, broadly speaking. As a result, the Japanese have the lowest incidence of—what’s the matter?”

He was looking at her quizzically.

Oh God, she must have let her eyes wander. Had she really been staring at a blank wall of LithoPlast?

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, already centrifuging her brain to try to force some little white explanation to the surface…Got it: “What you said about different cultures and different foods? It made me think of—in neuroscience, you’d be surprised—or maybe you wouldn’t—by what a hard time the neurophysiologists have trying to figure out exactly what neural pathways like…you know…what’s the word?—convey!—it’s convey—convey the sensation of hunger from the stomach to the brain.”

Adam just stared at her with his upper teeth overbiting his lower lip in puzzlement. The wonderfully happy look he had a moment ago was gone. That made her feel guilty all over again. He was sweet, and he really was smart—and why was she glad nobody else was here listening to all this? She consciously wanted to be Adam’s friend, his close friend—no, it was more than that…she wanted to love him! That would solve so many problems! She could live the life of the mind and the life of romance in one and the same person! All things that really counted would come together! She would once again be on the high road. She could return to Sparta and report to Miss Pennington without fear, without guilt, without…lies…but she didn’t love him, and she couldn’t force herself to love him…She didn’t feel butterflies in her stomach at the very thought of him…If she did, she was convinced, love would drive all the cheap, smug standards of Cool out of her mind. But Adam did have his blind spots, after all, such as trying to turn ordinary things into his beloved “matrical ideas,” and he didn’t even realize it was a form of showing off.

After breakfast, he insisted on walking her over to Phillips, to the very door of Mr. Starling’s amphitheater—and then he stood there smiling at her until she turned her back to climb up the amphitheater stairs to the top, where she sat. When she took her seat and looked down—he was still standing there, smiling. Then he gave her a little wave that halfway resembled a salute. To top it off, he mouthed, in a heavy, overripe mime, the words :::::I:::::LOVE:::::YOU:::::HONEY::::: Charlotte was embarrassed to the core—what if somebody saw that?—but she felt obliged to give him at least a nod and a little white smile, which she did, and he still stood there—so she looked down at the desk arm of her chair, as if studying something with maximum concentration. Why couldn’t he leave, like a normal person? Practically all the students in the class were juniors and seniors, and she didn’t know any of them, except for Jill, her seatmate, and she barely knew Jill—nevertheless she was glad Jill hadn’t arrived and wasn’t witnessing Adam mooning over her like this—and there were definitely some cashmere types in this class, and she could just hear them saying, “So now the country bumpkin is banging a loser, a nobody, an independent…She definitely makes the rounds”—and above all she could hear the sniggers sniggers sniggers sniggers…She lifted her eyes as covertly as she could, which is to say, without lifting her head…Thank God! No Adam; he had finally left. But why the “Thank God”?

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.”

It was Mr. Starling, at the lectern. He was wearing a tweed jacket that would have looked almost gaudy if the amphitheater’s stage lighting hadn’t brought out its colors so richly—orange, yellow, chocolate brown, luggage brown, and a certain light blue that sang harmony and brought them all alive…perfectly, in Charlotte Simmons’s eyes…Yet another stab of guilt and regret…She could have been so close to this man…and his pioneering in humankind’s understanding of itself…in the new matrix, as Adam would have it, except that Mr. Starling had already created a matrix, for real, not in dreams…and she could now be living on the very frontier of the life of the mind. He had given her her chance.

Her heart sank. Any day now, the final grades for the first semester would be out, and Momma and Miss Pennington would finally…find out…and she, the little mountain prodigy, could not think of any way to give them a little white forewarning that would soften the blow.

In his peripatetic, Socratic fashion, Mr. Starling was moving about the stage, lit up so resplendently by the lights overhead, talking about the origins of the concept of “sociobiology,” developed by a zoologist from Alabama named Edward O. Wilson. Wilson’s specialty had always been ants—ants and the complex social order and divisions of labor within ant colonies. He had been a newly minted Ph.D., a young assistant professor teaching at Harvard, when he went to an island in the Caribbean known as “Monkey Island” to help his first graduate student launch a study of macaque rhesus monkeys in their natural habitat. They talked about certain similarities—despite the enormous differences in size, strength, and intelligence—between ants and apes.

“And Wilson experienced what every research scientist lives for,” said Mr. Starling, “the Aha! phenomenon, that flash of synthesis that will revolutionize the field. If there were similarities—analogies—between the social lives of ants and apes, why wouldn’t Homo sapiens be part of the same picture? The analogies came flooding to his mind.” Mr. Starling paused, then looked about the amphitheater with a mischievous smile. “But just as Nature abhors a vacuum, Science abhors analogies. Analogies are regarded as superficial, as ‘literary,’ which to the scientific mind—and certainly to Wilson’s—means impressionistic. Now…since Science abhors analogies, just how did Wilson go about showing that from ants to humans the social life of all animals was similar—and more than similar, in fact, since in all animals it was part of a single biological system?” Mr. Starling scanned the hundred and fifty students before him. “Who will be so kind as to provide us with the answer?”

Charlotte, like so many others, craned this way and that to see if any hands were up. She herself didn’t have the faintest idea. She had scarcely even looked at Wilson’s book, which was called Sociobiology: The New Synthesis—not A New Synthesis, but capital-T The New Synthesis. How could she have, given all she had been through for the past two months? So many students were craning about in their desk chairs to see if any brave soul was going to tackle that one, their chairs made a creaking, shuffling choral sound.

A hand went up barely three feet away from Charlotte…a girl two rows directly ahead of her. Long, straight light brown hair she had brushed until it absolutely shone. Oh, Charlotte knew about such things.

Mr. Starling gazed upward. His line of vision was such that Charlotte could have sworn he was looking straight at her…but of course he wasn’t. He pointed, and it was as if he were pointing straight at her.

“Yes?”

The girl with the shining light brown hair said, “He used allometry? If that’s the way you pronounce it? In all my born days”—bawn days—“I never heard a living soul say that word out loud.”

Laughter and chuckles all around. All miii bawn days. Countless faces were smiling at her. She had not only a Southern accent but a quite coy, little-ol’-me Southern accent.

“Would you define allometry for us?”

“I’ll certainly try.” I-i-i-i’ll sutney try-y-y-y. Appreciative chuckles. “Allometry…allometry is the study of the relative growth of a part of an organism in relation to the growth of the whole. It’s a really—what’s the expression—bangin’ way to describe morphological evolution…is the way Iiiii’d put it.”

Renewed laughter, wholly with her! Such learned, esoteric material pouring forth in a flirtatious, Savannah deb-party Southern accent! This Dixie chick knew what she was doing!

“Very good,” said Mr. Starling. He had a big smile of his own. “And perhaps you can tell us why this allometry was so useful to Wilson.”

“Well,” said the girl, “it’s like this new dance?” Laughter, laughter, before she could even name the dance. “Allometry enabled Mr. Wilson to like…do the submarine?” Laughter, laughter, laughter. “He went down…under the anecdotal level, the surface level?…and found mathematically corroborant first principles?”—fuhst principles—“and that way he doesn’t”—dud’n—“have to say an ant is like a human being or that a…a…I don’t know…a baboon is like a sea slug?—because he can show that behavior at that evolutionary level is demonstrably—or I reckon I should say allometrically?—the same as behavior at this evolutionary level…seems like to me.”

Laughter, laughter, laughter, even scattered applause—and some boy shouted out, “You go, girl!” Another round of laughter—and then all eyes turned to Mr. Starling to get his reaction.

He was smiling right at the girl—and right in the direction of Charlotte. “Thank you,” he said. A pause, during which he continued to smile at his new discovery, the Savannah-drawling, flirtatious little prodigy. “Seems to me,” he said, “absolutely correct.” Laughter, laughter. He gazed out on the entire class. “Science abhors analogies. But science loves—or accepts—allometry, even when it finds its equations insoluble. But that problem needn’t detain us.” Then he turned back to his little star comedienne, smiled at her once more. “Thank you.”

As it beamed up, the smile had hit Charlotte Simmons, too…and gone right through her. His former star, the one with the hillbilly Southern accent, was no longer even there. It was as if God had devised a little skit to show Charlotte Simmons how far she had fallen…replaced by another Southern girl, who had materialized right in front of her…same size, same long, straight, shining light brown hair…astounding the class with her brilliance…in a Southern accent…from the sophisticated coastal lowlands. Why hadn’t Charlotte Simmons done the same reading? Why hadn’t she kept up? Why hadn’t she found time to think about these things…and have a life of the mind? She knew she shouldn’t dwell on the answer. She couldn’t afford to lapse back into tears. Adam was right. Tears, all tears, starting at the moment of birth, were cries for protection. But she didn’t want to dwell upon Adam and the matrical dialogues of the Millennial Mutants, either.

Outside, after class, it was a cloudy, dark day, as if it were about to rain…Once more the mystery of why this light made the grass of the Great Yard look so richly green…In any case, the gloom was fitting for any girl as morosely self-loathing as Charlotte was at this moment, and she was thankful for that.

There was a more immediate concern, however. She gave the Great Yard a quick, surreptitious once-over…for fear Adam would be waiting, here, there, somewhere nearby, and reattach himself to her. He was becoming her…personal tumor :::::I:::::LOVE:::::YOU:::::HONEY:::::

Ohmygod!—how could she think that way? Adam was the only friend she had left. But it wasn’t something she was thinking. It was something crawling beneath her flesh…Honey…How could she help it?

“Hey, yo! Yo!”—right behind her, but it wasn’t Adam’s voice.

She turned about slowly. She was in no rush. Who on the entire campus could be shouting at her in order to bring her good news?

And there was Jojo…not much improvement over Adam, if any…hustling toward her with big strides. He wore the would-be ingratiating smile he seemed to think would make one want to do something for him. Charlotte was already familiar with that. At least he didn’t have one of his disgusting muscle shirts…instead, a navy shirt, maybe flannel, with regular buttons and a collar…beneath a vast, wide-open puffy North Face jacket…made him look like a behemoth, it added such width and bulk to his frame…How did he—but of course…he remembered from the last time when neuroscience let out.

Now he was right in front of her, looking down at her with his transparently manipulative smile. Charlotte refused to smile back.

“Wuz up? Wuz good?”

Charlotte said nothing. She just lifted her eyebrows in order to wrinkle her forehead, which delivered the message, “Don’t be tedious.”

“I haven’t told you the big news,” said Jojo. An even bigger, merrier smile.

Perfunctorily: “What big news, Jojo?” She started walking on the sidewalk beside the Great Yard, hoping to get away from Phillips in case Adam did show up looking for her.

Jojo tagged along. “I’m taking French 232 this semester.” His little eyes opened as wide as they could, as if this news would register in a big way.

Idly: “What’s that?’

“Nineteenth Century Poetry: the Courtly, the Pastoral, and the Symbolist—and we read it in French. I’m not kidding. And she teaches it in French. Miz Boudreau. She is French, Miz Boudreau. This isn’t Frère Jocko French. I’m through with all that stuff.” He gave Charlotte the child’s smile that invites praise.

She was, in fact, impressed. She even gave him a small smile. “Wow…You’re getting brave, Jojo. You know about the Symbolists? Baudelaire? Mallarmé? Rimbaud?”

“No, but that’s the point. I will know. I haven’t told anybody, not even my roommate, Mike. And Coach—no fuh—freaking way! He’s never gotten over Socrates. And that’s the other thing.”

He stared at her with wide eyes and the expectant grin of a child, lips slightly parted, and Charlotte couldn’t help but want to play the expected part.

“What is?”

“I got a C-plus in the Age of Socrates! I just saw it online!”

“Congratulations,” said Charlotte. The word came out flat, because the news had given her a start. “Grades are posted?”

“Yeah, this morning.”

Charlotte frowned without knowing it. She would have to go confront her own…news…on the computer…the one in her room, the one Momma and Daddy scrimped and saved and slaved over, Buddy also, to give her for Christmas. Oh God, how could she have let what had happened…happen?

Jojo misinterpreted her expression. “You don’t think that’s good? They all thought I’d crash and burn!”

“No, you just reminded me of something. My grades must be posted, too.”

“Yeah, but you don’t have to worry about grades! I do. Coach’ll still be piss—uh, he’ll still be mad at me. He don’t wanna know about the Age of Socrates. He still calls me—”

—still says “He don’t,” doesn’t he—

“—Socrates, Fuh—Freaking Socrates is my full name. But I’m gonna tell him anyway. I got a C-plus, Charlotte!”

For Charlotte—sheer gloom. C-plus was pathetic, given the grade inflation at Dupont and everywhere else. But she would consider herself fortunate beyond all hoping if she got a C-plus in neuroscience…after that paper, that test, and that horrible wreck of an exam—

“And I wrote my own course paper, too. Nobody helped me, nobody. ‘The Ethical Life: Socrates versus Aristippus and the Post-Socratics.’ I blew ’em up with that one, dude!” He looked about and started zipping up his North Face jacket. “Muh-thuh-fuh—damn! It’s getting cold out here. Come on over to Mr. Rayon.”

“I don’t—”

“I know, you don’t have any money. It’s on me. Don’t tell anybody about that, either. Guys think you’re a pussy—sorry!—they think you’re some kind of a…a…a wuss or something, but that don’t matter. Come on!”

Jojo was in a very good mood—him and his wonderful C-plus. He’d take her to Mr. Rayon…Charlotte had the sort of feeling a girl tries to keep from becoming a full-blown thought…Maybe she should take Jojo up on it. In her mind, her breakfast with Adam at Mr. Rayon this morning made an announcement to…everyone who mattered. Here she was, a vain and foolish little girl who had lost her virginity to a notorious playa at a formal, and the playa, in classic playa form, had let the world in on it. Poor little proto-slut! Her reputation was so ruined, she was now reduced to hooking up with random dorks like Adam. But if she reappeared with the cool-by-definition Jojo Johanssen…

“Okay,” she said, “but I really don’t have any money.”

It being late morning by now, Mr. Rayon was not quite half full. Jojo chose the BurgAmerican line; and as he and Charlotte slid their trays down the stainless-steel cafeteria rails, people came over to say hello to Jojo as if they really knew him. Jojo got an Everything bagel, as it was called, encrusted with God knows how many kinds of seeds and bits of this and that. Charlotte got some oatmeal with sliced strawberries on it. Jojo looked at the oatmeal dubiously—and then began to lead her to that same old corner, next to the Thai section and the salmon-colored LithoPlast divider, but Charlotte balked. “Not there, Jojo. How about over here?”

Whereupon she led him to a table—a table for four out in the middle.

“Kinda noisy,” said Jojo.

“It’s not noisy now.”

Jojo shrugged, and they sat out in the middle. Noisy here or not, Jojo remained in an excellent mood. “I got a C-plus! A C-plus in the Age of Socrates! A three-hundred-level course! I did it! Can you believe it?”

Charlotte congratulated him all over again and continued eating her oatmeal while it was still warm. The strawberries weren’t much. They were out of season. A cloud stole across Jojo’s face. “But I’m not gonna kid myself,” he said. “I still got a problem. I got two problems. Coach and the President—I’m talking about the President of the whole fuh-reaking university, Cutler—yeah!—they both went to see this muhthuh—this bastard—well, I’m sorry, that’s what he is, a real bastard!—Quat, and he won’t budge, the little fat…” He decided not to supply a noun. “If I have to go through a…” He decided not to supply an adjectival participle. “…a hearing or whatever they call it…well, I mean…shit! I’m sorry, I’m sorry—but it makes me so damn mad. I mean, here’s—”

Charlotte cut him off. “You said two problems.” She didn’t feel like listening to a rant about Mr. Quat, especially since Mr. Quat happened to be right.

“Yeah,” said Jojo with a long, sad sigh. “You gotta help me on both of them, Charlotte. I told you how I’m taking French 232 this semester. I’m proud of myself. Frère Jocko French and all that stuff…” He gave Frère Jocko French and all that stuff a dismissive flip of the hand. “But now I got a problem. Miz Boudreau—I don’t know what the woman’s saying! She teaches the class…in French! I’m a new person now, and I’m proud a that. But I don’t know what the fuh—what the hell she’s saying! You know what I mean? I can read the poetry. I don’t mean I can read it exactly—I’m in the dictionary about eight fuh—about eight times more than I’m in the book…but I can read it, I can get through it. Right now we’re reading Victor Hugo. That old dude—the world must have been way different back in the day…”

“Victor Hugo? I didn’t even know he wrote poetry.”

“See? Now I know something you don’t!” He stared straight into Charlotte’s eyes. “But you gotta help me! If you don’t, I’m fuh—I’m screwed.”

“Help you how, Jojo?”

“I passed the Age of Socrates, and nobody thought I could do it,” said Jojo. “Now, if I can do okay in real French and this other philosophy course I’m taking this semester—I didn’t tell you about that—Religion and the Decline of Magic in the Seventeenth Century—yeah!—if I do okay in that too, the bastards’ll have to have microprocessors instead a hearts not to give me a break on this other thing. You know?”

Monotonously: “Help you how, Jojo?”

Jojo said, “Well, the way I figure it is, you know French. The way you were reading that book in Mr. Lewin’s class that time—I can’t remember the name of the book—I mean, people were looking around at each other—”

“Madame Bovary,” said Charlotte.

“Yeah! That’s the one. If you hadn’t said what you said that time, I’d still be—what did you call it?—‘playing the fool.’ That’s what you said, playing the fool. You know that stuff. So I figured the only way I can save my—save myself is if I take a tape recorder to class, and then I come back and you tell me what she said. Maybe you could help me with some of the poetry? I mean, I can do it…but you know metaphors and all that stuff? Sometimes it’s…you know…hard.”

Charlotte said, “You know what they call people who will do that for you?”

Jojo, tonelessly distrustful: “No. What.”

“Tutors.”

“No!” said Jojo. “I told you! I’m finished with all that stuff! I’m going—” And Jojo was off on an explanation of why if Charlotte helped him, it would be different…

Out of the corner of her eye she spotted Lucy Page Tucker and Gloria coming into Mr. Rayon. They were bound to come close to the table if they headed for the cafeteria rails, and the positioning was perfect. First they would see Jojo, who was more or less facing them. Then their curiosity would get the better of them. They’d be dying to know who the girl was. Charlotte wasn’t really following what Jojo was saying, but she figured she knew the gist of it. As soon as his lips stopped moving, she lifted her chin and put on a smile of abnormal animation and coquettishness and said, “Oh, Jojo, Jojo, what makes you think I”—she lowered her head, brought the fingers of one hand up to the middle of her chest, opened her eyes wide, and looked up at Jojo—“know enough French to be a tutor?”

“That’s what I just got through telling you!” said Jojo, also with great animation. “You’re a lot more than a tutor…to me…You’re the girl who turned me around! You were the only person who had the guts to stand up to me and tell me the truth! I thought I was cool…and all the time I was playing the fool. You’re the one who…inspired me.” Now he was leaning way toward her…giving her a look of…significance. Before she knew it, he had taken her hand in both of his. Charlotte instinctively cut a glance to the left and to the right. Lucy Page Tucker and Gloria—they had both taken trays at the Italian section and were looking back at her. Charlotte, fixing her gaze upon Jojo, manufactured the merriest of laughs and withdrew her hand from his. And the two witches—they couldn’t have helped but get an eyeful of it.

“What’s so funny?” Jojo wanted to know.

“Nothing,” said Charlotte. “I was just thinking of the look on a lot of people’s faces when they find out you’ve really become a student.”

Jojo smiled for a moment, then became very serious and once more gave her the look that said he wanted to pour his whole soul into her through her optic chiasma. “Charlotte, I think you know—I hope you know—there’s no way you could just be a tutor to me.”

Charlotte. Interesting. It was the first time he had said her name in the entire conversation. And that look…soulful was the word…

In reply, Charlotte gave him a smile of sympathetic understanding, which was quite different—and she meant it to be—from a smile of excitement, joy, or tenderness, much less love. In that same moment she cut another glance toward the Italian section rails to see if perhaps…they…Still there! They had only moved a few feet along the cafeteria rails. She didn’t have time to study their faces to see if they were still looking at her, because Jojo was off on another speech and pouring more soul into her eyes.

“It ain’t—id’n just the academic stuff, Charlotte.” Charlotte; check, check. “I don’t know if you know it or not, but you’ve showed me like a…I don’t wanna get all—you know…but you’ve showed me a new way to like…” He threw his enormous body into it, the struggle to deliver this speech fluently, twisting this way and that, as if to give his brain momentum, and shaping a large lump of invisible clay with his hands. “…like…you know…think about things…being at Dupont and everything…and it’s not enough to just do things with a round orange ball…and what a…relationship is, or oughta be…I’m not very good at saying all this—but you know what I’m saying…”

Charlotte maintained her benign smile. She sure hoped Lucy Page and Gloria got a load of Jojo’s anxious body language.

Greg and Adam were the only ones left in the office at the Wave.

“I’m telling you,” said Adam, “you’ll be the biggest fucking editor in the country, Greg! You’ll be publishing the dynamite of all dynamite! This thing is fireproof! It’s locked down! We’ve got two lawyers from Dunning Sponget and Leach, Greg—Dunning Sponget and Leach!—who’ve vetted it and given the thumbs-up!—it’s fireproof!—it’s libel-proof!—you’ll be the hottest editor who ever worked on a college newspaper and went straight to The New York Times! Now that’s Millennial Mutant stuff, Greg! We’re always talking about public intellectuals and shit—public intellectual is fucking looking at you in the mirror! Carpe diem, dude!”

Pause…Pause…“Now, who was the last guy we talked to at Dunning Sponget—the old guy, Button, or—”

I think the Fearless Editor’s getting over the shakes, Adam said to himself. At least something’s going right.