LAUREN I lose my keys the first time I leave my room in over four days. So I can’t lock my door. It doesn’t really matter, I’ve packed all my stuff, there’s really nothing to take. I go to the post office to check the board to see about getting a ride tomorrow or the next day. Not a lot of rides. “Lost My Pet Rock,” “Ambitious Photography Major Looking for Imaginative Male to Pose in Cellophane,” “Madonna Fan Club Starting Soon. Anyone interested? Box 207.” I tear that one down but the woman working behind the post office counter sees this and glares until I put it back up. “Skateboarding Club Starting.” I want to tear that one down too. “Jack Kerouac Fan Club Starting Next Term.” I hate the idea of having that one up since it looks so pathetic next to the others, so I tear it down. She doesn’t say anything. Someone’s put a copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude in my box and I look inside to see if anyone’s left a name or message. “Really good book. Hope you like it — P.” But it doesn’t look like it’s been read, and I put it in Sean’s box.
Franklin passes by in the mob of people lining up for lunch. He asks me if I want to go to The Brasserie. I’ve eaten lunch eight times today but I have to get off-campus. So we go into town and it’s not bad at all. I buy a couple of tapes, and a frozen yogurt, and then at The Brasserie I have a bloody Mary and take a Xanax. For the past week I have been hoping the job was botched; that maybe the doctor had somehow screwed things up, had left everything incomplete. But of course, he hadn’t. They had done a good, thorough job. I have never bled so much before.
I stare out the window, at the snow. Jukebox plays depressing pop. I make a mental list of things I need to get done before I go to New York. Christmas presents.
“I screwed her,” Franklin says, sipping his drink and pointing at the waitress in back; some foul-mouthed bitch from campus who I think is hideous, who told her boyfriend that I was a witch and he believed her.
The waitress disappears into the kitchen. A waiter takes her place. He sets something on the table next to ours. In a blinding moment of recognition I realize who the waiter is. He keeps looking at me, but there’s no recognition on his face. I start laughing, the first time in over a week.
“What’s funny?” Franklin says. “No, I really did screw her.”
“I screwed him,” I tell Franklin. It’s the townie I lost my virginity to.
“Hey,” Franklin says. “We are the world.”