The Rules of Attraction

PAUL Then I find myself wandering down College Drive, approaching Wooley House, where The Dressed To Get Screwed party was. The campus is dead, unawake, even though it’s almost noon, which means they will have all missed brunch, and I smile with satisfaction at the knowledge of this luxury withheld from them. Almost all the windows have been smashed at Wooley, ripped sheets lay rolled up in balls all over the green lawn outside the broken French windows of the living room, or hang from trees like big deflated ghost balloons. Flies buzz around three sticky trashcans that are lying on their sides in the cool autumn sun, drying. There are three people asleep, or dead, two of them sitting up, in the living room, one of them naked, face-down. Vomit, beer, wine, cigarette smoke, punch, marijuana, even the smell of sex, semen, sweat, women, permeate the room, hang in the air like haze. I don’t even know what I’m doing here since Sean’s room, the house he lives in, is directly across Commons lawn (scared, aren’t you?) from Wooley. I’m still carrying my bag, careful not to drop it on the floor, which makes cracking noises every time I take a step. Beer and punch, or maybe it’s vomit, is everywhere, in pools, thrown in streaks on the walls from which big chunks of plaster are missing. A broken film projector, half of it crushed, is in the corner, unwound reels surrounding it. Cigarette butts cover the floor like big flattened white bugs. In the hallway are two people, dead, sleeping, on top of each other. The house itself is incredibly silent, even for a Saturday morning.

But then the screaming starts, a girl’s screaming, and the fire alarms in Stokes and Windham go off, and I move outside, stepping over the couple stuck together, feet crunching broken glass, walking over numerous plastic cups, the girl’s screams coming closer. It’s that bitchy lesbian who lives off-campus with Rupert Guest (who, I hate to admit, is really cute) and she’s out of her mind, yelling “oh fuck” over and over. People start to stick their heads out of open windows that look onto Commons lawn, awakened by her screams. She disappears into another house, and then the fire alarm in Booth goes off. I look over at the house, at the crazy screaming girl, half-tripping, half-running out of the house, her destination unsure, really just running in circles. In the top corner of the house, Sean’s window opens and staring out his window, the window she’s pulled open, a flash of breast showing — it’s none other than Lauren. Then Sean’s head peeks out. He looks around, shading his eyes with his hand, shirtless. He spots me and waves, yells out, “Hi, Dent!” and I stand there too dazed to laugh, to not wave.

So I head back to my room, various fire alarms still blaring, past couples who fucked each other last night standing in hungover amazement at the gibbering girl screaming and pulling at her face, only dressed in blue boy’s boxers and a Pee Wee Herman T-shirt. And it’s back to my room — a note on my door saying my mother called, another flyer from the Young Republicans Committee. I sit there staring at my bed, wondering was it I who made it before I left? I’m a little amazed, but not nearly as shocked as I should be, or probably should be. Lauren. So.