The Rules of Attraction

LAUREN Walk into The Pub. Stand near the cigarette machine. Out of order. Talking Heads are blasting out from the jukebox. Sean is standing near the bar wearing a police jacket and black T-shirt. Visiting punks are talking to him. Walk over and ask him, “Are you okay?” End up sitting with him, staring at the pinball machine, Royal Flush, while he sulks.

“I feel my life is going nowhere. I feel incredibly lonely,” he says.

“Do you want a Beck’s?” I ask him.

“Yeah. Dark,” he says.

I cannot deal with this person one more minute. Brush past Franklin, who’s leaning against the out-of-order cigarette machine. Smiles wanly. Push my way to the front of the bar and order two beers. Talk to that nice girl from Rockaway and her awful roommate. That weird group of Classics majors stand by, looking like undertakers. Typical night at The Pub. People dressed in underwear, Drama majors still with make-up on. Brazilian guy who can’t drink because he lost his I.D. Someone pinches my ass but don’t turn around to look.

Bring the beers back to the table. Sean has faint red stains on his face and I’m about to wet a napkin with Beck’s to rub them off. But he starts complaining and he looks at me hard when he asks, “Why don’t you like me?”

I get up, walk to the bathroom, wait in line, and when I come back he asks me again.

“I don’t know,” I sigh.

“I mean, what’s going on?” he asks.

Shrug and look around the room. He gets up to play pin-ball. “This wouldn’t happen in Europe,” someone in a surfer outfit — actually the boy from L.A. — says and of course Victor comes into mind and then oh shit, someone’s kneeling next to my chair telling me about the first times they tripped on MDA, showing me the bottle of Cuervos they smuggled into The Pub, and to my disappointment I’m interested. Sean sits back down and I just know we’re going to fight.

I sigh and tell him, “I like someone else.”

He plays pinball again. I go to the bathroom again hoping someone will take our table. I’m in line with the same people that I was in line with last time. When I come back to the table he’s there. “What’s going on?”

“I like someone else,” I tell him.

Cute Joseph who Alex-nice-girl-from-Rockaway is sleeping with — walks in and hands the Brazilian boy something. Then I notice Paul. He’s looking at Joseph, then the Brazilian. Paul has a new flattop which looks okay, sexy in a goofy way and he looks over at me and I raise my eyebrows up and smile. He looks at Sean and then at me and waves tiredly. Then he looks back at Sean.

“I want to know you,” Sean whines.

“What?”

“Know you. I want to know you.” Pleading.

“What does that mean? Know me?” I ask him. “Know me? No one ever knows anyone. Ever. You will never know me.”

“Listen,” he says, touching my hands.

“Will you calm down,” I tell him. “Do you want some Motrin?”

A fight starts over near the jukebox. Seniors want to put tapes on and unplug the jukebox. Freshmen don’t want to and I try to concentrate on that. The Freshmen end up winning just because they’re bigger than the Seniors. Physically bigger. How did that happen? “Boys of Summer” comes on. Think of Victor. Sean gets up to play more pinball with an unhappy Franklin. Royal Flush is the name of the game. There’s a King and a Queen and a Jack lit up, all looking straight at the person playing pinball and the crowns on their respective heads blink off and on whenever the player scores. It’s amusing for a while.

I look back over at Paul across the crowded Pub. He looks miserable. He’s looking at Sean. He’s staring at Sean. Sean keeps looking over at me, like he knows Paul is looking at him, and then I’m looking over at Paul and Paul is still staring at Sean. Sean catches this and, blushing, rolls his eyes up and turns back to the pinball machine. I look back at Paul. He crumples his plastic beer cup and looks away, agonized. And I’m starting to catch on to something and then I’m thinking no way, oh no way. Not that. I look back at Sean, semi-realization hitting me but then it leaves because he’s not staring back at Paul. And then I get angry, start remembering how awful it was with Paul and Mitchell. Paul denying everything, how pathetic I seemed, wondering how I was supposed to act when there was no real competition. If it had been another girl with Paul that weekend on Cape Cod instead of Mitchell, or another girl here in The Pub right now, mooning over Sean, that would have been fine, great, easy to “deal with.” But it was Paul and it was Mitchell and there was nothing I could do. Lower my voice? Casually mention I need to shave, Judy and I suggested, hysterical, one night last term, but in the end it wasn’t really funny and we stopped laughing. Now the possibility hits that perhaps Mr. Denton is staring at me and not at Sean. “Boys of Summer” ends, starts again.

Rupert sits down next to me wearing a David Bowie T-shirt and a fedora, still hasn’t taken off the horrible mask he’s wearing, and offers me some of his coke. I ask him where Roxanne is. He tells me that she went home with Justin. Just smile.