My Last Innocent Year(30)
I turned back to my knitting and remembered the night Debra and I met, freshman year, at a meeting of The Lamplighter. I was sitting next to Jason when Debra walked in, wearing combat boots and a “Keep Abortion Legal” pin. Halfway through the meeting, she turned to me and said, “Let’s get out of here,” and even though I didn’t know her, had never even talked to her, I followed her out of the room. Eventually, she convinced me to stop writing for The Lamplighter and write for bitch slap instead, which I didn’t regret, but still. How many times had I done something because Debra told me to or believed something because she said it was true? Look where it had gotten me. Maybe she was right, I thought as I started a new ball of yarn. Maybe I was mad at her.
The rest of my shift passed slowly. Debra had left her newspaper behind, and I read the article she’d been talking about: “New York Supergals Love That Naughty Prez,” the headline read. “What do women really want? A boyish chief executive who’s alive below the waist.” Holly stopped to see if anyone had found a cashmere sweater. Around eleven, Sally Steinberg ran by, eating a blueberry scone as big as her fist. Twenty minutes later, a pack of Zeta Psi brothers dressed identically in khaki pants and puffer jackets bought fifty dollars of video game tokens. They had just disappeared down the stairs when the door opened again and Zev walked in.
I hadn’t seen him much that semester. It was hard to completely avoid people on a campus as small as Wilder’s, but since we didn’t have any classes together and I knew he mostly studied in his room, I found I could go days without seeing him. But now here he was, walking toward me. I looked around the student center, which was, suddenly and unprecedentedly, deserted. I reached for the newspaper again, fiddled with my knitting, then pretended to look for something in my backpack, hoping when I looked up he’d be gone. He wasn’t.
“My document isn’t here,” he said, gesturing toward the hanging file. His dark hair was wet with snow, and he had a black scarf tied in a knot around his neck.
I looked back at the printer, but I knew there was nothing there; I would have remembered seeing something from Zev. “I filed everything that came through. Are you sure you sent it to this printer? Sometimes people—”
“You know, you made a lot of problems for me.”
It took me a second to realize he wasn’t talking about the printer.
“Everyone’s talking about what you did. I had to go see Dean Hansen. My parents think I should come home, but I’ll be damned if you and your friend are going to run me off my own campus.”
What was he talking about—he’d had to go see Dean Hansen? I thought he was the one who’d contacted him in the first place. I wanted to ask what he meant but was afraid to open my mouth, afraid if I did some sort of apology would tumble out. I’m sorry we wrote rapist on your door. I’m sorry you have no friends. I’m sorry you were such a shitty lay and it all had to come to this.
Zev was staring at me like I was something he’d scraped off the bottom of his shoe. I looked around hoping someone—anyone—would walk by. Didn’t the Zeta Psi guys need more tokens by now? Outside by the ice sculpture, a guy was teasing a girl with the hose, threatening to spray her with it. The girl covered herself with her hands; in her eyes, glee mixed with terror.
“Your friend’s a real cunt, you know, always getting involved in things that do not concern her.” He rested a fist against the desk. “I think it was a cultural misunderstanding, what happened between us.” He spoke slowly, as if he’d been considering his theory for some time. “I don’t think American women understand the sexual aggressiveness of Israeli men. But then again, you also kind of like it, so.” He smiled and bile rose in my throat. I wanted to say something, but the words were stuck inside my head, my connection to them fuzzy, like a wire had been cut. I was off the hook, bleating out nothing but an incessant busy signal.
Just then, the front door blew open, bringing with it a gust of cold air.
“Oh, my God! Isabel! I’m so glad you’re here. Have you seen my wallet?” Sally Steinberg rushed over, breathless. She launched into a story about how she’d stopped by earlier to pick up her mail—her grandmother had sent her a birthday gift and she’d come by to get it before the mail room closed. She’d gotten the package—hadn’t opened it yet, who knows what she sent?—but now she couldn’t find her wallet anywhere and it wasn’t at the mail counter so had anyone turned it in to me at the desk?
Zev slithered away while Sally was talking, but before he did, he knocked the hanging file to the ground, sending the papers flying. “What’s up with that?” Sally said, watching Zev’s retreating form. As the two of us bent down to pick the papers off the dirty linoleum, I thought about something he had said to me the night we met, at that long-ago dinner at Hillel House. “Are you real?” he’d asked, right before the girl dropped the plates, before he grabbed my arm. Are you real? The words repeated in my head—are you real are you real are you real—and I pressed my knees hard against the cold tile to remind myself I was.
11
IT was mild the night of the Senior Mingle. There was a hint of spring in the air, soft and fragrant like a promise. The Winter Carnival folks were worried Jack Frost wouldn’t make it through the weekend. Kelsey and I passed him on our way to dinner. He looked soggy, his face dripping as if he’d been out for a run. Kelsey thought it looked like he was crying. “Who hurt you, Jack Frost?” she shouted as we walked by.