The Nest(44)

Of course, even given some kind of ridiculously discounted insider price, she was in no position to buy anything—not without The Nest. Thinking about The Nest made her think about her new pages (they were good!) and then about Leo, which led back to Dream Tucker, and then she lit a joint. She wondered if Leo would stop by the office today. Maybe she’d ask him to lunch and take the plunge. She imagined handing him her new work and him reading and reacting with enthusiasm and excitement, saying I knew you had this in you!

He’d been her biggest fan once. He’d watched out for her. She remembered when she was a freshman in high school, Leo a senior, and she’d let Conor Bellingham do things to her in the backseat of his car in the school parking lot after a meeting for the literary magazine; Leo was the editor, she was on staff. As she and Conor made out, she was simultaneously ecstatic and disappointed. Ecstatic because she’d had her eye on Conor for weeks. In addition to being handsome and popular and the class president, he’d submitted a shockingly good story to the magazine and she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it, or him, or the last line of the story: “Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away.” Disappointed because he refused to talk about writing. She didn’t get it. Or how someone who, frankly, seemed a little doltish could write something so moving.

“Have some more,” he’d said, passing a small flask. The flask was gleaming silver and heavy in her hand. “Irish whiskey. My father’s. The good stuff.”

“Some of my favorite writers are Irish,” she’d said.

“Yeah? Well, I guarantee they drink this stuff.”

“Who are your favorite writers?” She smiled brightly, trying to get him to look at her and not out the window.

Conor shook his head and laughed a little. “You have a one-track mind, you know that?”

She shrugged and bent her nose to the flask and breathed deeply, imagining she was smelling Ireland—the surprisingly sweet fermentation and then the quick sting and heat, the heady aroma of peat and smoke.

“To the old sod,” she’d said, tipping the flask and taking a long sip. She liked it. Conor liked it. Conor liked her! She drank some more and they laughed, about what exactly she wasn’t sure, and then they were kissing again and his hands started moving lower and she stiffened. “Relax,” he said. She took a long sip from the flask and then another. She could feel something on the cold, steely surface. She held it up toward the window and in the light of a streetlamp read the engraving.

“What does ‘Trapper’ mean?” she asked him.

“Nothing. A silly nickname.”

“I think I should probably go.” She realized she was getting very drunk.

“Don’t go,” he said.

“Look outside.” Her voice sounded thick. “It’s starting to snow. I should get home.” Out the window, it was dark and she was having trouble focusing. Conor moved closer, his hand successfully creeping beneath her skirt this time.

“‘The newspapers were right,’” he said, whispering into her ear, “‘snow was general all over Ireland.’”

“Joyce,” she whispered, turning back to him.

“Yes,” he said. “Joyce. I like James Joyce. So there’s a writer I like.” And that was it. Her resolve melted and her clenched knees unfurled like the petals of a ripening peony. She didn’t think anything when he didn’t call over the weekend. And told herself he must not have seen her when she walked by his locker early Monday morning. At lunch, she strolled over to the table where he was sitting and stood for a minute, waiting for him to see her and to smile and invite her to sit. After far too many beats, after his friends were staring at her, half of them confused, half of them smirking, he looked up and raised an eyebrow.

“Hi,” she said, trying to hold on to confusion because what came after that, she knew, was going to be worse.

“Can I help you with something, Beatrice?”

She knew her face was flooding with color, knew she was probably flushing from head to toe; she could feel her knees sweat. Somehow she mustered enough breath and energy to turn and walk away. She heard him mumble something to the rest of the table, and they all burst out laughing, a few pounding the table in uproarious amusement.

(Years later, in a feminist literature class during a discussion on pornography, she would hear the term “beaver” for the first time and would remember with shattering clarity the feel of that flask in her mouth, the sulfur taste of silver, the smell of whiskey and peat. She would burn with shame for days, weeks, realizing what “Trapper” indicated and what it had meant when Conor slid his hand beneath the elastic of her underwear that night and whispered, very much to himself, Seventeen.)

“I’m so dumb,” she’d said over and over to Leo, crying and wiping her nose. “I just can’t believe I was so dumb.”

“Conor Bellingham?” Leo didn’t get it. That guy was a loser.

“He wrote the best story,” she said. “Did you read it? Did you read the last line?”

“The one he lifted from The Great Gatsby? Yeah, I read it. He’s lucky I didn’t turn him in for plagiarizing.”

Bea didn’t think it was possible to feel worse, but she bent at the waist and groaned. “I’m so, so dumb.”