Rachel made a face as she pulled on her bottoms. “State representative,” she said.
“So if her dad was a senator, could she be actually fat?”
Rachel shook her head. “Nope. If her dad was president, maybe. And that would only be if she had a gorgeous face and a four-point-oh, and her mom was a legacy.” She crossed the room, went to her closet, slipped her gown out of the plastic and held it up against her, frowning at her reflection in the full-length mirror. The dress was turquoise and strapless, with gold embroidery. “Are you getting ‘Princess Jasmine,’ or just ‘slutty’?” she asked.
Andy didn’t answer; wouldn’t answer, wouldn’t pretend that this was an actual problem. Rachel frowned, and then her face brightened. “Oh, and look! Look what I found for you!” She rehung the dress and stretched to reach the top shelf of the closet, letting Andy enjoy the view of her rear in the snug pajama pants. Then she handed him a little round beanie with a tassel on top. “Um, yeah,” he said, getting out of bed and setting it back on her desk. “No.”
She pouted in a way he normally found adorable. “It’s a fez,” she said. “It’s authentic.”
“Not wearing it.”
“But . . .”
“Rach,” he said, feeling the familiar itch, like he was going to jump out of his skin if he didn’t find a way to start moving. He loved her. She was sweeter than any girl he’d ever met. She made him laugh, took him out of himself, made him feel light when he could feel so weighted down sometimes, being angy about old grievances and insults, real and imagined. He’d thought about her constantly during the two years after they met again in Atlanta, when he’d get letters that told him everything about what she was doing, what she was thinking, how she was feeling. He knew his letters were less revealing—she’d always teased him about writing like he was being charged for every drop of ink—but on the phone, he’d talk about practices and track meets, which of his teammates were working hard and which were goofing off, and she would listen to him, asking questions, recalling things he’d said weeks or even months before, indulging him with a patience he’d never imagined and certainly never experienced from anyone except Mr. Sills.
He and Rachel still wrote, and they still talked, but he thought that not only had the sorority sucked up most of her time but it had encouraged her worst impulses, turned her into a girl who cared too much about manicures and formal gowns and hardly had time to listen to him or any interest in the future beyond the next rush or the next dance.
Andy shifted from foot to foot. The night was cool and crisp, the air smelled like apples and the smoke from all those fireplaces, and there was a towpath that ran in a two-mile loop around the man-made lake that some wealthy Beaumont alum had had dredged so the crew team would have a place to practice. He could run a quick lap, maybe two. Rachel was looking at him, waiting for him to finish. He forced himself to hold still, drumming his fingers on the desk, next to the stupid hat. “You wanted me to rent a tux, so I rented a tux. Which, by the way, was not cheap. I came because I wanted to see you. I know you’re busy and I don’t want to be in your way, but I’m not your dress-up doll.”
She stepped close to him with her hair down and her face gleaming and her breath smelling like toothpaste. In spite of himself, he felt his body react. His hands slipped around her waist, cupping her bottom, pulling her close. “There’s a prize for best-dressed couple,” she whispered, rolling her hips against him, then pulling back, then coming in again until he grabbed her, holding her still. She looked up at him, her eyes big, lashes fluttering. “My sorority gets points.”
Jesus. He let his hands drop. “Okay, okay,” she said, and laughed, and nuzzled against him, grabbing his hands and putting them back on her bottom. “Not that you wouldn’t have looked adorable in the fez, but I get it. You’re a man, not a Ken doll. Free will. Learned about it in philosophy class.” She walked to the door, stuck her head into the hallway, then grabbed a towel and grabbed his hand and pulled him back to the bathroom. “I already took a shower,” he said.
“Cleanliness is next to godliness.” There were three stalls, all in a row, with only curtains separating them. Rachel turned on all three showers and pulled the curtains aside, and then pulled him in with her, with all that hot water drumming down. For twenty minutes, as the room filled with steam, he whispered to her, making her laugh, before she filled her palm with bath gel, then took him in her hand, sliding with delicious slowness up to the tip and back down again. “Honey,” she said, with the water washing her face clean, slicking her hair back so that he could see her face without its frame of curls. “I love you.”