“I listen,” Andy protested, thinking that he definitely didn’t need to enlarge the argument to include Rachel’s imagined oppression. One look at her face, at the scorching glance she threw him, and he closed his mouth.
“You think we’re bad people. No, don’t deny it,” she said, holding up her hand like he’d tried to argue. “You think we’re shallow and frivolous and we only care about our hair and makeup, and maybe some of that’s true. Maybe a lot of it’s true. But that’s not all we are. And, Jesus, Andy, even if it was, that doesn’t mean that it’s okay for you to get into fights at our formals, to embarrass me or put my position at risk.”
Put my position at risk. She sounded like a boss, giving the new hire a bad performance review. He stared at his sneakers, trying to keep his leg from jiggling, forcing himself to hold still and take it.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I don’t know what else to tell you. It was dumb, and I shouldn’t have done it.”
With her back to him, he could see a blurry reflection of her face in the window. He thought she was crying, but he wasn’t sure.
“You know, I could have a boyfriend here. I could,” she said in a thin, high voice. “It’s not like guys don’t ask.”
Andy felt like he was trying to swallow a ball of steel wool.
“My friends ask me all the time what I see in you,” she said. “They think you’re stuck-up.”
“I’m stuck-up?” He couldn’t keep from sounding incredulous. These girls, with the cars they drove and their clothes and their credit cards, they thought he was stuck-up?
“You barely even talk to them. You act like you’re better than they are. You judge them . . .”
“I don’t—”
“You do,” Rachel said. She was definitely crying now. “Maybe you don’t do it on purpose, but they can tell.” She paused. “I can tell. You’re always examining me, trying to see if I’m good enough, if I’ve stopped being so shallow and snobby. And I never quite get there, do I?”
He wanted to go to her, put his hands on her shoulders, turn her toward him. He wanted to kiss the tears off her cheek, pull off her pajamas, take her to bed, where everything was always right between them. But her body was stiff under his hands, and when he tried to get her to turn around and look at him, she wouldn’t move.
“I think you should go,” she said. Her voice was dull; her eyes were aimed at the floor.
“I’ve already got a ticket for the bus. It leaves at seven. I don’t . . .”
“I don’t want you here.” Rachel raised her head and stared out onto the darkened quad, looking angry and fierce, like one of those carved figureheads on the front of ships. He was furious, but he wasn’t sure where to direct his anger—at Rachel? At Beer Guy? At himself, for losing his temper? At his mom, for dressing him from the church’s donation table in the first place?
“Okay,” he said, and Rachel left the room without a look, without another word.
•••
It took him five minutes to pack up his stuff—his toothbrush, his books, his boxer shorts, the stupid tux. He walked down the sorority house hall, head bent, hearing girls whispering behind the closed doors. At two in the morning, the campus was deserted, and he knew he had to find somewhere to be, unless he wanted to endure a second go-round with campus security.
At the all-night convenience store he bought three hot dogs and a big bag of pretzels, and paid another quarter for a cup full of ice. For a while, he sat on the bench in front of the shop, eating, then wrapping chunks of ice in paper napkins and holding them against his cheek. By three he was at the bus station, trying to read Sociology of the Family under the dim glow of the streetlights. He dozed for a while—probably not safe, but whatever, he’d already been beaten up. At sunrise, he came awake to the feeling of someone’s hand on his shoulder.
Startled, he jumped to his feet, ready to run, ready to fight, ready for anything. Rachel was standing there, with a cup of coffee in one hand. Her hair was pulled back in a bun, with curls escaping around her face. Her eyes were red; her skin was blotchy. She looked beautiful.
“I love you, you know,” she said.
He wanted to tell her that he was sorry. That he was stupid. That he didn’t think she was dumb or shallow, that he knew she had a good, true heart. But everything got tangled on its way from his brain to his tongue, twisted up with the memory of the beefy Beer Guy with his mean, glittering eyes, the disdainful twist of his lip, the way he’d made Andy feel like nothing, like less than nothing, like something a guy like that would flick off his cuff on his way to his good, clean, well-lighted life. So he kept quiet, just held Rachel’s hand, tracing the shape of a heart on her palm until the bus pulled up to the station and it was time for him to go.