interested in school. Melissa came from Charleston, South Carolina, and spoke so slowly that I was always tempted to leap in and finish her sentences for her. All she wanted to do was marry her boyfriend, now at the University of South Carolina, and have babies. Donnie, Melissa’s roommate, was a big, freckled, friendly girl from Texas. We didn’t have any idea how rich she was until her mother flew up and bought a cabin at nearby Goshen Lake so “Donnie and her friends” would have a place to “relax.”
By spring, Dixie was the only one of us who was actually pinned. It seemed to me that she was not only pinned but almost married, in a funny way, with tons and tons of children—Trey, her boyfriend; and me; and the other girls in our suite; and the other Phi Gams, Trey’s fraternity brothers at Washington and Lee. Dixie had a notebook in which she made a list of things to do each day, and throughout the day she checked them off, one by one. She always got everything done. At theend of first semester, she had a 4.0 average; Trey had a 0.4. Dixie didn’t mind. Totally, inexplicably, she loved him.
By then, most of the freshman girls who weren’t going with somebody had several horror stories to tell about blind dates at UVA or W&L fraternities—about boys who “dropped trou,” or threw up in their dates’ purses. I had only one horror story, but I never told it, since the most horrible element in it was me.
T HIS IS WHAT HAPPENED . I T WAS S PRING F LING AT THE Phi Gam house, and Trey had gotten me a date with a redheaded boy named Eddy Turner. I was getting desperate. I’d made a C in my first semester of creative writing, while Lily had made an A. Plus, I’d gained eight pounds. Both love and literature seemed to be slipping out of my sights. And I was drinking too much—we’d been drinking Yucca Flats, a horrible green punch made with grain alcohol in a washtub, all afternoon before I ended up in bed with Eddy Turner.
The bed was his, on the second floor of the Phi Gam house—not the most private setting for romance. I could scarcely see Eddy by the light from the street lamp coming in through the single high window. Faintly, below, I could hear music, and the house shook slightly with the dancing. I thought of Hemingway’s famous description of sex from
For Whom the Bell Tolls
, which I’d typed out neatly on an index card: “The earth moved under the sleeping bag.” Thewhole Phi Gam house was moving under me. After wrestling with my panty girdle for what seemed like hours, Eddy tossed it in the corner and got on top of me. Drunk as I was, I wanted him to. I wanted him to
do it
. But I didn’t think it would hurt so much, and suddenly I wished he would kiss me or say something. He didn’t. He was done and lying on his back beside me when the door to the room burst open and the light came on. I sat up, grasping for the sheet that I couldn’t find. My breasts are large, and they had always embarrassed me. Until that night, Don Fetterman was the only boy who had seen them. It was a whole group of Phi Gams, roaming from room to room. Luckily I was blinded by the light, so I couldn’t tell exactly who they were.
“Smile!” they yelled. “You’re on
Candid Camera
!” They laughed hysterically, slammed the door, and were gone, leaving us in darkness once again. I sobbed into Eddy’s pillow, because what they said reminded me of Sam, whose face would not leave my mind then for hours while I cried and cried and cried and sobered up. I didn’t tell Eddy what I was crying about, nor did he ask. He sat in a chair and smoked cigarettes while he waited for me to stop crying. Finally I did. Eddy and I didn’t date after that, but we were buddies in the way I was buddies with the whole Phi Gam house due to my status as Dixie’s roommate. I was like a sister, giving advice to the lovelorn, administering Cokes and aspirin on Sunday mornings, typing papers.
It was not the role I’d had in mind, but it
By spring, Dixie was the only one of us who was actually pinned. It seemed to me that she was not only pinned but almost married, in a funny way, with tons and tons of children—Trey, her boyfriend; and me; and the other girls in our suite; and the other Phi Gams, Trey’s fraternity brothers at Washington and Lee. Dixie had a notebook in which she made a list of things to do each day, and throughout the day she checked them off, one by one. She always got everything done. At theend of first semester, she had a 4.0 average; Trey had a 0.4. Dixie didn’t mind. Totally, inexplicably, she loved him.
By then, most of the freshman girls who weren’t going with somebody had several horror stories to tell about blind dates at UVA or W&L fraternities—about boys who “dropped trou,” or threw up in their dates’ purses. I had only one horror story, but I never told it, since the most horrible element in it was me.
T HIS IS WHAT HAPPENED . I T WAS S PRING F LING AT THE Phi Gam house, and Trey had gotten me a date with a redheaded boy named Eddy Turner. I was getting desperate. I’d made a C in my first semester of creative writing, while Lily had made an A. Plus, I’d gained eight pounds. Both love and literature seemed to be slipping out of my sights. And I was drinking too much—we’d been drinking Yucca Flats, a horrible green punch made with grain alcohol in a washtub, all afternoon before I ended up in bed with Eddy Turner.
The bed was his, on the second floor of the Phi Gam house—not the most private setting for romance. I could scarcely see Eddy by the light from the street lamp coming in through the single high window. Faintly, below, I could hear music, and the house shook slightly with the dancing. I thought of Hemingway’s famous description of sex from
For Whom the Bell Tolls
, which I’d typed out neatly on an index card: “The earth moved under the sleeping bag.” Thewhole Phi Gam house was moving under me. After wrestling with my panty girdle for what seemed like hours, Eddy tossed it in the corner and got on top of me. Drunk as I was, I wanted him to. I wanted him to
do it
. But I didn’t think it would hurt so much, and suddenly I wished he would kiss me or say something. He didn’t. He was done and lying on his back beside me when the door to the room burst open and the light came on. I sat up, grasping for the sheet that I couldn’t find. My breasts are large, and they had always embarrassed me. Until that night, Don Fetterman was the only boy who had seen them. It was a whole group of Phi Gams, roaming from room to room. Luckily I was blinded by the light, so I couldn’t tell exactly who they were.
“Smile!” they yelled. “You’re on
Candid Camera
!” They laughed hysterically, slammed the door, and were gone, leaving us in darkness once again. I sobbed into Eddy’s pillow, because what they said reminded me of Sam, whose face would not leave my mind then for hours while I cried and cried and cried and sobered up. I didn’t tell Eddy what I was crying about, nor did he ask. He sat in a chair and smoked cigarettes while he waited for me to stop crying. Finally I did. Eddy and I didn’t date after that, but we were buddies in the way I was buddies with the whole Phi Gam house due to my status as Dixie’s roommate. I was like a sister, giving advice to the lovelorn, administering Cokes and aspirin on Sunday mornings, typing papers.
It was not the role I’d had in mind, but it
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