SEPTEMBER
IT HAD BEEN two hours since I blew out twenty candles on the cake Ma made for me, but my ass was still parked in a chair at Restaurante Tipico.
It was always hard for me to get away from the Dominican joint that my extended family ran. I needed to be on a train headed back to Harkness College. But here I was at table seven in the back corner, rolling silverware for the evening rush, the same way I’d done my whole life.
“One more and then I’m gone,” I said to Pablito, my sixteen-year-old cousin. “I have seven o’clock dinner reservations. If I miss the four-thirty train, I’m screwed.”
“Big date tonight?”
“Yeah, it’s actually her birthday, too.”
“No shit?” Pablito grinned as he applied yet another of the self-adhering bands we used to hold the napkin around the knife and fork. “So I’m going to sling food all night and go home smelling like the fryer. You’re getting a nice dinner, a bottle of wine and then” — he made a lewd hand motion — “some happy birthday to you.”
Jesucristo. I was not about to share the details of this evening’s plans with Pablito or anyone else. “At least you got an hour’s worth of labor out of me.” I set a silverware roll on top of his pile.
“Don’t forget your present,” he said, casting an eye on the vintage money clip my mother had given me for my birthday. It was sterling silver with an art deco design. “I know why your Ma chose that for you.”
“Yeah?” I tucked it in my pocket. It was no mystery why Ma gave it to me. I loved old things. She’d chosen well, and I’d thanked her.
“No place to hide a condom.” Pablito snickered.
I had to grin, because the kid made a good point. But looking out for a dozen younger cousins was a part of my life, so I felt obligated to add, “You’re not supposed to keep them in your wallet, anyway.”
“Eh.” He shook his head. “Like it would matter.”
Check please. I could not talk about sex with my sixteen-year-old cousin. Not today of all days. I tossed one last silverware roll onto the pile and stood. “Tengo que irme.” Gotta run.
He returned my fist bump. “Go on, then. Back to the good life. Don’t think of us, the little people.”
I cuffed him on the head, then ran into the kitchen to kiss my ma goodbye.
She wished me a happy birthday, and I thanked her for the cake and the present. “Bye. I need to go. I’m taking Alison out tonight.”
She eyed me for a few seconds. “Sé bueno,” she said finally. Be good.
Cristo. I could swear sometimes she had telepathic powers. When my mother got pregnant at nineteen, my so-called father had married her. But when I was a few months old, he’d gone back to his people in Mexico for a family funeral. And never came back.
Since then, it had been just the two of us — plus about three dozen aunts, uncles and cousins — but my mother had always impressed upon me that sex made babies and that good boys had a responsibility not to get girls in trouble.
My mother would not approve of what I had planned for tonight.
“I’m always good,” I told her. True statement. I planned to be very careful with Alison. Every single time. (I hoped there were many times.)
Before I left, my mother unleashed one last bit of Catholic guilt. She asked if I was coming home for my cousin’s christening in November. (I wasn’t sure.) She reminded me they were shorthanded at the restaurant (a familiar guilt trip, since I’d decided to go to college outside of the city) and she told me to have a happy birthday.
That last thing I could do.
I kissed her cheek one more time and ran out of there.
The Metro-North train from 125th Street wasn’t crowded, and I got a seat to myself. After watching the grit of New York transform into the green of Connecticut, I pulled out my phone to call my girlfriend.
“Hi,” she answered sounding a little breathless.
“Hi, angel. Happy birthday.”
“Happy birthday yourself!” I could hear her smile coming through the phone.
“I made the four-thirty, so we’re still good for seven o’clock.”
“I was just thinking about you,” she said in a quiet voice.
“Yeah?” I hoped she meant it in a good way.
“I love you, Rafe.”
Alison had said those words before. But there was something so serious about the way she said them now. “I love you too, Ali.”
“Tonight is going to be great.”
Warmth bloomed inside my chest. There had been too many moments during the past six months when I’d doubted Alison’s feelings for me. It was just so gratifying to hear she was looking forward to taking the next step.
“I can’t wait,” I whispered. “I hope dinner doesn’t take too long.”
She giggled. “See you soon.”
The train pulled into the Harkness, Connecticut station at six-fifteen. I ran the mile to campus because it saved me seven bucks, clearing the doorway of suite 301 in Beaumont House with just a half hour to get ready.
Unfortunately, both my roommates were home and bickering in the common room as usual.
When I passed them with my towel, they were arguing about politics, and when I came back freshly showered and shaved, they were arguing about tomorrow’s Giant’s game.
“You want some action on the game?” Mat asked me as I headed for my closet.
“No thanks.”
He turned his attention back to my roommate, Bickley. “Come on, fancy boy,” he taunted. “Bet me on the Giants. A hundred bucks. That’s like pocket change for you.”
“I will consider your wager,” Bickley countered, “if you shave that bit of ridiculousness off your lip.”
Alone in the bedroom I shared with Bickley, I chuckled. It’s not like I had time to witness the latest episode of The Mat and Bickley Show. But Mat’s experiment with facial hair was pretty hideous. Of course, the louder Bickley made this point, the longer Mat would keep his weird little ’stache.
“I’m not shaving it off,” Mat argued. “Tonight, when I have Devon’s balls in my mouth, I’m going to scrape it against his shaft.”
Cue a disgusted groan from the common room. “You arsehole,” Bickley spat. “No thank you for that image.”
“Then quit yapping and bet on the football game, sissy boy,” Mat said. “The spread is three and a half in favor of the Giants. I’ll even give you an extra point, okay? But only on a hundred bucks. No more.”
I rolled my eyes at this bit of salesmanship. Mat was a complete shark, and I was pretty sure that betting against Bickley was a major source of his income.
There was a silence while my roommate tried to decide whether there was a catch. Bickley was my soccer teammate, but as a Brit he didn’t have a lot of experience with American football. But he had trouble admitting that he wasn’t an expert at, well, pretty much anything.
The ego on Bickley? It was so large it had its own gravitational field. And the chip on Mat’s shoulder? It was as vast as the Grand Canyon. Between the two of them, I rarely had any peace.
“Give me the spread plus two,” Bickley countered in his clipped, aristocratic accent.
“Plus two? Forget it. I’ll call my bookie instead.”
“Well…” Bickley was about to cave. I could hear it. “Fine. Plus one on a hundred dollars. As soon as I look up the spread, you have a deal.”
“Seriously? If I tell you it’s three and a half, it’s three and a half.” Mat’s voice was full of irritation. But that was normal for him. Mat was a prickly guy. “Only a dick would lie about the point spread.”
“Trust but verify,” Bickley replied.
“You douche canoe,” Mat grumbled.
“What? You don’t want my money?” Bickley asked. “Ah. The point spread is indeed three and a half.” (His clipped British accent made it come out like hauf.)
Mat was silent for once.
A minute later, Bickley appeared in the doorway to our little room. “I feel good about this one,” he announced. With his designer jeans, polo shirt and preppy haircut, my roommate looked like a J. Crew ad come to life.
“Awesome,” I deadpanned. Not only was I sick of listening to these arguments, I had my own stuff to think about tonight.
“Where are you taking Alison?” he asked.
“The Slippery Elm.”
“Nice. Be sure to order the sweetbreads. They are a delicacy.”
“Wait — what the hell are those?” Taking dining advice from Bickley was nearly as risky as betting on football with Mat. The guy bragged about eating whale blubber in Japan and Haggis in Scotland. “Aren’t sweetbreads the calf’s balls, or something?”
“Pish. They are a gland and very buttery.” Bickley closed his eyes, smacking his lips with appreciation.
“I’ll take it under advisement.” The fancy restaurant lost its appeal all of a sudden. I was nervous enough about tonight without having to worry about which fork to use, too.
“Hopefully, I won’t see you here later,” Bickley added. “I know you bought earrings for Alison. But I hope she gives you the kind of gift that can’t be wrapped in a box.”
“I always wanted a pony,” I quipped, trying to steer Bickley away from this topic.
He flopped onto the bed, a gleam in his eye. “At brunch this morning, I heard your Ice Queen’s roommate say that she was staying away from their room tonight. This bodes well for you, sir.”
“Does it now?”
“Come on. You can tell Uncle Bickley. Are you going to finally shag that girl?”
I was, unless she’d changed her mind. “That’s none of your business, dude.”
“Very well. But I need to know if I can bring my date back here later. At least tell me that much.”
Bickley, to his sorrow, did not have our room to himself very often. Since I’d slept alone every night of my life (so far) his trysts usually happened elsewhere. When he did bring a girl home, they had to finish up at a reasonable hour. This made for the occasional awkward departure, where I kept my eyes on Bickley’s fancy television screen while he led his girlfriend-for-the-night out of the room.
My roommate had a whole lot of what everyone else called casual sex. In my head, though, those two words didn’t fit together. To me, there was nothing casual about getting naked with a girl. My sexual experiences — as limited as they were — had been intense. The first time my high school girlfriend let me touch her was an experience that was burned on my soul. The sounds she made, the heat of her body. The potent look in her eye when she…
Dios. “Casual” was not the right word at all.
I wanted all of that with Alison. And more. And the fact that I was supposed to have it all tonight? Mind-bending.
“Er, earth to Rafael.”
“Um,” I said stupidly. “You can have the room. If I come home, I’ll crash on the couch.”
“I hope it does not come to that.”
So did I.
“Do you need one of my suit jackets?”
“I’m good, thanks.” I’d rather wear my old one than borrow from Bickley. He’d probably lend me some Armani number that cost two grand, and I’d have to worry about wrinkling it. I didn’t need any extra reasons to feel jittery tonight.
The suit jacket I slipped on was the one I wore to church with my mother. It was a vintage 1940s blazer that I’d found in a Harlem thrift shop.
Funny how I was wearing my church jacket for the date where I would lose my virginity. And the next time I wore it would probably be to confession. Now there was a fun little irony.
I opened Bickley’s dorm fridge and grabbed the bottle of champagne I’d stashed there. The bottle went into a gift bag that I’d bought, along with a gift for Alison (silver earrings) and a gift for me (a box of condoms.)
With a wave to Mat and Bickley, I left.
The commute to Alison’s door took sixty seconds. Harkness College had twelve “houses.” But these were misleadingly named. Each house was a big stone or brick residence for several hundred students, with its own dining hall and library. Alison and I were both in the beautiful Beaumont House, with its gothic spires and slate flagstone walkways. As I strode across the courtyard, it impressed me, as usual, that Harkness students had been walking this path for a century. Ma had wanted me closer to home, and she meant well. But attending Harkness was an incredible opportunity, and I wasn’t about to feel guilty about it.
At Alison’s entryway door, I shivered as I peered into the little diamond-shaped pane of glass set into the oak. It was the third week of September, and we were having an early cold snap. But my chill? It was not due to the weather. Suddenly, I was nervous as hell.
Someone appeared in the entryway on the other side of the door. On a Saturday evening, there was always plenty of traffic in and out, as students returned from dining halls, libraries and coffee shops to get ready to party. So I wouldn’t have to call Alison to come down and let me in.
“Hey man.” The guy who opened Alison’s entryway door was in my French class. “Big date tonight?” He eyed the gift bag in my hand with a smirk.
“It’s her birthday,” I said quickly.
“Ah. Have fun,” he said, holding the door.
“Thanks. See you Monday,” I called as he walked away.
I stepped into the echoing stone stairway and began climbing the stairs. I loved this old stairwell, with its marble steps and its ironwork railing. Students had climbed these stairs to their rooms when jazz was still a brand new word. I didn’t hear any jazz right now, though. From behind the first door I passed came the sounds of a single-shooter video game. In the thirties, you might have heard the strains of somebody’s “wireless.” Or maybe a Victrola.
I was a bit of an antiques nut, which was kind of weird for a guy my age. But thinking about vintage audio equipment took my mind off my nerves. I was sweating just from climbing two flights up the curving stairwell. So when I reached Alison’s floor, I kept climbing. There was an odd little landing about ten steps further on. I set down my gift bag there, taking care to keep the bottle of champagne upright.
Removing my jacket, I took a deep breath. There was really no reason to be nervous around Alison. We’d been seeing each other since last spring, when we were both freshmen. We’d taken things slowly with our physical relationship. I was always ready for more, but Alison told me straightaway that she was a virgin, and when I admitted the same, she seemed enormously relieved.
I was patient with her, even though it was sometimes frustrating. There was a lot of kissing and cuddling on the couch. But she seemed to have a whole lot of sexual tripwires. One minute we’d be making out, and then suddenly she’d push me away. Not only did I always go home horny, I went home confused. And the confusion was by far the more painful condition. I didn’t like wondering what it was about me that didn’t quite do it for her.
After a couple of these awkward endings, I’d tried to get her to tell me what was wrong. But she’d just say, “I’m not comfortable,” and then change the subject.
And what kind of an asshole pressures his girlfriend for sex? I wasn’t going to be that guy.
There was a whole lot of good stuff between us, anyway. Alison always got my jokes, and I loved the way her face went soft when I paid her a compliment. I did that often, too. Because Alison was pretty great. She was smart and funny, as well as gorgeous. With all that fine, blond hair framing her face, when I looked at her, the word angel would pop into my head.
My mother said that Harkness College had given me an unhealthy attraction to pretty white girls. “What you need is a nice Latina,” she’d say. “Someone who will never look down on where you come from.”
Mostly I ignored my mother’s prejudice. But sometimes it was hard not to worry, or to read too much into Alison’s reluctance to get me naked. At Harkness I was surrounded by people who had a lot more money than I did, including Alison. I worried sometimes that she thought I wasn’t good enough for her.
That was probably just paranoia.
Summer vacation had separated us. I spent the month of June working in my mother’s restaurant, and trying not to die from heatstroke on the subway platform whenever she sent me on errands. At night, before I went to sleep, I’d lie on my little twin bed in our cramped apartment and talk to Alison on the phone, while the window unit blew cold(ish) air across my mostly naked body.
There was never any phone sex, of course. But I loved the sound of her soft voice in my ear, telling me all the things she put up with as an intern at the San Francisco art gallery where she worked. “I miss you, Rafe,” she’d say. “I was thinking about you when I was serving coffee to a table of old ladies. They’d asked for decaf, but I gave them all high-test by accident, because I was remembering that letter you’d written me on the old typewriter, instead of paying attention to the coffee.”
That made me laugh and miss her all the more. So I kept the old-fashioned letters coming. And the weeks flew by.
In July, Alison had called me, all excited. “Do you remember that international program in Ecuador that I applied to?”
Of course I did. After she’d been wait-listed, she’d cried a puddle onto the shoulder of my Harkness sweatshirt.
“A spot opened up! I’m leaving next week!”
“That’s awesome,” I’d said, feeling happy for her even though I knew I wouldn’t get to talk to her for six weeks. The Ecuador trip was an immersion program, and students weren’t supposed to speak to outsiders the entire time.
So that had sucked.
Needless to say, three weeks ago, when she’d finally stepped off the Connecticut Coach from LaGuardia airport to start our sophomore year, I’d been desperate to see her.
That first night back, I’d asked her to sleep in my bed for the first time. “I am not ready to let you go yet,” I’d told her. “Just stay with me. It isn’t a ploy to get your clothes off. And Bickley isn’t back until tomorrow, anyway.”
Her face had softened. “Okay, I can do that,” she’d said. I was actually stunned that she went along with it, because whenever I’d suggested she spend the night before, she’d turned me down.
But not this time. I’d given her one of my T-shirts to wear, and she’d looked sexy as hell in it. Of course, when we’d settled into my bed together, my body had gotten big ideas all its own. So I’d rolled onto my back and pulled her head onto my shoulder.
She felt terrific in my arms. I’d loved holding her, sneaking kisses here and there. “This is nice,” I’d said.
“Yes it is,” she’d agreed. We were silent for awhile before she said, “I know you’ve waited a long time for sex.”
I was so stunned she’d brought up the topic I hadn’t said anything for a moment. “S’okay,” I choked out eventually.
“We have birthdays coming up,” she continued. “Maybe that should be… a big night for us.”
Again, I was too stunned to answer. A few beats went by before I managed to agree with her. “That would be incredible,” I finally whispered.
“I think it will be.” She rubbed my chest with one hand, massaging a slow circle on my pec. Meanwhile, my dick hardened into something approximating an iron bar, just on the possibility that she was actually suggesting what I thought she was suggesting.
I slept very little that night. And for these past two weeks, whenever I kissed Alison goodnight, I became comically horny.
And now? I was hiding in a stairwell, practically splitting out of my skin with nervous anticipation.
Three and a half floors below me, the entryway door slammed. I heard footstep. Someone was jogging up the stairs.
That woke me up. I took a moment to fold my jacket over my arm and pick up the gift bag again. After giving myself the once-over, I began to quietly descend the stairs, as if it were perfectly normal for me to come from that direction. If I passed whomever was climbing, I’d give him a calm nod. Everything is fine, there’s nothing to see here. Just your average twenty year old on his way to get his V-card stamped. Carry on.
But I didn’t get the chance. The climbing footsteps stopped, and I heard a sharp rap on a wooden door. Then, the click of a door opening. “Surprise!” a guy’s voice called.
Weirdly, the guy’s voice seemed to originate from Alison’s doorway. I’m not sure why, but I took the last three or four stairs at a slow, stealthy pace. Just as Alison’s startled voice said, “Oh my God! What are you doing here?” the guy came into view.
He was tall and thin, but my attention went straight to the shiny Rolex hanging loosely on his wrist. I’m from New York City, so I could spot those at a hundred yards. Mr. Rolex was a rich boy.
“I told you I wanted to see you again. And what better time than on your birthday?” He stepped into Alison’s room, disappearing from view.
Some kind of gravitational force drew me down the last steps quickly enough to wedge my foot between the door and its frame. The view I saw next was sickening. Mr. Rolex had wrapped his arms around Alison’s waist, and was liplocked to the girl.
My girl.
“What the fuck?” I said, pushing the door open. And since the question was reverberating through my mind like a gong, I said it a second time. “What. The. Fuck?”
Alison’s arms shot out to her sides, as if she’d just received an electric jolt. Mr. Rolex let her go and turned around. “Who are you?” he asked, his eyebrows disappearing into his hundred-dollar haircut.
“Who am I? I’m the boyfriend.” I was sputtering with indignation, but I couldn’t stop talking. “The boyfriend since last April. That’s… five months ago. Almost six.” As if an accurate accounting really mattered.
Alison’s mouth kept opening and closing, like the goldfish I used to keep in a little bowl on the window sill in our apartment.
Mr. Rolex was not so quiet. And he looked almost as surprised as I felt. “The boyfriend? We were together for six weeks in Ecuador, and you never mentioned a boyfriend.”
At least I wasn’t the only one interested in getting the accounting right.
“I told you I wasn’t looking for a relationship,” she whispered in his direction.
“But you never said why. I guess that makes me an idiot.” Mr. Rolex actually had the balls to look sad about it.
Now that I’d been standing in the room for almost a minute, other little details were making themselves clear to me. Mr. Rolex had a bouquet of roses in one hand.
Flowers! I forgot flowers. To strew on the bed.
Wait. There wasn’t going to be any strewing. Or any bed. My feeble brain could barely wrap itself around the vastness of this problem. It was just so unexpected. I’d never wondered if Alison had someone on the side. Even if we’d never been naked together, we’d been together. For a long time.
I stood there, slack-jawed, my silly little gift bag in my hand, realizing I’d missed something important. “If she didn’t want a relationship from you,” I asked Mr. Rolex, “then what did she want? A Scrabble opponent?” My face began to heat as truth smoldered in my chest. “A study buddy? A foot massage?” I turned to face her directly. “Tonight was supposed to be the night we both lost our virginity, Alison.”
“Well that is not quite possible,” Mr. Rolex sputtered.
That’s when my heart really hit the deck. Alison had been saying that she wasn’t ready for sex. But she just didn’t want it with me.
My humiliation was like a many-tentacled monster — squeezing me everywhere at once. I let out one more hot breath, then spun on my heel.
“I’m sorry, Rafe,” she said as I wrenched open the door. “I’m so sorry.”
I’ll bet. Her door slammed behind me as I left. It slammed hard. Hard enough to wake the ghosts of students who had lived in Beaumont House when it was still new.
