The Truth Is a Theory Read online

  The freshmen, on the other hand, were trying to fade into the woodwork along with the posters; any cockiness from orientation had shriveled up and died. The class of 1990 was now fully aware of their position on the totem pole, and they were shamelessly trying to watch, listen, and soak up the unspoken laws and hierarchy of this new culture.

  Megan picked up her pace to match Allie’s near skip and grabbed an blue food service tray.

  –––––––

  Someone at the crammed fraternity table must have seen him coming. As Gavin Keller coasted across the room with his tray, brothers slid over to make space, the Red Sea parting down the middle. Gavin eased his broad shoulders in between his buddies’ football jerseys, and then without a word, two sophomores got up to make room for his girlfriend Tori and her friend.

  “Good to see you, man.” One of the displaced sophomores clapped Gavin on the back.

  “You too. Catch ya later.” Gavin bit into an institutionally flat cheeseburger. The splintered conversations around the table had stalled, only one counted now.

  “How was the road trip?” a brother lobbed at Gavin.

  Gavin chewed. “Awesome. The Rabbit broke down right outside of San Diego, so that’s where we landed for a while.” He shot a bemused look down the table to one of his traveling companions, Brian.

  “You’re lucky you didn’t break down in, like, Ohio,” someone said.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Gavin caught eyes with Brian again, “Ohio had its moments.”

  Brian chuckled.

  “California must have been cool,” the first brother said.

  “It was.” Gavin grinned. “Mikey learned to surf.”

  Brian full-out laughed back.

  There was a seconds-long pause at the table as the audience waited for more; then the group guffawed at a joke only two shared.

  Gavin could feel Tori tense beside him and almost hear her gnashing teeth underneath her bright smile. He knew his summer with the guys pissed her off, and his sporadic calls from the road had only made it worse. But he also knew she wouldn’t fight with him about it. He put his hand on her thigh.

  “So what do you think,” she said, “should we go to the barbecue tonight?”

  Gavin turned to answer her, but was momentarily stunned by a tall, dark-haired girl sauntering by the table. Her short, almost boyish haircut and subtle makeup were distinct in a sea of long hair and pink frosted lip gloss, and although she was just dressed in jeans and a white sleeveless tee, she looked like she had been put together by a stylist as no detail, from black boots to pale nail polish to understated silver jewelry, had been overlooked.

  He felt as though all chatter quieted as she breezed by, and whether it did or not, he knew almost everyone in her vicinity—men and women—were assigning her a place in the world: Hook up! Sorority pledge! Competition! Zoe Chapin seemed not to notice; her piercing blue eyes stared straight ahead as if she knew exactly where she was going. Gavin was riveted, even though she was diametrically opposed to the petite, watery blondes he usually ended up with. Like Tori.

  “Gavin?”

  “Uh, I don’t know.” He ripped his eyes from Zoe and swiveled back to his girlfriend. “Why don’t you go with Emily and Laura, and if we go, I’ll catch you there. Otherwise, just meet me at the house later.” He watched her face fall at the news that his “we” meant him and his brothers. “We’re definitely having a party,” he added to justify his brush off. He couldn’t resist scanning the room to see where Zoe had landed with her lunch.

  Tori flashed another one of her super-bright smiles, which Gavin knew glossed over a tantrum. She stood up. “I’ll see you later then.” She fluffed her long blond hair and eyed her friend across the table. “Ready to go, Em?”

  Emily put down her forkful of salad and stood up.

  Tori walked off, with one more hair toss for good measure.

  “Wow, did you guys see her?” said Rich, a fraternity brother who tried his best to see everything.

  “A little mad, huh?” Gavin grimaced, and again dragged his focus away from Zoe and back to the table.

  “No. Well yeah, Tori was mad. But I meant that freshman striker. Tall, leggy… ” Rich had created what he thought was a cool classification for girls. Striker meant really cute; bomber—really ugly. Unfortunately, it had stuck. At least with Rich.

  “I saw her,” Gavin said. And any thoughts of Tori being mad drifted off as his mind returned to the gorgeous girl whose name he didn’t know. Yet.

  ————

  Later that night, on the outskirts of campus, the six fraternity houses were getting ready for their first big bash of the season. Collectively, this semicircle of plain, brick buildings was known as “The Columns,” although there wasn’t a porch pillar in sight. These huge red houses—no different in style from the rest of the buildings on campus—sat on a hill and towered over the spread of the campus, their throne-like perch visually reinforcing the imagined and real social clout that they held.

  While the brothers were busy prepping—beer iced, toilet paper reloaded—most of the girls across campus were feverishly primping, using the hours between dinner and showtime to select just the right “I didn’t try too hard” outfit and hair. They had more than enough time to try on and discard everything in their closets, as it was common knowledge—even to freshmen—that no one showed up at The Columns until at least 11.

  In Allie and Megan’s room, the music was loud, and in the corner the glowing TV shifted in silent drama. Someone on the hall had made popcorn; the smell of salty butter drifted into the room.

  Allie fished clothes from a sea of disheveled belongings on the floor, and in minutes was ready to go—long hair loose, tanned knees peeking out of Bermuda shorts, tight orange tee shirt.

  “I’m guessing no one ever wears orange,” she said as she tried to tug the wrinkles out of her shirt. “Plus this way you won’t lose me.” She lit a Marlboro Light and flopped down onto an oversized beanbag chair.

  Megan continued to stare into her closet at the crisp shirts hanging in a row, the tees folded in a neat stack, the shoes lined up across the bottom in categories—sneakers, sandals, boots. She was hoping for a cute outfit to announce itself. Allie has such great clothes, she thought, and her own clothes, fine until a few days ago, now seemed so buttoned-up. She wished she hadn’t eaten that pizza at dinner. She put her hand on her stomach and willed it flat.

  “Are those your brothers?” Allie pointed to a framed picture of four redheaded boys holding Megan up in the air.

  Megan nodded as she gazed at the picture, just snapped in August. It had been her oldest brother’s idea to hoist her over their heads, and they’d all laughed so hard it took several tries to get the shot.

  “You guys look close,” Allie said.

  “We are, most of the time. How about you, any siblings?”

  “Paul and Kevin; I’m in the middle, the problem child. I’m pretty close with my younger brother Kevin.” And then, quickly, as if she didn’t want Megan to ask anything else, Allie indicated Megan’s sweatpants and tee shirt with a wave of her cigarette and said, “You know, that would be fine. I’m envisioning beer-soaked floors and lots of drunks.”

  Megan turned her back on her closet with a sigh. “Can I bum one of these?” She lit a cigarette, inhaled, and coughed.

  “Anyway, you can’t miss with your hair and those big brown eyes.” Allie nodded at Megan’s long, copper-colored hair. “No one’s going to be looking at what you’re wearing.”

  Megan peered at Allie to see if she was being sarcastic. She never knew how to respond to a compliment; they made her uncomfortable, knocked her off balance. She was about to say, I hate my eyes, I mean, what’s special about brown? and that Allie had the most amazing jade-green eyes she had ever seen, when Allie switched the subject again.

  “Want to get ston
ed before we go?”

  “You brought pot?” Megan had only been stoned once before, on a class ski trip. One of her friends had smuggled in marijuana and three of them had stayed up late in their hotel room and smoked, filling the night with heady analysis and hearty laughter. The experience had been both nebulous and intense, and incredibly bonding—they had encoded it into their yearbook comments months later—but it had been safe within the confines of a small hotel room, and Megan wasn’t sure how it would feel to be high out in public. “Sure, I’ll get stoned. But stay with me tonight, I don’t want to make a fool of myself in front of some cute senior.”

  “You’ll be fine, you’ve been stoned before,” Allie said, as if there could be no other possibility.

  “Only once though; I’m a relative virgin.”

  Allie reached over to her drawer and pulled out a plastic baggie; inside were several rolled joints. “Well, I didn’t ask that! But give me a few minutes and I’ll be happy to talk about anything you want.” Allie lit up a joint and took a drag. “As long as it’s about you.” She laughed and handed it to Megan.

  “Right now my problem is my wardrobe. But this should make deciding what to wear a lot easier.” She inhaled, and as she held the smoke captive in her lungs she squeaked, “Weed, the true fashion accessory,” and grabbed jeans and a black sleeveless shirt from her closet. She wasn’t quite used to the lack of privacy, and although she tried to follow Allie’s unabashed lead, she hunched over in the corner as she hurriedly stripped and pulled on her clothes.

  Smoke curled around a comfortable silence as Megan, finally dressed, sat down. She was hazy, relaxed, happy; it felt good after all the activity of the day. She shifted on the hard wooden desk chair. “We need more comfortable furniture in here, especially if we’re going to be doing this.”

  “I know. Hey, sit here.” Allie started to wiggle her way out of the beanbag.

  “It’s okay, I’m fine.”

  “No really, sit here; if I don’t move, I’m going to be stuck in this thing forever.”

  Megan reached out and pulled Allie to her feet. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

  “I have to tell you, I wasn’t so sure about you when I read your roommate form. I was afraid you were going to show up with a few of your ferrets.”

  “What?”

  “Your ferrets.”

  “I’ve clearly smoked too much. What are you talking about?”

  “You wrote that you had four of them in the ‘A Fun Fact About Me’ section.”

  Megan slapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh my God, I’m going to kill my brother Brad. I don’t have any ferrets. He must have erased what I wrote and scribbled that in. I wrote something totally blah about running.”

  Allie burst out laughing. “I kept expecting them to creep out of one of your boxes!”

  “Now I’m wondering about you; some administrator thought you’d be a good match for somebody with a ferret zoo!”

  They bent over in giggles, grabbing furniture for support.

  “Wow, you have a lot of hair,” Megan said once they had straightened back up.

  Allie regarded herself in the mirror across the room. Her hair had fluffed up from the flip, and her face looked small, hidden underneath the waves of dark brown. She ran her fingers through it, tried to smooth it down. Her hairdresser had been begging to cut it for years, but Allie loved the thick curtain around her shoulders. The weight of it was comforting, as if someone had an arm around her.

  “Hey you guys… ” A tall girl who looked like she had been airbrushed poked her head in the door. “Can I join you? I’m Zoe. I heard you guys cracking up all the way down the hall. I was wondering what was so funny, and hoping it was artificially induced. I’ve got beer, if you’ll share.” She held out a six-pack of Amstel Light.

  “Come on in and help yourself. I’m running to the bathroom.” Allie handed the joint to Zoe as she passed her; then said over her shoulder, “Just watch out for the ferrets.” Her eyes twinkled at Megan.

  “Ignore her. Come in, I’m Megan.”

  Zoe stepped into the room; a light, flowery perfume wafted in with her. “Thanks. My roommate is no fun, never had a beer, is like, ready to go to bed.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t stand one more minute.”

  “I wonder what she wrote on her roommate form?” Megan said with a little chuckle, trying to hold onto the levity from a moment ago.

  Zoe strode over to the beanbag chair and dropped down into it. “Well, I wrote that I didn’t drink or smoke because I can control my alcohol and I didn’t want a drunk for a roommate.” After shifting her way into a comfortable position, she held out a beer. Megan stepped forward to take it. “But I didn’t say I wanted someone without a pulse,” Zoe continued. “I mean, Sandra Dee’s from some hick town in Vermont.”

  “Sandra Dee?”

  “It’s not really Sandra Dee, it’s Sue. But she so seems like she’s from the fifties. You know—I don’t drink, I don’t swear, I don’t rat my hair, I get ill from one cigarette.” Zoe fake-coughed.

  Megan suddenly felt very sorry for Zoe’s roommate. “I don’t think I’ve met her.”

  “Anyway, I think it’s going to be a long year. That’s why I was psyched to hear someone up here having fun.”

  Zoe’s eyes swept around the half-decorated room, scanning the posters on the wall, then lingering over the photographs Megan had in frames on her bureau and taped neatly to her mirror—Megan and her brothers, Megan with arms around close friends, Megan smiling with her parents. The way Zoe was studying them made Megan want to flip them over, cover them up somehow. She crossed her arms over her chest.

  Zoe turned back to Megan. “Cool posters.”

  “Most of them are Allie’s.” She felt like she was admitting she had no pulse.

  “What are we watching?”

  Megan glanced at the flickering TV. “I don’t know, we muted it. Obviously.” She rolled her eyes at herself. “Do you want me to turn it up?”

  “Nah, I don’t watch much TV. I live in Manhattan.” She crossed her legs. “We don’t watch life, we live it.”

  Megan’s eyes widened and then escaped to her beer bottle. She twisted the cap off.

  Zoe laughed, a short burst of sound that ricocheted around the room like a bullet. “Sorry, I’m into taglines, you know from ads? Sometimes I just can’t help myself.”

  Megan signaled for the joint and inhaled deeply.

  “You’re from New York?” Allie popped back into the room.

  Megan glowered at Allie and tried to convey telepathically, just wait until you talk to this girl. You won’t believe it.

  Allie hopped up on her desk. “I love New York.”

  Megan watched the two of them talk clubs for a few minutes and couldn’t believe they were hitting it off. She had to check that her mouth wasn’t hanging open. Was it her imagination that Zoe’s condescending attitude was only aimed at her? She was getting the sense that Zoe was the kind of girl who had to put someone down, and she had the feeling that—tag, she was it. Although she was feeling foggy from the pot and so wasn’t sure. She tried to get back into the conversation. “Wow, I’m stoned. My mom would kill me if she saw me now. I mean, I got the whole drinking and drug chat before I left. She was so earnest, I’m sure she was imagining upperclassmen plying us with toxins, never in a million years would she have thought the danger lay with my own roommate.”

  Zoe actually smiled, which Megan was disconcerted to note gave her a boost in confidence. She continued, “What about you guys, did you get the big Be Careful talk from your mothers?”

  “My mom’s not in the picture,” Allie said. And then, as if she wished she could take back the conversation stopper and the tone of voice that went with it, she flashed a smile.

  All eyes dropped to the floor and then bounced back up to the voiceless TV. Mega
n’s brief confidence sagged.

  After a moment, Zoe’s voice tripped over the clutter of discomfort. “I know what you mean, sort of.” She bit her lip. “My mom’s in the picture, but when she’s with her husband, my stepfather, it’s like I’m not in it.”

  Allie and Zoe locked eyes for a beat in time that seemed to last for an entire song; then each looked away. Allie reached for a beer. “So what time do we go over to The Columns?”

  Zoe checked her watch. “It’s 11:30, I guess it’s respectable.”

  ————

  The importance of peering one last time into the small mirror erased the awkwardness in the room, and by the time they were out in the warm, star-filled night, their thoughts were in front of them, great expectations leading the way. The growing, monotone buzz of the crowd lured them ever closer, until finally they were in the middle of a mob milling around on a huge field. Portable chairs of all kinds—plastic lawn chairs, metal folding chairs, and even wooden desk chairs—claimed territory and anchored clumps of students, giving the scene the feel of a public beach on the Fourth of July. At the far end of the field a parade of bodies marched up and back down the steep slope leading to the fraternity houses at the top of the hill.

  The girls wove through the throng, up the hill, and into the nearest house, where they were immediately engulfed in a pungent smog—the sweet-sour reek of stale beer fused with thick cigarette smoke. In the dim light they tried not to trip over bodies lounging on sagging couches and tattered chairs. They followed the traffic headed back toward the main attraction—the Keg Room—a large kitchen where several dripping barrels of cheap, foamy beer were being continuously pumped and drained as lines of drunk and getting-there students waited for their cups to be refilled. The floor was indeed covered in beer, and they watched in horror as a girl in a skirt and clogs (clearly a freshman) hydroplaned across the floor—arms swinging spastically, spray kicking up behind her—and landed hard on her butt. A clump of brothers snickered on the sidelines.