The Truth Is a Theory Read online

  She rolled onto her back as her angry adrenaline deflated into guilt. She knew that for Allie, the casual hookups weren’t about sex, they were more about not succumbing to some black emptiness that lurked just below her sunny surface. The drug of being wanted in real time, in real arms somehow kept her from drowning. And Allie never got naked with other guys—it was really just making out.

  But Megan believed in black and white, in right and wrong; the muck of gray didn’t make sense to her. And she cared about Dana, which made it worse. She had been urging Allie to talk to him about her feelings for months. “I think he’d understand. Maybe he even feels the same way; you guys could agree to see other people while you’re at school.” But it was too hard, too scary, too something for Allie, and it hadn’t happened.

  Megan forced herself back to her physics book, but when Allie finally tap-danced into the room, giggling and drunk at three in the morning, her anger fired up again.

  “Dana called. Twice.” Megan kept her eyes on the equations in front of her, her voice a solid steel door.

  Allie checked her watch and announced she’d call him in the morning.

  “That’s great, that’s just great. He’s waiting for your call, you know.”

  “Okay… ”

  Megan slammed her book closed, and the empty coffee cups on her desk rattled and then fell onto the floor. “God Allie, I feel like I’m lying to him. I know I’m not actually lying, but covering for you, or whatever it is, feels awful. You know I love you and I’d do anything for you, but I feel guilty. And if I feel guilty, how the hell don’t you?”

  “I do. But… ” Allie ran her hand through her hair.

  “Look, if you can’t talk to him about how you feel, maybe your relationship isn’t as strong as you think.”

  “You know what Meg? I don’t need this right now.” Allie stomped out the door. Then she poked her head back in. “And P.S., I never asked you to lie.” Her clomp-clomp echoed down the hall.

  ————

  In the watery light of morning, Allie opened her eyes to see Megan asleep at her desk. Allie, head throbbing, shook her gently.

  “Meg, your exam.”

  The room pulsed to life as Megan sprang from her chair and wrenched her hair into a ponytail.

  Allie gathered up textbooks and papers and handed them to Megan. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Me too,” Megan said.

  They hugged tightly.

  “I’ve gotta go.” Megan broke out of the hug.

  “Meg, I’m going to talk to him.”

  Megan held Allie’s eyes. “Let’s figure it out later.” And she was off, a blur in a sweatshirt and plaid pajama pants.

  ————

  Megan grew up in a big yellow farmhouse littered with balls, bats, lacrosse sticks, and sneakers of every size; for the Riordan family, game-playing was second nature. Fun was the goal both on the field and off, but as in any game, rules were important too. So while at home the golden rule was say what you mean, when you mean it, her brothers usually lobbed in their truth with sarcasm or a joke. When the kids were young that meant running for your life after pitching a zinger at a sibling; when they were older it meant rounds of verbal chasing around the dinner table.

  Meals at the big wooden table were memorable more for the personality than the food; the lasagna was just a vehicle for the riot of one-liners and hilarious daily moments piling on top of one another like a rugby scrum. Early on, Megan’s mom tried to enforce showers before dinner, but with the jigsaw puzzle of practice schedules, their dinner window was small enough as it was. So she surrendered, and the family gathered religiously for dinner, often in dirty practice uniforms, and often, because Brad was a practical joker and Charlie was a reptile fanatic, with a lizard or toad underfoot.

  Megan was the family mascot. She followed the boys everywhere, often uninvited, but usually acknowledged with a squeeze or a playful tousle of her hair. It was common knowledge with the neighborhood boys that if the Riordan brothers were playing kickball—and it wouldn’t be a competitive game if they weren’t—Megan played too. No one minded much, as she hammered the ball with her small Converse high tops and ran as if a nightmare was chasing her. She always slid into whatever sweatshirt or Frisbee was base, proud of the holes in her jeans and the dirt on her knees. But it was her brothers’ loud whooping and clapping that made her feel like she could fly.

  As neighborhood scrimmages evolved into school sports, Megan became a fixture on the sidelines of her brothers’ games. While other siblings played tag and turned cartwheels far from the field, Megan was the team megaphone, jumping up and down and cheering loudly as the action heated up, a huge mesh jersey flapping around her knobby knees. She knew all of their teammates by name and number, and as a party trick she could recite everyone’s stats. The best part of the season however, was the awards banquet; on the car ride home her brothers let her hold their gleaming gold trophies.

  In sixth grade, like all the other girls her age, Megan put on a leotard and joined gymnastics. Coach Russo was handsome, with curly dark hair and endless shoulders, and tough—his occasional praise a single butterscotch dropping from an unforgiving piñata. Megan loved the team. She was early to practice and often the last one on the mat, pushing and praying her body into backbends and handstands that other girls smiled right into. Each time after she mastered a new move and re-centered herself, her eyes scanned the gym, only to rest on Coach Russo’s back as he worked with someone else.

  Then one afternoon, in the middle of an otherwise ordinary practice, he was beside her, inviting her to try a back-handspring. His brown eyes were encouraging, his flatline expression had softened. He placed his huge hand on her back to spot her. Thrill and fear battled it out in her veins, and with his firm support, she flew through the trick over and over again. Then he stepped back with a solemn nod. Megan’s toes gripped the red foam mat, her arms stiffened at her sides, her back contracted. Girls in colored leotards gathered around, urging her to go for it. Coach Russo towered in the background, arms crossed over his chest. This was the moment. DO IT! Megan silently screamed. She could almost touch the smooth pride beckoning from the other side of the leap, could almost feel the heat from Coach Russo’s clipped “good.” But her body refused her command.

  Practice ticked away, teammates drifted back to their own routines. Coach Russo’s neutral expression hardened.

  An hour later, Megan unclenched her toes in the empty gym and slumped towards the locker room. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Coach Russo near the door, talking to his assistant. She aimed her eyes at the wood floor but pricked her ears in case he said something. It wasn’t until she had turned the corner that she heard him mutter, “You’d never know she was a Riordan.”

  ————

  As a freshman in high school, Megan tried out for field hockey. Right away, the coach pegged her for a Riordan by her copper-red ponytail, and although Megan missed the ball just as much as she hit it, the coach shouted “Good job today Riordan!” as Megan limped into the locker room.

  Days later, when cuts were posted, she rushed to the list with all the other hopefuls. From the back of the jockeying, elbowing fracas, she glimpsed her name on the varsity list. As a freshman! She wanted to jump up and down. She soared out of the throng, only to crash down to earth as someone elbowed her hard in the back.

  The next day, before her first varsity practice, her stomach was double-knotted. She shut the door on her organized metal locker as the room began to fill up with clumps of chatting players, and smiled timidly at a group of older girls who had dropped their bulging backpacks near her. Her cleats made an empowering clatter as she headed out.

  “Of course she made it, what’d you expect? Have you checked out the Best Athlete plaque lately—all Riordan.”

  Megan’s cleats suddenly felt like clown shoes.

  She finish
ed out the day, finished out the season, giving her all during every practice, warming the bench during games.

  Sophomore year she started running; not for a coach, not for a team, not for a race. As she wound her way through the backcountry roads of her town, she discovered she had found something all her own.

  ————

  Thanksgiving of Megan’s junior year in high school: the two oversized fireplaces were alive and crackling, a huge turkey was sizzling in the oven, the rich smell intensifying with each loving baste, and the Riordan house was reaching its typical crescendo as her brothers barreled home from college and nascent careers bearing dirty laundry and new friends. The boys reclaimed their rooms quickly, their crumpled jeans, jockstraps, and unique smell of Rite Guard and dirty socks restoring rooms that hadn’t changed in years to former glory. Piles of Sports Illustrateds still teetered on bedside tables, dusty trophies preened on bookshelves, uninhabited lizard cages lay dark in the corners.

  Down the hall, the flowery scent and yellow paint of Megan’s room caused double-takes on the way to the bathroom. Gone were the Joe Montana and Chrissy Everett posters and in their place were cut-up magazine collages with words like “flirt” and “boys,” “Maybelline” and “party” glued to poster board. Colored scarves dangled from the corners of a huge mirror, symmetrical perfume bottles and an earring tree adorned her bureau, a red velvet diary and a neat stack of Seventeen, Mademoiselle, and Glamour magazines graced her desk.

  At the dinner table, the brothers’ guests, who for months had listened with half an ear to stories about a gawky baby sister, were enthralled by the curvy redhead with the tentative smile. The four Riordan brothers hung on the sidelines of the conversation, shooting raised eyebrows and amused smirks to each other across the mashed potatoes as Megan bloomed in the spotlight. Her own amazement grew throughout the meal as the guests fell over each other trying to impress her, and as she nibbled on her apple pie, it dawned on her that maybe she had found a playing field her brothers couldn’t best her on.

  She went back to school with a new tilt of her chin, but within hours was shoved back in her place by queen bees who were not about to move over and make space in the varsity dating game. Megan assumed she wasn’t pretty enough, and re-consulted beauty magazines, tried new makeup and diets, believing, as the headlines advised, that “The Ten Steps to a Sizzling Romance” was something she could control. If she just worked hard enough.

  ————

  Now a junior in college, Megan had been involved in several relationships, and in all of them, the initial rocket of feeling had crashed and burned into a debris field of broken promises, returned sweatshirts, and a fervent belief that it must be her, and that if she was just thinner or prettier she would be able to change her luck.

  But maybe, Megan thought as Tess continued to talk about Gavin, this time would be different.

  She and Baker had already hooked up a few times and had been out on two official dates—pizza and beer—during which they had experienced several eye-opening “Wow, you know what I’m talking about” moments across the red plastic tablecloth. Baker was edgy, everyone knew it; he slid late into the back of class, lurked in the shadows of frat parties, was rumored to be involved in a secret Black Eye society that was the baddest of the bad. And he was cute, in that unshaven, black-leather way that often hides a wound. His attention made her both excited and nervous.

  So far she had backed away from his obvious impatience to have sex, but she had debated the color of her underwear tonight—white cotton or black lace—deciding after a few changes on the black lace. Just in case. She had only made love once before, with her freshman-year boyfriend. Their breakup had been messy, and she knew their intimacy had made it more so. Which until recently had confirmed that there should be yellow caution tape around going all the way.

  But lately the rules around getting naked were becoming blurry. Megan was surrounded by people who vaulted into bed without blinking—certainly many of her friends, but also people whose faces graced the glossies, whose attitudes jumped off the screen, and whose lyrics and sultry voices crooned the benefits of “Sexual Healing.” It didn’t matter that these strangers were polished for publicity or acting in a scene, they created a cultural pool, and even if she didn’t dive in, she was getting splashed just sitting on the side.

  What’s the big deal, why am I holding out? Maybe I’m nervous because I’m inexperienced. And there’s an obvious remedy for that.

  Part of the hesitation stemmed from the fact that Baker had a reputation for being a ladies’ man—all right, a sleaze—but she wasn’t so sure that rumor was fair. And as Tess waxed on about how Gavin was not the cad that he seemed, Megan was inadvertently giving Baker the benefit of the doubt as well.

  Even if he had mistreated girls in the past, she could be the one to change him. Eventually someone would, and so far he had been sweet. There were certainly times when she questioned his sincerity, times when he purred something sweet in her ear with perhaps more than just a thank you in mind. But maybe he was being sincere, both in the niceties and in the feelings underlying them. And as Megan turned her attention back to Tess, she was now starting to think that Baker could be The One.

  ————

  As anyone could have told her, Baker was most definitely not. Down at the Columns after Tess told her story, Baker sidled up to Megan and held her hand through a night of drinking, dancing, and shouting simple comments to each other over the noise of the mobbed fraternity. The clincher for Megan was when Baker called her “my girl” to a couple of his friends.

  They later staggered back to Megan’s room for tepid, drunken sex. The intention had certainly been passionate, but the alcohol dulled their urgency and it had been more grope-and-grind than rapture. It had been satisfying enough however, and as Baker rolled off her, Megan didn’t have any regrets.

  The quiet awkwardness that followed was broken by a buck-naked Baker getting out of bed to fish a cigarette out of the ripped back-pocket of his Levi’s. He lit it, offered it to Megan, and then lit one for himself, dragging deeply before pulling on his jeans. No underwear, she observed. She smiled; she hadn’t noticed that earlier. They’d been in too much of a hurry.

  She was still quite buzzed, but she felt good—warm, sexy, and risqué, something she had never felt before. She lay in her narrow twin bed with the sheets pulled up over her breasts and smoked her cigarette, relishing the feeling that she and Baker had a secret, just the two of them. She liked the familiarity of him sitting on her bed without his shirt. She inhaled and exhaled slowly, gazing at the smoke slow-dancing in the air, gazing at Baker just beyond it. She liked the way his brown hair, disheveled at the moment, was long in the front and hung over his right eye.

  He caught her look and his mouth stretched into a smile.

  God, he’s cute.

  He leaned over and kissed her in between drags, then grabbed his tee shirt next to her.

  Megan wasn’t sure what to think as he reached for his sneakers and slid them on. She hadn’t considered his spending the night, but in the face of a hasty exit, the lights seemed to brighten, harshly illuminating the tangled sheets. Her muscles tensed. She snuffed out her cigarette and while she watched him, reached out with both her hands and smoothed down the sheets around her like she was ironing wrinkles out of a long dress. She realized they hadn’t said a word to each other since he’d pulled out of her.

  “Thanks Megan. Fun night.” He smiled his molasses smile, slow-spreading and sugary, and leaned over to crush out his cigarette in the ashtray next to her bed. His hair swung over both eyes, a shade being drawn.

  She blinked.

  “And we’ll get together.” He rubbed the ash on his fingers onto his jeans as he stood up.

  Although the sheet covered her, she was suddenly acutely aware of her nakedness. “Okay,” she said with feigned enthusiasm.

  “I�
�ve gotta go. See ya later, Megan.” And he was out the door as her “Bye” floated after him.

  Megan had an immediate, desperate need for clothes, and she sprang out of bed and yanked on her plaid flannel pajamas. She reached a shaky hand into her drawer for another cigarette. Don’t panic. The warm feeling of a few minutes ago evaporated in a rush of sobering adrenaline. Maybe the whole post-coital thing isn’t his strong suit. Or maybe he felt strange being in my room. The more she thought about it however, the faster the seed of discomfort in her stomach was growing into a very large pit. That was weird. She peered out the window in hopes of seeing Allie walking home. Very weird.

  The next few days went from bad to worse. Baker didn’t call, wouldn’t even make eye contact when they were near each other in the cafeteria. Had she done something wrong? She continued to create excuses for him—maybe he thought she didn’t like him, maybe he was embarrassed because there hadn’t been fireworks. At first, she smiled tentatively at him whenever she walked by to show him she hadn’t been disappointed. Then, she pretended she didn’t see him, in hopes he would somehow reach out to her. She wondered if she should call him.

  The humiliation sank in slowly. As it became clear that he was not only avoiding her but taking great pains to do so, she felt sick whenever she thought she might see him. She would never miss a class, but she refused to go anywhere she didn’t have to, including the cafeteria. Part of her figured no one knew, and she tried to hold into that as she walked around campus, but at times she just couldn’t—like when she passed a huddle of fraternity brothers—and she felt exposed, like her naïve miscalculation was a big, black tattoo on her body.