“Don't anybody move,” said Hoyt. “I gotta get one more bag”âhe motioned toward the house with his headâ“and then we gotta get the fuck on the fucking road. Wait a minute”ânow he was looking at Charlotteâ“where is your bag?”
Charlotte stood there with her mouth half open and her face growing hot and crimson. But there was no way out. Timidly she lifted the canvas boat bag and mumbledâshe couldn't even make her voice
work
â“This is all I have.”
She didn't dare look at the Douche sisters. She knew they would be cutting proto-sniggering glances at each other.
Hoyt held it up chest-high for a moment, as if weighing it, but, thank God, made no comment. Instead, he jogged the fifteen or twenty feet to the Suburban, tossed the canvas boat bag through the window and onto the backseat, wheeled about, yelled to Charlotte and the two Perfect girls, Crissy and Nicole, “Remember, nobody moves a muscle!” and jogged toward the house.
Charlotte was dying to move somewhere, anywhere. What was she to do? The two sorority girls were already brow to brow in whispery, giggly conversation. Was she to approach them and somehow wedge her way into their conversationâwhich was no doubt about
her
? Was she supposed to stand there like a homeless urchin and wait for them to deign to include her in proper cool Douche societyâand have everybody in the yard look at her, this ⦠this ⦠this totally socially inept little urchin, this totally clueless little freshman who had no business even being among us?
So without a wordâshe knew very well she couldn't even speakâshe walked to the SUV and leaned back against the rear door and crossed her arms under her breasts and looked at her wristwatch every ten seconds or so to indicate that she was waiting for someoneâwhich would be Hoyt, obviously, since she was attached to his carâand therefore was
not out of place here â¦
But how long could she keep this pose?
Â
Â
Sure enough, when they finally headed off, Hoyt was driving, Charlotte was in the bucket seat next to him, Vance and Crissy were in the second row, and Julian and Nicole were in the third, which meant the whole bunch of them, except for Hoyt, would be looking at the back of her head, whether they meant to or not, and therefore would be aware of her alien presence for the entire trip.
They were barely under way when they drove past the erupting fields of lightbulbs, the big long handle vibrating in shocking-pink neon outline, the gaudy name being written in script as if by an unseen hand: THE SIZZLIN' SKILLET.
“Last chance for serious grease!” Crissy sang out to Nicole. Gales of laughter, as if there were nothing more low-rent than stopping for a bite at the Sizzlin' Skillet.
Looking out the window at it was the last thing in the world Charlotte wanted to do at this particular moment. The last thing in the world she wanted to recall was that horrible hour, which seemed like twenty-four hours, in which the planets of Momma and Daddy, on the one hand, and the Amorys, on the other, collided ⦠and this ride was going to be
hours
of it.
A voice behind her said, “Ohmygod ⦠I don't believe this ⦠Charlene! Tell your friend his name is Hoyt, not Heeshawn!”
Charlene!
Charlotte turned away from the window. On Hoyt's head was a ⦠do-
rag
⦠just like the ones the black ghetto boys in Chester wore, a swath of black cloth wrapped around his head all the way down to his eyebrows and a flap of it hanging down the base of his neck. He swiveled his head as far as he could to the right, and he was grinningânot at her, however, but for the benefit of Crissy in the seat behind, she who had shrieked the mock shriekâ
And called her
Charlene
!
Hoyt said, “Her name's not Char
leeeeeene
⦠It's Charlotte.”
Her
.
He said it in a merry voice and seemed to sling the words out the corner of his mouth and back over his shoulder to make sure they reached their intended, Crissy. As he turned back in order to see the road, he gave Charlotte a split second's worth of smile.
Charl
ene
!
Her!
Hoyt's
her
hurt almost as much as
Charleneâ
Crissy, from behind: “Oh,
I'm
sorry, I'm so bad with namesâVance! This I
really
don't believe! Look, everybody, this is little Master Vance Phipps of the
Phipps
Phippses! My little Goldilocks.”
Charlotte looked back despite herself. Vance had on a black do-rag, too, exactly the same as Hoyt'sâand so did Julian. They were both grinning foolishly.
Nicole, from the third row: “Ohmygod, you guysâthank God you're here, Crissy. Can't we get a little fratty-er?”
Hoyt, eyes on the road, sang out merrily, “No prob, Nicole!”
Vance and Julian laughed.
Nicole said, “You think maybe we've got something on our little brain, Hoytsy?”
Crissy said, “I'd like to see you guys wear those things on campus. The AfrAm Solidarityâthey gon'
lynch
yo' ass, motherfucker!”
Hoyt, Vance, Nicole, and Julian laughed.
Meanwhile,
Charlene ⦠Her â¦
a sound like steam turning into fog filled
her
head. They all, Hoyt included, acted as if Charlotte Simmons didn't exist.
After that, as the Suburban rolled down Interstate 95, Crissy and Nicole and Julian and Vance and Hoyt had a rare old gibefest, songfest, witfest, and what-the-fuck-shit-asshole-motherfuckerfest for themselves, but not for Charlene Simmons. If one of them broke into song, all five of them always knew the words. At one point, one of the countless allusions to sexual perversionâperversion in Charlotte's book, in any eventâinspired Julian to break into song, a rap song that included the lines
Yo, you take my testi-culls,
Suck 'em like a popsi-cull.
The very same disgusting “lyrics” somebody down the hall had been playing on a stereo in the middle of the night when Beverly sexiled her! And all five of the frat and sorority girls knew the words. They couldn't have sung along with Julian more lustily! The three guys, still sporting their black do-rags, rocked back and forth in their seats to the stupid beat, caroling away while their black neck flaps flopped this way and that. Crissy and Nicole were fairly wailing with delight, as if there was nothing more joyous in the world than the thought of sucking testicles. The highway was ten lanes wide at some points, and people in adjacent cars would look at the Suburban incredulously, trying to make some kind of sense out of the sight of three white boys wearing black do-rags and rocking their shoulders in an exaggerated fashion. The five brothers and sisters enjoyed the hooples' bewilderment enormously.
They recalled hilarious moments of hilarious parties past. Halloweenâthat girl Candy, wearing a silver lame thong bikini, underneath the strobe lights with a spiked leather collar around her neck and a heavy chain as a leash in the hands of that greasy Goth, all dressed in black, the one with the slimy black ponytail and hoop earrings and his two front teeth with gold caps, each inset with a little diamond or rhinestone or whatever the fuck they were. Gales, roars of laughter over
that
precious memory.
Crissy said, “You think she's really into S and M?”
“I don't think so,” said Nicole. “She just blows too many lines, is her problem.”
With that, Hoyt lifted his chin way up and slightly to the right, vaguely in his little seatmate's direction, and cleared his throat in a loud manner. The car went quiet. Charlotte had the impression that he was telling Nicole and the rest of them not to get on
that
subject with his date sitting there, although just what the subjectâ“blows too many lines”âwas, she hadn't the faintest idea.
Hoyt leaned over, put his hand on her forearm, smiled charmingly, and said, “I wish you'd been there. Too much Halloween was that girl's problem. What did
you
do for Halloween?”
A nervous jolt hit Charlotte's solar plexus. She could literally feel it. She was obliged to ⦠say something in this alien company gone suddenly silent.
With a hoarse croak: “I guessâI don't remember.”
That was so weak and lame she couldn't possibly leave it at that. She had to say something more. She began hyperventilating. “I guessâI don't exactly hold with Halloween?” Ohmygod! She had blurted out an old mountain countryism, the “hold with.” Her face was on fire.
More silence. Then Crissy said, “I've been meaning to ask you, Charl
uuuuunh
”âshe quickly swallowed the second syllable because, obviously, she knew she had gotten it wrong the first time, or had chosen to get it wrong, but had already forgotten what it actually was ⦠or had chosen, with Sarc 3 finesse, to forget what it wasâ“where are you from?”
Fury overwhelmed the nervousness of inferiority.
I am Charlotte Simmons
. Without turning her head, Charlotte sat rigidly, looking straight at the road ahead. Since it had worked once before, she snapped, “Sparta, North CarolinaâBlue Ridge Mountainsâpopulation nine hundredâyou've never heard of itâdon't feel badânobody has.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, she realized that this exhibition of peevishness and defensiveness had only made things worse. Hoyt began laughing in a vain attempt to turn it all into a little joke. Charlotte looked back at Crissy and forced a grin and a spastic laugh, as if it had been all in fun.
Crissy wasn't sitting still for that. “
I'm
not worried at all. I certainly hope
you
aren't.”
“Oh, no, Crissy. I was just kidding?”
Waves and waves of humiliation ⦠Even her “Crissy” seemed to hang in the air like an impertinence. You?âpresuming to be on a friendly basis with a Douche like Crissy?
She was aware of Hoyt looking at her out of the corner of his eye. A tremor of suppressed sniggers from both rows behind her. She began to feel itâthe puncture wound at the base of her skull.
Hoyt said, “Remember that guy Lud Davis? They used to call him Lud the Stud? Played when I was a freshman. He was the only good
white
running back we've ever had, far as I know. He was from the Blue Ridge Mountains, too, someplace called Cumberland Gap. I don't know why I remember that. Cumberland Gap.” He looked straight at Charlotte and in a voice stuffed full of intense interest, said, “Do you know Cumberland Gap?”
A subdued little voice: “No ⦠I don't think so ⦔ She tried to think of some amiable way to expound upon the subject.
Silence.
“Well, he was a really cool guy,” said Hoyt. “He practically
lived
at the I.M.”
Oh, how encouraging. You could be from the mountains and still be cool ⦠and how condescending.
“Then I'm sure you saw him a lot,” said Vance.
“No prob when you're sobriety personified and you got maturity to burn.”
Julian said, “Well then, if I were you, I'd check the fucking gauge, because you sure burned up a lot of it Monday night.”
“Whattaya talking about, Monday night?”
“Over at that thing at Lapham, that reception. You were there, Crissy. It was eight fucking o'clock, and Hoyt's so wrecked he's asking the fucking master's wife how many men she's slept with in her life. She's looking around like âHelp! Somebody get this â¦
thing
off me!' and Hoyt's like, âBottom line! Bottom line! How many!'”
Hoyt said, “I don't know how you can sit back there and lie with a straight face.” He put his hand on Charlotte's forearm again and said, “Don't listen to him. What's that story about the island where nobody tells the truth?”
“It's not a story, Hoyto,” said Vance, “it's some kind of math problem.”
“Bullshit,” Julian was already saying. “You must've yelled âBottom line' at that poor woman a hundred fucking times! Tell the truth, Big Dog.”
“Well ⦠they do say she's hot,” said Hoyt. “Guys at Lapham told me that. I doubt that old Wasserstein can get it up to her standards.”
The frat boys and the sorority girls broke up over that, and everything was back on course again. Nicole was saying, “I know for a fact that ⦔ and she was off on a story about some other master's wife.
Hoyt leaned over toward Charlotte again, and this time he grabbed her left hand as he bathed her in a smile of warm charm and said, “Wasserstein is the master of Lapham College. You know Lapham, the one with the gargoyles.”
“Oh, yes, I sure do!” said Charlotte with incredibly more joy in her voice than the topic could support. She added a merry little laugh, as if she sure had to admit it was amusing, bringing up those gargoyles. She began laughing at anything that seemed intended as funnyâhow-drunk-I-was stories, guy's-such-a-loser stories, can-you-believe-what-a-slut-she-is stories, flaming-queen stories, vulgarisms delivered with a burlesque Italian accentâ“Uppa You Ess” (Julian).