Had she been going to the football and basketball games? Dupont was having a great year in sports. “I can't go, because they charge too much money for the tickets? But I wouldn't go if they gave them away, I don't reckon. I don't know why anybody gets excited. It's got nothing to do with themâand it's got nothing to do with me? It's stupid, is what it is.”
What
did
she do for amusement? “Amusement? I guess IâI go jogging or I go to the gym and work out.” For amusement? “Well ⦠to me it's more amusing than all the stupid things other students do. They all act like they're
in the seventh grade or something, and all that matters isâ” She broke the sentence off. She had been about to mention drinking, but she didn't want to make Momma go ballistic. “Going around acting like idiots.”
Miss Pennington seemed concerned. “Now, Charlotte, surely ⦠the academic side of things must be exciting.” She said it in the tones of an entreaty. She was all but begging for it to be so.
Charlotte suddenly felt guilty for letting Misery out for a romp. “That's true, Miss Pennington. I have one classâ” She started to talk about Mr. Starling's, but she decided that she shouldn't call attention to him in view of the catastrophic grade Momma and Daddy and, ultimately, Miss Pennington would soon lay eyes on.
I have one class
remained suspended in the air.
“A class in what?” Miss Pennington stared at her, still in an attitude of supplication.
“Neuroscience,” said Charlotte. Awkward silenceâit was such â¦
agony
⦠making conversation. “I never thought it could be so interesting.” She realized that her face must not have looked as if she was interested in
any
thing. Another awkward silence. “My teacher, Mr. Starling, says the year 1000 was just forty sets of parents ago. He always puts it that way.”
Mrs. Thoms said, “Starling ⦠Isn't he the one who won a Nobel Prize?”
“I don't know,” said Charlotte.
“I didn't mean to interrupt,” said Mrs. Thoms. “You were saying, âjust forty sets of parents ago'?”
“That was what
he
said. Mr. Starling.” With that, Charlotte dropped the subject. She no longer wanted to talk about the “sets.” Her voice would sound as if every set weighed a ton and she was lugging them out one by one.
Silence. Ten or fifteen seconds of it seemed like an eternity.
Mrs. Thoms plunged into the vacuum. “But I'm curious. Why did he say that?”
“I don't really know,” said Utter Loganimity on a monument, smiling at Grief.
Silence; a gruesome silence this time. But guilt intervened. Guilt wouldn't allow her to remain
that
dead. “I'm guessing, but maybe he meant the year 1000 isn't all that long ago, but the way human beings look at themselvesâin the West, anywayâhas totally changed?” Not only Miss Pennington but also Momma seemed preternaturally attentive to this revelation. Then it dawned ⦠for the first time all evening, they were getting a little of the Great Dupont from her, something deep. Charlotte became hyperaware of all sounds in the here and now, the muffled, low-crunching combustion of
the potbellied stove ⦠Daddy chewingâhe didn't always keep his mouth closed ⦠Buddy trying to order Sam around in the kitchen in a low voice, because if Momma heard it she'd set him straight and mean it â¦
fwop fwop fwop fwop
a car with a flat tire gimping along outside on 1709 ⦠a chunk of snow sliding off the roof â¦
Mr. Thoms said there was certainly a lot written about multiculturalism and diversity in colleges these days. How did they manifest themselves in everyday life at Dupont?
“I don't know,” said Charlotte. “I just hear about them in speeches and things.”
Laurie piped up again. “At State, everybody calls diversity
dispersity.
What happens is, everybody has their own clubs, their own signs, their own sections where they all sit in the dining hallâall the African Americans are over there? ⦠and all the Asians sit over't these other tables?âexcept for the Koreans?âbecause they don't get along with the Japanese, so they sit way over
there
? Everybody's dispersed into their own little groupsâand everybody's told to distrust everybody else? Everybody's told that everybody else is trying to screw them overâ
oops!Ӊ
Laurie pulled a face and put her fingertips over her lipsâ“I'm sorry!” She rolled eyes and smiled. “Anyway, the idea is, every other group is like prejudiced against your group, and no matter what they say, they're only out to take advantage of you, and you should have nothing to do with themâunless you're white, in which case all the others are not prejudiced against you, they're like totally right, because you really
are
racist and everything, even if you don't know it? Everybody ends up dispersed into their own like turtle shells, suspicious of everybody else and being careful not to fraternize with them. Is it like that at Dupont?”
Laurie was looking at Charlotte. They
all
looked at Charlotte. Charlotte drew her breath in through her teeth with a sharp sigh, focused her eyes at Nowhere in the distance, as if contemplating the question, and then began nodding yes with a pensive frown. She was contemplating all right, but not Laurie's question on her “dispersity” theory. No, she was thinking of the gusto with which Laurie delivered it, her high spirits concerning the human comedy that was college life, her youthful joy in adventure, her eagerness to impart what she was learning in the great outside world. In short, she had all the qualities they had hoped to see in Charlotte Simmonsâthe dour little taciturn mope now sitting at the head of the table.
She didn't envy Laurie. Not at all; from the very beginning, she had
hoped Laurie would assume the role she had been designated to play. All this ⦠talk ⦠was so painful. Laurie's wonderful spiritâventuring forth and exploring the worldâmade Charlotte realize that she herself had become worthless. Her sitting here at the head of the table was a dreadful fraud. Although Momma's, Daddy's, Miss Pennington's, Mr. Thoms's, and Laurie's intentions were only the best, every question they asked her about her college “experience” was de facto mockery. Part of Charlotte wanted to spring it allâ
now
. Get it over with! Go ahead, show all that was left of Charlotte Simmons's world, which was the handful of souls at this table, how completely she had corrupted herself in a mere four months. She had no ill feelings toward Mrs. Thoms. You have to think yourself worth saving before you get angry at someone who wishes to kill you. She felt like leaning back in this poor drugstore chair, rocking back on its two rear legs, spreading her arms like Christ's on the cross, looking straight at Mrs. Thoms, and saying, “Come, Death, take me. I have no desire to struggle any longer. Save me the trouble of doing it myself.” Being so young, she had never thought of what Death would look like. It had never occurred to her that Death might be a woman. Now, after eighteen years, the day had come, and Death was a pretty, fortyish brunette with provocative lips, posing as the wife of a country school principal. She stared at Mrs. Thoms, and Death stared at her, pretending to be puzzled.
Laurie was holding forthâvery amusingly, tooâabout how at State, girls never used words of more than three syllables when boys were around. “You'd never talk about dressing appropriately because âappropriately' has five syllables. Instead, you'd say, âdressing the way you ought to,' or âdressing the way people expect you to.' You'd never say âconversationally,' because that has six syllables. It's not that a boy won't understand a five-syllable word, it's that it makes a girl sound tooâoh, efficient, I guessâor too bright, as if she might be able to take care of herself. She won't seem vulnerable enough. She won't seem like she needs
the big brave man
enough.” And Laurie was having such a good time! A delightful smile played about the corners of her lips every time she opened her mouth.
Before dessert, Laurie and Mrs. Thoms got up to help Momma take the dishes off the table. Miss Pennington started to get up, too, but Momma said, “No, Miss Pennington, don't you move. Many hands make light work, but we've got too many hands already. Kitchen's not big enough.” Miss Pennington didn't protest very hard.
Mr. Thoms was busy talking to Daddy about something. Miss Pennington
said to Charlotte in the sincerest of voices, “It's just so good to see you, Charlotte. I've thought about you a thousand times since you left. I've had so many things I was dying to ask you.”
“It's so good to see
you
, Miss Pennington,” said Charlotte. She tried to smile but wasn't a good enough actress, and that was that. She just stared at her old mentor and idly took note of the reticulated veins in her face.
“You're awful quiet this evening, Charlotte.” Miss Pennington cocked her head slightly and smiled in the all-knowing way she had. “In fact, I can't figure out if you're here in this room or someplace else.”
“I know,” Charlotte said. She sighed, and as she let her breath out, she felt as if her whole bone structure were collapsing. “But it's not that, Miss Pennington. I just feel so tired.” She slipped a little
tarred
into the pronunciation, and only afterward did she consciously face the fact that she was talking Down Home solely to solicit pity as a little country girl. “I had so much to do last weekâwe had a test in neuroscience that was worse than a final exam. I didn't hardly get any sleep all week.” The implicit double negative was on purpose, too.
“I see,” said Miss Pennington in a tone that indicated she didn't see at all.
The strategist in Charlotte figured this was the moment to start laying out some excuses to cushion the blow that was coming. “It was terrible, Miss Pennington. I found out at the last minute that a whole topic I thought wasn't going to be on the testâabout the relationship of the amygdala to the Wernicke's and Broca's areas of the brain and things like that?âwas going to be on the test after all?âand I didn't have any time left?âI mean, the way he teachesâMr. Starling?âhe introduces a subject, and then you're supposed to do your own research on it?âand I misunderstood. I mean, I'm real worried, Miss Pennington. It was about forty percent of the test.”
Tayestâ
likewise calculated.
Miss Pennington looked at her for a few beats beyond the ordinary ⦠her head still cocked to one side ⦠ironically? ⦠before saying, “I'm your
former
teacher, Charlotte, but I hope you know I couldn't be any more interested in how you're doing than if you were my own daughter. I haven't heard from you in quite a little while now.”
“I know ⦠I'm sorry, Miss Pennington, but I get so caught upâand I don't half know where the time's gone ⦔
“If you want toâif you
want
toâwhy don't you come by to see me while you're here. Sometimes it helps to talk to somebody who knows you but now has a little distance, a little better perspective. If you
want
to.”
Charlotte lowered her head, then looked at Miss Pennington again. “Thank you, Miss Pennington. I do want to. That would beâI'd like to do that.” Try as she might to make it otherwise, the words came clanking out like empty bottles in a bag.
“Just give me a call, anytime you want,” said Miss Pennington. She said it a bit drily.
Dessert was a big hit: homemade pie and ice cream. Momma had baked the pie herself, mincemeat apple it was called, made of apples, raisins, cloves, and a couple of spices Charlotte didn't know the names of, and Momma served it hot from the oven, along with some ice cream she had churned by hand, vanilla with bits of cherries in it. The aroma of the cloves and the apples was intoxicating. Even Charlotte, who had hardly touched the rest of the dinner, lit into the pie. Compliments from all around; Momma was beaming. It was so good that Daddy became very much the Man at the table and was saying things like, “Better have some more, Zach”âhe and Mr. Thoms were Billy and Zach nowâ“it's right out the ovenâgon' be better now'n it'll ever be again!” It became a blissful hiatus, a time removed from all troubles great and small. Charlotte abandoned herself to the three irrational senses, the olfactory, the gustatory, and the tactile. She wanted it to last forever.
When it didn't, the ladies got up again to help with the dishes, Miss Pennington among them this timeâall but Charlotte, who remained in her chair trying to
will
the interlude to last longer. Mr. Thoms had moved down the table to talk to “Billy,” and Charlotte was gazing at them idly, trying to
will
her disasters from reoccupying her mind. She jerked alert to find Laurie slipping into Miss Pennington's chair and leaning close to her with a big smile on her face.
Staring into Charlotte's eyes from no more than eighteen inches away, she said, “Well? ⦔
“Well what?” said Charlotte.
“Well, I haven't heard from you since we talked on the phoneâit was almost three months ago. I believe we were talking about a certain subject.” Her smile grew even brighter.
Charlotte could feel her face turning scarlet, but she couldn't think of a thing to say.