I Am Charlotte Simmons (94 page)

Read I Am Charlotte Simmons Online

Authors: Tom Wolfe

As it beamed up, the smile had hit Charlotte Simmons, too … and gone right through her. His former star, the one with the hillbilly Southern accent, was no longer even there. It was as if God had devised a little skit to show Charlotte Simmons how far she had fallen … replaced by another Southern girl, who had materialized right in front of her … same size, same long, straight, shining light brown hair … astounding the class with her brilliance … in a Southern accent … from the sophisticated coastal lowlands. Why hadn't Charlotte Simmons done the same reading? Why hadn't she kept up? Why hadn't she found time to think about these things … and have a life of the mind? She knew she shouldn't dwell on the answer. She couldn't afford to lapse back into tears. Adam was right. Tears, all tears, starting at the moment of birth, were cries for protection. But she didn't want to dwell upon Adam and the matrical dialogues of the Millennial Mutants, either.
 
 
Outside, after class, it was a cloudy, dark day, as if it were about to rain … Once more the mystery of why this light made the grass of the Great Yard look so richly green … In any case, the gloom was fitting for any girl as morosely self-loathing as Charlotte was at this moment, and she was thankful for that.
There was a more immediate concern, however. She gave the Great Yard a quick, surreptitious once-over … for fear Adam would be waiting, here, there, somewhere nearby, and reattach himself to her. He was becoming her … personal tumor :::::I:::::LOVE:::::YOU:::::HONEY:::::
Ohmygod!—how could she think that way? Adam was the only friend she had left. But it wasn't something she was thinking. It was something crawling beneath her flesh …
Honey
… How could she help it?
“Hey, yo! Yo!”—right behind her, but it wasn't Adam's voice.
She turned about slowly. She was in no rush. Who on the entire campus could be shouting at her in order to bring her good news?
And there was Jojo … not much improvement over Adam, if any … hustling toward her with big strides. He wore the would-be ingratiating smile he seemed to think would make one want to do something for him. Charlotte was already familiar with that. At least he didn't have one of his disgusting muscle shirts … instead, a navy shirt, maybe flannel
with regular buttons and a collar … beneath a vast
wide-open puffy North Face jacket … made him look like a behemoth, it added such width and bulk to his frame … How did he—but of course … he remembered from the last time when neuroscience let out.
Now he was right in front of her, looking down at her with his transparently manipulative smile. Charlotte refused to smile back.
“Wuz up? Wuz good?”
Charlotte said nothing. She just lifted her eyebrows in order to wrinkle her forehead, which delivered the message, “Don't be tedious.”
“I haven't told you the big news,” said Jojo. An even bigger, merrier smile.
Perfunctorily: “What big news, Jojo?” She started walking on the sidewalk beside the Great Yard, hoping to get away from Phillips in case Adam did show up looking for her.
Jojo tagged along. “I'm taking French 232 this semester.” His little eyes opened as wide as they could, as if this news would register in a big way.
Idly: “What's that?'
“Nineteenth Century Poetry: the Courtly, the Pastoral, and the Symbolist—and we read it in French. I'm not kidding. And she teaches it in French. Miz Boudreau. She is French, Miz Boudreau. This isn't Frère Jocko French. I'm through with all that stuff.” He gave Charlotte the child's smile that invites praise.
She was, in fact, impressed. She even gave him a small smile. “Wow … You're getting brave, Jojo. You know about the Symbolists? Baudelaire? Mallarmé? Rimbaud?”
“No, but that's the point. I
will
know. I haven't told anybody, not even my roommate, Mike. And Coach—no fuh—freaking way! He's never gotten over Socrates. And that's the other thing.”
He stared at her with wide eyes and the expectant grin of a child, lips slightly parted, and Charlotte couldn't help but want to play the expected part.
“What is?”
“I got a C-plus in the Age of Socrates! I just saw it online!”
“Congratulations,” said Charlotte. The word came out flat, because the news had given her a start. “Grades are posted?”
“Yeah, this morning.”
Charlotte frowned without knowing it. She would have to go confront her own … news … on the computer … the one in her room, the one Momma and Daddy scrimped and saved and slaved over, Buddy also, to give her for Christmas. Oh God, how could she have let what had happened … happen?
Jojo misinterpreted her expression. “You don't think that's good? They all thought I'd crash and burn!”
“No, you just reminded me of something. My grades must be posted, too.”
“Yeah
but you don't have to worry about grades! I do. Coach'll still be piss—uh
he'll still be mad at me. He don't wanna know about the Age of Socrates. He still calls me—”
—still says “He don't,” doesn't he—
“—Socrates
Fuh—Freaking Socrates is my full name. But I'm gonna tell him anyway. I got a C-plus, Charlotte!”
For Charlotte—sheer gloom. C-plus was pathetic, given the grade inflation at Dupont and everywhere else. But she would consider herself fortunate beyond all hoping if she got a C-plus in neuroscience … after that paper, that test, and that horrible wreck of an exam—
“And I wrote my own course paper, too. Nobody helped me,
nobody
. ‘The Ethical Life: Socrates versus Aristippus and the Post-Socratics.' I blew 'em up with that one, dude!” He looked about and started zipping up his North Face jacket. “Muh-thuh-fuh—damn! It's getting cold out here. Come on over to Mr. Rayon.”
“I don't—”
“I know, you don't have any money. It's on me. Don't tell anybody about that, either. Guys think you're a pussy—sorry!—they think you're some kind of a … a … a wuss or something, but that don't matter. Come on!”
Jojo was in a very good mood—him and his wonderful C-plus. He'd take her to Mr. Rayon … Charlotte had the sort of feeling a girl tries to keep from becoming a full-blown thought … Maybe she should take Jojo up on it. In her mind, her breakfast with Adam at Mr. Rayon this morning made an announcement to … everyone who mattered. Here she was, a vain and foolish little girl who had lost her virginity to a notorious playa at a formal,
and the playa, in classic playa form, had let the world in on it. Poor little proto-slut! Her reputation was so ruined, she was now reduced to hooking up with random dorks like Adam. But if she reappeared with the cool-by-definition Jojo Johanssen …
“Okay,” she said, “but I really don't have any money.”
It being late morning by now, Mr. Rayon was not quite half full. Jojo chose the BurgAmerican line; and as he and Charlotte slid their trays down the stainless-steel cafeteria rails, people came over to say hello to Jojo as if they really knew him. Jojo got an Everything bagel, as it was called, encrusted with God knows how many kinds of seeds and bits of this and that. Charlotte got some oatmeal with sliced strawberries on it. Jojo looked at the oatmeal dubiously—and then began to lead her to that same old corner, next to the Thai section and the salmon-colored LithoPlast divider, but Charlotte balked. “Not there, Jojo. How about over here?”
Whereupon she led him to a table—a table for four out in the middle.
“Kinda noisy,” said Jojo.
“It's not noisy
now
.”
Jojo shrugged, and they sat out in the middle. Noisy here or not, Jojo remained in an excellent mood. “I got a C-plus! A C-plus in the Age of Socrates! A three-hundred-level course! I did it! Can you believe it?”
Charlotte congratulated him all over again and continued eating her oatmeal while it was still warm. The strawberries weren't much. They were out of season. A cloud stole across Jojo's face. “But I'm not gonna kid myself,” he said. “I still got a problem. I got two problems. Coach and the President—I'm talking about the President of the whole fuh-reaking university, Cutler—yeah!—they both went to see this muhthuh—this bastard—well
I'm sorry, that's what he is, a real bastard!—Quat
and he won't budge, the little fat …” He decided not to supply a noun. “If I have to go through a …” He decided not to supply an adjectival participle. “ … a hearing or whatever they call it … well, I mean …
shit!
I'm sorry, I'm sorry—but it makes me so damn mad. I mean, here's—”

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