Monkey Business (28 page)

Friday, March 26, 4:30 p.m.

I
know it's Layla in the stall beside me, but I don't say anything. I know she's disappointed in me, but I can't turn him in. I just can't.

She's been avoiding me since our fight. I think she's being harsh. She won't talk to Russ, either, just keeps glaring at him. Not that he's noticed. They didn't talk much before, anyway. Things with Russ have been good despite all this. Honestly, I think we're closer than ever. When we go to the disciplinary committee on the twelfth, we'll tell them that we talked about the project, that we apologize, that we didn't realize what we were doing was wrong. And I've done some research. Actually, Jamie did some research for me, and he said that it's not like we're the first ones to ever get caught plagiarizing, and that out of the last five cases, three got off and the other two failed the course. No one got expelled. So big deal, I'll fail a course. I can take it again. We can both take it again this summer. So we won't go to New York. We'll stay here. Big deal. We'll stay here together and take summer credits. And then we'll be together next year and maybe we'll
move into couple housing instead of living at the Zoo. And then next year we'll move to New York and get great jobs. Get engaged. Get married.

Married. That's what I wanted anyway, isn't it? Mrs. in front of my name.

And what if they don't buy it? Maybe I'll tell them it was me who cheated. Because, let's be honest, I was never here to learn how to climb the corporate ladder. And even if O'Donnel were to hire me later full-time, what happens then? I work for two years until I get pregnant, and then what? Let some stranger raise my kids?

I shudder at the thought of day care, remember the ear-picking-up woman, remember how tired and cranky my mother was when she arrived to take me home. Is that the type of woman I want to be? No. So it doesn't matter if I don't get my MBA. I want Russ to be happy.

I flush the toilet. Layla flushes beside me. We both hit the sinks at the same time. The silence feels heavy.

“You're making a mistake,” she says.

“Don't bother,” I answer.

“It's my job to bother. I'm concerned. The guy you're giving up your future for is the guy who cheated on his girlfriend for six months. He's not long-term potential.”

How dare she? “It's none of your business.”

“You shouldn't trust him.” She turns off the tap and leaves me staring at myself in the mirror.

Thursday, April 1, 8:00 a.m.

I
soap my body. Then I rinse the conditioner out of my hair. Then I turn off the water and reach out of the shower curtain for my towel. For my towel. Where is my towel?

I open the curtain. My towel is gone. My bathrobe is gone. What happened to my stuff? I stand there dripping, totally confused. And then I hear it. A pitter-patter of giggling from outside the stall.

“Hello?” I call over the door. “Has anyone out there seen what happened to my stuff?”

“Your stuff?” Jamie asks. “What stuff?”

“I had a bathrobe and a towel and…oh, you jackass.” I suppose this is what you get when you're involved with a jokester.

“April Fools'!” he screams from the other side of the wall.

“This isn't funny,” I say but can't stop myself from laughing.

“What's not funny?”

It doesn't seem like I'm getting my towel back anytime soon. So what are my options? I look around. The curtain
is hooked up to the shower rod. I could always unhook it and wrap myself in it. I could, if it wasn't germ infested.

I'd rather be naked. Kind of sexy. I'll just sprint. Only other problem: my keys are in my bathrobe pocket. “I'll make you a deal,” I say. “I'll come out, if you pass me my keys.”

No answer.

Here goes nothing. I take my shower basket and place it in front of my crotch. It doesn't do the job. Good thing I've been keeping my bikini wax up-to-date. Then I sneak out from behind the curtain into an empty bathroom and sprint, grabbing two paper towels, one per breast, as I run.

A flashbulb goes off.

The door to my room is open and Jamie's howling. “That,” he says, “was the funniest thing I've ever seen.”

“Hilarious.” I pull Jamie into my room and kiss him. I know I should be angry with him, furious even, but it is April Fools' Day, and it's not as if anyone else saw me streaking through the halls, not that I would have really cared one way or another. But still…I wish sometimes he'd be less of a clown. “You know, I like you when you're serious, too. You don't always have to make a joke out of everything.”

“Okay, just one more. What does an MBA call dating?”

“What?”

“Test marketing.”

I shake my head. “Come here, funny-boy,” I say, then kiss him again.

Monday, April 5, 5:00 p.m.

S
eventy-five issues of
Forbes,
two hundred issues of the
Economist,
and three hundred viewings of
Family Ties,
and now I might never graduate from business school.

Unbelievable.

“Anyone else?” Jamie asks. “Any arguments against why, as domestic producers who export half our goods to foreign markets, we would be hesitant to support an import quota? Russ?”

I shrug.

I'm leaning against the door to Jamie's room, barely paying attention to what anyone is saying. We're working on an assignment for GBE that's due sometime this week. Unfortunately, I can't concentrate. I don't know how Kimmy can be so focused when we could get expelled next week.

I still don't think we did anything that horrible. Who cares? Everyone borrows.

“Nothing to add, Russ?” Jamie asks. Again I shrug. I know Jamie's pissed at me. But what does he want me to do? Admit I copied Kimmy's paper? If I admit it, I'll probably get ex
pelled. If they can't prove it, then the worst that could happen is that I fail the course. None of this is Jamie's business, anyway. And Kimmy begged me not to tell. She thinks this is the better way to go. Even if we both fail the course—big deal. We can take it again. She doesn't even think that O'Donnel will rescind its offer.

Someone knocks on the door, and the pounding reverberates against my back. I scoot over so Nick can squeeze inside. Droplets of water from his wet hair slide down his face. He smells like minty shampoo. “I know I'm late, man. Basketball went late. But I wrote up some arguments for the GBE assignment in favor of the quota I thought we could use.”

I haven't been to basketball all week. I don't feel like doing anything anymore. Maybe my apathy is from burnout. I took on too many projects and am now devoid of energy.

With great power comes great responsibility.
That's the theme line from
Spider-Man.
Back in September I had great power. I thought I could do anything.

I screwed everything up.

Friday, April 9, 3:00 p.m.

“H
i, Dorothy!” I sing. “Hi, Dennis! Hi, everyone!” Today ends the last week of the task force. Truth is, Dennis and I are the only ones who have weathered it out. The other volunteers have all dwindled away with exams and interviews. But not me. I stick by my commitments.

“Hi, Layla,” Dennis says. His glasses are crooked, and I resist the urge to straighten them.

Dorothy is biting into an apple and packing up her stuff. “Layla, I have to run out early. If you could update some files for me, I'd really appreciate it.”

“No problem.” I pull up a chair in front of the main computer and start inserting data. Deepak Hussein will not be joining us in the fall. Has decided to remain at his job for the time being, and would like to know if he can defer his acceptance until the following September. Sorry, Deepak. No deferrals. Try again next year.

Forty-five minutes in I spot Brad's file. He has decided to go to Harvard Business School. Apparently, he's never been dumped before and I've soured him off LWBS completely.
Oh, well. Not sure how well he would have done at the Zoo, anyway. The closet might not have had enough room for his shoes. The entire dorm might not have had enough room for his shoes. He didn't write about his shoes in his application. Would have been an interesting add-on under hobbies. Not.

I click on his name and add the information to his file. I shouldn't make fun of him. Just because he's a prince, doesn't mean he's
my
prince. You can't fall in love with a man on paper, is all.

I close the file on Bradley Green, and you know what comes almost right after Green? Grossman. Can't hurt to peek at his file, just for fun. I've been here for three hours; I could certainly use a break. I peer around the room to see what Dennis is up to. He appears to be totally engrossed in his keyboard, so I click on Jamie's student file. The screen with his student number pops up. I scroll down and click on the icon for his application. I'm giggling in anticipation. How crazy could he have gone?

The document opens and I see where he typed in his name and Florida address. How cute! I picture him sitting on a wooden patio, a sand beach in view, typing away his address on his laptop, pursing his adorable lips. He's a great kisser. I'm really happy. Everything is perfect. Fine, not perfect. He's a little shorter than my dream man. And balder. And he has a unibrow. But other than that he's perfect for me. I hope. I think. Is he?

And here's his birthdate, this July. We'll have to do something fabulous.

And then the F for female…

F? Why was there an F anyway? Ah. No wonder the school records had him down as a woman. He applied as one! Silly Jamie.

Mild panic.
Why
did he apply as a woman? Maybe secretly he
is
a woman. That would explain why he didn't want to
have sex. I exhale with relief when I remember Kimmy's less than fervent description of his genitalia. I know that she's seen the equipment, what there is of it.

Silly Jamie. He must have accidentally checked the wrong square when he applied. There is no way that he'd do that…purposely.

Unless he thought that applying as a woman would give him a competitive advantage. An invisible vacuum sucks all the air from my lungs. No. He wouldn't have done that. Would he? People make typos all the time. I saw them myself. Applicants wrote in the wrong schools. If someone could write in the wrong schools, then surely I can expect someone to write in the wrong letter. Except, the M square on the original application was nowhere near the F square.

A fog of nausea overwhelms me. I have to ask him. Now.

I say goodbye to Dennis and return to the Zoo. Jamie is sprawled on his bed, watching an old black-and-white movie I don't recognize.

“Hey darlin', have you ever seen—” He breaks off at the shocked look on my face. “What's wrong?”

I close the door behind me. It must have been a mistake. This sweet man wouldn't do something that despicable. “Did you apply to LWBS as a woman?” I blurt out. As soon as the question is out of my mouth, I realize how ridiculous it sounds. I may as well have asked him if he is, in fact, transsexual.

His cheeks flush. The balding part of his head flushes. And then I realize he did it.

He smiles like a kid who just got caught dipping his finger in the cake's icing. “Kind of funny, huh?”

Tell me he doesn't think this is a joke. I attempt to stop my hands from trembling. “Excuse me?”

“I said it's kind of funny. Or it
was
kind of funny.” He sighs. “Obviously you don't seem to think so, so why don't you sit down and we'll talk about it?”

Instead of sitting, I pace the room.

“Layla, sit. I just washed my sheets. No germs I swear.”

And that's when I blow up. “Not everything is a joke! This isn't funny! What were you thinking?”

He crosses his arms in front of his chest. “I didn't plan it.”

“It was an accident?” Please tell me it was an accident.

“It was research. For an article. Affirmative action was a hot topic and I thought it would make an interesting study. I applied to ten different schools, five as a male and five as a female.” He's talking quickly, the words pouring out of him like water on full blast from the tap.

“But why male versus female? Why not pretend to be Hispanic or African-American?”

“Because people always think the name Jamie is female. If the only discrepancy was my gender, then I could keep my name and get my college to send my real grades.”

“But what about the rest of the application?” Someone in the hallway smashes into the side of the room and laughs. We both ignore it, and I continue pacing.

Jamie sighs. “I wrote the essays, the GMATs—that's all legit.” He pales. “But I had to write my own letters of reference.”

Holy crap. “That is so illegal.”

“I know, I know, but I couldn't ask former professors to write them, could I? People normally use gender pronouns in their letters.”

“And you got in.”

“Yeah.”

“You took advantage of the system.”

“Maybe the system is wrong,” he says.

“An MBA class is stronger when it's diverse. Just as our learning groups are stronger when we're not five engineers, our class is stronger if it's not a hundred white men. So what if diversity needs a little help? But that doesn't mean you have the right to take advantage of it.”

“I didn't see it as that big a deal. I thought, why not?”

“Why not? Because it's wrong!” I yell.

“Why is it wrong? Why shouldn't I get the chance to be here?”

I feel dizzy. “How has no one noticed? How is that possible?”

“You'd be amazed how irrelevant gender is in school life. My only problem was my student card. The picture ID says female or male on it. And we need to bring those to exams.”

I feel nauseous all over again. “And that's when you asked me to change the F to an M so you could get a new student card.”

“Yeah. Thank you. I don't know how I would have written my exams otherwise. I guess I could have risked it, but I was nervous one of the proctors would look at it and start wondering.” He pauses. “You don't look so good. Are you okay?”

No, I'm not okay. “How could you do that to me? You asked me to commit a felony! What if I had gotten caught?” I'm pacing again, this time faster. “What if Dorothy thinks I'm an accomplice? And I get expelled? What if you ruined my life?”

He leaps off the bed and puts his arms around me. “Calm down.”

I push him away. “Don't you dare tell me to calm down. I can't believe you would do that to me. Put my future at risk.”

“It wasn't that big of a deal. It's really kind of funny, when you think of it.” He smiles hopefully.

Why is nothing ever a big deal to him? “It
is
a big deal. Not everything is a joke, Jamie. I could be in front of the tribunal with Russ and Kimmy. I could lose my job at Silverman.”

“You don't even want your job at Silverman,” he points out.

“What I want is not to be manipulated.” What I want is to get out of his room. “You're no better than Russ.”

I jerk the door open and storm out. I hear him protesting from inside, but I don't care. I'm angry. Furious. Steam-shooting-out-of-ears pissed off. And I'm feeling something else, too. Something really familiar.

Relief.