Monkey Business (8 page)

Wednesday, October 1, 5:30 p.m.

I'
m going to fail school.

No, really. I feel like a six-year-old sitting in on a molecular biology class. It's been a month since I got here, and I still have no idea what's going on.

Russ, Lauren, Nick, Jamie and I are sitting in a study room in the library working on our group Accounting assignment, which is due next Wednesday. I already handed in the individual portion, which was due today. I'm sure I failed.

Russ pulls out the case. “Did everyone read it?”

I keep my mouth shut. No need for Russ to think I'm a moron. Which I'm sure he does already. Which I'm sure is why he's been avoiding me.

“No,” Jamie says. “It looks huge.”

Russ flips through it. “It's not so bad, man. Mostly graphs. These things are deceiving. Some of them are fifty pages long but have thirty pages of graphs, and others are thirty pages with only five pages of graphs.”

“It's like fat-free food,” I say. “You have to eat twice as
much to feel full and you end up consuming the same amount of calories anyway.”

Everyone stares at me.

I spend the next forty minutes executing my reinstated keep-your-mouth-shut plan while the rest of my group does the work. And as usual, even though Jamie hasn't done the reading, either—he hasn't even bought the books yet—he seems to be able to wing it.

“I don't think you all see the big picture,” he says, then launches into an explanation. The rest of the group nods. How is it that he can barely skim the case yet still have a deep understanding of it? He usually writes up the assignment as we're discussing it. He's a great writer. Used to be a journalist, I think.

We've already gotten two assignments back, and we got B-pluses on both of them, no thanks to me. I contributed nada.

It's only Wednesday. Another whole day of boring classes. The weekends are more fun, because at night everyone gets wasted, but we still spend the days in this claustrophobic room.

Every few hours, Jamie, Lauren and I get Cokes from the vending machines, and Nick and Russ disappear outside for a smoke. I think they might be smoking more than cigarettes, but I don't ask. I did spot the Visine in Nick's laptop bag. Not my problem. I don't think I have the right to criticize, especially since I'm so useless.

I repeat, I'm going to fail school. Besides the individual portion of the Accounting assignment, I handed in a Stats assignment today and I am one-hundred-percent sure it was all wrong. Jamie had offered to help me, but I was nervous he would try to molest me if we were alone together. I couldn't ask Russ, since I don't want him to think I'm more of an idiot than he thinks I am. Besides, he's been ignoring me. He won't even sit next to me. Today he came into the study room, saw the empty seat beside me, then sat on the
other side of the table next to Lauren. What's up with that? When school started he couldn't get enough of me, and now I have SARS? He's the one from Toronto.

Lauren waves her hand in front of my face. “Hello? Do you have an opinion on question number five or not?”

“Sounds great,” I say.

She rolls her eyes. Fuck off, I think but don't say. Here's one stat I'm sure of: she's one-hundred-percent bitch.

Friday, October 3, 3:10 p.m.

M
ore applications = more losers.

Be nice, I reprimand myself. They're not losers. They're just not right for LWBS.

More unacceptable candidates. More wistful looks from Dennis. I keep catching him staring, and it's making me uncomfortable.

Next one. Bradley Green.

I skim through his file. Undergraduate degree from Harvard. Now that's fancy. And he's worked for the Lerner Investment Bank for the past two years. GMATs? Oh, my. Ninety-ninth percentile. That's pretty brainy. That's the highest you can get, since you can't beat a hundred percent of the rest of the people. Although I suppose if you were the only person who got a perfect score, then you would have done better than everyone else. An issue to ponder another time.

“This guy scored in the ninety-ninth percentile on his GMATs,” I say, waving his paper in front of me like a flag.

Dennis shrugs. “I got a ninety-eight.”

“But this is the ninety-ninth.”

I flip through his application and see an article cut out from the
New York Times.
“Bradley Green III, son of Bradley Green II…” He's
that
Bradley Green? As in Bradley Green, one of the wealthiest businessmen on the East Coast? “…CEO of the media conglomerate PAX Technology, has spent the summer building houses for the homeless in Oregon…”

My eyes skip to the picture. A tall, well-built man with light hair, a cleft in his chin, a dimple in his cheek and a serious look on his face is crouching over rubble.

Oh, my. Bradley Green III is gorgeous.

I pull out one of his essays, entitled “What Matters to Me and Why,” and read the first paragraph:

He has fish!

Here we go. I'm in love. Again.

Bradley Green III is brilliant, ambitious, gorgeous, well traveled, has perspective, has fish, and builds houses for the homeless. And according to his address, he now lives and works in Manhattan. And he's applying to LWBS.

If he's not the perfect man for me, I don't know who is. If I had the computer program that the guys in the movie
Weird Science
used to make the perfect woman, I couldn't have produced a more ideal man.

The perfect man whose phone number is directly in my line of vision.

No, I can't call him. Extracting information about an applicant for my own purpose would be unethical. I tally up his score. His GMAT translates into a ten out of ten; work experience a nine; college marks—I peek at his transcript—a four point five! He's better than perfect, and here I thought only high school granted extra credit—I give him a perfect ten (unfortunately, I can't give him extra credit); references—glowing, but why am I surprised?—five out of five, essays five out of five; and overall impressions I'm giving him another five. That's a total of forty-four out of forty five. He's most definitely in.

All right. I've done all I can ethically do. If he comes to LWBS, I can introduce myself and let love weave its magic.

But magic aside, why leave anything to chance?

I change his work-experience score to ten. If you're better than perfect in one area, you should be allowed to let the extra credit spill over to an area that's lacking.

 

It's ten-thirty and I can't sleep. I have to pee. I do not feel like standing up, slipping on pajamas, finding my slippers and walking all the way down the hall. I will not be able to fall asleep if I have to pee. I'll just think about something else. Something fun.

I reboot my computer and click onto the
New York
Times
Web site. I search for Bradley Green, and click on his photo.

So hot. Now for some sexy music.

 

It's now eleven o'clock and I still have to pee.

I don't have to pee…I don't have to pee…I don't have to pee, I don't have to pee…

I'm never going to be able to sleep until I go to the bathroom. I sigh and search for my slippers.

Wednesday, October 8, 2:45 p.m.

P
rofessor Gold is handing back the assignments. She walks up to me, looks me up and down (probably wondering if I slept with someone to get accepted here), and places mine facedown on my desk.

I wait for the others to receive theirs before I peek. I want to prolong the moment as long as possible.

Maybe it's not as bad as I think. Maybe I did amazing. Who knows? I could be a secret Stats genius. Just because I got back a D in the individual portion of the Accounting assignment today and a D on my last Economics mini-paper doesn't mean I don't have a knack for Stats.

“Yes!” Layla squeals.

“How'd you do?” I hear Jamie ask her.

“An A,” Layla answers.

“As usual I bet,” Jamie says.

“Always,” she says, and winks.

For some reason, the word “always” causes Jamie to drop his mouth. She smiles at him, collects her paper, then heads out the door.

I flip over the assignment.

F.

I flip it back.

I got an F. I have never gotten an F in my entire life.

It's official. I'm going to fail out of business school.

Jamie slaps his hand on his head. “I'm such an idiot.”

At least I'm not the only one who screwed up. “You didn't do well?”

“No, I got a B-plus. I just realized who the girl in the shower was.”

What the hell is he talking about? I ignore him and stuff the stupid assignment into my bag, and head toward the library. Group meeting number seven hundred and twenty. Not that it matters if I attend or not. I don't say anything, anyway.

F.
Failure. Fuck. What a bitch that Gold is. I knew I wouldn't like female teachers. Not that I'm doing much better in any of my other classes. I'm going to fail everything. I am going into debt for nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. That's what I am. Nothing. A big fat zero.

That's one statistic I can count on.

 

I sit mutely through another boring group meeting until it dawns on me that they couldn't care less if I'm there or not, so I feign exhaustion and leave. I'm not even in the mood for dinner. I buy a bag of barbecue chips from the vending machine and climb into bed. I turn on my reading lamp and open a
GQ
.

At eight, someone knocks on the door. “Kimmy? Honey? Are you there?” It's Jamie. I don't answer.

At eight-thirty the phone rings, but I don't answer. It rings again at eight-forty. Jamie, again, I'm sure. How did I get here? Why am I hiding away in a tiny room on a creaky bed? Right. Wayne. I was running from Wayne. I miss Wayne. Where is Wayne? Maybe I should call Wayne.

I know phoning Wayne is a bad idea. But I'm going to do
it, anyway. I pick up the phone and dial his number. I'm allowed to call an ex-boyfriend to say hello. Of course I am. It's not a crazy thing to do. Pathetic, maybe, but not crazy.

One ring. Two. Maybe I should hang up.

“Hello?” a woman says. Cheryl has answered the phone.

I should hang up. But what if he has caller ID? I kick myself for not using star 67. Calling and hanging up when the person has caller ID is worse than calling and saying hello. “Is Wayne there?” I don't like the name Wayne. Never did. I always picture the obnoxious, fat older brother from
The Wonder Years
.

“Who is it?” she asks.

You know who it is, you stupid skank. I should hang up. Slam the phone down in her face. I should.

“It's Kimmy. Who's this?” Take that, bitch.

“Kimmy…hi.” She slows down the hi as though I'm mentally challenged. “It's Cheryl.”

“Cheryl. How are you?” I put on my fake high-pitched voice, the one I use when talking to my grandmother's friends whose names I can never remember.

“I'm well, thanks.” Her tone sounds confused—my question was nice, my enthusiasm high, but she knows I wish she'd be squashed by a falling house. “You?”

“I'm fantastic. I'm in business school now, did you know? I love it. Just love it. Time of my life. And what about you? What are you doing these days?”

She's working as a waitress at El Condo's Mexican Restaurant. That's why I can ask the question. I know what I'm doing is so much better than what she's doing. As long as she doesn't toss up an “I'm waitressing but in my spare time I'm modeling for Victoria's Secret” on me.

“Nothing new.” Ha! She can't even say it, she's too embarrassed. “Wayne's not here right now. And I'm running out. Should I ask him to call you back? Is everything all right?”

“Oh, everything's fine.” What does that mean he's not
there? Why is she answering the phone? Are they living together? ARE THEY LIVING TOGETHER? “Just calling to say hello. See how the two of you are.” I must find out if they're living together. How can I find out? Who can I ask? “Well, take care.” Take care not to walk into a passing truck. Which I'll be driving.

“Oh, you, too.”

Slam. I stare at the phone for the next twenty minutes. She must have left by now. I press the code to block my number and call back.

Her voice is on his damn machine.

“Hi, everyone! You've reached Cheryl and Wayne and we can't come to the phone. If you leave a message, we'll call you back as soon as we can. Bye!”

They're living together. How can they already be living together? And in the apartment I helped him fix up! I chose the paint, I shopped for his linen, I picked out the couch—I spent four hours on various furniture Web sites finding that couch. Does she like the couch? Have they had sex on it? What about the comforter? Suddenly I understand why dogs pee to mark their territory. I've had sex in that apartment, too, you know. Does she know? Does she know where we've had sex in that apartment? Everywhere. We had a lot of sex in that apartment.

I can't deal. I need to sleep. I turn off my reading light, toss the magazine onto the floor, climb back into bed and, crusty teeth and face be damned, I close my eyes. If I go to sleep, maybe I'll feel better in the morning.

Did he buy new sheets? I bet he didn't. Does she think of me naked when she washes those sheets?

I bet she comes every time. Shrieks and spasms and all. I bet she told him about how I faked it every time. Telling her that I thought I was frigid (after we'd polished off a pitcher of margaritas) was my second mistake. I told her about my little orgasm problem only because she'd confessed to being
an occasional bulimic, but I realized right away that I'd been shortchanged. After all, she wasn't telling me anything new. At least twice, I'd seen her puke after gorging herself on five slices of pizza.

I also told her how sweet Wayne was, which was my first mistake.

Never brag to another woman about your boyfriend, because she'll want him for herself.

What else could I have blabbed? Thank God I didn't tell her about getting pregnant.

Must sleep. Can't.

I feel like the time I dropped acid in college, saw spiders on the walls, and thought that one of the girls was plotting to suffocate me. I saw everyone in freeze-frame, like a video in a broken VCR. I tried to sleep, but my brain wouldn't turn off.

Like it won't now. Maybe I'll wash my face. There we go, that will give me something to do. It's ten o'clock. I don't even change into my I-look-sexy-even-though-I-happento-be-going-to-the-bathroom-in-the-middle-of-the-night outfit. What's the point? No one cares. Russ isn't interested. He has the lovely Sharon back home. Wayne doesn't care. He's living with Cheryl. And I'm a Stats failure.

My door creaks open. The hall is empty. Everyone is partying without me. No one is in the bathroom, either. Just me, alone. As usual.

As I lather the cleanser on my face, my eyes sting with tears. I hate when I cry. I'm not one of those sexy, demure criers. My eyes get red and blotchy and squinty, and when I breathe I sound like I have the hiccups. I rinse my face and sob at the same time, and accidentally swallow a mouthful of soapy water. Great. For the grand finale, the glorious conclusion to a truly spectacular day, I will now choke to death.

And that's when the door to the bathroom opens and I am saved.