Romance Is My Day Job (4 page)

I discover a day or two later he started seeing Stevie Nicks on that first night. I can't be upset, because I love Stevie Nicks. She is gorgeous and I would have done the same thing. I can't blame Ben at all. The worst part is that he is so kind. He tells me the truth, gives me a kiss, says we are meant to be close friends. It doesn't sound like a line. In fact, I feel enveloped by his love.

From that night, he doesn't disappear from my life. Though heartbroken, I know that everything I did—the meditating, the literature, the living-in-the-moment stuff—was positive. Ben was never supposed to be my boyfriend.

For fuck's sake, though. Now I have to find a new guy to love, because that's what college is: a dating party. My future husband is wandering around here somewhere. They say college is the place to meet your soul mate and make strong lifelong connections. I only have three years left—must act fast!

I am driven by an uncomfortable desperation. Family, friends, and therapists tell me that my parents' divorce caused all my emotional turmoil, so I chalk it up to this. Or maybe it's the culmination of moments I spent burying myself in books and television, moments where I avoided taking action. I want to show someone how amazing I am, but I'm not sure how to do this. And the more
he
walks away, the more infuriated I become . . . at myself and at him for not recognizing my greatness.

By chance,
Fatal Attraction
comes to Oberlin, and the buzz hits in a tidal wave. Though with a group of friends, I feel as if I'm in an empty theater and the only one who feels badly for Glenn Close. She's so unusually pretty and tenacious, but the people in the audience cheer when she's shot at the end. Why does everyone want her dead? Okay, she boiled rabbits and threatened the sanctity of Michael Douglas's family, but he participated, too. She just needed someone to love her, give her what she wanted. I feel as if I'm headed for the same kind of misery.

Having lost my Father Ralph, along with my purpose, I sit on the steps of the main building on campus and people-watch, witnessing the cascade of students across the steps and over the field. This is the central part of campus, with a quad in the middle and a circle of buildings: library, dining hall, dorm, classrooms, and central administration.

It's a gorgeous Indian-summer day when I first see Craig, who's been gone for a semester. Still sad over Ben, I perk up when Craig appears. He is the campus bad boy, the life of the party, the guy who stays out way past last call. He's starting his fourth year on the six-year college plan. I remember he and my roommate had a brief fling our first semester.

“Hi, Schuntzie,” he says to me, smiling as he lunges toward the mailroom. The nickname tickles me. Usually people call me by my whole first name, or “Pay,” “Paysh,” or “Payshie.” Craig takes the last part of my name and makes it his own.

“Hey!” I get the feeling he's coming back out to see me, so I wait.

Such is the tale of the instantaneous rebounder: I stare dreamily when he returns, thinking he's the spitting image of Michael Paré from
Eddie and the Cruisers
. Nici, my best friend from high school, and I spent hours discussing Paré's biceps, and now Eddie's here in the flesh at Oberlin College. The similarities are frightening: that dirty-blond hair that falls just right, the bright blue eyes, the rocker look. Craig is in a band, of course. He's the lead singer.

Suddenly, I'm a little smitten and ready for a diversion. If Ben is Father Ralph, then Craig is my Frank, Meggie's brother from
The Thorn Birds
. All wrong, potentially violent, worships at the altar of bourbon, and you just can't help wanting his company. Frank fits that other romance stereotype: the Bad Boy. He's a little too rough (and, um, is in love with his mother, but I'll overlook that). He lives by his impulses, runs foolishly into danger, and sort of commits murder, but I love that about him (since he's fiction). For now, I'll forget that Frank and Meggie are brother and sister. Boundaries are a mess in
The Thorn Birds
.

Craig joins me on the steps. We catch up on our lost summers, then unleash our sorrows. He mourns his Nordic, blond ex-girlfriend who started seeing someone else. I wail about Ben running off with Stevie Nicks.

Just the fact that he's still in love with Nordic Ex means that he's a good boyfriend. Craig's self-destructiveness comes from true love gone awry, which can't be his fault. How could Nordic Ex not see that he cared so much? Spending time with me will heal Craig. During our curative interludes, he will notice that I'm his perfect girl.

“You want to go for a ride?” he asks, referring to his new Yamaha motorcycle.

Craig's owning a motorcycle is sort of a bad idea. Even I can see that. Worse is my getting on the bike with him. But some people make you want to do bad things,
really
bad things. You know they're bad, but you do them anyway. Sort of like Father Ralph and Meggie. He helps raise her, tells her that girls get their periods every month, and then defies God by banging her. And he was like a father to her! How scandalous is that? So what if I hang out with the campus's most notorious bad boy and get on his motorcycle? Craig would never hurt me on purpose.

Since I'm so virtuous, especially with my recent Buddhism, I'm due for a forbidden adventure. It may not be with a holy man, but I'll make do with a lush. I want intensity, conversation, running through the streets screaming at all hours. I want to drink beer, dance at the college disco, play video games, do cartwheels across the quad, and go to psych class with a hangover.

I deserve this. Sure, I'll ride on his Yamaha.

Oberlin College is the perfect place for a girl to let loose. Everyone else is doing the same thing. There are patchouli, endless bar scenes, same-sex experimentation, liberal ideals, long floral skirts, breast fests, great bacon cheeseburgers at the main restaurant, no restraints on sexual orientation or religion, co-op dorms, musicians, and, of course, a fabulous academic curriculum (I'm pretty certain).

The idea of riding on a motorcycle scares me, but what's the worst that could happen?

He gets on his hog (if that's the right term), his gaze beckoning me to climb aboard and hold tight. He's wearing a gray striped shirt, which will soon be covered by the requisite black leather jacket all bad boys wear.

We ride around the town square and I bury my face in his back, laughing. Craig seems so confident on this machine. I know I'll be safe.

 • • • 

In a few days, I'm in over my head. Loving a heavy drinker takes work. Also, Craig and I spend too much time together. We sort of hate each other but can't stand to be apart. The hours I'm away from him are torture—like during my classes. It's of vital importance that my parents don't know how I'm pissing their money down the drain at another institution of learning, only this time I'm not wasting money on yogurt peanuts, vanilla shakes, and fries. I'm nearly flunking a class or two. But what's money when love is involved? I care so much for Craig's tortured soul. What starts out as a rock-and-roll love story, a saga of forbidden love through the ages, evolves into a Russian novel where someone will walk into an oncoming train.

Either that or I'm turning into Mary Carson, the crazy, white-haired rich landowner who holds Father Ralph and Meggie hostage, torments them out of sexual frustration. Because she has all that Australian cash, they're dependent on her. But even when they don't need her, she can't let go. Obviously, Craig doesn't need me one bit. All I have to do is dangle a bottle of bourbon in front of him and he's at my side. It's very clear I should run away fast, and yet I can't. I am that old lady staring at Father Ralph as he takes off his clothes after getting caught in the rain. Her love grows like a spore, as does mine. Craig is such a fine specimen of rugged good looks, freakish intelligence, and rough edges.

Like Mary, I have no real power over Craig. Just the opposite, and this infatuation is ten times worse than it was with that Buddhist. Craig is my new everything, except when he goes on about Trotsky, Hegel, and Marxist theory. I'm not sure what these things mean.

The night we officially get together, a windy September night, I wait hours for him to stop talking and make a move. In romance novels, the heroine never waits. Devlin just crushes his mouth to Faun's even before she finishes sharpening her pencils. There are no monologues, no conversations—just instinct. He wants her, he gets her. I wonder if other women go through this, waiting hours for the good stuff to happen, listening, trying to be interesting. Meggie did have to nudge Father Ralph a whole lot before his “little priest” gave in. It takes effort to keep up with my new man.
The Love Boat
and all my romance reading don't prepare me for
this
chatterbox.

I'm just sitting, listening, and waiting.

Craig and I stay out past happy hour at the local bar. He wears a maroon striped shirt and jeans, smokes his Marlboros. By happenstance, I turn to Marlboro reds and pick up chain-smoking. Who knew my voice could sound like Kathleen Turner's after forty cigarettes in a row? I smile nicely and nod at his forgettable comments. More about Marxism. Yeah, I have no idea. Twiddling my thumbs.

Finally, at four
A.M
., when the lights come on in the bar, he says, “Let's get out of here.”

It's a line I later hear in movies to indicate the rerouting to an apartment for sex. Finally! We go to his small room above the bar, a dark place with no windows but with a mattress and disheveled blankets sitting on the floor. Typical boy space, I'm thinking, but he's a rich boy, or so I've gathered from all his stuff—the motorcycle, a nice car, trips here and there, many nights out on the town. Wouldn't he want a better resting place? No space goes untouched by mess, and I sit graciously on the mattress. He brings over a six-pack and sits down.

I'm not sure what's happening, though I pull my fourth beer of the night from his pack. I'm a little wasted.

For two hours, I continue listening, sipping lukewarm beer, and adoring him. I'm still confused by his monologue, wondering why an affluent guy would go to Oberlin and rant about communism. Something about the proletariat. I will definitely look that up in my dictionary.

At six
A.M
., with two hours until my first class, he finally kisses me. The sour beer breath hits me instantly, but I block out the unpleasantness. This is the legendary Craig, the fun boozy guy, lead singer in a band, well traveled, intellectual . . . and he is with me, a girl who a month ago would never have gotten on a motorcycle. Who thinks Karl Marx is just a guy with a cool name.

Craig is a great kisser, if I forget the beer breath. In fact, a lot of good things happen when you don't look too closely at the details. Craig is like a movie star to me. Our future together will fall into place. He will eventually graduate and I will, too—possibly around the same time. I don't mind if I have to support us, just as long as he whisks us off on a new adventure. This has been a whirlwind.

One more marathon date later—which involves a repeat of previous encounters—I learn of Craig's ultimate death wish. It's a shock to my system, that a perfectly healthy person would consider suicide not just to be dramatic. He even admits to it.

“All that's left is death,” he says.

“But I won't let you die.”

“You can't stop me.”

A hero with suicidal thoughts? This doesn't happen—except in movies or police shows. The brooding men in my romance novels throw down a few scotches now and then, but not a single one fashions a noose for himself.

I remember when I was nine years old, upon hearing a scuffle outside, I looked out the window and saw my father in the driveway, helping a young woman from the neighborhood who'd slit her wrists. She sought out my father because he was dependable, a decent protector. Like the good Boy Scout that he was, he calmed her down, tried to stop the bleeding, and got her help. I wasn't sure what had happened until he explained it to me, that some people have real problems and want to leave this world. This poor woman. There was so much to live for.

This is my chance to save a life. I can make him better. It's my mission. All my energy goes into curing him.

 • • • 

“I can't get drunk enough,” Craig tells me soon into my plan to save him. We're in the middle of our usual night, only this time he's on the verge of tears, empty cans from a case littering his floor. How could he be miserable with a nice girl willing to do anything for him? This doesn't fit into my romantic plan at all.

Still, I follow him around for a few more days. I see girls, older girls, more experienced girls, eye him knowingly. The gorgeous Hispanic girl. The blonde who could pass for Marilyn. The lovely, dirty-blond-haired brainiac who prepares her food so carefully that I wonder if she has an addiction of her own. The short brunette with the peaches-and-cream skin.

Turns out, he's had them all.

Sad, dirty mattress sex and booze. Puking off porches. No window in his apartment. Endless talk about governments. Overthrows. Coups d'état. Russia. Our romance reads like a tragic film about a rock star who dies at the microphone, choking on his vomit. It's still romantic. As a heroine, I must learn how to tame a bad boy.

My one escape from this dreary routine is the basement of the Oberlin library. I gather my Ovid, my textbook for economics (a course I'm flunking) and notes, my cigarettes, and an assortment of pens—and my diary. My other studious smoker friends work down there, and we sit in a large room, smoke, and stare at one another during breaks. I am productive during these moments and sometimes confer with my study buddies—mostly older men in Craig's class—out in the hall. They warn me that I'm demeaning myself, wasting time with a guy on a downward spiral. I take their comments to heart until Craig enters the room and I turn bad again for him.