Sex and Death in the American Novel (35 page)

“I know. Sometimes words aren't big enough to describe the most important things.”

I slept for a while, pulling the warmth of the comforter and the remains of our mingled scent around me more, not caring that we were on the floor.

I woke some time later with Jasper sitting up beside me. When I opened my eyes he ran one long index finger down the middle of my face. We looked at each other for some time, me trying to imagine what he was thinking. “What?”

“Nothing, can't I look at you?” he said.

“No,” I said and allowed him to continue, until I couldn't stand it anymore. “Do you want to talk about last night?”

He flopped onto his back and raised his arms above his head. The hair beneath his arms was much lighter and sparser than Alejandro's. I moved over to rest my chin on his chest. He let one hand fall onto my back and played with my hair.

“That was something, huh?”

“You sound like you don't mean that…” I said.

The chuckle he gave sounded false.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

“How we got into this.”

I rose up then and said, “Is that good or bad?”

“Not sure,” he said, then rolled to his side and faced me. “I really don't know. I never thought I would do something like that. I only did it for you.”

“I don't believe you.”

“I don't care.” His voice was cold. “I'm not like that.”

“Like what?”

“Gay.”

I rose up on my elbow. “Why do you have to say it like that? Why can't we just be people and do what we want? Why do you have to call it anything?”

He met my eyes and said, “The real world needs a way to explain what is and what isn't.”

“What about what you told me before about the two of you?”

“Stop trying to turn me into something out of one of your books…I probably shouldn't have told you about that.”

I pulled back, angry and hurt. “Are you disappointed?” Since when did I care what he thought? Since I'd fallen in love with him. He didn't answer soon enough so I repeated the question. “Did you like it or not?”

“I am…I did.” His pained expression did not match what should have been positive words.

“So what's wrong with that?”

“I liked what we did because it made you happy, not because it was something that did anything for me.”

“Oh.” I knew having the two of them was too good to be true, but something about him saying he didn't want to do it at all wasn't sitting right. What about how he'd held Alejandro's wrist or kissed him, or what about how he had held his hand at the club. I didn't make him do those things.

“So you would never do something like that if it weren't for me?”

He shook his head and laid his forearm over his eyes. “I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything.”

“No,” I said. “I want to know. I want to know if I am hurting you, or anything—”

He silenced me with his fingers on my lips. “Lately I just feel like I am losing myself.”

“You mean lowering your standards?”

“What?” he asked, and reached for me.

I pulled away, wrapping part of the comforter around me, needing to protect myself. “You judge me for writing about sex, and you still don't get why it is important to me, even after last night. After all of it, you still don't understand me at all!”

He crossed his hands in the air over and over. “Hold on. Hold. On.”

Fear and its wrathful offspring came fast, and this time Alejandro wasn't there to stop it. The fear and guilt and shame. I'd finally pulled off, under the most perfect circumstances, one of my life's fantasies. Rage made my face hot and my fists balled up, realizing that I had to deal with an antiquated shame I had been fighting my entire life, and now it had crept in and ruined everything. Jasper's faltering betrayed his uncertainty, but the real problem was mine. I knew that, but I couldn't stop myself; there was too much ugliness inside me to turn it inward anymore. I couldn't stop. “You and my dad, high-minded fuckers, think you're better than everyone else. The rest of us are just an unfortunate fact of life you suffer with so you don't have to be alone.”

“But I was alone.” He leaned toward me with his arms out as if he could just wrap me up until this turmoil made sense. Only I didn't want it to make sense. If I never could tell my father what I thought about the way he looked down on me, I could tell Jasper now. A timid voice in my head told me to stop talking, that I would regret it later. But the other part of me, the one that liked to get drunk and go where the night took me, slapped it down.

“You know why I never talk about your work with you? Because I don't get it. Because it's boring. You're boring. You judge me…” I pointed to my chest. “I judge you; did you ever think of that? Your work is long and
so
self-indulgent. It's obvious you spend more time in your head than you do living.” I felt a terrible sense of glee when his face crumpled, and he moved his head like he could shake off my words. “What a waste. Years perfecting one sentence. That's time you will never get back. I bet you couldn't write anything that real people would read. If it weren't for all these fucking writing schools, nobody would buy your books.”

A look passed over his face as if a rush of air had blown by and melded his features together, until he hardened.

I went past ugly then, wanting him to feel as awful inside as I did. “And here's something else I bet you don't think I was smart enough to catch. The
reason you use all those overinflated words is because you're afraid people will think you're stupid. That isn't good enough no matter how many professorial fucks cream their shorts for you. It's not honest.”

A part of me recoiled watching what I did. A distant voice came from my mouth, barely a cackle, “I know what you do alone in your big New York I'm-not-from-Nebraska apartment. You dig through the dictionary trying to find the longest most obscure words you can, then you waste more of your life figuring out how you're going to unleash them on a world that doesn't
care
, and doesn't need it.”

He stood and grabbed me, his face hard and focused, but underneath that, what made me feel sick and desperate, a flash of understanding, though I wouldn't see that until I reflected later. He moved me out of the way, grabbed his clothes and dressed.

Stop him
, one voice screamed, but the other one—the bitch in control of my body—stood with narrowed eyes and watched him walk toward the door, with his jacket balled under his arm, looking around for his shoes.

“How about this,” he said, like he was testing the phrasing. “You're a novelty. You would have held no interest to me if it weren't for who your father was.” He faced me and raised his eyebrows for emphasis. He bent and struggled into his shoes. “None.”

I knew he had it in him, deep satisfaction filled me that he was engaging on my level. “Do you know what I like about Alejandro?” I said. “He doesn't judge me.”

He turned and glared and shook his head with emphasized disappointment. He set his jaw and turned back to the work of lacing up his shoes.

I wanted him to hit me or react in some other awful way so I could hate him. As it was, I wasn't buying my own act. He had every reason to be mad at me. His words were hurtful and confirmed another of my secret fears, but they felt wrong, just as his saying he only went along with the previous night's adventures for my benefit. I didn't believe him.

He stood and strode over to the door, glancing around the room, his calm surreal given the situation.

Tears sprung to my eyes, and I whispered, “Please don't leave,” even as I shook with the relief that came with staring down one of my lifelong demons, only realizing too late he wasn't even there.

Chapter 15

I had to see Alejandro again. I found out when he was teaching and snuck in right before he began. I made a point to pull behind a group of chatty guys so he couldn't see me. He stood at the front of the room, in front of a huge white board, sorting stacks of papers into piles, looking up every so often as if making note of who came in and at what time. He looked older in this setting. Loose khaki pants, a dark turtleneck, and a thick cardigan.

Freshmen, this was the group nobody wanted—they hadn't been brainwashed yet. When they were settled, he smiled and moved to sit on the front of his desk.

He began his lecture, and these youngsters—usually unruly or still asleep or hung over—sat with their faces turned to him, and when he would pause, they'd dip their heads to the papers in front of him, scribbling notes. He'd walk between the rows of long tables, locking eyes with several of them as he moved around the room. He reveled in freaking them out with shocking details from the past, pulling them to him with tales of how the Aztecs used children for sex; then when he had their attention, reminding them of deplorable European bathing habits. He asked one stunned jock what he thought about the irony of the never-ending scandals with the priests who hundreds of years ago had successfully converted them. When the boy didn't answer he posed the question to the rest of the dumbfounded class. “Wasn't religion supposed to save these people?” He continued to hold his arms out, as if he could pull the answer from them by physical force.

I spent four painful years of college trying to stay awake while professors regurgitated an outline of the assigned textbook. It was something to see him
with all his passion directed not inward as most professors, babbling for their own benefit, but out toward a useful purpose. He used the word fuck—in English and the Spanish ‘chinga’—more than any professor I'd ever had. I have no doubt that he let his personality dictate how he spoke, but I also think he did it to hold their attention. It mattered to him that they were engaged, that they learned something. He cared like no one I'd ever known, and I found myself filled with immense gratitude for him.

It took forever for the students to file out as half of them had to stop and speak with him, but finally I was the only one left in the room. He peered into the back of the room, shaded his eyes from the overhead lights and said, “Can I help you with something?”

I croaked the words, “It's me—” I started again after clearing my throat. “Hi.” I tried to give a nonchalant wave. I felt like a fraud. “It's Vivi.”

“Vivi,” he said, walking down the long aisle until he stood before me. “What are you doing here?”

I looked up at him, my throat began to close up, and he took my hand. “Come with me.”

He dragged me down to the front of the room, packed up his papers and put one arm around me. I fought the urge to blubber as he led me past the students and faculty weaving through the hallways, up a flight of stairs, until he closed the door of his office.

He set his bag on his desk and sat in the chair next to me. “You haven't talked to Jasper yet, have you?”

“He told you?” I was humiliated, though not surprised. I put my head in my hands and said, “I fucked up and I have no idea how to fix it.”

He ran his hand over the back of my head until I sat up and faced him.

“Look chica, this really is between you and Jasper. He is pretty upset, I won't lie to you.”

“Fuck.” I wanted to throw up. “I told him I liked you because you didn't judge me.”

“He told me that too.”

We sat listening to the ticking of the clock on the brick wall behind his desk. I watched a small brown bird land on a leafy branch outside his window. The branch was thin and the weight of the bird made it bounce, but instead of flitting away with fear, the bird hung on.

“I thought I could do what I wanted, bring everyone along for the ride, and it all blew up in my face.”

“Explain this to me,” he said and leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands in his lap.

I laughed at how formal he had become. He didn't smile.

I ground my teeth together. He was so direct, I felt more naked here in front of him with all our clothes on than I had since I'd met him.

I couldn't stand the force of his gaze. I turned my eyes to the floor. “I didn't mean to hurt him.”

Alejandro broke his pose, hunched over his legs. “You did.”

I shook my head and faced him again. His jaw was set and his eyes were direct, but they were softer this time. “I care very much about
both
of you. If my coming into your lives is going to cause the two of you to hurt each other, then…”

“You're great.” I tried to keep the panic out of my voice, even as my eyes began to bulge and leak hot tears. “You get me. You didn't do anything wrong. I have never felt so understood as when I'm with you. I've never felt like I was doing the right things: in my life, in my work, in bed… You can't go away. Shit. Fuck. What a goddam mess. A giant fucking clusterfuck.”

He laughed and took my hand, running his thumb over the back, and leaned forward as if he were going to kiss me. He got so close I could smell every intoxicating molecule of him; espresso, cinnamon, a perfume completely his own. “Call him.”

I nodded vigorously; maybe there was a way out after all. I nodded and wiped my eyes with the inside of my wrist.

“Good.”

As he led me out of the office I turned and hugged him. He hesitated a moment and then wrapped his arms around me, letting his chin and lips linger at my collarbone before he pulled away.

“Can I tell you something? I fucking hated college. Especially lit classes. I felt like it was the instructor's job to unlearn everything my father, my mother and any great author I ever read had taught me. They sucked the originality out of everything. Watching you today was really something. You made me believe in teachers again.”

“I think you are probably biased.”

“No. It's true.” It occurred to me that teaching might have been what he was doing all along with me.

I called Jasper that night.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hello, Vivi.”

“Is this an okay time to call? Have I waited long enough?”

“Sure.” His voice sounded off.

“Are you okay?”

“Probably not,” he said.

I didn't know what to say to that. “Did something happen?”

“Yeah.”

I ran my fingers through my hair and waited for the rest. When he didn't say anything else, I plowed ahead. “I'm sorry about what I said about your work. I actually do understand why you are such a big deal, I just—”