Early Warning

DEBBIE’S ROOMMATE WENT STEADY, and her best friend dated three guys at Amherst in a round-robin arrangement, but Debbie maintained that she had set her sights on real intellectual achievement: she was not going to graduate school at Harvard, she was headed for Oxford. Uncle Henry said this was possible. Debbie knew that if she had gone to U.Va. or even UMass, her late nights at the library could have turned into dates with boys also spending time in the library, but if you were at a Seven Sisters, at Mount Holyoke, this was not the case.

So now she was at a mixer, standing in the corner, dabbing her eyes with a paper napkin, because every boy reminded her of Tim — not because they looked like Tim, but because they filled spaces that her brother should have filled. One gawky kid after another walked across the dance floor, dribbling his beer, his Adam’s apple poking out, and his mouth half open. Always, Debbie had known that Tim was better-looking than she was, because the eyes of strangers slid past her and rested on him. Always, she had known that he got away with murder and so she had to do everything right. Always, she had been petty and irritable. Well, now she had taken Psychology 101, and Family Dynamics, and Elementary Freudian Theory, and she had identified herself as the wicked stepsister whose foot was too big for the glass slipper no matter what size the glass slipper was. In other words, she was a realist, surrounded by fantasists.

One of the gawky boys, this one at least six four, came to a halt in front of her and said, “You dance?”

“I have danced,” said Debbie.

“I danced, I have danced, I had danced, I might have danced, I could have danced, I should have danced.”

“English major,” said Debbie.

“Might you dance in the near future?” said the boy.

Debbie stepped away from the wall. The song was “Ruby Tuesday.” Debbie moved around, and the kid moved around near her, but not too near her. The song changed to “Georgy Girl,” which Debbie didn’t like, so she stood still for a moment, then backed away. Unfortunately, he followed her.

After ten the same evening, Debbie was still talking to this guy, whose name was David (not Dave) Kissell, a junior at Wesleyan. He already knew her entire name, Debbie Manning, and he also knew that her brother Tim had been killed in Vietnam, something only her best friend and her roommate knew. David Kissell’s eyebrows had not risen. He had not backed away from her in either horror or disapproval, and when the tears came, he had supplied her with a clean paper napkin and a fresh beer. He said, easy as you please, “Come with me to the march. Someone in my dorm has a car. Three of us are going, and you can come along.” Debbie said, “I don’t know. Maybe.” And then they went back into the dining hall and danced to “You Keep Me Hangin’ On,” and David said he was from Long Island and had seen Vanilla Fudge live. When he walked her back to her dorm in time for midnight curfew, he kissed her not on the lips but on the forehead.

He met her at the corner where her ride to Middletown dropped her off. She saw the three other girls stare at him for a moment and then dismiss him — he was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, and his hair was below his collar (though clean — he smelled good). He took her little bag, and they walked to a pizza parlor. There were two guys he knew there, about halfway through a sausage pizza with mushrooms. Debbie sat down. She had the shortest hair at the table, and the most boring color, plain brown. The guy across from her was wearing a long wool army-surplus coat with a belt, even though it was April, and he had a carefully trimmed mustache. He was clearly the leader. David introduced her to him first — Jeff MacDonald.

They went back to Jeff’s room, and pretty soon the boys were passing her a slender cigarettelike object which she knew was a joint. She took it, but when she sat staring at it, David gently removed it from her fingers and passed it to Jeff, who nodded thoughtfully and took another “hit.” He had a nice stereo, and they were listening to the Electric Prunes.

The plan was to leave for New York by six, so she slept in David’s single bed with him, which, in spite of years of slumber parties, she could not say she was used to. But he was nice, and anyway, he took a sleeping pill.