Class - Cecily Von Ziegesar [28]
As far as the election was concerned, no matter what the Dexter Democrats wanted Eliza to believe about Bill Clinton, Ross Perot already had her vote. He was a fucking renegade badass who was going to revolutionize the whole fucking process. Not everyone fit in the box. In fact, she’d had an interesting run-in this morning with someone who definitely didn’t. She was in the room alone, studying cross-sections of a smiling chimpanzee’s brain in her Psychology textbook, when the door to the room started to rattle and shake. She thought maybe it was a tremor—she’d read somewhere that even Maine had tremors—but nothing else was shaking. She decided it must be Sea Bass and Damascus, throwing their beer guts around next door as they polished off another keg. She got up and opened the door.
A guy stood in front of her, dry-erase pen poised. Despite the sweltering late summer heat, he wore a dirty black parka with a leaky tear in the chest, dirty maroon Dexter sweatpants, and dirty work boots. His long blond hair was matted and his beard was flecked with bits of grass and other miscellaneous crap.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“Leaving Shipley a note,” he told her gruffly.
“Figures,” she said, and slammed the door.
“The band’s starting,” Eliza observed now with a yawn. “Let’s get some food.”
Adam followed the group to the food line. When he and Shipley had arranged to meet at the barbecue, he’d hoped the others would stay away. But wasn’t this what he wanted? Friends? A life? His sister had practically drop-kicked him out the door. “Get the fuck out of here,” she’d said. “And don’t come back till you’ve gotten some action.”
The Grannies were playing “Sugar Magnolia.” Clouds of charcoal smoke drifted through the warm air. A group of girls with bells tied around their ankles danced in a ring, flipping their long hair from side to side, their eyes unfocused and their wrists limp. Professor Rosen lay on the grass while someone read her palm. She appeared to be a favorite among the older students. A group of freshman girls who looked about thirteen kicked off their flip-flops and dangled their feet into the lake, arms around each other’s shoulders as they swayed in time to the music. Beyond the lake and the smoky chaos surrounding it, Dexter’s brick buildings stood poised and resolute.
Shipley tried to take everything in, but there was too much to process. With a total population of only nineteen hundred, Dexter was a small college in a small town, but it still felt overwhelming compared to high school.
She pressed her lips against her roommate’s ear. “Sea Bass and Damascus are going to finagle us some beer.”
“Good for them.” Eliza sounded unimpressed. She resented it when boys waited on girls. She was trying to turn Shipley into a feminist.
“They’re just being polite,” Shipley would argue. “They were taught to do that by their own mothers.”
“Yes, but don’t you see?” Eliza would point out. “The more they wait on us, the weaker we are. It’s how they keep us down!”
Shipley didn’t have an answer for that. She knew she could push a door open herself, but it sure was nice when a guy opened it for her.
They loaded their plates. Two cheeseburgers with everything on them, a corn dog, and a huge pile of potato chips for Tom. Nick filled up a bun with potato chips, tomatoes, cheese, lettuce, pickles, mustard, and ketchup—a vegetarian’s delight. Eliza selected a foot-long hot dog, which Shipley was sure she was only eating because it was shaped like a penis. Shipley chose a bleu cheese burger with tomato. Adam got a hot dog with ketchup just to see if he could taste the rat testicles his mom insisted they were made with.
“She’s got everything delightful,
she’s got everything I