Class - Cecily Von Ziegesar [81]
Through the aching strains of music she detected the inharmonious sound of someone knocking on her door.
“Hello?” she called, sitting up very straight.
The door opened a crack. “Shipley? Are you in there?”
For a moment Shipley thought she might be having one of her daydreams—the pornographic ones she used to have before she’d come to college. A tall, handsome stranger would walk into her dorm room, mistaking it for his own, while she lay half-asleep in her bed. He’d strip down to his boxer shorts and perform some ritualistic football team stretching routine involving karate chops and grunts and taut muscle flexes, completely oblivious to her watching from beneath the covers. Then he’d slip into bed, and, pleasantly surprised to find the bed occupied by none other than Shipley herself, would proceed to make passionate love to her, from behind. In the morning she’d wake up to find him stroking her hair and gazing adoringly into her face. “What’s your name?” he’d say.
“It’s Adam.”
Shipley turned toward the door. “Adam?”
“I waited for you,” he said, coming into the room. The shoulders of his blue parka were dusted with snow. “Finally I just decided to come look for you.”
The truth was that Adam had been driving in circles around Dexter’s campus for almost two hours, daring himself. The visibility got so bad he finally pulled over. Now he was here. And—miraculously—she was here too.
“It’s snowing so hard,” she said, closing her book. Chopin trilled away on the piano. Nocturne in G Major, Opus 37, Andantino. Or had the tape switched over to Beethoven?
Adam unzipped his jacket halfway. Taking it off all the way felt too presumptuous. “I was going to offer to drive you back to the party, but it’s pretty bad out there….”
“No, please. Come in. Sit down,” Shipley said.
Adam took off his jacket and hung it on the doorknob. He sat down on the end of her bed. “Maybe in the morning we can ski,” he said stupidly. He didn’t even know how to ski, except cross-country, which didn’t count.
“My father just bought a house in Hawaii,” Shipley said. “Did you know they can ski there?”
“Skiing in Hawaii?” Adam exclaimed loudly. “I thought it was all volcanoes and beaches.”
It was the most inane conversation either of them had ever had.
“You were great in the play.” Shipley walked over to the bed and sat down next to Adam. His jeans were damp. His legs were very long. “But I—”
She wanted to tell him that she’d made a mistake. That she hadn’t meant to kiss him that time, in Professor Rosen’s kitchen. She wanted to tell him that she’d had a rough evening, what with Tom being such a mess and throwing up everywhere, and Tom’s mother seeing those pictures of her naked. Instead she found herself wanting to knock Adam down on the bed and kiss him again. The tape flipped over and new music came on. Violins and a cello. It was a Mozart sonata, or a Bach concerto. Dolce ma non troppo or dulce de leche. Oh, hadn’t she learned anything?
“I don’t want you to think I came here to—” Adam began and then stopped. It was pretty obvious why he’d come.
Shipley smiled. “I was beginning to feel like such a loser, studying on a Saturday. Everyone’s at your party.”
Adam wasn’t sure if he was imagining things, but she seemed to be coming closer and closer. She smelled like fish and chips and cigarette smoke.
“Have you been to the Lobster Shack recently?” he asked,