“I have a nightgown, I just hate wearing it,” said Ruthie. It was true, she had one. A synthetic fabric, embarrassing, nothing like the thick cotton of the Lanz nightgowns. Also, she always had hated wearing it; she preferred sleeping in T-shirts and underwear. “It gets all tangled up and I don’t sleep well.”
“Well, you could wear it when you come over at night,” whispered Melissa, who then looked at Nancy. They giggled in silence. This involved putting their hands over their mouths and shaking ever so slightly while smiling with their teeth shut. Then they turned their eyes on Ruthie.
“It’s just that we don’t like looking at your underwear,” said Melissa. She had waist-long hair, the color of wheat. It reminded Ruthie of a horse’s mane. Suddenly, Ruthie missed her horse, very un-creatively named Sandy, back in Indiana.
This was one of those situations that Ruthie played one of two ways; one, she could acquiesce, acknowledging the superiority and rightness of her wealthier, more sophisticated friends. Or, she could play the tough girl from the wrong side of the tracks. The latter worked only some of the time. If it did work, she would garner some fear and awe. When it failed, she was met with either pity or repulsion, or some combination of the two.
“Deal with it,” Ruthie said. She didn’t whisper as well as she should. She was naturally a very loud girl, a Midwestern trait, for sure. “It’s not like we don’t all have the same parts. Don’t be such prudes.” Then she pointed at her crotch. “You each have one of these, too. Or at least I hope you do.”
Nancy and Melissa looked stunned. Part of this was because of how stoned they were. Ruthie tried to read if it had worked or failed. Not that it really mattered. Sometimes, she just tried her hardest and hoped for the best.
“Whatever,” said Nancy.
“Oh fine, I’ll wear my nightgown next time,” Ruthie said.
The following day was Saturday, a half day of classes at Lyndon. Ruthie was not accustomed to school on the weekends and it still was a terrible affront to her. She struggled through Advanced Biology, having entered because science had once been her best subject. Next came English, where they discussed Shakespeare’s Richard III. Was he a bad man? Certainly it was a little bit more complicated than that. Or at least the ways in which he was bad were worthy of discussion. Her teacher was a kind, very tall Asian-American man named Mr. Lin. And lastly, Ruthie chewed her nails through Algebra. Done! She headed back to the dorm where she changed into jeans. Only on Saturday afternoons and Sundays were the children allowed to wear jeans. Thank God Levi’s were a universally okay thing to wear. Alicia was at her desk, despondent over a textbook.
“Classes just ended, Alicia, give it a break!” Ruthie said as she searched for her cigarettes.
Alicia looked up from where she sat. “I’m going to fail. I’m going to fail everything and I have nowhere to go. I can’t go back to Atlanta. You smoke pot all day with those rich girls, and you still get better grades than me.”
“I wouldn’t say I get very good grades,” said Ruthie. She was getting all C’s, except maybe in English and Art a B. This, after being a straight-A student in South Bend.
“You’re not failing.” Alicia turned back to her textbook.
“Ask for extra help.”
“I have.”
Ruthie didn’t know what else to say. “I’m going to the butt room.”
“I figured.”
“I’ll see you later.”
The butt room was located in the basement of Condon Hall right next to the laundry, which Ruthie greatly underused, as opposed to the butt room, which was like a second home to her. An airless, dingy room with three wooden benches and littered with cigarette butts, it had a pathetic fan that whirred on the ceiling. It was the only place the girls were allowed to smoke. Melissa and Nancy were there, puffing on Merits, which Ruthie switched to after being made fun of for her Kools.
“Ruthie, we’re sneaking out tonight and going over to Bob and Jesse’s room. You should come. They have a great weed and sometimes other stuff.”
Ruthie wanted to hug them but then thought better. “Okay, what time?”
“Midnight, meet in the common room,” Melissa said. She gave her long, straight horse hair a shake.
Midnight came and one by one the girls tiptoed down to the common room, across from the laundry room, spacious, with a few dirty couches and a small television. The windows were ground level. They all listened very carefully. Had anyone heard them? Was Miss Cranch on the prowl? After all telepathically discussing this through wide-eyed stares and deciding they’d gotten this far without getting busted, they carefully opened a window and looked outside. It was a hundred-yard dash to the boys’ dorm. Ruthie noticed that Nancy was wearing deep red lipstick that looked amazing with her dark hair, and Melissa had on delicate blue eyeliner. Ruthie had given up on make-up altogether as her orangey base and black eyeliner were not a hit. She was having a moment of envy and awe. This happened a lot.
Melissa explained, “There’s one night watchman for the whole campus. But we could get unlucky, so if it’s all clear we still need to run like hell.” And that is what they did, without coats or shoes, in the cool October night. It took minutes but it felt a lifetime, and soon the three girls were sitting on Jesse’s bed, with Bob and Martin in the room, too. A tapestry hung on the wall, another over the window. Grateful Dead posters abounded, and the song “Sugar Magnolia” played gently in the room. The boys were less fearful. Their dorm monitor didn’t give a shit. He was the junior lacrosse coach and very handsome. In fact, they claimed he occasionally got high with them. They didn’t even use hit towels.
As perplexing as the girls at Lyndon were to Ruthie, the boys were from another planet. Jesse in particular had the most intense lockjaw. Ruthie often nodded while he talked, but really she had no idea on earth what came out of his mouth. Bob was a little more normal. At least she could understand him. And then there was Martin, a dark-haired, extremely tall boy. He most exotically was from Los Angeles, a place that Ruthie imagined was like a fairy tale from her childhood, full of strange things like dwarves and unbearable sunshine. Everyone gossiped how Martin was heir to a huge department store chain. And then there was the way they dressed. They wore incredibly baggy, ill-fitting, worn corduroys, tie-dyed T-shirts, and beat-up deck shoes which were in stark contrast to the tight jeans and cowboy boots the boys in Indiana wore. She found these boys effeminate, not just because of the way they talked, nor their slim builds — everyone was a jock in Indiana — but deck shoes? Girls wore them, too. She had never seen them before and yet everyone wore them with a sense of pride, especially if they were falling apart. This baffled Ruthie. Why would young men wear shoes that women also wore? Why were shabby things so cool? These were insanely rich boys. Why didn’t they wear nice clothes? They wore suits when they had to, but otherwise they looked like pansy slobs.
The bong got passed around. Jesse said something, and Ruthie nodded. Soon, everyone was blind stoned. Martin leaned over and opened a package which contained dried up brownish things. “Shrooms,” he said. Melissa and Nancy looked at each other nearly gasping for joy as they popped a couple of the gross looking things in their mouth.
“Come on, Ruthie,” Martin said, lifting one of his bushy black eyebrows. “Don’t you want to trip?”
Ruthie had never tripped and wasn’t so sure she wanted to, but she was a curious, adventurous spirit, otherwise she wouldn’t be in the boys’ dorm, let alone at Lyndon. How many girls from Indiana choose to go to boarding school? Because it was her choice, unlike most of the students. She reached into the package and carefully chose two of the least disgusting shriveled mushrooms. Eating them, she focused on their texture, their musty taste, and then it was over.