“Tanqueray. It’s a brand of gin.”
“You know a lot about drinking,” she said, somewhat accusatorily.
“I’m an RPI student. It’s on the application. They ask how much you drink, and if the figure isn’t high enough, you can’t get in.”
“I almost believe you! I still can’t believe you drank flame last night!”
I had to grin at that. “That? That was nothing, just an old parlor trick.” Marilyn has a disbelieving look in her eyes. “Okay, here’s how it works. Alcohol has a very low temperature when it’s burning…”
“Yes, but it was burning,” she said, interrupting me.
“Right, but it’s a much lower temperature than oil or gas or other things. Anyway, there’s more to it than that. Booze won’t burn unless it’s at least fifty percent alcohol, or 100 proof. Southern Comfort is just 100 proof, so it will burn, but just barely. As soon as I got it past my lips, it ran out of oxygen and went out. It didn’t burn me at all.”
“What’s his name, the other guy, he was saying how hot it was.”
I grinned at that. “That’s because I set him up to lose. He was so drunk… Anyway, if you remember, I lit his glass first, and then waited a few seconds before lighting mine. Then I slammed mine back so fast the shot glass didn’t have a chance to warm up. Ghormley stared at his for a while, and was scared. He didn’t want to burn that mustache of his. By the time he tried, he had burned his fingers.”
“So why didn’t your fingers burn when you picked up his glass?”
I mimed grabbing the shot glass and slamming it. “I don’t think I had it in my fingers for five seconds.”
“You’ve got an answer for everything! What if you had a mustache, too, or he didn’t?”
I laughed at that. “Then I’d have had to come up with something else, wouldn’t I! Maybe I should have just let you dance with him!”
Marilyn rolled her eyes at that. She asked me where I had learned about the trick, and I spun a yarn about doing it with friends in high school. In reality I learned about it at Kegs. I also knew how stupid it could be, seeing one guy burn his mustache, and another guy so drunk that when he slammed it back, he missed his mouth and spilled it down the side of his neck, which promptly caught on fire. That was a nice burn. I didn’t think I would ever do it again.
Once we were served our drinks, we ordered matching surf and turfs, sirloins and lobster tails, medium rare. Marilyn offered to let me taste her drink, which I did (very sweet and cold, the better to hide the booze) and I gave her a taste of my gin and tonic, which she didn’t like as much. We talked some more about booze, when she asked where the blue in her drink came from. I remembered seeing this on a TV show once, and described the process of making liqueurs. When she asked how I knew about it, I gave her the story about the RPI application again.
“Enough about me and my dissolute habits. Tell me about Marilyn Lefleur and her dissolute habits,” I said.
“I don’t have any dissolute habits!” she protested.
“Really? Those are the best kind of habits. Besides, I already know you have a bunch of them.”
“Like what?”
“Well, you hang around frat houses, luring young boys into duels, and then sleep with them. Sounds pretty dissolute to me.”
She grinned at that. “You are never going to let me hear the end of that, are you?”
“And I told you, it will be a great story to tell your grandchildren someday. Especially if you tell it while your children are around to be properly scandalized.”
“So what did your grandparents ever tell you?” she countered.
“My mom’s parents made booze in the bathtub during Prohibition. Does that count?”
“I’m seeing a real trend here.”
I had to laugh at that, and then nodded and agreed. I got her to start telling me about her family. I already knew it, of course but it was good to hear it from her again, fresh.
Marilyn was the oldest of nine children, and her mother was currently pregnant with number ten. Needless to say, they were Roman Catholic. She had gone to parochial schools, in her case UCA, Utica Catholic Academy, which was the girl’s school in Utica. Boys went to Notre Dame, which hadn’t turned coed until after she left. The next seven kids in the family were all boys, which made growing up difficult in some ways, but better in others. She never had a roommate, for one thing.
“I gather your mother didn’t use the Pill.”
“That’s against the rules,” she replied.
“Not that pill. I mean an aspirin. That prevents pregnancy, too.”
“How?” she asked, curiously.
I leaned forward and whispered, “You hold it firmly between the knees.”
Marilyn’s face lit up in a huge grin. “She obviously never got that lesson!”
I kept her talking about growing up in such a big family, and it was easy, since she was very much a family girl. In many ways, except for meeting me, Saint Rose was very much a mistake for Marilyn. Family was critical, and this was the first time in her life she was away from them. Without the structure of family life she was adrift in a sea of endless changes. While she never admitted it to me, I already knew from experience that she was already on academic probation after her first semester. She lacked the focus and discipline necessary to keep at her studies. I also got her talking about teaching and children. She was majoring in elementary education, and wanted to teach at the grade school level. Again, her lack of focus and drive would be a problem in the future. She never went back to school to get her masters, which is pretty much a requirement, even though most school districts give you five years and will pay for it.
Still, I just loved hearing her talk like this, so young and innocent and full of plans for the future. I let her chatter away, which was astonishingly easy. Certainly all of our children wondered if she ever stopped talking. I would tell them she even talked in her sleep. Finally, after dinner, drinks, and dessert, it was time to leave. The snow was still coming down slowly, but it wasn’t sticking much yet. I bundled her into the car and drove back to Saint Rose.
I held onto her in the lee of the doorway and kissed her. “I want to see you again.”
“Me too. When?”
“Tomorrow. Monday. Tuesday. You tell me when.”
“Next Friday,” she replied. “You know, you still haven’t told me anything about your family yet.”
“I haven’t drunk anywhere near enough to talk about them.” She opened the door into the closed foyer of her building. “Give me your phone number.”
She jotted down a number on a slip and I tucked it into my pocket. We had one last, long kiss and then I drove back to the dorm.
Chapter 29: Polar Bears and Baby Seals
I talked to Marilyn on the phone Sunday afternoon, and a couple of times more during the week. She was an excellent way to take my mind off classes. I was beginning to doubt the wisdom of what I was attempting to do. Being a genius is all well and good, but 24 credits is still a shitload of credits and hours! This semester I was taking mostly junior level courses with a few senior classes tossed in. By the end of the semester, assuming I didn’t crack up and start drooling, I would have about 100 credits or more. This semester I was taking Assembler Language and Compiler Design, among the computer courses, and Information Theory and Topology, among the math courses. I was also starting to spend time with Professor Rhineburg, who taught both the Information Theory and Topology courses. Both subjects were completely fascinating, and had been of interest to me way back when. That was where I wanted to get my doctorate, and I was trying to stay in his good graces. What I was trying to do was unusual but not unheard of; he could either be a big help or put the kibosh on the whole thing!