Read Online Autobiography of Us by Aria Beth Sloss - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Aria Beth Sloss
Tags: General Fiction
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goddamn nun.” She stubbed her cigarette out in the ceramic dish we kept beside the phone. “I deserve a little fun, don’t you think? It’s been ages since I had a little fun.”
Their date was on a Friday. I remember because it was the weekend before exams and it was unseasonably chilly, the breeze strong enough that I took a scarf when I left for the library that afternoon. I kept a study carrel there in a corner of the fourth floor so the other girls couldn’t accuse me of being a grind. So long as I didn’t try to work in the dorm, no one could accuse me of anything besides being out, though in retrospect I don’t suppose I was fooling anyone. Still, I liked working there enough not to care. It was smaller than the old Pasadena library, but the windows were big, the carpet kept meticulously clean. French literature—that was the section directly behind where I worked, and, when I tired of reading, I often let my gaze drift to the names written in gilt lettering down the spines: Sartre , Gide , Baudelaire .
It was late by the time I left my carrel the night of their date, dinner long over. I remember I was half delirious from studying and glad to be out in the fresh air, the breeze carrying the smell of the jacarandas that lined the far quad. An unnatural quiet had descended across that part of campus, the only sound the low vibrato of the creek frogs. I gazed up at the sky as I walked, in no particular hurry to get home. I liked picking out the constellations, each angle fixed to a star precise as a pinprick. Andromeda, Cassiopiea, Ursa Major and Minor.
But I won’t pretend I was so engrossed in the skies that I forgot about Alex and Bertrand Lowell. I’d been thinking idly about their date all day while I worked: I pictured them walking down Sunset to the theater, the way he might, smiling, remove a fallen leaf from her hair. As I crossed the footpath over to the women’s quad, where yellow lamplight spilled through the windows of Cullers Hall down across the grass, I felt that sudden desire to be home that still strikes me from time to time, a loneliness that makes me want to shut myself up somewhere familiar. The moon slid out from behind Bellweather Hall and I quickened my pace, half-running as I crossed the last pathway to Cullers and pushed the heavy door open, taking the stairs to my bedroom two at a time.
* * *
I’d just pulled my nightgown over my head when Alex burst through the door.
“What in the world—”
She pushed past me and threw herself on the bed. “Disgusting,” she said. Her face was very pale. “I’d like to know who gave them the right to be so disgusting.”
“Who?”
She glared at me as though I was being purposefully obtuse. “Men,” she snapped. “Bertrand Lowell.” She’d had to hit him to get him to stop, she said. She’d asked first, nicely, and he’d stopped for a minute. His kitchen hot, she said. Hellish , both of them sweating like pigs. They’d started out just kissing, and because it felt good, she’d let it keep going. His fingers went to the buttons of her blouse next: She let that go too. It wasn’t until they moved up from her knees and up the back of her legs under her skirt that she tried to push him away. He laughed and told her she was gorgeous. Somehow her skirt ended up around her waist. He was strong, she said. Stronger than he looked. They were down on the floor and he was pinning her, she said; he had her by the wrists. It wasn’t until it started to hurt—and it hurt , she said fiercely; no one ever said it would hurt like that—that she’d managed to work her hand free and bring the flat of her palm against his jaw, her ring cutting a half-moon just in front of his ear.
You little bitch. He’d actually called her that. And then he’d sat there on the floor, cradling the side of his face with one hand as she grabbed her purse and ran.
This was 1965, remember. The words we had for what he’d done fell short of adequate. We
Their date was on a Friday. I remember because it was the weekend before exams and it was unseasonably chilly, the breeze strong enough that I took a scarf when I left for the library that afternoon. I kept a study carrel there in a corner of the fourth floor so the other girls couldn’t accuse me of being a grind. So long as I didn’t try to work in the dorm, no one could accuse me of anything besides being out, though in retrospect I don’t suppose I was fooling anyone. Still, I liked working there enough not to care. It was smaller than the old Pasadena library, but the windows were big, the carpet kept meticulously clean. French literature—that was the section directly behind where I worked, and, when I tired of reading, I often let my gaze drift to the names written in gilt lettering down the spines: Sartre , Gide , Baudelaire .
It was late by the time I left my carrel the night of their date, dinner long over. I remember I was half delirious from studying and glad to be out in the fresh air, the breeze carrying the smell of the jacarandas that lined the far quad. An unnatural quiet had descended across that part of campus, the only sound the low vibrato of the creek frogs. I gazed up at the sky as I walked, in no particular hurry to get home. I liked picking out the constellations, each angle fixed to a star precise as a pinprick. Andromeda, Cassiopiea, Ursa Major and Minor.
But I won’t pretend I was so engrossed in the skies that I forgot about Alex and Bertrand Lowell. I’d been thinking idly about their date all day while I worked: I pictured them walking down Sunset to the theater, the way he might, smiling, remove a fallen leaf from her hair. As I crossed the footpath over to the women’s quad, where yellow lamplight spilled through the windows of Cullers Hall down across the grass, I felt that sudden desire to be home that still strikes me from time to time, a loneliness that makes me want to shut myself up somewhere familiar. The moon slid out from behind Bellweather Hall and I quickened my pace, half-running as I crossed the last pathway to Cullers and pushed the heavy door open, taking the stairs to my bedroom two at a time.
* * *
I’d just pulled my nightgown over my head when Alex burst through the door.
“What in the world—”
She pushed past me and threw herself on the bed. “Disgusting,” she said. Her face was very pale. “I’d like to know who gave them the right to be so disgusting.”
“Who?”
She glared at me as though I was being purposefully obtuse. “Men,” she snapped. “Bertrand Lowell.” She’d had to hit him to get him to stop, she said. She’d asked first, nicely, and he’d stopped for a minute. His kitchen hot, she said. Hellish , both of them sweating like pigs. They’d started out just kissing, and because it felt good, she’d let it keep going. His fingers went to the buttons of her blouse next: She let that go too. It wasn’t until they moved up from her knees and up the back of her legs under her skirt that she tried to push him away. He laughed and told her she was gorgeous. Somehow her skirt ended up around her waist. He was strong, she said. Stronger than he looked. They were down on the floor and he was pinning her, she said; he had her by the wrists. It wasn’t until it started to hurt—and it hurt , she said fiercely; no one ever said it would hurt like that—that she’d managed to work her hand free and bring the flat of her palm against his jaw, her ring cutting a half-moon just in front of his ear.
You little bitch. He’d actually called her that. And then he’d sat there on the floor, cradling the side of his face with one hand as she grabbed her purse and ran.
This was 1965, remember. The words we had for what he’d done fell short of adequate. We
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