Read Online The Virgins by Pamela Erens - Free Book Online Page B

better pedigree than Voss or many of his day school friends. At a place like Auburn, you’d think that would matter, and for generations it did matter, but somehow, by the time I arrived, it didn’t so much anymore.
    The Dramat is partly to blame, I know that. Taking part in the productions now and again is fine, if it’s seen as just for fun, or if you’re a girl. If you’re a guy, and you really care . . . My passion for the theater nudged me into the category of kid who is a bit suspect, whom you can snub when the mood takes you.
    Lisa dislikes Voss very much. She thinks he’s coarse and a bully, and who can really disagree? Cort doesn’t rub herquite so much the wrong way; at least he makes an effort to include her in his jokes and to sound out her opinions. Voss, for his part, doesn’t take too much trouble to hide the fact that he considers Lisa even more socially negligible than me. She’s too earnest, right-minded, and intelligent—all things Voss, on some level, knows he is not. You may be wondering how it is that I myself would end up with such an earnest and right-minded girl. And what such a girl would want with me. But there is more connecting the two of us than it might seem. Lisa genuinely enjoys theater, for one thing. And I can find it a relief to be with someone apparently devoid of my primary personality trait, sourness. As for what Lisa gets out of it, all I can say is that her choices, like mine, are rather limited. Neither of us has been anointed as one of Auburn’s Top Sweethearts.
    Lisa is silent as we follow Voss into one of the rearmost train cars. It’s an axiom that the farther back the car, the noisier it is and the more drinking that goes on. I can see that Lisa hates the raucous laughter, and she tenses as Voss keeps needling her to accept a swig of his Wild Turkey. When a kid who must have started the day with a cocktail throws up just past Stamford, she says it’s time to move. Frankly I’m ready for a little quiet myself. The headache I always develop when I visit home is going into its fifth day and is outstripping Extra-Strength Tylenol’s ability to keep it in check.
    We have already seated ourselves four cars up when I notice Aviva and Seung a few rows ahead, and by then it’s too late to invent an excuse to move again. Aviva sits against thewindow, smiling as she watches Connecticut roll by. The two hold hands: very sweet. I’m surprised to see them here, away from the party atmosphere Seung loves, but perhaps Aviva, like Lisa, was in charge of seating arrangements today. After a while, Mac MacMillan, a kid who apparently likes a solitary and meditative toke, passes Seung a joint; he takes a brief hit and then holds it out to Aviva, who shakes her head. He bends and puffs a little smoke into her ear. She squirms and smacks him playfully. Their eyes meet. He leans to kiss her. They don’t gobble and pant like other couples you see on the train, and their discretion stabs me more than flaunting would. They give off something of the vibe of the long-together couple who are Getting It so often that they don’t need to show off. They part every so often to gaze at each other, Aviva lifting her hand to stroke Seung’s cheek. She smiles; he doesn’t. He’s in too deep to smile. “You like watching, huh?” says someone across from me, some prep or lower punk I don’t even recognize. I fix him with a stare; he snorts and looks away. Lisa, reading her biology textbook, pretends not to hear.

19
    Seung has got his hands on something new. Quaaludes, he tells her; methaqualone if you want to know the scientific name. There are four medium-sized white pills taped inside a packet of white tissue paper. Seung goes to the library—the public library, not the Academy library—to research the stuff he and his friends put into their bodies. It’s not so much that he’s concerned about his health, just that he likes to see the molecular diagrams with their long, hyphenated names,