Higher Education by Liane Kupferberg Carter

Sotto Voce

{ m a i n } { s u b m i t } { g u i d e l i n e s } { a b o u t u s } { j o i n u s } { l i n k s } { s u b s c r i b e }

higher education by Liane Kupferberg-Carter Summer hadn’t been my college roommate for more than an hour before she told me she’d been voted most popular girl in her high school class. She let it slip casually as we unpacked our trunks in the cinder-block cubicle we’d been assigned. I’d arrived first. My mother insisted on spraying the shelves with Lysol. I watched in helpless fury as she lined the garbage can with contact paper and made the narrow cot up with new and hideous designer sheets I planned to lose in the laundry faster than I intended to shed my virginity. “There,” she said. “Isn’t that perky?” “Terminally so,” I muttered, just as a girl with lank blond hair backed into the room holding one end of a trunk. A curly head appeared at the other end of the trunk, connected to a boy Summer breezily introduced. “Honey, you left the car unlocked,” she said. He trotted out, never to be seen again. “Your boyfriend?” my mother said. “Mom,” I said, humiliated but curious. “Oh, no, I’m too young to get serious,” Summer said. She’d obviously been around parents. Mine fully expected I’d be sent home mid-semester, embalmed in beer, needles hanging out of my arm, illegitimate grandchild in tow. The night before, Dad had come to tuck me in and deliver his Polonius speech. He’d perched uncomfortably on the edge of the bed; words failed him. “Man’s not made of wood,” he’d finally said. Mother watched Summer unpack enough cosmetics to fill a Clinique counter. She was getting her soggy nostalgia look remembering her years at junior college. She still nurtured fantasies of giddy girls swapping clothes endlessly. Sometimes it was more than I could bear, living with an aging Hayley Mills. I watched Summer empty a suitcase. Not a chance of sharing clothes; even if she weren’t two sizes smaller, precious prints weren’t my look. “How old are you, dear?” my mother said, vigorously damp-mopping the linoleum floor. “Almost seventeen, Mrs. Bernstein,” Summer said. I knew with dread what Mother’s next question would be. “Your parents let you drive up all alone?” Summer smiled disarmingly. “I didn’t want them here,” she said. “Anyway, they’re in Cabos.” I was filled with admiration. Didn’t want them? “Do you have any siblings?” Mother persisted. “One sister. She’s staying with my grandmother in Queens.” “Oh, are you from Queens? Where?” Mother said, shaking the mop out the window. “Mom,” I said. “No, we haven’t lived in Queens since I was born.” “Lillith was born in Queens too. You have so much in common. Isn’t this nice,” Mother said. Dad stood. “I think it’s time to go, Grace,” he said, taking Mother’s arm. “My little girl,” Mother said, her eyes going wide and wet behind the bifocals. She opened her arms, so I grudgingly hugged her. Her blond head barely reached my chin. “Don’t forget to put toilet paper on the seat,” she whispered. ### “If she’d stayed much longer, she would have run up matching bedspreads,” I said to Summer. “So what are you majoring in?

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” “Biology,” she said. “I was a candy striper last year.” “So what do you want to be when you grow up?” “Married,” she said. “Hey, look at all these CDs.” As she flipped through the carton, we talked warily about music, sizing each other up. It’s metaphoric; you can tell an awful lot about someone who prefers Alanis Morissette to the Circle Jerks. There wasn’t a group she hadn’t heard of, a CD she didn’t own, though most of them had been left back in Pine Brook, New Jersey, she said, because she didn’t plan on being here long. “Where are you going?” “Oh, I’ll be at Princeton next year,” she said. “That’s where my boyfriend Scott is. Actually, I was accepted there too, but we thought it wasn’t a good idea to be at the same school, so I came here for a while.” “I guess you’ll be visiting back and forth a lot,” I said, thinking, she must be lying; who turns down Princeton ? “Oh, no, he’s too busy this fall,” she said, piling a collection of tattered stuffed animals on her bed. “He’s captain of the football team.” “That’s pretty dangerous,” I said. “Not really,” she said. “He’s pre-med.” ### I sat in the cafeteria, breathing the mingled fumes of overstewed beef and floor wax, glumly spooning up runny chocolate pudding and squinting at a copy of The Good Soldier because vanity had compelled me to leave my glasses back in the room. I’d left Summer sitting on the steps of the science quad; she said she wanted to “practice her tan.” We’d spent the morning taking swimming tests, where I had to listen to her seemingly endless list of accomplishments. Swimming was her only weak spot, she said, because she’d spent so many years playing the semi-pro tennis circuit. When questioned, she said that unfortunately she’d forgotten to bring her racquet, so she wouldn’t be trying out for the school team. Anyway, she had more important things to do. She was studying to be a nurse. “Not a doctor?” I said. “I’d rather marry one than be one.” She’d picked the right school. A third of the entering class had declared itself pre-med. “Delmore Schwartz should be shot,” said a male voice behind me. “What, are you kidding?” said a female voice. “Have you even read Delmore Schwartz? He’s totally awesome.” “Oh, get real,” muttered a slim girl in a black leotard and peasant skirt. She set a cup of black coffee on my table. “Excuse me?” “Them. Not you.” She dropped an oversized black velvet bag on the floor, sat fluidly, and said, “Mind if I sit here?” I put down my book. “Don’t stop for my sake,” she said, and picked up the book. “Ford Maddox Ford. A little redundant, don’t you think? Still, it’s probably the best French novel ever written in English.” “Are you a lit major?” I said, pleased. “No, history. Hi. I’m Agnes-Ann Horvath.” “Lillith Bernstein,” I said. “Where are you from?” “All over. Foreign service family. You?” “Westchester. Awfully prosaic.” “Au contraire,” Agnes said, lighting a thin cigar. With the other hand she lifted her cup. “This is swill. Why don’t you come up to my room for espresso? I’ll rescue you from this danse macabre.” I glanced around; a bunch of guys in “Hog Men” tee-shirts were screaming hilariously and flinging mashed potatoes at each other. “Okay,” I said, depositing my greasy tray on the conveyor belt. Agnes lived in the Castle, a mock-medieval structure that was all that remained of the university’s former medical college. It had been turned into residential suites and odd rooms, no two of which were alike. Agnes’s room looked like my fantasy of an opium den. It was cool, dark, and decorated with red cushions and billowy sheets that clung to the ceiling. Agnes tossed her bag

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in the direction of the bed, then went to get water. While she was gone I examined her books, which were mostly on German Expressionism and the Weimar Republic . Agnes returned and turned on her stereo. Jacques Brel lamented in French. I was beginning to wish I hadn’t studied Spanish in high school. “Are you a freshman?” “God, I hope it doesn’t show,” she said, shuddering theatrically. “How did you ever manage to get a single?” “Simple. I asked Edith’s shrink to write a note.” A psychiatric single. I was impressed anew. “Edith?” I said. “Ma mère. He was happy to oblige her. They’ve been lovers for years.” “No,” I said. “No,” she agreed. “But it sounds more interesting. Have you ever been in therapy?” “The very suggestion would prostrate my mother.” “Mine too. If I went into therapy she’d see it as her failure. So you haven’t got a single?” “No, I’ve got Summer. Summer Blossom.” “Get out of here. What’s her story?” “Well, this morning she told me she was third runner-up in the Junior Miss pageant.” “It is to gag,” Agnes said, drawing lazily on a joint and passing it to me. I felt a twinge of disloyalty. But only a twinge. “She’s here to get her M.R.S.” I confided. “Looking for Mr. Right.” “Me, I’d settle for Mr. Close,” said Agnes. I grinned. “So why’d you rescue me in the dining hall?” I said, nonchalantly taking my very first toke. “I was lonely,” Agnes said. ### Our friendship was immediate, and intense. She adopted me wholeheartedly, and I was a willing ward. I discarded my cotton shirts and crew neck sweaters, cloaking myself, like Agnes, entirely in black. We wore garter belts and black silk stockings Agnes had brought back from Switzerland, where she’d lived for the past four years. We drank endless cups of espresso, listened to Judy Garland and Edith Piaf records, read Radclyffe Hall and Gertrude Stein, lounged on mattresses that hugged the floor, burnt candles in wine bottles and quoted Sylvia Plath. Agnes had opinions on everything, which she vented freely, often in French. I signed up for a course. “What are you going to do with French?” Summer said, noticing the books that filled our shelves. “It isn’t useful, except in restaurants.” Everything was utilitarian with my roommate. Every night she washed her long hair and rolled it up on two Diet Pepsi cans to straighten it, pumiced her elbows, then applied mascara to her lashes. “Why do you do that at night?” I asked, fascinated. “It saves time in the morning,” she said. All of this I reported back to Agnes. “She probably puts Vaseline on her teeth too,” Agnes said airily. “How did you ever find each other?” “Someone in Housing had a sense of humor. Agnes?” “Yes?” she said, lining her inner eyelids with a midnight-blue kohl pencil. “What’s a technical virgin?” “Someone who’s never fooled around with machines,” Agnes said, blinking at her reflection. “Now there’s an archaic expression. Where’d you hear it?” “Summer.” “I should have guessed,” Agnes said, disgusted. “I hate women who wear their ovaries on their sleeves. The Unbesmirched. The Intact. The Pure.” Agnes stepped back from the mirror. “How’s that?” she said, turning to face me. “Trés Egyptian.” “Very Cleopatra,” I agreed. “Not too much like Elizabeth Taylor?” she said. “Oh, no.”

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“Lillith?” “Yes?” “A technical virgin is someone who’s done everything but. Usually the kind of person who says she’s saving herself.” “A refugee from a Sandra Dee movie.” “Exactly.” “A hypocrite.” “Exactly.” “Agnes?” “Yes?” “I’m a hypocrite.” “I thought as much,” Agnes said slowly. “Well, Lily of Larchmont, we’re just going to have to do something about that.” ### Agnes’s plan was simple. “We’ll find a professor,” she said. “Not a teaching assistant, someone older, who’ll be grateful. Preferably tenured, so he isn’t racked with performance anxiety.” It seemed awfully calculated, and I said as much. “Of course it is,” Agnes agreed. “Who would you prefer?” “No one.” The problem was, all the boys I’d met were too uncivilized. “Don’t you want to get this over with, so you can get on with your life?” Agnes demanded. “Is that how you did it?” I said. Agnes had told me a long, wandering story about a diplomat and a borrowed palazzo when she was fifteen, but was vague on details. “Too sordid,” she’d said, deflecting questions. “It’s supposed to be extraordinary the first time,” I said. “Spiritual.” “You want spiritual, go to a revival meeting,” she said. “Virginity is an encumbrance. The longer you wait, the more you’ll dread it.” “Sounds like periodontia.” “More like piercing your ears. Hurts once, then you’ve got something to show for it.” I wasn’t convinced. “Fear not,” Agnes said, twisting her hair into a chignon. “‘Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.’ We’ll scout out the perfect victim.” ### “Manley Hopewell,” Agnes whispered across the library table. “Is that a description or his name?” I hissed. Agnes sighed. “Lily, Lily, you’re going to have to trust me on this.” “He isn’t tenured,” I said. “Writers-in-residence don’t need tenure.” “But he’s notorious. And balding.” “Never hurt Yul Brenner.” “He writes sexist filth.” “I didn’t say he was perfect,” Agnes said. “Have you ever seen what’s under his tweed jacket?” “Leather patches.” “Biceps. Incredible pectoral definition. You said you wanted it spiritual. Here is a man who worships at the temple of the body.” “I’m an atheist.” “What you are is a supplicant. A seeker of wisdom. Manley Hopewell is offering higher education.” “And just how are we going to get past the hordes of graduate students flinging themselves at him?” “I have a plan,” Agnes said, reaching for a nail file. “Manley Hopewell doesn’t have a chance. Apres moi le déluge.” ### “Just write what I tell you,” Agnes said a week later, leaning back amid the stuffed animals on Summer’s bed. We had signed up for Manley’s freshman fiction workshop, and I was staring glumly at the first assignment. “Write a story about a character who does something he regrets,” Manley had said. Easy enough. I was regretting ever confessing my lack of experience to Agnes; here she was, editing my most intimate revelations into a lascivious read for the entire class. “This is emotional flashing,” I said. “No way am I going to turn this in. And where do you get this stuff about being widowed

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on my unconsummated wedding night?” “Medieval Drama 101,” she said. “Do you think Manley will recognize it? I’m especially proud of the part about the deranged organist and the droit de seigneur.” “I can’t go through with this.” “You’re right,” Agnes said, sliding a cigarillo out of her quilted Chanel purse. “Cross out the organist. Make it . . . your fatherin-law, trying to finish what his priapic son started.” I sighed and scratched out a sentence just as Summer arrived. An uneasy reprieve; Agnes and Summer had little to say to one another, but at least I could slide the assignment into the desk and deal with it later. ### “I don’t like her sitting on my bed, she leaves ash-holes. What do you see in her anyway?” Summer asked an hour later. She was slathering on her weekly face mask of Preparation H hemorrhoid medication, which made her look as if she sucked lemons for a living. “Ash-holes?” I said, wondering if Summer had a speech impediment. “Don’t you think those cigars are strange?” Summer insisted. “And those clothes.” “I never thought about it,” I said. “So unfeminine. If you’re not careful, Lillith, you’ll wind up just like her.” I looked at my rhinestone-studded black sweater. “And just what is that like?” Summer shrugged. “It’s none of my business, but people are beginning to talk about the two of you. Not that I care what people say. I always tell them it couldn’t possibly be true, because I’m your roommate and I’d be the first to know something like that.” “Like what?” I said. “You know,” Summer said uneasily, lowering her voice. I was incredulous, then flattered. People had noticed me; I must seem much more worldly than I felt. “Don’t worry, Summer, you’re not my type,” I said, joking, and was stunned to see from her startled expression that she was actually frightened. Of me. ### “He asked me to come in for a conference,” I told Agnes, two days after I’d handed in the assignment. “I knew he’d nibble,” she said, peeling grapes and dropping them into a crystal candy dish. She turned off a Lotte Lenya record. “Tell me everything. Did he call you his belle dame sans merci? That’s his usual approach.” “This isn’t going to work.” I slumped onto a cushion. “Lily, Lily, don’t get cranky on me. I’m doing this for you.” I was beginning to have my doubts. She seemed positively titillated by the whole scheme. Why had I allowed it to go this far? I had let her intimidate me, and I didn’t like it at all. ### “Some coffee?” Manley Hopewell said, closing the door behind me with an ominous thump. “Thanks, no. Bad for the complexion,” I said, then felt horribly embarrassed; Manley’s handsome face was pitted with the scars of adolescence. “I mean, no, coffee makes me jittery.” I’d already fortified myself with Agnes’s espresso a half hour earlier. Damn. Now he’d think I was a nervous twit. “Well, then,” he said, reaching into his drawer. I expected him to pull out a bottle of sherry, but instead, he placed a folder on the desk between us. “Lillith,” he said, studying his slender hands. “Tell me about yourself. For starters, where did you ever get that name?” “My mother read too many romances.” I stopped, but when I saw he expected more, continued nervously. “Actually, Lillith was the name of Adam’s wife before Eve. The spunky one he got rid of? I know, you’re probably thinking what’s a nice Jewish girl like me doing with the name of some demon out of Yiddish mythology.” “And are you? A nice Jewish girl?” “Unfortunately.” I sighed. Wasn’t this the reason I sat here in Agnes’s black silk bustier? “Why unfortunately? There are far worse things to be. The widowed teenage bride of a tortured, consumptive poet, for example.” “Oh,” I said. “That.” “Yes,” he said. “That.”

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“You aren’t buying?” I said, stricken, but mustering up my best imitation of Agnes. “Just what are you trying to sell?” He touched my cold hand, and I flinched. “Look,” he said, more kindly than I deserved. “I know writing fiction is hard and scary. But I’m sure you’ve heard the old saw about writing about what you know. I don’t want Grand Guignol. I want something small but true. I asked for an incident you regret, fictionalized. That’s all. Period.” He walked to the shelves, removed a book, pretended he wasn’t watching me squirm. “You’re friends with Agnes Horvath, aren’t you?” he said finally. Not any more, I thought. “Hmm,” I said, noncommittal. “Did she happen to show you her story for this assignment?” “No,” I said, sliding lower in my chair. “She wrote about persuading a friend to seduce an older man. Now, it took place in a palazzo, but aside from the gothic touches, it was very convincing. Positively Machiavellian. It resonated,” he said. “Do you know what I’m saying?” Oh, yes. I certainly did. “The voice was authentic. It was lyrical. It worked for you,” I said. I could bandy clichés with the best of them. “Exactly. Ask her to show it to you.” “I’ll do that,” I said, twitching. Agnes’s borrowed garters dug into my thighs. “Professor Hopewell? I’d like to do the assignment over.” “I was hoping you’d say that,” he said, grinning in that infamous way that left me cold. “Don’t think you have to cloak yourself in mystery. Flannery O’Connor once said that if you survive childhood, you’ve got enough material to write about the rest of your life.” He handed me the folder with my botched assignment, and squeezed my hand. “Even the least likely of us have pagan souls,” he said, staring into my eyes. ### Summer was packing when I slunk back to our room. “Taking all that stuff just for the weekend?” I said. Maybe she was visiting the alleged boyfriend at Princeton. To date she hadn’t received one letter or phone call from him that I knew of. Frankly, I doubted he existed. Summer stuffed a pair of tiny pink ballet slippers into her bag, too intent to look at me. “I’m moving out,” she said. “You’re leaving school?” I said. “But the semester barely started.” “I’m not leaving school,” she said, embarrassed. “You mean you want another roommate?” I said, thinking of all the times Agnes and I had snickered at Summer’s pretensions. So she wasn’t sophisticated, and she probably made up stories about being in beauty contests; suddenly that didn’t seem so reprehensible. Then I got it. I had done something to drive her out. My second royal screw-up of the day. Make that semester. “Just tell me why,” I said, guilt-stricken. “I’m not comfortable here,” she said. “Do I keep the light on too late? Play the stereo too loud? What?” “You know what,” she said, refusing to look at me. “So whatever it is, don’t I deserve a second chance?” Summer stopped fluttering. “I read the story you left in the desk last week,” she said finally. “I’m sorry, but that stuff was just too weird for me. I don’t think you’re a good influence.” We both knew who the real influence was. “And just where do you get off going through my desk? Who do you think you are, my mother?” I said, indignation vying with humiliation. “I talked to Housing,” Summer said. “Don’t worry, they aren’t going to move anyone else in here, so at least you’ll have a single.” Great. Now this incident would be part of my Permanent Record. “Well, that’s that,” I said. “I don’t know what else to say. Lots of luck. I’ll leave you to your packing. Need any help?” Summer looked stony. “Sorry,” I said. “I guess that was the wrong thing to say.” I balled my silk stockings in my fist, then dropped them in the trash. “I’ll get out of your way,” I said. I headed for the Castle; Agnes was waiting. ### She was reading Paris Match and guzzling a diet soda with lemon when I sat. She closed the magazine immediately.

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“Did it happen?” “It was . . . a revelation,” I said. She grinned. “Details.” “First let me get some coffee,” I said, and before she could object, I disappeared. “Stop stalling,” she said when I returned. “I forgot sugar.” “Lily! You don’t take sugar. Come on.” I leaned over my styrofoam cup, letting my face flush with steam. “I learned more than I dreamed possible.” “Yes?” “Yes. He said, ‘Lily, you are a mystery, cloaked in grace, wit, and barbed wire.’” “Not bad. What else?” “He said, ‘you have a pagan soul.’” “Excellent. And?” “He said I’d led a gothic existence, but that I’m so gifted a survivor that I have enough material to write about the rest of my life. Le Grand Guignol was the phrase he used, I believe.” I sipped my coffee. “And?” “He led me to the couch in his office, all covered in a faded red plush, and tore off my stockings. I mean, your stockings. They were completely ruined,” I said. “And?” “And he told me not to worry, he’d had a vasectomy. ‘Shooting blanks,’ he said.” “How was his aim?” Her tongue flicked at her straw. “A sure shot,” I said, throwing back my head and draining the cup. “A transcendent experience. Afterwards, he said I made love like a demon out of Yiddish mythology.” ### We leaned back against a cushion, sharing a joint. “So, now tell me about the diplomat in the palazzo,” I said finally. “I think you owe me that.” “Oh, Lily,” she said airily, blowing lavender smoke from her nose. “There was no diplomat.” “I didn’t think so,” I said. “No diplomat? No evil twin brother? No brutish game-keeper? No plunging stallions?” “No,” Agnes said. “No one.” “Why?” I asked, angry. “Why?” “It sounded more interesting,” she said. We were silent a long time. “You set me up,” I said. Agnes put down the joint. “Oh, no, Lily. I just put a little spin on the situation. A little mise en scène. What’s the difference? You got what you wanted, I got a class assignment out of it, and Manley got—well, we know what Manley got,” Agnes said. Dizzily I pushed myself out of her pillow. I was smothering under the tented ceiling; the room was filled with a dangerous haze. “Where are you going?” Agnes said, her voice lazy. “I thought maybe we’d take in a film. Rashômon is playing.” I stared at her. Didn’t Agnes realize how much her duplicity had wounded me? Or had she believed my fiction, just as I’d been taken in by hers? I’d talked so much about losing my virginity that she’d taken me at my word; but the truth, I now realized, was that I’d needed to posture as much as Agnes. Longing to invent a persona to match the evocative name my uninformed mother foolishly bestowed, I had been ripe for Agnes’s tutelage. What if I had followed her script today? I felt awash in relief. I knew in time I’d forgive her. But not yet. I still owed Manley an assignment. And then it came to me, a bit of fortune cookie wisdom: Don’t get mad; get even. I kicked aside the large brass hookah that blocked my exit. “Can’t tonight,” I said, my voice neutral. “I’ve got a story to write.” ### My room was dark and still; Summer’s books and jars had left dusty patches on the shelves, and the trash can was overflowing with soiled cotton balls and dog-eared beauty magazines. I reached for the Lysol and the mop. Finally, work could be deferred no longer. Tell all the Truth but tell it slant. Emily Dickinson. I wasn’t an English major for nothing, I thought, and plugged in the laptop.

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“Ariel hadn’t been my acquaintance more than an hour before she told me she was going to rescue me from the ‘danse macabre’ of freshman year. She let it slip casually, as we sat on French tapestry cushions in her dormitory room sipping espresso,” I began.

######## VOTE! Should this story be included in our annual print anthology?*

Liane Kupferberg-Carter’s work has appeared in the New York Times syndication, McCall’s, Parents, Child, The Westchester Review, and Mom Writers Literary Magazine, and is forthcoming in Literary Mama. She is working on an essay collection, Making Music Anyway: Raising a Child with Autism. She lives in New York, where she is a community activist on behalf of children with special needs.

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