was in Dallas, and Chris was at a birthday party and would be delivered home at 9. It was time for a treatment with some special “anthroposophical” massage oil she had bought in a head shop in the city.
“What did I do to deserve this?” her boyfriend asked.
“You don’t deserve it. It’s a gift of grace. Just shut up, take off your shirt, and lie down.”
“Where?”
“On my bed, silly. Where else would you like to lie down? On mom’s bed?”
“No, I . . .”
She warmed the oil between her palms.
“Are you aware of the healing properties of arnica with rosemary?”
“Not exactly.”
“Quiet. Just relax.”
She spread the oil over his back and moved her hands up and down along his flanks as if she were molding an exquisite form.
“Arnica is the master remedy for shock.”
“But I’m not in shock.”
“You will be.” She reads from a sheet that came with the bottle. “‘The patient is bruised, sore, tender, and resents being touched.’ That’s you. ‘He is in a stupor, but answers correctly when roused.’ That’s you for sure. ‘Nervous, cannot bear pain, whole body oversensitive.’” She runs her hair up his bare back to test.
“‘Useful remedy for sprains, concussion, and aftereffects of blows or falls. Useful for all pains anywhere, rheumatism, or any condition where “as if bruised all over” is a major symptom.’”
By this time Arnold had entered the alpha state of the deeply massaged. Embarrassed at being so passive, he semiroused his mouth from lethargy, a small area of I-can-still-move.
“What’s the rosemary for?”
“Dunno. It doesn’t say. It smells good.”
The work continued, a first-class massage from a deeply intuitive masseuse, with no sexual hanky-pank. Deep under the shroud of musculoskeletal bliss, Arnold felt a mild gnawing.
“I will be what?” he managed.
Poof. The carriage changed back to a pumpkin. Billie Jo whipped off her seat on his buns and threw him a towel.
“You can wipe off the oil.”
“Can’t reach,” he said, easing himself up on stretched arms. “You do me.”
Billie Jo balled up the towel and began to rub.
“Hey, leave me some skin, please.”
“Gotta unstick the stuck blood. Open up the chi. Here, put this on. I bought it for you after my lesson.” She flung him a navy-blue sweatshirt marked “UNIVERSITY OF PARIS.”
“Paris, Texas?” he asked.
“No, silly. Paris, France. It’s from the Sorbonne.”
“And you want me to wear it?”
“If you like it.”
“But I don’t go to the Sorbonne.”
“So? Why do you have to go to the Sorbonne to wear it? Plenty of people wear sweatshirts from places they don’t go to.”
“But it doesn’t make sense. What have I got to do with the Sorbonne?”
“Don’t be so literal.”
“Billie, it makes the words meaningless—empty symbols.”
“You know what the opposite of symbolic is?”
“Unh-uh.”
“Diabolic. Symbol from the Greek sym-ballein, to draw together. Dia-ballein, to tear apart. Mrs. Aron told me that this morning. We were talking about musical symbols.”
“Well, OK. So you want to be diabolic? This sweatshirt is dangerous.”
“Arnold, I got my acceptance from Oberlin today.”
“What?”
“I’m going to Oberlin.”
“You’re going to go to Oberlin?”
“Yup.”
“Not SMU or UT Arlington?”
“Nope.”
“But . . . what will happen to us?”
“Button up your shirt. I can’t stand those marvelous pecs.”
“What . . .”
“Well, I don’t know. We’ll write. We’ll visit. Ever been to Ohio?”
“No. I’ve never been anywhere. You know that.”
“I thought maybe Ohio didn’t qualify as anywhere. It’s a good school, just right for me, I think. Mom and Dad want me to go.”
“I see.”
“Now are you in shock?”
“Kind of.”
“Told you so.”
“What?”
“You would be in shock.”
“Yeah, you did.”
“You know when I first came to Mansfield, the first piece of advice I got was to try to become a cheerleader. Did you know that? You know what Cheryl told me? ‘It’s very revered to be a cheerleader.’ Revered. Just what I always wanted to be. And of course it was crucially important to look a certain way and to have a boyfriend. And the best possible boyfriend was a football player, as in, ‘Wow, you’re going out with a football player!’”
“Is that why you went after me? Why are you telling me this?”
“I went to the first pep rally, and I watched all those girls, so cliquey and obsessed with their appearance, always flicking their hair back. I watched all those arms pumping frantically up and down, and I thought maybe I’d like to be like them. I tried dressing like them, but I wasn’t pretty enough. You know, pretty? And what was worse, I didn’t act silly enough, so they put me in a category—‘stuck-up brain,’ ‘book bitch.’ There was no way I could break into their circle. I tried, I really did. And then the irony was I fell in love with a football player, as in, ‘Wow, you’re going out with a football player.’ I even got outlaw points for robbing the cradle. And you ran interference. You showed me who I really was. And Arnold, I’m not a UT or an SMU co-ed. We both know that, right? I’m going to go to Oberlin. I can study at the Conservatory and
