Stephen King - Joyland

I rolled north out of Boston with a distinct feeling of unease. Something about the way she had sounded? That lack of enthusiasm? I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. But I wondered. Sometimes even now, all these years later, I wonder. She’s nothing to me these days but a scar and a memory, someone who hurt me as young women will hurt young men from time to time. A young woman from another life. Still I can’t help wondering where she was that day. What those things were. And if it was really Renee St. Clair she was with.

We could argue about what constitutes the creepiest line in pop music, but for me it’s early Beatles—John Lennon, actually—singing I’d rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man. I could tell you I never felt that way about Wendy in the aftermath of the breakup, but it would be a lie. It was never a constant thing, but did I think of her with a certain malevolence in the aftermath of the breakup? Yes. There were long and sleepless nights when I thought she deserved something bad—maybe really bad—to happen to her for the way she hurt me. It dismayed me to think that way, but sometimes I did. And then I would think about the man who went into Horror House with his arm around Linda Gray and wearing two shirts. The man with the bird on his hand and a straight razor in his pocket.

In the spring of 1973—the last year of my childhood, when I look back on it—I saw a future in which Wendy Keegan was Wendy Jones… or perhaps Wendy Keegan-Jones, if she wanted to be modern and keep her maiden name in the mix. There would be a house on a lake in Maine or New Hampshire (maybe western Massachusetts) filled with the clatter-and-yell of a couple of little Keegan-Joneses, a house where I wrote books that weren’t exactly bestsellers but popular enough to keep us comfortably and were— very important—well reviewed. Wendy would pursue her dream of opening a small clothing boutique (also well reviewed), and I would teach a few creative writing seminars, the kind gifted students vie to get into. None of this ever happened, of course, so it was fitting that the last time we were together as a couple was in the office of Professor George B. Nako, a man who never was.

In the fall of 1968, returning University of New Hampshire students discovered Professor Nako’s “office” under the stairs in the basement of Hamilton Smith Hall. The space was papered with fake diplomas, peculiar watercolors labeled Albanian Art, and seating plans with such names as Elizabeth Taylor, Robert Zimmerman, and Lyndon Beans Johnson penciled into the squares. There were also posted themes from students who never existed. One, I remember, was titled “Sex Stars of the Orient.” Another was called “The Early Poetry of Cthulhu: An Analysis.” There were three standing ashtrays. A sign taped to the underside of the stairs read: PROFESSOR NAKO SEZ: “THE SMOKING LAMP IS ALWAYS LIT!” There were a couple of ratty easy chairs and an equally ratty sofa, very handy for students in search of a comfy make-out spot.

The Wednesday before my last final was unseasonably hot and humid. Around one in the afternoon, thunderheads began to build up, and around four, when Wendy had agreed to meet me in George B. Nako’s underground “office,” the skies opened and it began to pour. I got there first. Wendy showed up five minutes later, soaked to the skin but in high good humor. Droplets of water sparkled in her hair. She threw herself into my arms and wriggled against me, laughing. Thunder boomed; the few hanging lights in the gloomy basement hallway flickered.

“Hug me hug me hug me,” she said. “That rain is so cold.”

I warmed her up and she warmed me up. Pretty soon we were tangled together on the ratty sofa, my left hand curled around her and cupping her braless breast, my right far enough up her skirt to brush against silk and lace. She let that one stay there for a minute or two, then sat up, moved away from me, and fluffed her hair.

“Enough of that,” she said primly. “What if Professor Nako came in?”

“I don’t think that’s likely, do you?” I was smiling, but below the belt I was feeling a familiar throb. Sometimes Wendy would relieve that throb—she had become quite expert at what we used to call a “through-the-pants job”—but I didn’t think this was going to be one of those days.

“One of his students, then,” she said. “Begging for a last-chance passing grade. ‘Please, Professor Nako, please-please-please, I’ll do anything.’ ”

That wasn’t likely, either, but the chances of being interrupted were good, she was right about that. Students were always dropping by to put up new bogus themes or fresh works of Albanian art. The sofa was make-out friendly, but the locale wasn’t. Once, maybe, but not since the understairs nook had become a kind of mythic reference-point for students in the College of Liberal Arts.

“How was your sociology final?” I asked her.

“Okay. I doubt if I aced it, but I know I passed it and that’s good enough for me. Especially since it’s the last one.” She stretched, fingers touching the zig-zag of the stairs above us and lifting her breasts most entrancingly. “I’m out of here in…” She looked at her watch. “…exactly one hour and ten minutes.”

“You and Renee?” I had no great liking for Wendy’s roommate, but knew better than to say so. The one time I had, Wendy and I had had a brief, bitter argument in which she accused me of trying to manage her life.

“That is correct, sir. She’ll drop me at my dad and step-mom’s. And in one week, we’re official Filene’s employees!”

She made it sound as if the two of them had landed jobs as pages at the White House, but I held my peace on that, too. I had other concerns. “You’re still coming up to Berwick on Saturday, right?” The plan was for her to arrive in the morning, spend the day, and stay over. She’d be in the guest bedroom, of course, but that was only a dozen steps down the hall. Given the fact that we might not see each other again until fall, I thought the possibility of “it” happening was very strong. Of course, little children believe in Santa Claus, and UNH freshmen sometimes went a whole semester believing that George B. Nako was a real professor, teaching real English courses.

“Absoloodle.” She looked around, saw no one, and slipped a hand up my thigh. When it reached the crotch of my jeans, she tugged gently on what she found there. “Come here, you.”

So I got my through-the-pants job after all. It was one of her better efforts, slow and rhythmic. The thunder rolled, and at some point the sigh of the pouring rain became a hard, hollow rattle as it turned to hail. At the end she squeezed, heightening and prolonging the pleasure of my orgasm.

“Make sure to get good and wet when you go back to your dorm, or the whole world will know exactly what we were doing down here.” She bounced to her feet. “I have to go, Dev. I’ve still got some things to pack.”

“I’ll pick you up at noon on Saturday. My dad’s making his famous chicken casserole for supper.”

She once more said absoloodle; like standing on her tiptoes to kiss me, it was a Wendy Keegan trademark. Only on Friday night I got a call from her saying that Renee’s plans had changed and they were leaving for Boston two days early. “I’m sorry, Dev, but she’s my ride.”

“There’s always the bus,” I said, already knowing that wasn’t going to work.

“I promised, honey. And we have tickets for Pippin, at the Imperial. Renee’s dad got them for us, as a surprise.” She paused. “Be happy for me. You’re going all the way to North Carolina, and I’m happy for you.”