John Irving - Until I Find You

After that, when Jack realized how hard the academic workload was for him, he pretended to be disdainful of what the Dramat chose for its plays. For the most part, this wasn’t hard; many of the choices reflected the taste of the dated hippie who was the dramatic association’s faculty adviser. More to the point, Jack was saving himself for the occasional Shakespeare, which not even amateurs could seriously harm.

His fellow thespians in the Dramat had resented his female impersonation of Linda in Death of a Salesman. They tried to force male roles on him, urging him to audition for Mister Roberts— as if the movie hadn’t been bad enough. Talk about dated! Jack evoked Wendy Holton. “I’d rather die,” he said.

This was excellent for his reputation as an actor—playing hard-to-get worked. (And what was the risk?)

He decided to surprise everyone by volunteering for a small role in The Teahouse of the August Moon. Jack knew that the part of Lotus Blossom, a geisha girl, would cement his hold on any future female role he wanted. The part he really desired was in the spring play his penultimate year at the academy. Jack was Lady Macbeth, of course—and just who was going to give him shit about it? Another wrestler? (One senior girl in the Dramat rationalized that the part called for a “domineering” woman—hence a more “masculine” choice might work.)

When the Dramat at last thought they had him figured out—Burns likes Shakespeare, Burns wants to do everything in drag— he surprised them one more time. Jack auditioned for Richard III, but only if he could be Richard. Let them fart around with Our Town till the cows come home, Jack thought. He wanted that football, his choice for a humpback, behind his neck.

It was the winter of Jack’s senior year—wrestling season, when he was especially gaunt. He would show them a “winter of discontent” like they’d never seen; he would offer his “kingdom for a horse” and make them believe it, which he did.

Jack’s tears now fell on Molly’s hand, in the mushrooms; his tears fell on the broccoli and on the sliced cucumbers, too. A radish rolled off his plate. He didn’t even try to catch it.

Molly led him to one of the cafeteria tables. Other students made room for them. “Tell me everything,” Molly said, clutching his hand. Her eyes were a diluted, washed-out blue; one of the freckles on her throat looked infected.

“I didn’t ask to be born good-looking,” Jack told her. “My sister wasn’t so lucky—my older sister,” he added, as if Emma’s advanced age were a telltale indication that she would never have a boyfriend. (In truth, Emma fooled around a lot—mostly with boys who were Jack’s age, or younger. She claimed that she didn’t have sex with them—“not exactly.”)

“Your sister doesn’t look like you ?” Molly asked Jack.

“McCarthy says my sister is ugly,” he told her. “Naturally, I don’t see her that way—I love her!”

“Of course you do!” Molly cried, clutching his hand harder.

She was not only not pretty; at sixteen, Molly was probably as appealing as she would ever be. She’d never liked looking in a mirror—and she would like it less and less as she grew older, Jack imagined. That her boyfriend had called another girl ugly must have hit too close to home.

Jack had cried enough; the overacting had left his salad a little wet. Another close-up came to mind, that of the slightly quivering but stiff upper lip. “I’m sorry I brought this up,” he said. “There’s nothing anyone can do about it. I won’t bother you again.”

“No!” she said, grabbing his wrist as he tried to take his tray and go. A raw carrot fell off his plate; a little iced tea spilled from his glass. Jack drank so much iced tea in the wrestling season, he was bouncing off the walls. His fingers always trembled, as if he were riding on a speeding train.

“I better go, Molly,” Jack said; he left her without looking back. He knew that she and Ed McCarthy were finished. (He also knew that Ed would be having his lunch soon.)

Jack wandered back over to the salad bar; he was basically starving. The prettiest girl in the school was there—Michele Maher, a fellow senior. She was a slim honey-blonde with a model’s glowing skin and—in McCarthy’s crude appraisal—“a couple of high, hard ones.”

Michele was over five-ten—she had two inches on Jack. She was in the Dramat. Jack had beaten her out for Lady Macbeth, but she’d been a good sport about it—one of the few who had. Despite her good looks, everyone liked her; she was smart, but she was also nice to people. She’d done the early-acceptance thing at Columbia, because she was from New York and wanted to be back in the city; so, unlike most of the seniors, she wasn’t thinking about where she might end up in college—she already knew.

“Jack Burns, looking lean and mean,” Michele said.

“That’s me,” he told her. “I’m a starving heart of darkness.”

“Where’s your hump, Dick?” she asked. It was a Richard III joke—everyone in the Dramat kept asking him.

“It’s in the costume closet, and it’s just a football,” Jack said, for maybe the hundredth time.

“Why don’t you have a girlfriend, Jack?” Michele asked. She was just kidding around, or so he thought.

“Because I get the feeling you’re not available,” Jack told her.

It was just a line. Jack was still acting—he didn’t mean it. He saw at once he’d made a mistake, but he couldn’t think fast enough to correct it. All that iced tea on an empty stomach was giving him a buzz.

Michele Maher lowered her eyes, as if the salad bar had consumed her interest. Her posture, which was generally excellent, crumpled; for a moment, Jack was almost as tall as she was.

Hey, it was just a line, he almost said—he should have said. But Michele was faster. “I had no idea you were interested in me, Jack. I didn’t think you were interested in anyone. ”

The problem was, Jack liked her; he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. And the truth is, if he’d told Michele Maher he was banging Mrs. Stackpole, Michele wouldn’t have believed him. Mrs. Stackpole was so ugly, to use McCarthy’s word—so unfortunate-looking in the world of women, even in the world of much older women—that the dishwasher herself had expressed disbelief that Jack Burns was banging her.

“Why me?” Mrs. Stackpole had asked him once, with all her weight crushing the breath out of him. He couldn’t speak, not that he knew the answer. There was an urgency about Mrs. Stackpole’s need to be with him; boys like Jack Burns had never even looked at her. How could Jack have been forthcoming about that to a beauty like Michele Maher?

“How can anyone not be interested in you, Michele?” Jack asked.

Maybe if he’d made that his end line, and walked away, it would have been all right. But he was too hungry to take a step away from the salad bar. When someone grabbed him, Jack first thought it was Michele. He hoped it was Michele.

“What the fuck did you say to Molly, asshole?” McCarthy asked him.

“Just the truth,” Jack replied. “You said my sister is ugly—isn’t that what you said?”

Jack hadn’t meant to make Michele Maher fall for him, but she was standing next to him. And what could Ed McCarthy do? Jack was a Redding boy. McCarthy knew that Jack could take a beating. And what would Coach Hudson do to McCarthy if he hurt Jack, and one of the Exeter wrestling team’s best lightweights missed several matches at the end of the season?

Also, Herman Castro would have kicked the crap out of Ed McCarthy if McCarthy had laid a hand on Jack. Jack had made a friend for life of Herman Castro, just by standing up for ugliness.