Sarah Mlynowski - Monkey Business

Another good question, and another I don’t answer. I can’t exactly say, At the moment I’m involved with someone else, and I can’t decide who I prefer. Maybe I should use a food metaphor. I can say, I’m sitting at a restaurant and there are two menu choices, but both are my favorites. Which do I choose? Chicken parmesan or fettuccine alfredo? Just what all women dream about. Being compared to food. Objectified and put on a plate. Pass the pepper, please! “When we’re settled,” I say. I am too chicken-shit to start. Chicken parmesan, please.

Something else I haven’t told Sharon is that I’ve applied for summer jobs in New York. She’s under the impression that I’ll be going back to the IT consulting firm I worked for before. The firm, too, is under this impression. But since everyone else applied to jobs through school, I figured I should, too. So now it comes down to this: life in Toronto with Sharon or life in New York with Kimmy?

Ten minutes later, I say my love you, toos and good-nights and be goods, then wash up and walk over to Kimmy’s room.

She stands behind the door when she opens it so no one can see she’s naked. Not that anyone’s up. I love that she opens the door naked. I wonder how long she lay there in bed, naked, waiting for me. Or does she strip off her clothes when she hears the knock on her door?

I drop my jeans and sweatshirt and briefs onto her floor, and she puts her mouth on me before I can even get into bed.

Then I push her down and lie on top of her. We rub against each other for a bit, and I can feel her getting wet beneath me. She tries to slide me into her, but I reach out to get a condom. She pulls me closer.

I know she wants to do it without a condom. She keeps telling me that she’s on the pill. But I can’t. Even though I know it would be a million times better. Cheating on my girlfriend without a condom reaches a whole other level of repulsiveness.

I really know how to draw the line, eh? The only problem is, the line keeps fading, inch by inch.

I slip on the condom and then push myself inside her. She wraps her legs around my back. I try to make her come with my fingers, the way Sharon likes to, but she stops me.

“Just fuck me,” she says, and I do as requested. After I come, I throw the condom into the garbage beside her bed.

“Did you set the alarm?” I ask.

“For eight?” she asks with a half smile. “Don’t you want to sleep in before the exam?”

“Don’t give me a hard time. Six-ten, as usual.” I don’t know where I got the six-ten. Maybe it’s because I don’t expect anyone to be out in the hall at six-ten. Six-thirty maybe, but six-ten? Doubtful.

“Fine. Whatever.” She reaches across me, her breasts hanging deliciously over my mouth. “Alarm set. Six-ten.” She turns her back to me.

“’Night.” I wrap my arms around her so she’s not mad. She curves into me, and I kiss her neck good-night.

When the alarm rings at six-ten, I get dressed quickly, then open the door gently. As I expected, the hallway is quiet and empty. The lights are on-they’re always on-and the windows over the stairs are mirrors because it’s still dark outside, so instead of seeing outside, I see myself.

I quickly look away. I don’t think I like what I see.

Thursday, December 18, 10:58 a.m.

“Two more minutes,” Flynn, the proctor/TA says.

I’m going to fail. Completely fail. How am I going to get a job this summer if I fail? It is humanly impossible for a mere mortal to answer all these questions. I still have so much more to write for this last question. My heart is racing and my hand is scribbling and I have to get this all down. Why can’t we write with computers, why why why? Paper and pen are so archaic. How am I supposed to think? To delete? To spellcheck? I should have gone to sleep earlier. I need at least seven hours of sleep to perform properly on an exam. Next semester I’m going to bed early the night before all exams. At eight.

Only four of us are left in the room. Everyone else has somehow finished. How have they possibly finished? I haven’t even started proofreading yet.

· 11a. With a squared multiple correlation coefficient of 78.6 and a standard error of 4.347, these numbers represents a better correlation than the single variable models in 1 and 2.

“Thirty more seconds.”

· 11b. As long as there is not a significant correlation between X1 and X2, a significant multiple linear regression should give you a higher r-sq and therefore a better predictor model.

“Time up, everyone. Pencils down.” One more question!

· 12. Yes. With such a high r-sq value store size is a good predictor of profit.

Done! Flynn picks up my paper. His hands are thin and hairy. “How’d you find it?”

“Impossible.”

“Layla, I’m sure you did fine.”

All my TAs and professors know my name. I ask a lot of questions.

I walk to the door, disgusted with myself. Kimmy is waiting for me outside, smiling. “Not bad, huh?”

“I failed for sure.”

“What?” She’s shaking her head in disbelief. “No way. It was everything we talked about. You knew that stuff cold. You taught it to me.”

“There was too much to write and not enough time.”

Kimmy gestures to the cafeteria, but I have to get away from school. “Let’s go for sushi,” I suggest. “On me.” I know Kimmy doesn’t like spending money when she’s already paid for the food plan. I’m getting tired of cafeteria food.

She hesitates. “I want to get to the library. What about sushi for dinner?”

“Deal.”

“I still don’t believe you failed,” she says as we enter the cafeteria. “You’ve claimed to have failed every exam so far. And you said the same about midterms and you aced them. It’s a little annoying, actually.”

She’s probably right. I do always think I’ve failed, yet I always do well. But I’m not lying when I say the exam was hard. They’re all hard. “We’ll see. You found it all right?”

I take a grilled cheese and fries and she just takes fries.

She nods. “Yeah. Not easy, but much better than the midterm.” She watches me drench my plate in ketchup. “Would you like some sandwich with that ketchup?”

“Ha-ha.” Yum.

We sit in our regular seat. Jamie and Russ aren’t here. They left the exam a half hour ago, so they probably already ate and are either studying or napping.

“I’ve been into vinegar on my fries lately,” she says, dribbling the clear shaker over her fries.

“Yeah? Why?”

“Russ does it, and now I’m addicted.”

I pop a sopping red fry into my mouth. Yum. “Let’s eat quickly so we can get back.”

I think I’ll miss the library when we’re done. Is that weird? I love the quiet, the smell, the sense of purpose. I wonder if the hotel we’re staying at in St. Bart’s has a library. No, that would be weird. To be honest, I’m going to miss taking exams. The rush. The blood pouring from my brain to my fingers. I know I always think I failed, but I also know I won’t.

“Only one more,” Kimmy says. Her voice sounds almost wistful. Semester’s end means Russ goes back to Toronto. To Sharon.

“Only one more,” I repeat. We eat our fries slowly, as though hoping to prolong the day.

Friday, December 19, 10:42 a.m.

Head hurts, hand hurts, who cares, I’m done. I don’t know how I did, probably not as well as I could have, but I don’t care.

I raise my hand until a proctor picks up my exam. “Have a good break,” he says.

Oh, I will. I need a break. A break from studying, from clubs, from random exam questions, from my life. Exams are so frustrating. After an entire semester, they choose twenty questions to ask. Twenty random questions. Can those really quantify my knowledge?