Tom Wolfe - I Am Charlotte Simmons

At first he was only vaguely aware…A couple had taken seats at the empty end of the bar, seven or eight seats away. They were young, but they weren’t students. The guy had the face of a twenty-year-old, but he was bald on top, which made him look weak and pathetic. Despite the turtleneck sweater the guy wore, anybody could tell he had a scrawny neck underneath. In short, a nonentity. Hoyt paid no attention to them until he caught the girl—woman—staring at him. He turned away for a few seconds, then glanced at her again. She was still staring at him.

He nudged Vance. “Theh girl”—he motioned toward the end of the bar with his head—“theh girl staring at me?”

Vance stole a look. “Yeah. Probably at me, though. She’s hot.”

The girl—woman—was, indeed, hot. She had quite a head of straight dark brown hair, trimmed to just above her shoulders, more done than any student’s. She had a lean face but a full lower lip, with some dark lipstick smooth enough to create little highlights, and a long, slender neck with a tiny gold necklace that also picked up the light…in such a delicate, defenseless way. She wore a black sweater with a V-neck. She wore a short black jacket on top of the sweater, but mainly there was…the V in the V-neck. The point came down so deep that Hoyt could see…could see…

“Def’ny me,” he said to Vance. “Well…fuck.” He got up from the stool.

“Yo, da playa gits up,” said Vance with as close to a ghetto accent as any Phipps was likely to get. “Da playa makes his move. Be cool, Hoyt. What about the guy?”

“The fuck, I’m gon’ be nice’t motherfucker.” Oh shit, he hadn’t even meant to talk ghetto. It just came out that way because Vance had said “playa”…The diction problem…

As he walked toward the girl, the gale was…up. He glanced at himself in the big mirror behind the bar…Could see only his head and shoulders, but that was enough. Both hims took a good look at him. With his head turned that way and tilted slightly back so that his cleft chin came to the fore, a small, confident smile playing on his lips—the objective him wondered if maybe that smile wasn’t too much like a smirk, but both hims agreed he looked awesome and awesomely cool. Also, with his head turned this far, his neck looked a mile wide, like a column rising up from out of the open neck of his polo shirt. The gale was blowing.

Only when he was practically right there did it occur to Hoyt that he didn’t really know what he was going to say to the girl. He couldn’t very well say the usual, because the closer you got, the more she looked like an actual woman. She must have caught him in her peripheral vision, because she turned her head toward him. Her face was like her hair, which is to say, perfect…done…The way that full and glossy lip of hers played against her lean face…the high cheekbones…the brilliant eyes…Like most males, Hoyt knew nothing about the subtleties of makeup. Not that it mattered. Nothing could challenge his confidence, not at this point on the graph. He was now quite close to her, and he leaned on the bar with his forearm and spoke with the utmost certainty.

“Excuse me, don’t mean to interrupt…” He gave her the most charming of smiles, and then he looked at her companion and gave him one. “…but I just had to ask you”—now he was looking straight into her eyes—“you must—I swear, where I’m sitting, you…get tired of people saying you look just like Britney Spears.”

The woman—holy shit, she was good-looking! She didn’t giggle. But she didn’t look annoyed, either. She smiled, but in a cool way, and said, “Britney Spears is blond. Do you get tired of people telling you you look just like Hoyt Thorpe?”

The great playa was speechless. The playa’s light in his eyes went out. “Hey…How’d you do that? You know my name?”

“I wasn’t sure,” she said, “but you do look like Hoyt Thorpe.” She glanced at her companion, and he nodded in confirmation. Then she looked back at Hoyt, still smiling. “We were looking at a photograph of you this afternoon. I hope you didn’t notice me staring at you just now.”

Hoyt tried a chuckle and gestured with his hand casually—cool—and said, “Well, I mean…” He didn’t know what to say beyond that.

“This is quite a coincidence.” She glanced toward her companion again. As before, he nodded confirmation. “I’m Rachel Freeman,” she said. She extended her hand in a businesslike way.

Hoyt shook her hand and, feeling exceptionally smooth all of a sudden, gave it an extra little squeeze before they disengaged. He looked deep into her eyes and said, “Dya have a ride back?”

“A ride back?” said Rachel Freeman. She didn’t seem to find the question worth answering. Without a pause she gestured toward the man. “And this is my associate, Mike Marash.”

So Hoyt shook hands again. The bald, baby-faced Mr. Marash smiled politely.

“We’re with Pierce and Pierce,” said the most gorgeous woman in the world.

“Pierce and Pierce?”

“We’re an invest—”

“I know,” said Hoyt. He didn’t want this Rachel to think he was so inexperienced as not to know what Pierce & Pierce was. Even somebody who had cut as many econ classes as he had knew what a position Pierce & Pierce occupied in the investment banking industry. He was merely surprised. The crummy I.M. was not the sort of place you expected to find people from Pierce & Pierce knocking back a couple of drinks on a Monday night.

“We’re in town on a recruiting trip,” said the rutrutrut-eyed Rachel. “That’s why this is such a coincidence. You’re on our Dupont list! I’m supposed to call you! That’s why I was so surprised to see you. We were supposed to call you up tomorrow and arrange an interview.”

“Me?” He meant to say it coolly, without the one-octave-up note of surprise.

She assured him yes and suggested they meet for lunch at the Inn at Chester. The Inn at Chester…he’d bet anything that was where she was staying. He looked into her eyes. They were glistening…sizzling…aflame…with the inner fire you couldn’t see at first, thanks to the perfectly composed façade of her done hair, high cheekbones, glossy lips, swan’s neck, tiny twinkling chain of gold…What were those eyes saying?…

“In at the Inny!” said Hoyt. He was aware that the diction problem was getting worse.

“What?”

“In and out, in and out at the Inn!” This was so bad he laughed to cover it up. He was saying stupid things, but so what? Score! Victory! He nodded yes and gave her a smile, a sincere smile.

Pop.

—he’d been pouring lust into her eyes for many beats longer than he should have…before he walked away and returned to where Vance was sitting.

The diction problem getting worse, but he was able to get across to Vance the gist of the business side, the Pierce & Pierce side, of his conversation with the gorgeous V-neck brunette.

“I’ll be damned,” said Vance. “That’s great, Hoyt. Pierce and Pierce…”

Hmmmmm…Vance’s voice sang a note of happiness for his brother Saint Ray and comrade-in-arms. He knew how bad Hoyt’s grades were. Hoyt had moaned about them many times. Then Hoyt felt so sad. He was overcome with sympathy for the Vancerman. Sure hoped he wouldn’t get jealous. If the sexy little i-banker had Vance Phipps on her list, she obviously hadn’t been studying his picture…

The objective Hoyt, the one looking over his shoulder, had begun to wonder if this wasn’t just a stroke of dumb luck…but the inner Hoyt made sure the sound of the gale drowned out and overpowered the outer Hoyt and his chronic case of the Doubts.

Over the speaker system, a country rock singer named Connie Yates was singing. The drums, the bass, and the electric guitars were banging and sloshing away. Hoyt sang along with Connie Yates for a while. Vance was looking straight ahead into the mirror behind the bar. Vance Phipps of the Phipps Phipps…It would be just like Vance not to get it, listening to someone who can’t sing, sing. Get what? Hoyt felt like some essential part, the part that made it all clear, had blown away in the gale. So he cast a sideways glance at Rachel, who would get it…but she and the guy weren’t there anymore.