Tom Wolfe - I Am Charlotte Simmons

“Well, just a little,” she said finally.

Hoyt reached over and took the jug of vodka off the bureau, and as if he, like Julian, couldn’t control the flow, he practically filled a cup with it and added a splash of orange juice.

“Not a little orange juice—I meant a little vodka!” She added a laugh so they would think she really was entering into the spirit of things…and was not sitting stiffly and anxiously on the edge of the bed.

No way could she keep that laugh from sounding nervous, however. They were all watching to see what she would do with the drink. She was holding it like an as-yet-undetonated explosive. She forced herself to put it to her lips. She swallowed and made a face. Julian and Hoyt laughed, but in a way that said this was all good fun. It tasted terrible. It went down sour and burning and hit bottom, whereupon a sickly sweet aftertaste bloomed. But she could see Nicole already polishing off the rest of her cup and apparently passing it back to Julian for more. It became terribly important that Nicole not seem cooler than she was, more fun, more grown up, on a different planet when it came to sophistication. She took another sip. It didn’t taste any better, but this time she didn’t make a face.

Instead, she looked up at Hoyt again and said, “Actually, it’s not that bad!” and added a smile in hopes he’d think she meant it.

Maybe if she could just finish it, she really would feel better. After all, alcohol was supposed to relax you. In any case, maybe tonight she wouldn’t feel so much like she was on the outside looking in. Maybe she would stop feeling like the little freshman misfit from the sticks sitting down there at dinner tonight…the bump on a log…at a big table full of older, livelier, cooler, perfectly blond boarding school girls who belonged to the best sororities. Why should she let herself be reduced to what Nicole and Crissy thought she was? After all—I am Charlotte Simmons!…and things were not so bad, were they…She was still a freshman so attractive that the hottest guy in Saint Ray, the hottest guy in any fraternity maybe, had asked her to his formal…

The hottest guy was now massaging the back of her neck, and it made her feel secure…inoculated against the others…and each time she looked up at him, he was still looking down at her with a wonderful smile that changed from tender to mischievous and back to tender before she knew it, and she drank some more…How bad could it all be? And it wasn’t just Hoyt…Look at Julian…Look at Nicole…Julian was a very good-looking guy, too, and if she could look objectively at Nicole for a moment, she was a gorgeous blonde. Charlotte took another swallow of vodka and then another. And you had to say the same thing about Crissy, if you were objective…and about Charlotte Simmons, unless she was way off the mark about the face in the mirror…If other people could look on…they’d say Charlotte Simmons was part of the most glamorous crowd at Dupont…and the coolest guy at Dupont was shining his face down at her as if she was what he wanted close to him more than anything else on earth…She took another swallow…The thing about drinking was, it wasn’t really about the taste. It wasn’t the way the vodka went down, it was the way it hit bottom and then bounced up in…a bloom…that left like your whole torso abloom with a warmth that really did make you feel more relaxed. Once you knew you were drinking not a drink but a feeling, it stopped tasting so awful…

When she passed her cup back to Julian for another, nobody took notice of it. Nobody did any mock cheering, no attagirls or that’s-more-like-its. That was a good sign. It meant she looked more relaxed. The fact was, she really felt more relaxed.

She realized that she had just consumed more alcohol in these past few minutes than she had ever consumed in her entire life, even counting the beers she had nursed along at the Saint Ray house. And the effect? It wasn’t at all what she was afraid it would be. She felt less frightened by the situation…but otherwise she was completely herself. As long as Hoyt was nearby, she really had nothing to worry about. In fact, once she got going on the second drink, everybody, even Nicole, seemed to accept her as a valid part of the “pre-gaming,” to use Nicole’s word, which no doubt came from tailgating.

By and by Nicole picked up her garment bag and a bunch of things and disappeared into the bathroom to get dressed for dinner. And she stayed in there and stayed in there.

To Charlotte’s astonishment, Julian and Hoyt began taking off their pants.

“Don’t mind us,” said Julian with a cheery smile. “We try not to be too formal at these formals. Right, Hoyt?”

“We’re just getting changed,” said Hoyt. He shrugged in the general direction of the bathroom, indicating that they didn’t have much choice.

Before she knew it, both boys had taken off their shirts, too, and were just standing around in front of the bureau in their plaid boxer shorts and T-shirts. Charlotte’s eyes must have been the size of plates, because Julian cocked his head at her in a mock-serious way and said, “Or I think that’s all we’re doing…Whatta you think, Hoyto?” He smiled in a mock-lascivious way.

—or was it merely mock? But she wasn’t alarmed the way she would have been ordinarily. She merely felt that something bizarre was going on and she was watching attentively to find out what it was.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Hoyt, looking at her in such a way that she would realize he was only kidding. “Seems to me the ball’s in Charlotte’s court now.”

“Wanna try for a threesome?” said Julian. The question ended in a scream of a laugh. His two big belts of vodka were kicking in.

“You’re such a fag, Julian,” said Hoyt. “Two guys and one girl isn’t what they mean by ménage à trois!”

Charlotte felt bold enough to attempt a witticism. “It means housework for three?” she said.

“What’s housework for three?” said Julian.

“Ménage means housework in French,” said Charlotte.

“Housework?” said Julian. “Whattaya talking about, Charlotte?”

The witticism lay there, dying.

On the other hand, Julian, after being in her company for the last four or five hours, had finally addressed her by name.

“Housework…” said Hoyt, seeking to rescue the moment. “That’s actually pretty funny. If you weren’t such an animal, Julian, I’d try to e-lu-ci-date you.”

“Elucidate. Who’s a fag now?” Julian said to Charlotte, “Me, I’ve got something for you.” He began lifting his eyebrows up and down, acting clownishly suggestive. He had speedily reached the level of…drunk.

He broke into a hip-hop dance, jerking his hips and shoulders this way and that, all the while looking deep into Charlotte’s eyes…and she knew he meant some of it. She began to feel sexy in her own skin.

He was still dancing for Charlotte’s benefit when Nicole finally emerged from the bathroom. Charlotte noticed her, but Julian’s back was to the bathroom. Nicole’s face was perfectly made up, perhaps a little too made up, and she wore a knee-length black tube dress and black stiletto-heeled shoes. Charlotte’s entire conception of the world at that moment narrowed down to a single question: how would she compare with the worldly blond Nicole. Thank God! The suede jacket Nicole had been wearing masked a rather straight torso, a boy’s torso, one Charlotte knew she could outdo. All that Charlotte’s brain calculated in an instant. In the next instant, Nicole’s perfect face fell. There was her date, Julian, dancing around in his underwear for the benefit of somebody else’s—Hoyt’s—date.

Hoyt, who happened to be facing her, said, “Hel-lo, Nicole. You look hot!”