Tom Wolfe - I Am Charlotte Simmons

Charlotte barely even noticed the Fuck Patois any longer. What riveted her were all the faces turning toward Charlotte Simmons and her date of all dates, the cool and handsome Hoyt Thorpe. There was Harrison the lacrosse player and there were Boo-man and Heady and—yes! Vance and Crissy—Crissy in a very low cut black dress, looking dumbfounded, eyes fixed on Charlotte Simmons of the lissome legs exalted upon four-inch-stiletto-heeled red satin pumps with toe cleavage—Charlotte Simmons of the waist so tiny, her upper torso rose up in a V, making the cleavage of her bosom look more formidable than it really was.

Harrison came toward them, beaming, eyes lit up with alcohol, lit up so brightly the scars on the side of his face from the brawl didn’t look sad at all, looking not bad in his rented tuxedo with his big neck swelling up out of a too-small winged collar, no doubt also rented, singing out to Hoyt, “Yo! Dawg!” He began running his eyes up and down Charlotte. “Where you been keeping our Charlotte?”

It was the first time he had ever called her by name, too!

“Away from you fucking predators, is where, if you really wanna know,” said Hoyt.

“Well, well…” said Harrison, still giving Charlotte the once-over. “Welcome to the feast of Saint Raymond. What can I get you to drink? Wait a minute, I don’t remember—you don’t drink or something like that?”

“Tonight Charlotte’s breaking training,” said Hoyt. “Just this one night. In honor of Saint Raymond.”

“Awesome,” said Harrison. “What’ll you have?”

Charlotte hesitated. She knew her head had what they were always calling a buzz, but it was only that—a buzz. It didn’t change anything, except that it seemed to make everybody else more comfortable.

“An orange juice with vodka?”

“Okay, one orange juice with vodka.” Harrison beamed again and started to turn away.

“Hey, tiger,” said Hoyt, “what about me?”

“I’m here to take care of the ladies, Dawwwg,” said Harrison with a hyped-up attitude and smile.

“How about a little fucking show of gratitude?” said Hoyt. “Who was it that brought”—he gestured toward Charlotte—“to this event?”

“Ahhhhh,” said Harrison. “In that case, whattaya fucking want?”

“Same as Charlotte. With vodka. You know with vodka?”

Charlotte began reflecting, giddy with triumph, upon what had just taken place. Sure, she knew she couldn’t take at face value the two of them going on about how pretty she was and how smart she was and all that…but…they were attentive! They were really attentive! And on the way down, the whole carload couldn’t have ignored her more completely. Hoyt had paid some attention, but he did it as if he were feeding quarters to a parking meter. But now—it wasn’t just the flattery either…There was no mistaking the looks that not just Harrison but also Boo-man and Heady and Vance and their—

Vance and Crissy! Had to talk to Hoyt and Harrison or laugh or do something to show Crissy what a great time she was having with them. Well—she’d laugh, that’s what she’d do, but she put so much energy into it, she actually crowed out a sharp yawp. Hoyt and Harrison looked at her.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, maintaining a smile. “I just thought of something.”

Hoyt shook his head and said, “Uhh…riggghhht…thought of what?”

Charlotte laughed again and pushed off of his shoulder with her fingertips as if he were ribbing her in the most hilarious way imaginable. In her mind’s eye Crissy was standing there drinking it all in and saying to herself, “Wow! And I thought she was just some hopeless little thing from the sticks—but now these two cool guys—”

Pretty soon Harrison returned with two orange juices with vodka—or vodka with barely enough orange juice to discolor it, as it turned out once more. Practically straight vodka like this was awful. It tasted like some chemical, but it wouldn’t hurt anything, and it certainly did help her bond with everybody.

Standing here in the court of a soaring atrium amid trees in tubs and little candle glows in a rheostated dusk in a private section attended by waiters dressed like Caribbean army colonels behind walls of hedgerows in tubs was so-oh-oh cool. Saint Rays were all around her, unformed Prometheuses, self-wrestled into tuxedos, all ululating and doing red yodels of unbound vulgarity, but Prometheus was not vulgar—so they’re not Prometheuses but…Bacchuses…a photograph in—what book?—Michelangelo’s Bacchus, the lower belly swollen with wine…she felt dizzy, all right, but it wasn’t affecting her mind at all. How else could she have thought of…of…whatever it was…

Hoyt was no more than a foot away from her, talking to Vance, and Crissy was behind them. Charlotte laughed out loud. Crissy was tête à tête with Nicole, and they were both stealing glances at her—Nicole in her tube dress, Crissy revealing as much breast as she dared. Charlotte had nothing against these girls any longer—but what were they and their looks? Harrison wasn’t looking at them the way he had looked at her. He had looked her up and down! He had always sort of given her the eye, hadn’t he, but…tonight!

Hoyt turned, and ohmygod, the smile he gave her was like a warm current flowing over every nerve in her body that was beneath the epidermis—

“Your glass?” One of the Caribbean army colonels was right there, pointing toward the empty glass in her hand.

“Oh—thank you!”

As he put the glass on the tray, he said, “You like an other?” Oh-therr. It was funny the way he broke another in two and pronounced other “other” with a long o and such a vocal r at the end.

“Uh…”

“Yes, she does.” Hoyt, putting his big hand on her waist and drawing her close to him.

“What you like?” the waiter asked Charlotte.

Charlotte looked at Hoyt, whose face was now close to hers—ohmygod, the magical, melting look he was giving her! Hoyt turned back to the waiter and said, “With…vodka.”

Charlotte had to laugh at that. “You and your with…vodka.”

Hoyt squeezed her close to him again, and she laughed some more. She wanted to make sure that Crissy and Nicole saw what a wonderful time she was having, saw her mesmerizing guys with her looks and, now that she felt more confident, her personality. In a short time she had woven herself into the very fabric of the formal.

Charlotte roamed the party slyly with her eyes. Julian certainly wasn’t anywhere near Nicole. There he was…way over there…completely out of sight of Nicole—hitting on that girl as hard as he could! That girl’s hair was dark, and it came only down to her shoulders, but it was very full, and her mouth was too wide, but her lips were sooooo sexy, and her smile and the way she squinted her narrowed eyes within the brushed, dark debauchery of her eye sockets was sooooo suggestive, and Julian was leaning over her, his face not a foot away from hers, with his smoooooth smile on his face, just pouring himself into her straight through her optic chiasmas. She had on just a slip of a black dress that plunged in front, and any moment Charlotte expected Julian to put one hand on the small of her back and draw her close and kiss her, ravish her the way that guy does in the ad for—she couldn’t remember what the ad was for. For an instant she wished Nicole would go over there and stumble upon that scene—but in the next instant she didn’t want any such thing to happen. It was mortifying to think how much a girl could be hurt, even Nicole—

—whereas Crissy, who had behaved much worse toward her than Nicole—Crissy had Vance whipped. Whipped. Vance was so handsome, too. She had loved his shock of tousled blond hair from the first moment she had seen it. Vance looked like a young British aristocrat, insofar as she had any idea what such a person looked like. And Crissy didn’t let him out of her sight. She was right behind him.