Tom Wolfe - I Am Charlotte Simmons

So she was right back in the same state of social isolation. Well, what did she care? She was Charlotte Simmons…She tried to make her expression suitably insouciant, chin tilted up. She let the music flow through her head like a breeze. The D.J. was playing an odd piece of music called “The Politics of Dancing,” judging by the lyrics. Very odd, this number…It built up layer by layer like a symphony. It kept doubling back on itself to gather up all momentum that had been left behind, building up strength, more and more strength, like Beethoven—well, maybe not exactly like Beethoven—but maybe it was the equal of the classical symphonies, the symphonic sound of today. She had the makings of a theory—

But how much satisfaction could you derive from analyzing “The Politics of Dancing”? The fact was, Hoyt was paying an awful lot of attention to Gloria, whose breasts were spilling out of the gap plunging down the front of her dress. What if he started hitting on her, the way Julian had? What if he—

Thank God this formal actually had something formal about it. The fraternity brothers dressed up in actual tuxedos and brought dates—they actually used that word, “dates”—with them, special dates, because inviting a date to a formal meant there truly existed something between the two of you. It wasn’t the sort of context in which the guys would be playas and fool around…

Charlotte rose from her chair the poli-tics of dan-cing unhh-unh her red dress from Mimi felt shorter than ever of dan-cing unh-unh she took two steps the poli-tics not really sure of herself way up on these high heels of Mimi’s unhh-unh but try it anyway unhh-unh kept her legs straight and bent over at the waist the poli-tics of unhh-unh reached way down and pretended to flick something off the right toe of Mimi’s toe-cleavage dan-cing dan-cing ohmygod the dress felt like the hem was only an inch or two above where the buttocks meet the legs –tics of dan-cing her legs her bare legs anybody any guy Hoyt wrapped up in Gloria unhh-unh could see the erotic dip where her calf muscle inserted into the back of her knee the poli-tics of dan-cing she straightened up ohmygod the hem of the dress seemed to remain way up there unhh-unh she walked slowly out of the room in a circuitous route to make sure Hoyt got the full rear view of dan—

The ladies’ room was the most elaborate thing…a lounge with chairs and side tables and vases of flowers…from there into the toilet area, in which everything looked brand-new, even the floor, where tan diamond-shaped tiles were inset at all four corners of the white tiles. Charlotte headed straight for the big plate-glass mirror over the basins, and there she was, Charlotte Simmons. Since there was nobody else in there, unless somebody was in one of the stalls behind one of the brushed aluminum doors, she was alone, and so she pulled some faces—haughty, angry, bored, come-hither—and put her hands on her hips, which she rocked and cocked to this side…and then rocked and cocked to the other side and pulled faces and—ohmygod!—the clatter of a latch, and someone was coming out of a stall! Could the girl have possibly seen her carrying on in front of the mirror? Charlotte quickly turned on the water at a basin and pulled down the lower lid of one eye as if looking for some irritating speck.

Soon she was prancing back from the ladies’ room—and right there…Hoyt. No more Gloria in his eyes. He was looking straight at her and smiling, and it wasn’t a snarky smile or a smile of amusement or a polite smile, but a smile just for her, the same loving smile he had given her ever since they arrived in Washington. She was tempted to look back and see if Miss Chrissy Snob Sarc’s eyes were still fixed on her—riveted by the look the coolest guy in Saint Ray was giving her. Hoyt with his wide jaws and the cleft in his chin…he was so-o-o-o handsome.

Hoyt talked to her continually now and left Gloria to I.P. He called her Babe and stroked her shoulders and her arms a lot. The room was very noisy now…squalls of laughter, a roaring surf of conversation, the yells of young men drunk on the rising sap of youth, like Bacchus…like Bacchus—hah!—Hoyt poured her some more wine—it wasn’t that you couldn’t actually tell—but after vodka…whew…what was wine? And once you understood that guys like the Saint Rays were the Bacchuses of modern times—but Bacchus Bacchus Bacchus sack us crackers—this whole working it out in terms of Bacchus was making her dizzy. What did she really know about Bacchus—other than that—had the D.J. turned up the volume or was it her? The music seemed so loud now…a song by James Matthews playing his guitar.

“I’ve been alone before,

So it’s all right…

I’ve learned to know the score,

So it’s all right…”

It made her laugh out loud.

“Wuz funny, babe?” said Hoyt.

“The—” Charlotte stopped and started laughing again. The truth was, she couldn’t remember whuh wuz funny, dude.

Her spirits slipped for an instant, but she couldn’t think of that now—

The Caribbean colonels were bringing dessert in big bowls glazed in swirls of many colors with big, big silver spoons, and you took however much you wanted. It was a frozen chocolate mousse with frozen strawberries on top. She meant to take just a little bit, but the spoons were so big and so long—the handle was like a lever, and the shovel part got stuck in the frozen mousse and—oops—she catapulted a glob of it up in the air, and the instant seemed stretched out forever as the glob descended, descended, descended and fell into her lap, on her dress, right in the middle, up close to the top of her thighs, since the dress didn’t fall much below there anyway. She was appalled. A frozen brown chocolate glob right there, right near her crotch—it was horrible!

“Here, use this!” It was Gloria, who was leaning toward her in front of Hoyt. She held up a glass tumbler, which seemed to be full of soda water, and lowered a wad of her napkin into it.

“Let me get it off with this!” Hoyt had a spoon and was heading right down there—

“No, Hoyt!” Charlotte said, giggling, and pushed his hand back.

“Then you do it,” he said, handing her the spoon.

Mortifying. She was spooning a messy glob right out of her…crotch…

More chiming of the glasses at the center table, quickly picked up by Saint Rays at every table and even some of the dates until there was a mad crystal uproar—accompanied by banging on the table—thank God! She could complete this shameful business of swabbing the stain on her dress while they were all absorbed in banging their glasses in paroxysms of drunken laughter and—smash!—somebody at that table over there had rapped his wineglass so hard it shattered and—smash!—another one, over there—and smash! smash! smash! smash! glasses were shattering all around—smash!—I.P. was laughing convulsively, and then he held the blade end of his dinner knife and swung the heavy handle like a club at a big balloon-shaped wineglass—smash!—he hit it so hard that Gloria and everybody else in the vicinity, including Charlotte, ducked from the flying shards, and he said, “Oh shit—I didn’t mean to—yo! You wanna see something fucking incredible?”

With his forefinger and thumb he lifted up the base and the stem of the glass, which remained intact.

“Didn’t—fucking—move!” His eyes panned around the entire table to show everyone this physical marvel…and the fact that he was such a high-spirited rake.

The little Caribbean colonels were suddenly everywhere—also a fortyish man with a paunch, shirt and tie, and no jacket—and Vance was on his feet, standing tallest and waving his upstretched arms back and forth over his head like a football referee signaling “no good” or “out of bounds,” and finally the uproar subsided to ripples of drunken laughter here and there.