Tom Wolfe - I Am Charlotte Simmons

In that instant the band members rose to their feet and launched into a delirious, almost violent reprise of “The Swing.” The Chazzies, the cheerleaders, the acrobats, the Brothers Zulj seemed to sink into the floor as quickly as they had popped up. The Dupont team was coming onto the court in their mauve-and-yellow warm-up suits, dribbling what appeared to be a multitude of orange balls. In the warm-up suits—it was astonishing—all the players looked a foot taller than they already were. It was the long pants, mauve with broad yellow stripes down the sides. They brought out the tremendous length of their legs in a way that was lost when they peeled down to their uniforms with the sloppy, droopy shorts that were the current fashion for combat. At this moment they looked like an entirely other order of human beings, like the giants of the species they truly were.

There was no problem picking out Jojo, of course. With the mighty LumeNex lights making his warm-up suit, his mesa of blond hair, and his big white face fairly gleam, Jojo appeared nine feet tall at the very least, and a dense, powerful nine feet, too. When he reached mid-court, he looked up toward Charlotte, as he had taken to doing lately, and spun off a quick comical salute in which he twirled the first two fingers of his right hand up off his brow. The first time he did it had embarrassed her, but by now she felt as if there were a spotlight picking her out of the crowd like a star. Of all the female freshman at Dupont, how many were truly better known than Charlotte Simmons? In a way, the notoriety of her getting her dust knocked off at a Saint Ray formal—which everyone but her had seemed to know was a euphemism for bacchanal—had only made her rise, from social death to the eminence she now enjoyed as girlfriend of the superstar Jojo Johanssen, yet more dramatic, yet more of a feat.

There had come a day a couple of weeks before when two girls in a very sleek white, new European convertible had seen Jojo driving his SUV, the Annihilator, across campus and had pulled up beside him and blown the horn to attract his attention. They waved. Charlotte, in the passenger seat, had craned her neck to see who it was—and she could scarcely believe her eyes. It was Nicole, the magnificent Douche, and another girl who proved to be a Douche herself. Both were yelling and waving flirtatiously to Jojo. When they saw Charlotte’s head pop up, they did a double take—and Nicole cried out, in the merriest way, “Hi, Charlotte!”—as if they were great chums! The next day, Nicole came up to her at Mr. Rayon and said Charlotte really should come by the Douche house during the impending spring rush. In fact, she should consider herself formally invited. Charlotte thanked her but said she didn’t dare think about sororities, because she couldn’t begin to afford to. Nicole said, “Oh, come on, anyway. You never know how things might work out in the end.”

So the little country girl from the Lost Province had become quite a campus presence, of sorts, in a remarkably short time, a mere six months…

Just then a cheer rose up from the crowd as Jojo, in a warm-up drill, made such an incredible leap that when he dunked the ball, slammed it, stuffed it, it was as if he had flown up and attacked the net from three feet above. A regular chorus of Go go Jojos followed.

Charlotte felt a hand on her forearm and turned. It was Treyshawn Diggs’s mom, Eugenia, who was sitting next to her. In that big, hearty voice of hers, she said, “Honey, what kind a diet you got that boy on? He is some kind a loa-ded—for—bear!”

Ripples of laughter and chuckles ran all through the immediate vicinity. Eugenia’s voice was too much for even the racket and the Go go Jojos of the fans.

Treyshawn’s twenty-seven-year-old sister, Clare, sitting on her mother’s other side, leaned forward laughing and said, “Yeah, Charlotte, don’t put so much go-go in the Jojo! That boy’s getting out of control!” More laughs and chuckles.

Charlotte smiled and blushed and blushed some more in an appropriate Little Me manner. She noticed heads turning about in her direction. She made a modest point of averting her eyes from them, but she couldn’t help but notice a head almost directly in front of her two rows below, a head with a thick stand of silver-gray hair combed straight back and trimmed to just above a crisp white collar, as it turned her way. It was the Dean of Dupont College, Mr. Lowdermilk, and his head was now twisted about, and his ruddy face was smiling at her rosy one, even though she had never even met him. Then, still smiling, he turned back and said something into the ear of a woman next to him, probably his wife, something no doubt along the lines of, “Don’t turn around, but two rows directly behind us is Jojo Johanssen’s girlfriend. They say she’s the reason he’s become the hottest athlete at Dupoint”…or words to that effect, Charlotte felt sure.

Honey, what kind a diet you got that boy on? Charlotte loved that, because it said not one but three things. It said, “You’re Jojo Johanssen’s girlfriend, you’ve got him so spellbound he’ll do whatever you say—and everybody knows that! Everybody knows who you are!”

And sure enough, barely a minute went by before Mrs. Lowdermilk, if that’s who she was, turned all the way around, pretending she was actually looking at something way up the cliff.

Charlotte allowed herself a quick panoramic survey of the stands…She wished they were here, although it was supremely unlikely—Bettina and Mimi. Next home game, she’d like for Jojo or Coach himself to get some tickets to them without their knowing where they came from. Charlotte no longer spoke to either one of them. If she happened to run into them in Edgerton, she—cut—them—dead. She would never forgive them, never, not even if the three of them should happen to live together in Edgerton for the next hundred years—for the way they betrayed her, the ghoulish glee she overheard in their conversation when they were sure her life had been destroyed. You snide, insidious—please, my two little snakes, kindly come take a look at me now…

Hoyt—he wouldn’t be here, either. He and his beloved “brothers” were forever watching that stupid SportsCenter…but it was funny, Hoyt never showed any true interest in any sport in particular. All those popped-vein, concussion-batty headbangers scampering across the plasma screen and striving for glory seemed to amuse him as much as anything else. She never heard him express any emotion whatsoever over a Dupont team winning or losing. Yeah, Hoyt was cool. They didn’t come any cooler…She didn’t hate him…He hadn’t betrayed her at all. Hoyt was what he was, the same way a cougar was a fast animal that stalked slower animals, and that was what a cougar was.

Ah, Hoyt. If only you would come take one last look at what you so cavalierly discarded, at what you once loved—and love her you did—I know it!—if only for an evening or a single hour or one brief instant.

She didn’t want Adam to see her as she was now. It would break his heart a little more, knowing that she could never love him in that way. A wave of fondness for him spread through her so suddenly, she experienced a sharp intake of breath.

“Are you okay, honey?”

It was Eugenia Diggs, who once again put her hand on Charlotte’s forearm.

“Oh, Eugenia”—looking at Treyshawn’s mother with a tender smile—“I’m fine. I just suddenly thought of something. Thank you, though.”

Well, if she had to disappoint Adam—and she did—she couldn’t have done it at a better moment. The moment his big story broke, he became what he had always wanted to be, a voice that made thousands—hundreds of thousands?—stand stock-still with wonder. It was no matrix, his great “scoop” about the Governor of California and Syrie Stieffbein and Hoyt and Vance and the big Wall Street firm, but it would do, for a twenty-two-year-old college senior. It had all turned out for the best.