Tom Wolfe - I Am Charlotte Simmons

“Hadley!” Bettina shrieked the name, and Charlotte knew precisely why. She would have shrieked, too, had she been so blessed as to find a friend somewhere in this drunken rout and thereby be rescued from social oblivion on an alien planet to which she hadn’t been invited in the first place.

Bettina headed toward her Hadley, looking back at Charlotte just long enough to smile and raise her forefinger, as if to indicate she’d be back in a moment. But Charlotte knew she wouldn’t be, and sure enough, in no time Bettina and Hadley and those other girls had been swallowed up by the mob of revelers.

Barely five feet from Charlotte, a boy with big hips and heavy black eyebrows that ran together above his nose lurched through the crowd, drunk, proudly drunk, carrying a white plastic drink container and bawling, “I WANT SOME ASS! I NEED SOME ASS! ANYBODY KNOW WHERE’S SOME ASS?” and vastly enjoying the laughs he got from the boys and the mock shock on the faces of the girls. One of the boys yelled back, “Who you kidding, I.P.? You’re ass negative! All you want is a knuckle fuck!” And everybody laughed again.

The rawness left Charlotte numb and frightened, and a fast-rising fear of some as yet nameless catastrophe made things worse. Charlotte Simmons was now a castaway in the hellish uproar—and everyone would see that! How she must look in their eyes! A little country girl dressed as inappropriately as a girl could be in an atmosphere like this, wearing no makeup—a waif alone in the storm.

She stood on tiptoes and searched the crowd for Bettina and Mimi. She would fight her way through the mob and attach herself to one of them, no matter how hopeless that would make her look.

Why not just leave, for God’s sake!

But the walk back alone in the dark, back to the hollow place from which she had come—she could hear Bettina or Mimi or both asking her tomorrow, “What happened to you?” and not really caring in the slightest and not asking her to go anywhere again. She had no choice but to persevere and undertake the grim task of making this houseful of bawling boys and shrieking girls believe she was actually with someone and as deliriously happy as everybody else.

She tried smiling smugly and staring confidently at blank spots on the walls, as if she had just seen someone she knew only too well—and she was convinced they would all see that for what it was, namely, a look of curdled fear. The electric wails, whines, thuds, percussion, the bawling, the screaming, louder and louder—

Over near a wall—a line of girls. Some were talking into each other’s ears, the only way to make yourself heard in the storm, but others were talking to no one. They were merely in line. Well—no matter how haplessly, she would be…with somebody. So she got in line, too. Soon enough it became apparent that this was a line to a bathroom. Pathetic…but an identifiable role, however temporary, however lowly—that was the main thing. She could catch stray overtones of girls chattering up ahead but couldn’t make out what they were saying. The girl immediately ahead of her, a brunette with short, bobbed hair, had a worried, distracted look on her face and seemed to be alone. She should strike up a conversation with her—but how? What was there to say to a stranger in a line of girls waiting to get into the bathroom? Did she dare put her mouth up to the ear of someone she never laid eyes on before? That wouldn’t hold back Bettina for a second. Bettina had just piped up and said, “Sexiled?” Charlotte couldn’t imagine saying such a thing to a girl she didn’t know.

The line inched forward, inched forward, while the party raged. That was all right with Charlotte. The slower the line, the longer she would have her protective cover. When she finally came close to the bathroom door, there was an amateurish but big sign on it: BOOTING ROOM. Booting? She could hear someone inside retching and vomiting. Or was it two people? Presently a tall, skinny girl came out, her face a ghastly white. Beverly! Charlotte thought at first. But that’s not her. On the other side of the door the sound of retching went on, unabated. The only way Charlotte could kill more time before having to face social humiliation once again was by actually entering the bathroom. Finally her turn came. Two toilet stalls—one closed—the unmistakable sound of someone throwing up—and the overpowering odor of vomitus swept over her like something liquid and tangible in the air. She turned about and hurried back out into the storm.

Once more she threaded her way through the crowd, looking for Bettina and Mimi. She came upon a huddle of girls and was passing only inches from one of them, an exotic-looking girl with very long, straight black hair parted down the middle and streaming down either side of her face. The girl was saying, “Are you kidding? No way! We didn’t do anything!”—when a big, laughing boy backed up and bumped Charlotte, and Charlotte’s shoulder bumped the girl’s. The girl turned her head and glowered from out of her hood of hair.

“Sorry!” said Charlotte.

The girl inspected Charlotte’s face and her print dress without saying a thing, not even a word of reproof. She merely turned back to her friends. As if Charlotte had vanished into thin air, she said, “I get so bummed out by these freshmen. I’m a junior, and I don’t have a boyfriend, and they prance around like, ‘Hey, fuck me!’ And the guys totally love it! They’re like totally into fresh meat!”

More desperate than ever for cover, Charlotte wriggled and squirmed on through the crowd.

Another line, boys and girls—heading for what? It didn’t matter. Charlotte tucked herself into the end of the queue and began another slow shuffle forward. This one was heading for a table, behind which two old black men in white jackets were serving drinks. Drinks…what would she say when she got there? What could she possibly ask for? As she drew closer, she could see big forty-ounce plastic bottles of Diet Coke, ginger ale, Sprite, seltzer, and a big pitcher of orange juice. By the time she reached the table, she realized that in fact the two black servitors weren’t serving any alcoholic drinks at all. She walked away with a big plastic cup of ginger ale in her hand, relieved and vaguely puzzled. If they were only serving soft drinks—what about all the drunken boys? The storm raged on.

She stood at the edge of the crowd, slowly sipping her drink. A drink, a drink in her hand…not much, but as good as—perhaps even slightly better than—being in a line. Holding a drink was certification, however low-grade, that you were part of the party and not hopelessly adrift.

She sipped and sipped, slower and slower. She scanned the crowd, no longer really counting on finding Bettina and Mimi. The uproar, the lurching boys, the relentless music, the dank smell, the epileptic flashes of the strobe lights…how grueling it had become, how stultifying. Her shoulders slumped; her face went slack…

She felt the pressure of a hand on her upper arm. She turned and faced a guy who was bound to be in his twenties. He was startlingly good-looking, even though his face was flushed and his forehead was slick with sweat. Everything about him struck her as imposing—the cleft chin and square jaws, the perfect thatch of light brown hair, the hazel eyes that were unquestionably mocking her, the smile that had just a hint of smirk, the white button-down shirt so freshly washed and ironed it still had a pair of folding lines down the front, a pair of khakis not worn dirty and shapeless, as other boys’ were, but impeccably laundered and ironed with crisp creases. Everything about him said to her: authority. She had been caught. She dreaded the words he was about to utter, which would be who invited you and then what are you doing here.