Teddy Wayne - Loner

And you seemed disenchanted with them anyway. As my tablemates debated whether they’d rather time travel to Renaissance Italy or Ancient Rome, you aimlessly twirled your fork in your pasta while resting your face on your fist, the graceful sweep of your jawbone meeting the sine wave of your knuckles. The distracted pose of someone wishing she were elsewhere, the same look you’d had that very first night at Annenberg, when I knew you wanted someone to rescue you, even if you weren’t yet aware of it. Now you had a better idea.

“Speaking of Pompeii, anyone else worry that this place is a fire hazard?” Steven canvassed the table, where silently amused grins anticipated his answer to his own rhetorical question. “Its legal seating capacity is six hundred and seventeen students, and there are approximately sixteen hundred freshmen, not including staff. Granted, dinner stretches two hours and forty-five minutes, so the population density ebbs and flows, but there’s still a high probability of exceeding carrying capacity at any given point — assuming, of course, that everyone’s body mass averages out to predicted levels.”

“Steven Zenger, everyone,” said Kevin. “Steven Zenger.”

The pronouncement of the full name; Steven Zenger was such a character , the type of guy who often said things just like this , that’s so Steven Zenger , they’d grown to love him for his habitual expressions and quirks. None of my so-called friends, including Sara, had ever even said my surname. When they spoke my first name, they floated it charily, as if still unsure of it. What would precede a “David Federman, everyone, David Federman”? My lurking mutely in the hinterland of a conversation?

“What?” Steven smiled goofily, relishing the attention. “You don’t think we all together have average-massed bodies?”

“Your mom has an averaged-massed body,” Kevin said to more laughter.

“That’s not even an insult,” Steven said. “It’s a compliment. You’re saying my mom has a normal body weight.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you guys this idea I had,” said Justin. “All my mom’s e-mails were going into my spam folder, and I was going to fix it, and then I was, like, this should be an app.”

Hilarity ensued.

“Mom-Spam,” Kevin said in a smooth commercial announcer’s voice. “For when you don’t want to deal with your mom.”

The hooting escalated.

“The spam folder is the collective id of late capitalism,” I said.

Silence.

“O kay ,” Ivana said. “Now that’s random.”

After dinner I went back to my room, having told Sara I had to work more on my essay. I needed to let the air clear for a day or two. Raising the possibility of exposure so soon after the final club outing could shatter both relationships: Sara would want nothing to do with me, and you might independently decide you were better off without the complications I was adding to your dorm life.

But alone in my room I grew restless. You weren’t allowed to be the one who called all the shots. I shouldn’t have to be afraid of seeing you.

I knocked on Sara’s door. “I realize I can just work here,” I said. “And I’ll sleep over, too.”

You weren’t home, it appeared. We spent two hours intermittently speaking, Sara at her desk, me on her bed reading for my art history class about staffage, the secondary, ornamental figures in a landscape.

“Oh, my God.” She turned from her laptop. “Tiffany Gersh just friended me on Facebook!”

“Who’s Tiffany Gersh?”

“We were best friends in elementary school, and then she grew breasts in seventh grade and became popular and dumped me. I hold her responsible for my low self-esteem.”

“Huh,” I said. “Kids are cruel.”

“Especially middle school girls. And she didn’t just dump me. She got all these other girls to pretend to befriend me one by one, then drop me and tell me I was a loser who’d never have a boyfriend or any friends.”

“Sucks.” I flipped the page of my book.

“You know who reminds me of her, a little?” She jerked her thumb toward your uninhabited room.

“Hmm.”

“Did you ever have someone like that?”

“Fortunately not,” I said. “Are you going to accept her friend request?”

“Yeah, right.” Sara clicked her touch pad angrily. “I’m an extremely forgiving person, but screw her. She had all of high school to make amends.”

A key jiggled in the lock outside, setting off contortions in my stomach. You entered without saying anything and vanished into your room, no signs of a limp. I was needlessly concerned to think my presence might be a problem. Of course you’d keep last night under wraps.

I finished my art history reading and took out my laptop to begin working on the Ethical Reasoning paper. I hadn’t gotten very far when the lights in the room cut off and the hum of electronics ceased.

“What happened?” asked Sara. I quickly backed up my paper on my keychain flash drive. She opened the door to the hallway, where other perplexed residents fumbled in the dark. No lights out the window, either; the entire Yard had suffered a blackout. Within minutes the Harvard police were outside, urging us via bullhorns to stay indoors while they resolved the problem.

Sara had a candle in a jar and a matchbook on her bookcase. After lighting the candle, I held the match, letting it burn down just before the flame licked my skin. Then I struck another match and did the same.

“Don’t waste them,” Sara said when I went for a third match. “We may need more.”

Your door opened and you poked your head out. “Hey, my phone died,” you said. “Can you check if this is just Harvard or all of Cambridge?”

The Internet indicated that the blackout had hit a substantial portion of Cambridge. Hearing this, you stepped out with a bottle of vodka and another of club soda.

“Well, then, who wants a drink?”

I was shocked by the invitation, though I suppose no one wants to be alone during a blackout, and you didn’t hang out with anyone else in Matthews.

“I should probably keep working while my laptop has a charge,” said Sara.

“Oh, c’mon,” you said. “It’s a blackout. You’re supposed to get drunk. David? You’ll have a drink with me, won’t you?”

“I could go for some vodka.”

Sara’s face turned to me with surprise in the flickering candlelight.

“What the heck,” she said. “One drink.”

Even with Sara’s presence, this was a chance to socialize outside of the library and a final club, with none of your friends or Liam around. Unexpected events could happen during a blackout, particularly if you mixed in alcohol. Dynamics could radically change.

You dipped into your room and returned with three Annenberg glasses. Sitting between us, cross-legged on the floor, you bartended. “That’s good,” Sara said, making a stop signal as you sloshed vodka into her glass. You passed us our drinks as we remained at our stations.

“Another wild night in Matthews,” you said, holding up your glass in tribute.

“Yep,” I said.

Sara’s phone rang.

“Hi, Dad,” she answered. “How’d you know? You have an alert set up for Cambridge? You’re aware I’m eighteen years old, right, and I can handle a blackout? Oh, hi, Mom, didn’t know you were there. Am I on speaker? Yeah, it’s fine, safe in my room and my phone’s fully charged. David’s here, too. And Veronica.” A pause. “Uh-huh, my roommate,” she said more quietly, turning away from you. “ Yes , I’ll stay indoors. Call you tomorrow. Love you, too.”

She made a quick kissing sound, as she always did when getting off the phone with a family member. “Sorry about that,” she said with a sigh. “My parents are a little overprotective.”