Teddy Wayne - Loner

She looked down, cheeks reddening, and excused herself for the bathroom. As I refilled my drink, Ivana showed up.

“So, Sara’s cute,” she said, much like a mother suggesting a piece of fruit for dessert.

That word again. I considered her assessment. Sara’s dishwater-brown hair was generally pulled back in a ponytail, and her face looked like a sculpture someone hadn’t thought worth putting the finishing touches on, its planes and protrusions not fully defined. But when she smiled she was, I supposed, cute.

“Mmhuh,” I grunted.

“Oh, you’re playing it cool.” She smirked. “No worries. By the way, do you have any idea if Steven’s hooking up with anyone?”

“ Steven? I doubt it.”

“To both of us playing it cool, then,” she toasted, bumping her beer against the rim of my cup and spilling it again.

Sara returned. Ivana gave me a knowing look as she melted back into the throng.

Two ovals of perspiration had bloomed in Sara’s underarms. She noticed right after I did, noticed I’d noticed, and crossed her arms.

“Well, screw it,” she said, uncrossing them. “I sweat. Big deal.”

She finished her beer and I asked if she wanted another. “I was thinking about heading back, actually,” she said. “But I can hang out for a little more if you want to go after this drink.”

It wasn’t that late yet. You might show up.

“I’ll probably stick around for a while.”

“Okay,” she said. “See you later.”

I got another drink and searched for Steven and Ivana. I didn’t find them but saw a face that looked strangely familiar, as if it were the instantiation of one I’d hazily conjured up in nightmares over the years. Pug-nosed and short, he nonetheless commanded the attention of a circle of listeners. At one point he tipped his head back in amusement at something he’d himself said. Over the music I heard a strident cackle, the sound a pterodactyl might make if it could laugh.

Scott Tupper was at Harvard.

One day in fifth grade, Jessica Waltham, one of the popular girls, passed me a note in homeroom.

“I have something to tell you at recess,” she’d written. The i of something was dotted with a heart.

At the appointed time Jessica stood alone while the rest of our class frolicked on the playground. I timidly approached.

“I love you,” she said, looking at her sneaker as she toed the rubber matting.

Even in those latency-phase days I understood that this was socio-romantic validation of the highest order.

“Thank you,” I replied.

Neither of us spoke. Then Jessica looked over her shoulder at Scott, who had seemingly come out of nowhere, his minions in tow.

“Did he say he loves you?” he asked.

Jessica responded with a less-than-convincing nod, but that was enough to send the boys into hysterics.

I wasn’t familiar with the word entrapment , but knew I’d been the victim of something. Nor was I aware that Scott and Jessica had recently begun “dating,” whatever that meant at our age. I protested that I hadn’t said I’d loved her, I’d only thanked her, but it fell on deaf ears. By the end of recess it had become gospel in the class that David F. said he was in love with Jessica.

The next day I noticed a rancid stench in my cubby as I took my winter jacket out for recess. After I zipped it up, I felt dampness on my back.

“Eww!” Scott shouted after our teacher had led the first wave of students out of the room. “David peed himself!”

His cronies howled with disgusted delight. Compounding my humiliation was that I was, in fact, an occasional bed wetter. It must have been a coincidence that he’d chosen that way to debase me, though at the time it didn’t seem like one, and, feeling outed, I never reported anything to our teacher; I just wanted the incident to go away.

Those two episodes apparently quenched Scott’s thirst for cruelty, as he did nothing else the rest of the year. Still, I developed a precautionary habit of sniffing my jacket before putting it on every single time, and my fears of additional torment manifested themselves in stomachaches each morning. My parents asked what was wrong, why I kept making excuses to get out of school. As much as I craved justice, I refused to tattle. Openly admitting my status as a target of bullies would authenticate it on the deepest of levels.

Scott’s family moved away the next year. That he had gotten into Harvard came as a shock. He hadn’t distinguished himself as a student, and I’d always assumed he would grow up into the sort of druggie who fried his brain with pot while supplying it at a suburban markup to his deep-pocketed classmates.

After refilling my cup with gin — just gin — I retreated to the opposite corner of the room, blending into the nubby white wall. Once I had enough alcohol in my system I was ready to initiate a confrontation. I advanced toward him, armed with my opening line: Scott, it’s David Federman. Remember me?

But I shouldn’t have had to jog his memory, shouldn’t have had to be the one to approach; he should see me, feel guilty, and come up and beg forgiveness. I stopped before infiltrating his ring and stared at him.

We briefly made eye contact before he returned to his conversation. Not a flicker of recognition.

I was one of a few dozen forgettable boys he’d arbitrarily victimized over the years, and after a while we’d all become constituent parts of one effete, thin-wristed composite, a chorus of panicky titters preceding whatever indignity we were about to suffer.

Maybe the experience had made me more sensitive, more academically focused, and I’d been rewarded with acceptance to Harvard; that was fine. But if the world were really fair, people like him would be punished for their loutish misdeeds, not given the same prize. The Scott Tuppers should have been banished to community college.

I stumbled home through a ginny fog, somehow fit my key into the lock, and sprawled on my bed. Drunken sleep had nearly overtaken me when I heard a sound like an army of mewling mice from Steven’s room. Once I’d started to pay attention, it was too loud for me to fall asleep, so I hoisted myself up to investigate and put my ear to his door.

It wasn’t rodents; it was his bouncing bedsprings.

Subatomic Steven was having sex his first week of college. And I was forced to listen to it.

I woke up for the beginning of shopping period with my first hangover and groggily dropped in on an art history lecture, The Renaissance to Impressionism, chosen purely for its convenient location. Smaller classes would have been a better way to make friends outside of the Matthews Marauders, but I hadn’t applied in advance for any of the freshman seminars, which winnowed out dispassionate students by requiring an essay attesting to one’s interest in the subject.

When I saw you poised to leave Annenberg at lunch, holding your tray aloft, it occurred to me that I could follow you around for the afternoon and sign up for the same classes you did.

As I took a final bite of cereal and trailed you outside, I imagined revealing to you, in the future, this moment of my taking decisive, romantic action. Just think, we would conjecture, we might never have gotten together; life is so random .

You proceeded toward the redundantly named Harvard Hall, the contours of your shoulder blades pulsing under a thin black sweater, your gait as fluid as the motion of an underwater breaststroker. We arrived at a second-floor lecture room and you took an aisle seat. I found a free chair in the row behind, from which I had an unobstructed view of your profile.