Emma Straub - Modern Lovers

“What exactly happened?” Jane asked.

The young male officer cleared his throat. “These two were having sexual relations in the playground.”

“Sexual relations? Who are you, Bill Clinton? You mean you actually saw them?” Zoe’s voice was high and loud. Zoe got angry so rarely that when it came out, it was like a volcano after a hundred years at rest. “I really doubt that. Ruby, please. Can you tell us what actually happened? I very much doubt that you caught them doing anything. So they were in a playground after dark. Fine. Fine! Please.” She was breathing out of her nose like a bull about to charge.

The officer cleared his throat again. “The young lady was on top of the young man. Her underwear was on the ground. There was a used condom. I’m not making this up, ma’am.” The little prick was practically smiling. “This is a serious offense.”

“A used condom?” In comparison to Zoe’s, Elizabeth’s voice was tiny, as if her lips didn’t want to let the words out. She took her arm off Harry’s shoulders and leaned back.

“That’s right, ma’am.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “And Ms. Kahn-Bennett is over eighteen, which makes this much more serious.”

“Oh, come on,” Harry said.

Elizabeth covered her face with her hands.

“Ruby, is he telling the truth?” Zoe leaned in, offering her daughter her ear.

Ruby shrugged. “I mean, I guess so. Mr. Marx and I were not having sex when we were so rudely interrupted by these fine officers, but we could have been, and it is humanly possible that we very recently had been, so I guess I can’t really say anything other than I deeply apologize for so rudely using the park after dark for my own purposes.”

Harry stifled a laugh, and his mother put her finger in his face. “Do not.” Elizabeth shook her head. “I just can’t believe this,” she said.

“Well, I think we all know whose fault this is,” Andrew said. He raised his palms. “Harry has never been in any kind of trouble before, Officer, not once. Whereas Ruby…”

“Oh!” Zoe said. “Oh! I see how this is!”

“Am I making this up?” Andrew turned to Elizabeth for confirmation. She looked queasy.

“It doesn’t really matter whose idea it was,” the female officer said. “Let’s not get bogged down. This is the first time that either of them have ever been in here, and seeing as both Ms. Marx and Ms. Kahn are leading members of the local community, we are willing to let this go with a warning and a fine. But I do want written apologies from both of you kids on my desk tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Jane said, extending her hand to the officer. “We really appreciate that.” She clamped her other hand on Ruby’s shoulder. “This will never happen again, I promise you that.”

They gathered their things and stood up. Jane watched as Elizabeth mouthed I’m sorry to Zoe. Then they made their way back out onto the street in single file, the Kahn-Bennetts first with the Marxes behind.

When they were all on the sidewalk in front of the station, Zoe was starting to usher Ruby toward their car, as if shielding her from paparazzi. “Hang on,” Jane said. She stopped and turned to Elizabeth. “What exactly are you sorry for?”

“What?” Elizabeth put on her best naïve face, the face of a choir girl.

“Inside, you just told Zoe that you were sorry. I want to know what you’re sorry for. Are you sorry for the fact that my daughter had sex with your son? Because I have really had it with this bullshit. You think that you guys have this perfect kid and this perfect shit, but you’re just as messed up as the rest of us, I promise you.” Jane felt her heart beating faster. She wanted to wrestle Elizabeth to the ground, to fold her skinny limbs up and throw her away.

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about, Jane,” Elizabeth said. The night air was cool, and there was a wind picking up, blowing trash at their feet. “I never said we were perfect.” They had never been perfect, not she and Andrew nor she and Zoe. Lydia popped into her head, Lydia, who had been arrested half a dozen times before she died. She would have laughed hysterically at all of this. How bourgeois! How parental! They couldn’t even commit their own crimes.

“Oh, right.” Jane cracked her knuckles. She didn’t mean to be threatening, it was just a habit, but she saw Elizabeth jump back a bit at the sound and wasn’t sorry about it. “You think I can’t see the way you look at Zoe, and me, and Ruby? Like you’re above it all and looking down on us from your little throne?”

“Mom,” said Ruby. “Whoa.”

“Jane,” said Zoe. “First of all, please relax. Second of all, this is totally crazy and not at all true. Third of all, can we please not have this conversation in front of a police station? This is turning into an episode of the Maury Povich show.”

“I was apologizing for Andrew implying that this was Ruby’s fault,” Elizabeth said. She stuck her hands in the pockets of her sweatshirt. “As for the rest of it, I’m really sorry that this is all happening at once, with you guys, and everything that you’re dealing with, and I’m sorry! I’m just sorry, okay? I love you guys! Come on! You know that.”

“You’re apologizing to her about me ?” Andrew asked, incredulous. “Are you serious?”

“Fine,” Jane said, raising her hands in surrender. “Fine.” She stalked back toward the car, kicking a newspaper off her leg and into the street, cursing under her breath, happy at least to know that they were not the only ones going home to have a fight.

Oberlin College (population: 3,000) had more lesbians than all of Wellesley, Massachusetts (population: 27,982), if you weren’t counting the all-women’s college, which Elizabeth wasn’t going to apply to because it would mean that she could never leave home. Lesbianism was one of the things she always assumed she’d try in college, like a tofu scramble, or a cappella. She’d kissed a girl once, during a particularly good session of Truth or Dare at a party her senior year of high school, but the girl was just some random drunk sophomore who had dissolved into giggles immediately, and so it didn’t really count.

Then there was Zoe Bennett. Elizabeth sometimes thought about the improbability of her life, starting the way it did, all in a dormitory that looked like a cellblock. What if Andrew hadn’t lived on her hall? What if Zoe hadn’t lived downstairs? Oberlin was a small school, but there were certainly people whose paths she’d never crossed, and people she met years later. She and Andrew had met during their freshman orientation, and she’d met Zoe that first week, when she was sitting in front of the dorm smoking. Lots of people had bleached-out hair, but not many of them were black girls in enormous goth platform boots. Elizabeth had lost her key to the building and was waiting for someone to come out so that she could get back inside. It was the first day of September, and Ohio was beautiful, flat and sunny and full of flowers. Zoe sprang up and opened the door, and then walked Elizabeth all the way to her dorm room, as if she were the resident bellhop. They became friends so quickly that Elizabeth sometimes thought that Zoe must have confused her for someone else, someone prettier and funnier, someone with better stories and a higher tolerance for alcohol.

They hadn’t had sex.

They hadn’t done anything at all.

It was almost true. Elizabeth and Andrew were already together, more or less, kissing at the end of the night and never talking about it during the day. Kitty’s Mustache was playing shows at house parties once or twice a week, their flyers up all over campus. “MEOW,” they’d say, and then the address. Two dollars for the keg. Everyone knew who they were. Both Zoe and Andrew were living off campus now that they were allowed to, Zoe in a one-bedroom apartment next door to Oberlin’s crumbling movie theater, the Apollo, which meant that the neon marquee lit up her living room every night after dark until about ten o’clock. They were a funny match — even once they were in the band together, Elizabeth still felt like an amateur next to Zoe — an amateur woman, an amateur college student, an amateur cool kid. Even so, they had more fun together than seemed possible. They went to the Salvation Army and bought bags of clothes for ten dollars, they went bowling and came out reeking of cigarette smoke and french fries, they went to the movies and got drunk and laughed all night long. Elizabeth wanted to be Zoe’s best friend, to wear matching necklaces and everything. They were almost there, maybe, but Zoe had so many friends already, from so many corners of the campus, that it was hard for Elizabeth to know where she stood.