Lorrie Moore - 100 Years of the Best American Short Stories

I brought home cookies for Lauren and me. Just a present. We’ll eat ’em or Glenn’ll eat ’em. I’ll throw them out for all I care. They’re chocolate chip with pecans. This was one good mother. A lucky can. I brought us coffee, too. I bought it.

Yeah, OK, so I’m in trouble. Wednesday, at ten-thirty, I got this notice I was supposed to appear. I had a class, Chem 1C, pre-med staple. Your critical thing. I never missed it before. I told Glenn I had a doctor’s appointment.

OK, so I skip it anyway and I walk into this room and there’s these two other guys, all work in the mailroom doing what I do, sorting. And we all sit there on chairs on this green carpet. I was staring at everybody’s shoes. And there’s a cop. University cop, I don’t know what’s the difference. He had this sagging, pear-shaped body. Like what my dad would have if he were fat, but he’s not, he’s thin. He walks slowly on the carpeting, his fingers hooked in his belt loops. I was watching his hips.

Anyway, he’s accusing us all and he’s trying to get one of us to admit we did it. No way.

“I hope one of you will come to me and tell the truth. Not a one of you knows anything about this? Come on, now.”

I shake my head no and stare down at the three pairs of shoes. He says they’re not going to do anything to the person who did it, right, wanna make a bet, they say they just want to know, but they’ll take it back as soon as you tell them.

I don’t care why I don’t believe him. I know one thing for sure and that’s they’re not going to do anything to me as long as I say no, I didn’t do it. That’s what I said, no, I didn’t do it, I don’t know a thing about it. I just can’t imagine where those missing packages could have gone, how letters got into garbage cans. Awful. I just don’t know.

The cop had a map with X’s on it every place they found mail. The garbage cans. He said there was a group of students trying to get an investigation. People’s girlfriends sent cookies that never got here. Letters are missing. Money. These students put up Xeroxed posters on bulletin boards showing a garbage can stuffed with letters.

Why should I tell them, so they can throw me in jail? And kick me out of school? Four-point-oh average and I’m going to let them kick me out of school? They’re sitting there telling us it’s a felony. A federal crime. No way, I’m gonna go to medical school.

This tall, skinny guy with a blond mustache, Wallabees, looks kind of like a rabbit, he defended us. He’s another sorter, works Monday/Wednesdays.

“We all do our jobs,” he says. “None of us would do that.” The rabbity guy looks at me and the other girl for support. So we’re going to stick together. The other girl, a dark blonde chewing her lip, nodded. I loved that rabbity guy that second. I nodded too.

The cop looked down. Wide hips in the coffee-with-milk-colored pants. He sighed. I looked up at the rabbity guy. They let us all go.

I’m just going to keep saying no, not me, didn’t do it and I just won’t do it again. That’s all. Won’t do it anymore. So, this is Glenn’s last chance for homemade cookies. I’m sure as hell not going to bake any.

I signed the form, said I didn’t do it, I’m OK now. I’m safe. It turned out OK after all, it always does. I always think something terrible’s going to happen and it doesn’t. I’m lucky.

I’m afraid of cops. I was walking, just a little while ago, today, down Telegraph with Glenn, and these two policemen, not the one I’d met, other policemen, were coming in our direction. I started sweating a lot. I was sure until they passed us, I was sure it was all over, they were there for me. I always think that. But at the same time, I know it’s just my imagination. I mean, I’m a four-point-oh student, I’m a nice girl just walking down the street with my boyfriend.

We were on our way to get Happy Burgers. When we turned the corner, about a block past the cops, I looked at Glenn and I was flooded with this feeling. It was raining a little and we were by People’s Park. The trees were blowing and I was looking at all those little gardens coming up, held together with stakes and white string.

I wanted to say something to Glenn, give him something. I wanted to tell him something about me.

“I’m bad in bed,” that’s what I said, I just blurted it out like that. He just kind of looked at me, he was nervous, he just giggled. He didn’t know what to say, I guess, but he sort of slung his arm around me and I was so grateful and then we went in. He paid for my Happy Burger, I usually don’t let him pay for me, but I did and it was the best goddamn hamburger I’ve ever eaten.

I want to tell him things.

I lie all the time, always have, but I keep track of each lie I’ve ever told Glenn and I’m always thinking of the things I can’t tell him.

Glenn was a screwed up kid, kind of. He used to go in his backyard, his parents were inside the house I guess, and he’d find this big stick and start twirling around with it. He’d dance, he called it dancing, until if you came up and clapped in front of him, he wouldn’t see you. He’d spin around with that stick until he fell down dead on the grass, unconscious, he said he did it to see the sky break up in pieces and spin. He did it sometimes with a tire swing, too. He told me when he was spinning like that, it felt like he was just hearing the earth spinning, that it really went that fast all the time but we just don’t feel it. When he was twelve years old his parents took him in the city to a clinic to see a psychologist. And then he stopped. See, maybe I should go to a psychologist. I’d get better, too. He told me about that in bed one night. The ground feels so good when you fall, he said to me. I loved him for that.

“Does anything feel that good now?” I said.

“Sex sometimes. Maybe dancing.”

Know what else he told me that night? He said, right before we went to sleep, he wasn’t looking at me, he said he’d been thinking what would happen if I died, he said he thought how he’d be at my funeral, all my family and my friends from high school and my little brother would all be around at the front and he’d be at the edge in the cemetery, nobody’d even know who he was.

I was in that crack, breathing the air between the bed and the wall. Cold and dusty. Yeah, we’re having sex. I don’t know. It’s good. Sweet. He says he loves me. I have to remind myself. I talk to myself in my head while we’re doing it. I have to say, it’s OK, this is just Glenn, this is who I want it to be and it’s just like rubbing next to someone. It’s just like pushing two hands together, so there’s no air in between.

I cry sometimes with Glenn, I’m so grateful.

My mother called and woke me up this morning. Ms. I’m-going-to-be-perfect. Ms. Anything-wrong-is-your-own-fault. Ms. If-anything-bad-happens-you’re-a-fool.

She says if she has time, she might come up and see my dorm room in the next few weeks. Help me organize my wardrobe, she says. She didn’t bring me up here, my dad did. I wanted Danny to come along. I love Danny.

But my mother has no pity. She thinks she’s got the answers. She’s the one who’s a lawyer, she’s the one who went back to law school and stayed up late nights studying while she still made our lunch boxes. With gourmet cheese. She’s proud of it, she tells you. She loves my dad, I guess. She thinks we’re like this great family and she sits there at the dinner table bragging about us, to us. She Xeroxed my grade card first quarter with my Chemistry A+ so she’s got it in her office and she’s got the copy up on the refrigerator at home. She’s sitting there telling all her friends that and I’m thinking, you don’t know it, but I’m not one of you.