Chapter 10: Andrew
Wherever there’s a carcass, there the vultures will gather.
Matthew 24:28
“Stop. Please ... the door.” My eyes close but can’t close out the crowd gathering on the other side of the bedroom door. They’ve been drinking in the sun for nearly six hours and are ripe for a diversion. When they realized that Andrew and I were no longer in the Jacuzzi, they remembered how they watched him pour round after round of peach schnapps into my shot glass. They remembered how I laughed too much. They remembered how Andrew kissed me, and how I seemed to explode all over him.
They decided to track us down; it would be fun.
Their voices come through the crack beneath the door, spiraling toward me like a twisting rope. I can’t move. “Please, they’re tryin’ to come in.” My voice squeaks.
Andrew moves up and down between my legs. His rhythm matches one particularly loud fist as it hits the door over and over again. The moment is his and I’m the black blaring speaker he dances on.
“Stop!” I yell.
“They’re just screwing around.” He gasps for breath. “They’re not coming in. The door’s locked.” I try to twist away but it’s impossible. “I’m almost through.” His eyes roll up in his head. “Just a minute ... oh ... God.”
His dead weight lands on me, pushing out air that carries my shriveling self esteem through the small bedroom. The noise and the pounding stop as the scavengers sense a change. I wish the sheets and blankets could bury my naked body like quicksand. It doesn’t matter that I will be in a dark place with no air. Everything above me, all things real, will be as if I was never there. Buried only beneath Andrew’s sweaty body, I keep quiet and pray that his friends have given up.
A distinct click breaks the silence and Andrew’s magical moment dissipates. “They’re picking the lock,” he says.
“Get off me!” I yell like the trapped girl that I am.
He chuckles, scrambling from the bed. “Lighten up,” he says as he snatches his swimming trunks from the floor. He pulls them on within seconds. Seeing how easy it is for him makes me feel sorry for myself. As I sink low, I have to force myself out of the hole I’ve been lying in. Once exposed, I jerk the blankets from either side of the bed in search of my bathing suit. My hands tremble as I fasten the front hook of my bikini top.
The noise in the hall begins to escalate. “Where are my bottoms?” I ask, scampering like a fallen dog to the edge of the bed. “Where are they?” He watches as I strain to see between the bed and the wall. The red bottoms are lying on the floor beneath the headboard. I smash the side of my face into the bed, stretch my arm to its snapping point, and hook the red material on the tip of my longest finger.
Just as I cover myself, the door flies opens, hitting the wall.
Young men, most of whom are drunk med students, scurry into the room like roaches. Arms and legs, burnt red, flap around their hard bodies. I pull the bone colored sheet from the edge of the bed and drape it over my legs and waist as if I’m still naked. I can imagine the thick white juice churning beneath the armored plates they hide behind, muscled bodies cultivated in the sweaty med school gym.
I sit on the edge of the bed with my knees pressed painfully together as multiple eyes rake over me. They laugh as a group, one communal thought pervading. Their open mouths chew at my self-worth. It splashes onto the floor around them and settles between their toes. I stare at them with a strong face. Their hard bodies shift and soon their mouths begin to close. They have taken all the self-worth they can stomach for one day. Their laughter gradually changes to silence. Andrew whistles softly to himself and I smile with closed lips because there’s nothing else to do.
The feast is over. They’re trapped in a roach motel.
I hold my head steady. There’s nothing of value left for them to take except the realization that they are creepy little insects. As they get older, these are the memories that will eventually penetrate exteriors that weren’t really hard at all. One day, they’ll become successful doctors with trophy wives and sweet children. They’ll lay in bed on some dark night remembering how they allowed themselves to be led into roach motels. I imagine each guy staring at the ceiling, his arms clinging to a woman he knows has no respect for such things. His wife will brush the thinning hair from his middle-aged face while he silently longs to be a better man.
He’ll wonder what happened to the girl who sat on the edge of that bed pulling jumbled-up blankets apart, spreading them around her body like a moat. He’ll think of his daughter. He’ll want to save her from the very thing he perpetuated.
One-by-one, they leave the room. Then Andrew leaves too, mumbling that he’ll get me another drink. He returns several minutes later with a fresh bottle of Schnapps and two shot glasses. We each have two or three shots before he finally thinks of something to say. “I thought you were dating Peter Vassily.”
“I was—sort of. We’re just good friends.” The peach alcohol coats my throat, but fails to smooth over the pits created by my recent succession of self-inflicted wounds. “Peter’s nice, kind of too nice. I mean, I like nice guys but ... I dated Matt Adler.”
Andrew, with dark curls and spacious shoulders, was a roller coaster that, from the ground, promised abandon. Once I handed in my ticket, it was too late to turn back. A thick metal bar slammed over my shoulders. The machine tossed me until my head hurt. Now, I feel the nausea. “I mean, Matt’s real nice, too. I thought they’d be here.” I clutch the blankets in my fists. “Do you know Matt?”
“They don't really hang out with this crowd.” He lies back on the bed, his feet still flat on the floor. “They’re a little young.”
“They’re older than me,” I say and start to laugh. I can’t stop. I don’t know if it's because of the new alcohol or just the fact that I’m so uncomfortable.
“Well, they’re a little young.” His precise northeastern pronunciation twists slightly as he gets up from the bed and motions me to follow.
I don’t move. “I dated Matt last summer, before he started school.”
“That six-year program seems to cause a lot of controversy. A lot of those guys end up repeating their freshman or sophomore year.” He inches his way toward the door. “There was one girl who had to repeat both. How would you like to have her cut open your heart or yank your appendix or whatever-the-hell you have wrong with you?”
I say, “Peter and Matt are the smartest people I know.”
“That’s the thing. The kids who get into the program are super smart.” He steps outside the door and looks down the hallway. “Look, I’ve got to get going.”
“But we’re talking.” I shrug my shoulders. “Don’t you want to talk?”
He looks irritated but comes back. He seems to think my power of observation is so weak that I can’t see that he wants to get away; he wants to be part of another carnival. “Those freaking kids are smarter than most of us, but they go through their undergrad courses too fast.” His voice grows louder. “They’re only nineteen or twenty when they start med school. There’s no way they can handle the pressure.”
“Apparently they do.”
He shakes his head. “Apparently not—look at your boyfriend, Matt. He’s supposed to be some kind of mathematical genius but he flunked.”
My heart slows to an unnatural rate as I watch Andrew turn in drunken circles, as if celebrating a touchdown. Drunk and satisfied, he says, “His ass is grass.”
”I don’t believe it.” I float off the bed in a daze. “Nobody told me.”
“Well, I’m telling you. I guess he couldn’t handle it. Like I said—too immature.”
“But he’s so smart.” My voice trails off as things began to make sense. No wonder he hates me.
A couple of Andrew’s friends cower by the door, signaling him to rejoin the party. He ignores them, wanting to get his point across while he has the chance. “He must be lacking something. The little shit! Those guys come in thinking they’re so god damn smart. They excelled in some shitty Louisiana high school. This is the armpit of America.”
His friends look at each other as if to affirm the quality of their southern education. Their decision to keep him as a friend is a mutual afterthought.
One says, “Relax, man.”
“What’s the big deal?” says another.
“Well it’s true,” Andrew says. “That’s how they got into med school. I busted my ass in college.” His intense stare begins to scare me. “And I don’t feel like swimming.”
“It’s not my fault,” I say. “Why are you yellin’ at me? You just said they're smarter than you.”
He throws his head back and sucks the thick Schnapps he’s holding straight from the bottle. One of his friends tries to ease it away from him but fails.
“I had to come down to this hot hell hole because I couldn’t get into school in New Jersey or New York or Connecticut where I should be. My GPA was nearly perfect. It doesn’t even matter what those little shits get on the MCAT. I heard they just fill in the dots to make some fucking designs. Can you believe that shit?”
I look to his friends for help but they’re gone. “You’re drunk and you’re just jealous,” I say.
“No—I’m an adult. I worked my ass off to get here. That’s why I didn’t flunk.”
All the alcohol has raised my bravery level. Normally I would have kept quiet, wishing I knew what to say. But this time, I say, “Oh, you’re so mature.” As the words come out, I know I sound like a little girl. “You and your grown-up friends should take a good look at each other. Do you think mature adults go to parties and bust down bedroom doors?”
“Don’t kid yourself. You’re part of this, too, Missy.”
I shove my feet into my flip-flops and grab my keys. “I’m nineteen and you’re what ... twenty-two, twenty-three?”
“You little bitch. Being the star of a show is what you get for spreading your legs at the drop of a hat.” I bolt past him and run down the long hallway. “I heard you were a psycho!” he yells, his voice echoes pushing me forward. “Why don’t you just get the hell out of here! Who invited you anyway?”
The few people inside the house snicker as I hurry toward the sliding glass doors that lead to the back yard. I pretend that they didn’t hear him yelling but I know they did.
People crowd the brick patio and overflow into the yard and swimming pool. Marvin Gay’s voice blares from huge speakers on either side of the yard. Andrew’s roommates, the coupon lady and her husband, stand near the edge of the pool, drinking and laughing. I wish I had the guts to push the happy couple into the water.
I run from the house. The pits in my throat clog with hot dust. By the time I reach my car, I’m nearly hyperventilating. The vinyl seat burns my legs. As I reach down to fasten my seatbelt, I see the white nylon crotch of my bikini bottoms. I cry as I peel them off, turn them right side out, and put them back on. All the way to my mother’s apartment, I tell myself I don’t care.
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More of Chapter 10 coming tomorrow.
To find out what BOUNDARIES is about and start reading at the beginning. go here.
BOUNDARIES is Penelope Przekop's first novel. It's a work of fiction based on true events. Since writing BOUNDARIES, she has completed two other novels. ABERRATIONS
was published by Greenleaf Book Group in 2008. CENTERPIECES is currently being considered by several publishers. Penelope is working on her fourth novel, DUST.
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