Coach put his hand over his eyes, massaged his temples with his widespread thumb and middle finger, swiveled about twenty degrees away from Jojo, and let out the kind of sigh that sounds like an eighteen-wheeler’s air brakes. Without turning back toward Jojo or lifting his head or removing his manual eyeshade from his brow, Coach said calmly, softly, albeit wearily, “Jojo, do me a favor. Take a nice long walk before practice tomorrow. Think about what I’ve just told you. Think about your role on this campus and your obligations and loyalties in life. Or if you don’t wanna think about that, then think about a big, enormous, resentful prick. His name is Margolies. Anyway, think about something. Anything. Anything that’ll make you use your head and not just your impulse of the moment.”

He still didn’t look at Jojo. He didn’t budge from his posture of pain. And he didn’t say any more.

So Jojo got up from his chair and stood there a moment. The whole thing was damned awkward.

“Coach—” But he decided not to continue. If he made one final pitch for the Age of Socrates—he wasn’t even up to imagining what might happen.

So he just turned around and left.

10. Hot Guys

Bettina, Charlotte, and their new friend, a freshman named Mimi, had just returned from PowerPizza to Bettina’s room and the usual stew of unmade sheets and blankets, contorted pillows, strewn clothes and towels, abandoned catalogs, manuals, instruction sheets, CD cases, beauty-enhancement magazines, empty contact lens packets, stray rechargers, and dust balls dust balls dust balls.

“That place is a rip-off!” said Charlotte.

“Forget rip-off,” said Bettina. “My jeans will never fit again.”

“Yeah, I’m so-o-o-o full!” said Mimi. “But that was so good.”

“Now what should we do?” said Charlotte.

Silence. That was, indeed, the question, for that question led straight to a larger one.

Bettina’s roommate, Nora, was out…naturally. After dark she was always out…and Bettina, wearing a polo shirt and tight blue Diesel-brand jeans that made her legs look even chunkier than they were, had settled back into Nora’s techie-looking desk chair. Mimi, wearing likewise fashionably exhausted Diesel jeans and a sweatshirt, sat on one bed with her back propped up against the wall and her knees pulled to her chest. Mimi was a big-boned blonde with a lot of hair, the type boys at Dupont called a Monet, meaning a girl who looks great twenty-five feet away and not that great up close. Up close you became aware that Mimi’s nose was too long for her face. Charlotte sat on the edge of the other bed in a T-shirt, sweater, and shorts. Wearing shorts at night this late in October was pushing it, but she was determined to show off her legs, and besides, she now realized that her only jeans, the inky-blue ones Momma bought her just before she left Sparta, were not faded, were not low-cut at the waist, had tapered legs, and made you look about as un-Diesel as you could get. So here they were, the three of them, assessing their situation, which was that it was Friday night and they were sitting in a dorm room with nothing to do.

Finally Mimi said, “I need—I’m gonna go to the gym.”

“It’s ten-thirty on a Friday night!” said Bettina. “The gym’s probably closed. Besides, that would be lame. We’re not that pathetic.”

“Well, what do you propose we do?” said Mimi.

Charlotte said, “Anyone have any cards or board games?”

“Oh—come—on!” said Bettina. “We’re not in high school anymore!”

“Wanna play drinking games?” said Mimi.

“Drinking games?” said Charlotte. She tried not to reveal her alarm.

“Yeah, ever heard of them?”

“Yeah—” said Charlotte, who hadn’t.

“Where are we going to find alcohol?” said Bettina.

“Good point,” said Mimi.

More silence. Charlotte felt enormously relieved. She didn’t want to look like a moralistic little mouse in front of her new—and only—friends. On the other hand, there was no way she was going to take a drink of alcohol. Momma’s powerful embrace had her arms pinned to her sides when it came to something like that. Did Bettina drink? Charlotte rather desperately hoped not. Bettina was the motor, the energy, the gregarious force, the enterprise, that had brought the three of them together on a Friday night, so that, whatever their circumstances, at least they weren’t alone. But Mimi was the one with…experience. Mimi had gone to a private day school in Los Angeles. She was the one who was up on subjects Charlotte had never heard of, everything from “morphing” with computers to “doing lines” of cocaine and “rolling” at “raves”—which seemed to be some sort of orgies people who used the drug ecstasy went to—and sexual matters such as “the seven-minute seduction,” which Charlotte still didn’t comprehend but didn’t want to ask too many questions about, for fear of appearing hopelessly innocent. In short, Mimi was the sophisticate of the trio, the one with the sharp wit, the amusing cynicism, the world-weariness. She also seemed to have plenty of money to spend on things like going out for supper at a restaurant just because it might be fun. To Charlotte, even going out to PowerPizza was an extravagance. The real reason she had called the place a rip-off was to manufacture a reason why she had ordered so little.

Bettina got up and turned on her absent roommate’s television set. An unseen commentator was yelling, “That did it! That did it! Look at that choke hold! Now she wants to twist her head off!”

“Eeeeyew,” said Bettina, “mud wrestling.” She turned to Mimi and Charlotte. “WWE, CNN, or 90210 reruns?”

“Um—90210, I guess,” said Mimi.

“Reminds you of home, hunh?” said Bettina.

“Totally not,” said Mimi. “It’s so-o-o-o unrealistic, if you actually know anything about Beverly Hills. But I like it anyway.”

Bettina looked at Charlotte.

“Oh yeah,” said Charlotte, “90210, definitely.”

“So 90210 it is.” Bettina began clicking the remote.

Screams rose up from the courtyard, the unmistakable screams, once more, of girls singing their mock distress over the manly antics of boys. Very loud they were, too. The boys sang their choral response of manly laughs, bellows, and yahoos. To Charlotte, this bawling had become the anthem of the victors, namely, those girls who were attractive, experienced, and deft enough to achieve success at Dupont, which, as far as she could tell, was measured in boys.

“What are they doing screaming so loud?” she said.

“It’s Friday,” said Mimi. “Hello-oh?”

“Well, they don’t have to be that loud.”

Still more silence. Then Bettina stood up and put her fists on her hips. “This is ridiculous. We’re not sitting here watching 90210 reruns on a Friday night. What happens when people ask us what we did all weekend? What are we gonna say? ‘Watched TV’?”

Charlotte said, “We could go bowling?”

“Okaaay…” said Mimi, drawling the word out dubiously. “Do either of you two have a car?”

“No.”

“No.”

“Well, that kind of rules that idea out.”

“Still, why don’t we go out,” said Bettina. “You know…like try a frat party or something. There’s supposed to be a big party at the Saint Ray house.”

“Are you invited?” said Charlotte. She looked at Mimi, too, including her in the question.

“Doesn’t matter,” said Bettina. “Sometimes they keep guys out, but they always let girls in.”

“We won’t know anybody,” said Charlotte.

“That’s the whole point,” said Bettina. “We’re supposed to meet people there. How are we supposed to meet anybody if we never go outside this dorm full of rejects?”

“How far is it?” said Charlotte. “How would we get there? How would we get back?”

“Hopefully we won’t,” said Mimi.

“What do you mean?” said Charlotte.

“Well, maybe we’ll meet some hot guys and not have to come back.”