Middlesex

We agreed to meet the next day, a Tuesday evening. The Obscure Object wrote out her address and Tessie dropped me at the house. She was sitting on a green velvet sofa when I was shown into the library. Her oxfords were off but she still had her uniform on. Her long red hair was tied back, the better to do what she was doing, which was to light her cigarette. Sitting Indian style, the Object leaned forward, holding the cigarette in her mouth over a green ceramic lighter shaped like an artichoke. The lighter was low on fluid. She shook it and flicked the button with her thumb until at last a small flame shot out.

“Your parents let you smoke?” I said.

She looked up, surprised, then returned to the work at hand. She got the cigarette going, inhaled deeply, and let it out, slowly, satisfyingly. “They smoke,” she said. “They’d be pretty big hypocrites if they didn’t let me smoke.”

“But they’re adults.”

“Mummy and Daddy know I’m going to smoke if I want to. If they don’t let me do it, I’ll just sneak it.”

By the looks of it, this dispensation had been in effect for some time. The Object was not new to smoking. She was already a professional. As she sized me up, her eyes narrowing, the cigarette hung aslant from her mouth. Smoke drifted close to her face. It was a strange opposition: the hard-bitten private-eye expression on the face of a girl wearing a uniform for private school. Finally she reached up and took the cigarette out of her mouth. Without looking for the ashtray, she flicked her ash. It fell in.

“I doubt a kid like you smokes,” she said.

“That would be a good guess.”

“You interested in starting?” She held out her pack of Tareytons.

“I don’t want to get cancer.”

She tossed the pack down, shrugging. “I figure they’ll be able to cure it by the time I get it.”

“I hope so. For your sake.”

She inhaled again, even more deeply. She held the smoke in and then turned in cinematic profile and let it out.

“You don’t have any bad habits, I bet,” she said.

“I’ve got tons of bad habits.”

“Like what?”

“Like I chew my hair.”

“I bite my nails,” she said competitively. She lifted one hand to show me. “Mummy got me this stuff to put on them. It tastes like shit. It’s supposed to help you quit.”

“Does it work?”

“At first it did. But now I sort of like the taste.” She smiled. I smiled. Then, briefly, trying it out, we laughed together.

“That’s not as bad as chewing your hair,” I resumed.

“Why not?”

“Because when you chew your hair it starts smelling like what you had for lunch.”

She made a face and said, “Bogue.”

At school we would have felt funny talking together, but here no one could see us. In the bigger scheme of things, out in the world, we were more alike than different. We were both teenagers. We were both from the suburbs. I set down my bag and came over to the sofa. The Object put her Tareyton in her mouth. Planting her palms on either side of her crossed legs, she lifted herself up, like a yogi levitating, and scooted over to make room for me.

“I’ve got a history test tomorrow,” she said.

“Who do you have for history?”

“Miss Schuyler.”

“Miss Schuyler has a vibrator in her desk.”

“A what!”

“A vibrator. Liz Clark saw it. It’s in her bottom drawer.”

“I can’t believe it!” The Object was shocked, amused. But then she squinted, thinking. In a confidential voice she asked, “What are those for, anyway?”

“Vibrators?”

“Yeah.” She knew she was supposed to know. But she trusted I wouldn’t make fun of her. This was the form of the pact we made that day: I would handle the deep intellectual matters, like vibrators; she would handle the social sphere.

“Most women can’t have orgasms by regular intercourse,” I said, quoting from the copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves Meg Zemka had given me. “They need clitoral stimulation.”

Behind her freckles, a blush rose to the Object’s face. She was, of course, transfixed by such information. I was speaking into her left ear. The blush spread across her face from that side, as if my words left a visible trace.

“I can’t believe you know all this stuff.”

“I’ll tell you who knows about it. Miss Schuyler, that’s who.”

The laugh, the hoot, shot out of her mouth like a geyser, and then the Object was falling back on the couch. She screamed, with delight, with revulsion. She kicked her legs, knocking her cigarettes off the table. She was fourteen again, instead of twenty-four, and against all odds we were becoming friends.

“ ‘Unwept, unfriended, without marriage song, I am led forth in my horror—’ ”

“ ‘—sorrow—’ ”

“ ‘—in my sorrow on this journey that can be delayed no more. No longer . . .’ ”

“ ‘. . . hapless one . . .’ ”

“ ‘Hapless one!’ I hate that! ‘No longer, hapless one, may I behold yon day-star’s sacred eye; but for my fate no tear is shed, no . . . no . . .’ ”

“ ‘No friend makes moan.’ ”

“ ‘No friend makes moan.’ ”