said Jojo. âSkooz.â
So saying, he stepped over the couple, looking down to make sure he didnât step on them. The girl had her eyes squeezed shut. Mike cut an annoyed glance up at Jojo.
Fuck, thought Jojo. He had begun thinking in the Fuck Patois, too. He picked up the remote from the TV table andââSkoozââstepped back over the couple. In two strides he reached one of the big easy chairs, started to sink back into itâand froze before his bottom hit the cushion. It was too fucking gross. Mike and whatâs her name, Ashley, remained on the floor in front of the TV, making noises and doing the in-and-out.
And Mike had given him an annoyed look. Ordinarily Mike used good judgment, but sometimes ⦠What was so special about this particular
piece of ass that he couldnât make it ten more feet to his bedroom? Anybody on the basketball team could point at any girl on campus and have her in his room in ten minutes or close to itâso what was the big deal? One time when there had been four of them at once ⦠all four completely shaved ⦠The memory of it aroused him a bit ⦠but annoyance quickly overcame the stirring in his loins. Mike could be so goddamned thoughtless. He, Jojo, had had a rough afternoon. For the past ten minutes he had been thinking about only one thing in the world: coming back to this suite, sitting in this easy chair, and zoning out on a little TV. And now, on the floor right in front of the TV, was a two-backed beast slogging away and going unhh unhh unhh.
With an accusing sigh, Jojo tossed the remote onto the seat of the easy chair and went into his room and shut the door. He could see them in his mindâs eye, and for a moment, despite himself, he felt the old tingle again. He focused on his resentment and fought it off.
3. THE MERMAID BLUSHED
D addy, at the wheel of the pickup truck, Momma, over by the passenger-side door, and Charlotte, sandwiched in between, were driving down Dupont Universityâs showiest approach, Astor Way, an avenue flanked by sycamores whose branches arched over from either side in the summer months until they met to form a lush, cool green tunnel with a thousand little places where the sun peeked through. The sycamore trees were so evenly spaced they made Charlotte think of the columns she had seen in Washington when she was there with Miss Pennington.
âWell, Iâll be switched,â said Momma. âI never in my lifeââ
Instead of finishing the sentence, she lifted her hands and made a tunnel shape like the arch of trees and looked at Charlotte with a wide-eyed smile. It was about two p.m. Ever since four-thirty this morning, when they left Sparta in the dark, Momma had been primed to be impressed by Dupont.
Daddy turned into a tree-shaded parking lot marked LITTLE YARD, and their old pickup became part of a busy swarm of cars, vans, SUVs, and at least one yellow Ryder rental truck, disgorging freshmen, parents, duffel bags, wheelie suitcases, lamps, chairs, TV sets, stereos, boxes ⦠and boxes ⦠box after box ⦠boxes of every conceivable size, or every size Charlotte
could think of. What on earth were her new classmates bringing in all those boxesâand what did she lack? But that was a fleeting concern.
Young men wearing khaki shorts and mauve T-shirts with DUPONT in yellow letters across the chest were helping people unload their cargo, piling it on heavy-duty dollies, and pushing the immense loads out of the lot and toward the building. Charlotte had been assigned to Edgerton House, âhouseâ being the term Dupont used instead of such unclassy, bureaucratic State U. terminology as âSection E, freshman dormitory.â It wasnât part of any âdorm,â either. It was a house on Little Yard. Little Yard would be home to all sixteen hundred incoming freshmen. It was the first dormitory ever built at Dupont. A hundred years ago it had housed
So saying, he stepped over the couple, looking down to make sure he didnât step on them. The girl had her eyes squeezed shut. Mike cut an annoyed glance up at Jojo.
Fuck, thought Jojo. He had begun thinking in the Fuck Patois, too. He picked up the remote from the TV table andââSkoozââstepped back over the couple. In two strides he reached one of the big easy chairs, started to sink back into itâand froze before his bottom hit the cushion. It was too fucking gross. Mike and whatâs her name, Ashley, remained on the floor in front of the TV, making noises and doing the in-and-out.
And Mike had given him an annoyed look. Ordinarily Mike used good judgment, but sometimes ⦠What was so special about this particular
piece of ass that he couldnât make it ten more feet to his bedroom? Anybody on the basketball team could point at any girl on campus and have her in his room in ten minutes or close to itâso what was the big deal? One time when there had been four of them at once ⦠all four completely shaved ⦠The memory of it aroused him a bit ⦠but annoyance quickly overcame the stirring in his loins. Mike could be so goddamned thoughtless. He, Jojo, had had a rough afternoon. For the past ten minutes he had been thinking about only one thing in the world: coming back to this suite, sitting in this easy chair, and zoning out on a little TV. And now, on the floor right in front of the TV, was a two-backed beast slogging away and going unhh unhh unhh.
With an accusing sigh, Jojo tossed the remote onto the seat of the easy chair and went into his room and shut the door. He could see them in his mindâs eye, and for a moment, despite himself, he felt the old tingle again. He focused on his resentment and fought it off.
3. THE MERMAID BLUSHED
D addy, at the wheel of the pickup truck, Momma, over by the passenger-side door, and Charlotte, sandwiched in between, were driving down Dupont Universityâs showiest approach, Astor Way, an avenue flanked by sycamores whose branches arched over from either side in the summer months until they met to form a lush, cool green tunnel with a thousand little places where the sun peeked through. The sycamore trees were so evenly spaced they made Charlotte think of the columns she had seen in Washington when she was there with Miss Pennington.
âWell, Iâll be switched,â said Momma. âI never in my lifeââ
Instead of finishing the sentence, she lifted her hands and made a tunnel shape like the arch of trees and looked at Charlotte with a wide-eyed smile. It was about two p.m. Ever since four-thirty this morning, when they left Sparta in the dark, Momma had been primed to be impressed by Dupont.
Daddy turned into a tree-shaded parking lot marked LITTLE YARD, and their old pickup became part of a busy swarm of cars, vans, SUVs, and at least one yellow Ryder rental truck, disgorging freshmen, parents, duffel bags, wheelie suitcases, lamps, chairs, TV sets, stereos, boxes ⦠and boxes ⦠box after box ⦠boxes of every conceivable size, or every size Charlotte
could think of. What on earth were her new classmates bringing in all those boxesâand what did she lack? But that was a fleeting concern.
Young men wearing khaki shorts and mauve T-shirts with DUPONT in yellow letters across the chest were helping people unload their cargo, piling it on heavy-duty dollies, and pushing the immense loads out of the lot and toward the building. Charlotte had been assigned to Edgerton House, âhouseâ being the term Dupont used instead of such unclassy, bureaucratic State U. terminology as âSection E, freshman dormitory.â It wasnât part of any âdorm,â either. It was a house on Little Yard. Little Yard would be home to all sixteen hundred incoming freshmen. It was the first dormitory ever built at Dupont. A hundred years ago it had housed
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