Monkey Business

The second-year leader walks through the rows, passing out index cards. “Please write down your name, where you’re from, where you worked and an interesting fact about yourself. Then pass up the cards and I’ll read out the information. Stand up when I say your name. And then to lighten the mood, please tell your Block something embarrassing that happened to you.”

Being a leader next year would be a fantastic experience. So would the Carry the Torch Committee. I’d be able to help shape next year’s class. Maybe I should drop by the office again after orientation to reiterate how badly I want to be part of the program.

I must stop obsessing.

The Japanese woman with dyed orange hair sitting to my left looks dazed. I begin writing the information on my index card. She taps me on the shoulder. “What I do?” she asks.

Poor girl. How is she going to manage this year? I show her my sheet. “Name. Layla.” I point to myself. “Where I’m from. Manhattan. Job. Rosen Brothers Investments. Interesting fact.” I haven’t answered that question yet.

“Oh! Thank you.” The girl smiles and nods. “My English not so good.”

“Don’t worry. It will be.” I have to think of an interesting fact and something embarrassing. Can it be the same thing? What if I can’t think of something? How embarrassing! Could I use that?

Let’s see now. Embarrassing…embarrassing…The time I was supposed to introduce a guest speaker in the third grade and was so overcome with stage fright that I refused to go? No, can’t say that. I don’t want them to think of me as the girl who cracks under pressure. After that little disaster, I forced myself to be in two performances to conquer my fear, and I did just fine. What about the time at summer camp when I was a counselor and had so much to drink that I passed out and wet my pants (so they said) in front of the five other staff members who later had to take me to the infirmary? As if I’d admit to that.

When everyone has passed up their information, the mole-leader begins to randomly read out names. I try to pay attention but instead think about my Carry the Torch application. It was good. Perfect. There’s no reason for me not to make the cut.

“Jamie Grossman,” the mole-leader says, “is from Miami. He worked in management at the children’s ward at Miami General, and of late was a freelance reporter.”

That hospital sounds familiar. What have I heard about it? The mole keeps talking but I can’t concentrate. Where do I know that hospital from? Oh, right. From a deal I worked on when I was at Rosen Brothers. We merged two hospitals. Recommended a bunch of layoffs. I wonder if he was one of the “superfluous” personnel. Perhaps why he became a freelance journalist? That’s what I hated most about my job. Knowing my recommendations often ended with people getting axed. What can I do? That’s my job. I’m in mergers and acquisitions. And that’s where I want to go back to after I graduate. That’s where they’ll pay me the big bucks. And I get to wear those cute Chanel suits.

I daydream about putting on my favorite Chanel suit. I love my Chanel suits.

“Kimberly Nailer.”

Suddenly there’s whispering and rustling from the back row. Kimmy, the woman I met in the bathroom, stands up, and the male students in the back row give each other knowing looks.

Tell me I didn’t see that. I’ll give the men here the benefit of the doubt and assume they’ll be treating women as equals and not as second-class citizens or as sex objects. I wave to Kimmy as she stands up. I’ll always stand behind my fellow females. Thirteen years at an all-girls school teaches you to take pride in the sisterhood.

“Kimmy is from Arizona and worked in leasing. An interesting fact about her,” the mole-leader continues, “is that she was in a TV commercial when she was a baby.”

Lighthearted laughter wafts through the class.

“What’s your embarrassing fact?” the leader asks.

Kimmy blushes. “They were diaper commercials.”

That is so cute. Do I have anything that adorable? True, calling attention to one’s bare behind probably isn’t the way to curtail the sex-object problem, but still, everyone will remember her, and isn’t that the point?

She sits down, and the leader continues listing names.

“Layla Roth.”

I jump from my seat and stand at attention.

“Layla grew up in Manhattan and worked for Rosen Brothers Investments. Her interesting fact is that her mother was one of the first women to graduate from the Leiser Weiss Business School. What’s your embarrassing moment, Layla?”

Someone in the back row is humming the tune to the Clapton song.

“I was in London when I was nine, and I was at a party that Princess Diana was also attending. When it was my turn to meet her, I was so overwhelmed I couldn’t speak. My parents had to take me home.” I shiver at the memory.

“So you never met her?” the leader asks.

“Oh, I did, but not until four years later at a benefit.”

I loved Diana. Instead of pictures of Kirk Cameron, I had posters of the princess of hearts up on my wall. Not on my wall proper, obviously—the tape would have ruined the paint. I thumbtacked them to the corkboard inside my closet.

Ah. That’s what I forgot to buy. A corkboard for my schedules. Dorothy had a terrific one in her office with a gorgeous chrome frame. I must remember to ask her where she got it when I inquire about the job.

She must have read my application by now.

11:30 a.m.

kimmy contemplates the random acts of the universe

What am I doing here? Jerry, the guy sitting four seats diagonal to me started a multimillion-dollar paper company. Juan, sitting in the corner, is an international student from Colombia and has two degrees in neuroscience. The woman I met in the bathroom at the dorm is an investment banker and hangs out with British royalty in her spare time.

I was in a diaper commercial.

I’m not sure why I couldn’t come up with something a smidgen more intellectual than discussing my crap, literally. I am so pathetic. I must have been an admissions mistake. Stapled to a worthier application by accident. That’s the only explanation. I don’t know how I aced the GMATs. I must have gotten an easy version.

The class is laughing now, while my knuckles are gripping the sides of my desk in panic. They’re laughing at a joke where Arbitrage Pricing Theory is the punch line. What am I doing here? I don’t even know what Arbitrage Pricing Theory is.

Something pings me in the head. A paper airplane is nestled between my freakishly long foot and the leg of the desk. I look over my shoulder to see my nightmare from last night demonically smiling at me.

I’ve been successfully avoiding him all morning. When returning from the shower this morning, I spotted him standing by my door, knocking and hollering, “Kimmy? Kimmy, you there?”

I ducked back into the bathroom.

When I heard him searching inside the bathroom, I sneaked into a stall.

How could my potential husband have turned into my personal stalker in just twenty-four hours?

What does he want from me? I thought all men wanted was action, and then they took off. Why was this one still around?

I rushed into orientation, claimed a desk with my sweater and pen and then disappeared back outside. I correctly assumed that he wouldn’t be able to sit next to me if he didn’t know which desk I’d taken.

Unfortunately, I didn’t take the law of random act of chance or whatever it’s called into account. Until he threw an airplane at my head, I’d managed to pretend to concentrate on the lecture with intensity usually reserved for a Details magazine. (I love men’s mags. Women’s are so annoying: “What do I do? My mascara is clumping!” Who friggin’ cares?) I spin around and there he is. Two rows behind me.

The jig is up.

The entire auditorium is ogling me like I’m butt naked. Nice work. It’s only my second day and I’m the class slut.

I give him my best thin smile.

“How are you?” he mouths.

“Fine. And you?” I mouth back.

A goofy, buoyant smile is plastered on his face. “Want to hang out tonight?” This time his mouth has sound, and the entire room is in heat waiting for my response.

Ahhhh! What kind of question is that? Hang out? As if hang out could mean anything but hook up. If I say yes, I’m a slut. No, and I’m a bitch. It’s like I’m at a witch trial.

Blink, blink. What to do, what to do. I skim the back row to see what the peanut gallery is expecting. And then my eyes lock with the bluest eyes I have ever seen. I feel like I just fell headfirst into a bucket of rich blue paint. They’re opaque and beautiful and I lose myself in them entirely.

I snap back into focus and check out the rest of the man with the magical gaze. He’s wearing a blue-collar shirt that matches his hypnotic eyes, and he’s leaning forward, his elbows on his desk. Yikes, his tie has miniature Superman S’s plastered all over it. But…his hair is dark, black almost, and those piercing blue eyes—I bet he could easily play Superman in any upcoming remake.

I’m in love.

Okay, I know I’ve thought that before, but this time I mean it. And this time the object of my love is looking at me while I’m looking at him. I smile, then turn back to the front of the room. The best way to flirt is to make eye contact, smile and then look away. Screw you Wayne, I’ve found someone else!

“Um…Kimmy?” Jamie asks.

I crane my neck backward again. “Yes?”

“What about tonight?”

Oops. If I want to marry Blue Eyes, I can’t say yes. But if I say no, the peanut gallery will condemn me for life. What kind of girl fools around with a guy then refuses to see him? Sure, if I were a guy the act would have earned me kudos, but face it, I’m a woman struggling to survive in a testosterone terrain.

I take a politician’s platform. “We’ll see.”

The goofy smile returns to Jamie’s face.

I spend the next hour looking straight ahead, feeling the hairs on the back of my neck prickle as if it were cold in here. Actually, it is cold in here. I’m a bit nippy.

Of course that could be because of Blue Eyes.

Maybe when the bell rings, he’ll smile at me, and we’ll chat about school and then he’ll ask me to get a coffee and I’ll say sure and we’ll grab a cup to go and park ourselves under a tree on campus. He’ll spread out his jacket so my beige pants won’t get stained with dirt. Damn, I don’t think he has a jacket. What will I sit on? His lap? Wrong. Too early—I don’t want to repeat the Jamie experience. I guess I could sit on my notebook. Anyway, we’ll smile shyly at each other. The wind will blow through my hair. And then we’ll sit together in all our classes and fall madly in love. (Then I can sit on his lap. His chest. Anywhere I damn well please.) We’ll spend the next two years studying in the library, giggling together. He’ll explain to me all the things I don’t understand. Like Pricing Arbitrage.

Pure bliss. One day we’ll tell little Blue Eyes Junior how we met on the first day of orientation.

Once again, I might be getting a smidgen ahead of myself. He might have taken a look at my fat ass and decided I was repulsive. Or he might already be married. He might already have a Blue Eyes Junior. I should know by now that you have to look at a man’s left hand before you look in his eyes. Unfortunately, since he’s sitting diagonally behind me, two seats over from Jamie, from my position there’s no way I can get a good look at his ring finger.

He doesn’t look married.

“Okay, guys,” the class leader says, “it’s time for you to divide into groups of five. Remember, you’ll be working with these people for every group assignment this semester. LWBS’s policy is to allow students to choose their own work groups within their Blocks. Some B-schools assign the groups, but LWBS believes you are capable of making the decision. I would suggest that you talk among yourselves, to get better acquainted. Each group should be made up of people of diverse backgrounds so that you’ll be able to attack assignments from various angles. For example, you don’t want five engineers in one group.”

Panic. This must be how the heavy girls felt in gym class. No one will pick me. What can I add to a group? Uh, nothing? How’s this: two accountants, one engineer, one banker…and a diaper model. I slouch in my chair. Through the slits in my eyes I watch my fellow students mill about. I don’t look up in case they’re pointing at me and shaking their heads. No, not her. No morons in this group.

What happens to the people who don’t get picked? Will we be rounded into the corner to become the loser group? Maybe I’ll be the only one left. I’ll have to do all the assignments by myself. First I’ll struggle to understand them, then I’ll fail them, and then I’ll get booted back to Arizona.

“Psst, Kimmy.”

I practically pirouette at the sound of my name. Jamie. Sweet Jamie.

“Want to work with us?”

As far as I can tell, us includes himself, (gulp) Blue Eyes who has now moved to sit next to him and a skinny bleached-blond guy making a beat with his pen on the edge of his desk.

“Sure,” I say, way too quickly to appear nonchalant. Wow. They want me. They want me to work with them. Maybe there’s some merit to being the class slut, after all. Three boys and me. One boy who wants me, one who’s a stud, and one who looks like fun in the musical I-have-a-garage-band way. This will be awesome—until they realize that I’m totally useless and start to hate me. What if they have secret meetings and vote me out of their group, Survivor-style?

But awesome until then.

I catch Blue Eyes’ gaze and exude my best come-hither smile. He grins back.

Jamie jumps out of his chair and sits on the table. “Excellent. She’s Kimmy, by the way,” he says to the other guys.

“We figured,” Musical Blond Boy says, smirking.

“The smart ass over there is Nick. The beautiful Lauren is on his right—”

Lauren? No one said anything about a gorgeous Lauren. I take one look at the stunning African-American beauty and want to cry. She towers over Nick and is sitting with perfect posture, her perfectly perky breasts at attention. Her hair cascades in jet-black curls down her back.

I noticed her when I walked in. How could I not? Every eye in the room followed her when she strutted to the back of the room, parading through the rows like she was on a catwalk.

Bitch.

I know it’s wrong to hate women just because they’re better looking than I am, but I don’t care.

“Hey,” she says, leaning into her palm, her elbow on the desk.

“Hi,” I say, trying to infuse my greeting with enough suspicion so she’ll know I’m on to her.

“And,” Jamie continues, “the ugly guy sitting next to me is Russ.”

Russ. I smile and lock eyes with Blue Eyes once again.

“Nice to meet you,” he says, extending his right hand to shake. His fingers are soft and warm. And how is his left hand?

Ringless.

The year is looking up.

Sunday, September 7, 1:20 p.m.

russ omits one significant detail

Need better reading material. But I feel like a hoser walking to the washroom with a newspaper. Everyone on the floor doesn’t need to know when I’m planning on pinching a loaf.

“Hey, Rena,” I hear a chick say. I know Rena from Toronto. She’s a friend of Sharon’s older sister. She’s a second year, but lives on my floor. I’ve been told I’m supposed to call her and get together, but she’s seriously annoying. Speaks in a nasal voice and wears ties. Thinks she’s Avril Lavigne. Why would a woman wear a tie if she’s not in a music video? I think she thinks it’s sexy. It’s not.

“Hey. How are you?” she replies in a voice so nasal, if there were any windows in here it would shatter them.

Oh, man. Just what I want to listen to. Nasal female voices while I’m taking a dump.

This whole coed deal is not for me. Yesterday I watched a chick from my Block tweeze her eyebrows. Did Superman ever watch Lois Lane groom? I don’t think so. And then she took a People magazine to the toilet. That’s just gross. I don’t want to picture chicks taking a dump.

In junior high I had the unfortunate experience of watching Linda Stalwart, a girl I worshiped from afar, burp the alphabet. It was nasty. Not that she cared—she wouldn’t have looked twice at me then. Ha. She should see me now. Well not now, as in on the throne. Now, as in at LWBS. Built. No longer known as Pizza Face.

My little cousin once called me that. Wasn’t trying to be obnoxious. He was only five. Came over for Christmas dinner and pointed to my face and told me I looked like a pepperoni pizza. My aunt tried to shut him up, but he was laughing and pointing and jumping up and down.

Oh, man, my aunt felt so bad. Tried to convince me it was a compliment. Pepperoni pizza was my cousin’s favorite, she said. I hid in my room for the rest of the night with my comic books, picking my face. Disgusting habit, but I couldn’t stop. Once there was a piece of available skin I’d play with it and end up pulling it off. When I finally went on medication and kept my hands in gloves to stop picking, my skin took a year to heal.

Linda Stalwart. I wonder what she’s doing now. Probably married and fat and teaching little kids how to belch.

Once when I stopped by Sharon’s, she opened her door with that white stuff on her lip. You know, mustache bleach. “That’s something I wish I hadn’t seen,” I said, shielding my eyes.

“Then don’t come over uninvited.” She slammed the door in my face.

I apologized a million times. Then she went on a rampage about how she could stop bleaching if I preferred, let it get dark and style it.

The talking chicks finally leave. To keep myself occupied I stare at the bathroom wall graffiti. You’d think that by this age, people would stop using the wall to express their inane thoughts, but no. In green marker, it says:

Sweet Kimmy,

Violets are blue

Roses are red

Let me marry you

And I’ll please you in bed

Yours forever,

Jamie

What a hoser. The way to get the girl is not by writing cheesy-ass poetry on the back of the bathroom door. I’m not sure if he’s kidding or serious. Kimmy knows he wants her. Everyone knows he wants her. Thursday night a bunch of us went out for dinner, and he dove into the seat beside her and kept telling her how hot she was. She laughed and smiled at him, but I doubt she was interested. She didn’t go home with him, that’s for sure. He was back in Nick’s room after dinner, watching us smoke joints.

Yesterday, one of the get-to-know-your-group activities was a scavenger hunt through Maplewood. We were given questions like, What address is city hall? How many floors are in the library? How much are ten wings at Moe’s? Six bucks. That one I knew. But anyway, Jamie wouldn’t stop bugging her the entire activity. He asked her to marry him four times and serenaded her with Air Supply songs. I’ll admit, it got laughs from the rest of us, but does that act work?

How do I know? Sharon’s the only serious girlfriend I’ve ever had. And Jamie did manage to get two of the best-looking chicks in the class to be in our group. According to him, Lauren is bi, and currently prefers females. How hot is that? Lesbian eye-candy.

I flush, wash my hands and let them air-dry as I head outside. Think I’ll take a nice Sunday afternoon nap. Not that I’ve done anything today to merit a nap. I woke up at eight, stared at the ceiling, had brunch with Nick, bought some pharmaceuticals at the drugstore and spoke to Sharon.

As I push back the door, Kimmy is pulling it open. She’s looking pretty damn hot. Wearing tight black spandex shorts, a black bra that exposes her flat stomach, a red sweatshirt slung around her hips, little white socks, bright white runners. My guess: Going to the gym. Her brown hair is pulled back into a high ponytail, exposing soft-looking triangular ears. I love women’s ears. I can spend hours running my fingers through Sharon’s hair and playing with her ears.

“Hi, Russ,” Kimmy says.

“Where you off to?” I ask like an idiot.

She smiles. “The gym.”

“Yeah? Have you been already? I’ve been meaning to check it out.” I can’t believe I haven’t gone yet. Any build I have is going to melt if I’m not careful.

“I’ve gone a few times this week. It’s pretty good. There’s a wait for some of the machines, but not too bad.” The sweatshirt slips down her body exposing a fine-looking ass, but then she reties it. “Want to come with me?”

Why not? Sounds like a constructive way to spend a Sunday. “Sure. Do you mind waiting two minutes for me to grab my gym stuff?”

She smiles and takes a sip from her water bottle. “No problem. I have to use the bathroom anyway. Why don’t I meet you in the courtyard and then we’ll head over together?”

“Give me five,” I say, trying to mentally block out the bathroom part. I sprint back to my room and grab the gym shorts and T-shirt I wore yesterday to play basketball with some of the guys. I suck, but it’s fun. I started playing postcollege to help pump up.

Wonder if Sharon would care that I was going to the gym with a chick. Probably, eh? What should I have said, no? I can’t go to the gym with you, I have a girlfriend? She wasn’t hitting on me. Probably knows about Sharon, anyway. I must have mentioned it.

I spot Kimmy staring into the sunlight in the courtyard. She’s wearing sunglasses. I need to buy new sunglasses. Left mine in Toronto.

“Let’s go,” she says, now wearing the sweatshirt. Shame.

It’s getting cold. Wish I had a sweatshirt. “Where is this place?”

“At the back of the Student Services Center. Not far.”

She walks fast for a girl. Her ponytail swings from side to side like a tennis ball in play. Sharon is the slowest walker ever. If I don’t pay attention, I leave her a half a block behind.

“So how do you like school so far?” she asks.

“It’s cool. I went to University of Toronto, so I lived at home.”

“Were you in a frat?”

“No, no frat. Not my thing.” I decide not to tell her that I didn’t have much of a life in college. I preferred my calculator and comic books to beer kegs. Of course, that changed in my last year, when I met Sharon. “I bet you were in a sorority, eh?”

“No way. I’m not a gamma, gamma, gamma, can I help ya help ya help ya type girl.”

I can’t help mentally casting her as one of the sorority girls in Revenge of the Nerds.

“How do you like the dorm?” she asks, and takes another sip of her water. “Want some?”

I shake my head. “The dorm is all right. Not used to sharing a floor with so many people.” Not used to sharing a water bottle, either. Sharon doesn’t like when I take sips from other people’s drinks in case any of them are sick and then I get her sick.

“I know. I feel like I’m eighteen again.” She motions to a sprawling stone building. “We’re here.”

We climb the stairs to the top floor and show our student cards to the scrawny kid at the front desk. The gym caters to the entire school, not just the business school, so it’s packed. Puffing women on treadmills are lined against the window.

“Do you lift weights?” Kimmy asks.

“Yeah.” Truth is, I’ve been slacking on my workouts. I feel a wave of panic that my muscles have all disappeared.

She stretches her leg in front of her. “Do you want to run with me?”

Even though I’m feeling anxious about the state of my muscles and want to get to the weights, the idea of watching her jiggle beside me is too appealing to pass up. I stretch out my hamstring beside her. “Sounds good.”