Red Leaves

Kristina glanced at Conni, who forced a happy smile and started to sing ‘Happy Birthday.’ Everyone sang, including Albert, who sang loudest of all.

‘Albert!’ exclaimed Conni. ‘Make a wish, and blow out the candles. But make a really good wish,’ she said suggestively, standing close to him with her hand in his back pocket. Kristina thought Conni was trying too hard to act normal. What was bugging her, anyway?

Albert glanced at Conni to his left, and Kristina to his right, and Jim across the table from him, and said, ‘A really good wish, huh? Well, all right.’ He closed his eyes and blew out the candles, every one of them. Conni and Kristina clapped, Frankie hollered and began singing ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,’ while Jim just stood and halfheartedly said, ‘Yeah.’ Aristotle barked twice.

Kristina stood stiffly as Conni fussed over the cake and plates and plastic forks. She did not want to be here. The high of this afternoon, first with Howard and then with Spencer, was replaced by depressing thoughts. Conni had told her a few days ago that Albert and she were thinking of getting engaged. Oh, that’s nice, said Kristina. How nice. Are you going to have a party? Engaged to be married? Gee, that’s swell.

And then Jim had been acting awful today. Never a particularly affectionate guy, Jim had been acting stranger and stranger. Tonight, he doesn’t even want to stand next to me, Kristina thought sadly. Some couple. Maybe we can become engaged to be married.

Frankie was talking heated nonsense to Jim, but then Frankie always talked in a heated nonsensical manner that reflected his eccentric attire - plaid shirts and striped pants, hot neon track suits, and jeans so big they had to be held up by rainbow-colored suspenders. Conni handed a piece of cake to Kristina, who ate it, nodded, and said, mmm, it’s good. The cake was dry and terrible. She watched Albert’s face when he put the cake in his mouth and chewed slowly. Oh, he said, this is not bad at all, not bad at all. And Conni stood beside him and beamed, her hand never detaching itself from his shirt. She laughed in delight.

Conni’s high-pitched, squeaky voice grated on Kristina, but her laugh was infectious, and Kristina liked that. Conni also made it a point to dress sexy. She wore black bras and black underwear, bustiers and too tight jeans, and occasionally stockings and garters under her skirts. Kristina felt that sometimes Conni dressed to upstage her, because Kristina never dressed up. She was a jock and dressing up was uncool. Track suits and spandex shorts, and leggings, and Dartmouth sweatshirts, were cool. Jeans were cool. Basketball players did not wear bustiers.

She and Conni had been best friends until Kristina started playing basketball. That’s what Kristina said when asked what had happened to their friendship. But it was a lie. It wasn’t basketball that had happened to their friendship.

Why is she laughing so loudly? thought Kristina as she sat there trancelike, not laughing at all. Jim, too, was stone-faced. Albert bantered with Frankie, flirted with Conni, and when he hoped Conni wasn’t looking, pushed his cake toward Kristina, who immediately pushed the plate back to him. Kristina lifted up her eyes and saw Conni watching Albert push his cake plate toward her. The laughter faded in Conni’s blue eyes. Kristina ignored the plate, didn’t even glance at it.

They had all chipped in and bought Albert a Pierre Cardin watch, because he was never on time, anywhere. Rather, Conni and Jim - the only ones with money - chipped in.

Kristina wished Jim would stop looking at her with that unhappy expression. What right does he have to be unhappy? She thought. He studies as much as I practice, he works at the Review as much as I work at Red Leaves. He is the one who never wants to sleep over because he has to be in bed by eleven.

Trying not to look at Jim, Kristina sat across from him at the table, an old university-issue Formica table with steel reinforced legs. She felt bad for him without even knowing why. Kristina fed Aristotle the rest of her cake, and the rest of Albert’s cake, too. They got up; other people were waiting to use the kitchen facilities. The party was over.

The Hinman lounge was a semicircular TV room and kitchenette, attached like a peninsula to the front of Hinman Hall. The kitchenette, or the ironically named Hinman Café, didn’t even have a refrigerator. It had an ice maker, where the students stored their drinks, an electric stove, a microwave, and dirty dishes in the sink. The chairs in the TV lounge were so old they must have come with John Holmes Hinman, Class of 1908.

Kristina and Jim sat in the low maroon chairs, while Conni and Albert sat together on the torn brown sofa, and watched the 32-inch Mitsubishi. Other residence halls had rear-projection screens. Not Hinman. Kristina remembered Mass Row fondly, where in their freshman year they had study lounges, separate kitchens, and a TV lounge with a 50-inch Sony in it.

Conni held Albert’s hand. She was always holding some part of Albert, Kristina thought uncharitably, and then caught herself and felt ashamed. She is his girlfriend. That’s what she’s supposed to do.

Frankie had gone back to Epsilon House. Aristotle lay on the floor. The four friends watched TV and didn’t talk, though Kristina could recall a time when they gabbed so much that other students often asked them to leave. They usually left, and went up to one of their rooms and played cards on the floor and argued politics and philosophy and God and death. Or they argued about movies that no one ever got to see, but argued about in principle anyway. Most of the arguments were in principle.

Only the history major Jim wanted facts in his arguments. Albert would try to explain that philosophy and religion majors were not that interested in facts, but Jim didn’t understand. Conni was a sociology major, and Kristina wasn’t convinced Conni knew the difference between fact and theory. When they first became roommates, Conni had once looked up innocently at Kristina and said, ‘Krissy, what’s socialism?’

A year earlier the four of them discussed the party conventions, then the presidential debates, and then the lurid revelations in Penthouse about a would-be president.

After the elections, the junior year was spent talking about health care and gays in the military. None of the issues really affected them: Conni and Jim were on their parents’ insurance, Kristina and Albert never went to the doctor. And as far as Kristina knew, no one was planning to join the military, not even Frankie, who had plenty of opinions on gays in the military, on any men in the military for that matter.

They were university students. Everything was fodder for a good fight, including harvesting practices in Iowa, where none of them had ever been. But nothing meant anything. Jim was passionately opinionated. Albert was the devil’s advocate. Kristina was moderate. And Conni had few opinions.

Once, Conni had meant something to Jim. When Jim found out that Conni wanted his roommate, Albert Maplethorpe, that had meant something, too. Jim had somehow worked it out. He seemed to have forgiven Albert, and he and Kristina had started going out. The four of them became very close. So close that in their freshman year, very late at night, having downed many beers, they played truth or dare. They didn’t do anything outrageous, but the conversation took a definite X-rated turn.

That was as far as it went, because Kristina wanted to keep them all friends, and they all managed to remain good friends. It would have been a shame to ruin their intimate, eager college friendship over the Albert and Conni thing, which was supposed to mean nothing.

Except Kristina knew that Constance Tobias didn’t think so. Albert meant everything to Conni. Earlier this year, a classmate had asked Conni, ‘Albert still your boyfriend?’ and Conni had replied, ‘Now and ever.’

After watching the news at eleven, they all got up. Kristina stretched. Conni lifted up her face to Albert, who obliged and kissed her. Kristina lowered her eyes.

‘Well,’ Conni said, grabbing Albert’s hand and thrusting her chest at him, ‘good night now. I have a seven-forty-five tomorrow.’

‘Kristina, will you walk the dog?’ Albert asked, looking straight at her.

She had been lost in thought and it took her a while to answer. ‘Yeah, sure, course I will.’ She tried to smile.

‘You don’t want me to walk him?’ Albert said patiently. ‘I don’t mind. I know you’re afraid to go out at night.’

Jim moved forward. ‘She’ll be fine, thanks.’

Kristina gave Jim a quizzical look. ‘I’ll be fine, thanks,’ she said.

‘They’ll be fine, Albert,’ said Conni, pulling on his arm. ‘Let’s go.’

After Albert and Conni left, Jim said gruffly, ‘Want me to walk him? I’ll have to get my coat.’

Shaking her head, she said, ‘It’s okay, Jimbo. I’ll walk him.’

‘You don’t have your coat either. Where did you leave your coat, anyway?’

‘Don’t know,’ Kristina said quickly, wondering when she could drive up to Fahrenbrae and get it. Tomorrow she had classes, basketball, and then Red Leaves at two. Well, I’ll have a long weekend to go get my coat. I’ll have plenty of time.

She should have let Albert or Jim walk the dog; she really didn’t want to walk him. It was late and she was tired. Aristotle was a fiend for the dark spooky woods behind Hinman and Feldberg. Kristina wasn’t.

‘So, you want me to walk the dog or not?’ Jim asked.

‘No, that’s okay. I’ll do it.’ She paused. She was so tired. ‘You want to stay over?’

‘Stay over?’ Jim repeated.

‘Yes,’ she said, trying to smile.

‘Krissy, I have a seven-forty-five tomorrow.’

‘I know. I do too.’

‘I’m really beat,’ he said. ‘Maybe tomorrow night?’

She looked at him, resigned. ‘Yeah, sure, Jimbo. Maybe tomorrow.’

He must have caught something sad in her tone, because he said, ‘Tomorrow is your birthday? Yes, yes, definitely tomorrow.’

She managed a smile. ‘Good.’ She kissed him. ‘You’re not mad at me anymore, are you, Jimbo?’

His mouth was tense when he said, ‘No, why? Should I be?’

‘No, you shouldn’t be,’ Kristina said without looking at him. ‘Well, good night.’

Kristina walked Aristotle quickly in the cold night. He was pulling the leash to the wooden steps in the woods. ‘No, Aristotle,’ Kristina said firmly, pulling him to the lighted common area in front of Hinman. ‘I’m not taking you there, you dog. You should know that by now.’ Aristotle obeyed reluctantly. After he sniffed around the ground for a bit, Kristina walked him to her bridge. It was poorly lit, but she walked the length of it and let Aristotle pull her a few feet into the darkness of the woods to do his business. Her heart already thumping, she waited for Aristotle to finish while she listened to the woodland’s muffled noises. When Kristina heard something crack nearby, she yanked on the dog’s leash. ‘Come on, Aristotle, let’s go!’ she breathed, and ran back.

After Kristina got back to her room she turned off the overhead light and looked out the window onto the courtyard and Feldberg Library.