I was tapping the pencil against my calculus book, keeping time with Max Weinberg, the drummer for Springsteen's E Street Band. I had Born in the USA blaring in my Discman as I sat in the main library trying to force myself to work on the calculus problems lying in wait for me beneath the covers of the book. I ran my fingers up and down the sleeve of the black parka Paul had given me. He had opted for a leather jacket I picked out for him at the Goodwill he shops at. Looking at the book in front of me, I couldn't concentrate. I took the pencil and started drawing heavier lines around pictures of Paul and me that decorated the brown cover of Calculus: Concepts and Problems, I looked at my watch again, counting down the minutes until Paul would be picking me up. I sighed, looked out the window at the light snow falling, promising to make tomorrow's Thanksgiving a white one, and finally opened the book.
I had finished two problems during class, two more than anyone else had completed, so I just had one more to go. I wrote down the number three on a clean sheet of paper in front of me but found myself closing the book again, then writing the number three in big letters on the front cover. In just a couple of weeks, Paul and I would be celebrating our three-month anniversary. I never thought myself to be sentimental, but that number, more than all those equations glaring at me from inside the book, meant so much to me. I guess because I never thought it would ever happen. Now I was about to celebrate my best Thanksgiving ever. I opened up one of my notebooks and tore out a blank sheet of paper. I wrote at the top, "Things to be thankful for," and then Paul's name instantly. I sat there for a second, pulling Paul's parka around me tight, thinking about him holding me. I turned the Discman off, letting the sound of Paul's voice replace the Boss. I heard him whisper to me, "I want to touch you," and I remembered him saying that he loved me. I closed my eyes and just heard those words echo in my head, over and over again.
I took another sheet of paper out of my notebook. Yet another thing my father had drilled into me: work out your problems on paper, make your mistakes alone rather than in front of people. My dad wanted me to be like him, but now I was turning out so different. I'm sure he blamed Paul, never realizing that I was the one making the choices, and now even more choices were in front of me. I drew a line down the middle of the blank page, then wrote the words yes and no at the top. I stared at those words for a long time, my mind bouncing all over the place. I put my pencil in my mouth, shut my eyes, and tried to focus.
I stared at the paper, taking a quick look around to make sure nobody was watching me. This was so goofy, but it was how I did things. It worked for me. I crossed out the word no and made my list of questions on the side. It was the same list I went through when editing a story for the paper. I wrote down the words who and why and circled them; those I knew the answer to already. The words where and when came next, each followed by a big question mark. I shook my head thinking about the Firebird, knowing that would not answer the where question. I sat for a minute, gently rocking back and forth in the uncomfortable government-standard-issue library chair; then I wrote the word how with an even bigger question mark next to it.
I closed the notebook. This wasn't getting me anyplace. I didn't need questions; I needed answers. I waited until one of the library's computers was free, then barricaded myself in front of the screen, making sure that no one was watching over my shoulder as I typed. I pulled my red editing pen out of my pocket and wrote down the numbers of the books on the back of my hand. I went over to the shelf, watching to make sure no one was following me. I searched but was frustrated to find none of the books that were supposed to be on the shelf were there.
"Are you finding what you need?" a voice politely asked me.
I must have jumped an inch out of my new black high-top Converse All Stars. I turned around to see one of the librarians standing there. "Urn, I was looking for some books."
"I see. Any particular subject?"
I walked over toward her, producing my hand like a suspect handing over evidence of a crime. "Urn, these numbers."
The librarian smiled at me. I didn't know this woman's name, but she was always very helpful. She motioned me to follow her. I kept a step behind her, all the time looking around me. I wasn't doing anything wrong, but I felt so guilty. Like I was going to get caught, although I don't know at doing what. We stopped, and she handed me a book out of the young adult section. "Is this the type of book you are looking for?"
As soon as I glanced at the title Changing Bodies, Changing Lives, I wanted to crawl into a hole. I could feel myself blushing, but once again my body overpowered my will, and I stood there with my red cheeks flashing like a stoplight. I didn't say anything; I just took the book and hurried back to the table wishing I could have done so by going underground. I pushed all those important schoolbooks out of the way and opened this one up. I don't know where the time went as I read page after page, learning all the things that the "smartest girl in school" didn't know. I might know how to solve a quadratic equation, but I was obviously such an idiot. I knew this was the right book because everything was changing. I realized my question had changed from "should we?" to "when and where can we?"
"Excuse me." The librarian tapped on the edge of the desk. "Didn't you hear the announcement? We are closing now."
"What?" I quickly closed the page I was looking at, with the big heading "Birth Control" in letters that seemed ten feet high.
"We close at six tonight."
"Okay." I must have sounded like Lynne or Jackie: a total airhead, but I can get like that when I am reading something—totally engrossed in the words.
"Do you need to call for a ride?" the librarian asked me.
"No, I'm good." I started to gather up my textbooks that had spent the past two hours doing nothing but gathering dust. "I have a ride coming. He was supposed to be here at 5:30."
"Well, he's awfully late," she said.
"Not for him," I said. She laughed as she reached out and picked up the book from the table. "Thanks again for your help."
She just nodded, then smiled. "It was my pleasure."
I zipped up the parka and walked out in front of the library to wait, yet again, for Paul, who seemed to operate almost in his own time zone. They had just started to turn off all the lights in the library when I heard the sounds of the music pounding out the open window of the Firebird. Paul pulled almost onto the sidewalk, then pushed the passenger door open for me.
"I'm sorry I'm late," he said as I climbed in to find a Baskin-Robbins bag on the seat.
"It's okay, I was studying." I was hoping he wouldn't notice I was blushing. I didn't tell him what I had been learning about. I had decided soon, very soon, I would be showing him.
No sooner had I climbed in the car than Paul reached over to stick his index finger in the middle of my chocolate-chip ice cream. He laughed, then licked the ice cream off his fingers. When we reached the light at the ramp to the interstate, Paul dug his fingers deep into the ice cream, depositing a heap of it on my nose. As he was speeding up the ramp he leaned over and licked the ice cream off.
"Paul, that's enough." It was funny, but he was getting reckless.
He just looked at me, not saying a word. He took more ice cream and put it on my chin. He then reached across me to roll down the window.
"Are you gonna take care of this?" I asked, pointing at my face.
He looked over his glasses, his bright green eyes sparkling. "I thought I would wait until it dripped down a little lower before I licked it off." He then laid the brow on me, which he had mastered in no time.
"Well, if you don't let me close this window, I think it's going to freeze in place."
"Here it comes, listen!" Paul shouted as he dramatically turned the volume up on the CD. He threw his hand in the air, punching the inside of the roof of his car after each word, which he sang at the top of his lungs: "It's a town full of losers, I’m pulling out of here to win!"
"What are you doing?" I asked, shouting over the music turned up to the max.
"I'm celebrating that in about nine months I am so out of this death trap, this suicide rap."
"Can I roll the window up?" I asked.
"The Boss says, 'roll down the window and let the wind blow back your hair.'"
"Well, I'm sure he didn't mean that to be true for a November Michigan night." I pulled a napkin out of the Baskin-Robbins bag and cleaned the ice cream from my chin.
"Don't question the Boss!" he shouted, slapping the back of his hand off my leg.
"What's so special about this song?" I asked, ignoring the bruise forming under my jeans.
"Did you know Bruce got the title 'Thunder Road' from a film of the same name, starring Robert Mitchum?" Paul was almost encyclopedic in his knowledge about stuff he cared for. I never understood why he didn't do better in school. I'd offered to help him with homework, but he'd always turn me down. Telling me, in words that never failed to get to me, that he wanted me for my body, not my brain. The few times we'd study together always ended up as a hands-on course in human anatomy.
"That line I was yelling, that's what matters. That's me giving the finger to Pontiac."
"I know it's not the best place in the world, Paul, but—"
"It's a suicide rap. You got to get out when you're young. I've survived here for seventeen years, so I'm pulling out of here to win." His words were racing almost as fast as the Bird was driving. "Only suits, like your folks, win this rigged game. It's the guys at the bottom that lose their jobs, lose their wives, lose their lives. I'm not going to be one of those losers!"
"Why are you so angry?" I asked, knowing I wouldn't get an answer. Paul gets like this sometimes, and you just can't reach him. The entire time he was ranting, he was slamming the steering wheel, like a doctor trying to start someone's heart.
"Brad and I got it all planned out. It's like running out of a burning building; there is no shame in it." He slapped my leg again, then pointed out the window at one of the closed auto plants we were driving past. "When I come back here from California, Pontiac won't even be here. There will just be a big For Sale sign stretching the length of the city."
I touched his arm gently, trying to calm him. "Paul, I wish you wouldn't talk this way."
"How else am I supposed to feel, Joha?"
I pulled his arm tight against me, trying to squeeze some of the anger out.
"You think I want to stay here? You think I want to be a trash bag all of my life? You think I want to live my father's life? You think—"
He stopped in mid-sentence. It was like a magic word for him: Whenever Paul would mention his father, he would shut down. It was like his heart pulled an off switch in his brain.
"No, I know you want more than that," I told him.
"Goddamn, Joha, don't you get it? I don't want more; I want it all!"
"You don't have to work in a factory," I countered weakly.
"This whole city is one big factory. Everyone just moves down the assembly line, surrounded by nothing but white noise and black shadows." Paul was getting wound up again. I tried to give his arm another squeeze, but he knocked my hands away. "More layoffs, it was in the paper today. The day before Thanksgiving. But do you know how many people in my class are hoping things will change? You take the honors classes, so you don't know people like this, but the school is loaded with them. They are hanging on to some dream of how life used to be here, believing the stories their parents and grandparents tell them about the glory days. You circle May 25 on your calendar. That is the day I graduate and leave all of this behind."
The breath went out of my body. I rolled the window up, then slumped against the side of the car. "Do you think on your way out of town that you'll have time to stop and say good-bye to me?"
He didn't even look at me. He ejected the Born to Run CD, and we sat there the rest of the way home in silence, the silence of white noise and black shadows.