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  For Hannah

  You are in public because we are all here. It is solitude because you are divided from us by a small circle of attention.

  —KONSTANTIN STANISLAVSKI, An Actor Prepares

  LIFE

  COLLEGE 1993

  1

  EVERYBODY WANTED TO BE FAMOUS. The screenwriters, the directors, the musicians, the poets, the playwrights, the comedians: they all wanted fame, but the actors wanted it most of all. They wanted fame so bad it pained them in their hearts when they tried to fall asleep at night. It was like the thought of not getting famous killed them, or like the way they longed for it was a sort of murder, but of themselves, and if they didn’t get famous, they might die right there in their beds.

  It was that kind of school.

  Molly took the elevator down to the dining hall. She’d only ten minutes earlier broken up with her high school boyfriend, Luke, over the phone. She felt bad about this, but not as bad as she had been feeling. She’d slept with other people, but in no practical universe could you call this cheating. She was nineteen. It was a question of experience, of whether or not she would make good on a promise to herself to chop off the old, dead parts and come out new, to burn them off, if need be, like she was a house fire. Hers was a deep sensation. Some afternoons, light would fall on her through a window in the library, a single ray through a single pane that found her as she lifted her head up from a book. The light was God or the future. The same was true for certain odd or even numbers, or for the experience of déjà vu: these were signs, messages designed to inform her she was among the chosen. She could not help but feel this way.

  In the elevator, she glanced up at the numbers going 5, 4, 3, 2. Beside the read-out, up near the ceiling, someone had graffitied in black Magic Marker Mmmmm… Molly Bit.

  “That’s hot,” Rosanna Archer said. “That’s good advertising.”

  “Good advertising for what?” Molly asked.

  “For you,” Rosanna said. “For your sexy actress life.”

  They were seated across from each other at a booth in the dining hall. Rosanna was from LA. She was six feet tall with long, wavy hair the color of a crow. Out the window, snowy gusts of ice and fog screamed down Tremont Street. It hadn’t snowed in four days. It was only the wind. It was psychotic in that part of the city. It plucked snow and trash and lost gloves and hats from off the tops of drifts and whipped the mess around. Molly watched a baby-less stroller cartwheel across the street and slam into the front door of O’Malley’s.

  “What the hell am I doing here?” Rosanna asked.

  “Seriously,” Molly said. “Why aren’t we in California?”

  “Everything is better in California,” Rosanna said. “Waking up is better in California. Going to bed is better in California. The parties are better. The drugs. The weather. The people. It’s all better. You have to come visit me over break. We’ll get wasted on the beach. Do you realize how totally incredible that would be? How totally awesome?”

  “I know,” Molly said. But she didn’t know. She’d never been to California. She’d been to two places: Vermont, where she was from, and now Boston. This was the sum total. There was no possible way she could afford a trip to California.

  “It’s gonna be the best,” Rosanna said.

  All of Molly’s friends were rich. All of them. They were so rich they didn’t even know. Rosanna’s parents were in advertising, but not the marketing or the creative sides. They did something else. Something with the money. They lived in the Palisades, wherever that was, and kept another home in Malibu. Molly’s father was a soil tester. He drove around Vermont and dug holes in the ground for a living. Her stepfather paid for her tuition. The rest, her living money, was student loans.

  “Thanks for the swipe.”

  “No problem. I’ve got a ton of meals left on my card,” Rosanna said. “We should give them out to the homeless later. I wanna feed that guy with the frog voice. ‘Spare any change?’ Or that dude who rides his tricycle down Newbury Street. I think he’s sort of cute. I like the way he rings his little bell.”

  Half the students had gone home for winter break already. The dining hall felt empty, but that was only in comparison to the usual mob scene. There were dorms on Arlington and Beacon, but everybody ate on Boylston, in Molly’s building. She saw Greg Watson reading by himself at one of the long tables. She gave him a small wave, but he was the nervous type, and he pretended like he hadn’t seen her.

  “Why are you saying hi to that guy?” Rosanna asked. “He’s bald.”

  “He’s nice. He’s my friend.”

  “Are you sleeping with him?”

  “No. I’m not,” Molly said. “We’re in Short Story together. He’s a writer. He’s good.”

  Her own stories were terrible, Molly knew. All of her protagonists were small-town girls let loose in the big city. Nothing would happen to them for pages and pages, and then they’d cry. In workshop, Greg said her dialogue was good.

  “Who would do that?” Rosanna asked. “Why would someone write something they knew was never going to make any money? People are starving to death out there, and this guy’s writing short stories. It makes me sick.”

  Rosanna wanted to be a producer. Or she was, Molly guessed. In Rosanna’s life, and in the way she spoke of it, the present and the future had achieved a unified chronology. She was who she would be: powerful, demanding, impatient.

  “Where is Eric?” Rosanna asked, forking a gelatinous wobble of scrambled egg into her mouth. “That’s what I’d like to know.”

  “He called me at four in the morning,” Molly said.

  “How did he sound?”

  “Stimulated,” Molly said. “He kept referring to himself as a ‘coke genius.’ He said it like a hundred times.”

  Greg stood up from his table. Out of the corner of her eye, Molly saw him look in her direction. She didn’t look back. A seriousness had overtaken her.

  “He said he was close to being done with the edit.”

  “How close?”

  “Close-close. Like done.”

  “I despise him,” Rosanna said. “I’m finished with Eric. If it wasn’t for the festival tonight I’d never talk to him again.”

  There were an endless number of short film festivals at the college. The New Voices, The Senior Showcase, The Gay and Lesbian, The Underground, The Experimental, The Comedy, The For Women Only, The African American, The East Asian, The Documentary, The Jewish Diaspora, The Left of Center. Eric and Rosanna’s submission was for The New Horizons Short Film Festival. The NHSFF was considered to be the most prestigious film festival on campus by virtue of it having an actual “Best Of” category. Eric was the film’s director, Rosanna its producer, and Molly its star.

  “If he screws me on this, I’m gonna screw him back,” Rosanna said. “And not the way you do.”

  This was a low blow. Molly and Eric had slept together numerous times, yes, but she felt gross about it, and because she felt gross about it, she didn’t think Rosanna, or anyone, should mention it at all. Instead, her friends should pretend like it hadn’t happened. That’s what she did.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, you do,” Rosanna said. “He better get it down here by two, is all I’m saying. He thinks he’s Soderbergh,
but he’s not Soderbergh. I know Soderbergh, and Eric Os isn’t Soderbergh.”

  “We’ve got our Movement final in an hour,” Molly said. “He’ll be there.”

  “Why do you have a final in Movement?” Rosanna asked. “What could that final possibly be? What do you do? Have a seizure?”

  We move, Molly wanted to explain. Her final was to perform the life cycle of a woman, from birth to death, in three minutes. She’d been rehearsing for weeks. The piece involved six other people and a rocking chair. It was complicated. Everyone at school liked to laugh at the way the actors prepared. They enjoyed the end results—the plays, the scenes, the movies—but all the work that went on beforehand registered with them as silly. It wasn’t hard to understand why. Most people were afraid of their bodies, Molly knew. They also weren’t crazy about someone who openly spoke about feelings, especially if those feelings belonged to other, imaginary people. Molly tried not to hold it against them, although she often failed.

  “Don’t be mad,” Rosanna said.

  “I’m not mad.”

  “Yes, you are. Your face is like a sign that says, ‘I Am Going to Cut Your Head Off.’ I’m sorry, okay?”

  “Okay,” Molly said. “What about you?”

  “What about me?” Rosanna asked.

  “What are you gonna do?”

  “I’m gonna finish my eggs, smoke a cigarette with you, and then go get a massage,” Rosanna said. “I need to be relaxed for this thing.”

  * * *

  After the cigarette, Molly went to the bursar’s office. There was something wrong with her account. She couldn’t register for classes in the spring semester.

  “You’ve got a hold,” the clerk said. She tapped the keyboard and stared into the screen. “You’ve got a bunch of holds.”

  The clerk was Chinese, a junior. She was in one of the better comedy troupes, Apple Pie Town. Molly had seen her in a skit where she’d played the Bruce Willis character in a surreal episode of Moonlighting.

  “For what?”

  “Two obscure room fees that are blatantly cruel and unnecessary, an overdue library book about the Holocaust, and you never paid for your meningitis shot,” the clerk said. “You owe five hundred and thirty-seven dollars and twelve cents. Or, you could bring the Hitler book back, and it’d be an even five-eighteen.”

  She had no idea where that book was.

  “Bummer,” the clerk said. “So the first number then. It would have to be the first.”

  Molly could sense the restless, impatient rage of those in line behind her.

  “What does it all mean?” she asked.

  “It means you can totally come back to school and everything next semester,” the clerk said. “But you can’t go to classes. And you can’t eat or sleep. Not here. Not until the hold’s gone.”

  Molly walked across the street to the bank. She asked the teller if she could see her checking account balance. The teller was youngish and cute, but then he eyed her in that too long way, and she felt creeped out. He wrote down her account balance on a white slip of paper and passed it to her. She flipped the paper over. It was the number 8.

  * * *

  Eric wasn’t at the Movement final. She went into the bathroom and tried to clear her head, but it proved impossible. Desperation infected her. It was a feeling of bottoming out, a chalkiness to her face and hands. But wasn’t that the whole thing? Wasn’t it onslaught, onslaught, onslaught, feeling, feeling, feeling? Wasn’t it either too much or not enough? Wasn’t it a long, boring freak-out?

  She passed through her mother onto the floor. A stranger wrapped her in a blanket. She slept and slept and cried for years. The world was out of reach. More than half of everything was dark. Her fingers grew, her arms, her legs. A man spoke at her, a woman. Gentleness turned away. There were too many people to account for and then a short spell of loneliness. She read a book. She walked into a room, sat, and stood up in another. She did this again, and again, and again. From out of nowhere, from off stage, a man ran into her. There was a certain amount of love. She screamed in pain and was confused by the child. The man disappeared. She pointed out an object, a person, a building. She saw these things as if for the first time. She kept on going down the line. A certain kind of loneliness no longer bothered her. Or it did, but she behaved as if it didn’t. Work. Work. Work. She performed her suffering. The moon was the clock on the wall. She listened to the loud tick of it. The child returned. A swell of pure emotion overcame her, like a great and mysterious illness. More than half of everything was light. There was too much loneliness to account for, and then a short spell of people. The people made noises with their mouths. No one understood her, or one another, or anything. The world was out of reach. A chasm opened up above her head. She raised her arms up into it. She wanted to be gentle. The professor called time.

  She sat in the back for the rest of class, feeling defeated. For no reason other than her own suspicion and tendency to think this way—because they had in fact clapped for her, and stared at her, and made room for her on the floor whispering “slide over”—Molly believed she had failed. The performance had not come off as she had wanted it to. There were several disastrous beats, a too-large motion here and there. She’d been too much in her head.

  “What planet are you on?” her friend Denise asked her. “All you thin, beautiful girls…”

  “I’m just saying—”

  “A bunch of crap,” Denise said. “If I’d done what you did, I’d be walking around like, ‘Suck it!’ That was amazing.”

  They were putting their jeans on over their tights in the now empty classroom. Denise crouched down slightly and shook her ass like a girl in a Dr. Dre video. Molly was jealous of that ass. It was round. It was an actual ass. Molly thought hers was only okay. She imagined herself doing squats.

  “You’re thin too,” Molly said. “You’re beautiful.”

  “I’m cute,” Denise said. “I’m healthy.”

  “You’re beautiful—so shut up.”

  “What I am,” Denise said, as she continued to gyrate, “is sexy as shit. I’ve got confidence. It’s gonna take me places.”

  She waited for Denise to finish changing, to put on her big, furry boots and hat. School frightened Molly sometimes, the other students, their overwhelming confidence. Hers came and went. Eric said she was a classic narcissist.

  “I hate that guy,” Denise said, as they went down the stairs. “He’s the worst. You know what he did the last time I saw him? He walked up to me at O’Malley’s, slapped me on the ass, and called me a cunt. Who does that? What kind of a person do you have to be?”

  “He was probably drunk.”

  “That guy’s always drunk,” Denise said. “You’ve got a real Freudian thing going on with him. You’re having sex with your father.”

  “Disgusting. I am not,” Molly said, although the thought had occurred to her as well. Her father was seven years sober. “Don’t ever say that again, please. I’m gonna throw up.”

  “Relax,” Denise said. “Everyone’s had an incest dream or two.”

  The downstairs bubbled with students. The mood was celebratory. Finals exhaustion had lifted like a face peel. Their skin was young and bright. Half the seniors would be moving to LA for the spring semester. The college did an internship program out there. They lived in an apartment complex or something. It was a big selling point. There was a pool. Did NYU have a pool? Could they see Warner Brothers from their mountaintop? Had the Fonz gone there?

  Molly would have to wait for all that. Even as a freshman she’d already made the decision not to do stage work, even though she loved it. She loved the high, and the rehearsals, and the feel of the wood beneath her feet, but, at the end of the day, she felt estranged from that particular dream of life. She didn’t get off on the idea of being art poor. Her future was lit differently. It wasn’t quite as dark or as neon. She didn’t want to smoke forever. When Molly saw the seniors, she was reminded of the years that remained, of the never-e
nding credits, of the basic math course she would have to take, of the job she would need on top of school next semester, and all the semesters post that, and for how long afterward, and for what, and why? How would she even get to that future? What sort of loan would it take?

  Alone, she crossed over Beacon Street at Charles and walked into the Common. It was noon, but the holiday lights were on in the trees. A golden retriever bounded through the snow as if auditioning for a catalogue. Over the hill, behind the monument, she heard the warbled speaker effect of the ice skating rink. Where the four paths met at the oak tree, she saw Greg Watson.

  “Hey, jerk,” Molly said.

  “What? Why?”

  He was coming from their building. They lived on the same floor.

  “I waved at you earlier. I was saying hi. You were too cool.”

  “I didn’t see you.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  They left it at that. Greg never wore a hat. His shaved bald head suited him. He wore a beat-up old leather jacket. She asked him where he was going.

  “Speech final.”

  “Speech on what?”

  “Raymond Carver.”

  “Jesus Christ,” she said. “You guys and that guy. It’s a lifestyle.”

  “He’s great,” Greg said.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Molly said. “Read a woman. Read a black person.”

  “I do.”

  “Sure,” she said.

  Greg never seemed to be in a rush. He kept a small notebook in his back jean pocket. He smoked a lot of pot. He hung out with another writer dude in his class who worked at a liquor store in Jamaica Plain. After workshop, they always sat on the low brick wall at the edge of the Common. They would smoke cigarettes, and tell each other to fuck off, like it was the funniest thing in the world.

  Molly explained her entire life to him.

  “Sucks about the holds,” Greg said. “What time is he supposed to bring the movie?”