“Dude, can you sleep in Sylvia’s room?”
At first Wes wasn’t sure he had heard Roger correctly. What was he asking for? Roger responded to the confused look on Wes’s face.
“Come on, man, we talked about this last week. Sylvia is sharing her hotel room with Faith, so that means you need to sleep on Sylvia’s floor so Faith and I can share a room.”
Wes remembered some vague conversation with Roger about the upcoming All-State Artistic Tournament, about how Roger was going to put it to Faith a thousand times when they all got to Chicago. He recalled wondering in an off-hand way how Roger expected to have all this sex if he was sharing a room with Wes. The plan seemed clear now, but Wes certainly hadn’t anticipated ending up in Sylvia’s room. Holy shit, Sylvia Anderson. Holy, holy shit.
“Roger, what are you asking me to do?” Wes asked shakily.
Big dumb Roger stared at Wes as though the suggestion were the most obvious thing in the world. “Dude, you’re going to sleep in Sylvia’s room this week while Faith stays with me.”
So that was his idea. Holy shit. All Wes could focus on was Sylvia in her lingerie (Wes’s imagination could not be contained in moments like these), which made it hard for him to protest to the best of his abilities. But he had to try.
“Roger, Jesus, we’re gonna get busted.”
“Don’t be such a pussy. Don’t you want to get some action with Sylvia?”
“Riiiiiight, Sylvia Anderson and I are going to get it on. Drop your crack pipe and think for a minute. All it takes is one time for Mrs. Schruder to catch us in the wrong room.”
Roger put his arm around Wes. “Man, you have got to loosen up. Haven’t you ever risked getting caught so you could have sex with a cute girl?”
The answer was no, but did that mean he wouldn’t if given the chance? He said, “But I’m not having sex. You are.”
“Right, and I know what I’m talking about. Listen, dude, it all comes down to whether or not you’re going to keep me and Faith Simmons from having a beautiful sexual experience for the next four nights. You’re not going to do that, are you, Wes?”
More protestations came to mind, but Wes wasn’t one to whine. Besides, he liked the idea of Roger and Faith having some fun. If he wasn’t having fun, someone should. Then another thought came to mind.
“Has anyone talked to Sylvia about this?”
“Faith is right now. Sylvia’s a pushover.”
This was true. She may be the most beautiful girl in the entire college, but Sylvia was also quite soft-spoken, especially around her hard-living not-quite-bosom buddy Faith. Sylvia had made it into Faith’s gaggle of girlfriends because she was model-quality gorgeous and because they all sang in the Music department, but she was more of a reluctant tag-along. Wes liked to imagine her reading a nice book in her dorm room on weekend nights, much like he did, but he really had no idea. She was a magnificent, untouchable mystery.
As the bus pulled up in front of the hotel, Wes was staring out the window pondering how very wrong everything could go. The students exploded out of their seats in a cacophony at the exact moment the bus stopped, reaching for their bags, crushing each other in the aisle, hurling insults. Roger shouted, “Thanks buddy! I owe you one!” as he barreled toward the front.
Before Wes could stand, Sylvia Anderson sat in Roger’s vacated seat. She smelled fucking fantastic, like sweat and strawberries and the clean scent of perfumed soap. Her vinyl shorts showed an amazing amount of thigh, and her tight navy blue t-shirt pulled tight as she sat at an angle in the bus seat. Her dark hair fell around her shoulders in a multitude of cute natural curls with a healthy bounce. Wesley remembered one day the previous year when he spent an entire class period wanting to reach out and run his fingers through her hair. Now she sat beside him. Before he could recover from boyish nervousness, she spoke.
“Do you have any idea what Faith and Roger are trying to get us into?” She said it very softly so no one could hear, although the bus was loud and rowdy. This was the third or fourth sentence Sylvia had spoken to Wes in the history of the universe. It wasn’t that she avoided him, but rather that they had no reason to interact. Different crowds, different instruments in the department – he piano, she the cello – different social rules. Nothing to lament, just fate keeping them apart until this moment, until this week. She looked as nervous as he felt.
“I don’t think it has anything to do with us,” he replied.
There wasn’t much more to say. Wes half-expected the girl to warn him not to “try anything,” but she did not. Maybe she knew him well enough after two years in the Music department to not see him as much of a threat, which he certainly wasn’t. Maybe she didn’t want to offend him before sharing a room with him for the next four nights. Maybe she was waiting until later to say it.
“What time are you coming to the room?” she asked.
“I dunno,” he answered. “Whenever Faith comes to see Roger, I suppose. It will be after midnight. Or whenever Roger gets horny.”
Sylvia laughed at that, but not hard. Still nervous.
She stood and left. Outside on the sidewalk, hundreds of students from three different college departments – Drama, English and Music (Vocal and Instrumental) – were yelling and throwing things. One of the English professors in charge stood on a suitcase and screamed for quiet. She said something about what to do and when and how, blah blah blah, then everyone went to their department heads for room keys. More blah blah blah from the department heads, and then up to the room to take a nap and sleep off the plane ride.
Yeah right. Floors thirty thru thirty-three quickly degenerated into collegiate unruliness. Guys tossed footballs, girls sat on the floor and played cards, some bottles of beer were smuggled past the gestapo professors. The biggest disturbance was the running – boys running down the halls, girls squealing and they ran away from boys, boys tackling each other and crashing. THOOM THOOM THOOM. The poor 29th floor must have been distraught. Many of the students descended on the streets of Chicago, even though they only had about half-an-hour to roam before the curfew went into effect. They all knew that no reprimand would include being excluded from the competition the following morning. These ivy leaguers were superstars in their own nerdy right, the best performers in their fields, and they knew it.
Wes stayed in his room and watched cable television. Two fellow pianists invited him to join them, but as much as he enjoyed their company, they were just so damn homosexual. They always talked about things that had nothing to do with him.
“Dude!” Roger shouted as he crashed into the room. The time was 9:30. “Time to switch rooms.”
Wes felt a pang of panic. “It’s too early, Rog.”
“The professors are staying seven blocks away in a different hotel. No hall monitors tonight, my friend.”
“No chaperones? With four hundred kids alone in a hotel? Do they have any idea what will happen?”
“Apparently not, Wes, but you sure as hell do.” Roger picked up the phone and called his escort. “Hey babe, come on up.” He turned to Wes. “You hungry? We’re ordering a pizza.”
Wes was still full from the McDonald’s in the lay-over airport. “Is Sylvia coming up?”
“Probably not, dude. Faith says she doesn’t eat pizza. Leave your room key for Faith, huh?”
That would explain the sculptured ass. “I guess I’ll leave you two to your fun.” He tried not to sound bitter, but it came out morose. What he was actually feeling was scared out of his fucking mind. What if he came off like a big nerd? Too late now. Leaving his suitcase in the room, he grabbed his backpack and headed for the elevator, still wearing the blue jeans and black t-shirt he’d worn on the plane. As the elevator opened, out popped Faith, a petite blonde with expensive-looking but not-very-attractive streaks in her short, straight hair. She looked like an MTV dancer, right down to the vacant stare.
Faith threw her arms around Wes and said, “Thanks so much! We owe you.” She slipped a room key into his hand and ran off.
Wes stepped into the elevator, dwelling too heavily on his resentment toward Faith. Why did she have to hug him? She’d never said a single word to him before, and addressing him affectionately just highlighted how far outside her radar he was. Popular kids always took liberties with the “little people,” like showering them with praise for one incident instead of treating them decently over a long period of time. But the alternative was worse – what did Faith “owe” him? How do you repay someone for helping you to hook up for sex with a roommate? He shuttered to think.
The door opened, and he found himself two floors below where the hotel registry said his room should be. Wes walked to Sylvia’s door, stuck the key card in his pocket and knocked on the door. Moments later, the door opened. Wes had intended to stay as non-nerd-like as possible, but he had not expected Sylvia’s hair to be wet. Her makeup-free face glowed cleanly. She was naturally gorgeous, and he wanted to die.
“Come in,” she said with a half-hearted smile. She wasn’t upset with Wes, apparently, but she wasn’t excited either. This was just damn weird.
“You took a shower?” Wes asked, making small-talk.
“Yeah,” was all Sylvia said in response. Dumb question, an obvious question. He put his backpack on the second bed. He remembered Roger explaining that he’d sleep on the floor, but this room had two beds just like Roger’s did. There would be no “You look uncomfortable, share the bed with me” scenarios this night. Thank goodness.
She stood in front of the mirror, drying her hair with her towel, trying to stay busy rather than start an awkward discussion. She wore the same purple vinyl shorts from the bus that showed off her long, breathtaking legs, along with a white t-shirt that showed her bra strap, perhaps a subtle message to Wes that no one would be sleeping braless. Sylvia was barefoot, and Wes stared at her ankles. When he realized he was staring, he looked away, but away UP, at the girl’s ass.
A new approach was needed. He turned to his backpack, keeping busy as Sylvia had demonstrated. It was working. After a few minutes, they were navigating around each other like a married couple, putting toothbrushes in the bathroom, setting items on the end table. Sylvia laid out her performance clothes in the closet. After half-an-hour, they sat in chairs, silent. The room was very large, with two queen-size beds, a writing desk, two loveseats (now occupied) with a coffee table, the armoire that contained the television, other small tables around the beds.
“Do you mind if I open the drapes?” Wes asked. He did think of the room as Sylvia’s.
Sylvia corrected this notion. “It’s your room, too,” she said. “Open what you want.”
He stood and opened the heavy curtains hiding an entire wall of glass. Outside lay the city of Chicago, an architectural masterpiece that sprawled forward like an ocean of concrete, with no horizon in sight. The sky was clear, and all the lights of the city created a Christmas-like glow around every structure.
“Oh wow,” Wes said.
That caused Sylvia to turn in her chair, and the view made her gasp. She approached the other end of the window. “It’s beautiful!” she cried.
“Now that’s a city,” Wes uttered.
“Mmm-hmm,” Sylvia agreed. They surveyed the landscape in silence for a long minute or two. Wes had grown up in Montana where rolling plains were abundant and skyscrapers were few. He’d traveled to many places around the country and internationally, but every new city made a profound impression on him, especially the wonderful views from tall buildings. Many of the Chicago structures towered above them even from this high place.
Wes asked Sylvia without turning away from the window, “Where did you grow up?”
“New Mexico,” she said. “Lots of mountains.”
