Ms. Taken Identity (25 page)

“You should go now,” she says.

So I do.

Back at the apartment I watch TV, then listen to every Nirvana CD I own (which is a mistake, given that I already don’t feel
so great and look what listening to too much Nirvana did to Kurt Cobain), then watch more TV, then go for a jog at midnight,
then listen to something happy—Elvis—then take a shower and watch TV. It’s after two when my phone rings.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“Not sleeping. You?”

“Staring at the walls.” There’s a long pause. “Do you want to come over, so we can both get some sleep?”

Abso-fucking-lutely I want to come over.

“And bring that list and a pen,” she says. “We’re adding a few things.”

I have the car started before we say goodbye.

A
t last we’re a couple in the way God and the universe intended: Mitch Samuel and Marie Colson. The next two weeks are a series
of firsts. 1) She meets my mom. We go to the student production of
The Imaginary Invalid
at my mom’s school, and even though Marie has never heard of Molière, she gets all the jokes and laughs a lot, and we go
out for drinks afterwards, and it’s obvious my mom likes her, and she likes my mom, and I like that a lot. 2) She comes over
to the apartment. I give her the grand tour, and I can tell it’s a little weird for her, seeing how Bradley and I shared this
space and she had no idea, but by the end of the visit she gets over it, enough to fix up a meal using pots and pans that,
between Bradley and me, have likely never held anything in them. 3) I give my real name at the studio. I announce that I’m
going by Mitch now, and they give me a funny look and shrug, because at age twenty-eight, people usually don’t start going
by something else; but they go along with it, even Rosie, who, after making a big show of forgiving me for all I’ve put her
through, announces she has news of her own: she’s no longer going by Rosie but by Angelina Jolie and has Brad called yet?
4) We double date with Skyler and Bradley. We go to Colchester’s for dinner, and Bradley has the line of the night when he
sizes up our group, gives me an extra once-over, and tells the hostess we’re a party of five.

Most importantly, Marie reads the book. I give it to her on a Friday night and she reads it straight through the weekend,
and the entire time I’m nervous, like an expectant father who’s got nothing to do but pace the floors and wring his hands
and have unsettling thoughts—the baby’s out, and it’s a seal or zebra or loaf of bread. She finishes on Sunday evening.

“I loved it,” she says, not holding back her smile, and my heart starts to beat again. “I was worried you’d stolen all our
identities, just changed the names, and slapped us into print. But you didn’t. I see bits of all of us, but these are new
people. It’s a world I recognize, but it’s different.”

We talk about this and that concerning the characters and the plot and some suggestions she has, but it’s all good and fun,
and I realize that there ain’t no stopping me, now that Marie’s on board. But then this:

“So you really met Katharine Longwell?”

“Um, a little.”

“What do you mean, ‘a little’? That doesn’t make sense. Either you did or you didn’t.”

“No, right. Of course. I did. Yes.”

“What’s she like?”

“Not much of anything. Not as good-looking as you might think, that’s for sure.”

“Anything else?”

“Sweet. Boring. The matronly type.”

“She doesn’t seem that way, not from her books and what I’ve seen on TV.”

“That’s all an act.”

“Interesting.”

“Yes, it is.”

And so we leave it. Till the end of our natural lives, I hope.

The last day of classes arrives, and the students are ready to be done. They’ve only to turn in their final research paper,
on the topic of their choice. A few of them volunteer to read excerpts—no aliases this time, since it’s the last time I’ll
see them—so we hear a little about opera and Gothic cathedrals and Bob Marley and NASCAR, and when it’s over, after I’ve wished
them well on their upcoming exams and collected the papers, I head to my office. Grading time. I’m not there long before I’m
interrupted by a knock on the door. It’s Molly.

When the weather turned cold, Molly turned to sweaters, and she’s been sporting an assortment of styles and colors and textures
these past few weeks, all with this common thread: hello Molly’s body. But today, the coup de grâce: a painted-on baby blue,
paired with hip-hugging low-rider jeans.

“Mind if I shut this?” she asks, of the door.

“I’d rather you left it open,” I say quickly.

She gives a small laugh. “I’m harmless, Mitch. Really.” She slides into the chair across from me, looking anything but harmless.
“Besides, I already have a boyfriend. Pete.”

“Pete? From class Pete?”

“Yep, Pete-from-class Pete. Don’t look so surprised.”

Surprised? Me? I’m not surprised. Dumbstruck, astounded, flabbergasted, yes. Molly could be modeling swimsuits in
Sports Illustrated
. Pete… well, Pete probably
has
a swimsuit, and I’m sure he looks fine in it, but I don’t imagine anyone’ll be taking pictures of him in it and splashing
them across the centerfold of a magazine. “I just wouldn’t have put the two of you together. Based on the way you go at it
in class,” I throw in.

“He challenges me and I like that. Plus, he’s the funniest guy I know. And smart. Don’t let the stupid grin fool you.”

After today, I won’t. “So, what can I do for you?”

She picks at the corner of the chair. It’s the most submissive gesture I’ve seen from her all semester. “I just wanted to
tell you… I didn’t turn in my paper.”

“Oh?” I don’t have to remind her she loses a letter grade for each day it’s late. I’ve been reminding them for the last month.
“When can I expect it?”

“See, that’s just it. You probably shouldn’t expect it at all.”

“Meaning…”

“Meaning, well, probably never.”

I let that settle for a moment. “Never. Wow. That’s a long time. You do realize it counts for a fourth of your final grade.”

She drops her eyes and nods. “But I’ll pass, right?” She actually seems a little worried.

“Assuming you were getting an A going in, which you probably were, then yeah, you’ll pass. Barely…” C minus or D barely.
How about that? Ms. When-are-you-going-to-write-something-real-like-a-novel pain in my ass just screwed her own grade, and
I didn’t even have to blink an eye. A few months ago, I would’ve been rejoicing. I would’ve done cartwheels. But now, I don’t
feel so good about it.

“Do you need an extension?” I’ve told them I
might
be willing to provide one, in extreme circumstances—like loss of limb.

“Thanks, but I don’t think it would help.”

We sit there and look at each other, and there’s really nothing I can do. She doesn’t want to write the paper, she’s willing
to accept the consequence, so that’s pretty much that. But I don’t want to let go.

“Look, Molly, I know we didn’t see eye to eye on everything this semester. No secret there. But you were a good student—a
great student—and I respect that. You don’t seem much in the offering mood, but I’m going to ask anyway.” I lean forward and
give her as intense a look as I can manage, without having it come across as one of those “I’m deep, I’m concerned, now why
don’t you let me separate you from your panties” looks. “Why didn’t you do it?”

She shakes her head. “But that’s just it. I did do it. Most of it, anyway. I’m doing it on Mount Everest because I want to
climb it someday. But then I started thinking about why. It’s dangerous. Irrational. People die there every year. One wrong
step, or freak storm, or unstable piece of ice could do me in. Am I that much of a thrill seeker? Or is it that sometimes
I don’t really like myself or some of the things I do and wouldn’t mind if it all
happened
to end.” You can tell that she’d planned to say some of it, but not all of it, and that it’s upsetting to her own ears to
hear it, but now that she’s started, she doesn’t want to stop. “I don’t have the answers, Mitch,” she says, her voice starting
to crack. “I think it’s the thrill-seeking thing, but there are enough days when I think it could be the other. And it scares
me. That’s why I had to stop, because I’m not ready to stare at those things too hard right now, if you know what I mean…”

I look at her, this beautiful, scared, sexed-up, mixed-up, intelligent, trembling teenage girl, and realize that, despite
the obnoxious T-shirts and skintight sweaters and form-fitting jeans and everything I think I may know about her, I have absolutely
no idea who she is.
None
. What’s more, I can see she’s getting ready to do something that I never in a thousand years would’ve thought possible from
Molly Schaeffer: she starts to cry. Big tears. Big big tears.

My impulse is to push her chair out the door, or crawl under the desk, or run, because I am immediately back to the night
with Hannah, when I saw her on the bathroom floor, sobbing, and did nothing, and how can I be expected to do anything for
a girl I’ve spent the better part of four months cursing under my breath when I didn’t even do it for a woman who made the
coffee for us every morning? But then something else kicks in, and I can only say that it’s the Marie in me, which is an odd
thing to say under any circumstance, but even odder in this situation, since we’re talking about a gorgeous eighteen-year-old
girl, and that the Marie in me is telling me to give her a hug. So that’s what I do.

I don’t say anything, because I’m not sure what I’d say, but I just sort of hold on, and she buries her head against my shoulder
and I let her do it, and I will myself not to have any impure thoughts, or notice how good she smells, and I don’t know if
anyone passes by, but I don’t care either, because whatever it may look like, I know it’s the right thing to do.

Finally she pulls away and wipes her eyes. The storm has passed.

“Do you wanna talk more?” I ask.

She laughs. “And have you try to analyze me any more than you are right now? No thanks, Dr. Freud.”

She takes a moment to compose herself—straightening her sweater, sweeping back her hair, smoothing the fabric on her jeans—all
in a way that makes it clear that even though there may be some chipped or dented pieces inside her soul, and she doesn’t
have it all figured out, life goes on and she needs to be ready to face it. And be sexy. The swagger is back. Honestly, I’m
glad to see it.

She stands. “It’s been a good semester, Mitch. I’m not just saying that to kiss your ass. I enjoyed it.”

“Take care of yourself, Molly. Okay? And have fun in San Diego.”

“Oh, I will.” She gives me a smile that’s laced with flirty (Molly is Molly, after all), and she’s gone.

Early on in
Hamlet
, there’s a scene where Hamlet’s friend Horatio is trying to make sense of all the crazy goings-on in Denmark—like ghosts
of dead kings wandering through town—and he says it’s all so “wondrous strange.” That phrase is looping in my head right now.
A student who bugged the hell out of me all semester just cried in my arms and I comforted her—I think—and even though I have
every right to give her a D for the class, I’ll split the difference and give her a B. What’s more, I’ve danced as Zorro and
golfed with my dad and written a chick-lit novel and fallen in love with my best friend’s sister. I realize we’re not talking
ghosts of murdered fathers coming back with tales of fratricide and incest and wife-stealing, but there’s no other way to
put it: it’s all so wondrous strange. But then again, with all apologies to Master Will, maybe it’s something else altogether.
Maybe it’s all so strangely wonderful.

Later that night, we’re sitting on Marie’s sofa watching
Frosty the Snowman
.

“I’m not really a fan of this one,” I tell her. “I don’t like the way they added the jealous magician, Professor Hinkle. He’s
not in the song.”

“But they had to add things. If they kept to the song, the show would be two minutes long. Even less, because of all the thumpety
thump thumps.”

She’s right, of course. Sometimes you have to tweak the source material, especially when it has no plot whatsoever and the
only characters are a snowman, children, and a traffic cop who hollers, “Stop!” So I get to the crux of my problem with
Frosty
, which I’ve never told anyone. “I don’t like the way they let Frosty melt in the greenhouse. When he dies.”

“He doesn’t die.”

“He dies. He melts. For a snowman, that’s death.”

“Fine. He dies. But Santa brings him back to life.”

“But he was dead first. And that’s tough to get out of your mind, that puddle of water, and the corncob pipe and hat sitting
on top of it. So every time I hear the song, that’s what I think of. Dead Frosty. Puddle of water Frosty. They should stick
with the song, even if it’s only a two-minute show. I like the Rudolph special better.”

“Oh, like that one sticks to the song. The dentist. The Isle of Misfit toys. Yukon Cornelius. Burl Ives as a snowman with
a plaid vest. And that one’s an
hour
.”

“But no one dies.”

“But they
think
Yukon Cornelius does, when he falls off the glacier ledge with the Abominable Snowman.”

“But not Rudolph. He doesn’t die and come back to life.”

We stop there, because it’s clear she really likes Frosty and I don’t, and I want her to enjoy this.

“Charlie Brown?” she asks.

“Love it.”

“Good.”

We watch a little more, and get through the part where he dies and comes back to life, and I tell her it’s not so bad after
all, even though it is, especially when that little girl cries. Ask
her
if Frosty was dead.

“You know, the TV at your place is nicer than this one,” she says, when Frosty is safely on his way to the North Pole with
Santa. She half turns my way. “Are you planning to bring it over someday?”

I do a half turn myself. “Maybe.” But even without a mirror I can tell I have a huge smile on my face when I say it.