Until I Find You

Jack toyed with the idea of seducing her--certainly not to have sex with her, because she was far too young and startled-looking for him, but simply to turn her against McCarthy, who'd said such cruel things about Emma.

Jack found Ed McCarthy's girlfriend in the cafeteria--she was at the salad bar. During wrestling season, Jack lived on salad; he could not weigh in at one hundred and thirty-four and a half pounds and eat much else. (He had a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, sometimes with a banana; salad for lunch; salad for supper, occasionally with another banana.)

The redhead with the freckles became even more startled-looking than usual when Jack spoke to her. "Is he treating you okay?" Jack asked.

Her name was Molly--he didn't know her last name--and she was staring at him as if she expected some unknown and uncontrollable reaction from her body, as if he'd just injected one of her veins with a hallucinogenic drug.

He touched her hand, which, unbeknownst to her, had slipped into the stainless-steel bin of raw mushrooms, where it lay like something severed. "I mean McCarthy," Jack said. "He can be cruel to women, and superficial. I hope he's not like that with you."

"Did he hurt someone you know?" Molly asked; she seemed truly frightened of McCarthy.

"I suppose he only hurt my feelings--about my older sister," Jack said.

As he had taught himself to do, his eyes welled up with tears. All those movies, with Emma holding his penis, had conditioned him to imagine the close-up. By then Jack had seen Anthony Quinn in tears maybe half a dozen times. If Zampano, the strongman, could cry, so could he.

Jack had not done much acting at Exeter. He had too much schoolwork to take part in most of the productions chosen by the school's dramatic association, the Dramat.

He was neutral to Death of a Salesman, which was the fall play in his ninth-grade year. Jack knew he was too boyish-looking to play Willy Loman, and too small to be either of Willy's sons, Happy or Biff. He bravely auditioned for the part of Linda, beating out a bunch of girls in the process--two seniors who were fourth-year members of the Dramat among them. But in Jack's first experience with dramatic criticism, The PEAN, the school yearbook, described Jack's performance as "overly distraught," and The Exonian, the school newspaper, stated that Linda was miscast--"resulting in the kind of sexual parody audiences must have been forced to endure in those dark ages when Exeter was an all-boys' school." What do they know? Jack thought. Try telling Linda that she's "overly distraught"!

After that, when Jack realized how hard the academic workload was for him, he pretended to be disdainful of what the Dramat chose for its plays. For the most part, this wasn't hard; many of the choices reflected the taste of the dated hippie who was the dramatic association's faculty adviser. More to the point, Jack was saving himself for the occasional Shakespeare, which not even amateurs could seriously harm.

His fellow thespians in the Dramat had resented his female impersonation of Linda in Death of a Salesman. They tried to force male roles on him, urging him to audition for Mister Roberts--as if the movie hadn't been bad enough. Talk about dated! Jack evoked Wendy Holton. "I'd rather die," he said.

This was excellent for his reputation as an actor--playing hard-to-get worked. (And what was the risk?)

He decided to surprise everyone by volunteering for a small role in The Teahouse of the August Moon. Jack knew that the part of Lotus Blossom, a geisha girl, would cement his hold on any future female role he wanted. The part he really desired was in the spring play his penultimate year at the academy. Jack was Lady Macbeth, of course--and just who was going to give him shit about it? Another wrestler? (One senior girl in the Dramat rationalized that the part called for a "domineering" woman--hence a more "masculine" choice might work.)

When the Dramat at last thought they had him figured out--Burns likes Shakespeare, Burns wants to do everything in drag--he surprised them one more time. Jack auditioned for Richard III, but only if he could be Richard. Let them fart around with Our Town till the cows come home, Jack thought. He wanted that football, his choice for a humpback, behind his neck.

It was the winter of Jack's senior year--wrestling season, when he was especially gaunt. He would show them a "winter of discontent" like they'd never seen; he would offer his "kingdom for a horse" and make them believe it, which he did.

Jack's tears now fell on Molly's hand, in the mushrooms; his tears fell on the broccoli and on the sliced cucumbers, too. A radish rolled off his plate. He didn't even try to catch it.

Molly led him to one of the cafeteria tables. Other students made room for them. "Tell me everything," Molly said, clutching his hand. Her eyes were a diluted, washed-out blue; one of the freckles on her throat looked infected.

"I didn't ask to be born good-looking," Jack told her. "My sister wasn't so lucky--my older sister," he added, as if Emma's advanced age were a telltale indication that she would never have a boyfriend. (In truth, Emma fooled around a lot--mostly with boys who were Jack's age, or younger. She claimed that she didn't have sex with them--"not exactly.")

"Your sister doesn't look like you?" Molly asked Jack.

"McCarthy says my sister is ugly," he told her. "Naturally, I don't see her that way--I love her!"

"Of course you do!" Molly cried, clutching his hand harder.

She was not only not pretty; at sixteen, Molly was probably as appealing as she would ever be. She'd never liked looking in a mirror--and she would like it less and less as she grew older, Jack imagined. That her boyfriend had called another girl ugly must have hit too close to home.

Jack had cried enough; the overacting had left his salad a little wet. Anothe

r close-up came to mind, that of the slightly quivering but stiff upper lip. "I'm sorry I brought this up," he said. "There's nothing anyone can do about it. I won't bother you again."

"No!" she said, grabbing his wrist as he tried to take his tray and go. A raw carrot fell off his plate; a little iced tea spilled from his glass. Jack drank so much iced tea in the wrestling season, he was bouncing off the walls. His fingers always trembled, as if he were riding on a speeding train.

"I better go, Molly," Jack said; he left her without looking back. He knew that she and Ed McCarthy were finished. (He also knew that Ed would be having his lunch soon.)

Jack wandered back over to the salad bar; he was basically starving. The prettiest girl in the school was there--Michele Maher, a fellow senior. She was a slim honey-blonde with a model's glowing skin and--in McCarthy's crude appraisal--"a couple of high, hard ones."

Michele was over five-ten--she had two inches on Jack. She was in the Dramat. Jack had beaten her out for Lady Macbeth, but she'd been a good sport about it--one of the few who had. Despite her good looks, everyone liked her; she was smart, but she was also nice to people. She'd done the early-acceptance thing at Columbia, because she was from New York and wanted to be back in the city; so, unlike most of the seniors, she wasn't thinking about where she might end up in college--she already knew.

"Jack Burns, looking lean and mean," Michele said.