self as Andrew, lug a box of records upstairs from the lobby.
The girl, who was named Cynthia, seated herself behind one of
the desks and began examining a stack of records.
Jesus Christ. This band s called Assume the Position,
Cynthia said, holding up a record and throwing it down again.
Can t we just toss some of these straight in the garbage?
We should stage a record-burning bonfire out back later,
I said.
Cynthia smirked and shook a cigarette out of her pack.
Anyone want one?
I AN 163
I jogged over to her. Thanks. I didn t think you d be able
to smoke here, so I left mine at home. My words came out in
a nervous jumble, and I noted that I had referred to my dorm
room as home.
Oh, I keep mine with me at all times, Cynthia said. I m
at two packs a day.
Wow.
Cynthia waved at Andrew. Want one?
No thank you. All four of my grandparents died of lung
cancer.
I ve got cancer all over my family, Cynthia said. I figure
I might as well smoke, you know? I mean, I m gonna get it
anyway, so.
So, do you guys want to listen to something? Andrew
asked. We have to be careful. I don t want to offend Mr.
Pretentious.
He might be pretentious, but he s hot, Cynthia said.
I pulled a record out of its jacket without pausing to examine
it and scrawled the station s call letters across it. I d been hop-
ing Cynthia wouldn t notice that Ian was hot, though I admired
her for saying it out loud, like she didn t care who might over-
hear. She struck me as the sort of girl who hadn t experienced
a lot of rejection in her life.
After about an hour, Ian came back and led us down the hall
to the library. We each carried an armful of records that we
had labeled. As we passed the DJ booth I peered through a glass
partition. A chubby girl with horn-rim glasses and blue-black
hair was placing a record on one of two turntables. A pair of
headphones rested around her neck.
That s Sarah, Ian said. She raised a hand in greeting with-
out looking up.
Ian led us further down the hall into a large room that held
nothing but shelves of records. The shelves were so jammed I
couldn t imagine how we were going to squeeze in any new
164 POLLY
records. They were separated into classical, country, bluegrass,
blues, and jazz, but the majority of the shelves were devoted
to rock.
As you might imagine, when you become a DJ you ll want
to pull your play list before you start your show, Ian said. You
want to minimize the running back and forth.
Andrew cleared his throat. Um, exactly how long will it be
before we can, you know, go on the air?
Ask me again in a month.
When I saw Polly Hessler on the address label in William s hand-
writing I sat down and opened the package on the floor of the
mailroom. He d sent me a brochure about registering to vote
and a schedule book for keeping track of my assignments. Un-
like Mom, he included a note on an index card. I thought these
things might come in handy, he wrote. I turned over the index
card to see if he d written anything on the back. It was blank.
Tucked inside the schedule book was a check for fifty dollars. I
couldn t stop smiling the whole way back to my room.
I went to the radio station most days after class. I d spend a
couple of hours logging and filing records before meeting Julie
at the dining hall for dinner. It was just Julie and me eating to-
gether now; the rest of the Notable Exceptions had moved on.
Andrew and Cynthia were at the station most afternoons,
too. Instead of listening to records we tuned the stereo to
WUVT. The three of us became acquainted with the various
DJs who had afternoon shows. Mostly the DJs kept to them-
selves, pausing only to check if a particular record had come
in or to ask for a cigarette. But I felt like I knew them from
listening to their shows.
I AN 165
Marcus had shoulder-length hair and played punk from the
late seventies and early eighties. I loved Marcus s show. Sarah
played bands like the Church and Joy Division, and sometimes
she read her friends poetry over the air. Andrew groaned
whenever she did this.
Karen played everything from speed metal to classic rock,
depending on her mood. People want to know what fucking
genre they re fucking listening to, Ian would shout at her when
she arrived at the station. As music director Ian s job was to
oversee the play lists, so part of his job was to yell at the DJs.
Gary had a crew cut and was a few years older. He played
hardcore. I wanted to talk about bands with Gary, but I couldn t
get up the nerve. Gary usually didn t talk on the air, and when
he did speak his voice was a monotone.
Cynthia stayed in the front office with Ian, writing down
the names of the records that came in on a master list. Andrew
and I were stuck lugging stacks of records down the hall to the
library for filing. I found out mostly through eavesdropping
on Cynthia s constant questioning that Ian s family was from
a suburb of London, that he had moved to Blacksburg when he
was twelve, and that his father was a professor in the architec-
ture department. He was supposed to be a junior, but he was
taking the semester off to concentrate more on the radio station
and think about what he really wanted to do.
My conversations with Ian were limited to perfunctory
comments about which bands I had and hadn t heard of, and
whether I liked them. Hanging out with him made me feel like
a game-show contestant. He would name band after band, and
we would shout out whether we d heard of the band and, if so,
whether we d seen them live.
You re one of those DC hardcore girls, he said once, wink-
ing at me.
Not really. I mean sort of, I said. I mean, that s where I
166 POLLY
grew up and all. I went back to marking up the record I was
cataloging, letting my hair fall into my face.
Ian s amazing, I told Julie at dinner. Amazing was a word that
Ian used a lot. He thought the Pixies were amazing. Dead Can
Dance were amazing. Sonic Youth were amazing. London and
New York City were amazing.
Shoes? Julie asked.
Black.
Well, be careful, Julie said. He might just seem cooler
because of the accent.
I considered this.
No. He s different from other guys I ve known. He s
smart.
Smart how? Like he has a big vocabulary?
I don t know. Not like that. Like mature smart.
Julie twirled spaghetti around her fork. So what are you
going to do?
What do you mean?
Aren t you going to do something? We should make a
plan.
I liked that Julie said we, like the two of us were in on it
together. She made it sound like all it would take to get Ian s
attention was the right strategy. Like if we put our heads to-
gether we could trick him into going out with me. I wasn t
ready to plan, though.
I guess I need to hang out with him more first, I said.
Julie came by the radio station to see Ian. When I introduced
her to him she pretended not to know who he was. She lit a
cigarette and picked up an INXS record that was lying on top
of a stack by the door.
I AN 167
I kind of love this band, she said. I have to admit it.
Ian gave her a sharp look. That s in the trash pile for a
reason, he said.
So can I have it then? Julie asked.
Ian shrugged and walked out of the room. Andrew made a
face at his back.
When Cynthia invited Andrew and me to a keg party, I ac-
cepted without giving it much thought. Julie and I had been
to a few keg parties already. We spent our time in out-of-the-
way corners, getting drunk and making fun of people s outfits.
Sometimes Julie threatened to pick up a guy, but every time
anyone approached us (especially if he was wearing white ten-
nis shoes and a baseball hat, which he usually was), we gave [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]