Tues Dec 21, 65
Beales says I’m oversexed and I say he’s right. My father’s oversexed so it’s genetic. (He wouldn’t allow Mom to “fix” the cats because he said, “What would they have to live for?” She fixed them and swore us to secrecy.) But he’s undersexed (so much for a Big You Know What) and it’s a damn good thing because I’m only a sophomore. I long to be swept away like Siegfried and Sieglinde or How Green Was My Valley. On to more practical things. Beales told me he wasn’t giving me anything for Christmas but I found him the most perfect god and onyx tie tack (only $5). I wanted to give it to him where he could thank me properly but he’s afraid to go into classrooms with me any more so I had to give it to him I the Blue Room with all the other couples looking on (blast and retch.) Pity he has the mental and the physical so tangled up. By the time he gets over it some other girl will be reaping the benefits. He was so angry at me for giving him a Christmas present! The creep! I said; “It’s the size of a PIN. Relax already! Take a Miltown!” I’m on the way home and I miss him already. He’s my chew toy and now I have nothing to chew on. My jaws are empty. Sat. Jan 29, 66 A sad ending to what was once so beautiful. I broke up with Beales. I had to or no one else would ever have asked me out. Now I hear my reputation as a Heartbreaking Tease is getting a workout on Boys’ End. It’s so unfair. Girls never get to tell their side of the story. Every time I lock eyes with Beales he looks at me all grim and bitter. So far only one Completely Unacceptable boy has asked me out. (I said I wanted to be friends.) But hope dies hard. Feb 1 – 66 Krissy and I are feuding. There should be a Roommate Keep the Peace Corps. It’s my fault because my jaws are empty and aching longing for a new chew toy. Even her hopeless boyfriend Crow (he wrestles Unlimited!) sent her camellias! And I was jealous. Here are the disadvantages of boarding school: no snow day. We are probably the only school in operation. Wore my new Courrèges dress, go-go boots and slicker hat to chapel – the effect being ruined by having the wade through thigh-high snow. Snuggled up in bed with a cup of Royal Gunpowder – the snow outside sounding like a woman in silk trying to force her way in. (I have the radiator!) Krissy is cutting Romance pictures out of the NY Times but I am feeling very jaded. Try to imagine Phil in a lace shirt bending over me on a boat in Central Park. Impossible. I’d have to do the rowing! Feb 14 – Valentine’s Day – 66 In room 200, personality rot has set in. Krissy is a parasite and I’m a freep (I don’t know what it is either but that’s what she calls me all the time.) We treat each other with the utmost coldness, except when she leans over me to get my pink turtleneck out of the drawer so she can wear it to bed. Why don’t I tell her to stop? Because I want her to stop by herself, that’s why! That way I would be contributing to her moral growth. Beales utterly floored me by asking me out to the Valentine’s Day Dance! He has been dating seniors exclusively since we broke up. He says it could be a “one time thing – as friends.” But wasn’t that our whole problem? On the other hand where will I get to wear my pink velvet dress? I have been blacklisted on Boys’ End as a Boy Torturer. It has been very embarrassing since there are many occasions when he had a date and I did not. (Just my faithful 200 lb protector-companion Fleur. The boys bark when she’s around, and she wouldn’t look out of place with a brandy keg around her neck. But she’s funny and a good soul. I do wish she would stop giving me lollipops. I have a drawer full of lollipops with little sayings on them. Disgusto.) I had to turn him down. I mean, what would be the point? He refuses to dance to perfectly good romantic mood music like She Cried and The Lonely Sea. If I encourage Ted enough I know he’ll ask me. But since I’m definitely only toying with him if won’t do a thing for my reputation. Damn, damn, damn. We’re all trapped in a summer stock version of Gone With the Wind. Wed Feb 16, 66 Beales’ interest in women certainly has flowered lately! I’ve been keeping track of it. Over lunch alone he spoke to That Barlow Woman 100 times, Kris Cairns 50 times, Sofy Perkins (NO ONE could be interested in HER!) 25 times. That Barlow Woman is the one who worries me – he dated her before we were an Us. (He used to make fun of her Bulletproof Bra. She still wears it.) I can’t decide whether she constitutes a threat or not. He did slow dance with her at the dance. (Our eyes met – easily – since I’m a head taller than Ted!) He definitely dates girls for their brains. Flattering? Unflattering? Fri. Feb 18 – 66 Beales waiting tables today with his hand wrapped in bandages. Very sexy! Makes him look like Dr. No or Capt. Hook or someone. I was too proud to ask DIRECTLY what had happened but I grabbed the scrapple dish off our table saying, “I’ll scrounge seconds.” Lame excuse since: 1) It was full 2) Everyone hates scrapple. Bur it gave me an excuse to bump shoulders with Beales. How’s your hand? I ask. He gives me a bitter, war weary wounded hero look. “How’s yours?” I make a paralytic claw and study it. “The usual.” That was our whole exchange. I figured I’d have to find out on the grapevine. I suspect if it wasn’t humiliating he would have told me. Probably caught it in the dish hatch. As I was leaving lunch he caught up with me and walked me down the hall. Told me it got stepped on during wrestling! His face looked so sad I bust into tears and said, “I miss our walks!” He said, “You know you’ve broken up with me three times?” I contested that. Fighting and not speaking are not technical “break ups.” He invited me to his wrestling match. I refused – I can’t stand the stench and Shawn’s pimply back blooding up his shirt is too, too disgusting. Beales said, “It’s a problem that you hate sports.” I told him I love soccer, don’t mind tennis and can tolerate discus but the real problem is he’s unromantic any self-respecting girl must scorn him. He says he ha to go to Tim’s for the weekend but he will write me. He gave me his handkerchief and I took it upstairs and built it a little shrine. I am hopeless. Sun. Feb 20 – 66 Beales is as impossible as he ever was! God! How do I get myself into these things!!! Letter delivered as promised after chapel by Tim’s sister (the horsey one. Th horse should ride her.) It was in Beales’ incredible small handwriting all over a valentine. If the valentine hadn’t been so nice I would have hurled the whole thing (plus all my furniture) out of the window. Here is the whole thing, for the delectation of posterity: “I must admit you rather shocked me Fri. After vast experience in this particular line I thought I would know what to expect and when. I wasn’t much surprised by your breaking up, because I understand how it feels to be taken possession of and because of our longstanding argument about Scotland.” (PS – Scotland had NOTHING to do with it! He wants me to go to the U of Edinburgh with him and I said I couldn’t live anywhere without trees. He is a complete idiot. But back to his note – “The whole business didn’t (and doesn’t) bother me much because there was (and is) a whole list of girls I wanted to ask out. I’d always wanted to ask Kris Cairns out to find out what she was like and I did and we did and I still don’t know. What was disconcerting was I didn’t know whether you had commenced to hate my guts or not and it was somewhat of a weight on my pride whether you did or didn’t. Now that particular anxiety has been alleviated and I am able to feel smug and satisfied with myself again I can see that a lot of the reason I wanted you around was to mend a badly shattered pride. The other part is I wanted someone I could really communicate with and you’re the only one I’ve had any success in that dept with – the only one in this entire establishment. Next year is so filled with uncertainties I feel inclined to cling to anyone and anything affording the least bit of security. I’m sure it’s psychologically healthy to date around but I’m not convinced it’s good to know next to nothing about a large group of people when you can know a lot about one. I trust I make myself sufficiently obscure.” You sure do! I guess this is what being married is like. Someone is totally maddening and you spend a lot of time wishing they would fall off a high building and yet their very maddeningness makes them interesting if you know what I mean. Such a strain making conversation with Ed Morehouse and Ted Jones and all the other freeps that ask me out. Oh to have someone you don’t HAVE to MAKE conversation with, even if it’s the devil you know (to quote Shakespeare). Beales should thank his lucky stars I understand him better than he does himself.
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Alysse Aallyn
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