“An ethnography of sorts?”
“Yeah,” Sophie said. “I’m particularly interested in the sweaters. The symbolism of the light-up ones.”
Sophie paused a beat, waiting for the blank expression and the really? she would’ve gotten off a Kyle or a Connor. To which Sophie would’ve had to say, no not really, just kidding and the conversation would’ve fizzled.
But Russell was nodding along, stroking his chin in exaggerated professorial motions. “I believe those represent a mating ritual.”
“A mating ritual?”
“Yes. You see the male lights up in order to attract the attention of the female so that procreation may ensue.”
“Like fireflies?” Sophie asked.
“And anglerfish,” Russell said.
“Here’s a question: are the sweaters mating, or the people in them?” Sophie asked.
When Russell grinned, he no longer looked professorial. “Couldn’t tell you, Sophie,” he said. “But both prospects scare the shit out of me.”
Sophie laughed. Not fake-laughed or polite-laughed, but her real laugh, with the almost snort at the end. It had been awhile.
“You wouldn’t find it so funny if you knew the rest of the ritual,” Russell warned, a hand over his mouth, all conspiratorial.
“I’m almost afraid to ask.” Sophie tilted her head up to listen. She was flirting a bit, something else she hadn’t done in a while.
“‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ is like a trigger. As soon as they hear it, all those sweaters…” He shakes his head. “Just trust me. You don’t wanna see it.”
“What? Is it like a sweater orgy?”
“Think about it. The lighting up of Rudolph’s nose, all red and pulsating, it’s a symbol for—”
“I get it,” Sophie interrupted, waving away the image. But she was still laughing “You’ve put a lot of thought into this.”
“Scary, ain’t it?”
Sophie wasn’t sure if he was referring to the amount of thought he’d put into it or the vision of all these nice, clean, singing people having an orgy. But when, a few moments later, the carolers chimed in with the opening notes and words, “Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, had a very shiny nose…” Sophie and Russell looked at each other, and, as if by some mutual agreement, took off running.
* * *
The problem was, there was nowhere to go. The campus was pastoral, surrounded by farms and woodlands. There was a small commercial strip but places tended to shutter early, even when school was in session.
They were standing in front of the student union, which was open, but going inside felt like admitting defeat, and after the last few months—or maybe the last few minutes—Sophie couldn’t bear it.
But then Russell said, “I’m parked just over there.” He flashed the key remote and a car with Texas plates chirped and lit up.
“I’m not going to wind up at the bottom of some limestone quarry, am I?” Sophie asked, almost as a formality, to prove that she, a tough New Yorker, wasn’t just naïvely getting into the car with him. But then she worried that he’d take the question differently, because he was black. And then she chastised herself for obsessing about this. Zora was black. She never acted this way around her. Then again, Zora wasn’t a guy.
But he just grinned again and undid the top two buttons of his coat to reveal his sweater underneath. Heather gray and plain. “No Rudolph, no light-ups. You’re safe.”
Once in the car, Russell flipped the ignition and started driving. He seemed to have a destination in mind, which was a welcome change. Her few outings with the Kyles and Connors had been group affairs with everyone chiming in, What do you want to do? I don’t know; what do you want to do? It made Sophie want to do precisely nothing.
The car was plush, leather interior, that new-car smell.
“Nice car,” she commented.
“Thanks,” he said. “Hand-me-down.”
“Really? My hand-me-downs are usually more of the winter-coat-slash-ice-skating variety. And yachts. Everyone gives me their castoff yachts. It’s really a pain.”
Russell laughed. “Yeah. I hate it when that happens.”
On the dash were the controls for butt warmers. Sophie loved butt warmers. Loved anything that made her warm. She’d been surprised by how cold it was here, a chill that never left her bones. She’d stand under the shower for twenty minutes and still be cold. She missed her bathtub.
“Shall we fire up the butt warmers?” Sophie asked.
“We can fire up anything you want,” Russell said, which made the need for butt warmers immediately redundant. Russell switched them on and Sophie grew the toastiest she’d been since winter had descended, as if on a schedule, the day before Halloween.
“How about some tunes?” he asked.
“Sure,” Sophie said.
He turned on the stereo. “You spin.”
Sophie looked around for an iPhone or a dock or something. Russell glimpsed her and said: “It’s voice activated. Just call out a song.”
“Ohh, magic,” Sophie said. Except then she realized that she wouldn’t have the luxury of browsing Russell’s collection to see what he had. Sophie had the musical taste of a fifty-year-old woman, in other words, her mother’s musical taste. But that was embarrassing. What did normal people like? Zora was into this indie folky music that put Sophie to sleep. Maybe Kanye. Or was that too presumptuous? Lorde? Didn’t everyone like Lorde?
“It’s not a test,” Russell said. “Just tell it your favorite song.”
“‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want,’” Sophie blurted.
She started to explain that it was the Rolling Stones but Russell was already asking the magic car to play track nine of Let It Bleed. A few seconds later, the opening chorus of choirboys singing (sounding much better than tonight’s carolers, Sophie thought) filled the car, followed by Mick Jagger’s beautifully ruined voice.
They drove, and let Mick Jagger croon them over the dark country roads. Sophie loved this song, and mouthed the words, but resisted the urge to sing out loud. One of the What the Hell Have You Done, Sophie Roth? moments had involved an ill-advised rendition of “To Sir, with Love” on the karaoke machine in the common room. “Maybe not the best choice if you’re tone-deaf,” one of the girls had said. She’d been trying to be helpful, but none of Sophie’s NYC friends—some of whom had attended the performing arts high school—had ever seen fit to make such a comment.