Demographic Heterogeneity

She sniffled and smiled a weak smile. "God," she said, "I must sound like a blubbering idiot. Thanks for telling me all that, Tracy. It's really sweet." She sniffled again. "I guess what I'm trying to say is, we won't just be sharing a room, we'll be sharing a whole year of college. And I just . . ." She couldn't go on.

I managed to reach over to my backpack on the floor without dislodging my pillow. I pulled out the housing form.

"Alex and Tracy," I read. "Roommates. It says so right here. The computer, at least, thinks our chances will be about as good as any other pair of random students." I looked up at her. "You had some bad luck last year. That was too bad. But things will be better this year. I think our chances are pretty good."

I was still trying to buck her up, but, truth be told, I wasn't sure how I felt about this emotional outburst. I knew girls were more emotional than guys, but I didn't have a lot of personal experience. Is this what I was going to have to put up with for the whole school year? At the same time, I felt such a strong desire to be there for her, to comfort her, to be the one she could depend on.

"So why don't we see how it goes?" I said, in my most reassuring voice. "I'm sure you'll get sick of me eventually, but for now, why don't we just see how it goes?"

Her tears were mostly gone. "OK," she said, in a little girl voice.

The occasion seemed to call for something. I stood up. I took a step toward her bed. I had no idea what I would do when I got there. She stood up too. She took a little step toward me. She gave me the briefest hug---an arm's length, pat-on-the-shoulders hug. I gave her a pat-on-the shoulders hug back. It was about as awkward as could be, but we did it, me in my underwear, she in her pajamas, and then we hastily retreated back to our own beds.

"So it looks like we're both going to get to live in Maynard this year," I said.

"Yeah," she sniffed. "It looks like."

---

During the first couple of weeks, we went out of our way to spend some time with each other every day, making a point to either go to dinner together or to be together in the room for a bit in the afternoon or at least at bedtime. As we got more settled in to our routines, this became more and more natural. The fact is, she was a pretty neat person, and I did like her a lot. It was fun to be roommates with her. She always liked to tell me all the details of her day, and she liked to hear the details of mine. She would tell me about her teachers, about some of the characters in her classes, about the dorm floor gossip, about how she felt about this or that. I did my best to keep up my end of the conversation. She was a little moody once in a while, but who isn't? Mostly I just really liked the way that she enjoyed our little chats. Our ongoing commentary made the whole course of sophomore year seem exciting and important.

At first we were hypersensitive about each other's privacy. The trickiest part was getting dressed and undressed. Usually, Alex would change in the bathroom, but that was way down at the end of the hall. Sometimes it was more convenient for her to dress in the room, and I would step outside until she was finished. I usually tried to change my clothes while she was out, and would ask her to wait a second if I wasn't quite ready when she came back. It was a little awkward, but we bent over backward to be sure everything was always scrupulously aboveboard. It didn't always work. One time by accident I caught the briefest glimpse of her with her bathrobe partially open, and she saw that I had seen her. Neither of us said anything, but we were both pretty embarrassed.

One day I came back from the shower wearing just my towel. She was working at her desk. She started to collect her things to step outside, but I could tell that it was an unwanted disruption. "Just don't look," I said. I turned my back to her, pulled a pair of boxers up under the towel, then dropped the towel and pulled on a pair of jeans. My ears were burning, but it wasn't the end of the world.

"Just don't look" became our slogan. We still did our best to respect each other's privacy, but we stopped worrying so much that the other would be so easily scandalized. She would change on her side of the room, me on mine, much as we would have in front of a roommate of our own gender. We didn't flaunt anything, we faced away, but we didn't go overboard trying to hide everything either. Eventually the whole business became pretty matter-of-fact. We trusted each other with the "just not looking" part, although I confess I did steal a glance once or twice, and I think she probably did too.

In a lot of ways, living with Alex wasn't that much different than living with a male roommate. We'd get up, go to class, grab a bite, hang out with friends, catch each other coming and going, study late, oversleep. There were some differences, though. Once, when Alex wasn't feeling so well, I had to go next door and borrow some tampons. That was kind of embarrassing. We also shared doing the laundry, and since it was so easy to tell whose clothes were whose, we usually just dumped everything in together. I got pretty good at folding bras and panties.

We had our disagreements, like all roommates do. She thought I ought to be able to do a better job of putting my dirty clothes in my laundry bag instead of all over the floor. I wasn't a big fan of the stuffed animals she kept on her bed and on her desk. She liked to keep the window cracked, no matter how cold it got outside. I thought that was a big waste of energy. But we accommodated, like all roommates do. Whenever I came in I'd shove the window a little bit further closed, whenever I left, she'd shove it a little bit further open.

We didn't try to hide our situation from anybody. All of our friends knew, as did all of the people on the floor. Some of them were a little envious, but it really wasn't that big of a deal. We just told people that we'd been assigned to the same room.

Except for our parents, of course. Hers came to visit one weekend. Alex talked to them at least a couple times a week, and she'd told them quite a few things about her roommate, in a non-gender-specific kind of way. We figured that the best thing would be for me to stay with one of my friends and take some of my most blatantly non-feminine stuff along with me. She told her parents I was away for the weekend. She really wanted me to meet them, but it was just too dicey.

During those first weeks, I often experienced a vivid sense of unreality whenever I looked across the room and saw Alex asleep in her bed, or whenever she came back from the shower wrapped in her towel, or whenever we came back from the dining hall or the library together and one of us opened the door and both of us went in. It just didn't seem possible that I could be sharing a room with such a lovely, graceful, bewitching, alien creature. Someone would find out. Tensions would develop. One way or another things would go wrong.

But they never did. The days went by. We went to class. We went to meals. We did our homework. Friends dropped by. We lay on our beds and talked about this and that. We were just two people sharing a room. She was as serious and studious a roommate as I could have asked for. I tried my best to be her ideal faithful companion. By every consideration, the computer had picked a happy, successful match.

---

One day when I came back from my shower, Alex was trying to adjust the shelf in her wardrobe. She was trying to move it down one notch, but without unloading it first. She was holding the shelf up with one hand and taking a peg out with the other, but the stuff on the shelf was heavier than she thought and it started to topple. I ran over to help, and in the process, I lost my towel. So I was standing there, in front of her wardrobe, with both arms up supporting the shelf, practically embracing her, completely naked, exposed as I could be, and not really able to do anything about it. Alex kind of froze, looking right down at my penis, unable to figure out what to do.

"Better unload the rest of the stuff," I suggested.

She began to take things down, having to duck under my arm and practically brush against me with each load. When the shelf was empty, I lowered it down. Then I picked up my towel and put it back around my waist. I helped her move the other pegs and then replace the shelf.

We treated the incident like we had the open bathrobe, both of us being too polite to mention it. But it came up that night when we were lying in bed.

"I'm really sorry about the shelf business," she said.

"You could have hurt yourself."

"I know. It was dumb. Thanks for rescuing me."

"I hope I didn't gross you out."

"The towel? I guess it was inevitable that sooner or later one of us was going to see the other without any clothes on."

"Well, I guess you won. I hope it didn't traumatized you for life. Perhaps it's a sign that we should stop and reconsider whether this whole roommate business is really working out."

"I'll tell you a secret, if you promise not to make fun of me."

"Of course not."

"It was the first time I've ever seen a boy naked."

"Really?"

"In real life, anyway."

"You're a real woman of the world now."

"You've probably seen lots of naked girls."

"Um, not really. Not in real life. If you promise not to laugh."

She considered that for a second. "You weren't really being serious about reconsidering, were you? I think things are working out pretty well. Better than I thought they would."

"Yeah, I guess I think so too" I agreed. "So shall we just keep on cohabitating?"

"I say we just stick with our assigned roommates."

"OK with me," I replied, "I've had worse."

---

One day Alex came in drenched to the bone.

"It's raining cats and dogs out there," she said. "I got caught at the library without an umbrella or anything. I waited and waited but there just wasn't a break. Finally I just had to make a run for it."

"You better go take a hot shower to warm up," I said.

"I'm going to. I just need to get out of these wet clothes."

I turned away to let her undress.

"Is it ever going to stop?" she asked. She put on her bath robe and took her wet things with her to wring them out in the bathroom. When she came back it was raining even harder. It was getting close to the end of the dinner hour. "Jeeminee. I really don't want to go out in this again. Maybe I'll just skip dinner."

"I'll go and bring some stuff back," I said. My parka was fairly rain proof.

She handed me her umbrella. "Take this too."

I was able to cut through one of the other residence halls, but still I got pretty wet. I got some stuff to make sandwiches, some cookies, and some fruit and put it in my pockets.

The food stayed relatively dry, but my pants and socks were soaked by the time I got back. Alex had put on some sweats. She spread a little cloth on her bed and set things out like a picnic while I changed into a different pair of jeans. Then we sat on the bed and ate. She told me about how her day had gone. The rain had slackened off a bit, but it was still coming down in a steady pour. We began to hear thunder.

"At this rate, we may have to build an ark," she said.

"If we do, I say we leave off the possums," I said.

"Don't you like possums?"

"Have you ever seen one? That thick hair sticking out every which way, that rat tail?"

"Oh, they're cute. They carry the little ones around. Besides, orders are orders. Two of everything. That includes possums."

Suddenly there as a huge lightning flash outside the window, and, in less than the blink of an eye, a deafening thunder clap. The lights went out, even while the thunder was still reverberating. It was pitch black in the room. Not a speck of light came in from the window or from the hallway.

"Are you all right?" I asked. I couldn't see her at all.

"I'll let you know when my heart starts beating again," she said from the darkness.

You could start to hear people yelling and making noise down the hall.

Alex must have gotten up, because I felt her hand feeling along the bed. "I've got a candle if I can find it." There was the sound of rummaging through her desk. "But nothing to light it with."

"Let me see if I can borrow something," I said. I felt for her, then held her arm as I got up off the bed to avoid a collision. I felt my way around her toward where the door should be.

The RA was in the hallway with a flashlight, checking to see if everyone was all right. I was able to borrow a lighter from Stacey next door. Alex had found the candle, a small but fat one in a round glass bowl. We lit it, and put it on her desk. Compared to the blackness, it gave enough light to see by.

We hadn't finished the food. I'd been sitting at the foot of the bed, but I had to lean back toward the window and the drumming rain so as not to block the light. "Scoot over this way," said Alex, and so I scooted down more toward her.

"It's like camping out," I said.

"Yeah," she said. "The rain beating against the tent, but we're safe and dry inside."

I peeled one of the oranges and gave her half. The flickering candlelight made the room seem smaller and more intimate, as if we really were camping out.

There was a knock on the door and Stacey and Beverley popped their heads in.

"What are you guys up to?" they asked.

"Just sitting here in the dark," I replied.

"It looks like the whole south quad is without power," said Beverley. "You can't see any of the dorms, not even the street lights."

"Do they know how long it will be out?"

"Not that we've heard."

They came in and we moved over to my bed so everyone could sit down.

"At least we have an excuse for not doing our homework tonight," said Beverley, eating one of the cookies.

It was cozy talking by the light of the candle, but after a bit Stacey got up.

"OK, we're going to continue with our rounds," she said. "Good night, you guys."

"Night."

Alex had brought her pillow and was leaning back against the wall. I took mine and leaned back next to her. It seemed later than it really was. The candle was getting toward the end.

"Doesn't it seem like it's getting kind of cold in here?" she asked.

"Hmm," I said. "I suppose the heat is out too."

I stood up and pulled the end of the blanket off the bed. She lifted herself up to let me get it out from under her. I spread it over her.

"Want to get mine, too?" she asked.

I did, and spread it over her too. Then I got back in beside her. We were sitting side by side, leaning back against our pillows on the wall, the opposite of the way I usually slept.

"That's better," she said.

"Could you pass the marshmallows?"

"Do you ever go camping?"

"I did in boy scouts. Not so much any more."

"We just go out behind our house. The woods comes right down. We always have a tent set up back there in the summer time."

We sat in silence for a while. The flickering light made the room seem smaller, more intimate, as if the whole rest of the world had disappeared.

"The candle won't last much longer. We should probably do anything we need to do."

She slid down so that her head was on the pillow, her knees still up. "Would you mind terribly much if I slept here with you tonight? I know it's silly, but I get a little scared sometimes by the darkness and the thunder."

"Sure," I replied. "It'll be like we're still camping out."

We adjusted the blankets and the pillows. The flame was guttering. I blew it out. I settled down into the bed, and Alex settled beside me. We were both in our clothes under the blankets. It was plenty cozy. A tight fit, but not too tight. I turned on my side, facing her. I think she did the same.

I strained to see her. "I can't even tell you're there," I said.

"I know. It's like one hundred percent pure blackness."

"Are you OK then?"

She reached out to touch me and felt her way to take my hand. "Yeah. Thanks. " She gave my hand a squeeze, and then drew hers away again.

Sometime in the middle of the night the lights came back on. Somewhere down the hall, an MP3 player came back to life. I got up to turn off the light. Alex squinted, but made no effort to go back to her own bed. So I just turned off the light and got back in beside her.

---

Alex talked me into signing up with her for a beginning ballroom dance class. It met two evenings a week in the ballroom at the student center. The instructors were a husband and wife, middle aged, a bit short and a bit round, but quite dapper and genteel with a polished and highly entertaining repartee.

There were eight couples in the class, and we would stand around in a big circle. Mr. Duffy would demonstrate the basic steps with Mrs. Duffy: step-step-glide, step-step-glide, and then we would all try: step-step-glide, step-step-glide. Then he would put on some music and we would try it to the music. Then he would announce: "Gentlemen! Please move down one position to your next lovely partner," and we would rotate around. Over the course of the evening, all the gentlemen would dance with all the ladies and all the ladies would dance with all the men. It was nice that way, because you sometimes learned little things with another partner that you never quite realized with your own.

Dancing with other partners also made you feel much more secure about dancing in general. You got so you could take a lady's hand in yours, put your other hand on her shoulder blade, stand well within her personal space, look pleasantly into her eyes, and share with her the exciting twists and perambulations of the samba walk or the cha-cha-cha.

All the other participants were students except for one youngish professor and his wife, and it seemed that that all the students except Alex and me were boyfriends and girlfriends. A couple of the women were really cute, and the professor's wife was drop-dead gorgeous, although she always played it down for class. And I got to dance with with them all, two times a week.

Alex downloaded the music, and we would practice some of the steps in our room too. The foxtrot, the rumba, the waltz. It was intimate standing together, holding each other, alone in the room. But at the same time it was just good clean fun.

The class went on for four weeks, and then there was a "graduation dance" on Friday night. Alex wore a pretty dress---the first time I'd ever seen her in a dress. The event was open to the general public, so there were quite a few good dancers there in addition to the couples from the class. Mr. Duffy was the affable emcee, and he generously let us beginners know when it was safe to sally forth, and when it was better for us to sit and watch.

Alex and I sat with some of the other couples from the class. The professor's wife wore a striking outfit in black and scarlet with a captivating decolletage. She was by far the most beautiful woman on the dance floor. One of the Fred Astaire types asked her to dance a number with him. He twirled her around, and it seemed to me that she twirled back with just a bit more panache than you might have expected after only a month's worth of lessons. And with just a little more glow in her cheek than she'd exhibited in her husband's arms. I couldn't help but steal a glance his way. He was watching her, stoically. I wished them well.

After the dance a bunch of us went to the snack bar, not wanting the night to end. We laughed and reminisced about some of the funnier moments in class. The professor's wife was lively and vivacious and everybody was in love with her. But she only had eyes now for the professor, eyes and hands and arms, and the two of them took their leave well before any of the rest of us, the professor's scowl having melted into a boyish grin.