Montrose Rashomon I: Nicola Tesla Buchenlieber

First in a series of three short stories by Martin Marks

31st May, 1993...

I knew about Miss Bryce, of course. At Montrose, everyone knew everything about everyone; it was either an advantage or a disadvantage to life at a school of 500 students. Plus I had several classes with Miss Bryce, and so I quickly learned she was one of the smarter, or at least more intellectual, people there—which is saying something. I knew she was only sixteen, that she worked two full-time jobs in town, and that she apparently had no interest in a social life. No one had ever seen her at any social gathering, nor even so much as talking to someone outside class. So I admit, I was a bit surprised when she came and sat with us.

By us, of course, I mean myself and Mr Paulsen, my best friend by default at the time. Eliot is a strange guy; he's arrogant but introverted. I never knew quite what to make of him, but then I don't think he ever wanted me to.

Miss Bryce certainly didn't want anyone to know what to make of her. She sat and ate lunch with us every day—she always brought a bag lunch, which was probably a smart move given the quality to expense ratio of Montrose food. I can't say why she chose us; there were certainly plenty of other dorks in the caff. Still, I was glad from the start that we did.

We must have seemed an odd trio from the start: me, the Swiss Serb polyglot, Eliot, Montrose's token upper-middle-class black student, and Tlin... whatever the hell she was. The only thing I can honestly claim to have learned about her is that she's good at keeping secrets. I knew she was from the Appalachians—just hearing her speak was enough to reveal that, of course—and gathered that she was a Virginian. And I knew she didn't have much money, and hated to spend what little there was, but everyone knew that. Nobody knew where she lived, except that it was way out West Street somewhere, and that she walked rather than take a bus. To my knowledge, nobody ever got nosy enough to follow her, though I think Eliot might have been tempted. But in the end, it was his arrogance that stopped him—he was convinced she'd invite him over before long, you see.

Yeah, he was crazy about her from the start, because she hated him. I was crazy about her because she liked me. I wasn't ever jealous of Eliot, though, not where Tlin was concerned, because I knew he didn't have a chance. He's a decent-looking guy, sure, and he's smart and he's funny, and he has a secret philosophy which he claims will make the typical Rosie girl's nipples perk up from ten feet away, but he proudly described himself as a scoundrel, and I knew full well Tlin wasn't the scoundrel type. And she certainly wasn't a typical Rosie girl—if such a thing can even be postulated.

The trouble was, I don't think she's the unscoundrel type, either, and if there's anything I am, it's a born unscoundrel. I put Tlin on a pedestal from day one, and she was acrophobic. Whatever sort of man she was looking for—if she was looking at all—I came to accept the probable truth that it wasn't me. I could have asked and known for certain, true, but if I made my feelings any more overt, I would just risk the best friendship I've ever had. One example, out of three years of examples: one fine spring day, we rested in the glorious grass of a soccer pitch, and she told me more than I thought it possible to know about highway on-ramps. A girl who you can talk to like that... is worth more if you try to forget she's a girl.

A quote, from a poem I always think of when I think of her, or rather when I think of me thinking of her:
Do I dare
Disturb the Universe?

Eliot tells me sometimes I'm too hung up on that other Eliot. He never knew, or never showed any sign of knowing, how I felt about Tlin, but he was always trying to get me to "stop Prufrocking around" and ask a girl, any girl, out. I remember my freshman year he made me dress all in white for the Slaughter of the Innocents Party—he, of course, was all in black leather, and carried a scythe—but I slipped out with my pristine white garments unsullied. It wasn't too much of an aversion to women so much as too little of one; I knew that I could never follow Eliot's philosophy of "be distant, be interesting, begone."

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each,
I do not think that they will sing to me.

Tlin never bothered asking about my romantic life, not that I would have had much to say in answer. I never asked about hers, either. We both knew neither of us had one. The closest she ever came was last fall, when she, in one of her moods, engaged me in a two-person symposium late one night—minus the wine and implied pederasty.

"Tell me something about love, Nicola," she said.

"Love is a snowmobile flying across the tundra, until suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath," I quoted. "At night, the ice weasels come."

"I see. Who said that?"

"It was either Friedrich Nietzsche or Matt Groening," I replied.

"It's cute, but what does Nicola Tesla Buchenlieber think?"

"I've never been in love," I said. "Not the kind where both parties admit it, anyway."

"Neither have I," she confided—a rare glimmer of information. "Tell me about the kind you've been in, then."

I played it safe. "There was a girl in high school. Kate Cross. I guess you could say I was reasonably crazy about her."

"Let me guess: you never said a thing about how you felt."

"Well, I was never sure if she was flirting or not," I said. "Women are an open book to me, but unfortunately all the important pages seem to be written in Sanskrit."

"You can't learn a new language if you aren't willing to embarass yourself every now and then," she said. "You, of all people, should know that."

"I don't have any regrets about Kate Cross," I half-lied.

"Yes you do," she said. "You're not written in Sanskrit, Nicola. Middle English, at most."

"If she'd wanted me to ask her out, she'd have made it obvious."

"Oh, Nic." She doesn't call me Nic much, unlike everyone but my mother. "Sometimes, you need to ask for things you want. You can't go waiting for people to ask you to ask them."

"She never asked me."

"Does it matter? Someone had to ask—and women do like being asked rather than asking."

"So you honestly think a slim chance at romantic success was worth risking a long and wonderful friendship?" The question was not about Kate Cross by this point.

"Only you know the answer to that question," she said. "I suggest you think hard about it... before the next opportunity passes you by."

I never knew whether she was trying to tell me something with that conversation. If she was, I didn't listen. Even if she wasn't, sometimes I wonder if I should have gone ahead and done it... but I couldn't. I had no words for this situation. What could I have done, leaned over and kissed her, and have that be my question?

And would it have been worth it, after all?

I am J. Alfred Buchenlieber. I am, perhaps, Nicola de Bergerac—or am I more a de Neuvillette? No, I suspect I am the worst of both, an ugly coward standing beneath my Roxane's balcony, alone, sans prompter, iron in my heart, and no poetry on my lips.

Hope, futile or not, will keep me going. And I've got to keep her going too—we'll both be lonely next year: with Eliot graduated, neither of us will have anybody except for each other. Will something happen? Will we sit in my room late one night, talking over a glass of red wine? Will she toss her hair over her shoulder, filling my tiny room with her scent? (She wears no perfume, but then, she doesn't need it.) Will she turn her dirt-brown eyes on me (if that sounds ugly, you haven't looked at enough dirt) and ask me what I have waited three years to ask? Or will the asking be my job?

Someday, perhaps, I will manage to squeak out the words... but will she even be able to hear them? And if she does, will she choose to listen? No, I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be. I will never be distant nor interesting, but can't bring myself to begone either. It isn't something I'm capable of. I will be too close, too awkward, and too afraid instead, until Roxane finally tells me what she wants to hear me say.

Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
"That is not it at all.
That is not what I meant, at all."