Queen of Babble

“The guy who sent you the photo of his naked ass?”

I gasp. “Shari, you told him about that?”

“I wanted a guy’s perspective,” Shari says with a shrug. “You know, to see if he had any insights into what kind of individual would do something like that.”

Coming from Shari, who’d been a psych major, this is actually a fairly reasonable explanation. I look at Chaz questioningly. He has lots of insights into lots of things-how many times around Palmer Field make a mile (four-which I needed to know back when I was walking it every day to lose weight); what the number 33 on the inside of the Rolling Rock bottle means; why so many guys seem to think man-pris are actually flattering…

But Chaz shrugs, too. “I was unable to be of any aid,” he says, “not ever having taken a photo of my bare ass before.”

“Andrew didn’t take a photo of his own ass,” I say. “His friends took it.”

“How homoerotic,” Chaz comments. “Why do you call him Andrew when everybody else calls him Andy?”

“Because Andy is a jock name,” I say, “and Andrew isn’t a jock. He’s getting a master’s in education. Someday he’ll be teaching children to read. Could there be a more important job in the whole entire world than that? And he’s not gay. I checked this time.”

Chaz’s eyebrows go up. “You checked? How? Wait…I don’t want to know.”

“She just likes pretending he’s Prince Andrew,” Shari says. “Um, so where was I?”

“Lizzie’s being an ass,” Chaz helpfully supplies. “So wait. How long’s it been since you saw this guy? Three months?”

“About that,” I say.

“Man,” Chaz says, shaking his head, “there is going to be some major bone-jumping when you step off that plane.”

“Andrew isn’t like that,” I say warmly. “He’s a romantic. He’ll probably want to let me get acclimated and recover from my jet lag in his king-size bed and thousand-thread-count sheets. He’ll bring me breakfast in bed-a cute English breakfast with…Englishy stuff on it.”

“Like stewed tomatoes?” Chaz asks with feigned i

“Nice try,” I say, “but Andrew knows I don’t like tomatoes. He asked in his last e-mail if there are any foods I dislike, and I filled him in on the tomato thing.”

“You better hope breakfast isn’t all he brings you in bed,” Shari says darkly. “Otherwise what is the point of traveling halfway around the world to see him?”

That’s the problem with Shari. She’s so unromantic. I’m really surprised she and Chaz have gone out as long as they have. I mean, two years is really a record for her.

Then again, as she likes to assure me, their attraction is almost purely physical, Chaz having just gotten his master’s in philosophy and thus, in Shari’s opinion, being virtually unemployable.

“So what would even be the point of hoping for a future with him?” she often asks me. “I mean, eventually he’ll start to feel inadequate-even though he’s got his trust fund, of course-and consequently suffer from performance anxiety in the bedroom. So I’ll just keep him around as a boy toy for now, while he can still get it up.”

Shari is very practical in this way.

“I still don’t get why you’re going all the way to England to see him,” Chaz says. “I mean, a guy you haven’t even slept with yet, who obviously doesn’t know you very well if he isn’t aware of your aversion to tomatoes and thinks you’d enjoy seeing a photograph of anyone’s naked ass.”

“You know perfectly well why,” Shari says. “It’s his accent.”

“Shari!” I cry.

“Oh, right,” Shari says, rolling her eyes. “He saved her life.”

“Who saved whose life?” Angelo, my brother-in-law, moseys over, having discovered the dip.

“Lizzie’s new boyfriend,” Shari says.

“Lizzie’s got a new boyfriend?” Angelo, I can tell, is trying to cut back on his carbs. He’s only dipping celery sticks. Maybe he’s on South Beach to control his belly fat, which is not enhanced by the white polyester shirt he is wearing. Why won’t he listen to me and stick to natural fibers? “How did I not hear about this? The LBS must be on the fritz.”

“LBS?” Chaz echoes, his dark eyebrows raised.

“Lizzie Broadcasting System,” Shari explains to him. “Where have you been?”

“Oh, right,” Chaz says, and swigs his beer.

“I told Rose all about it,” I say, glaring at all three of them. Someday I’m going to get my sister Rose back for that Lizzie Broadcasting System thing. It was fu

Angelo looks confused. “Tell me what?”

I sigh. “This freshman on the second floor let her potpourri boil over on her illegal hot plate and the hall filled with smoke and they had to evacuate,” I explain. I am always eager to relate the story of how Andrew and I met. Because it’s superromantic. Someday, when Andrew and I are married and live in a ramshackle and tomato-free Victorian in Westport, Co

“Well, I was taking a shower,” I go on, “so I didn’t smell the smoke or hear the alarm going off or anything. Until Andrew came into the girls’ bathroom and yelled ‘Fire!’ and-”

“Is it true the girls’ bathrooms in McCracken Hall have gang showers?” Angelo wants to know.

“It’s true,” Chaz informs him conversationally. “They all have to shower together. Sometimes they soap each other’s backs while gossiping about their girlish hijinks from the night before.”

Angelo stares at Chaz, bug-eyed. “Are you shitting me?”

“Don’t pay any attention to him, Angelo,” Shari says, going for another chip. “He’s making it up.”

“That kind of thing happens all the time on Beverly Hills Bordello,” Angelo says.

“We didn’t shower all together,” I say. “I mean, Shari and I did sometimes-”

“Tell us more about that, please,” Chaz says, opening a new beer with the church key my mom had provided near the cooler.

“Don’t,” Shari says. “You’ll just encourage him.”

“Which bits were you washing when he came in?” Chaz wants to know. “And was there another girl with you at the time? Which bits was she washing? Or was she helping to wash your bits?”

“No,” I say, “it was just me. And naturally, when I saw a guy in the girls’ shower, I screamed.”

“Oh, naturally,” Chaz said.

“So I grabbed a towel and this guy-I couldn’t really see him all that well through the steam and the smoke and all-goes, in the cutest British accent you ever heard, ‘Miss, the building’s on fire. I’m afraid you’ll have to evacuate.’”

“So wait,” Angelo says. “This dude saw you in the raw?”

“In her nudie-pants,” Chaz confirms.

“So by then the halls were all smoky and I couldn’t see, so he took my hand and guided me down the stairs and outside to safety, where we struck up a conversation-me in my towel and everything. And that’s when I realized he was the love of my life.”

“Based on one conversation,” Chaz says, sounding skeptical. But then, having a philosophy master’s degree, he is skeptical about everything. They train them to be that way.

“Well,” I say, “we made out the rest of the night, too. That’s how I know he’s not gay. I mean, he got a full stiffy.”

Chaz choked a little on his beer.

“So, anyway,” I say, trying to steer the conversation back on track, “we made out all night. But then he had to leave the next day for England, because the semester was over-”

“-and now, since Lizzie’s finally done with school, she’s flying to London to spend the rest of the summer with him,” Shari finishes for me. “Then coming back here to rot, just like her-”