Freedom. Jonathan Franzen
matter if you believe me.”
“But I do believe you!”
“I’m saying,” Eliza said, “it doesn’t matter if you believe me, because my ability to play this song amazingly when you’re not listening is simply an objective fact.”
“Maybe try a different song,” Patty pleaded.
But Eliza was already yanking the plugs out. “Stop. OK? I don’t want your reassurance.”
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Patty said.
She’d first seen Eliza in the only class where a jock and a poet were likely to meet, Introductory Earth Science. Patty came and went to this particular huge class with ten other freshwomen jocks, a herd of girls mostly even taller than herself, all wearing maroon Golden Gopher tracksuits or plain gray sweats, everybody’s hair at various stages of damp. There were some smart girls in the herd, including the autobiographer’s lifelong friend Cathy Schmidt who later became a public defender and was once nationally televised on Jeopardy! for two nights, but the overheated lecture hall and those tracksuits and the damp hair and the nearness of other tired jock bodies never failed to give Patty a contact dullness. A contact low.
Eliza liked to sit in the row behind the jocks, directly behind Patty but slouched down so deep in her seat that only her voluminous dark curls were visible. Her first words to Patty were spoken into her ear from behind, at the start of a class. She said, “You’re the best.”
Patty turned to see who was speaking and saw lots of hair. “I’m sorry?”
“I saw you play last night,” the hair said. “You’re brilliant and beautiful.”
“Wow, thank you so much.”
“They need to start giving you more minutes.”
“Funnily enough, ha ha, I have the exact same opinion.”
“You need to demand that they give you more minutes. OK?”
“Right, we’ve got so many great players on the team, though. It’s not my decision.”
“Yeah, but you’re the best,” the hair said.
“Wow, thank you so much for the compliment!” Patty answered brightly, to end things. At the time, she believed that it was because she was selflessly team-spirited that direct personal compliments made her so uncomfortable. The autobiographer now thinks that compliments were like a beverage she was unconsciously smart enough to deny herself even one drop of, because her thirst for them was infinite.
After the lecture ended, she enveloped herself in her fellow jocks and took care not to look back at the person with the hair. She assumed it was just a strange coincidence that an actual fan of hers had sat down right behind her in Earth Science. There were fifty thousand students at the U., but probably less than five hundred of them (not counting former players and friends or family of current players) considered women’s athletic events a viable entertainment option. If you were Eliza and you wanted to sit directly behind the Gophers’ bench (so that Patty, as she came off the court, couldn’t help seeing you and your hair as you bent over a notebook), all you had to do was show up fifteen minutes before game time. And then, after the final buzzer and the ritual low-fiving line, it was the easiest thing in the world to intercept Patty near the locker-room door and hand her a piece of notebook paper and say to her: “Did you ask for more minutes, like I told you to?”
Patty still didn’t know this person’s name, but the person obviously knew hers, because the word PATTY was written on the notebook paper about a hundred times, in crackling cartoon letters with concentric pencil outlines to make them look like shouts echoing in the gym, as if a whole wild crowd were chanting her name, which could not have been further from reality, given that the gym was usually ninety percent empty and Patty was first-year and averaging less than ten minutes a game, i.e., was not exactly a household word. The crackling penciled shouts filled up the entire sheet of paper except for a small sketch of a player dribbling. Patty could tell the player was supposed to be her, because it was wearing her number and because who else would be drawn on a page covered with the word PATTY? Like everything Eliza did (as Patty learned soon enough), the drawing was half super-skilled and half clumsy and bad. The way the player’s body was low to the ground and violently slanting as she made a sharp turn was excellent, but the face and head were like some generic female in a first-aid booklet.
Looking at the piece of paper, Patty had a preview of the falling sensation she would have a few months later after eating hash brownies with Eliza. Something very wrong and creepy but hard to defend herself against.
“Thank you for this drawing,” she said.
“Why aren’t they playing you more?” Eliza said. “You were on the bench practically the whole second half.”
“Once we got the big lead—”
“You’re brilliant and they bench you? I don’t understand that.” Eliza’s curls were thrashing like a willow tree in heavy winds; she was quite exercised.
“Dawn and Cathy and Shawna got some good minutes,” Patty said. “They did great holding the lead.”
“But you’re so much better than them!”
“I should go shower now. Thanks again for the drawing.”
“Maybe not this year, but next year, at the latest, everybody’s going to want a piece of you,” Eliza said. “You’re going to attract attention. You need to start learning how to protect yourself.”
This was so ridiculous that Patty had to stop and set her straight. “Too much attention is not a problem people have in women’s basketball.”
“What about men? Do you know how to protect yourself from men?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, do you have good judgment when it comes to men?”
“Right now I don’t have much time for anything except sports.”
“You don’t seem to understand how amazing you are. And how dangerous that is.”
“I understand I’m good at sports.”
“It’s sort of a miracle you’re not already getting taken advantage of.”
“Well, I don’t drink, which helps a lot.”
“Why don’t you drink?” Eliza pursued immediately.
“Because I can’t when I’m in training. Not even one sip.”
“You’re in training every day of the year?”
“Well, and I had a bad drinking experience in high school, so.”
“What happened—somebody rape you?”
Patty’s face burned and assumed five different expressions all at once. “Wow,” she said.
“Yes? Is that what happened?”
“I’m going to go shower.”
“You see, this is exactly what I’m talking about!” Eliza cried with great excitement. “You don’t know me at all, we’ve been talking for all of two minutes, and you basically just told me you’re a rape survivor. You’re completely unprotected!”
Patty was too alarmed and ashamed, at that moment, to spot the flaws in this logic.
“I can protect myself,” she said. “I’m doing just fine.”
“Sure. OK.” Eliza shrugged. “It’s your safety, not mine.”
The gym echoed with the thunk of heavy switches as banks of lights went out.
“Do you play sports?” Patty asked, to make up for not having been more agreeable.
Eliza looked down at herself. She was wide and blady in the pelvis and somewhat