The Dixon Rule (Campus Diaries, 2)

The rich tapestry of our love

I GET HOME FROM WORK ON FRIDAY NIGHT WANTING NOTHING MORE than to put on comfy clothes, order Chinese takeout, and watch FoF. I rarely get to watch it live, so I’m stoked. That means tonight I get to vote for someone in the Sugar Shack to return to the hacienda.

I meet the delivery guy in the Red Birch lobby, accept the plastic bag he hands me, and cart it back upstairs. I’m pulling out and placing small cardboard containers on the counter when my phone rings. I crane my neck at the screen, swallowing a sigh at my mother’s name. Conversations with Mom are either painful or very painful.

I put her on speaker, continuing to unpack my food. “Hey, Mom.”

“Hello, sweetheart. I realized I hadn’t heard from you in a while, so I called to see how you were.”

“I’m okay. Busy with work. How are you?”

“Good. I just got off the phone with your brother.” Of course she called Thomas first. He’s the favorite. “I’m thinking of joining him in Lima for a week or two next month. He said he’s thoroughly enjoying his work down there.”

She proceeds to gush about my little brother for the next five minutes. How proud she is of him for getting into his first-choice college. How he’s going to make a brilliant doctor. How she hopes he considers getting a PhD along with an MD, because what’s better than one doctoral degrees? Two doctoral degrees!

Finally, as an afterthought, she inquires, “What are your plans for tonight?”

“Chinese takeout and bad reality TV,” I answer. That’s right, Mom. Thomas isn’t the only one in the family with lofty ambitions!

“I don’t know how you watch that garbage.” Disapproval rolls off her tongue. “You could be doing something so much more productive with your time.”

“Well, I’ve been rehearsing hard this past month, but Kenji just left me in the lurch.”

“Kenji?” she says blankly.

“My dance partner.”

“Dance partner?”

“For the ballroom dance competition, remember?”

“Oh yes. Right. You competed last year. You came in…?” She lets the question hang.

“Fifteenth,” I supply with some embarrassment. To an overachiever like my mother, fifteenth place is a disgrace. A stain on our family name. “We were up against some incredibly talented pairs, but it was still super fun. Dad, Thomas, and Larissa were there to cheer us on.”

And you weren’t is my unspoken reminder. Even my stepmother, Larissa, cares more about my interests.

But Mom is too intelligent not to pick up on it and too no-nonsense not to address it. My mother doesn’t tolerate passive-aggressive.

“Sweetheart, I think we can both agree that my time is better spent on more meaningful pursuits.”

Yes. I forgot. Dance is a useless, pedestrian pursuit. Pardon me. I remember when I first showed an interest in it as a kid. I begged my parents for lessons, and Mom put her foot down and said, “I’m not going to be a dance mom, Diana.” Like it was so beneath her. Dad convinced her to let me take dance and gymnastics, but he was the one driving me to and from practice, and the only one who attended my meets and recitals.

The ironic part is, when I caught the ballroom bug a few years ago, I thought it was the kind of thing that would finally attract Mom’s approval. Ballroom is viewed as “serious,” not as pedestrian as the modern and hip-hop dancing I enjoyed as a kid. But my mother’s approval doesn’t seem to be in the cards for me. If anything, ballroom dancing only makes me even more frivolous in her super-serious professor eyes.

Look, don’t get me wrong. Academia is a respectable field. I truly believe that. But it also breeds some very pretentious people, and my mother happens to be one of them. It seems like she’s gotten even more insufferable since she left MIT to lecture at Columbia. Although I suppose the upside to that is she’s no longer in the same state as me.

Sensing I’m two seconds from hanging up on her, Mom changes the subject to one that’s even less appealing.

“Have you spoken to Percival?”

“Nope.” I don’t mention that he tried to bring me breakfast last week and I essentially told him to get lost.

“I don’t know why you broke up with him.” The disapproving tone returns.

“Because we weren’t compatible.”

There’s a long pause.

“What?” I say, my irritation rising.

When she speaks again, it’s cautiously. “Diana, I know dating intellectuals can be challenging—”

Intellectuals? Oh my God. That’s such bullshit. Sure, Percy could teach an advanced physics class in his sleep, but when it comes to emotional intelligence or interpersonal skills, he was completely lacking. I tried bringing him out with my friends once, and he spoke in monosyllabic responses the entire time.

I, personally, think there are different kinds of intelligence.

My mother, however, subscribes to the theory that there’s only one measure of intellect, and it’s determined by an IQ test.

“—believe he was a good match for you.”

Oh, she’s still talking.

I force myself to pay attention, cutting her off before she can continue extolling Percy’s big-brained virtues. “We didn’t communicate well, Mom. And he was too insecure. That’s like the least attractive quality in a man.”

To my astonishment, she voices her agreement. Then again, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

“Yes, I can see how that might be grating. Building confidence is key for human development.”

Fortunately, the conversation ends not long after that, and I’m able to refocus my attention on tonight’s more simple-minded, plebeian agenda.

Dinner and the hacienda, baby.

As always, the episode is rife with drama and dripping with sweat and sexual tension. When voting comes up, I have a big decision to make. The two Sugar Shack singles with the most votes are allowed to return but aren’t permitted to break up a couple or reunite with their former partner. They become a couple themselves, so sometimes you have to vote strategically. This show is very stupid.

When my votes are locked in, my phone rings again and this time it’s Shane.

“What do you want?” I ask in lieu of hello.

“Hey, I need your help.” His voice is oddly hushed.

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I need.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I’m gonna like it.”

“I think you’re gonna love it. Seems like the kind of game-playing you’ll enjoy.”

“All right, I’m intrigued.”

He mumbles something.

“Sorry, what? I can’t hear you.”

He mumbles again.

“Shane! I can’t hear you.”

“I’m trying to be quiet. They’re in the other room.”

“Who’s in the other room?”

“My ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend,” he mutters as if speaking through clenched teeth. I hear a hiss of air.

“Oh. Oh no.”

“I can hear you smiling, Dixon.”

“I mean, you cleaned the house for her.”

“No, apparently, I cleaned the house for them. It’s cool, though. I did some damage control.”

“What kind of damage control?”

“I told them I had a girlfriend.”

I start to laugh. “This is the greatest day of my life.”

“Oh, it gets better, Dixon. I told them it was you.”

My jaw falls open. I’m stunned speechless for a moment. “Me?”

“Yes. I said you lived next door but that you went out tonight with your girls.” He groans softly. “I don’t think they believed me.”

“Of course they didn’t. It’s clearly a lie.”

“Yeah. And now I look like an even bigger tool. So, please, I need your help. Can you come over, but, like, get dolled up beforehand? I told them you were going to the club.”

“Uh-huh. Cool. You want me to put on clubbing clothes, come over, and…do what?”

“Be my girlfriend, Diana!” he growls. “Please.”

He called me Diana. And he said please.

This must be dire.

“Like, this is fucking embarrassing.”

A lot of men might be too proud to admit that. Shane sounds so distressed that I find myself softening toward his plight.

“What are the rules?” I ask slowly. “How did we meet?”

“I don’t care. You can make up whatever stories you want. Just do me the solid.”

“Why am I not at the club?”

“I don’t know. Tell them Gigi got food poisoning or something.”

“Gigi was coming to the club with me?”

“I don’t fucking care who—” He abruptly lowers his voice again, his next words barely above a whisper. “I don’t care what story you come up with.”

“Where are you right now?”

“I’m in my bedroom. Pretending to hunt for an old high school yearbook so we can show her boyfriend.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, so to recap, I’m your pretend girlfriend and I have free rein in what I say? I can create a rich tapestry of our love?”

“If you come and help me, you can do whatever the hell you want.”

I can’t stop smiling. “Give me an hour.”