Joe College: A Novel by Tom Perrotta Page B

you were saying, or even that they were being spoken to in the first place.
    Lorelei came out first, stepping tentatively into the heat and chaos of the kitchen. On a normal night no one would have given her a second glance, but that night—maybe because Albert had been looking for her, or maybe because she was blushing (you got the feeling it would take a lot to make Lorelei blush), or maybe just because she was walking so slowly—she might as well have been naked. Her entrance stopped everything.
    I gave a quick nod as she passed, trying not to betray anything, with my expression. Up to his elbows in soapy water, Brad Foxworthy opened his mouth as if to ask a question, then closed it without making a sound. Sarah, who worked as cook’s helper on Thursday night, stood frozen over a tray of manicotti, pinching a sprig of garnish in her raised hand as though it were a dart. Nick was the only one of us who didn’t seem to think that silence was an appropriate response to Lorelei’s dreamy march down the aisle.
    “Well, well,” he called out. “Look what crawled out of the basement.”
    Lorelei stopped short, wincing at the sound of his voice. She raised a finger to her lips, but Nick wasn’t about to be shushed. He crossed his arms over his chest, mimicking the tone and posture of a disapproving parent.
    “Young lady? Where in God’s name have you been?”
    Though still in high school—she was employed through some sort of work/study arrangement—Lorelei usually had the self-possession of someone much older, at least when it came to putting men in their place. On any other night, she would have just ignored him and gone about her business. For some reason, though, Nick’s question flustered her; she seemed to feel herself under an obligation to answer it.
    “Outside,” she lied, in a voice bereft of all conviction. “Smoking a cigarette. I lost track of time.”
    Nick grinned unpleasantly. I had always thought of him and Lorelei as allies, but now I wondered if I’d been paying close enough attention.
    “I bet that’s not all you lost,” he told her.
    “Fuck you,” she said. “You’re not my father.”
    Lorelei, cast a quick, nervous glance in the direction of the storeroom, apparently waiting for Eddie to step out and defend her honor. At the same moment, a sudden hush descended upon the dining hall, an absence of sound far more conspicuous than the dull background roar it replaced.
    “Maybe not,” Nick admitted, grinning unpleasantly, “but I’m sure your brothers would be interested to know what you’re up to.”
    “Leave my brothers out of it,” Lorelei shot back, her voice wavering between a plea and a command.
    Before Nick could reply, the singing started up, the harmonies startling in their purity and sweetness. Still clutching her parsley, Sarah pivoted in the direction of the music. Brad Foxworthy extricated his arms from the soapy water and began peeling off his yellow rubber gloves. Matt poked his head into the kitchen.
    “C’mon everybody,” he called out, beckoning us with his icing-covered trowel. “It’s the Whiffs.”
     
     
    It was a tradition for the staff to interrupt work whenever a singing group performed in the dining hall. Like rats summoned by the Pied Piper, we emerged from the kitchen in single file and lined up along the wall near the mouth of the conveyor belt, all of us in our blue shirts and paper caps except Nick, who was decked out in the stained white clothes and absurd hat of the professional chef. Resplendent in their formal wear, the Whiffenpoofs stood in a semi-circle in front of the nonfunctional fireplace, crooning “Surfer Girl” for their captive audience. One of them was black, one Asian, one short, one both short and prematurely bald; the rest looked like close relatives of Vice President Bush. If not for the salad bar separating
us from them, we might have looked like two rival street gangs from a highly peculiar metropolis, faced off and ready