I understood many things about Marcie, after all she was a close friend, but it took me a long time to understand how she managed to attract so many men. I met Marcie in my dorm the first day of college, but, realizing immediately that we had a lot in common, I actually passed her over for other new friends. I figured that we’d get to know each other eventually since we shared many interests, and I wanted much more to get to know different and exciting people. My instincts were correct, because through no volition of my own, we ended up in the same string quartet (she played the cello, I the violin), economics class, had the same math professor, and attended the same three orchestra rehearsals each week. We haunted the narrow aisles of the music building together in the evenings and practiced doing shots of water out of small paper glasses in front of the cooler. Every time we passed through the stair well she would throw her head back and intone the theme from Star Trek, enjoying the operatic echo. If I was in the right mood I would obligingly supply spaceship whooshing-by noises.
Since we were in sync on so many things, it seems odd that I could not get a handle on what made her so attractive to the opposite sex. Looking at her, I saw a thin, gangly girl with dirty blond hair who moved awkwardly and gestured with little grace as she spoke. Her voice was rough around the edges. Her laughter, which was frequent, was sincere, but also quite fervent, often ending in a little snort. She would slap her thigh with one hand as she laughed, holding her other hand in a little fist in front of her mouth, like what some people do when they cough. Her clothes were unremarkable, denims and khakis, striped shirts and tees, worn out flats and smudged sneakers. And yet her answering machine seemed always to be full of invitations to football games, fraternity parties, and intimate dinners for two. I just couldn’t figure it out.
"But I didn’t do anything!" she would often say to me after relating yet another tale of woe over having added another suitor to her complicated schedule of social engagements. She would quickly blink her soft brown eyes at me and bite her bottom lip in genuine guilt and consternation, pleading her innocence at having trapped another sport coat clad Harvard premed or unsuspecting Dartmouth student who didn’t know he was about to spend a year’s worth of textbook money on gas to get himself back to the Boston area often enough to be in her presence. "I really didn’t do anything!" she would repeat again. And I couldn’t argue with her. I didn’t know what she was doing either. If I did, I would be bottling up the formula for myself.
Though I didn’t comprehend her attractiveness, I didn’t feel any hostility towards her over it. I did feel envious, but I didn’t let that affect our relationship. And she did all she could to get me hooked up with her pursuers’ friends, roommates and even once a twin brother.
"I can’t believe you’re making me do this," I grumbled, getting ready for our canoeing date with the Kemper twins. "This is the oldest cliché in the book."
"And they’re even identical!" She cried, doubling over with laughter, nearly poking herself in the eye with her mascara wand.
I didn’t comment, knowing that it didn’t really matter, since even if they hadn’t been identical, she would have not only gotten the cuter one, but the homely one as well. As it turned out, I found absolutely nothing to talk about with my twin. He had clearly been dragged along as a huge favor to his brother. But Marcie wasn’t one to ignore me on double dates and she pointed out turtles sunning themselves, ducks tipping their bottoms up as they dove for food, and even mosquito larvae spiraling on the water’s surface. It was the first time I noticed her deep love of nature. It was also the first time that I had a glimmer of insight into what made her so appealing to men. She was laughingly pointing out something on the riverbank to her date. He was staring at her from the back of their canoe, entranced, and for just a second, almost as if it was in my peripheral vision, I saw what he was seeing. She was gorgeous. She had all the traits that the media maintained as the standard in glamour: shining blond hair, a thin waist, a winning smile, and eyes that were sparkling straight at him with rapt interest. I blinked and the illusion went away. She was normal again to me. Just my dear accustomed friend, nothing special to look at. Her date was suddenly putting all his manly efforts into steering the canoe to the riverbank at her request.
Marcie never strung her men along. She would find redeeming qualities in all of them and truly enjoyed their company. The only somewhat arbitrary reason she ever gave me for dumping someone was that he "kissed like a wet Kleenex". So she enjoyed a busy social life and I continued to ponder my way through her various associations. There was the medical student from Yale who had an illegal set of keys to our college bell tower. There was her stand partner from orchestra who kept trying to turn the pages of their music for her even though it was her job. I was pretty sure that her boss at the college print shop had a thing for her too. He once made a pair of slippers for her out of cardboard when she arrived at work on a rainy day with sopping wet shoes. And there was the dark-haired Goth type whose idea of a fun date was setting off firecrackers in the breezeway between the dorms. They had a serious relationship for a few months, probably because she found him so unique and intriguing. But when she told me he had taken a photograph of her and had it blown up into a poster for his wall, I knew he was smitten with her the same way as all the others. He didn’t take their breakup very well. No one ever did, but I think he was the only one who dropped out of school because of it.
Marcie was afraid of dark alleyways and always carried mace with her. Her sister had been raped. When I dragged Marcie through the darker streets of Cambridge, taking shortcuts I knew very well, she always grabbed my arm with one hand and her mace with the other. Invariably she would say, in a shaking voice, "Don’t make me do this. I’ll never forgive you for this." I always pressed on, dragging her along, not allowing her fear to cross into my mind. When we were in familiar, lit territory once again she would let go and tuck her mace away with a smile. "That wasn’t so bad. Sorry for being such a wimp."
Marcie spent her junior year abroad in Poland and returned with, among other things, a bottle of vodka for us to celebrate our reunion. Having practiced water shots for years, we were finally capping our training off with the real thing. As the alcohol tunneled into my brain, and we giggled ourselves silly over the fact that we were using water as our chaser, I finally had an epiphany. Marcie was just plain fun to be around. She could bring enjoyment to almost everything. And when she was enjoying herself, it showed. It emanated through her entire physical being, her face, her movements, the way she tossed her hair and smiled at you as if you were the only one she ever smiled that way at. As she talked about something that fascinated her, she became fascinating herself. And at that moment I also fully understood something she had once said about me. "You know, sometimes I just can’t tell if you’re having a good time or not," she had stated, looking at me appraisingly with her head tilted to one side. "But I guess you must be or you wouldn’t be spending so much time with me!" I had laughed that off. But it suddenly made more sense to me.
Nowadays, dates always ask me who the blonde is in the picture of us on my mantel. I tell them it is a friend from college and smile as they stare at her. I’m glad someone captured her spark on film as we were celebrating our graduation together. Both of us look like we’re having a great time.