Campus Sexpot: A Memoir

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“May I speak to you for a moment, Mr. Kaufield?” Bill Alleyn’s rich baritone voice broke in on the bitter thoughts Don Kaufield was thinking as he watched Linda Franklin leave the classroom with Vern Tolliver. For the past three weeks, Linda had ignored Don. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Who the hell is Bill Alleyn?” Bill was introduced in chapter 1 of Campus Sexpot as an innocent new student with “a rich baritone voice” and “a mature handsomeness.” It was so quiet an introduction that I omitted it, and there has been no further reference to him in the book until the present moment. Get used to him—he will play a major role in the chaos still ahead. As for Vern Tolliver, if you recognized him as the fictional version of the real-life high school newspaper editor , Verne Oliver, good for you! You can play Campus Sexpot too! Update: Don has really fallen for Linda. You’ll recall that their second tryst got off to a crackerjack start (“‘Love me, Don,’ she said huskily”), but I didn’t tell you how it ended—with Don suggesting that the two of them run off to Mexico together. The proposal baffles Linda almost as much as it does the reader, so she has 4 35 pulled away. Now Bill Alleyn has awakened from the deep sleep into which he fell after chapter 1 and is stepping into Don’s life. “Sure, Bill. What do you want to talk about?” Don reluctantly chased thoughts of the passionate Linda from his mind. “Well,” the tall, blond boy said, “I don’t know anybody in town, and there’s a dance this Friday.” “I know. I have to chaperone it.” “I was wondering if you could suggest how I could find an opportunity to ask a girl to go with me. I sort of had one in mind.” “Oh? Who?” “Linda Franklin.” Don looked at this tall, good-looking blond youth in surprise. “I’ll see what I can do,” he promised. Imagine poor Don’s chagrin. Here he’s been shtupping the campus sexpot, has fallen in love with her to boot, and now blond Bill Alleyn, treating Don like the benevolent authority figure he isn’t, requests his help in a match-up that is as bizarre as it is threatening to Don. This is exactly the kind of complication you want to happen in a novel. It’s such a good plot turn that it makes me sad in the same way that “Her skirts rustled with the peculiar sound of starched petticoats” makes me sad. Don arranges for Linda and Bill to be alone in his classroom so that Bill can speak to her in private. Later, Linda stops Don in the hall. “Thank you,” she said softly, smiling at him. “For what?” said Don. “He’s nice. He’s . . . well, different from the other boys I know.” “He’ll be good for you, Linda,” Don said softly. “He respects you, and that’s important.” 36 Let’s set aside for the moment the strange shift in Don’s behavior with Linda. Let’s pretend he conked his head on a doorjamb and will soon be back to his old self. We’ll focus instead on Bill Alleyn, a figure of some interest despite his unpromising chastity. Bill introduces goodness to Campus Sexpot, a concept fundamental to the adolescent social experience. I was the youngest of three children. My sister, Carole, was born eight years before me, and the first word out of her mouth, according to the baby-book entry recorded by my mother, was the prophetic “good.” She graduated first in her high school class, led the local Rainbow chapter, and infused the conservative Methodist church with a youthful passion from which it is still reeling. After college, she went to Yale Divinity School, postponed her career in order to raise two children to adulthood, then became a beloved pastor in the United Church of Christ. Her next life passage will be direct ascension. Five years after Carole came my brother, Corky. Tortured by a mysterious rash in his early months of life, he needed to be held and rocked all through the night, and my father got much of the duty. To this day, my brother blames himself for my father’s heavy drinking at...