Admission (17 page)

THE COLD AND GRAY
of the last week had evaporated into a beautiful blue spring day with temperatures in the high 60s. Unfortunately, good weather couldn’t compensate for an intense hangover. Jake had gotten bored with beer so he had tried wine, which seemed fine last night. But there was something different about wine. You didn’t want to overdo on the vino. Jake knew that now.

After an easy hour of business marketing discussion with other seniors, Jake carried his backpack over his shoulder as he walked across campus. He felt as he always had while walking around school—like an imposter. While the president’s words had been harsh and cruel, they also were half true. Why
was
he here? Simply because his parents were paying his way? What a lame reason. But there was still no excuse for the president putting him in his place, making him feel guilty for doing nothing.

As Jake walked toward the parking lot where his car waited, he saw a figure emerging from the dorm. A dark-haired girl in jeans and a yellow top. Even from far away, Jake could tell it was Alyssa. He quickened his pace. The jerking of his body made his head hurt, but that was okay. She was headed toward the cafeteria building, which was crowded now that it was
lunchtime. Jake managed to get on the same sidewalk and walked up to her.

“Hey,” he said to her in a casual greeting.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Alyssa told him.

“News spreads fast.”

“You forget where I work.”

“You gonna turn me in?”

“Only if I have to,” she said in a distant tone.

“Going to lunch?”

“It’s lunchtime.”

“Any chance you’d want to go somewhere off campus?”

“I pay to eat lunch
on
campus.”

“Alyssa?”

She looked at him and waited.

“Can I talk with you?”

“About what?”

“About everything,” he said.

“I don’t have much to say that I haven’t already said.” Her eyes refused to look into his, her lips tightened.

“Did I do something?”

“Did you?”

“Look, we need to talk,” he said.

“
Now
we need to talk?”

“Yes.”

“Are you forcing me to?”

Jake thought of the president’s question about Laila. “Alyssa, please. I just—just this one time. That’s all I ask. Just one more time. Then I’ll leave you alone. Okay?”

“You could start now.”

“Why are you so angry at me?” Jake asked.

“I think you know.”

Alyssa seemed bothered by the students passing by, watching them talk.

“I think we need to talk somewhere away from here.”

“Jake, look, I don’t want—”

“Please, Alyssa. I need you to hear me out.”

They sat in a booth at McDonald’s. Even though he’d tried to pay, Alyssa had bought her own chicken sandwich and Diet Coke.

“What’d you hear?”

“I’ve heard a lot,” Alyssa said.

“About?”

“You. And Laila.”

Jake shook his head. “The president believes I tried to rape her. I haven’t had anything to do with her. Not this year.”

“Really?”

Jake nodded. “Yeah, really. Well, I mean, there was one night.”

“One night?”

“Yeah, something stupid. I was drunk and—”

“That’s surprising.”

“Alec set me up on a double date. He just wanted to get with her friend. It was a mistake.”

“But you haven’t had anything to do with her.”

“I hadn’t. Not until then.”

“People saw you in a bar making out.”

Jake nodded, closing his eyes for a minute. “I was drunk.”

“Maybe you did more,” Alyssa said.

“I know for a fact I didn’t. She wanted me to go home with her, and I didn’t. Period.”

“And the night of the party?”

Jake shook his head. “Look—I can’t make you believe me. But I thought you might.”

“Why is that?”

“Because you know I’m not interested in Laila.”

“How do I know that?”

Jake shook his head. “Because for the past few years all I’ve ever tried to do is get you to go out with me. You know how I feel about you.”

“That hasn’t prevented you from dating other girls.”

“I know.”

“Or making out with other girls.”

Jake scratched his head.

“You’ll never get it, will you?” she asked.

They kept eating in silence.

Jake breathed in. “Would you have given me a chance if we had met in a different way? Would you have been interested in me if I was someone different?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“It used to be fun,” Jake said, looking out the window at the playground full of young kids running around.

“What?”

“All of it. The parties. The guys. Now I’m just really—tired, I guess. I just want to graduate and move on.”

“Move on to what?”

“Something different. A change of pace.”

“Some of your habits will be hard to break,” Alyssa said.

He returned her straightforward glance. “I know.”

“You have a long night last night?”

Jake nodded. “It’s hard work partying. You torture your body. It’s not for the weak of heart.”

“Is that supposed to be a joke?”

“Yeah. No good, huh?”

She shook her head and finished her sandwich while Jake watched her.

“What?” she asked.

“You’re beautiful, you know that?”

“Stop.”

“The only reason I’ve ever thought about changing—about quitting all of the craziness—the only reason has been because of you.”

“That’s not a good reason.”

Jake nodded. “Maybe not.”

“You shouldn’t change for someone else, Jake. You should change for yourself.”

“And how should I change? Stop the drinking? Stop the cursing? Go to church?”

“Stop the lying,” she said in a soft voice.

“Who am I lying to?”

“To yourself. To your parents. To everyone else.”

“I didn’t do anything to Laila. The only thing I did to her at that party was push her away.”

Alyssa didn’t say anything.

“Alyssa, look at me. Please. Look at me. Look in my eyes. I swear to you and to God and to anyone else I can that I
didn’t try to rape Laila
. I don’t know how and why that rumor got started—I don’t know what that has to do with anything. I’ve made mistakes, and I’ve made mistakes in the past with Laila, but I didn’t hurt her or do anything like that. I’ve never done anything that she didn’t want to do. Got that?”

“Okay.”

“No, I want to know that you at least believe that.”

“Okay.”

Jake didn’t finish his hamburger. “I’m sorry,” he said to Alyssa.

“For what?”

“For ever thinking—for ever trying …”

“Jake —” Alyssa began, her eyes tearing up.

“No. Look. I’ve tried harder with you than I’ve tried for anything in my life. It’s like chasing after a rainbow or something. I’ve always thought that somewhere deep inside there was a part of you that liked me—a part of you that might be open to me. Mistakes and all. But I think that’s how I’ve been lying to myself. I’ve convinced myself there was a chance and really, there never was. Was there? Tell me I’m wrong?”

Alyssa wiped her eyes and said nothing.

“It’s one thing to get the life punched and kicked out of me. Or to be told by the president that I’m going to hell. But you gotta know, Alyssa. I’d gladly take that over having you sitting there, giving me that look. Saying nothing.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, I am too.”

He drove her back to Providence, a quick five-minute ride, and pulled up to the dorm. They hadn’t spoken during the drive.

She looked over at him and, for a brief second, Jake believed she was going to say something else.

Then she turned and got out and closed the door behind her.

Whatever tiny thing they had ever had between them was over and gone.

“THAT FAT NURSE IS
getting on my nerves.” Mike glanced at me with bloodshot eyes as he dropped down into the chair across from me.

“Did you tell the cops—”

“No,” he answered.

This was the first time we’d been able to talk, to really talk, as Alyssa had excused herself to go to the restroom.

“What’d you tell them?”

“I said the guy wanted Bruce’s money and he had none. No lie there.”

“What’d he look like?”

“Forties maybe. Nondescript. Seriously nondescript. Little hair. Pudgy. I don’t know. He could be twenty-four and blond as far as I remember.”

It was closing in on 1 a.m. and I was on a second cup of coffee. Mike had been pacing back and forth since we had gotten there.

“This is about more than just finding Alec, right? What’s really going on?”

I looked at Mike and shook my head. “I don’t know.”

“What’s Bruce doing here anyway?”

“He wanted to tag along. He has nothing back there in California.”

“No job?”

“No nothing. I think he’d been looking for an excuse to leave.”

“And he ends up getting shot in Chicago. Nice.” Mike swore.

“He’ll be fine.”

“How do you know? Nurse Betty over there won’t give out any information except that he’s in intensive care and to wait and sit down.”

I stared at Mike’s shiny black shoes. “You call your wife?”

He nodded. “You think Alec has something to do with this?”

“I don’t know. All of this—this didn’t just happen. Someone doesn’t want me finding Alec. Who else would it be besides Alec himself?”

“He wouldn’t get someone to shoot Bruce.”

“People change. Franklin wasn’t too happy to see me either.”

Mike shook his head, looking a bit too pale in the harsh glow of the hospital light.

“This is karma, man. Our karma. We’ve had this coming for a long time.”

“I don’t buy it.”

“That’s the truth,” Mike answered.

Alyssa walked up holding a can of soda. “Everything okay?”

I looked at Mike, and he stood up and said he was going to get an answer.

“We were just talking about karma. You believe people reap what they sow?”

She nodded. “I used to.”

“Maybe Bruce—maybe all of us—maybe we had this coming.”

“What? Getting shot?”

I looked at her. “There’s a lot I haven’t told you, Alyssa.”

“About Carnie?”

“Yeah. About all of them. There are a lot of things about our last spring break that I tried to just put out of my mind.”

She sat down beside me, and for the moment ignored her soda.

“There’s stuff I should’ve gotten to the bottom of,” I continued. “That I should have told someone about.”

“What stuff?”

“That’s the thing—I don’t know. Mike doesn’t know. Bruce doesn’t know. Here are all these grown men who have no idea what happened ten, eleven years ago.” I inhaled and shook my head. “This is—intense. I feel like it’s my fault. I should never have let Bruce come with me.”

“He can make his own decisions, you know.”

“No, I don’t think he can,” I said. “He has the same maturity level he had back in college.”

Mike came back, his wrinkled black shirt hanging out and his face dotted with stubble. “Well—it doesn’t look like he’s going to die.”

“Way to put it delicately,” I said.

“What do you want me to say? That’s all I could get out of them.”

I stood up and threw away the Styrofoam cup I’d been cutting with my fingernails.

“Mike,” I said, for the moment ignoring Alyssa’s presence. “Did the guy say anything else? Anything to do with me. With Alec?”

“I told you his exact words, give or take.”

I nodded. “I think maybe I’m going to follow them.”

“Sounds smart to me,” Mike said.

“Jake—” Alyssa had come alongside me, curiosity in her eyes.

“Mike—I want to take her home.”

“I’m fine,” she protested.

“No—it’s okay,” Mike said. “It’s cool. I can stay here for a while. They said he’s stable. Stable. How can someone be stable if he just got a thumb-sized hole in his gut?”

“Can you keep me posted?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry, man.”

I couldn’t help but give Mike a hug. He received it awkwardly.

“Be careful, okay?” I asked him.

“Yeah, always. You taking off then? Leaving?”

Alyssa’s eyes widened momentarily. It was too late for being discreet.

“I don’t know,” was all I could say.

On the drive back to the suburbs, the interstate’s lanes open and inviting speeding, I looked over at her. She was still wide-awake.

“Sorry about everything,” I said again.

“What are you apologizing about?”

“Coming into your life out of the blue and putting this in your lap.”

“I called you,” she said.

“I asked you out.”

“I accepted.”

“I kissed you.”

“And again, I—”

“Okay, I got it,” I said, the banter helping ease my mood. “This just—I don’t think I should be here.”

“Who doesn’t want you here?”

“Alec?”

“Why? Why wouldn’t Alec want you around?”

“I don’t know.”

I kept the car at a steady seventy-five miles per hour. We were maybe fifteen minutes from Alyssa’s house.

“Jake?”

“Yeah?”

“What happened on spring break?”

“It was just going to be a prank. That was all. And even then, it wasn’t my idea. It was out of my control.”

She didn’t answer, and after a moment I continued. “You know—I used to think it was fun waking up not remembering the night before. That was college. I thought—I just assumed it was normal behavior.”

“For some, it is.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I said. “But I can’t get those times back. Whatever happened, those memories are black and done. When Carnie died, he took those memories with him.”

“And Alec?”

“Alec kept tons of things from me. I don’t know if I ever fully trusted the guy.”

“Alec? Your best friend?”

“Best friend. Yeah. Even after—after everything happened—it just all started out of—-just all of us being stupid.”

And I tried to tell her what I recalled but it seemed to come out wrong. I hadn’t talked about any of this in years.

I had just started my jumbled story when we arrived in her driveway.

“Jake?” Alyssa put a hand on mine. “Can you—look, I don’t want to be alone tonight. I’m not asking for—I’m just a little freaked out.”

“Yeah, sure. Don’t say anything more—I understand.”

I turned off the lights and locked the car, then followed her into the house.