Cecily Von Ziegesar (23 page)

She stroked its soft fur with her bandaged hands. “So, I'm still here, thanks to you.” She glanced up at Patrick and then winced. “I don't feel so good though. Don't be offended if I conk out.”

Patrick nodded. “I was in jail,” he told her, trying to explain why he hadn't arrived sooner. “Not because of you. For something else.”

Tragedy closed her eyes. “That's okay.”

 

O
ut in the hall, Adam took a step toward Shipley and then stopped. “Look,” he murmured. “I have two exams tomorrow and two on Wednesday, and then I'm done.” His gaze met hers. “I'm transferring.”

“What?” Shipley sucked in her breath. In her mind she'd already played out two separate scenarios. In the first, Tom challenged Adam to a bloody duel, with swords, and Tom won. In the second, she poisoned Tom with arsenic and then she and Adam ran off to Hawaii together. “Transferring where?”

“East Anglia. It's in England. Dexter has a sort of brother-sister exchange with them, so I was able to transfer my scholarship. I wasn't going to go, but now I think it's for the best. My parents are pretty mad at me.”

“It's for the best,” Shipley repeated. She turned around to glance at Adam's parents, hugging each other by the coffeemaker. She'd wanted to meet them and make friends, but they didn't want to know her. Someone had to take the blame for what had happened and she was that someone. She was bad news.

Adam touched her arm and she turned around. Before he could say anything, Shipley grabbed his head and pressed her lips against his. He'd meant to give her a quick, sweet good-bye embrace, but something about rescuing her brother from jail and visiting a half-dead girl in the hospital had given Shipley a taste for the dramatic. It wasn't the fridge-slamming kiss from Professor Rosen's kitchen, but it was close.

“Adam?” Ellen interrupted from behind them. “We're going to head home in a little bit. Just as soon as Trag's friend comes out. We're going to make him some lunch and pick up some things for your sister. You coming?”

Adam grinned into Shipley's kissing mouth. He wasn't going to be the one to stop this. He could kiss her forever. Finally Shipley took a step back and smiled up at him. “Now you have something to remember me by.”

Adam shoved his hands into his pockets. “I'll remember you,” he promised.

“Nice meeting you,” Shipley called to Adam's parents, but they pretended not to hear. It was pretty obvious she wasn't invited to lunch, and Patrick was probably better off with the Gatzes than with her. “I guess I should go and study.”

Adam closed his eyes and opened them again. She was still there, although she had moved down the hall to the elevator. It arrived with a
ping
and the door slid open. Shipley lifted her hand to wave good-bye and stepped in.

 

T
ragedy was too tired to talk. The kitten bathed itself in the crook of her arm, its small pink tongue dampening and flattening its black fur with impressive persistence. Patrick switched on the TV, but it was so loud and obnoxious he switched it off again. He opened the nightstand drawer and found another bible. The cover was bright blue with gold lettering and the line “King James Version” at the bottom. The one from jail just said “The Holy Bible” in white on a black background. He traded that one for the King James and closed the drawer.

“Well, I guess I'll go,” he said. “I'm glad you're alive,” he added without a hint of emotion.

Tragedy turned her head. “Doctor said I probably won't be able to have kids now,” she told him. “Which sucks like a motherfucker.”

Patrick smiled at her turn of phrase. “That's harsh.”

She closed her eyes. “Don't think you're going anywhere either. I told my parents about you. They're taking you back to our house to eat good food and sleep in a nice warm bed. So suck it up, jackass.”

Patrick wasn't so sure about that. He didn't know the Gatzes, and usually people didn't want him around. The worst thing
about the yurt burning down was that he'd have no place to sleep, but he could always go back to his old winter haunts—a smashed-up windowless Winnebago on the banks of the Messalonskee Stream, an old shed next to a Busch beer warehouse, a truck stop in Lewiston, a homeless shelter in Augusta, and maybe after the students went home for the holidays, the overheated kitchen in the basement of Root.

“I'll see you,” he said.

He opened the door and closed it quietly behind him. The Gatzes were waiting for him, all smiles and bear hugs.

“Yeah, see you, Pinkie.” Tragedy yawned and fell asleep.

S
leep and wakefulness are active states controlled by specific groups of brain structures. The body does its repair work during sleep, restoring energy supplies and muscle tissue. If you happen to be recovering from an ecstasy and ether bender, there's lots of repair work to be done.

Tom had passed out facedown on his bed, in his clothes, just before nine o'clock on Saturday night. It was now four o'clock on Sunday afternoon. Deep within his cerebral cortex he detected a rhythmic knocking sound that was too loud and too fast to be the beating of his own heart. His toes twitched. He flexed his ankles. Then he rolled over and opened his eyes. Sun streamed in through the windows. The air smelled like burnt toast.

“Tom?”
Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock
. “Tom?”

He lay on his back, blinking up at the ceiling. His lips felt like they'd been caulked shut. His nasal passages felt like they'd been worked with a plumber's snake.

Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock
. “Tom?”

What day was it? he wondered. He remembered the play, which had gone well, he thought. His parents were there, or maybe that part had been a dream. They'd taken him and Shipley out to dinner to that fishy place on the river. He'd eaten lobster. He'd worn a bib. Right now his stomach felt hollow and sour. Maybe he was allergic to lobster.

Knock, knock, knock, knock.
“Tom? Are you in there? I'm going to come in now. The door's not locked.”

Professor Rosen opened the door and stepped into the room, looking like she'd just gotten back from cross-country skiing. Her gray wool kneesocks were pulled up over the legs of her brown wide-wale corduroy pants. Her red Gore-Tex jacket was tied around her waist, and she was still wearing her sunglasses and a purple ski hat. She took a moment to scrutinize the scattered paint tubes and brushes, the drying canvasses, the paint-spattered floor, Nick's upturned bed, and Tom's prone form.

“Tom,” she said sharply. “Didn't you hear me knock?”

Tom pushed himself up on his elbows. “Where's Shipley?” He sat up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “Man, what is that burning smell?”

One side of Professor Rosen's mouth twitched upward in a grim half smile. “Your parents came by to check on you early this morning, but they didn't want to wake you. They had to get back to New York. I promised them I'd stop by and see how you were doing later on. Your dad wanted me to be sure you got some studying time in before exams.”

Tom blinked and looked at his wrist. His watch wasn't there. He'd taken it off for the play. “So it's Sunday,” he said.

“And that burning smell is the smoke from the yurt your friend Nicholas built out back. It burned down this morning,” she said.

“Holy fuck!” Tom glanced at Nick's upturned bed and frowned. “Nobody, like, burned up inside it or anything, did they?”

“No.” The professor walked over to Tom's desk chair and picked up the blue bath towel that was draped over the seat. She tossed the towel at Tom. “Why don't you take a shower? I'll see if I can find Shipley. Meet me outside the dorm in twenty minutes. I'll take you guys out for some food.”

Tom picked up the towel. “Isn't the dining hall still open for breakfast?”

The professor gave him another one of her half smiles. “Tom, it's after four. The dining hall won't be open until dinner at six.”

 

S
hipley burst into the room as Tom was staring out the window at the black ring of yurt ash in the deep, white snow. Water dripped from his freshly showered body onto the floor.

“Tom!” she cried, thrusting a gigantic cup of Starbucks coffee in his direction. She'd been lying on her bed, exhausted and dozing and pretending to study, when Professor Rosen called. “I got you a venti latte.”

Her blond hair was scraped back into a messy ponytail and there were dark circles beneath her eyes. The cuffs of her jeans were damp and salt-streaked. Tom thought she looked wonderful. He held out his arms. The blue towel slipped from around his waist. “I love you,” he said, fully naked.

Shipley put the coffee down on his paint-spattered desk and walked into his open arms. He hugged her tightly through her coat and rested his dripping forehead on her shoulder.

“I hope I didn't fuck up too much last night,” he murmured.

She patted his damp back with her mittened hands. He was
so big and his room was a mess.
He
was a mess. But she loved him anyway. She would love him always. Adam too.

“You were fine. You were great,” she said, and bent down to retrieve his towel. “Here, get dressed. Professor Rosen's downstairs. She says she's going to buy us donuts.”

 

O
utside, the setting sun was already drifting downhill. Professor Rosen's minivan was waiting for them. Stray flakes of snow drifted down from the trees and fluttered to the ground. Tom opened the van's side door. A baby was strapped into a car seat in the back.

“Hey, I didn't know you had a baby!” He thumbed his ears at the baby and stuck out his tongue. The baby seemed to be asleep with its eyes open.

“Hop in.” Professor Rosen turned around and scraped the stuff on the backseat onto the floor. Diapers, maps, baby bottles.

Tom and Shipley got in. Nick and Eliza were in the very back seat, holding hands.

“Hey, Slutcakes,” Eliza said. “What is this? Musical boys?”

Nick's cheeks were pink and shiny from so much cortisone. “You guys all ready for exams?”

Tom slid the door closed and settled into the seat on one side of the baby while Shipley sat on the other. “So who knew it was going to snow last night?” He caught the professor's gaze in the rearview mirror. “Did you know?”

Professor Rosen backed the van out onto the road. “The storm was on the news all week. People were buying up the whole grocery store. The turkeys were all gone. No potatoes even. Guess people thought the whole system would shut down.”

They coasted down the hill toward town. Snow was every
where. The entire campus had been transformed into a winter wonderland.

“Just look at it all!” Tom marveled, as if he'd never seen snow before. He turned his head to admire Shipley's profile against the white snowbanks outside the window. Then he glanced down at the baby. Its eyes were dark brown and its skin was the color of maple syrup. It was holding Shipley's finger.

“I can't wait for Christmas,” Shipley murmured. Beetle's skin had reminded her of Hawaii.

“Me too,” Professor Rosen agreed. “We're going to Sedona.”

“I'm going to stay in my pj's till New Year's,” Tom yawned.

Nick spoke up from the way back. “I'm going to Eliza's house.”

“I can't wait for donuts,” Eliza chimed in. She stuck her hand down the back of Nick's pants and kept it there. “Hey, is anyone else having major déjà vu?” She stared out at the snow for a while, then turned around and stuck her tongue out at Nick. He looked so much better without his hat, and his skin was beginning to calm down.

Nick pushed her bangs up off her forehead to see what she would look like without them. “Whoa,” he said, and let the bangs drop. “Maybe you should start wearing hats.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “I could knit one for you.”

“Oh God.” Eliza grimaced. “Please, someone just shoot us now and put us out of our misery.”

Shipley undid her seat belt and crawled over Beetle's car seat to sit in Tom's lap.

“Oi!” Professor Rosen called out.

Nick and Eliza were all over each other now, the moist sucking sounds of their kisses muffled by the smack of the tires on the wet road. Tom put his arms around Shipley and pulled her in close. Through the very back window of the car she could see
the blue light of Dexter's chapel spire, shining significantly on top of the hill, like a beacon. It was hard to believe it could ever go out.

Behind them, the road was a black river cutting across a glistening white field fringed with dark trees. A curl of smoke rose up from the chimney of a nearby farmhouse. She imagined Patrick and Adam and Adam's parents sitting around a fire, eating Tragedy's cookies and drinking wine. If Adam went to England, Patrick could drive his car instead of hers. Patrick might even move in with the Gatzes. It might work out for everyone.

She wrapped her arms around Tom's neck and kissed him in a roving, tentative manner, like a person trying to get into a house when they've forgotten the key. She kissed his forehead, his temples, his ears, his neck, his chin. He smelled like Ivory soap and Gillette shaving cream and Colgate toothpaste and Johnson & Johnson's baby shampoo—all the things she was used to. But there were other things she craved, things she didn't even know existed. Once you got a taste for the unexpected, it was hard to settle for anything less.

She paused for a breath. “Did you know they have snow in Hawaii?”

“That's why I went to college,” Tom joked. “To learn shit like that.” He tilted his head back and puckered his lips, eager for more of her.

Shipley slammed his head against the back of the seat and kissed him on the mouth, this time with conviction. Then, without another word, she pulled away and crawled back over Beetle's car seat. The van lurched over a bump and, for a moment, was airborne. One of Nick's Philosophy textbooks dropped out of his bag and slid across the floor beneath Shipley's feet.
An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding,
she read upside down. Thank
goodness she wasn't in that class.

She refastened her seat belt and gazed out the window. The sky was swollen and ripe. It would snow again, soon. There would be more snow, more kisses, more sex, more gunshots, more fires. This was what she had come for—what they had all come for. This was college.