Nothing Can Keep Us Together (13 page)

Daaah, dee-dee-dee, daaah, daaah …

St. Jude’s didn’t bother renting out a church or lining their boys up in size order. They just held a small, solemn ceremony in the school’s rooftop gym, wished the boys well, and then sent them on their way. The usually cavernous-looking gym seemed smaller now, filled as it was with folding chairs, mothers in Chanel jackets and over-the-knee linen skirts, and dads in Brooks Brothers summer-weight gray flannel suits.

Nate had been waiting for this day forever, and to mark the occasion, he and his buddies had gotten good and high at Charlie’s house beforehand. Then they’d put on their burgundy-colored school ties and their navy blue wool school jackets with the dorky brass buttons that they’d never, ever have to wear again, and walked over.

He glanced over his shoulder at his parents, seated stiffly across the aisle and six rows back. Captain Archibald met his gaze and waved the graduation program angrily in front of him, stabbing at the list of graduates with his index finger, his gray-blond eyebrows knitted together in outrage.

Nate picked up the program where it had fallen between his Church’s of London tan suede lace-ups and studied it to see if he could figure out what his dad’s problem was. Forty-three boys’ names were printed neatly in navy blue in two concise columns. The very first name on the list had a tiny asterisk next to it, and at the very bottom of the program, next to a matching tiny asterisk, was the note, Diploma pending. Nate squinted, wondering if his thoroughly baked brain was playing tricks on him, but there it was again, an asterisk next to his name—Nathaniel Fitzwilliam Archibald. * Diploma pending.

Fuck!

Father Mark, the ancient former pastor who’d been the St. Jude’s principal since at least 1947, hunkered over the podium set up in the front of the gym, his hands shaking as he began to read out the boys’ names. Of course Nate was first. “Nathaniel Fitzwilliam Archibald!”

Nate stood up and walked to the front of the gym, keeping his eyes on the black and blue lines duct-taped to the floor for hoops and floor hockey. “Way to go, man,” a bunch of guys whispered sarcastically. Nate’s neck burned with shame. There was an asterisk next to his name.

Father Mark handed him a square navy blue faux leather folder and shook his hand just like he was supposed to, without any acknowledgment of the asterisk. Nate turned around and walked back to his seat, nearly colliding with Coach Michaels, who was blocking the aisle in his frigging red Lands’ End windbreaker. He grabbed Nate’s shirtsleeve and lunged forward to whisper in his ear. “I’ve got your number, boy,” he wheezed, then patted Nate roughly on the shoulder before letting him go.

“Aw. Isn’t that sweet?” somebody’s mother cooed, mistaking Coach’s threat for a congratulatory embrace.

Nate returned to his seat, breathless and sweaty. “Anthony Arthur Avuldsen!” the old principal croaked, impatiently waving the blue folder containing Anthony’s diploma over his white-peach-fuzz-covered head.

Anthony lumbered over Nate’s khaki-pants-clad knees with stoned concentration. Nate clapped his friend on his muscular back. “You made it,” he murmured weakly as the now-familiar choky, about-to-cry feeling welled up in his throat.

“Charles Cameron Dern!” Father Mark croaked hoarsely.

“Dude,” Charlie murmured to Nate as he stumbled by, “what’s with the little star?”

Nate was too perplexed to cry. He just sat there in stoned numbness, his father’s furious stare burning holes in his back as his fellow classmates collected their diplomas. The blue leather folder lay closed on his lap. He nudged it open with his thumb just a crack. Just as he’d suspected: The folder was empty.

Oh, boy.

Directly behind old Father Mark was the black metal door with the words PHYSICAL EDUCATION DEPARTMENT stenciled on it in white. Nate stared at the door, his glittering green eyes blinking in consternation. Did the asterisk have something to do with Coach’s Viagra?

Finally, he’s catching on!

Nothing Can Keep us Together

“So in conclusion, who needs college—at least, right now? I’ve got my whole life to get educated. Just like John Lennon of the Beatles once wrote, ‘Love is all you need. Love is all you need. Love is all you need.’”

Dan surveyed the audience as he finished his speech, standing behind the wooden podium at the front of the stage. Riverside Prep’s informal graduation ceremony was held in the school auditorium and felt very much like one of the off-kilter plays the drama department put on twice a year. Behind him, Dan’s forty-one other classmates were seated on folding chairs, their mouths hanging open in shocked surprise. Even Larry, their desperate-to-be-down-with-the-boys senior homeroom teacher, kept chuckling nervously and glancing down at the thirty rows of faculty, parents, and relatives seated in the gray velvet movie-theater-style seats below them, as if he were wondering if he should explain that Dan’s speech was just another one of those goofy senior pranks he and his boyz were always pullin’.

In the last row of seats, Rufus’s head was bowed, his fuzzy salt-and-pepper hair tied with the festive orange ribbon that had come tied around the neck of the bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne he’d bought for them to drink later. Jenny was holding his hand. She looked up, meeting Dan’s gaze across the rows of heads with her soulful brown eyes. You asshole, how could you do this to our sweet, well-meaning Dad? her expression seemed to say. In case you didn’t remember, education is everything to him.

Dan remained onstage to receive the E. B. White Writing Award, Riverside Prep’s award for outstanding creative writing achievement. “Congratulations, son.” Their lisping, tall, young, Russian-figure-skater-handsome principal, Dr. Nesbitt, handed him the rolled-up piece of parchment paper and shook his hand while a photographer snapped pictures. Dr. Nesbitt was a lower-school dad who’d been acting principal for a year and a half—ever since Mr. Coobie, the previous principal, had gotten ousted after attempting to teach human development to the fifth graders himself instead of hiring a professional.

The applause was thin and sporadic as Dan accepted the award and returned to his seat. It was bound to be after a speech like that. Don’t listen to your teachers? Let love be your teacher and follow your heart? Love is all you need, love is all you need, love is all you need?

Hello??!

“And now for the diplomas,” Dr. Nesbitt announced, and the audience shifted eagerly in their seats.

None of the boys’ last names began with A, so Chuck Bass was first. For the occasion, Chuck had dressed entirely in cream-colored linen, including his shoes, which were made by Hogan and even had cream-colored crepe soles. With his sleek, dark hair and tanned handsome face, he actually looked pretty sharp, like a Hollywood star from the 1940s. Chuck tucked the brown-leather-bound diploma case under his arm, pulled a Cuban cigar out of his jacket pocket, and put it between his lips.

He was about to turn and walk offstage when Dr. Nesbitt snatched the cigar out of his mouth, wiped it on his trousers, and stuck it in his own mouth. “I’m going to need something to chew on to get through all these names,” he quipped into the microphone, and the audience of parents responded with a roar of laughter. Dr. Nesbitt had been so popular since stepping in as principal, he’d had to temporarily shut down his psychiatric practice because the school had yet to find a new principal they liked nearly as much.

“Nice speech, dickhead,” Chuck hissed as he lumbered over Dan’s feet on his way back to his seat. “‘Follow your heart’? Does that mean we’re eloping to Vegas together after the ceremony?” Dan resisted the urge to grind his Wallabees into Chuck’s nuts. He hadn’t thought about how his speech might sound to everyone else. All he knew was that he’d written it from the heart, with one person in mind: Vanessa.

“Nice work,” Zeke Freedman sneered at Dan as he passed by on his way up to the stage. Zeke and Dan had been best buddies until Vanessa became Dan’s girlfriend and Dan sort of forgot about everything and everybody else. Zeke was kind of a computer geek and was extremely proud of the fact that he was going to MIT in the fall, so it wasn’t a stretch to guess that Dan’s speech had rubbed him the wrong way.

Dan glanced back at his family again. Jenny had her arm around their dad now, and Rufus’s shoulders were shaking with grief. The other parents probably thought Rufus was weeping with pride, but Dan knew better. Maybe he should have given his dad some warning and told him about not going to Evergreen next year.

Yeah, maybe.

“Daniel Jonah Humphrey,” Dr. Nesbitt called out.

Dan squirmed in his seat. Hadn’t he used up enough front-of-stage time already? He dashed out of his third-row seat, grabbed the brown leather folder out of Dr. Nesbitt’s hand, and dashed back to his seat again, as if he were afraid his classmates were going to pelt him with raw tomatoes or something.

Jenny had thought Dan’s graduation would be relatively painless and boring. She hadn’t even minded when her dad had changed her ticket to Prague to leave tomorrow morning instead of yesterday so she wouldn’t miss it. He’d get his diploma while she and Rufus whispered to each other and heckled his nerdy classmates. Then they’d go eat Chinese at Dan’s favorite place on Broadway, and later she’d drag Dan out to that party Blair Waldorf was rumored to be hosting at the Yale Club—a party that she was absolutely determined not to miss.

Instead, their whole family was falling apart, and she was freaking out.

She and Dan had basically stopped being nice to each other when Jenny had spent the night in a Plaza Hotel room with the members of the Raves and then proceeded to record a song with them on the same day they fired Dan. At home it seemed like Dan could do no wrong. He was a published author and an A student. He’d had his pick of colleges to go to, including Brown, Colby, NYU, and Evergreen. Their dad boasted about his achievements all the time. Jenny was an even better student, but ever since Mrs. McLean had requested that she not return to Constance next year, she’d felt like Dan’s naughty little sister. The fact that overprotective Rufus had actually agreed to let her go to boarding school made it even more clear: Dan was the good one, and she was the bad one.

But now here she was, holding her dad’s hand and pretending to be totally calm and mentally stable while she was really wondering what was going to become of her next year. If only she could take Dan’s place at Evergreen. It was supposed to be arty—she’d probably do fine.

Too bad they don’t have a tenth grade.

Nothing Can Keep us Together

Even though she’d been totally two-timing him and a cross-country road trip really wasn’t her idea of a good time, Vanessa was ready for Aaron when he pulled up in his red Saab, right on time. She just couldn’t let him down, because if she did, she’d have to explain her outrageously heinous behavior, which she wasn’t prepared to do, because she honestly didn’t know why she’d behaved so heinously. Maybe she was just …

Psycho?

“I’ll be down in a sec!” she called when he buzzed from downstairs.

“Nah, buzz me in, I’m coming up,” he responded.

Vanessa should have known that something was up when he walked in and didn’t kiss her. Downstairs, Mookie, Aaron’s huge brown-and-white boxer, barked eagerly out of the Saab’s open sunroof.

There were green beads in Aaron’s coarse brown hair. All of a sudden Vanessa noticed that he’d grown it out into inch-long little dreads all over his head. When had that happened?

“Thank God Blair’s graduating today too,” he remarked. “My dad was totally fine with going to her thing instead of mine.” He patted his green army-issue-shorts pockets. “Um …” he began, his dark eyes darting nervously around the room. “Hey, nice dress!”

The Morgane le Fay dress hung all by itself in the living room closet.

Vanessa shrugged. “I’m returning it.”

Aaron went over to the dress and pulled the hanger off the rail, twirling it around to get the full effect of the dress. “Put it on,” he suggested, holding it out to her.

She shook her head. “I already tried it on a couple of times. Besides graduation, I don’t have anywhere else to wear it.”

Aaron hung on to the dress. “Look,” he began. “I kind of don’t think it’s a good idea for you to come with me. First of all, with Mookie I kind of don’t have any more room in my car. Second of all, I’ve kind of known for a while that you and Dan have kind of been hanging out a lot.”

Kind of.

Vanessa crossed her arms over her chest, all of a sudden feeling a little too large or a little too stupid or a little too something she couldn’t quite place. He knew? But hadn’t she and Dan been totally discreet?

You call having sex in broad daylight on a rooftop discreet?!

“I’m sorry,” she managed to utter. It was all she could think of.

“It’s okay. But you should have told me when I tried to give you this.” Aaron held out the corny silver joined-hearts love/friendship ring. “I found it in a drawer with the serving spoons.” He didn’t even look that upset, which made Vanessa feel even worse. Obviously she’d been paying so little attention that he’d had time to think about this and get over it. But aside from feeling terrible, she was also totally relieved.

Aaron held up the dress again and twirled it around on its hanger. “I also kind of think you don’t want to miss graduation. You love those girls,” he added gently, sounding only slightly gay.

“Yeah, right,” Vanessa agreed sarcastically, but again she felt totally relieved. She could wear the dress even though she was supposed to hate white. She could sit next to Blair and make fun of Mrs. M and finally graduate, and the whole class would get drunk together afterwards, even though they were all supposed to hate each other.

Okay, maybe she did love those girls just a little bit.

Aaron waggled the dress in front of her. “You know you want to.”

Vanessa snorted and snatched it out of his hands, catching him in a hug as she did so. “Don’t think you’re getting away without kissing me good-bye. I don’t know when I’m ever going to see you again.”

She kissed him quickly on the lips and then pressed her forehead into his warm, familiar shoulder, her body a bundle of nerves. She was breaking up with her boyfriend, she was about to graduate, there was a party to go to, and a whole four years at NYU awaited her, with no more stupid flicking uniforms!

Yippee! Except, hasn’t she sort of forgotten about someone?

Vanessa changed into her dress right in front of Aaron, feeling almost sisterly toward him now that they were broken up. She still loved him and probably always would. But the great thing about love was that it evolved.

Let’s make sure she remembers that.

“What do you think?” she asked, doing a Barbie-esque spin in Blair’s white wedge-heeled shoes.

Aaron flinched, as if it hurt to see her looking so incredibly gorgeous. He held out his hand. “Come on. I heard on the radio the subways are a mess. I’ll drive you.”

Aw. How come boys get so much cuter after we break up with them?

Nothing Can Keep us Together