The Tragedy Paper (13 page)

“Fine,” I said a little coldly. How did she turn on and off like that? I felt like she was dismissing me. After everything she had just said, everything she’d shared, I had an urge to grab her and pull her toward me—maybe not kiss her, but connect with her physically somehow. But I think you’re starting to understand, that is not usually my style. So I didn’t.

“Okay,” she said, turning. Then she faced me again. “What will you say if anyone asks where you’ve been?”

“That I went out for a walk in the woods,” I said, looking her right in the eyes. “Alone.”

“But it’s against the rules, I told you—”

“Nobody has told me the rules yet,” I cut her off. “So I can play dumb.” I left out that I imagined they would feel sorry for the albino kid with the bad eyes and the bad headache, and I would probably get away with it—I usually did.

She grabbed my arm then, and I thought she was going to say something important.

“Maybe you should do something crazy before you’re told the rules” was what she said.
Something crazy?

She dropped my arm and moved gracefully around a cluster of trees and headed in another direction. As I watched her go, I wondered what she meant by
do something crazy
. Did she mean with her? Once she was out of sight, I followed the path up and around and walked back
to my room. Nobody stopped me to ask where I had been or why I was late. I didn’t have classes that day—the normal schedule still wasn’t in place—so I went to my room and got right into bed, where I slept the afternoon away. Every now and then, I got a sharp pain in my eye that woke me, and each time it drew me away from a dream that was too good to be true.

Duncan lay on his bed wondering along with Tim what Vanessa had meant by
do something crazy
. He knew that trail in the woods too well, and he really didn’t want to think about it, but he couldn’t help it. It had been so snowy. He was among the handful of juniors who were allowed to come. There had been so much drinking. Duncan knew he shouldn’t drink; it was so dark and slippery. He was a wimp and he knew it, but he didn’t want anyone else to know. He accepted a paper cup full of scotch, or maybe it was bourbon, and made the motions of bringing it to his mouth and swallowing. When no one was looking, he poured a little into the snow and covered it up, worrying that the strong smell escaping into the air would give him away.

They were all getting ready to sled. He was scared. There were trees at the bottom, despite what anyone said, he could
see that. Students from the Irving School had been doing it for years, they kept saying. They hadn’t lost one yet.

When Duncan’s cell phone rang, he had that awful feeling of being awakened from a bad dream. He had been trying hard not to think about that night—he hated thinking about it now. He found his phone. He didn’t recognize the number but didn’t care. He was desperate now for a distraction.

“Hello?” He knew he sounded groggy. He glanced at his digital clock—four-forty-five in the afternoon. That was embarrassing.

“It’s Daisy.”

He sat up so fast he felt dizzy and had to lie down again.

“Daisy, hi, where are you?”

“Listen, Justine told me you were looking for me.”

“I was,” he said. “I was worried.”

“Well, don’t worry so much, I’m okay,” she said. He could hear beeping and something over a loudspeaker behind her. He imagined her in a hospital bed hooked up to an IV like he had been once after he got his tonsils out.

“Are you in the hospital?” he asked. He couldn’t believe that he was talking to her, that she had called him.

“I’m at the hospital,” she said flatly. “Not in it.”

“Oh. Good,” he said, louder than he needed to. “That’s a relief.”

They were quiet for a minute.

“Why are you there?” he asked. “Can I come help you or anything?”

“It’s been such a long day,” she said.

“Can you tell me about it?” he asked. “And I’m sorry I didn’t let you in this morning. Did that have anything to do with why you’re at the hospital now?”

She hesitated. “It might have made a difference,” she said, a little coldly. He deserved it, he knew. But she had called him! Maybe he could help now.

“The minute you walked away, I tried to get you to come back,” he said, not caring how silly or desperate that sounded. “I wish I could do that over again.”

“I came by this morning to ask for your help. Amanda—You know her, right? She lives next to me. She’s the quiet one with the bright blue streak of hair?”

Daisy waited for Duncan to acknowledge that he knew her, but he could not conjure up an image of her. Blue hair, Amanda—none of that rang a bell.

“Sure,” he said. “I think I know who she is.”

“Well, she was sick this morning, but she didn’t want to go to the nurse and she was panicked about anyone finding out, even Mrs. Reilly on our floor. I told her Mrs. Reilly has seen it all—drinking, drugs, whatever—and she always helps. But Amanda insisted that after she helps, she gets mad or the student gets in trouble, and besides, school just started and she kept saying she didn’t want to cause a problem so early in
the year. She was fading fast, slurring her words. I knocked on everyone’s door, but people were at breakfast or in the shower. So I ran over to you. But when you wouldn’t let me in, I didn’t want to risk bumping into Mr. Simon, so I left.”

“Back up a minute,” Duncan said. “Why were you at the exit door before you came to my room?”

“So you did see me,” she said. “I thought you must have.”

“Sorry,” he said.

“I wanted to see if it was cold out, and it was, so that’s why I knocked on your door. I thought that together we could get her to that door, that a little fresh air might help. But that was a crazy idea anyway, she never would have let us.”

“So then what?” Duncan prompted her.

“I went back to my hall.”

“I don’t get it,” he said. “I saw you in class.”

“I know,” she said. “When I got back, she had gotten into bed and was sleeping. So I thought she’d be okay. I pulled a blanket over her and got her some water that I left next to her bed and I went to class. That’s why I was late.”

“I feel terrible about that,” he said. “Your being late, I mean.”

“I do too,” she said. “Anyway, after English, people started saying that they hadn’t heard from her and that she wasn’t answering her door. I said she was sick and probably sleeping. But I got worried. So I went in—even though you aren’t supposed to do that without permission. And she was passed
out. I tried over and over to wake her, but she wouldn’t wake up. I thought she might be in a coma or something, so I went and got Mrs. Reilly after all. She called an ambulance, and I felt so guilty for leaving her that I came along, so I’m still here.”

“Is she okay?” Duncan asked.

“Well, apparently, she took too many of her mother’s Xanax that she stole from her medicine cabinet at home. She was so stressed about school starting that she took like half a dozen of them or something. They pumped her stomach, but she seems okay. I think she’s spending the night here.”

They were quiet again. Duncan thought of Vanessa and Tim sitting on the rock.

“So, why did you call?” he finally asked. It sounded a little snotty, and he hadn’t meant it to at all. “I mean, can I help you in some way? I would really like to help you.”

“I called because Justine said you looked pathetic,” she said. “And it was a hard day, and I wanted to talk to someone.”

“Let me make it up to you, for everything—not letting you in this morning, not calling you all summer,” he said. “Please.”

She hesitated. He clenched his eyes shut and waited.

“I’m going to take the bus back to town. I guess you could meet me,” she said. It was another senior privilege that once a week, with permission, you were allowed to skip dinner at
school and go into town. It was within walking distance of the campus, just down a big hill with the Hudson River in view the whole time. It would have been easy to say no, to hide in his room and see what happened next with Tim. But he was still bothered by that mention of the rock in the woods, and he didn’t want to be like Tim, missing an opportunity to be with the girl he liked.

“Yes, definitely,” he said. “I’ll go sign out with Mr. Simon, and I’ll call you back. Should we meet at Sal’s Pizza in half an hour?”

“Sounds great,” she said. “I’ll just browse the bookstore in the meantime.”

Duncan found Mr. Simon in the dining hall.

“How goes it?” he asked as Duncan approached him.

“Pretty good … No, great,” he said, smiling. “I know it’s early in the year, but I wanted to see if I could skip dinner tonight and head into town?”

“What is the purpose of your odyssey?” Mr. Simon asked, and Duncan smiled. A guy could get smarter just standing near Mr. Simon. He considered his question. There was a lot he could say—he needed socks, he craved pizza, he needed batteries.

“I want to meet Daisy,” he said. “I don’t know if you heard about Amanda—”

“I heard,” Mr. Simon said, cutting him off. “I hear she’s resting comfortably.”

“Yes, that’s what Daisy said,” Duncan said. “But Daisy
was at the hospital all day, and she’s hungry and tired and asked if I could meet her. What do you think?”

“You are the second senior boy to take advantage of the privilege tonight, so I say, ‘Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.’ ”

Duncan just stood there looking at him.

Mr. Simon grinned. “That means go!”

“Thank you,” Duncan said. “Really, thanks a lot.”

Duncan pulled out his phone and texted Daisy as he walked out under the stone arch—thinking to himself
Enter Here to Find a Girlfriend
. Maybe this would be his turn … if he didn’t keep screwing it up.

It was a beautiful September night, and the tips of the trees were just starting to turn yellow. The air was crisp, and he stopped to take a deep breath. Then he walked down the winding campus road to the main one and headed into town.

Daisy wasn’t sitting in Sal’s as he walked by. The best pizza in the state of New York, they always said, though as good as it was, everybody knew that wasn’t quite true with all the pizzerias in the Bronx and Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan. But it was their favorite, hands down. There was just something about the thin crust, the perfect sauce, and the cheese. His mouth watered, but he kept walking to the small bookstore on the corner. He found her there, sitting in a big fluffy chair reading
A Thousand Acres
.

“Hi!” she said when she saw him, smiling.

“Hi!” he responded, feeling like he had been on a long journey and this was the place he had been trying to reach. He sat down on the chair next to her.

“What are you reading?”

“Oh, it’s great,” she said, sitting up a little. “It’s Jane Smiley’s version of
King Lear
. Mr. Simon told me I could read this or Shakespeare’s version, so I picked this.”

“When did he tell you that?” Duncan asked. “I don’t remember hearing him say anything like that.”

“I went to see him after class, even though he hates excuses of any kind,” she said. “I mean, I could tell him that I had been sick and unable to lift my head for three days and he would say,
Well, that shouldn’t stop you from reading or crawling to class!
”

Duncan laughed. “Yeah, that’s true,” he said. “But then he comes through somehow.”

“So I told him about Amanda—that was before I knew what was really wrong with her and that the saga wasn’t over yet—and he said I could read this or the play to make up for being late, and to think about it in terms of a tragedy, of course. This looks like it’s going to be a really good book.”

“Are you hungry?” Duncan asked.

“Starving!” she said, closing the book. “I barely ate anything at the hospital. It’s true what they say about food there. Just let me buy this.”

Duncan followed her to the register. He watched as Daisy pulled money from her small beaded purse. Her hands were so long and elegant. She had a tiny silver ring with a daisy blossom on her left pinky finger. When she caught him staring, he looked away.

“Do you need a bag?” the young man behind the counter asked.

“No thanks,” she said, grabbing the book and tucking it under her arm.

They walked out together and without a word turned toward Sal’s. They could smell the dough baking as they got close. Just as Daisy was about to reach out and open the door, he grabbed the elbow of her other arm.

“What? I thought we were eating here,” she said.

“We are,” he said. “But I want to do something else first.”

She let him lead her around the corner and down a few blocks to the river. It was beautiful. The sun was setting and shining off the water, which was choppy because of the breeze. They could see the Palisades across the way. They kept walking, until they were as close as they could get to the river.

“I want to ask you something,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady.

“Sure, anything,” she said.

“Last year, in the dining hall, I just … Well, I have to ask, why were you suddenly so nice to me?”

She tilted her head to the side and looked right in his eyes. Her smile was big and open.

“Because you were nice to me,” she said thoughtfully.

Okay, he told himself, maybe it could be that simple. He literally counted to three in his head—
One, two, three
—and then he took her soft face in his hands and leaned in to kiss her. She moved toward him, still smiling. He could hear cars driving by and the horn of what he guessed was a bus behind him. He could hear people talking and the last of the summer crickets chirping. But all he could feel were Daisy’s lips, all he could smell was the scent of her skin, which was a cross between watermelon and vanilla, he thought. She was the first to pull away.

“What took you so long?” she asked, and the tone of her voice was so gentle and kind, he wanted to bury his face in her soft shoulder and stay there forever.