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1 Chapter 17 Well I can see there’s something wrong with you, but what do you expect me to do? - Sex Pistols After the shaded seclusion of Groves, the railroad bridge over the canal was bright and lonely. The flat state sprawled all around, a patchwork of yellow and green fields, gray woods and tan stretches of marshland. Across it the canal was a perfectly straight blue highway, dwindling and disappearing in the haze to both the east and west. Weldin’s yellow Schwinn ten-speed lay at the bottom of the railroad embankment, beside the gravel road that ran along the canal, where Laramie would be able to see it. Overhead loomed the bridge, a steel colossus visible from many miles away on the flat landscape, a forbidding black letter H. The crossbar of the H was lowered to allow trains to cross; the rest of the time the section was elevated to allow the occasional coastal tanker or freighter to pass beneath, engines humming steadily. Today no ships were in sight, making the deserted silence complete. It was the kind of fall day when the sun is warm but any breeze would make it cold, only no breeze stirred. Weldin took off his windbreaker and left it on a bundle of new railroad ties that smelled of sun-warmed creosote. He wore old jeans and an old maroon plaid flannel shirt, having left behind the coloration of the Groves School. He had the sensation of paying a call on his old, former life. He could not slip fully back into it, of course, because of the taut, tight new cable stretched between him and Groves. When the canal was dug the earth had been gouged up by the ton, disgorged into high sloping abutments and then planted with trees to keep it from eroding back down into the waterway. Rain had proceeded to carve gullies in the sandy soil, year after year opening new deposits of fossils among the pebbles, sand and ancient shells. Weldin made his way halfway down one of these ravines, below the silver railroad signal tower for the bridge. The shelves in his bedroom at home held dozens of 2 exogyras, belamites, shark teeth, ammonites, trilobites and even a stone with the imprint of a fishtail from spots such as this. He braced against the opposite wall of the gully and began chipping at the dirt with a stick. A clump of pebbly dirt fell away and revealed a bulletlike point of belamite sticking out of the dirt. He tapped it out into his hand. Instant luck. A trace of the old enthusiasm flickered, even pushing out thoughts of the joint waiting in his cigarette pack. It was the brown, cylindrical, fossilized body of an ancient squid, common enough. He spat on it, rubbed it until its cola-brown transparency came through, held it up to the sunlight to admire it. A meager wisp of dust had appeared in the distance, coming westward along the dirt road beside the canal. It was Laramie, on the red BMX bike he had ridden the last four years. Even at this distance his ungainly form was recognizable on the tiny bike, bent legs pumping, blond hair streaming behind. Weldin put the belamite in his pocket and clambered back up to the tracks. Laramie wore his customary light blue Boba Fett T-shirt and flared jeans, so long that the cuffs were frayed in back, and faded blue Keds. Breathing hard from the climb, he raised one lanky arm in a familiar, windshield-wiper salute from the other side of the tracks. “Greetings Commodore,” he shouted, voice small but familiar in the open space. “I chose this isolated venue to ensure neutral ground where we can make peace between our warring systems. Commodore, I must warn you to withdraw your battle cruisers immediately if these talks are to proceed!” Weldin hesitated, instinctively looked around. “They’re already withdrawn. They’ve been withdrawn.” “Give the order!” He paused again doubtfully on the brink of committing to Laramie’s reality. His hand came up toward the breast pocket of his plaid shirt, stopped, then continued. He lifted out the pack of cigarettes 3 and held it to his lips, communicator-style. “Fleet commander, order the destroyers to leave the neutral zone,” he said with authority. “Much better,” Laramie said, stepping over the rails. “Conventions must be honored. Have you been waiting long in this Satan-forsaken wasteland?” “Ten minutes. Long enough to find this.” He produced the belamite from his pocket and held it out. Laramie took a quick, disinterested look. “Looks like a rock to me. So they let you out of the penal colony?” “I escaped. I’m not even supposed to be out here. I’m on Bounds, when they don’t let you go off campus.” “Lucky I don’t have to worry about such things. I cruise wherever I want, all day.” “How’s the gas station?” Laramie made a face. “I discovered life isn’t so good as a petrochemical dispensing assistant.” “What about the money?” “Don’t need it,” Laramie said, and fished a white, generic pack of 100’s cigarettes from his pants pocket. “Mom buys me these. Plus I eat at home, sleep at home, my computer’s at home. Presto. Got a light?” “Got more than that,” Weldin said significantly. He used the Zippo to light Laramie’s long cigarette, which twitched and jumped as usual. Laramie’s nose was covered in blackheads and his plastic glasses were filthy, also as usual. He took care not to ignite the long, greasy hair. 4 “How the fuck can you see through those glasses man?” “Protective coating,” Laramie replied, smoke wafting thickly from his nostrils. “Protects my retinas from hazardous rays. Just like this soft, furry coating protects my teeth. It’s not easy living here as an extraterrestrial. What is this more-than-that you just spoke of?” Weldin produced his Vantages and held them up, conscious of the colorful brand-name pack. He turned it so Laramie could see the thin joint lying diagonally under the plastic. Laramie’s eyebrows and the corners of his wide mouth went up, but not like Trogg’s or Tony’s or Bone’s would. “Ahh! Mood-expanding comestibles. It’s been a while.” “Fresh from the Groves Kitchen Guy. Nearly got my ass caught buying it.” “How are things at the Groves Quadrant Penal Colony anyway? Apart from the strict spatial confinement, which you seem to be ignoring.” “Six more months to go. Then I graduate thank god.” “You mean thank Satan, ruler of our destinies. What’s after that? Still college I presume?” “Looking at a few. Got the applications.” “What am I going to do?” Laramie said with a theatrical gesture of his hands.“All alone when you’re gone?” “I only see you about once a month right now,” Weldin said. “You were the only life form on this planet worth forming a cognitive interface with.” “you got other friends. George and Brian. And Kelly.” Laramie’s pale, dirty brow wrinkled and he ticked off friends on his long-nailed fingers. “George? Okay maybe, but his parents don’t like me because I’m white. Brian is certifiably psychotic. 5 Kelly now hangs around with ogre-like life forms who can barely read and just sharpen their knives all the time. These are not friends.” Weldin lit up the joint and cautiously inhaled thick, burned-vegetable smoke. When he held it out Laramie took it precisely with two of the long-nailed fingers. His face was thinner and paler than before, the blackheads blacker. When Laramie exhaled rapturously he gave an enormous grin that made it seem as if the whole top of his head would split off and fall on the ground beside the track. He closed his eyes and gripped his skinny hips. “Time portal opening, prepare for Shift. Here it comes, oh thank you my Satan!” Weldin inhaled again and held the smoke, gasping, “Still got the upside-down cross in your room or did your dad finally ... end that?” Laramie both nodded and shook his head. “Paternal Base Officer made me take it down. We have rules at my penal colony too. Every morning I still burn a page from the Bible in my urn and pray to the ashes so that the Prince of Darkness will keep me in his favor.” Weldin dabbed spit on a place where the joint was burning too far down one side. A great warm, heavy hood had descended on his brain. “Your urn,” he heard his voice say. “That’s crazy man.” “A Lando Calrissian drinking glass from Exxon, actually. And I’m not crazy. I’m the sane one. Craziness just means you don’t think like the majority.” He held up an overgrown fingernail. “Remember. As Joshua said to the Anti-Matter Man, ​Don’t you dare touch me.” Weldin pretended to laugh. They sat down on the stack of new railroad ties where Weldin’s windbreaker lay. The world receded into a movie outside the heavy hood of Dope. Laramie’s words became disconnected quacks and clicks as he went on talking about a science fiction epic he was writing. He talked just as he always 6 did, as if he were afraid to stop, as if he had to get everything said before Weldin went away again. There was no point in Weldin talking; he had no news. Mention of his friends would be met with a blank stare. Mention of Caroline, who was still in his head, even elicit an even blanker one. The near pylon of the bridge towered above them black and silent, enclosing the massive, rust-streaked concrete block of the counterweight. “Wonder what that thing weighs,” Weldin finally declared. Laramie stopped in mid-discourse, turned agreeably to look. “More like what would happen if you jumped from that height? What would happen when you hit the water? Satan knows.” “I heard it would be like hitting pavement.” “You wouldn’t die from jumping off the track. You’d have to climb higher. You’d have to go up the tower. Right up around there.” He extended one long white arm, indicating a specific point on the looming pylon. The gesture served to expose the arm’s inner surface, and Weldin saw that from wrist to elbow it was all thin brown-black scratches, roughly parallel, like marsh grass in winter. “Shit man what happened?” Weldin said, pointing. Laramie cocked his head self-consciously and smiled like a girl whose engagement ring has been noticed and turned his whole body to offer a better view. “I was at Kelly’s fort in the woods like a week ago. I found this rusty razor blade. It didn’t hurt at all. Like it? Homemade tattoo-job!” Weldin shook his head. Laramie seemed pleased. Histrionic, his father had called him, back before his mouth had been wired shut. “Lucky you didn’t get tetanus. Why do you do stupid shit like that.” 7 “It makes me happy!” Laramie cried, throwing his arms wide, incredulous. Histrionic. After two more hits Weldin carefully crushed the coal of the joint on the polished top of the rail. He was slow and deliberate about slipping it back into the plastic of his cigarette pack. “I mean can’t a guy do what makes him happy?” Laramie persisted with an edge in his voice. “None of my business.” “Speaking of that, I do have some news. Big news. I’ve been debating whether to ... ​let you in on it.” Weldin said to go ahead, half-interested. Laramie cleared his throat to begin but abruptly burst out in body-racking laughter. He laughed until his head hung between his bluejean-clad knees and the cigarette nearly dropped from his fingers. Weldin waited. When Laramie looked up his face actually did look a little different. He said, “Weldin I am gay.” To hear such a thing from Tony or Trogg would be earth-shattering. From Laramie it was like he had gotten a new pair of pants. Weldin replied, “Well that’s okay I guess.” “I hope you’re not, like, too freaked out.” Trying to respond in a way that would dampen the drama, Weldin said, “Just remember I’m not.” Laramie burst into a peal of purely fake laughter, holding up his hands to ward off the idea. “Don’t worry Weldin. You’re not my type at all! But you don’t mind? That’s what’s most important. That’s what I was worried about. I really thought maybe you’d freak out.” 8 “Of course I don’t mind. None of my business.” Laramie made a show of being relieved, wiping a hand across his brow. “Thank Satan. I was worried about what you were going to say. You’re so conventional and stuff.” Irritation welled up despite Weldin’s stonedness. ​None of my business ​echoed in his skull. It was what he wanted Laramie to be, all of a sudden. ​None of my business. ​Was this a new feeling? Or was he just giving it free rein now that he had other, new friends who talked about girls, dressed well, and washed? “Conventional cause I’m not a Satan-worshiper? Cause I don’t burn pages of the Bible every day? Cause I’m not living in Star Wars land and I didn’t quit high school or take two dozen muscle relaxants or get put in a psych center? Cause I practice personal hygiene? Cause I’m not ​gay?” “Okay okay! See I knew you would freak out.” Laramie shifted to a new track. “Only listen, what do you think I should tell ​them?” “Tell who?” “Your parents,” Laramie said urgently, impatiently. “About ​me!” ​Vines seemed to be twining their way out from the weird repetition of his mind, feeling for Weldin’s wrists and ankles. Weldin would at one time have just let them grow over him, thickening and leafing out, but now he felt compelled to pick them off, slap them away, maybe even sever them with a machete. “My parents? Why the hell does it matter what my parents think?” “I stop by and visit them a lot you know. Your mom would be okay with it but your dad wouldn’t because he doesn’t like me. He doesn’t hate me like my dad does, but he definitely doesn’t like me.” “He doesn’t ... why do you say that!” “He doesn’t like people with learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity, 9 dyslexia, manic depression, motor-skills deficit, low self-esteem and debilitating math phobia, I can tell you that.” Weldin just got up, wondering what his father had said to Laramie ‒ except that his father had not been able to say anything for months? It seemed that in Weldin’s absence Laramie had somehow taken up an imaginary residence in his family, felt compelled to take the place of his parents’ missing son, felt the need to undertake yet something else for which he was miserably unsuited. He lit another cigarette and started walking toward the bridge. Laramie followed closely and immediately, like a cloud of gnats. As they trod over the ties he told the story of his gayness: He had been riding in a car with Kelly Ryan and Frank Muhlena and Steve Indellini getting stoned, and somewhere on Route 13 they had picked up a hitchhiker. There had been some kind of conflict that Weldin didn’t understand, and then someone had gotten a blowjob from the hitchhiker, and somehow Laramie had ended up getting in the back seat and giving the hitchhiker a blowjob and enjoying it. Weldin stopped under the signal bridge, dragged on his cigarette and waited. It did not seem possible but he wanted keenly, definitely to return to Groves. He thought again of Caroline’s gold-green eyes in the sunlight on the stairs in her house. Laramie stopped beside him, swirling gnats, ready with more vines. “The funny thing was when it happened it was right after I had just seen your ​mom.​ Imagine if she knew. Imagine what she would think if she knew right after I saw her, I started out on the road toward self-discovery! Toward liking boys!” “What happened to being an asexual polymorphic being from Alpha Centauri?” Weldin asked, but Laramie did not smile. “Try to understand, Weldin. It’s discovery. It’s freedom.” A note of pleading entered his voice, 10 even of quiet pride. “Don’t you see? I’ve discovered my ​problem!” “Why do you need a problem?” Weldin said, and walked again, wiping and sheathing the machete. He spoke to the approaching bridge. “You could be missing your leg. Be blind. You could have fucking cancer man. You could have ... shit ‒ ” He could not keep the mocking tone out of his voice. “ ‒ You could have a dad who hates you and ​doesn’t​ buy you a computer.” “What exactly do you want from me?” Laramie challenged, following. “What do you want from me?” Weldin threw back, feeling that if he did not keep moving things were going to skid out of control. Now he wished he were not stoned. “Should I be all impressed with the new act? Like I was with the insane act? The Devil-worship act? The suicide act? The cut-myself-with-razorblades-and-show-everybody act? And now it’s the gay faggot act?” “You’re not answering my question,” Laramie said, triumphant and slightly dangerous. “I said ​ ant from ​me?” what do ​you w “Nothing!” Weldin said. “Just for you to ... nothing! Get serious! Stop needing me to tell you it’s okay. Get a damn job and keep it. Do your writing or whatever until somebody sees how good you are. Just ​do something.” “Go to a fancy school, which my parents could never afford, and then college because of course that’s the only real thing to do?” Weldin stopped and turned yet again; Laramie stopped too. It was like an idiotic dance step. “I’m there because it’s the only thing for me okay. It’s my future. It’s decided. It’s what I’ve gotta do. My dad went there, okay? That’s not something you have a choice about, when your dad went there.” “Hey, I know!” Laramie said, holding up a finger and gazing at a nearby point in the air as if inspiration were suddenly hovering there. “I’ll go to a rich fancy school and complain all the time about 11 how much it sucks even though it’s the only place I belong!” Then he cupped one hand over his mouth, still looking into the blue sky through his cloudy glasses. From his hand came a click and a burst of imitated static. “Progress report, Mr. Kowick?” he said in a radio voice. He answered himself in a normal voice. “Er ... yes. He still seems to be within the influence of the negative-reverse-antireality sphere.” Static. “What is the basis of your diagnosis, Mr. Kowick?” Normal voice. “He’s being a real bummer.” Something was creaking. It was the bridge, bringing a halt to all other matters. The massive counterweight was rising impossibly inside its cage. The span was actually coming down. “Train,” Weldin barked, a cleansing wedge of panic transfixing his chest. He leaped off the tracks and skidded down the heavy rocks, looking south. A twinkling yellow headlight was already visible. The train had just passed through Centerboro, and as he looked the light grew noticeably larger. Laramie was not with him; perhaps he had ditched off the other side. Weldin scrambled back up the rocks to look. There was his friend, actually lying down across the track, head on one polished rail and blue Keds crossed on the other in a stiff but leisurely pose. “What the fuck are you doing?” Weldin’s heart pounded. The headlight was growing and a throb was in the air. “This is where we part company Weldin old beast. Ahh. Such a beautiful autumn day. Warm sun, cool air, soon to be filled with the smell of blood and diesel.” “Cut this shit out.” Weldin shoved him with a boot but not too hard. Laramie was jostled but did not budge. “Almost forgot.” Laramie fumbled out his generic cigarettes and stuck another in his mouth. “Gotta light?” 12 “Get the fuck up before I drag you.” Laramie sat up, looking peeved, and looked from Weldin to the approaching headlight and back. “They light em on firing squads!” “Don’t fuck with trains! Get up before they have to put on the brakes, dumbass!” Laramie made a show of getting irritably to his feet, dusting himself off and stepping back over the rail in his own good time. “I’ll let it go this once,” he said. “Don’t want to put you through dealing with the cops, or watching while they chop me out of the wheels with an ax. So anyway, that guy in the car who I gave the blowjob to? Turns out we actually know him. He ... ” “They’re slowing down. They saw us.” Laramie looked annoyed at being interrupted. He squinted down the track through his dirty glasses. Weldin pulled him down the rocky slope by a shirtsleeve, to a safer spot, and they watched as the locomotive’s headlight bore down and its thunder grew louder and nearer. When Laramie tried to speak again his words were swept away in the humming doomsday roar and squeal from overhead. Weldin stared up, saw a golf-shirted engineer peering down at them suspiciously through aviator shades with one elbow on his windowsill. Then he was gone as the first massive, royal-blue locomotive glided by with its engines throttled down for the bridge. It was followed by another engine, then a squealing white tank car streaked with grime, brown boxcars, battered open gondolas, more and more cars. The engine noise dwindled and was replaced by the dumb squeal and boom of the cars being pulled behind it. Laramie stood impatiently, arms folded and one huge, flaplike sneaker tapping in the dirt, waiting to tell the rest of his story. When the lead engine had nearly reached the other side of the bridge Weldin got up. Without looking at Laramie he reclimbed the shifting stones toward the double sets of wheels which were 13 thudding past with the rhythm of a metallic heartbeat. Soon he could nearly touch the passing grab irons. There was a thin sound behind him that might have been Laramie shouting. He did not look back. Instead he looked down the train, gauging its remaining length, then turned and began jogging beside it. In his peripheral vision he saw Laramie start to run too, at a safer distance, yelling. Weldin ran faster. He was nearly keeping pace. The last car was coming up and it was a flatcar. Just as the empty rear coupler of the last flatcar passed, he side-leaped and sprinted between the rails. One hand caught the solid rear edge of the car, the other found the smooth iron of the coupler and he threw a leg up to straddle it. There was a dizzying sensation of ceasing all effort but going faster than ever. He rolled over, let his feet dangle and looked back at Laramie where he stood, receding, first waving his arms and then lowering them to duck his head and light a cigarette. He waved back as if it were for the last time. Bridge girders swished past. On both sides the canal stretched away under the sun, and he smelled rocks at low tide, grease, creosote, diesel smoke. From far up ahead came the steady throb of the engines. His next thought was of how the hell he was going to get off. 14 Chapter 18 Not many people knew about the trail that ran between the pond and the backs of the faculty homes along the West Drive. At one end it came out inconspicuously by the crew dock, at the edge of the water. At the other end, several hundred yards through thick beech and tulip poplar trees, it emerged just as subtly behind the old, rebuilt mill beside the road. It was a secret, hidden path onto campus from the main road. Some people had known about and used it; Caroline had occasionally found caches of empty beer cans there and once a length of clear red pipe with a blackened, tarry-smelling aluminum bowl ‒ a bong ‒ that she had turned over to her mystified father. Now she walked the path carrying her own contraband: a worn, old paperback book held tight under her arm, not at all illegal but still heavy with sensitive import. She had acquired it only this morning at breakfast, but had already memorized the note written on the title page in fresh, dashing, black ballpoint script: To Caro (who knows what that means): A little of my precious D.H. Imbibe this in deep draughts. More to come, when you’re ready. WEF If it were a brand-new copy with a shiny cover it would mean ... less. But this was ​his​ book, worn soft at the corners, with an older, sparser cover design that suggested his own college days ‒ part of the life he had brought with him to Groves years ago. Was it simply a mentor’s gift to a student protege, and that was all. Or was it a material token that she was now included, albeit discreetly, in his world, his life? ​ ith a​ daughter.​ He had been banished from both their lives, as he put it, He had been ​married w giving the matter a Shakespearean poignancy while making himself the wronged victim. He was thirty-five ‒ s​ he knew the number exactly. A romantic, grand, melancholy, seasoned and serious 15 number ‒ and such a startling mismatch when placed beside ... ​seventeen! Obviously there was a part of himself that he held apart from the other faculty and the school at large, just as she did. Like her he also wielded unusual power for his position at the school. She imagined him walking with her along the leaf-strewn path, discussing these things. What would they say to each other? What if he took her hand? She stopped when it began to feel too silly, shaking her head and smiling in spite of herself. A sound came from up ahead on the trail and she halted abruptly. It was a commotion in the leaves, like a dog digging but much more slow and regular. She was nearly at the school boundaries. It was a distinct swooshing of leaves coming closer, like something being dragged. She felt perfectly safe in these woods, but still she moved sideways, eyes fixed on the trees ahead, loafers rustling the leaves softly, until she was partly behind the gray, elephant-skinned trunk of a beech. The noise grew closer. She felt reassured that she was aware of it without it evidently being aware of her. A male figure in a navy windbreaker and jeans was half-wheeling, half-dragging a ten-speed bicycle with difficulty along the narrow path, through the deep leaves. He was also limping, stiff-legged, adding to his difficulty. With a pang of alarmed embarrassment she recognized Weldin Foulk, from this morning. He was in the act of sneaking back on campus, since ‒ it all made sudden sense ‒ he was on Bounds. She was literally seconds away from catching him. She had an impulse to turn around and walk the other way but stayed still, neither emerging from behind the tree nor seeking to conceal herself any further. Which meant that the next time he glanced up, he saw her. He stopped slump-shouldered and smiled at her weakly. Then he put his head down and began pushing toward her again, now with even more tired resignation. At about three feet away he ground to a halt completely, chin nearly to his handlebars, looking up with dark eyes from under his tousled hair. 16 “Hello again,” she said. “Hi. Yeah! Twice in one day.” Up close it was clear how scared he was. “Easier to bike out on the driveway.” “Yeah ... ” He looked in that direction as if he had considered the idea and couldn’t recall why he rejected it. “Are you hurt or something?” “Hay baler ran me offa the road. It’s not bad. A scrape.” She kept quiet for several seconds, perhaps just as Mr. French would have. “God punishes those who break Bounds, I guess.” “Yeah I’m sorry. I’m busted I know.” One knee of his jeans was badly torn, revealing hairy white leg and a bit of blood, and there were black smears on the cloth that might have been chain grease. He tried to smile at her. She thought the same thing she had this morning, that in some place other than Groves he might be considered fundamentally not bad looking in a puppy-dog sort of way. Cute even. He was just too slovenly and shy and sheepish-looking ever to be noticed here. Mixed realities and emotions came in a rush. He had been so polite this morning. He had asked her father to become his new mentor. His mother wanted so much for them to meet because of creepy Dr. Lenhart from the summer course. And, he had invited her to visit the Cave. The litany was already playing in her head: ​This is a disciplinary violation. You have twenty-four hours to turn yourself in. At the end of twenty-four hours I will be forced to turn ... “Where did you go?” she asked instead. 17 He hesitated. “Up to the C&D Canal.” “That’s like eight miles away.” “I know,” he said, and nodded toward his torn pants and wounded knee. “Believe me.” “Why would you want to go there?” He shrugged and smiled hopelessly. “Does it matter?” “You’re not drunk or anything. I don’t think. Are you?” “No.” He looked down, shrugged again and said, “I just went to get away. Collect fossils. It’s a place I just used to go.” “Doesn’t look like you collected very much.” In reply he fumbled in the pocket of his shirt and held something out. She took it, noting his grimy hands and nails and scraped knuckles. It was an oddly shaped brown rock, like a broken piece of fountain pen made of dark brown glass. She recalled a rainy biology field trip to these very same C&D spoil banks, back in third form. The word came instantly to her academically attuned mind. “Belamite.” “That’s right,” he said, with a real smile, as if this might be his ticket to getting off the hook for breaking Bounds. “You should show it to Mr. Ambrose.” “There’s already a ton of them over in the Science Building.” His eyes found the book under her arm. “You out here to read?” “Not here exactly. Down by the pond.” 18 “That’s nicer than the library or something.” He tilted his head to see the title, and she felt slightly affronted. “The Rainbow.” “It’s D.H. Lawrence,” she explained. “We just read ​Sons and Lovers​ for English and I liked it so I’m reading this on my own.” “Who do you have for English?” “Mr. French. AP. How about you?” “Wilford. We’re on ​Henry the Fourth.​ It’s okay, but I wouldn’t read it on my own.” He didn’t look up again, but fingered the brake levers of the bike. He wanted to move on but of course had to wait instead, because she had busted him. “The path comes out by the crew dock,” she said, and without another look at his face she stepped around him and continued along the path. From behind her: “I was off campus. I’m on Bounds remember?” “Good thing no one saw you,” she said brightly, and continued down the path thinking, ​just shut up, shut up. On the dock by the old mill she read ​The Rainbow. ​It seemed more like a dull exercise than a story, but she read on. She had the power to focus her attention at will on any task, any topic. She also had the power, to some extent, not to focus it on a topic. The topic she did not focus on was that she had just broken her own cardinal rule: never to use emotion as a basis for decisive action. 19 Chapter 19 Ann Phan, still famous throughout the school for making Tad Bivins pass out in Human Development class, had a daily schedule that did not allow much time for exploring. But Mrs. Flackman had not shown up to lead Aerobic Exercise class. The other girls had scattered joyfully at ten past the hour, giving up on their hour of twists, bends and jogging in place. That apparently meant the class was officially canceled, and that she was now at loose ends in the vast, silent unfamiliarity of the Athletic Building. She stood on the polished stone floor of the lobby looking at the gold and silver awards, helmets and mummified footballs in the trophy cases. After another ten minutes, with increasing confidence that Mrs. Flackman really was not going to show up and give her an Absence, she boldly decided to look around until she found a different way out of the building. Two different corridors, four doors and a broad, grand staircase led out of the lobby. The corridors looked dark and unpromising and the doors were all probably locked. That left the wide staircase. She ascended slowly, her hand small and brown on the massive oak bannister, into unfamiliar territory. At the top of the steps was a landing that looked down into an adjacent gym that had old, tiled walls and black padding on the floor, and was populated with shiny, complex-looking weightlifting machines but no people. Apparently no athletics went on at this time of the afternoon, except in her P.E. class. The stairs kept going up to the right. At the top was a set of heavy swinging doors, and when she stood on tiptoes to peer through the small, wire-reinforced windows she had the strange impression of looking out onto the deck of a ship. Beyond the doors was daylight, white-painted walls, light bulbs enclosed in white metal cages, a long, gray-floored corridor with a white railing on one side. A muffled 20 noise came from the other side of the door. It was a lonely, regular banging, like a tired person hammering nails. The noise got immediately louder as she pushed through the doors into one of the strangest places she had yet seen at Groves. Everything was white except the gray floor. A refreshing chill was in the air, which smelled of rubber, fresh paint, Band-Aids. Immediately to the left was the metal-tube railing, which had wire mesh tied onto it like a fence for a chicken yard. Below the railing was an empty room as bare and white as something in a hospital, spotless except for thin, red lines across the floor and the far wall. Daylight entered through a ceiling of domed skylights, through which blue sky and bare tree branches were visible. There appeared to be at least four or five more of the rooms along the walkway; you could go along and look down into them like a prison guard looking down into cells. It was from one of the ones farther along that the steady banging sound came. Cautiously, unsure she was even allowed in here, she stopped just short of the court with the noise and peered around the wall. It was a mild shock to recognize Karl Trogg, the tall, very silly one from Human Development. He was standing near the middle of the court, whacking a tiny black ball with a long, slender racket so that it hit the front wall of the court and bounced back. He swung the racket with sharp flicks, as if it were as light and as a flyswatter. On every stroke the ball hit the front wall just above the narrow, red line that ran across it horizontally, and every time it hit almost the same exact spot. Up close, the swish-click of the racket striking the ball was clearer. The total effect was that of a small whip being cracked briskly, rhythmically. Strangest of all, in his free left hand he held a paperback book, perfectly still, and appeared to be reading intently. The reading appeared to be completely separate from what his right arm was doing. 21 He turned a page with his thumb, and the arm with the racket kept up its mechanical, almost angry motion like a timekeeping device. He was dressed all in white except for a leaping blue cat on the back of his T-shirt and the word Slazenger. Against all the white his hair looked very dark. She watched in fascination, but soon felt she was eavesdropping. He could turn around at any moment and see her there, and she would have to say something. They had never spoken, although once in Human Development she had turned to see him looking at her. His eyes were so vivid blue that they had looked like pieces of sky. He was also very tall. In Human Development he seemed barely to be able to fit his legs under the desk. Here he looked much more natural and in proportion. And while in class he had always looked a little awkward and ungainly, and acted like a clown, here his ease and gracefulness were startling. She had never imagined it. He was an athlete. Maybe a good one. It seemed people were always laughing at Karl Trogg or saying unkind things about him. Krissy called him a ​dildo.​ She thought that someone like Trip Dowd was a ​babe.​ Indeed the whole school seemed to celebrate Trip Dowd, who clearly liked and still approached her, and the football players, and Dan Savage, the sandy-haired tennis star who was also in Human Development and in her Zoology class as well, but had beady, close-set eyes and a pointy nose. It was just another one of those things about Groves that was backwards. Because in ​her​ eyes, there were not many boys handsomer than Karl Trogg. She was about to withdraw when he tried to flip another page with his thumb but lost his grip on the book. He tried to recover it, but the ball was coming back from the wall and he had to decide between hitting it and catching the book. He looked from one to the other in a split second and tried to do both. The book fell. The racket caught the ball wrong and sent it on a wild trajectory up toward the skylight. “Crap!” he barked, so loud that she jumped. He swiped upward with the racket and missed, 22 but even when making a mistake he was graceful. The little black ball soared up, nearly touched the skylight, arced and fell. It fell straight to her. It was too late to escape. She automatically took a step back to catch it against her chest. It was warm and hard. He didn’t look up right away, but picked up the book tiredly and slapped it a few times against his pale thigh. He patted his pockets as if looking for another ball, found none. Only then did he glance up, maybe caring for the first time where his ball had gone. He froze, startled. Almost defensively she threw the ball down at him. He caught it deftly, and the brilliant blue eyes pinned her like nails. There was no way to leave now. He knew she had been standing there and watching. Her face started to flush; panic reared in her chest. But ... he was smiling! It was a huge smile, an enormous opening up of his face to her while he just stood there with his racket hanging from one hand and the book from the other. He seemed filled with joy and delight. It was as happy and welcoming and joyous a look as had been directed at her since she arrived at Groves. For a moment her panic spiraled at having brought a look of such joy to such eyes. “Where did you come from?” he asked, starting to laugh. “Just walking by,” she managed, aware of her frayed-necked U.S. Air Force sweatshirt, which actually belonged to her sister. At least she was not wearing her glasses. She pointed toward the front wall of the court. “How do you do that?” His smile became questioning. “Do what?” “How do you hit with ... the racket and read the book at the same time?” English was trying to desert her, as it often did. Only by staying calm would a real conversation be possible. “It’s a skill,” he said proudly. “Compartmentalization. Doing two unrelated things at the same 23 time. Good mental training.” He held up the book. ​“Of Mice and Men.​ It’s bosmic.” “You play on a team?” “Season starts in two weeks. Gotta be ready.” “So is this squash.” He laughed and she felt foolish, but there was no mockery in his face. “Yeah! Ever try it?” “No no! I’m just over here for P.E. exercise class. Mrs. Flackman never show up so I’m just looking around.” “Exercise counts as a sport?” “Yes,” she shot back quickly. “Sounds boring as shit!” She was slightly shocked, but he kept looking at her openly and made no apology. She replied, “It is, a little bit. But I like Mrs. Flackman.” “Her husband’s our Varsity squash coach. You know him?” “Yes. With his ... ” The words were not there. She just pointed to her right eye and made a face. He started laughing again. “Glass eye! Right! And he still drives the van to the mall! I went once when he was driving and we saw him in the arcade playing Pac-Man like a maniac. We saw him playing like this.” Karl dropped the book and the racket with a clatter, crouched and stood with head tilted and one eye closed, body weaving and both hands working imaginary buttons in the air. He looked very stupid and she had to laugh, and he kept doing it for a while. He was a good actor. It looked exactly like somebody playing Pac-Man with one eye. He even knew the way Mr. Flackman puckered his mouth. 24 “But he’s a bosmic coach,” he said, picking up the racket and thudding the strings against the heel of his other hand. “Even with one eye he’s the only one on the team who can beat me. Sometimes. If he had both eyes he could kick my ass every time.” He said it with feeling. He genuinely liked his coach. So he was an athlete as well, which also backward and made no sense since nobody laughed at or made fun of any other good athletes at the school. To be a top athlete at Groves seemed to guarantee great stature. Yet Karl was cussed at in the halls and called a ​dildo,​ whatever that was, by someone as fat and dumb as Krissy. Even Mrs. Hess seemed to treat him more scornfully that she did anyone else. “So you on the squash team?” “I am.” “Captain?” He looked a little disappointed. “You need to be elected by the team. Dan Savage is captain. Todd Von Ulm is co-captain. You know them?” “Dan’s in our class. You friends with him?” “Savage? Nah. We get along, but he’s a fuckface.” Shocked again at his language, which he seemed to regard as perfectly normal, she watched him turn away, toss up the little ball and slam it against the front wall as if it were Dan Savage. It was back to him in a second, and he smacked it several different ways with his flyswatter swing. His height and reach allowed him to be all over the court in just a step or two, and the speed of the ball was dizzying. The pace of the hitting was nearly double what he had been doing when she first saw him; he was showing off. He smacked it off the side wall so that it bounced to the front and came back, then smacked it off the opposite wall, then backhanded it after following its bounces around the back of the 25 court, then gave it a mighty whack that made it bounce from the front wall all the way to the back without touching the floor. She watched, wondering if their conversation was over. But before his final shot he glanced up for a second to check if she was still there. She found herself smiling. He hit another hard blow and the ball struck the front and sailed up in a high arc, once again straight to her, and she caught it in both hands, laughing. She wanted to clap but the ball was in her hands. She could only cry out: “Wow! Good job! Now that’s a fun sport!” He was not even breathing hard. “Great for getting frustrations out. Ever try it?” “No. My roommate has a racket, but I never ever seen her pick it up.” He looked interested. “Who’s your roommate?” Ann told him it was Krissy Mamouzelos and he made a face, just like other people did, because Krissy was fat and dumb and even called herself fat and dumb. Still it was strange and interesting to see that he appeared to look down on Krissy just as scornfully as she looked down on him. Did all the boys feel this way? She felt a twinge of pity for Krissy that was not completely unpleasant. “Want to come down and hit some with me?” he invited, raising his dark arched eyebrows and holding up the skinny racket by the throat with his thumb and forefinger. Then he seemed about to crack up again. “Or just talk? I promise not to pass out, like Tad!” Distrust clouded her mind and he must have detected it. In the gentlest and most genuine voice she had yet heard at Groves he said, “That was so fuckin’ funny. Maybe you don’t see it, but trust me you were excellent that day. Excellent. Come down and hit some. You got time.” He was pure sincerity. From his eyes and voice it was clear he really meant what he said, and now he just wanted her to enjoy what he was enjoying. He was happy someone had come into his empty white world, where the only sound had been lonely whacking. 26 “C’mon. It’s bosmic!” “I really need to go.” “But your exercise class is canceled! I’ll show you a forehand. It’s easier than you think. I taught Weldin Foulk and Tony Putney in the same afternoon.” She looked studiously at the ball in her fingers. A girl should never be too eager, her mother had said. The ball was in fact not black but dark, dark green, shiny and old-looking and scuffed with the white of the walls. It had a tiny blue dot. She peered down at him, then quickly threw it down for the second time. He caught it just as deftly, with a growing smile. “How do I get down to where you are?” “Keep going, then down the spiral steps and you’ll be in a dark hall. It’s door number three.” He adopted the deep voice of a television announcer and held the butt of the racket up to his lips like a microphone. “Come down and see ... what’s behind ... Door ... Number ... Three!” The corridor at the bottom of the steps was too dark even to see the faces in the team photos along the wall, but as she made her way along there was a thud and a squeak and a bit of daylight spilled in. She passed through a tiny hatchway no more than three feet tall, emerging into a white world of close walls, no windows and Karl Trogg. He thudded the thick door shut behind her with the sound of a heavy old book being shut. The door seemed to disappear into the whiteness of the wall. The sense of closeness and isolation with him was immediate. “Karl Trogg” he said in a courtly way, and offered his palm turned slightly up. She took the huge, moist hand for a moment and just barely squeezed. “Ya I know. Ann.” 27 Up close he was towering. But the racket, when he handed it to her, was even more intimidating. It was lighter than she expected. The cloth grip was damp. She gripped it hard, determined not to make a fool of herself. For the first time she noticed faint black scuffs on the side walls, fanning out in a spray pattern from where they were standing like dirt sprayed on the side of a bus. She missed the first two balls he dropped, but hit the third and several more. He said, “Ho baby!” when she hit a shot that touched the side wall and the front wall and then dropped to the floor, but she was concentrating too hard even to smile back. Only once did he take her racket hand in his, to twist it sharply and show how to flick with her wrist. His touch was soft and gentle and made her feel very small. “Better than exercise class?” he asked when she had thanked him and handed the racket back, fighting the urge to wipe her hands on her sweatpants. She felt flushed and excited, but some natural mechanism said that she had stayed long enough for a first encounter. “You should go for it,” he persisted. “Get on a team.” She pushed her hair off her face, shook her head. “I don’t like to play sports. I’d like to watch this though. A real game sometime.” “Talk to Flackman. We need a manager actually. For equipment, keeping score and scheduling and stuff. You might like it. I can mention it to him. It’s cool. We get to go on lotsa long trips and miss dinner. Philly, Baltimore, New Jersey. We always get pizza and stuff.” He looked around disinterestedly. “Gets you outta this place at least. As a manager you still get credit for taking a sport.” Her “Okay!” was meant to be appreciative and polite, but she stayed excited. It was like the little hatchway had opened out into new possibilities that had not existed this morning. Traveling 28 sounded exciting. It was a solution to what sport she would take. More than anything she marveled that in this cold and lonely part of the Athletic Building, the last place on earth where anyone would have expected it, she might have just met a new friend. A tall, male friend with dark hair, fair skin and blue eyes. Awkwardness overcame them again as she thanked him and made her escape. The hatchway that had opened up these possibilities proved difficult to open back up again so she could get out. In fact, she had to step aside so that he could show her how to get it open. 29 Chapter 2o As a fiction romantic I never expected All these things to happen in real life. - Buzzcocks Chicago played softly from the stereo. Wick French, dean of students, looked down intently at the thick, dark, parted hair. This girl was in the groove. She was getting the right combination of quickness and lightness, the right womanly back-and-forth, a skill would serve her well when she moved on to college. Little clicking sounds. A slurp of broken suction. Watch her work for it! Sky-blue T-shirt. Babydoll. That’s what those sleeves are called. No need to remove it. He had seen those tiny tits before and they were not worth the interruption. In the dark study of his apartment the only light came from the reading light on his desk, where his heavy volume of ​Ananga Ranga, The Hindu Art of Love ​still lay open. It never failed to get them going, yet was cloaked in a kind of academic, ethnographic guiltlessness. Nothing wrong with showing students The dance over in the Main Building ensured they would not be disturbed. They would of course both miss the big announcement tonight – the epic unveiling – but in the words of the girl kneeling before him that was ​no biggie.​ This was infinitely better. This was the reward. This was how it felt to have arrived. Like everything, it did have its frustrating side. Even though the seventeen-year-old rich girl kneeling before him would do anything she was told and love it even more for being told, there was still a sense of hurriedness and furtiveness. You had to accept that. It was the age. They were used to 30 doing everything in a hurry, especially if they thought it might be against the rules. She stopped and sat back a little, leaving him cold and exposed. Resting her mouth. He waited patiently. From the speakers Peter Cetera softly sang: if you leave me now, you’ll take away the biggest part of me. After a long enough interval he prompted her to resume. She looked up for a second for approval, which he granted with a fatherly nod, then she leaned forward obediently and resumed her task. She was good and getting better, developing her own style and learning quickly what worked best. Still, there was nothing wrong with a lack of skill. A really awkward, clumsy approach was in fact a reminder that she was fresh, unexplored, maybe a little unripe, maybe even doing this for the first time. She stopped again but he was not annoyed ‒ at least not yet. “Everything okay?” he rumbled, his voice surprisingly distinct in the stillness. She looked up with shining eyes and lips and made a face. She had big green eyes – bedroom eyes (even though they were in the study; the bedroom was off-limits) – and a tiny, delicate-lipped mouth that was probably her best feature. Only the nose was sort of wrong. It was kind of long and rounded and stayed the same width almost up to her eyes, like one of those monkeys. But in the dim light her face was pale and youthful in its frame of dark tumbling hair. When she spoke her voice was also surprisingly loud and matter-of-fact, like the tentative chuckle that preceded it. “I’m out of spit.” In reply he leaned precariously over to the desk again and retrieved the little metal tin of pastelline candies. Feeling a little awkward he twisted it open, trying not to seem rushed. It was like listening to a beautiful, seamless, concerto that was building to a crescendo, and having to suddenly jump up and flip the record. 31 “Lemon again please,” she said softly. Like a priest he placed the candy drop on her tongue. Her pose as he did so was priceless. With a wave of desire he realized again that this was the pose he sought – the perfect moment when they, on their knees, projected the tongue to receive the piece of candy. She took it, smiled at him, worked on it for a few seconds and then started again. Respect. Respect was the thing. In a woman, no posture expressed it better. It was the ideal position for a woman, on which he insisted and which they never challenged and even seemed eager to assume. They were suppliants, working willingly at their chance to enter the world of grown-ups and influence, glad for the chance to share in his power, his aura, his sphere. It was not a large sphere. He had no illusions of being a big fish in a big ocean, and it was necessary to be very careful, especially now that he had no more wife or daughter to render him safe and wholesome. Now he had to become a poetic figure – a lonely, stoic figure wandering the grounds, married to his duties as teacher and dean, and to his beloved books. He would speak little. He would be slightly unkempt but elegantly aristocratic, and mysterious. He would pick his girls oh so carefully. It was such an engaging train of thought that when she started going faster and harder, becoming almost rough, he remembered where he was and felt with alarm that he had softened. Thinking it was her doing, she was going at it with even more urgency. He concentrated and was happy again. She slowed down, her rhythm getting ragged. She was getting tired. What a trooper. He resolved to keep his thoughts on her. Only once again they wandered, this time to his true soul mate, the one he could see himself shepherding through college, marrying and being with for the rest of his life. Someone statuesque, 32 classically beautiful, humorous and complementary of the Wick French he had discovered inside himself since his arrival at Groves. Someone loving and brilliant who would mix the closeness of a wife with the respect and adoration of a daughter. He had already had the two separately. Neither one quite cut it. His anticipation grew as “If You Leave Me Now” ended and “Colour My World” began. He felt a flicker of embarrassment that it was taking so long; at this rate the dance was going to be over before he could get her out the door. But she didn’t seem discouraged. That had been the basis of their initial attraction. She was full of bubbly agreeableness. She was the easiest of the easy. She also had top-notch grades, had openly flirted with him and was close to no one else on the faculty. She was the proctor of the dorm, which practically made it all a foregone conclusion – no other student had a duty to keep an eye on her activities. Then there was the icing on the cake, the bow on the birthday present: She had special permission to stay at the school during vacations since her parents were on the other side of the world at some Foreign Service post in Beirut. Bingo. Thanksgiving had been the first time he had done a girl in her own dorm room, in her own bed. It had been ten minutes of utter, joyous abandon. He just wished she were a little cuter – a little more all-American. A little more like ... his goddess. His angel. He shut his eyes and tried to imagine that goddess on her knees on the genuine Santa Fe Navajo rug, acquired in . It was difficult. Somehow she didn’t quite fit with this particular activity. A girl like her would require more emotional involvement, more illusion of equality. She would need to have constant reminders of devotion and meaningful presents. Expensive presents, even, each with an alibi, so she could tell friends that this bracelet was from her uncle, or this little eighteen-hundred volume of Milton was a family heirloom. That was the kind of care that would have to be taken, especially with the daughter of a colleague. 33 Still, there was still another semester to go, and things had a way of happening more quickly as you got closer to graduation. Things were moving along. The key was to move slowly, to walk away from opportunities like in her room just the other night, when he had actually touched her in her nightgown and felt her start like a young cat – to let her know that these things were far from his mind, and that he regarded her with the protective tenderness of a parent. To listen to her. The exact word he had learned to use was ​sounding-board.​ They keyed on it. It made him non-threateningly inert, yet helpful and authoritative in a way that they might even consider fatherly. For during the months that they were in school, they essentially had no fathers. Many of them didn’t have any the rest of the year either. Their fathers were either overseas, divorced and remarried or virtually living in federal buildings or law offices in Washington. He found a measure of nobility in providing something these girls had probably never gotten: a father figure. A father figure for the Eighties. His angel did have a father, of course, only no mother. That was a puzzle. But he was working on it. She liked him. They had a little thing. Plus, as head of the travel scholarship selection committee, he had leverage. It posed an interesting challenge, which might lead anywhere. He was always up for a new challenge. Colour my world ... with hope ... of loving you. Vigor, he thought, placing his large hands on the small, soft head below and before him. Enthusiasm. Persistence. She looked up momentarily and he smiled down at the sight. Reassured, she smiled back and went back to work, tossing her brown hair over her shoulder. A moment later she fumbled with something and put a little gold medallion over her shoulder too, a little square with a circle and a 34 triangle inside. Then she resumed in earnest, committing her whole body to the home stretch. He had just closed his eyes again, inflaming himself with the thought that he had waited more than a week for this and she was about to find that out in a big way, when a distant voice came through the wall of his study from the common room. A bored girl’s voice called, “Coooourtney, Toooooony’s here.” A moment later a male voice, even more distant, started calling her name in in the mournful tone of a lost puppy. She pulled away before he could stop her – the ultimate insult. He was left wet and cold. “Oh my God,” she said, grabbing for her shirt, her Walt Whitman. “I was supposed to meet him right after dinner.” In two ghastly minutes she was gone, slipping out the back door of the apartment. He had not spoken a word while she frantically arranged herself. It seemed there had been a hint of female triumph in it. He had stowed his oar again with as much dignity as possible, which wasn’t much. When she was gone he surrendered to a lively black rage, aggravated by the steely ache in his groin. Turning toward the dim kitchenette he spotted her spiral notebook on the dining table, forgotten, still open to pages of neat notes in green and blue felt-tip pen. He got a devilish idea and walked over to it. He stood there, aching. He tried to get excited about the idea but could not. Finally he just smacked the book off the table, so that it hit the wall and dropped to the floor with a helpless flapping of pages. 35 Chapter 23 Children of the pleasure culture We must be grateful for what we’ve got Happy smiles in sunny climes So don’t upset the ice cream cart - Gang of Four Ann Phan was having the best night of her life. Trip Dowd was sure of it. She was smiling non-stop, meeting new people and being accepted by them. They had to, because she was with him. She was even earning the smiles and approving looks of faculty members, who were looking on like protective parents. Trip was filled with benevolent pleasure and the knowledge that he was using his power for a noble purpose. Shy, serious Ann was coming out of her shell and turning into a Groves girl before everyone’s eyes. The only blemish on the evening was the way she was dressed: The bell-bottom khaki pants and plaid, wide-collared blouse made her stick out. And the big glasses were back, and they were just totally scurve. Why had she not worn the contacts? Other than that he couldn’t complain. He had been afraid that she would dance in a way that would embarrass him, but in that regard he was safe. She danced well, following his example and barely moving her body at all. He had been afraid she would try to express herself too much. That was definitely something to avoid. But she did not. She was as cool and unimpressed looking as any Meg Layton or Ann Layton or even Caroline van Cleef. In fact it was amazing how, in spite of her department-store clothes, she could blend in with the right moves, expressions, postures and body language. He felt himself expanding in her eyes and in the eyes of the school. He had discovered her. He had bestowed popularity on her like a gift, and in doing so had given her Groves itself as a gift. 36 That took some talent. Under it all lay the deeply interesting certainty that she was going to owe him – big time. Now Erdman was ahead of them in the Cloister. The timing was perfect, though he would have to tone down his usual act for the benefit of Ann. Girls were different about things like that. He would also have to be quick; it was nearly nine o’clock on his L.L. Bean watch. “Hey Erdman,” he called, and everyone looked up except Erdman, as usual. One of Erdman’s friends poked him hurriedly to inform him of Trip’s approach. “Hey Erdman you know what I heard?” he asked in a voice everyone would hear except Erdman. Erdman furrowed his brow and looked down at him. “I heard that when you were born the doctor took one look at you and slapped your mother.” Erdman looked quizzical, but interested to be engaged in conversation with Trip Dowd. “I heard your mother’s like a steering wheel, Erdman! Everybody gets a turn.” As he said it Trip began tapping his wrist. Recognition dawned across Erdman’s face and he grinned broadly, tugging up one sleeve to check his huge, black watch. Onlookers chuckled. “Eight-fifty-five!” he shouted proudly. “Thanks Turdman!” said Trip, giving him a hearty slap on the shoulder. There were a few snorts of laughter, even from Erdman’s friends. Erdman grinned and nodded in acknowledgment. Ann batted him on the shoulder lightly as they were going in the doors to the dining room. “You’re terrible!” she said, wrinkling her brow, but you could tell she didn’t mean it. “He knows I’m playing,” Trip said. Then he stopped and looked at her earnestly. “Really. He 37 knows. We’re friends. And I think it’s so great that they gave him the opportunity to come here.” The Dining Room was a cavern of noise and pulsating red and purple light. The female figure of Learning in the mural by the south entrance frowned at it all, but in the red gloom she was all but invisible. “Free Bird” was playing. It was too late in the song to dance now, and it was probably the last song before the announcement, so he sat down on the steps from the Main Common Room and she sat down tentatively beside him, as if unsure if she had permission. She held her cup of Coke from the Student Center in both hands. They had gone over there to check out the action, but he had steered them back here quickly when he saw no one was there. Johnny and Hugh were both out on the floor dancing, with Gretch and Meg Layton, and some second and third-form boys were dancing stiffly with some uncomfortable-looking girls from their class. There was Nick Nickson with Louisa, and Charles Winans with Darcy Dunkelberger draped around his neck and pressed against his crotch. They were the only couple still slow dancing through the fast, rocking second part of the song. Lounging by the windows were the Cave trash, Weldin Foulk, the scraggly Mazer and Tony Putney. “Look at Putney over there,” he shouted sideways to Ann, pointing. “Can’t believe he can show his face in public after what happened at the Trials. Hear about that?” He turned to look at her and was alarmed: She was gazing out the window into the cloister. To anyone else she had to look completely bored sitting next to him. “Look at that,” he shouted over the music, louder, pointing to the far end of the dining room where the stereo setup was. Todd Draper was at the controls, wearing headphones and adjusting knobs amid a phalanx of donated speakers. Ann strained to look. “That’s some of the best stereo equipment in 38 this school over there. Those ones on the ends are mine. Infinities. Eighty watts. They sound even better on my system, though.” She nodded with raised eyebrows. He wondered if she had understood or even heard. “Sometime I’ll put ’em in my windows and crank ’em over the back lawn for you,” he offered. She smiled. He smiled back and wondered again if she had even understood what he had said. He was impatient now; Hugh and Johnny were out there making progress on the floor, and here he sat on the steps like a third-former. But they had to understand that he was in unexplored territory. They would have to understand his need to go slow. He needed a slow song. Slow songs really let you know what kind of progress you were making. He resolved to go have a word with Todd Draper. Hugh nodded at him from the floor and raised his red eyebrows. Trip looked back with a frozen grin, torn between two worlds. Failure would be horribly embarrassing. Then she was leaning over into his ear, her shoulder bumping his briefly. She said something indistinguishable. He turned abruptly. “What? She leaned over again, so close this time that her ugly glasses nearly touched his face. She needed to go get her contacts. He wondered how to suggest it. “What?” he hollered again. She leaned away and nearly gave up, but then the song started fading out. The sound of people talking became audible again. She pointed discreetly with her thumb at Tad Bivins, who had been dancing with Julie Alper over by the windows. “There’s Tad,” she said. “He looks better now.” He laughed out loud, rounding on her. “Could you believe that? That was incredible! How 39 much of a reject do you have to be to pass out like that? That was unreal!” She laughed too and leaned close, saying, “I was very worried, you know? That day when he fell? I thought he was badly hurt!” “Oh, well, we all did,” Trip said, immediately. “In fact, I was thinking that exact same thing. And that was great the way you went right to him like that and checked his pulse. Do you have first-aid training or something?” She smelled very, very good. She nodded enthusiastically. “I took some over the summer at where my brother-in-law works. I want to be a doctor.” She looked embarrassed to have said it right out like that, and he didn’t blame her. “Cool,” he said. “You’re going to the right school for that. Any pre-med program will take you after you’ve gone here. This is the best darn school in the country.” The dancers milled over to the sides of the dining room. At the opposite end of the room the normal lights suddenly went on, illuminating the mural with its fresh-faced boys. Trip felt a surge of anticipation. This was it. The headmaster was there, casual in green corduroys and a Lacoste sweater. He was testing the microphone while his wife laughed and poked him. This was definitely it. “What are they doing?” Ann asked. “Shhh!” Trip said. The mike squeaked and crunched a few times, and then the Headmaster started talking about what a great Trials it had been and how this was the finest crew team ever at the finest school ever. Trip’s attention was focused on the folded piece of paper he held in his left hand. Finally he unfolded it and put on his reading glasses. 40 “First boat,” he announced, “for the Spring 1982 season!” There was cheering, and he read off names. After Andrew Cowden he read Evan Weisenberger, and over by the kitchen doors Evan’s friends went wild and started jumping all over him. Tony Putney turned away in disgust and bolted out of the dining room. He came right past where they were sitting, and Trip watched him with satisfaction and relief. Having a Cavite on the boat would have been a real shame. The best was yet to come. When Charles Winans’ name was read Trip knew he had arrived. Winans hadn’t made stroke. His heart swelled with triumph and tension at the same time. He had made it to the top of another sport. He ruled. He jammed. “Rounding out this fine boat, with the anticipation of truly the finest season, is stroke of First Boat. Stroke for the Spring 1982 season is? Trip Dowd!” Ann batted his leg and looked at him in disbelief, mouth open. She probably really hadn’t known. The wild cheering, having everyone looking at the two of them ... it was all part of a whole new world for her. He stood up, trying to quiet the tumult by raising both hands. He floated on a sea of adulation and applause from students, faculty, the headmaster, his headmaster’s wife. One of the kitchen workers was refilling the punch cooler and not clapping, which was troubling, but otherwise they all saw him. They all were looking at him. They all saw Ann as well. He reveled in the happiness he had brought to the room. He thought of his first day at Groves, trophies he had already won, his father admonishing him to attack his Groves experience with Vigor, Enthusiasm and Persistence. It finally began to die down, but the Headmaster did not relinquish the microphone. Instead he heaved his pear-shaped frame up onto a bench and held up his hand for silence. He looked more serious