An Off Year (7 page)

“Hold on one second,” she instructed me and put the device to her ear. “Hey, rock star. What's up? What happened with—are you serious? No way. Well, fuck him, then. Yeah. Listen, can I call you back? I'm out right now. Okay. Bye!” I looked around the coffeehouse while she talked. I didn't know if it was rude for me to stare at her while she had her other conversation or whatever.

“Sorry about that,” she said, shoving her device back in her bag. “That was my roommate, Liz. Guy stuff.”

“Oh yeah? What's your roommate like?'

“She's great.”

“Good!” I hoped I sounded sincere. I would have rather heard stories about a horrible roommate, one who made her own granola and washed her underwear in the sink and hung it to dry all over the room. Or, better yet, a cheerleader. I felt bad wishing that I could hear a few complaining stories from Kate, but it would have made me feel better to offer her some comfort too than to just sit there and listen to how awesome everything was.

“I didn't think I'd like her when we first met. She's from New York, and at first she seemed, I dunno, Miss Popularity. She already knew, like, twenty people on our floor, and she brought a case of beer with her. I was, like, the two of us have nothing in common. But we got to know each other a little bit more and now she's awesome. Really fun, really smart. We have a good time. I might go with her to her house in the Hamptons this summer.”

“Good!” I said again, and suddenly felt a little self-conscious about how greasy my dirty hair felt and the ink stain on my jeans. I crossed one leg under the other. I wished I had something to say that was better than “Well, my roommate has a car and cooks dinner every night” (but Kate already knew that about my dad).

I ended up telling the truth instead of trying to be upbeat and act like things were great. “I don't know what I'm doing, Kate. I don't know what happened. I have no plan. This was not very well thought out. I'm sure that twenty years from now, I'll wish I had learned to play the harmonium or written a book or gone backpacking, but I don't have any desire to do anything. That's what worries me.” While I was talking, she pulled a small white patent leather cosmetics case out of her bag and, from that, a white plastic box, which she opened up. She pushed a tiny blue pill through a foil blister pack. She and Germaine looked like they were on the same brand of pill.

“Seeing anyone special?” I asked.

“Sorry,” she said. “I have to take these the same time every day and I'm never up early enough to take them in the morning.”

“Gotcha,” I said.

“And no, not any one particular person,” she said.

“Cool,” I said. I really didn't feel like talking about boys.

“So anyway, you're too cool for school,” she said. “Literally. That's what I think.”

“I don't think I'm too anything for school,” I said.

“Don't overthink it,” she said, looking me in the eye. “I think you'll be fine.”

“Oh yeah?” I asked. “How do you know?”

“I don't know,” she said. “You should come visit me.”

“I should.” That would be fun, although I got the impression she didn't totally mean it. Usually when we made plans, it was “Let's go to the House on the Rock
next week
, let's meet at the coffeehouse
tomorrow
, let's hang out
in an hour.
”

“You'll be fine,” she said again. “You seem fine to me.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I miss you.”

“Hey, remember that time we poured glitter on Hank Thedford's car after he pushed me in the pool senior year?” she asked.

“He was so pissed.”

“And his friends called it the FairyMobile.” We laughed, but something about this sudden reminiscing felt strange. That had only happened a year ago.

“Hey, that's crazy about Mike, don't you think?” she asked, after a second.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“I saw him a few nights ago.”

“Where?”

“At the Cellar.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Everyone from high school was there the night before Thanksgiving,” she said. I looked hard at her.

“Everyone?”
Everyone
used to describe a group of people was one of my pet peeves. Whenever anybody said
Everyone
is going or
Everyone
was there, I was not a part of that
Everyone
.

“Everyone with a fake I.D.,” she said, taking a sip from her drink so she didn't have to look at me. My face grew hot, but I guess I couldn't really feel that left out. I wouldn't have been able to get in the stupid bar even if I had wanted to. And I hadn't. But why did Kate even want to go, let alone have an I.D.?

“You have one now?” I asked.

“It's the worst ever. I think that the guys at the bar just let me in because they'd never seen me before.”

“Let me see it.”

“I lent it to Meg for the rest of the weekend,” she said. “Sorry.”

One of the reasons I hadn't talked to Meg since junior year was that she accused me of pathetically following Mike around like a puppy. I said, “At least I'm a puppy, not a cow,” and we never spoke again. Kate had thought it was pretty funny at the time, especially since she was the one who originally said that Meg seemed sort of cowlike as she moved slowly through the halls at school, making sure everyone got a good look at her huge, braless boobs. I guessed they were friends now.

“Sounds fun,” I said, taking a sip of my frothy maple coffee concoction. It was cold by then.

“Anyway, Mike's transferring schools,” she said. “The University of Kansas.”

“What? Why?”

“To be with Wendy. She goes there.”

“He's still with Wendy Maloney?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow,” I said. “He's transferring from Harvard to . . .”

“Yeah.”

“For a girl. From our high school.” I could see doing something like that for a really special girl, like maybe a princess, or Oprah, but not old Wendy Maloney. I didn't actually know anything that was technically wrong with Wendy, but I wouldn't leave Harvard to move to Kansas for her.

“Yeah,” she said, taking another sip of her drink. “It's sort of romantic.”

“Get the fuck out of here! That's not romantic at all! It's stupid,” was what I wanted to say. But I didn't. I just took another sip of my cold drink and wondered that maybe since he was also doing something colossally dumb, it wouldn't be that strange talking to Mike after all. It couldn't have felt any odder than talking to Kate, who seemed to have suddenly become possessed. Bits of the old Kate still poked through, but there was something else in there as well.

When we left, she gave me the one-armed hug but also knocked over some kid's Jenga tower, pretending it was an accident. Usually after I hung out with Kate, I felt refreshed, renewed, even inspired to go
do
something. I felt half empty this time, though.

I had to admit,
the news about Mike intrigued me. Declining to go to college for no good reason seemed like a dumb idea, but transferring from Harvard to the University of Kansas—for a girl—seemed pretty dumb as well. I wondered what was going through Mike's mind. Maybe he needed me as a friend. Maybe I also just needed to talk to him, because I was bored, because I was lonely, because Jane had told me to, because some part of me had to see if what was happening to Kate was also happening to Mike. Each time we'd talked since Thanksgiving, she mentioned some new guy that she had a crush on or was hooking up with (and I learned that “hooking up” in college means “having sex” and not “kissing or anything else” the way it did in high school). It seemed to be a different guy each week. I was having a hard time telling the difference between these guys—or caring. If Mike was also turning into a college clone, then I wouldn't have to think about him anymore.

One day, when both Dad and Germaine were out of the house, I sat down at the desk that was in the dark corner of our kitchen. I needed the quiet to think. I stared at the computer screen hard until I got mad at it for not giving me a sign one way or another what I should do. Then I let my eyes go out of focus as I debated. My brain hurt. It felt like I hadn't really had to think that hard about anything for a while.

Finally, I opened up a new e-mail.
Hey,
I typed.
What's up?

I hit send before I had time to rethink it. So I wasn't exactly spilling my guts out. But I had finally e-mailed Mike. Now I could quit worrying about whether to e-mail him and start worrying about whether he would write me back, whether he would get the e-mail, or whether he would ignore the e-mail.

 

 

Other than the painful-yet-admittedly-kind-of-fun anticipation of waiting to see if Mike would write me back, Christmas was crappy. I honestly don't know why I would have expected it to be otherwise; it wasn't like I had done anything to deserve much more than a lump of coal in my stocking. The year before, I had received lots of stuff to take to college: a new laptop (which Josh ended up appropriating), some reference books that I'd probably never use, little knickknacks for my dorm room. This year, Dad got me a college guide.

“Are you serious?” I asked after I opened the present. We'd had our usual Christmas dinner of Popeye's fried chicken around the dining table and now we were upstairs in the family room, sitting on the couches by the tree (which I had decorated this year in shades of purple and gold) and listening to the cheesy Christmas carols radio station while Superhero went nuts with a pig-ear chew toy. I'd gotten the same book junior year. Only now I had a more up-to-date version. I was rarely that rude, but I couldn't help myself.

“We stop getting more than one present each from Dad after we graduate from high school, remember?” said Josh. “Family policy.”

“Oh, was that why you didn't want to go to college?” added Germaine. “Because you didn't want to stop getting presents?”

“Yeah, something like that,” I said, staring at Dad, who was watching the floor, swirling around the one glass of expensive Scotch he let himself have per year. I was pissed. I was annoyed at myself for being pissed, because I felt like I was too old to be mad about what I got or didn't get for Christmas. But it wasn't really that. I didn't like passive-aggressive hints. He had been doing things lately like leaving me clippings from newspapers about picking the right college, or how many great amenities freshmen were getting lately. I'd rather he pound a huge drum and stomp around the house chanting “Back to school, back to school” than this.

“Well, thanks,” I said, putting it aside.

“Your mom sent over some stuff,” said Dad, pointing to a big black shiny shopping bag next to the tree. This had better be a redeeming present or else I was giving up Christmas forever. Inside the bag was a black leather jacket from Italy. Admittedly, it was pretty cool, but it certainly wouldn't be warm enough in Chicago to wear anytime soon. Also included was a cardboard tube. I could tell that the jacket was going to be clothing when I saw the box, but this was a surprise.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I don't know!” said Dad, while Josh and Germaine tried on their jackets. We didn't mind if we all got the same present from her, because if it was good, we all got something good, and if it was bad, we could all complain together.

I pulled the metal cap out of one side of the tube and extracted a big poster. It was so huge that when I spread my arms to see it, it still didn't open up all the way. We had to put two mugs from our hot chocolate down on the ends to see what it was.

“Sexy,” said Josh. It was a black-and-white photo of a couple kissing in some café. I think it was French. The café, not the kissing.

“What is this?”

“There's a card,” Dad said, handing me a business card with some scrawling on the back.

For your dorm!!!! Xoxox,
Mom had written on it.

“That's great,” I said. “She doesn't remember that I'm not in college.”

“Maybe it's for when you go back,” said Josh.

“If you go back,” said Germaine.

I stood up. “Where do we keep the wine?” I asked, picking up one of the mugs and letting the poster roll back up with a snap. “I need a drink.”

“Shut up,” said Dad.

I left the college book in the family room for a few days, hoping that maybe somebody would make it disappear. I would rather get a booster shot and my teeth cleaned simultaneously than have to look at, and apply to, colleges again.