Hold On Tight (20 page)

“What kind of charges?” Jonathan was saying.

David looked at Jonathan, who was covering one ear with his hand and listening to his cellphone with the other. “It all started yesterday, when I got home from school, and my parents and Sara-Beth were doing the routine.”

“The routine?”

“Yeah, you know.”

“From
Mike's Princesses?
The whole I'm Millie, I'm Tanya, I'm Courtney thing? Christ.”

“How much was charged to Greenpeace?” Jonathan was saying into the phone.

“Apparently it's part of her therapy. Getting out the bad feelings or something. Anyway, I got away from it and decided that if that's what she needed I should just let it happen, you know? But when I got home today they were doing it and they told me—”

“What, what?”

“—that they needed a person to do Mike's part. That this was something we had to do as a
family.'

“No way,” Mickey said. “The whole swinging-them-around thing?”

Jonathan shushed them, so they lowered their voices.

“You didn't do it, did you?” Arno whispered.

“No way.” David shook his head like he still couldn't believe it.
“Now
do you understand why I had to run up a freeway off-ramp to find you?”

Mickey and Arno nodded. “You can't date your fake sister,” Arno said woefully.

“I appreciate the call, but I think those charges are all correct,” Jonathan was saying. “I know, it
was
a big spending day for me. Thanks so much.” He hung up and rolled his eyes at his friends. “I mean, how much do I spend on clothes, and Chase needs to call me about a donation to Greenpeace? Sheesh.”

The guys all gave him bemused looks.

“So, David, what the hell happened, man?”

David spread his long legs and leaned back in his seat. “Can I tell you later, dude? I just want to stop thinking about it for a minute.”

“Okay,” Jonathan said. Then his phone rang again. “This is Jonathan,” he said into the receiver, waving apologetically at David. “Oh hey, Ted … Yeah, man, it was amazing seeing you too. Well, the thing is … do you remember this Lily Maynard girl?”

“So how'd the new photos come out?” David asked Mickey.

“Oh, they're freaking awesome!” he replied.

“I know. I know I shouldn't have done that,” Jonathan was saying.

“You gonna change up your lecture at all?” Arno asked.

“Nah, freestyle worked last time,” Mickey said,
confidently rearranging his robe. Finally the traffic had started to move.

“No, I think I'm into this other girl… yeah, she's a real do-gooder … well, you know, but I want you to meet her … so you'll call her and straighten it out?” Jonathan was saying into his phone. “Man, you're the best. I'll call you soon, okay? Bye.” He let out a sigh and turned to his friends. “Can you guys not wait until high school is over and we can just be in college already or what?”

Patch laid down his backpack in front of the office and knocked on the door.

A few moments passed, and then he knocked again. Just when he thought he might have the wrong place, he heard a loud “Yuuuuup?!” from the other side of the door. Patch pushed it open and took a look inside.

In the center of the small, blond-wood paneled office was a very tall man in a faded denim shirt. He was slim, but he had the kind of chest and shoulders that suggest a lifetime of athleticism. He had long fingers, which he laced together and positioned as a headrest as he looked up expectantly at Patch. “Yes, young man?”

“Hey, are you Richard Sorrel? I mean, President Sorrel,” Patch said. He could see, through the office's one large window, a lot of the guys from the hike last night doing their afternoon chores. Then sun was glinting like gold in the hay out there, and Patch felt sure he was going to take that image back to New York with him.

“Dick! Call me Dick. Have a seat?”

“Thanks, man. Um, I'm Patch Flood, and I've been visiting the school the last couple of days and …”

Dick's smile faded. “You seem like a very nice young man. But I just want to warn you, ours is a very tough admissions process.”

“Oh, yeah. I know. I just wanted to introduce myself because I think this might be the right place for me. My uncle Heyday—Heyday Flood?—went here and …”

“Deep Springs does not have a legacy program, young man,” Dick said sternly. He scratched the stubble on his beard and cocked an eyebrow as though he were trying to categorize Patch as
us
or
them
.

“I know, I think that's really cool,” Patch said, liking the dude and the school more every second.

“It's a lot of work, going to a school like this.” Dick rested his mighty elbows on the desk and looked deep into Patch's eyes.

“I'm down for a lot of work. My life in New York's sort of coasting, you know? I've done that.”

“Young man,” Dick said, craning back so that his chair stood on two legs, and propping his cowboy boots on the table, “when I was your age, I had already taught English in Japan and mined for gold in Africa. Life is an adventure, but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be roots, a history of hard work in one place, friends who
understand you and are as tough on you as you are on yourself. That's what this school is about, so don't apply if you just want something eclectic on your c.v., understand? Life should be about something,” Dick paused for effect and let the front legs of the chair come crashing down on the wood floor. “That's what we teach.”

Patch stood and nodded. He shook the guy's hand. “That all sounds about right, sir.”

“Well, there are applications on the table outside my office. I wish you luck.”

“Thanks, man,” Patch said. Dick gave him a parting wink.

As he headed away from Deep Springs and down to the road where he could hitch a ride to the airport, Patch felt, for maybe the first time ever, that there was one thing he really had to do. No choice about it. He was just a Deep Springs kind of guy.

That realization filled him with a need to locate his New York dudes immediately. After all, if he was going to end up here without them, he definitely needed to get back to them. And now.

Sarah Lawrence looked kind of like Vassar to me—vast lawns, old stately brick buildings—except somewhat more modest in scale. The buildings were more like something you would find on a private estate, because that's what it used to be. The entryway wasn't as dramatic either, just a tasteful wrought-iron structure. By eight o'clock on Friday evening, we hadn't made it much past that gate.

The traffic was brutal, and when we arrived on campus our limo was mobbed by Sarah Lawrence kids eager to catch a glimpse of Mickey. Apparently Mickey was an even bigger celebrity here than he was in Manhattan. There was word of various naked art events planned for tomorrow night, after the lecture. Also, we heard a rumor that the security staff was freaking out because they didn't know how they were going to keep the occupancy in the lecture hall from exceeding its maximum. That's how big the interest in Mickey Pardo was.

When I got out to take a piss there were at least fifteen people in the car, and a kind of impromptu party had started happening around it, too. Arno called that he was coming with me, and by the time we had fully extracted ourselves from the mob, there was no way to get back to tell Mickey and David we were taking off. “I don't think we're getting back in there,” I said.

“That's better for me, anyway,” Arno said as we looked around for a discreet tree. “Hey man, I hope you don't feel like I'm ditching you. But I think I'm going to take off and see if I can find Lara.”

“Really?” I said, thinking about Gabby, who seemed kind of fun when I met her at the fundraiser. But who was I to judge? “That's cool man. I guess I can't really say anything, cuz I'm going to go find a girl, too.”

“Yeah? That's cool.”

I looked at the Tudor-style building we were coming up to and saw a bunch of kids sitting at café tables on the terrace, watching a black and white movie that was projected onto a wall. “I think that's where I'm going to find her, actually. She was telling me about this cinema club that meets on Friday nights, and how it's one of the reasons she wants to come here. She said it was really neat.”

“Neat?”

“I know, but I think I really like her.”

Arno tried to do his special handshake with me, but I couldn't remember how to do it, and in the end we just knocked fists. “See you later, man,” he said, and walked off in the direction of the dorms.

I stepped onto the terrace and surveyed the scene. It was mostly girls, maybe one or two guys, and everybody was dressed pretty casually. Somehow, the whole tribe thing seemed much less in evidence here. I was wondering why that would be when I heard someone whisper my name.

“Jonathan, over here.” I looked, and there was Ava, sitting on a folding chair. She was wearing a stretchy black pencil skirt and a vintage T-shirt. I went over and sat next to her on the ground. “This is my sister, Jill,” she continued in a whisper. I shook hands with Jill, who was also sitting on the ground.

“Hi,” I whispered. “What are we watching?”

“Actually,” Jill said in a voice a little bit louder than the whisper the event called for, “this was all getting a little boring, and my co-op is having a party. We were only waiting around because Ava thought you might show up.” I saw Ava elbow her
sister when she said this. “So you want to come to the party or what?”

As we walked, Ava asked me about the trip up, and I tried to downplay the whole partying in the limo thing. I knew when we had gotten to Jill's co-op house, because Bessie Smith was playing and people were sitting on the porch smoking cigarettes. “It's like old-timey night or some shit,” Jill said as we walked up the stairs. She gestured at the smokers. “I don't know who those people are.”

It was warm in the kitchen, and people were sitting around a table playing cards. A few people looked up and gave us little waves, but mostly everyone remained fixated on the game. “Euchre,” Jill said. “Have you ever played euchre?”

I shook my head.

“It's sort of like bridge. Old-lady game. And look what we have to drink! Hot buttered rum,
ultimate
old-lady drink. You kids want some?”

I wasn't sure I did, but I nodded anyway. Jill ladled out two cups for us from the big pot on the stove, and Ava and I sat down on stools in the corner of the room.

“Sorry about what happened with Lily,” I said. “I hope you don't think I'm a freak.”

“Yeah, that was weird,” she said. “But
you're
not a freak.”

“Phew,” I said, knowing that my brother had already cleared things up with Lily using his magical Ted powers. Then, to change the subject, “This really seems like more of a winter drink.”

Ava took a sip of her hot rum and nodded. “But you know, college kids and their concept nights. They don't conform to the calendar the rest of us use.”

“Huh,” I said. “So what do you think so far?”

Ava wrinkled her nose. “I don't know, college is weird. Seems like everyone is trying out a new pose, you know?”

“Yeah,” I said. I took a deep breath. “But I kind of like that about college—it seems like a chance to change yourself into a newer, better person. You know what I mean?”

“No,” Ava laughed. I was glad she finally laughed, because she had been acting kind of shy so far. “Why would I want to change myself?”

“Well, I don't think
you
need to change,” I said. “But I used to be a really superficial person. New York kind of does that to you. And I think college might be my opportunity to not be like that anymore.”

Ava laughed again, and put her hand on her chest in mock protest. “No guy who handles heir
loom tomatoes with the care that you do could possibly be superficial.”

For the first time all week, I felt a little burst of acceptance. If a do-gooder like Ava thought I was okay, I had to be, right?

We kept on talking like that for a long time, while the college kids played their granny game and the hot rum drink got drunk up. Later, when I felt like I was getting really good at getting Ava to laugh, Jill came back and told us it time for me to go.

“The thing is, we're planning a protest tomorrow,” she said, putting her arms around her little sister. “It's hard always having to make the world a better place, but that's what we were brought up to do.”

“Okay,” I said, not wanting the warmth of the evening to end. “Maybe I can help? I want to make the world a better place.”

Jill raised her eyebrows at me. “Sure. Just be here at noon, okay?”

I stood up awkwardly. Ava gave me one of those happy/groggy smiles, and I wished I could kiss her. But her sister didn't budge from where she was, so I just waved and told myself that I'd be seeing them tomorrow.

Arno knew she was there, instinctually. He had been walking the campus grounds a little aimlessly and then, all of a sudden, he caught a whiff of cigarette smoke and his heart went crazy.

There she was, sitting on the steps of one of the dormitories with her elbows rested delicately on her knees. “You're back,” Lara said, exhaling.

“I've actually never been here.”

“I meant back in a more figurative sense.”

“Oh. Well, I would have been back sooner, but I knew I wanted to be mature enough for what happens between us. I think I'm ready now,” he said. She looked at him blankly, so he added: “Also, I didn't know your last name.”

She didn't move except to raise one long, dark eyebrow. It was such an Arnolike move it was almost creepy. “Lara Moreno. You've never heard of Moreno Wines?”