How Long Has This Been Going On (26 page)

Where were Luke and Tom during this, you ask? Typically, they had wandered off for a neighborhood walk with Chris, the three of them wet and happy in their bathing suits, whapping towels at each other. Just walking along, talking and joking and singing. Oh, the purity of such times! The innocence, friends! By the time they got back to the Dawsons', Dickie Horton's parents had shown up as substitute chaperons and had organized a bunny hop. Given the tenor of the evening, there was speculation for weeks afterward as to the nature of the Luke-Chris-Tom relationship; but then their classmates had been wondering about them for years. When Chris's friends would ask for the story, she would only smile like Ethel Barrymore; and when they wanted to know which of the two she really liked, she answered, "Someday I'll know." At the time, she probably thought that was true.

On the last Sunday before their senior year, Connie Dawson and her boy friend, Sven Bjornson, called to ask the Twins and Chris over for the Final Swim Before School, and Luke's mother went outside and got them out of the tree house and over to the Dawsons'. Connie was trying to tell Sven the plot of
The Three Musketeers,
one of his summer books for English class. But Connie was getting it all wrong, so Tom and Luke helped out till Sven felt reasonably secure.

"How come you picked a longie like that?" asked Tom. "It's just more work."

"We had the
Classics Illustrated
in the basement," said Sven. "But my unbelievably gross older brother burned it before my eyes."

Sitting at the edge of the pool, paddling her legs in the water, Connie said, "This whole year isn't going to matter, anyway, since we both got into State early-acceptance. All we have to do is pass."

"Yeah," said Sven.

"You guys make your mind up yet?" Connie asked the others. "The way you've been talking, it's like you're applying to every school in the country."

Luke shrugged. Chris was silent. Tom said, "Oh, they've made their minds up, all right. They're going to fancy places." He looked at his two best friends. "Tell them, go on."

"Dartmouth," said Luke.

Sven gave a low whistle.

"Anyway, that's my first choice."

"And Chris has a Dartmouth for girls," said Tom.

"Bennington," said Chris. "If I make it."

There was a pause, everyone looking at Tom.

"Well?"
said Connie, at last.

"Who knows?" said Tom. "Who knows about me? Because what I need here is a scholarship. And my grades aren't so hot and my S.A.T.s are lousy."

"You didn't cheat?" Sven asked.

"No, I didn't cheat," said Tom, a little annoyed.

"Who proctored when you took them? We had Mrs. Russell, and the whole room was eyeballing every test paper within a radius of like five desks. I mean, she's such a—"

"Well, I didn't have Mrs. Russell, anyhow, and, besides—"

"State isn't expensive," said Connie.

"My parents don't want to... They don't have the..." Suddenly he turned to Luke. "Are you guys going to college if I can't, too?"

"Of course we are," said Chris, splashing up to stand with Luke. "We've been planning our whole lives around college."

"All
three
of us," said Tom. "That's what it was, wasn't it?"

"Look out, the whole world!" came the voice of Walt, running over the lawn to the pool followed by Dexter. "I'm going to do the cannon-ball!"

Leaping into the air, Walt folded arms and legs around himself, making a ball as he crashed into the water. Dexter more or less did the cannonball, too, showering the party.

Annoyed cries of
"Walt!"
and, from Sven, "What is this, National Dog in the Pool Month?," welcomed Walt to the pool.

"Dexter," he said, "you'd best sit this one out," and Dexter climbed up the steps, shook himself, and lay down to nap and pant. Luke hunkered down in the water so that Walt could ride around on his back. It was this thing they would do; when Luke got tired, Tom would take Walt.

"Listen," said Tom. "The last time they gave a party for the family, my parents made this real public announcement about how Tom can't go to college. The whole basement's full of Uhlissons, and they're going to take up a collection or something, so poor Tom's dreams won't get wrecked. With me right there, too! Now everyone's making speeches about what they should do. Uncle Alf, Uncle Gustav, Cousin Dave, Uncle Harald, Aunt Frelinda. They're all drinking beer and laying plans. Uncle Alf—'Now I don't want to make like I know more than the rest of you,' while he waves his ludicrous cigar in the air. Uncle Gustav—'The family got to stick together.' And it's just a lot of hot wind, anyhow. Uncle Harald even says college would spoil me."

"Quel rat," said Chris, borrowing from
Breakfast at Tiffany's,
her favorite movie.

"My daddy's name is Harald," said Walt, from Luke's back.

"I want Chris Predicts," said Tom, turning to her. "What's going to happen?"

"No," said Chris.

Connie looked at Sven.

"You two are going to leave me behind, is that it? Tell me, Chris."

"Tom—"

"They can't leave you behind," said Walt. "Never in a million. We're all in this together!"

"Chris Predicts," Tom demanded.

"Tomorrow, Tom. Not now. Today is too lovely to—"

"Well, what's lovely about it?" Tom asked. He was getting away from them all, stabbing at the water with the flat of his hand. "The whole rotten family of them! They're good for scorning you when your voice changes. But try
passing
the
hat
to send poor Tom to
college!"

"What are you going to do about the draft?" Connie asked, and Tom stopped moving. He was looking away from them, at the water and then the sky, pointlessly, as if he were alone.

"I haven't figured that out yet," Tom said, quite suddenly, turning to face them. "Maybe my friends have an idea."

He looked at Luke and Chris.

Walt, half-asleep on Luke's back, murmured, "First I'm in the pool, then I get all hungry."

"Why don't you tell them you're a homosexual?" asked Luke. "That'll get you off."

"Oh, brother," said Sven.

"Luke!"
cried Connie, mildly outraged.

"It doesn't have to be true," Luke continued. "It's a moment in your life, a trick you play on someone. It's nothing that matters and no one will know. Ask yourself what matters and what everybody knows. Ask yourself, Tom."

"Ask what
you
know," said Tom.

"Far too much. Right?"

"I don't want to be left behind."

"You don't want to be known."

There was a pause.

"What is this?" asked Sven. "
The Twilight Zone?"

Walt, suddenly awake, slid off Luke's back into the water with a neutral plop. Coming up for air, he cried, "Say, Dexter! We'd better get back for dinner!"

Dexter looked up, rose, and luxuriously stretched himself from tail to snout. The humans were staring at him as if they'd never seen a dog before, except Walt, who was frantically drying off. "And it's make-your own B.L.T.s tonight, too!" he explained. Dropping the towel, he added, sotto voce behind his hand, "Of course Dexter just gets dog food, but you put a slice of Dole pineapple on it and
he
thinks it's Polynesian meat loaf."

Everyone was still looking at the dog, or at Walt.

"What's the matter?" Walt asked. "It's very quiet in the pool."

"We're just not used to seeing the most famous friendship in town unraveling before our eyes," said Luke.

"Luke," said Connie, "you are so exasperating!"

"Hey, don't be crude, man," Sven put in.

"I don't want to be left behind," said Tom, almost weeping with frustration. "I'm the only one who isn't going anywhere."

Chris started toward him in sympathy, but Tom moved away, wading into the deeper end of the pool.

"Tom!" she cried.

Tom slid below the surface and swam underwater to the far end of the pool.

"'Nobody sees me cry,'" Luke said, for Tom.

Walt, standing there stunned with his towel and his dog, said, "What's happening to my cousin?"

Tom climbed out at the far end and started off, dripping wet, walking home.

Chris forced her way through the water and out of the pool and after Tom.

Luke watched them for a bit, then followed Chris, pausing to pick Walt up and drop him into the pool.

"I sincerely hope that was meant as a friendly gesture!" Walt indignantly called after him upon resurfacing.

Sven and Connie looked at the retreating, celebrated trio of Tom and Chris and Luke; or of Chris with TomLuke; or of the Twins plus Chris; or however it goes.

Walt grumbled at having to dry off from scratch again, then hurried off after them, and when he got there it was, from left to right, Tom and Chris and Luke, their arms around each other in a slow, pensive flying wedge.

"Far out," said Connie, back at the pool, following them with her eyes till they disappeared in the summer green.

They could always patch it up, those three. They had never really fought over anything, because nothing worth fighting for had ever been at stake in those lives in that transcendent place. Historically, of course, it was an era of upheaval—Luke was regarded as daring simply because he was applying to the roiling University of California at Berkeley, as well as Dartmouth (his first choice), Williams, and Reed (his safety); and Chris hit upon Bennington precisely because she felt it would be liberal yet not revolutionary. But then, Gotburg did not generally produce complaining kids. In the great cities of our civilization, nothing works but everything is possible. In Gotburg, very little was possible but everything worked: and, for those raised in that system, who had no idea what else the world might contain, this seemed eminently sensible. So Luke was a little nervous about Berkeley; and Chris felt that Bennington was as dangerous as she dared get.

Sensible is a powerful notion to lay upon children. So much of the world does seem sensible, even when it may impede or even destroy our sense of self-esteem. Sensible looks easy because everyone claims to be doing it. But sensible, really, is some grown-up telling you that you can't have what you want.

So it seemed sensible to Tom that he could not voyage off with his friends to college, and power, and liberty. If his family could or would not pay and he had no money himself, then he must remain behind. It seemed sensible to Tom but unfair to Luke and Chris, and that was in their minds as the two of them walked Tom home. Then Walt and Dexter caught up with them, and Walt began to sing his usual mishmash of
Sgt. Pepper
numbers. The album had come out just before the summer's start, and no matter where Walt happened to be—in Tom's room, brushing up on the sports news; or at Luke's for a post—tree-house snack of crullers and cocoa, regaling Mr. Van Bruenninger with the doings in Walt's latest
Dr. Doolittle
book; or at Chris's, quietly watching her helping Tom with his Biology—the
Sgt. Pepper
record was playing. Lines from "She's Leaving Home" intertwined with those from "When I'm Sixty-four" to the tune of "A Little Help from My Friends." As they walked and Walt sang, Tom put his arm around Walt's shoulders.

"You like me, right, Cousin Tom?" said Walt.

"Golly, we should have thought of this before," said Luke. "Is there maybe some way we could raise the money? Kind of invent our own scholarship so—"

"It would make a fool of me," said Tom. "I would look hungry to the entire town."

Walt sang

What do you see when you don't go to school?

Well, I'm certain that I'll dance a little jig

and Tom knelt and grabbed Walt and held on, really weeping now as he had nearly wept in the pool. Walt was startled, but he said, "That's all right, Cousin Tom," and patted his back. Luke gave Chris a stern look that said, We cannot leave our friend behind.

Then Tom took to saying "No, I'm getting used to it" and "I can live with it." He seemed to mean it.

"There are these inevitable things," he would say. "And me not going to college is inevitable. We wouldn't have been together, anyway, at these different colleges. It was a weirdo plan in the first place."

"We would have been doing the same thing at the same time," said Luke. "That was the plan."

They were in the tree house and they didn't know what the outcome of their lives was going to be. Well, who does? Okay: They didn't know how they were going to feel about each other by the end of the year. It was getting scary.

"Well, I was wrong to cry," said Tom. "That day, you know."

"Especially near the Dawsons' pool," Walt put in. "Though I have to say that if my Cousin Tom did so, there has to be a reason for it."

"Nobody feel sorry for me," said Tom. "I have my own plans, and besides I'm tired of school."

"I have this idea," said Luke, "that colleges shouldn't go by money but looks. They would see Tom's big shoulders and how smooth and full he all is, and how handsome. And every one of them would jump at him."

Two beats. Then Walt said, "He's my favorite cousin of all time, I don't mind telling you."

Tom ruffled Walt's hair and said, "It's just because I take care of you that you're soft on me."

"I'm soft on you, too," said Luke. "And if it means anything, I'll stay back here with you after we graduate, if you want me to."

"I don't."

"Yes!" said Walt. "Chris?"

"Look, I could hang around here," Luke insisted.

They sat there in silence, Tom glancing at Luke now and then. Finally, Tom said, "Yeah, I can almost imagine that." Luke couldn't tell whether Tom was relishing the prospect or mocking it.

Chris thought the topic was smoldering a bit much for safety's sake but that they had to work it out honestly sometime. Now was the time. She took Walt away on some insidiously plausible pretext—Walt complaining all the way down—and left the two boys to deal with it. It was early evening in late October, very near dark. Tom's eyes were shining like cigarette tips in a movie balcony.