Last Train to Babylon (14 page)

March 2009.

R
ACHEL SWUNG HER
bright yellow Pathfinder around in front of the school, grazing the curb on the way in. I stepped back, waiting for her to brake, before climbing in, hoisting myself up into the passenger's seat. It was a Friday afternoon in late March. She handed me the coffee before my ass even hit the seat. Drop of skim, no sugar, sprinkle of cinnamon. She knew how I took it. That's one good thing I can say about her. With Rachel, it had always been the little efforts that actually meant something—knowing how I took my coffee, being the first to wish me a happy birthday every year, picking me up when I stayed after school to work on the newspaper.

Rachel sucked down her iced caramel Frappa-something, one hand turning the wheel away from curb. The slush slopped down her wrist, and she lifted her arm to her face to lap at it—her tongue drawing spitty lines around her purple Livestrong bracelet. The sticky sweet smell of slush-caramel-flavored-coffee-saliva made my guts roil, and I reached into her glove compartment and handed her a stack of coffee-stained Dunkin' Donuts napkins.

“So? Any word on your man friend?” She didn't waste any time.

I shook my head and tried to act unfazed.

It had been eleven days since our fight. It was stupid, really. It had started with some playful wrestling, nothing out of the norm for Adam and me. But we had been together for all of high school, and tension was building on the whole sex conversation.

“C
HRIST,
”
HE
'
D SNAPPED.
We'd been on my bedroom floor, the door open. It was earlier that month.

“What's wrong with you?” I asked. I knew. Adam sat up, adjusting his jeans.

“Either do it or don't. Stop fucking around.”

“Or start?” I said. He hadn't said anything. “Or what?” He'd clenched his jaw, and his gray eyes burned through the hardwood floor. I stood up and walked toward the door. He was still pouting. Staring hard at the ground, like he was on the verge of spewing out some nasty remark.

He'd filled out over the past month, since the concert. His chest and back had broadened, almost overnight. He'd started lifting weights, and he'd been working at the marina restaurant for Jason Dowd's dad, busing tables and lifting boxes. He was still dark, brooding, and somewhat hypothermic-looking with those thick bluish lips, but when he kissed me, it was never cold, and when he hugged me, I rarely pulled away.

“Adam,” I'd said. He didn't look up, just drew circles on the floor with his finger. “Hello?” Nothing. “So you're just going to sit sulking there, then?” He smelled like french fries and seawater, with a hint of coffee. “Okay.”

I stood in the doorway of my own room. It's not like I hadn't been accommodating. The year before, I'd given him his first hand job; six months earlier, his first blow job. Most nights, he would climb on top of me and grind up against my thigh for ten minutes until a small wet stain would seep through his jeans. I didn't really mind. It was better than letting him do anything to me. I had a strict nothing-below-the-waist rule at the time—my waist, not his.

“What does it matter at this point anyway?” he said.

“What does that mean?”

“You know you're gonna end up leaving. So what's the point?”

“I never said I was going.”

“Do you really think your mom will let that happen? You're going to Brown. I know it. You know it. So if you don't do it with me, you're obviously just holding out for some jerk-off frat guy who'll only want to get inside of you for a night.”

He sat on my bedroom floor, sulking, drawing stubborn circles on the hardwood with his fingers. “You know that's not true, Adam,” I started. “What would possess you to even say that?” He didn't say anything. He didn't even look up. I let out a breath and waited, feeling the weight of his words bubble up inside me. At the moment they were just words. Cruel, empty words, a telltale sign of his own insecurities; but the more I stood, and the longer I waited, the harder it was for me to stay calm.

I had no intention of dumping Adam. That was never even an option for me, and I didn't understand how going to college—something that I'd always been meant to do—could provoke such a tantrum. It didn't seem fair. I'd worked hard. He'd known that. And I'd gotten into an Ivy League school, despite Karen's professional opinion. That was huge. He should have been celebrating with me, not guilting me. As I turned his words over in my head,
holding out for some jerk-off frat guy,
I felt the sudden urge to punch him in the face, to grab him by the shoulders and shake the doubt out of him. But I didn't do any of those things. Instead I kept cool, like I always had, and with an even, dull voice, I said, “Go fuck yourself,” and walked out of the room.

I didn't go far, just to the bathroom, where I stared myself down in the mirror, clenched until my back muscles spasmed and my whole body shook. When I came back, he was gone. I sat on the edge of my bed, my hands on my knees, my chest seething with each breath. I didn't want to text him. I didn't want to be
that
girl. I had nothing to apologize for and he had everything to.

I'd known it was coming. I had felt it brewing in the thick space between our words for months: his moods, his condescending tone, the way he threw himself into work. I felt stupid for not seeing this shift for what it was. I was leaving. I was leaving and he was staying. No Vermont. No Canada. No snow falling like stardust into a dark space where Adam and I would live out our fairy-tale ending. Our heaven. None of that. Just one last summer on Long Island.

My first text was a passive-aggressive test, just to give him a chance to apologize:
So this is how it's gonna be, Adam?

My second text was a peace offering:
Call me.

My third text was slow-burning fury:
No, really, GO FUCK YOURSELF.

“H
E
'
S RIGHT,
A
UB,
” Rachel said as we drove out of the school parking lot. “You'll regret it if you don't do it now. At least you
love
him.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means,” she said, “that once you get to college, no guy is going to love you like that. Nobody wants a relationship in college, you know. You're gonna end up losing it to some random guy.”

“That's not going to happen,” I said. Rachel raised her eyebrows and sipped her coffee drink through the straw. “He won't even talk to me. It's his birthday tomorrow. What am I supposed to even do?”

“Oh, for Christ's sake,” she said. “Just do it.”

“That's pretty hard if he won't even return my texts.”

“Tonight. Everybody will be at O'Reilly's. You'll definitely see Adam, and you can tell him to his face. Sort of like a ‘Surprise! Happy birthday! Here's my vagina!'”

“It's the principle,” I said. “I don't want to just give in.”

“Oh, come on,” she said. “Now you're just being stubborn. You know you were going to do it anyway.” She was right. I was. I'd planned on it at least. But I'd also planned on staying with him, and the lack of trust my own boyfriend and best friend had in my ability to show some self-control was sort of obnoxious.

Most of the college kids were already home for spring break, and O'Reilly's was the place to be—whether you were still a senior in high school or part of the
I'm too cool for this town but still not twenty-one
college freshman crowd. It was just a dive bar, nothing fancy, strung up with white Christmas lights, and built against the train station. And as bland as the place was, Rachel was right; it was my chance to straighten things out with Adam.

I let my body relax back in my seat and lifted the tab of my coffee, careful not to spill on my white sweatshirt.

“Fast Car” started to play. I reached forward and turned up the volume.

“Really?” I say, acknowledging the song.

“You know you love it,” Rachel said. “It's our song.”

“Yeah, but I just didn't expect to hear it after ‘Milkshake.'”

Rachel grinned, her cigarette between her teeth. “I made you a copy,” she said, nodding to the dashboard. I opened the clear, plastic case, and true to her word, there was a burned CD that said
Spring Mix 2009
. I slipped it into my bag.

“So how was the paper brigade?” Rachel asked as we pulled up to a red light, and I hated the way she said it, the implications of shame.

“Oh, you know, the usual,” I said, veiling the tiny bit of self-reproof she'd put onto me over the years. She never really gave me her blessing when I started writing for the
Seagull,
but she hadn't been trying to get into Brown either. Extracurriculars were never really her thing, unless, of course, it was cheerleading, and even her own days as a cheerleader were numbered. She showed up late to practice, if at all, and her coach caught her cutting class to smoke cigarettes on the great lawn. The first time she got a warning. The second time she was suspended from the squad for a week. Next time she's off for good.

Rachel accelerated onto Wantagh Parkway, and we careened past a blur of trees—lush and green and broken and brown, all at once. The colors of South Shore Long Island. As far back as I can remember, the grass never grew along the beach parkways, no matter what time of year. Just dry, cracked dirt along the side of the road surrounded by thick shrubs and shades of green, so many shades of green, everywhere but the ground.

We were cruising, and cold air streamed through my cracked window. I rolled it down all the way. The wind rushed in and tangled my hair.

“So what's our game plan for tonight?” Rachel asked. I shrugged. I hadn't thought about it.

We rumbled over the first drawbridge, over the silver stretch of bay beneath us. I stared out toward the marshes. It'd been too cold for recreational boating, but a few brave Jet Skiers and fishermen zipped around in the distance. I could see our town sprawled out against the marshes—the marinas, boatyards, and a few massive homes at the edge of the bay.

I breathed in the cool, salty air—the unmistakable smell of the ocean. It was like our own slice of paradise, away from the suburban blight of high ranches and split-level homes lining every neighborhood, Italian delis, nail salons, bagel joints, and pizza places in every shopping center. All of that faded away once you hit the parkway. It was like the landscape changed. The grass grew differently; it was all sedges, Salix, and sometimes a subtle burst of color—a single hibiscus, goldenrod—but it was all a blur of green as we drove through. Green and thorny.

“You haven't thought about it at all?” she asked. I shrugged again and gulped the last sip of my coffee.

“Not really,” I said. “I was just sort of planning on going with the flow, you know?” The road narrowed as we rolled over the second bridge, and I squeezed into myself. The amphitheater came into sight up ahead.

“First,” Rachel said, “we need to get you liquored up. You're gonna want to be numb. Trust me.” I agreed. I had heard tales from Rachel and Ally—tales that involved tearing hymens and significant amounts of blood. Liquor sounded good.

We made the loop around the Jones Beach Pencil—a Long Island icon—and pulled into Field 4. I reached behind me into the backseat for the crumpled jersey-knit sheet. The wind came in hard off the Atlantic as the sun went down. We smoothed the sheet out a few feet back from the tide and sprawled out with our oversized sweatshirts and equally oversized sunglasses.

It was March 31, the first real spring day of the year and our first trip to the beach. I sat up, dusted the sand off my leggings, and clutched a plastic water bottle full of gin and tonic in my hand. The beach was empty, except for a couple of power walkers and a lone cyclist up on the boardwalk.

“So, are you nervous?” Rachel asked.

“Not really,” I said. I was. But not so much about the planned dual deflowering. How bad could that be? Rachel had done it—or so she claimed. Ally had done it. Adam and I were in the minority as V-card carriers. So it just felt like going through the motions at this point. But it was the possibility of rejection that ignited my nerves—the fear of giving it all up and learning that's all he'd been after—the
what happens next
in a relationship that maybe isn't going anywhere after all. Things had been tense with Adam lately. But things had always been tense with Adam. He was just an intense kind of guy, and I liked that about him. It balanced out my blatant lack of intensity.

“Well, while you're off doing
that
,
I'm thinking about hooking up with Eric tonight,” Rachel said, her voice muffled as she lit the cigarette pinched between her lips. “I mean, if you're getting laid, then I probably should, too, yes?” She flashed a Cheshire cat grin around the cigarette. “But if you're gonna do it,” she said, “you gotta show a little more boob.” She grabbed at my chest. I swatted at her hand and reached for her pack of Parliaments.

“Do what you have to do, Rach,” I said, lighting up. “But be careful, people are going to start to think you're a slut.”

“Hey,” she cackled, throwing the crumpled plastic bottle of gin at me. “You're lucky I like you.” She took a long drag off the Parliament, and her face got all serious. “I mean, I've wanted him since like second grade.”

“Right,” I said. “Ever since he taught us all about hard-ons.”