Prep: A Novel (58 page)

Martha is an assistant professor of classics, tenure-track. I was the maid of honor in her wedding, but the truth is that we talk about twice a year and see each other less than that.

And as for me: Cross had been wrong, and I didn’t particularly like college, at least for the first few years—it seemed so vast and watered-down. But then as a junior I ended up getting an apartment with another girl and two guys, though I knew only the girl ahead of time and knew her only a little. One of the guys wasn’t around much, but the other one—Mark, who was a senior—and the girl, Karen, and I made dinner together most nights, and watched television afterward. Upon moving in with them, I thought at first that they were both kind of LMC, but somewhere along the way, I forgot that I thought this. I learned to cook from Mark, and that summer, a few weeks before he moved out, he and I became involved; he ended up being the second person I ever kissed, the second person I had sex with. (Once, I had imagined that the first boy you were involved with was your initiation, that after him the switch had been flicked and you dated continuously, but, at least in my own case, I had been wrong.) After the first time Mark and I kissed, I was talking to Karen about it—I didn’t know for sure if I liked Mark—and I brought up Cross. I was planning to say he was someone I
had
been certain about, but before I could, Karen said, “Wait a second. The guy you dated in high school was named Cross Sugarman?” She began to laugh. “What kind of person is named Cross Sugarman?”

I actually didn’t—I don’t—particularly like talking about Ault. I don’t even really like reading the quarterly, though I always at least page through it. But if I give it real attention, my mood plummets; I remember my life there, all the people and the way I felt. In college, or after, in the course of ordinary conversation, someone might say, “Oh, you went to boarding school?” and I’d feel my heart thickening with the need to explain what the person did not truly care about. By my sophomore year at Michigan, if the subject arose, I would make only the most superficial remarks.
It was okay. It was hard. I was lucky to go.
These conversations were a lake I was riding across, and as long as we didn’t dwell on the subject, or as long as I didn’t think the person would understand anyway, even if I tried to explain, I could remain on the surface. But sometimes, if I talked for too long, I’d be yanked beneath, into cold and weedy water. Down there, I could not see or breathe; I was dragged backward, and it wasn’t even the submersion that was the worst part, it was that I had to come up again. My present world was always, in its mildness, a little disappointing. I’ve never since Ault been in a place where everyone wants the same things; minus a universal currency, it’s not always clear to me what I myself want. And anyway, no one’s watching to see whether or not you get what you’re after—if at Ault I’d felt mostly unnoticed, I’d also, at certain moments, felt scrutinized. After Ault, I was unaccounted for.

But I should say too that I don’t scrutinize others the way I once did. I did not, when I left Ault, carry my vigilance with me; I’ve never paid as close attention to my life or anyone else’s as I did then. How was I able to pay such attention? I remember myself as often unhappy at Ault, and yet my unhappiness was so alert and expectant; really, it was, in its energy, not that different from happiness.

And so everything has to turn out somehow, and other things have happened to me—a job, graduate school, another job—and there are always words to describe the way you fill up your life, there is always a sequence of events. Although it doesn’t necessarily have a relationship to the way you felt while it was occurring, there’s usually some satisfaction in the neatness of its passage. Some anxiety, too, but usually some satisfaction.

On the night of my graduation from Ault, there was a party at a club in Back Bay, a place Phoebe Ordway’s parents belonged—they were the ones giving the party. My own parents had already left for South Bend, but other parents were there early on, for dinner, and then they took off and my classmates, many of whom had been openly drinking in front of parents, stayed and danced and cried. I drank beer out of green bottles, and got drunk for the first time, and it felt great and dangerous. Great like I was wearing a cape that made me invisible, so I could observe everyone else without being observed—at one point, Martha was dancing with Russell Woo (I did not dance at all, of course) and I sat at a round table for eight by myself, utterly unself-conscious. And it felt dangerous because what was to stop me from just walking up to Cross, there in a group of people near the bar, and doing exactly what I wanted? Which was to wrap my arms around his neck and press my face into his chest and just stand there forever. I had had four beers; no doubt I was less drunk than I believed myself to be, and that’s what stopped me.

A little before midnight, Martha said she was exhausted and wanted to leave. I was in the middle of a long conversation with Dede, who was smashed and was saying in a strangely beneficent way, “You were always so sad and angry. Even when we were freshmen, you were. Why were you so sad and angry? But if I’d known you were on scholarship, I could have lent you money. You were dating that kitchen guy last year, weren’t you? I know you were.” I was not completely listening to her—I was watching Cross as he moved around the room, danced, left, came back, talked for a while to Thad Maloney and Darden. I stayed at the party so I could keep watching him. Martha and I were both supposed to spend the night at her aunt and uncle’s in Somerville, but when Martha left, I stayed. I thought that because I was drunk, maybe everything would be different, that as the night waned, Cross would eventually come to me. But instead, when the DJ played “Stairway to Heaven” as the last song of the night, Cross slow-danced with Horton Kinnelly and then the song ended and they stood side by side, still close together, Cross rubbing his hand over Horton’s back. It all felt both casual and not random—in the last four minutes, they seemed to have become a couple. And though they had not interacted for the entire night, I understood suddenly that just as I’d been eyeing Cross over the last several hours, he’d been eyeing Horton, or maybe it had been for much longer than that. He too had been saving something for the end, but the difference between Cross and me was that he made choices, he exerted control, his agenda succeeded. Mine didn’t. I waited for him, and he didn’t look at me. And that was what the rest of senior week was like, though it surprised me less each time, at each party, and by the end of the week, Cross and Horton weren’t even waiting until it was late and they were drunk—you’d see them entwined in the hammock at John Brindley’s house in the afternoon, or in the kitchen at Emily Phillip’s house, Cross sitting on a bar stool and Horton perched on his lap.

It was at Emily’s house—this was the last party, in Keene—that I opened the note from Aubrey, the note where he declared his love for me. It was three-thirty in the morning, and I was standing in a field where Norie’s car was parked, searching for the toothbrush in my backpack, when I found the card. I was very moved, not only because what he’d written was so sweet but also because—even though it was from Aubrey, tiny and prissy Aubrey—it meant the
Times
article hadn’t made me untouchable; Cross Sugarman wasn’t the only Ault boy who had ever noticed something worthwhile about me.

But not the last night of senior week, the first night—the night at the club in Back Bay: When Martha told me she was leaving, I didn’t yet understand that Cross and Horton were together, and I wanted to stay.

“But I only have one key to my aunt’s,” Martha said. “How will you get in?”

“I’ll figure something out,” I said.

“I got a room at the Hilton, and you can crash there,” Dede said.

“Thanks,” I said, and Martha looked at me incredulously. “I’ll call you in the morning,” I told her.

I ended up sleeping in my skirt and blouse, sharing a bed with Dan Ponce and Jenny Carter; Jenny slept between Dan and me, and Dede and Sohini Khurana slept in the other bed. We turned off the light at quarter of four, and I woke at seven-thirty and left immediately. I didn’t feel as bad as it seemed like I ought to, I couldn’t
not
stand up or walk, and so I thought maybe the alcohol hadn’t really affected me after all.

I boarded the T at Copley and rode to Park Street, where I knew I had to change to the Red Line to get to Martha’s aunt’s house. But Park Street confused me—while at Ault, I’d ridden the T only a handful of times—and I went down a set of stairs, then up again. The upper level was crowded and very green, and everyone around me was rushing. Not the Green Line—that was what I’d just gotten off of. I went back downstairs, to where it was red and a little calmer but not actually quiet. I was standing there in my clothes from the night before, clogs and a long skirt and a short-sleeved blouse, and as I gazed down at the track, it moved a little, then moved again in another place. Mice, I realized, or maybe small rats—they were skittering all over the track, almost but not quite blending in with the chunky gravel.

I remembered it was Monday. And rush hour—that was why the station was so crowded. Around me on the platform, people passed by, or stopped in a spot to wait: a black man in a blue shirt and a black pin-striped suit; a white teenager with headphones on, wearing a tank top and jeans that were too big for him; two women in their forties, both with long ponytails, both wearing nurse’s uniforms. There was a woman with a bob and bangs in a silk skirt and matching jacket, a guy in paint-speckled overalls. All these people! There were so many of them! A black grandmother holding the hand of a boy who looked about six, three more white guys in business suits, a pregnant woman in a T-shirt. What had they been doing for the last four years? Their lives had nothing at all to do with Ault.

It’s true that I was hung over for the first time, and still naÏve enough not to understand what a hangover was. But these people, making their way through the morning, all their meetings and errands and obligations. And this was only here, in this station at this moment. The world was so big! The sharpness of that knowledge went away almost as soon as I’d boarded the T, but it has returned over the years, and even now sometimes—I am older, and my life is very different—I can feel again how amazed I was that morning.

Acknowledgments

My amazing agent, Shana Kelly, believed in this book before it existed and has helped me immeasurably with her encouragement, hard work, and level-headed intelligence. Also at William Morris, Andy McNicol has, with gusto, gone to bat for
Prep
and for me. At Random House, I truly have the best editor in the world: the wise and hilarious Lee Boudreaux. At every stage, Lee has known what’s in this book’s best interest, has allowed itself to be itself, and has shown such enthusiasm. I am similarly indebted to Laura Ford, who rooted for the book early on and is a patient hand-holder and generally terrific person, as well as to Lee’s and Laura’s Random House colleagues Holly Combs, Veronica Windholz, Vicki Wong, Allison Saltzman, and my all-star publicity team—Jynne Martin, Kate Blum, Jen Huwer, and Jennifer Jones, who floored me with their creativity and dedication.

I have learned a tremendous amount from my teachers, including Bill Gifford and Laine Snowman. Most recently, at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, I was privileged to study with Chris Offutt; Marilynne Robinson; Ethan Canin, who was a wonderful adviser; and Frank Conroy, who cares so much about writing and whose beliefs have been so inspiring to me. I also learned from my challenging, insightful Iowa classmates, especially Susanna Daniel and Elana Matthews, who are my dear friends, and Trish Walsh, who always told me to just keep writing.

During the time I worked on this book, I received financial assistance from the Michener-Copernicus Society of America. In addition, I literally was a given home by St. Albans School, and welcomed—so welcomed, in fact, that here I still am—by St. Albans’s students, teachers, and staff.

I have been able to support myself without working in an office only because of assignments from various magazine and newspaper editors, including Rory Evans, who has been a mentor since I was seventeen years old. Bill Taylor and Alan Webber, the founding editors of
Fast Company,
hired me for my first and only full-time job and continued to give me incredible writing opportunities after I moved on.

I am deeply grateful to my other friends, readers, and combinations thereof: Sarah DiMare, Consuelo Henderson Macpherson, Cammie McGovern, Annie Morriss, Emily Miller, Thisbe Nissen, Jesse Oxfeld, Samuel Park, Shauna Seliy, and Carolyn Sleeth. Matt Klam was a much-valued advocate and a sender of wacky and excellent e-mails. Field Maloney provided smart and timely editing advice. Peter Saunders brought my hard drive back from the dead and performed other feats of technological wizardry. Matt Carlson makes me happy in many cities.

Finally, of course, there’s my family: My aunt Dede Alexander has been a stylish and attentive presence for my entire life. My other aunt, Ellen Battistelli, is my most faithful reader, has at times been my only reader, and is my kindred spirit in neuroses. My sister Tiernan gracefully suffered the indiginity of being the main character in pretty much everything I wrote until the age of eighteen. My sister Jo talked through many aspects of
Prep
with me, including names and titles, and—when not coming over to my apartment, sitting an inch away from me, and chatting Jo-ishly—kept insisting, correctly, that I needed to finish the book. My brother, P.G., was himself in high school during the years I was writing about Lee Fiora’s high school experience, and he sagely advised me on math, sports, and matters of the heart. Lastly, for their great love, I thank my parents. I am very lucky to be their daughter.