Catherine (23 page)

That’s how we wound up homeless, me with everything I owned in a bag and Hence with
nothing but the clothes he’d worn the night before and his guitar, which, luckily
enough, he’d brought upstairs to serenade me with before we fell asleep. As we fled
The Underground, Hence didn’t say much. I know he must have been at least as angry
as I was. Angrier. I thought of the look I’d seen on his face, how he’d been on his
knees, naked except for a sheet, while Quentin pointed a gun at him and called him
names, ordering him to be respectful. I thought how humiliated Hence must feel, and
for a long time I couldn’t think of anything to say. We rode the subway side by side,
not speaking. I wasn’t sure where we were going. Hence seemed to have some destination
in mind, so I followed.

“That shithead.” Hence spoke the words so quietly that at first I thought I’d imagined
them. “Racist son of a bitch.”

“He never used to be.” That was true, wasn’t it? He’d certainly liked Jackie well
enough, teasing and flirting with her, sticking up for her, calling her pet names
like Jackie-O and Jack O’Lantern. “Maybe that’s part of it, but it’s not the whole
thing. Q hated you because Dad liked you so much. He hates you even more now that
Dad’s gone.” I put a hand on his shoulder, but he shook it off.

“What do I care what his reasons are?” Hence spoke through clenched teeth. “Spoiled
piece of shit. He had parents who loved him, and all the money in the world, and he
couldn’t stand to share his
daddy’s
attention?” I felt a chill, because of course I was spoiled, too, compared to Hence.
I knew he didn’t mean to criticize me; it
was Quentin he was angry with. Even so, feeling accused, I folded my hands in my lap,
and we rode the rest of the way in silence.

While I waited in a coffee shop on Gansevoort Street, Hence ran over to the apartment
his bandmates shared to see if they would be willing to make room for two more. We
had money, of course; we could have gotten a hotel room if we’d wanted to. We could
even have rented a place together, the way we’d dreamed of doing. But Hence’s first
thought was of his new friends in the band, and my first thought was of Hence, especially
after what my brother had just put him through.

I was on my third cup of coffee by the time Hence returned, a relieved smile on his
face, to lead me to the walk-up on West Thirteenth. It was nice of the guys to take
us in, considering their place wasn’t big enough for the three of them to begin with.
Andy and Stan shared the bigger bedroom; Ruben could barely fit all of his stuff in
the smaller one. That left the pull-out couch in the living room for me and Hence.
It was a good thing we hadn’t packed any more of our stuff; there would have been
no place to put it. As shaken up as I’d been that morning, I would have liked a nice
quiet evening alone with Hence instead of a long TV-watching session with the guys,
but the living room was the TV room, so I had no choice.

The next morning, I made banana–chocolate chip pancakes, and they were a big hit.
The boys consumed two enormous batches, and Ruben couldn’t stop thanking me. It was
kind of
sweet, really; I felt like Peter Pan’s Wendy, looking after her troop of Lost Boys.
After that, the band went downstairs to the rehearsal space to practice for that night’s
show. Hence invited me to come along, but after a whole twenty-four hours spent breathing
the same air as the Riptide guys, I needed space. Plus, it was the first day of my
spring break, and I wanted to do something different, something to cheer myself up.

The trouble was, I didn’t know what that would be. It had been a long time since I’d
done something just because I felt like it, without worrying about what would make
Hence happy. At first I thought I would hang around the apartment for the day, but
I was sick of watching TV and, naturally, I didn’t have any books with me. I thought
with regret of the pile of library books beside my bed back home. There was no way
Quentin would think to return them. As I washed the last of the breakfast dishes,
I fantasized about sneaking into The Underground—maybe watching from down the street
to catch Quentin on his way out, and then letting myself in to get more stuff, or
even climbing in through the window, the way Hence used to. The thought was satisfying,
but the memory of the gun in Quentin’s twitching hand still made me queasy.

By the time I’d figured out where to stack the clean plates and coffee mugs, it was
official: I was bored out of my skull. Plus, the whole apartment was seriously smelly
and gross. I wasn’t sure how I could stay there without picking up the dirty socks
and putting things into piles, but it wasn’t my job; after all, Hence and I would
be chipping in on the rent while we looked for another place. I needed to find something
else to do with myself before I started scrubbing the shower stall out of sheer boredom.

I would have gone over to Jackie’s, but her mom had whisked her off to Washington,
D.C., on a three-day trip to tour the Smithsonian museums and the White House, and
to check out George Mason, one of the schools that had accepted Jackie. As dorky as
that sounded, it was also kind of sweet. The last time I’d been to the Grays’ house,
Jackie’s mom had been fretting about how it might be the last vacation they would
take together as a family, her eyes bright and teary. Jackie told her she was being
crazy, that of course they would still go places together once Jackie started college.
“It’s not like I have a terminal illness, Mom,” she’d said, and the two of them hugged
like they had forgotten I was in the room.

Even if Jackie had been in town, I wasn’t at all sure I’d have felt like spending
time with her. Jackie had been accepted by Columbia as well as George Mason, and when
she’d broken the news, I could tell she was working hard to hide her excitement so
I wouldn’t get sad about having to turn down Harvard. I kept trying to get her to
talk about which school she was leaning toward, because I honestly wanted her to relax
and be her usual self. We were both trying so hard it was painful. It was even worse
with the other girls from school, who were oblivious, always asking me where I’d be
next year so they could boast about the fabulous schools that had accepted them.

As I paced Riptide’s smelly crash pad, I couldn’t stop obsessing about the one thing
I should already have done. While I’d been frantically packing my things, I’d thought
to shove my acceptance letters into the bottom of my duffel bag. Now I needed to pull
them out and pick a New York school. But before I did that, I
needed to make an
X
in the little box on the form that would tell Harvard I wasn’t coming.

One little
X
. And yet I couldn’t seem to make myself do it. The response deadlines were looming.
If Harvard didn’t hear from me, I supposed they would give my space away to someone
else, so what was the big deal about sending in the form? Besides, it would give me
something to do: take a walk to the nearest mailbox. Pretty pathetic when that’s the
day’s big event.

Sitting cross-legged on the lumpy pullout bed, I spread the letters in front of me.
Maybe if I chose a school, it would be easier to check off the
no
box on the Harvard form. I could spend the day wandering the campuses of NYU and
Fordham, trying to make up my mind. I’d heard good things about both schools, and
their glossy catalogs didn’t make my decision any easier. Maybe actually going to
each one would help me choose; maybe some sign from God would help me get over my
stupid, pointless attachment to the idea of Harvard. Nothing could have been as perfect
as my fantasy of strolling through Harvard Yard in October and engaging in long, deep
conversations at Café Algiers. So why couldn’t I get over it?

The more I thought about it, the sound of Riptide’s guitars and drums rising up to
me through the floorboards, the more I knew what I needed to do: catch a train to
Boston and visit Cambridge again. The last time I’d been there, I’d seen it through
a little girl’s dreamy eyes. I needed to see it again so I could know—not just in
my head, but in my heart—that it really wasn’t superior to Fordham or NYU. Then I
could get on with my life. There wasn’t anything stopping me. I wouldn’t even have
to pack; everything I owned was already in my duffel bag.

But I couldn’t miss Riptide’s show that night. They would be headlining at the Trocadero,
and I knew it was a big deal to Hence. He’d be hurt if I wasn’t there. And how could
I explain my absence when I hadn’t told him I was applying to Harvard, much less that
I was accepted? How could I make him understand that I needed to make one last trip,
to say good-bye to my dream of what college should be? I knew he would think the opposite
was true—that I was secretly thinking about saying yes to Harvard. But I wasn’t. I
really wasn’t.

Was I?

I folded up my acceptance letters and tucked them into the duffel bag, putting off
my big decision for another day. I couldn’t go to Boston; I couldn’t risk hurting
Hence, as bruised and battered as he still was by his life before we met. It was a
big responsibility knowing how broken he was, because what if I was the one who hurt
him next?

When the rain finally petered out to a drizzle, I went prowling for bookstores and
bought myself a stack of paperbacks to replace the books I’d abandoned. That should
have put me in a better mood, but it didn’t. When I met up with Hence and the guys
at Gennaio’s Pizza, they were all so giddy, joking and cracking up over the stupidest
things, that it set my teeth on edge. Rehearsal had gone really well, and they were
so excited about getting to play the Troc that none of them seemed to notice that
I was quieter than usual. Andy and Stan were especially obnoxious, going on and on
about a pair of sisters they’d invited to the show. “You two had better stay out late,”
Andy warned Hence and me. “I’ll be needing that pullout couch.”

“Otherwise we’ll be forced to have a foursome in our bedroom,” Stan chimed in.

“Dude! Like I want to see your hairy ass in action!”

Stan, Ruben, and Hence laughed like that was the funniest thing they’d ever heard,
but I could tell Andy really wanted us to give him the couch. It was only our second
night in the apartment, and already the guys were letting us know how in the way we
were. And where exactly were Hence and I supposed to go until morning?

The pizza at Gennaio’s was cheap. Feeling queasy, I patted my slice with a paper napkin
to mop up the extra grease. Until that moment, I hadn’t given much thought to the
way Andy and Stan treated the girls they went out with—like Kleenex to be used once
and tossed into a corner.

“I’m spending the night at Drew’s,” Ruben offered, patting my hand. “So you don’t
need to worry, chica.”

I mustered a smile in his direction. Ruben wasn’t a playboy like the others. At least
he had a steady boyfriend. Not all that long ago, he’d been almost as bad as Andy
and Stan, with a new guy every weekend. As for Hence, he beamed all through dinner,
squeezing my hand whenever he spoke, clearly pleased to be out with his band and me,
one big jolly family.

That night was worse than usual, too. The pink-haired girl, Nina, and her bleached-blond
friend were at the Troc, of course—did they ever miss a show?—in tube tops as tight
as sausage casings.
As she always did, Nina hugged the stage right in front of Hence’s microphone stand
and shrieked whenever he came close to the edge. She was almost impossible to ignore,
but Hence usually managed it. That night, though, when he was singing a ballad—not
one of his, but one of Stan’s—he was looking right at her the whole time. She certainly
noticed; I could see it on her rapt, wide-eyed face, and in the way she grabbed and
squeezed her friend’s hand, as if to keep herself from swooning like some Victorian
lady. If the Victorian lady was dressed like a skank.

You’re being paranoid
, I scolded myself. Usually Hence sang directly to me, but that night I was at the
side of the stage, not directly in his sight line; I hadn’t felt like standing in
the thick of things, in part because I was feeling so cranky. So his eyes had to go
somewhere, and why not to the girl right up front who had been killing herself to
get his attention for a month’s worth of gigs? She was there. And I wasn’t. So what?

Still, it rankled. After the song ended, I saw Nina scream something into her girlfriend’s
ear, and the two of them ducked out of the crowd together—a highly unusual move. I
don’t think Nina had ever left the stage during a set before; what if she missed a
chance to wave her breasts in Hence’s face? I don’t know what made me do it exactly,
but I decided to follow them through the shifting crowd. They were most likely headed
toward the ladies’ room. For once, there wasn’t a line; by the time I caught up, two
of the three stalls were occupied. I ducked into the third and listened. I’d never
heard Nina speak before, but I knew without a doubt the first voice I heard—husky
and drunk-sounding—was hers.

“Oh my God oh my God oh my God oh my God. Tell me you
saw that. Tell me I wasn’t imagining it.” She was screaming to be heard over the band.

“You totally weren’t imagining it. He was looking right at you. He didn’t take his
eyes off you for a second!”

“I know!”

“I guess that girlfriend of his isn’t here tonight. Maybe they broke up?”

“Oh, she’s here all right,” Nina said. “I saw her off to the side of the stage, looking
all pissed off about something. Maybe they had a fight?”

“Could be. You’d better get ready to pounce.”

“Honey, I was born ready. You should have seen what she was wearing tonight. Baggy
jeans and a flannel shirt. Who wears that to the Troc?”

I looked down at myself. I’d grabbed the first clothes I’d come across in my duffel
bag. Not that it was any of their business.

“I’ll bet she’s still beautiful, even dressed like that. Some people have all the
luck and don’t even know it. I wish I had skin like hers. Not to mention that body…”