Cecily Von Ziegesar (17 page)

Body twitching and saliva oozing from the corners of his mouth, Tom peeked at the audience from offstage. His parents were sitting in the front row. Shipley sat next to his mom, holding his mom's hand. Eliza sat next to Shipley. The three of them whispered back and forth, giggling like nervous schoolgirls.

Professor Rosen bobbed up and down on the balls of her feet. Her hair was a helmet of copper beneath the spotlight.

“My seven-month-old has a thing for bubbles,” she said. “I blow them for him until my mouth hurts and I can't take it anymore. He watches them, floating around in the air and bursting. Sometimes two bubbles bump into each other and float around together for a while until they both burst. This play is sort of like that—two totally separate bubbles colliding and floating around
together, until they burst.” She clapped her hands together. “Pop!”

The spotlight dimmed. Tom staggered against the closed curtain so violently there was a murmur from the crowd. He shut his eyes, blacking out for maybe three seconds, maybe three hours, maybe an entire week. The curtain opened. The play had begun.

Adam took off his suit jacket, folded it carefully down the middle, and laid it on the bench. He loosened his tie, waited a few seconds, then pulled it off completely and laid it down on top of the jacket. For a minute he just sat there, looking out at the audience as if it were a baseball game. Shipley was in the front row. He scooted back on the bench and looked up at the ceiling. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Then he picked up his magazine, which happened to be the December issue of
A Muse,
Dexter's literary journal, hot off the press. Shipley had written one of the poems. It was in the table of contents: “The Years Between Us,” a poem by Shipley Gilbert, page 11.

Tom swaggered in from offstage, shoulders twitching, fingers flapping, knees all wobbly, and an actual river of spit gleaming on his stubbly chin. “I've been to the zoo,” he slurred.

Adam was busy looking for page 11. He didn't even look up.

“I said, I've been to the zoo. MISTER, I'VE BEEN TO THE ZOO!”

Tom's voice was wet and throaty. His words were garbled and hardly intelligible. A few people in the audience tittered nervously.

Adam looked up from Shipley's poem. He was pretty sure he'd only understood what Tom was saying because he knew the play so well. “Hm?…What?…I'm sorry, were you talking to me?”

Tom did his best to keep his eyes open. He couldn't believe his parents were here. And Shipley, with her face showing and her body parts in all the right places. She looked sweet and unfamiliar, which would have added to her allure had he not been so completely out of his head. Ether was nothing like ecstasy. It was not a touchy-feely sort of drug. It did not arouse the senses. The only thing aroused in him was the screaming pace of his heart. He was
alive
—but barely.

He wiped the spit off his chin and waggled his head from side to side to keep from blacking out again. Honestly, the play gave him a hard-on every time he performed it. It was as if it had been written for him. He could feel it—he could feel it all
over
—and even though his mouth wasn't quite working right, the audience was fucking in love with him, he could tell.

The boys roared through the first half of the play, easy. Adam kept his eyes on Tom, forcing himself not to look at Shipley. During the funny parts, he could hear his parents' and Tragedy's hooting laughter coming from way in the back.

Tom hawked up a big ball of phlegm and spat it out right there on the stage before beginning his monologue.

“ALL RIGHT. THE STORY OF JERRY AND THE DOG. What I'm going to tell you has something to do with how sometimes it's necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly….”

He went on to tell the story of how he, Jerry, had a problem with his landlady's dog. Jerry lived in a crummy boardinghouse in Manhattan, and this dog, who was black, all black, except for his constant red erection, growled at Jerry whenever he came and went. First, Jerry bought the dog hamburgers in an attempt to win him over. When that failed, he poisoned the hamburgers. The dog got sick but he didn't die, and their relationship
actually changed for the better. Finally they understood and respected each other.

At one point during the monologue, Tom got to say the words “malevolence with an erection.” Saying it felt awesome, like there were fireworks exploding out of his teeth. He couldn't believe he got extra credit for doing this. Extra credit for talking about erections out loud in front of an audience—fucking awesome.

From up high in his booth, Nick had a perfect view of the front row. He watched as Eliza picked the cuticles of both thumbs until they bled. She yanked at a thread in her black tights until it formed a large hole and then she picked at a scab inside the hole. She chewed on the ends of her dark hair. She clenched her fists together until her knuckles turned white. Sometimes she smiled. Eliza was a minor celebrity now that naked portraits of her were on display all over the art studio. Beside her Shipley looked very small and blond.

Tom was outrageously good. He stole the show, pacing and gnashing his teeth, spitting and gesticulating. Adam wasn't bad either. He was the perfect example of the status quo—someone who doesn't speak his mind and never steps outside the box. It was nice, how Peter was actually helping Jerry by sitting there, listening, just like he, Nick, was helping the creep who'd been sleeping in his yurt by not calling campus security.

First there was the pile of blankets and clothes. Then there was the book,
Dianetics,
which Nick had ignored. He was tired of seeking solace in platitudes. How could you get inner peace from an outer source? Then there was the stove Eliza had given him, which Nick had left unopened in its box. He preferred to eat in the dining hall, where he could fill his plate as many times as he liked, where there were croutons and eight different choices of salad dressing. He didn't even have to do
the dishes. A few days ago though, he'd gone out to check on the yurt and found the stove all set up. A still-warm can of SpaghettiOs lolled on the floor. Well, at least someone was using it.

Tom had just finished his long dog monologue. Now he and Adam were fighting over the bench. Tom pushed Adam and Adam fell on the floor.

Shipley squeezed Tom's mother's hand. “Watch out!” she cried. “He's got a knife!”

Everyone in the audience craned their necks to look. A few girls giggled. Eliza nudged Shipley with her elbow. “None of this is real, stupid,” she whispered in Shipley's ear. Tom was a surprisingly kickass actor. His voice didn't even sound the same. And Adam was pretty decent too.

The knife was on the floor. “Pick it up,” Tom taunted Adam. “Pick it up and fight with me.”

Shipley covered her eyes with her free hand. Her heart was racing. She peeked through her fingers. Adam bent down and picked up the knife. She began to shake uncontrollably at the thought of Adam stabbing Tom. She held her breath. Oh, it was perfect. It was just what she wanted! No, it wasn't. Oh, God, what was wrong with her? Her whole body trembled violently and she let out a yelp of nervous laughter.

Tom lunged forward and impaled himself on the knife. This was the scene he'd been worried about. A packet of fake blood was taped to his stomach. He felt the cold redness ooze out of the packet, staining his shirt. He gagged, staggered backward, and fell against the bench. Adam ran offstage. Tom was dying. The lights came up. The play was over.

The audience rose to its feet, hooting and applauding. Blanche stuck her pinkies into her mouth and wolf-whistled. From inside his hemp cocoon, Beetle let out a jubilant squawk.

Tom's mother squeezed Shipley's forearm. “He was marvelous, wasn't he?” she cried. “Oh, I'm so glad we came!”

“Bravo!” Tom's father shouted. “Bravo!”

“Atta boy!” Ellen Gatz yelled loudly from the back.

Up in the lighting booth, Nick sneezed his approval. His aim with the spotlight wasn't the best, but he'd managed to muddle through.

Tom lay where he'd fallen, having blacked out once more. Professor Rosen led Adam back onstage to take a bow.

Adam knelt down to murmur in Tom's ear. “Hey. Time to get up.”

Tom remained where he'd fallen. Shipley covered her mouth with her hand. He never could handle the sight of blood. Had he fainted for real?

Tom could see himself as a baby, crawling around in his mother's flower beds. He saw the baseball his father had given him for his tenth birthday, signed by Reggie Jackson. He saw the French toast he and his brother made for his mom every Mother's Day. They put nutmeg in the syrup. He saw his driving instructor, with the ridiculous rack. He saw his cap and gown from graduation. They moved their tassels from the right side to the left after Principal Doogie Howser handed out the diplomas. Man, that dude was small. He saw Shipley take off her clothes and get into bed. She kissed his lips, his ear.

“Get up, Tom,” Adam said again. “The play's over. We're done.”

Tom reeled back to semiconsciousness. The crowd roared as he got on all fours and climbed unsteadily to his feet. His white shirt was stained red. His eyes were slits, his face ashen, his entire body drenched in sweat. He slung his arm around Adam's waist, staggered sideways and slung his other arm around Professor Rosen's shoulders. Supporting Tom on either side, the
professor and Adam bowed together before dragging him offstage.

Shipley was clapping so hard her hands hurt.

“That was pretty good,” Eliza allowed. “Although I'm not so sure what it says about your taste in men.”

“Bravo!” Tom's father called out once more. “Bravo!”

S
econd best to earning a lot of money and spending it is finding a lot of money and spending it. Patrick had taken the car three nights ago and still hadn't returned it. Lucky for him, his sister had left her wallet on the front seat with $135 in cash and her American Express card inside. Her name was unusual enough for people to think it might belong to a guy, and copying her signature was easy. She wrote like a sixth grader. First he bought a whole tankful of premium unleaded gasoline. Then he booked a room at the Holiday Inn. He'd dined on room service for the last three days, watching pay-per-view and eating chicken Kiev. But the Lobster Shack was legendary. He'd always wanted to try it. So he soaked in the tub, using up all the shampoo and conditioner and bubble bath the hotel provided, changed into some of his new clothes, drove to the restaurant, and snagged a quiet table in the back.

The Lobster Shack was an old salty dog of a place, with the requisite dark wood, fishing nets, ropes, and anchors. What
made it unique was that the restaurant was perched on the bank of the Kennebec River, which rushed by the back windows with dark, liquid ferocity.

“You want baked potato or fries with that?”

“Baked potato.”

“Salad or coleslaw?”

“Salad, please. And chocolate milk, if you have it.”

“Yoo-hoo okay?”

Patrick munched his house salad with bleu cheese dressing and slurped his Yoo-hoo. One of the tenets of
Dianetics
was that simple pleasures like eating a good meal, kissing a pretty girl, enjoying a game of baseball are a necessity. One can survive without pleasure, but without pleasure life is not really worth living. To him that made a lot of sense. And it seemed to him that the Lobster Shack was full of simple pleasures.

He flipped through the pages of the magazine he'd found in the car. It was Dexter's literary journal. Shipley had written one of the poems.

Funny that she'd chosen to write about a time devoid of simple pleasures, when he was only just barely surviving. It was after he'd been kicked out of boarding school again. This time he'd stolen a bicycle from one of the deans. Instead of taking him home, his parents took him to Mount Sinai hospital in Manhattan for a full psychiatric evaluation. He was there for two weeks, in a private room in the psychiatric ward. Each day he was interviewed extensively by doctors and put on various medications. He watched
Wheel of Fortune
in the TV room and ate his meals, family style, with the other lunatics. He couldn't open his window or wear shoes with laces.

He wasn't sure how long his parents intended to keep him there, so one afternoon he walked down the back stairs and out of the building. No one stopped him. He walked across Fifth Avenue and into Central Park, grateful that it was only October and still not too cold to be wandering around in only a hospital gown and bare feet. In the park, he found another bicycle and rode it out of town, all the way home to Greenwich.

He took the back roads, foraging for food and clothes in Dumpsters along the way, amazed by what people threw out and delighting in the freedom to take what he wanted and move about unseen in the shadows behind buildings. The first thing he found was a man's pink dress shirt, still in the plastic from the dry cleaners. He'd had a thing for pirates when he was a little boy. Pirates stole stuff to live and stay free, just like he was doing now. It was on that bike ride, wearing that pink dress shirt, that he became Pink Patrick. It wasn't a gay thing. It was his pirate name.

“Surf and turf medium well with a baked potato,” the waitress announced, presenting him with a heaping platter of steak and lobster claws. In the middle of the table was a red plastic basket containing the metal tools used for cracking open the
shells of lobsters, a plastic bib, and a pile of Handi Wipes. He was going to need them.

It was Saturday night and the restaurant was busy. “I just need to sit down!” a guy yelled from across the room. Patrick looked up from his dinner. It was Shipley's boyfriend, with Shipley and two middle-aged people who must have been the boyfriend's parents.

 

“D
rink some water, Tom,” Mrs. Ferguson told her son. “You're probably dehydrated.”

“He's drunk,” Mr. Ferguson countered. He raised his hand to signal the waitress. “I'll have a scotch on the rocks, and my wife would like a glass of white wine. Chardonnay, or Pinot Grigio, or whatever you have.” He glanced at Shipley. “Make that two. And a glass of milk for the boy.”

Tom put his head down on the table. “Oh wow,” he moaned. “Wow!”

“Let's get some food in you,” Mrs. Ferguson said as she perused the menu. “You always love a nice big lobster.”

“Why don't we share one?” Shipley suggested, placing her hand on Tom's knee. She and Tom hadn't seen each other since before Thanksgiving. It was a relief just to be near him, even if he wasn't quite himself.

Tom flinched at her touch. His pant legs were damp with sweat. “I'm not really hungry,” he slurred.

Mrs. Ferguson sniffed her wine and took a gingerly sip. “What is that dreadful smell?”

“It's fish, dear,” Mr. Ferguson said, tipping back his glass. “This is a fish restaurant.”

“No. It's a chemical smell,” Mrs. Ferguson argued as she sniffed the air. “Like formaldehyde or paint.”

Shipley could smell it too. She'd smelled it on the way over, in the backseat of the Fergusons' Audi. It was coming from Tom. She wondered if it were possible to do so much ecstasy that your sweat smelled like chemicals. In fact, she'd been so distracted by Tom's odor, and by his behavior in general, that she hadn't even noticed her car parked outside the Lobster Shack.

Tom's parents ordered two lobsters for everyone to share, a basket of fries, garlic bread, and fish chowder to start. Tom's head was still on the table. He appeared to be asleep.

“Tom?” Shipley leaned down to whisper in his ear. Her lips brushed his hair. “We're in a restaurant.”

Tom turned his head and kissed her on the mouth. His lips tasted terrible, like salt and rubbing alcohol and bleach. Shipley pushed him away, blushing. “I think he's okay,” she told his parents.

“Drink your milk, son,” Mr. Ferguson commanded and gulped down his scotch.

Tom sat up and stared at the tall glass of cool milk. Milk had always seemed so appealing to him before—he couldn't get enough of it—but now the idea of drinking it seemed completely foreign to him. The idea of doing anything except breathing in more ether vapors did not excite him at all. The bottle was in his coat pocket, with Grover's bandanna. He could just slip off to the men's room and—

“I mean it now,” Mr. Ferguson said firmly.

Tom did as he was told. The milk was lukewarm and felt furry going down. The waitress brought their chowder. Chunks of white fish floated in a gelatinous creamy stew.

“Now eat your soup,” Mrs. Ferguson said. “It looks delicious. I don't know what they feed you up here, but you're wasting away to nothing.” She shook her head. “We used to worry about putting on weight at college.” She smiled at Shipley and took a
sip of wine. “Just be sure to get your vitamins, both of you. You're still growing.”

Shipley picked up her spoon and tasted the soup. “It's very good,” she confirmed. She tied a plastic bib around Tom's neck, dipped her spoon into the bowl, and offered it to him. “Here, taste.”

Tom's trembling lips parted and he allowed her to feed him the soup. It was salty and hot and he hadn't eaten in days. “More,” he murmured, leaving his own spoon untouched. “Please?”

 

F
rom across the room, Patrick watched his sister spoon-feeding her boyfriend like he was some kind of overgrown baby. It was sort of hypocritical of her to write a poem about how nutso
he
was when her own boyfriend couldn't even hold a spoon. The guy was like a giant version of a doll she used to have, the one that ate applesauce and then crapped it out into its little doll potty. Real Live Baby, or whatever the hell it was called. She looked happy, feeding him. So happy she had no idea she was being watched. Once he'd decided to veer off the usual get-up, go-to-school, play-sports, eat-dinner, watch-Carson, Monday-through-Friday,
A.M.-P.M.
path, he'd become completely invisible, at least to most people, most of the time. Definitely to his sister.

Half his surf and turf remained on the platter, untouched. That was the thing about eating a big meal when you're not used to eating much. He just couldn't get it all down. He signaled the waitress and requested a doggie bag. He thought about getting up and asking the boyfriend's parents for directions, pretending he didn't know his sister, that he was just some visiting dweeb from Connecticut. But then he chickened out. Spying on her was only fun when she had no idea he was there.

Or maybe she did know and she just wasn't letting on. He'd
found a whole bag of men's clothes from the Darien Sports Shop in the front seat of the car. He was wearing some of them right now. Not that he needed them. That girl who'd brought food and clothes to him in that big tent over Thanksgiving had pretty much set him up, although the stuff from the Darien Sports Shop was nicer.

He reread his sister's poem. What if she knew he was around and the poem was supposed to be some kind of message? He stared at her over the top of the journal, sending out telepathic messages the best way he knew how.
I'm right here, can you see me?
Without a glance in Patrick's direction, his sister wiped off her boyfriend's mouth, removed a drinking straw from its wrapper and stuck it into his glass of milk. Doggie bag tucked under his arm, Patrick stood up, put on his new black hat and gloves, and left the restaurant, brushing past the back of her chair as he went.

 

M
rs. Ferguson was trying very hard not to let Tom's odd behavior ruin the meal. “So how do you like school?” she asked Shipley.

Shipley wiped the chowder drool off Tom's lower lip and then offered him another spoonful. She took a sip of wine, wishing she could smoke.

“It's funny how you come to college and just sort of fall in with people,” she mused. “People you never would have expected to fall in with.”

“And have you two fallen in with a good crowd?” Mrs. Ferguson asked, frowning at her son.

Shipley crossed her legs and then uncrossed them again. She wouldn't exactly call Tom and Nick and Eliza a crowd. They were
more like a focus group, although she wasn't sure what they were supposed to be focusing on.

“Yes. I have some nice new friends.” She crossed her legs again and ate a spoonful of chowder with the same spoon she was using to feed Tom. It was hearty stuff. She licked her lips, gaining courage. “I just think it's strange how you wind up getting involved with people and, you know, pursuing different avenues than you ever would have otherwise, because of these early connections, the friends you make your first day here. I mean, what if I hadn't even signed up for orientation and met Tom that first day? Or what if I lived in a different dorm or was a day student?” She thought of Adam.

Mr. Ferguson had finished his drink and was trying to get the waitress's attention.

“But you're happy with the way things are?” Mrs. Ferguson asked. She seemed genuinely to care.

Shipley smiled at Tom. His eyes were closed, but he was still eating. “So far so good.”

Mr. Ferguson had two more rounds of scotch. Then the fries and lobsters arrived with the nostril-penetrating odor of hot, fishy grease. Tom had eaten Shipley's entire bowl of soup and half of his own, although he still had not uttered a word.

“How about some claw meat, son?” Mr. Ferguson suggested. “You love the claws.”

Shipley picked up the cracking tool and wedged a lobster claw inside it. She squeezed the tool between her fingers, cracking the shell. A geyser of clear juice spattered her plate. Using the tiny fork provided, she fished the meat out of the shell and dipped it into a bowl of melted butter. She held the fork up to Tom's lips. He opened his eyes and stared at the dripping, quivering, coral-colored meat with a dazed expression.

“It looks delicious,” his mother said encouragingly.

“Just a little bite?” Shipley said.

Tom furrowed his eyebrows and wrinkled his nose, as if he were about to sneeze. Then he opened his mouth and vomited all over the table.

Mr. Ferguson pushed back his chair. “Jesus Christ, son,” he sputtered.

Mrs. Ferguson ripped open a Handi Wipe and dabbed at her sweater. “Maybe he has food poisoning. We'd better get him out of here.”

Shipley was already on her feet. “I think he's just really tired.” All Tom needed was a glass of water with some Alka-Seltzer and some sleep. It occurred to her that once she got him tucked safely into bed she could drive out to Adam's party and spend the rest of the evening making connections with people she'd never had a chance to meet because she'd been too busy with Tom. And of course Adam would be there.

 

I
t was getting colder. Mrs. Ferguson drove them back. Adam's party must have been a success because the Dexter quad was deserted. Even Tom's dorm was quiet. A lone exchange student from Japan sat in the common room watching a videotaped episode of
Northern Exposure
. Everyone else, it seemed, was off campus. It was a good thing too, because Tom's trip from his parents' car to his dorm room was not a pretty sight.