The Genius of Little Things (21 page)

I informed him that the state line was an arbitrary dividing point and that California was huge enough to contain every kind of climate and geological formation.

“I was making a joke. You take everything so literal.”

“
Literally
.”

“I’m not stupid.” He slammed his fist on the horn. No sound came out.

The Lincoln cruised up a steep incline, past the rocky outcroppings pocked with dry dots of sagebrush. The high desert terrain looked like old poppy seed buns.

I tried to call the motel to reconfirm our reservations. I didn’t realize until Janet picked up that I had accidentally dialed her cell phone.

“What’s wrong?” she said, panicked. “Where are you?”

I told her nothing was wrong and that we were still in the desert.

“What’s that screaming?”

“Seagulls,” I said.

“Put me on speaker,” she demanded.

I obeyed her.

“Drive safely, Levi.” Her voice was so loud over the speaker it was making my phone buzz. “And call when you arrive, all right?”

Levi said he would call.

“She meant me,” I said.

Janet put Carl on the line, which was totally unnecessary. “What I wanted to say before was, good luck and have a good time,” he said. “And be careful of those college women.”

“I’ll be careful,” Levi said.

“He meant me,” I said.

“Who’s screaming?”

“Seagulls,” Levi and I said at the same time.

“Fine, you don’t have to tell me,” Carl said, disappointed. I ended the call.

The hum of the road and Levi’s seashore sounds and enveloping pillow-seats put me to sleep. I woke up when Levi swerved suddenly, throwing me against the side window.

“I almost didn’t see that truck,” he said.

I informed him, as politely as I could, that a clean windshield would help. He turned on the wipers. An anemic jet of blue spray drizzled onto the glass. The wipers smeared the bug carcasses.

I remembered the time my BiMo moved us to Nevada. She was driving her ancient blue Subaru, “blubaru” she called it, while singing to a Joni Mitchell CD. There was a splat. She screamed. Suddenly the window was opaque yellow. I knew right away it was a thick swarm of bees meeting their untimely end. I urged her to pull over to the side of the freeway. She did, and I scraped off the wings and pollen. She had no cleaner, so I had to make do with some Gatorade and a snow scraper. When I finished the job, she was nowhere to be found. I searched the rocks by the side of the freeway. The contrail of a plane over a mountain range, the hiss of traffic, and faraway train tracks were the only signs of life. I wandered around in the brutal sun for ten minutes, calling her name. She emerged, smiling and waving, from behind a giant rock. “The bees got me to thinking, so I went to look for something.” I didn’t ask what she was looking for. She was always searching for something, and often she had nothing particular in mind.

A little after six o’clock, when we attempted to check in to our motel, I received a very bad sign. Suspecting that we were underage, the clerk asked to see identification. He rejected my fake license and made a sarcastic comment about enjoying my films. I was rather dismayed that it was easier to score alcohol than shelter with a fake I.D.

It took another two hours to find a motel that accepted minors. We got lucky with a dump that had the advantage of being overpriced, far from campus, and featuring only rooms with one bed instead of two. While I signed the registration form, the cadaverous clerk referred to Levi as my friend. I didn’t like the way he said, “friend,” especially when we would be sharing a bed at a motel that had a condom machine in the lobby.

“He isn’t my
friend
. I tutor him.”

When we reached our musty, nicotine-stained room, Levi flopped on the bed and  began languidly flipping through my Caltech brochures. “
In loco parentis
. Is that German?”

“Latin.” I pulled out my green striped tie from the overnight bag. It had an unidentifiable stain. This was a very bad sign.

“It means ‘parents are crazy,’ right?”

“It means ‘in place of the parents.’ The university takes care of you.”

“
Loco
means crazy in Spanish,” he said.

“But the phrase is Latin,” I snapped. I examined my other tie. It, too, had a small stain. I uttered several cuss words in German and English.

I found the source of the stains. An ancient protein bar had ricocheted around the bag, creating grease splotches on everything, including both pairs of dress pants, almost like it had an agenda to sabotage my entire wardrobe.

I walked around the drab neighborhood looking for a store that sold stain removers. I found none. Fortunately, the front desk clerk had plenty. I wouldn’t have guessed this from the many discolored patches on the blankets. When I gave up trying to de-stain my clothes—I basically blended the grease blotches into the fabric rather than lifting them off—Levi had fallen asleep, face up, mouth open. I was not about to spend an evening a dingy room with a drowsy tutee that smelled like orange chemicals and mold. I mean the room smelled that way. Levi always smelled like bacon and pine deodorant. I said I would be back sometime before midnight. He grunted his approval, or disapproval. Or maybe it was a half-snore.

I took a bus to campus. My self-guided tour of the university was exhilarating. I had no idea there were so many styles of architecture—consistency was the hobgoblin of small universities. Hello, Beckman Auditorium, where I will hear fascinating lectures by visiting scholars. Hello, stream by the library where I will kiss a girl at dusk. Hello, Asian guy who looks like a grown-up Eddie Kim.

On a kiosk near one of the cafeterias I saw a flier for a dorm party. There were fliers on walls and doors as well as kiosks. How’s
that
for an advertising policy, Principal Nicks? I made a beeline for the dorm. The building was accessible only with a student card key, but a guy held the door open for me, as if I belonged there. That was the best omen so far.

Inside, a dozen guys watched a basketball game on a TV in a corner. A table stocked with wine and cups suggested more might arrive. I stood a few feet away from the guy-cluster so they wouldn’t think I was intruding. Then, I decided standing alone made me more conspicuous, so I went back to the wine table. I expected someone to say,
hey, you’re a high school kid. You don’t belong in this dorm and you aren’t old enough to drink wine. Someone call security!
Nobody said this.

More students arrived, including a few women. College women. I attempted to paint, through strands of conversation, a picture of what my life would be like. “It’s a debate of ideas without ideas. Why does it smell like that? They couldn’t make a basket if their lives depended on it. I’m all about milk thistle these days.” The picture was cloudy.

Someone very interesting arrived. She was short and thin, with a dark complexion. Indian, maybe. She wore a Caltech t-shirt, running shorts, and flip-flops. She headed for the wine table, her footwear slapping. She glanced at me as she poured a cup of red wine from a jug. She looked around at the room. Deciding there was nothing of interest—though she hadn’t looked at
me
yet—she pivoted and flip-flopped away.

I ran over and pretended to walk directly into her. I apologized.

“I don’t know why people say they’re sorry when they bump into you,” she said. “It’s like we’re all afraid of touching.”

“I’m not afraid of touching,” I said, too eagerly.

“I see that,” she said, taking a sip and stepping back.

I told the truth. I bumped into her so that I could talk.

“Okay,” she said, expressionless.

“I threw a better party two weeks ago.”

“Here?”

“No.”
Scheizen
! She was not supposed to know I was in high school. And if I said I threw a party on campus, she would be suspicious. I stood there, unable to talk, imagining what might happen if she took me to her room. The room would be filled with stuffed bears and smell like baby powder and lilacs. I would to reach out and kiss her. But would I be cheating on Rachel? No, of course not. We were an item for less than 24 hours. A night of kissing and intimate touching did not a relationship make. Even I knew that. And she probably wouldn’t talk to me after my speed-fueled tirade. I was free to play the field.

The thick metal door clicked with finality. The flip flop beauty had left the party. I threaded my way between clumps of people for another ten minutes, like some
dummkopf
ghost. I tried not to view the party as a bad sign for my collegiate social life.

Levi was gone when I returned to the motel. His car was gone, too. It was eleven. I assumed he had gone to Disneyland after all. He had not returned by eleven-thirty, or by midnight, or by the time the couple next door—or maybe it was a trio—decided to have vigorous, wall-thumping sex.

Sometime in the night I migrated from the chair to the bed. I woke up to a shaft of sunlight hitting the figure of Levi, next to me. There was crusted blood on his pillowcase and a scab just above his left eye. It looked like he had been in a fight. I must have hovered too close. He jerked awake as if a bomb had gone off in his solar plexus, sending all parts of his body in different directions.

“Are you all right?”

He muttered something unintelligible and pulled the blanket over his head.

“What day is it?” No response. “Who’s the president?”

His voice was muffled by the blanket. “I’m not stupid!”

For the record, I was asking these questions to check his mental functions. My nursing class instructor said people can die from even minor head traumas. Memory loss and disorientation are the first signs of trouble.

It was almost nine and my interview was at ten fifteen. I told him to go to a clinic. He groaned.

“If you die of inter-cranial pressure, I will not take the blame.” No response. “I’ll meet you at the designated spot. Which is… where?”

“Bridge.”

I took no yellow jacket—I was already pumped with adrenalin—and headed to campus. Outside the admissions building I checked my voice mail messages. There were four.

“It’s Janet. You said you would call. It’s after seven. You should be there by now. Call us.”

“It’s Carl. Janet was worried that you were… well… she worries too much, but it
is
after ten, and you said you would call when you arrived. Call us and let us know you’re all right. You don’t have to talk long. A text message is okay. We’ll stay up for a little while.”

Carl: “We’re both concerned now. It’s eleven. Just give us a ring. Okay?”

Janet: “Inconsiderate. That’s what it is. You may be smart, but you have a lot to learn.”

I found the men’s room and took care of my morning business. All of the stalls had doors. Caltech cared about its students’ privacy. Chew on
that
, Principal Nicks! I splashed water on my face and dried off with two paper towels. I stuffed paper towels into my shirt, one under each arm, to prevent pit sweat from causing unsightly damp spots. I certainly didn’t need any more splotches on my clothes.

I stared at my face in the mirror and forced a smile. This was the moment I had been waiting for. All of my problems could be spun into assets, all of my losses into victories.

I popped a menthol cough drop in my mouth as I strode down the hallway. I stopped at the door of the admissions office. I pulled out my cell phone and typed a message to Janet
. Don’t worry. I’m fine
. Then I added,
Doing great!!!
The act of sending that text made me believe I had created my own good fortune. I believed that for at least thirty seconds.

TWENTY

The admissions receptionist seemed helpful and kind. When I told her my name, she acted like she had been expecting me and was glad to see me. Excellent sign. Then, she told me, “smile, it’s not so bad.” I thought I had been smiling. Less-than-excellent sign.

She said they were running late and I should have a seat. I asked whether any new correspondence had arrived from Firebird High.

“Transcripts?”

“A letter from my high school. From the principal?”

She smiled meekly and told me I should ask Mr. Bingaman, the head of admissions. Bad sign?

The paper towels under my pits were making scraping noises. I considered removing them, but the receptionist would notice that, surely. And where would I put them?

A mother, father and son sat on the other side of the waiting room. The son wore a tie and a blazer with a prep school insignia on the pocket. His clothes had no grease spots that I could see. His parents kept casually touching his shoulder and his arm. They probably spent thousands of dollars for SAT prep courses. I scored in the 95th percentile without a single prep class, thank you very much. Father of Blazer Boy leaned over and muttered something. They all laughed. They annoyed me. Annoyance was better than panic, but not as good as confidence, and I was running low on confidence. I tried to rehearse my interview talking points, but they were getting jumbled up in my head.