What It Was Like (18 page)

“Max!” she shouted at the dog, pulling back on the leash. “Stop it!”

The dog stood on its hind legs, yipping like a madman and straining to attack me.

“Hi, Max,” I said to the dog, pretending to be nonchalant while staying out of the range of the little sharp-looking teeth and snapping jaws. I didn't want to seem scared of a small dog; no boyfriend should be that much of a wuss.

“How you doin', boy?” I said, reluctantly keeping my distance.

“It's a
girl
,” said Rachel pulling back on the leash. “Max
ine
.”

I looked and, sure enough, it
was
a girl.

“Down, Max! Girl,” I said, frustrated that I couldn't get to Rachel. “Are you OK?”

“You keep saying that,” said Rachel, trying to pull the dog behind her, so that we could reach each other. “Of course I'm OK.”

“On the phone you just sounded like something was wrong.”

“I was
whispering
, silly!” she said. “They don't know that you're meeting me here. They'd kill me if they knew you were here.”

“OK . . .” I said. “OK,” comprehending that there was no crisis, no emergency. I had rushed over there, semi-panicked, for nothing. Meanwhile, the dog kept barking non-stop.

“Why don't you tie her to a tree?” I asked. “Or we can put her in the car.”

“I'm not going to tie her to a tree!” Rachel answered, affronted by the idea. “But,” she reflected. “We can put her in your car.”

“Great!” I said, and with a quick switch, Max was in the backseat of the Chrysler, and Rachel was in my arms.

“Baby, I really thought that something was wrong,” I said when we surfaced from the first round of kisses.

“Why do you keep saying that?” she said, pulling back from me.

“It was the sound of your voice,” I said. “It sounded like you needed me.”

“Well, I always need you, but –” she said, reaching to touch my cheek.

I grabbed her hand and held it.

“No,” I said seriously. “I was really concerned. I thought that something bad had happened. I don't know what Eleanor or Herb are going to do and –”

Laughing, she threw her arms around my head and pulled me into a single kiss, effectively silencing me. It was a good, deep kiss. And kissing is always better than talking, right? She took a breath and held my face in her hands.

“Oh, baby,” she said. “You are so sweet. No! I forgot to give you a good luck kiss for tomorrow. I know how much it means to you, Columbia and everything. Besides, didn't you
want
to see me again?”

“Of course I did –
do
,” I said. “But I got worried.”

“All you want to do is protect me.”

“Well,” I said. “Isn't that my job? Isn't that what a boyfriend is supposed to do?”

She smiled contentedly. “You really
do
love me, don't you?”

“You know I do. Is that so hard to believe?”

“No,” she replied, but something suddenly changed in her. I could see it in her face.

She turned away from me. I wasn't sure what I'd said, but it didn't really matter. I was getting used to Rachel's emotional swings. I knew that she was under a lot of pressure, or rather, she
felt
that she was under pressure. Which is really the same thing when you think about it.

“It's just . . . I don't know how I'm going to get through this year,” she said in a tired, small voice.

“What?” I said, trying to turn her back toward me. “Why? Did something happen?”

“She threatened me again,” she said. “About not letting me see you if I don't take this school year seriously and apply to colleges and all that garbage that I don't want to do.”

“That's ridiculous,” I said.

“And Herb is always behind her,” she said. “
Agreeing
with her, adding his stupid little advice. I really think there's something crooked about that guy. I really hope my father takes care of him.”

I hated to see her so troubled by all these adults.

“It would serve them all right,” she said. “If my father killed
both
of them.”

“Don't say things like that!” I finally caught her eye and turned her around to face me. “Look, nothing is going to stop me from seeing you.
Nothing
.
Ever.
No Eleanor. No Herb.
Nothing
.” Which made her smile, if just a little. “We're going to get through this week, and then I'll come home, and we'll go out on Friday night, on a date,” I said confidently. “Just like regular people, regular teenagers.”

She paused, reflecting on the idea, sniffing back a tear. “A date? That sounds . . . interesting. Where would you like to take me?”

“Since Bailey's is too far, how about . . . paradise?” I replied.

That earned me a wide, dreamy smile from her, and another long, deep kiss. (I was getting this boyfriend thing down pretty well.)

“I really hafta go,” she said. “They're gonna wonder where I am. It's not so long till Friday.”

“It really isn't,” I agreed with her and tried to mean it.

“You're so lucky,” she said glumly. “You're going off to the City. I'm still stuck here on the Island.”

“Just don't you fall in love with any of the guys at high school,” I said. “Some rich quarterback, or –” I was about to say the name “Eric,” but I didn't dare to. I didn't want to remind her of him.

“Don't worry,” she replied. “The boys at Oakhurst are like children. They're all conceited and shallow. I don't want anyone but you.”

That was very good to hear.

“Don't
you
fall in love with any of those super-smart college girls,” she cautioned.

“There
are
no girls at Columbia,” I countered with. “There are girls at Barnard, across Broadway, but I think they're pretty separate.”

“Good,” she said firmly.

We walked a few steps back toward the car before she started to cloud up again.

“I'm going to miss you so much,” she said. “I hate to go back in there. I sort of hate everything but being with you. Is that wrong? I hate it when things end –”

“This isn't the end,” I said, taking her by the shoulders. “This is the beginning! I'll see you this weekend, and once school gets started, we'll see more of each other than ever. And we'll be freer! No Jerry, no Estelle!”

She stood there, trying to believe me.

“So this is not an actual goodbye,” I reasoned. “It's a
temporary
goodbye. Just until Friday.”

“Until Friday,” she repeated, trying to build confidence.

We were back by the car. Max was standing up in the back seat, her wet nose against the window, licking the glass.

“I have to go,” she said. “Hell-eanor will have the cops out for me.”

She reached out and opened up the rear door of the Chrysler. Max instantly jumped out and ran straight to my pants leg. I recoiled, as if she was going to bite, but she just started smelling my ankles and shoes intently. Rachel grabbed the leash and pulled her back.

“She likes to smell things,” Rachel said.

“She's a dog,” I said.

We stood there for a while, facing our moment of separation.

“I had no idea you were this rich,” I said.

“Don't say that,” she said. “And there are plenty of people richer than us.”

“Which of these mansions is yours?” I asked.

“They're not mansions,” she said. “They're just big houses.”

“Same thing,” I said.

She sighed and pointed down the block, saying, “When you go past the cul-de-sac, look across to the far end. It's the big brick house straight ahead, with the long driveway and the black door. The one that looks like a prison.”

We had one last kiss. This time Max wound her leash around our legs as she sniffed my pants up and down. Then, as Rachel smiled a “goodbye” and walked away, I got into the Chrysler and turned on the engine. I did a quick three-point turn and drove back past Rachel. Rolling down the window, I waved one last goodbye.

“Bye, Max!” I yelled, which made Rachel laugh as I drove on.

I slowed down and cruised past the entry to the cul-de-sac, looking down at the end, just as she had instructed. Sure enough, I saw a huge brick house with a black door and shutters in the distance at the end of a long lawn, a perfect stretch of green.

“Some prison,” I muttered. Then I sped up and got out of there.

≁

I always seemed to be leaving her. I decided to look at it as just another Five Days Without Rachel. One of my main memories of the whole thing with Rachel was the sense of constantly
leaving
her. I always seemed to be driving away from her, feeling the emptiness of missing her. Even now, in this cell, I can still summon up the feeling of that particular hurt. But at that moment, I remember feeling really positive and enthusiastic about things. It was going to be a great year – a full school life
and
a full love life. I was going to make it that way: everything playing, hitting on all cylinders. OK, I could see that, with Rachel and me, I was going to have to be the stable one considering her home life and what was happening with the divorce, etc. But we could do it. We could handle Rachel's parents. And Herb, too, for that matter. We could do everything.

But even then I was learning that everything good in this life – even a few extra moments with Rachel – comes with a price. When I got back home, I discovered that Max had peed on the floor in the back seat of the Chrysler.

≁

The next day I went off to Columbia. All my life I had been told that one day I would “go away to college,” and now this was the day. OK, it was just an hour's car ride into Manhattan, and I planned to be back that Friday night to take Rachel out, but it was still a momentous day. My mother fought back tears as my Dad and I pulled out of the driveway with a full carload of my stuff, partially because I was going away and partially because we weren't letting her come to help move me in. I let her fuss over me and tell me I looked “just like Sir Laurence Olivier” (her standard compliment to me – once she had meant it; now it was our private joke). But I didn't let her come with me to help me move into my dorm; I'm not that stupid.

I'm not going to go into too much detail about my time at Columbia. Only what's necessary. They don't particularly like me over there. (I'm using
extra
fake names for them all.) They weren't too pleased about all the publicity from my trial, and they don't like the fact that I will be forever associated with their wonderful institution. Their idea of famous alumni is more like Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and FDR, not some teenage thrill/revenge killer. Even an innocent one.

My father dropped me off on Amsterdam Avenue, just where the Freshman Orientation packet told us to. There was a long line of waiting cars. We got into the back of the line and gradually inched our way to the front. On the sidewalk, there were porters in uniform with big sleds on wheels, ready to take people's luggage away. My Dad and I got out of the car and started unloading the Chrysler.

“We shoulda taken your mother with us,” he said. “She would have liked this.”

“You can tell her about it,” I said. “We unloaded luggage. She didn't miss anything.”

A porter put some colored tags around each of my things in a very efficient way and gave me a receipt for everything. A young man in a blue blazer with the Columbia crest on its pocket told us to follow the signs for “Freshman Registration.” I saw other guys getting out of cars with their fathers (or both parents). Everyone seemed excited and busy; it was a clear September day, perfect for new beginnings. So much optimism, so much anxiety.

My father clapped me on the shoulder and gave me a squeeze.

“I'm real proud of you, son,” he said. I could see a little tear shine in the corner of his eye.

“Thanks, Dad,” I said.

His words still haunt me to this day. They echo in my mind as I sit here in this never-ending cell/hell, trying to remember everything.

≁

I'll admit that I was nervous on that first day, but it was a
good
nervousness. I had been waiting my whole life for this moment, and it had finally come. I followed the path of signs onto the campus, with a stream of other freshmen, coming up from the car line on Amsterdam Avenue. I walked with a bunch of other guys who mostly sort of looked like me: guys in jeans with their hair a little long, in long, floppy shirts, wearing different kinds of sneakers. Oh, there were a few guys in sports jackets and ties, a few large jocks (tall and/or wide), and a few black/Chinese/Puerto Rican guys, but mostly they were like me. Or, rather, I was like them.

The people in charge were very nice to us freshman as they processed us through the system like smart little sausages. One after another, we got our room assignments (with a key in an envelope) and registered for our classes, with a lunch in between. Everybody was smiling, being helpful to the freshmen. Which was the right thing to do. I mean, most of the freshmen, myself included, were pretty exhausted/shell-shocked by the end of the day. This was after moving in. I wound up dragging all my things up the narrow staircase to my room on the fourth floor of one of the older dorms, one without an elevator.

I'm not going to say too much about my roommate, anymore than I have to for the sake of my story. I'm going to call him Roommate A. If you want to know his real name, you can look it up in the newspapers. He testified at my trial, so it's all there in the transcripts. He was subpoenaed, so he had no choice in going on the witness stand. I know that he did not enjoy the experience, so I don't wish to prolong his public exposure. I'm sure that he already feels that I've ruined his chances to become Governor of New York or a Supreme Court Justice or something, but there's nothing I can do about that now. I will tell you this one thing about him and let you be the judge: he puts actual shined pennies in his penny loafers. (Now you see why I've chosen to call him Roommate “A.”)

I could hardly wait until 8:00 when I could call Rachel and tell her all about this very full day . . . and to ask her about
her
first day of school. But first there was this long dinner, followed by an even longer “Invocation” in the famous fake-Greek library, full of platitudes and malarkey. Nice, intelligent platitudes and jokey, ice-breaking malarkey, all of it well-meaning; but it still ran late. One thing I learned quickly about Columbia: these people
loved
to hear themselves talk. Once the Invocation ended, I bounded down the wide staircase in front of the library to find a pay phone. As I walked around campus during the day, I had scoped out where the pay phones were. There were a pair of phone booths in the basement of my dorm, which I saw when I was getting my mailbox and its tiny key. I would try for them first.

My dorm was just catty-corner across from the library so it was an easy trot across the pavement to my target. I shot down the stairs to the mailroom, visualizing that at least one of the phone booths would be empty. In the Freshman Orientation packet, there was information about having a private phone installed in your room, but it was way too expensive for me. I would have to rely on the hall phone that served my whole dormitory floor and the pay phones scattered around the campus.

At the bottom of the steps, I turned the corner and walked down the basement hallway into the mailroom and, wouldn't you know it, both phone booths were occupied. I could see the little overhead lights shining down on the two guys in the booths. One guy had his back turned to the glass; the other one was holding onto the handle of the bi-fold door that enclosed him.

Damn!
I thought. What should I do: wait, or try to find another phone? Maybe if I went over and stood outside the booths, one of them would get the idea that someone was waiting. That would probably be rude, to stand right outside, but still, they should know that someone was waiting to use the phone.

Just then, as if reading my mind, one of them – the guy on the right – pulled opened his door as he was hanging up the phone. Before he was out of the booth, I made my move and was in his seat, which was still warm, which sort-of grossed me out, before he was out of the mailroom.

I closed the door behind me, dropped my coins in – coins that were damp from my tight grip – and dialed. To my great relief, the other end picked up before the first ring ended.

“Sorry I'm late,” I said.

“I am too,” she whispered. “But I forgive you.”

I was instantly glad to hear her voice. I felt my whole body
unclench
.

“How are you?” I lowered my voice to match her whisper.

“I'm without you,” she said. “So how good can I be?”

“But
now
you're back talking to me,” I said. “So things are better, right?”

“Yes,” she said. “You're right. I like that you're right.”

There was a moment of silence, a comfortable silence. We were back in The Zone.

“How was your day at school?” I said.

“Not so great,” she answered dryly. “But how was
yours
?”

I was really sorry to hear her say that, so I just replied, “Interesting. Busy. The main thing is: Am I going to see you on Friday night?”

“I hope so,” she said. “I
think
so. She's on the warpath. Somehow she found out about last night, when you came to see me. She says the problem is when I lie about things. But if I tell her the truth, she doesn't like that either! But – forget it – nothing's going to stop me from seeing you Friday.”

“Good,” I said.

She told me about her school's assistant principal who had singled her out and all the people at Oakhurst High she disliked. In a perverse way, I was almost happy to hear how much she couldn't stand all the people in her life, and how much she dreaded her upcoming year in high school. The unhappier she was, the more she was bound to me.

“And how is He
rrrr
b?” I asked, prompting a bitter laugh and a grunt.

“You're not gonna believe this,” she said. “He started to move more of his stuff in. I was in my mother's bathroom and I found these disgusting little bits of hair all around the sink. And his shaving stuff was there! It's like he's living here permanently.”

“No, really?” I said.
So soon after the divorce?
 
Manny's really gonna love that!
I thought, but I didn't say.

“He's moving in,” she said. “And she calls me a slut.”

“She does not!” I shot back.

“Yes,” she said. “And
worse
.”

I felt a flood of anger rise within me suddenly. The thought of somebody being cruel, or saying something this cruel to Rachel blanked my mind for a moment. And this was coming from her mother?

“Are you there?” she asked.

“What?” I replied.

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Don't you want to talk to me?” she said, sounding suddenly insecure.

“All I do all day is talk to you,” I shot back. “In my mind. All day, I think, ‘I can't wait to tell Rachel this,' or ‘Rachel would laugh at that.' What are you saying? You're
never
out of my mind. Never, for a moment.”

She didn't say anything for a moment. Then she replied contentedly, “Good. Now, tell me about Friday night.”