Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

by Joe Schreiber

  "Mom, that's so mean! Nobody's ever going to care this much about me again!"

  "That's not true, honey," Mom said, not looking up from the newspaper. "We'll always care about you."

  She rolled her eyes. "Gee, thanks."

  I sat in the corner of the room without talking, letting myself disappear behind a cloud of flowers and balloons, get-well cards, and loud, overlapping voices. The only thing that didn't seem to belong here was the hospital room itself. It would have been more appropriately suited to someone who was actually fighting for his life, or at least trying to get well. My eyes kept going back to the Post headline running in huge capital letters above the aerial photo of our house, or what had been our house, blasted to pieces and burned to the ground.

  Blown away.

  I dreamed about you sometimes.

  In my dreams we were walking down Tenth Avenue together in the dark. You hadn't been shot after all, and we were both all right. I asked you if you were done, and you said yes, it was finished.

  In my dreams the streetlights all went off as we walked past them, but I could still see perfectly clearly to the corner. There was heat and light pouring out of you like a lantern, shining down the sidewalk in front of us, filling the intersection with amazing white light. When I reached for your hand you let me keep it there and smiled.

  You kissed me one more time. In my dreams I always knew that meant that I was about to wake up. The light spilling out of your face and eyes and skin blazed up higher, and you said you had to go.

  You said it had to be this way.

  You said you were a goddess of fire.

  Life went on.

  It always did, and that summer was no exception. Within six weeks of having the property cleared and sold, Mom and Dad had met with architects and agreed on a piece of land for the new house. Everybody was relieved. It would be in the same school district for Annie, and the insurance settlement had been very generous. Mom said she'd wanted a new kitchen anyway.

  Gradually the reporters started leaving us alone, and that was a big relief too. We spent the beginning of that summer holed up in a five-star Connecticut resort with a pool, sauna, and day spa, eating in restaurants and picking out all new clothing, furniture, pots and pans ... everything you need to buy when someone blows up your house.

  Dad insisted on getting the best of everything. He said that Mom deserved it (but never said exactly why). After what happened with Valerie "Santamaria" Statham, I had expected his stress level to go through the roof, but true to his habit of surprising everybody, he tendered his resignation and just walked away "to pursue other opportunities." He said it was like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. The preliminary investigation had revealed that nobody else at the firm, including my dad, had any idea what Valerie had been involved in, but by then Harriet, Statham, and Fripp had become the Enron of the legal world, a late-night talk show joke, and their client list had emptied out faster than the first-class cabins on the Titanic. Throughout it all, Dad remained weirdly philosophical about the whole thing. "Never feel sorry for an attorney with a book deal," he said, and when Mom asked him if he really had a book deal, he just winked and said that he was "in talks with publishers."

  It was a little odd having him around more often, but a good kind of strange, like having a three-month vacation in your own hometown. We played tennis, talked more, argued less, and spent ten days on the beach up in Maine. My mother laughed more. She and Dad started holding hands. Annie got asked out on her first date—nothing formal, just a group of friends going out to a movie together, although the boy who asked her came up to the door himself to pick her up while his mother waited out in the car. I still remember his face when he looked through the hotel suite door, his eyes wide with amazement when he said, "Geez, you guys actually live here?"

  I got together with Norrie and the other guys in Inchworm and we jammed a couple times, but Interscope Records never called, and by July, Sasha had quit to go start his own band.

  I watched the scar starting to form on my knee. No matter how tan I got, it stayed white.

  Gradually, the dreams stopped.

  By late July, when I still hadn't heard from Columbia, I assumed that I'd gone from the waitlist to the trash can. Didn't bother me as much as I'd expected. I was in at Uconn and Trinity. I'd started to wonder if that was what I really wanted after all.

  And then, a few days later, the phone rang.

  38

  If finances and family considerations were not an issue, how would you spend your last summer before starting college? (Rutgers)

  The woman in the hallway introduced herself as Leanne Couzens, head of Undergraduate Admissions at Columbia University. She was a brunette in her midforties, with an ice-cool confidence that probably came with holding the fate of thousands of panicked high school graduates in her clutches. I knew right away that Dad liked her by the way he reached right in past Mom to shake her hand, before she even got a chance to invite us into her office.

  "Please," she said, "have a seat. Can I get anybody anything, water or a cup of coffee?"

  "I think we're fine, thanks," Dad said.

  Leanne sat down on the opposite side of a polished granite-topped desk, the elegant surface of which was disturbed by nothing more than a laptop computer, a telephone, and a silver-framed photo with its back to us. The rest of the office was just as streamlined, with a single chrome bookshelf and a view of the street outside—it would have been completely sterile if it hadn't been for the plants hanging in the window, dangling down like long green spiders.

  "Well," she said. "As I mentioned earlier when we spoke on the phone, this is highly unorthodox. Normally the admissions process is conducted completely online. I haven't actually interviewed a prospective student in ... well, a very long time." She smiled at me, and I felt myself smiling back, almost involuntarily. "But Perry is a special case. It was actually my idea to invite you here."

  "Well," Mom said, "we certainly appreciate Columbia's interest in Perry."

  Leanne chuckled. "I hardly think I'm the only one interested in Perry. According to what's been reported on the news the past two months ... well, you've certainly found yourself in the limelight, haven't you?"

  "Yes, ma'am," I said, not sure how I should feel about the way she pronounced the word limelight. "I mean, I guess so."

  "I should say that you have. A tragic ending for Ms. Zaksauskas, certainly, but ... well, in any case, I know you're busy, so let's get right to it, shall we?" She opened a desk drawer and brought out a folder, opening it. "Let's see. We received your application back in May. GPA was three point three..."

  "Three point three four," Dad chimed in.

  "Three point three four." Leanne's smile tightened a bit at the edges as she picked up a sharpened pencil and made a small mark on the page. "Right, of course. SAT scores were twenty-two hundred, twenty-five on the ACT, squarely in the eighty-fifth percentile. Member of the swim team, debate, and forensics, participant in Student Senate—all very respectable..."—another smile, slightly altered—"but, as I'm sure you know, Columbia's undergraduate program is known for being exceptionally selective. Because of our standards of excellence, we can afford to be picky. And Mr. and Mrs. Stormaire, please don't take this the wrong way, but if these numbers represented the totality of Perry's application, well ... we wouldn't be sitting here together."

  I glanced back at Mom and Dad. Neither one of them was smiling anymore, although Dad was giving it his best, somewhat constipated effort.

  "I'm sorry," Mom said, "I'm not sure I know what you're talking about."

  "I'm talking about this." Leanne's hand went back to the drawer and reappeared with a two-inch-thick stack of paper, dropping it on the desk with a thump. "Perry's essay."

  My parents frowned, both of them looking at the pile of pages as if it were some bloated fungus that Leanne had plucked out of the ground and dropped in front of their noses. For a second it was amazing how much they looked alike.<
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  "That's his essay?" Mom asked.

  "Mmm." Leanne flipped through the pages. "Our application asks for a statement of two hundred and fifty to five hundred words on a given topic. Perry's was forty thousand words long."

  "Forty thousand?" Dad asked.

  "What was the topic?" Mom asked.

  Leanne glanced down at the first folder she'd opened. "Discuss a situation or event that helped shape your understanding of your own identity." She blinked up at us, feigning incredulity so perfectly that I wondered if she practiced in the mirrored surface of her desktop. "Now, under normal circumstances, an essay that so completely disregarded our standard submission criteria would be returned unread and the applicant would either be invited to resubmit a more appropriate personal statement or simply told that he or she is probably not a good fit for the undergraduate program. In this case, however, the sheer length of the essay caught the attention of one of our admissions officers, who passed it along to the others ... It's achieved a kind of cult status around here, actually."

  "Cult status?" Mom asked, staring at me now. "What did he write about?"

  "I suppose the simplest way to describe it is as a kind of narrative of his night in New York with Gobija Zaksauskas," Leanne said, letting the pages flip through her fingers. "What Perry sent in along with his application was a long, rambling narrative full of inappropriate language and criminal behavior with very little, if any, regard to the criteria normally applied to a standard college admission essay. It was colloquial, meandering, contradictory, and sometimes downright sloppy." She let the top page flip shut. "It's also one of the most compelling and original pieces of writing that I've ever seen in this department."

  "Well," Dad said.

  "Well," Mom said.

  "Yes," Leanne said, staring straight at me. "Well. Perry. By now I hope it's clear why I took the initiative to invite you and your family here personally?"

  "Yes, ma'am," I said. "I guess it is."

  "Good." Holding the edges of the essay with her fingertips, she slid it exactly six inches to the left. "Then I suppose the only thing left to say is, Welcome to Columbia."

  Silence surrounded me, very clear and still. I could feel my parents' eyes on me, waiting.

  "Thank you," I said. "But I don't think that's what I want right now."

  Leanne didn't move, except to tilt her head very slightly to the left. "Excuse me?"

  "I've been thinking." I took in a breath and let it out. "I think that what I really want to do is take a year off before I start college—"

  "A year off ?" Dad said. "Wait a minute. This wasn't what we discussed."

  "I was thinking I would travel. You know, go abroad for a while. See the world."

  "I see," Leanne said. She was still blinking, and a faint reddish color had begun to rise into her cheeks and the back of her neck. "Well. That's certainly one alternative."

  "Honey?" Mom said. "Are you sure this is what you want?"

  "Positive," I said.

  "No, he isn't," Dad said, and turned back to Leanne, already halfway out of his chair. "Ms. Couzens, I apologize for this. Can you excuse us for a moment?"

  "No, Dad."

  He stared at me. "Perry—"

  "Dad. No." I stood up and held out my hand. "I'm glad you liked my essay, Leanne. Thanks for your time."

  "No problem at all," she said. "I meant what I said about your writing, Perry. And I hope that if you change your mind, you'll keep us ... well, in mind."

  "I will," I said, and turned to my parents. "Ready?"

  My mom stood on the front steps while my dad went to get the car. The August sun beat down on our faces, feeling considerably hotter after the air-conditioned office, the car-exhaust humidity held in by the tall buildings on either side of the street.

  "He's mad," I said.

  She frowned. "He'll get over it."

  "When, do you think?"

  "Well..." She pulled her sunglasses out and put them on. "Let's just say maybe it's a good idea that you're going away for a while."

  I laughed. After a moment, she did too. "I'm proud of you, Perry."

  "You are?"

  "And although your father might not say so, he is too. It takes something special to realize that the preconceived choices and beliefs that you've always had aren't necessarily the best ones for you. It's not easy."

  I turned around and looked back at the building that we'd just left. A few students were scattered around the steps, dressed in shorts and T-shirts, flip-flops and barefoot. Up at the top step, a girl with short blond hair and huge black sunglasses was looking back down at me.

  Not just looking, I realized. She was staring.

  I felt my heart stop.

  "Perry?" Mom said. "What are you doing?"

  "I'll be right back."

  I could see the steps, but I couldn't feel myself climbing them. When I got to the top, the girl was still peering at me. Now she had to tilt her head upward, and I saw the faint white scar across her neck. The half-heart pendant glinted in the light.

  "Excuse me," I said. "Do I know you?"

  She paused and shook her head. "Do you go to this school?"

  "No."

  "Neither do I."

  "Then I must have been mistaken."

  "Relax." She raised one shoulder. "It happens."

  "I'm actually planning to do some traveling. Hike around and see some things before I do any more school."

  "Traveling?"

  "Yeah. I was thinking Europe, maybe."

  She nodded. "Europe is nice."

  "I've never been."

  "Venice in particular."

  "Really?"

  "There is a bar called Harry's."

  "I've heard of that," I said.

  "The bartenders are good at delivering messages," she said. "Perhaps you ought to check with them, if you get over there."

  "I will."

  "Perry!" my mom's voice shouted up from the curb. "Your father's here!"

  "Okay." I turned to wave where the Jaguar was swinging up to the curb. "I'll be right down."

  When I looked back, she was gone.