by Jennifer Yu
Finally—after what seems like half an hour of walking—Yago swings open the door to his bedroom. You can tell that he’s tried to make it different from the rest of the house—the walls are covered in posters of rock bands and graphic novels instead of the oil paintings adorning the walls elsewhere, and there’s a conspicuous lack of furniture other than his bed and desk—but nothing can really override the fact that his room is the size of a studio apartment and has a massive walk-in closet.
“All this time,” I say. “All this time we’ve been hanging out at Kevin’s when you have a closet that could eat his entire room?”
“I hate being here,” Yago says. “My parents are never around, so it’s always empty, and the house is so old that everything’s always making weird noises—it’s creepy.”
“Who are you, Yago? Does anyone else know you live here? God forbid Katie ever finds out—she’ll make it her mission in life to get you to throw a party.”
I walk over to his desk and start scanning his books (noticing, by the way, that his window overlooks two tennis courts. Who has tennis courts in their backyard?). There are a few graphic novels in the corner—including Watchmen, by Alan Moore, which I remember from freshman year English—and a stack of comic books. Other than that, most of his desk is covered in textbooks and homework assignments. There’s also a pile of letters, the first of which is addressed to:
Barron Carter Evans IV
10 Ashboro Lane
Glastonbury, CT 06033
“Don’t—” Yago says, but it’s too late.
“Your name...” I start.
“Please don’t,” Yago pleads.
“...is Barron...”
“Stella,” Yago whines.
“...Carter...”
“I think it’s too late,” Kevin says, casting Yago a sympathetic look.
“...Evans...”
“Technically, you already knew the Evans part,” Kevin provides helpfully.
“The fourth?”
Yago—or should I say, Barron Carter “Yago” Evans IV—sighs deeply. “It’s Yago,” he says.
If this were any other time, any other situation, I might take a moment to bask in the fact that for once, I, Stella Canavas, am not the person in the conversation who is desperate to melt into the ground from mortification. But this is no time for basking.
“No, it’s not,” I say. I hold the letter up and point to it with my free hand, as if its existence is news to Yago and Kevin. “It’s Barron Carter Evans the fourth.”
“Please stop repeating that,” Yago says.
“Are you British?” I say. “I feel like it’s one of those names that only makes sense if you’re British. Barron Carter Evans the fourth,” I say, now in a British accent.
Kevin snorts, then hastily rearranges his face into a solemn expression after Yago shoots him a nasty look.
“All this time, your real name has been one of those long-standing Bridgemont mysteries, you know, like whether or not the hidden classroom in the B wing of the Edgerton building actually exists, or what that horrible statue in front of the Pergis Quad is actually supposed to be. And everyone always figured it was something embarrassing like—oh, I don’t know, Apple, or West, or something like that. And it’s actually—”
“You don’t need to say it again, Stella,” Yago says. But I want to. Oh, how I want to.
“Barron-Carter-Evans-the-fourth?”
“My parents are suckers for tradition,” Yago says.
“But why Yago?” I say. “Why not just go by Jason or Sam or Adam or Steven or anything else in the realm of normal, twenty-first-century men’s names?”
Yago sighs again, then flops down into a desk chair. “When I was younger,” he says, “it was always Barron Carter Evans this, or Barron Carter Evans that. Barron Carter Evans, we are going to the country club to see your grandparents, and that’s that. Barron Carter Evans, keep your eyes closed when we say grace and stop pouting. Everything was always so serious and official. Even playing video games had to be this ridiculous, proper affair: Barron Carter Evans, sit up straight and stop manhandling that remote!
“And then one night—I must have been ten or eleven or something like that—I was at this ridiculous dinner party being called Barron Carter Evans over and over and over again, listening to a bunch of old people in suits talk about Wall Street and golf and other crap I didn’t care about in the slightest, and I just couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t want to be Barron Carter Evans anymore. So I picked the most ridiculous sound I could think of—which, to ten-year-old me, ended up being Yago—and told everyone that that was my new name, and they could either call me that or be ignored.”
“Wow,” I say. I look over at Kevin, who is scrolling through something on his phone. He’s heard this story before, I guess.
Yago shrugs.
“So then, to really drive the point home, you became a...stoner?”
“I’m not a stoner,” Yago says.
Kevin looks up from his phone. “That’s news to me,” he says.
I decide to save my response—that anyone who has as much advice to dispense about the distinction between indica and sativa as Yago has definitely qualifies as a stoner—for another day.
I turn back to the pile of letters. There’s one in the stack that’s thicker than the other ones—printed on cream-colored paper, and unexpectedly heavy in my hand as I pick it up. It’s the kind of letter that screams OFFICIAL BUSINESS. The kind of letter that you definitely wouldn’t expect to find on the desk of Yago Evans, perennially stoned resident weed dealer of Bridgemont Academy.
And it’s also from Harvard University Office of Admissions.
“YOU GOT INTO HARVARD?” I screech.
“We couldn’t have hung out at your place?” Yago says, turning to Kevin.
“Sorry, dude,” Kevin says. But there’s a bit too much of a smirk underneath the apologetic look he shoots Yago for it to be believable.
Yago turns to me. “Yes. I got into Harvard.”
There’s a few seconds during which the absurdity of this entire situation—the house, the name, the letter—is truly too much for me, and all I can do is turn from Yago to Kevin back to Yago, wide-eyed and slack-jawed.
“Well,” I finally say, “congratulations.”
“Thanks,” Yago says. He manages to muster up a weak grin.
“Seriously,” I say. “I know I don’t sound very excited for you, because I’m still in shock over the fact that the Yago Evans we’ve all known, loved and turned to in our darkest, soberest times is actually a trust fund baby named Barron Carter Evans the fourth who lives in a mansion the size of a modest hotel and is going to Harvard next fall. But that’s awesome, Yago, really.”
“It’s not that big of a deal,” Yago says. “Everyone from my family going back, like, six generations has gone to Harvard. There hasn’t ever been a Barron Carter Evans that hasn’t gone to Harvard. They couldn’t not let me in.”
“Oh, shut up,” Kevin says. He rolls his eyes and looks at me. “No one realizes that Yago is actually really smart because of the whole—well, being named Yago and selling weed thing. But he’s taken every AP Bridgemont offers. If we had class rankings, he’d definitely be valedictorian. And he’s the only reason I passed honors chemistry.”
“Yago taught you about covalent and ionic bonds?” I say.
“Yago let me copy his homework. I still don’t know jack shit about covalent and ionic bonds.”
Now that the shock has started to wear off, what Kevin is saying actually makes sense. Lin did mention that he was in AP Lit with her, and there was that one time that I talked to him in study hall while he was doing homework for AP Physics...
The realization hits me like a ton of bricks.
“Oh, fuck,” I say.
Kevin and Yago both look startled by
my sudden change in demeanor.
“Oh, fuck,” I repeat. I grab my coat off Yago’s bed and start putting it on.
“What’s going on?” Kevin says.
“When did you get this letter?” I ask Yago. Before he can answer, I pick the envelope up off Yago’s desk and look at it myself.
“Huh?” Yago says. “Stella, what’s going on?”
December 08, 2016, it says. Eleven days ago.
“Oh, shit,” I say. “Kevin, we have to go. We have to go right now.”
I grab my backpack and turn to him, feeling the panic rising inside my chest.
“See, this is why I don’t want people finding out,” Yago says. “Everyone’s going to get all freaked out and start acting weird around me. That’s the problem with having a name like Barron Carter with a numeral at the end. No one feels like they can hang out with you like you’re a normal human being.”
“Right,” Kevin says. “Which is why you decided to go by Yago and sell drugs. Nothing remotely conspicuous there.”
“This isn’t about your name!” I say, pulling Kevin out of Yago’s room and down the hallway. I grab his jacket on the way out and dump it into his hands.
“Um, okay,” Yago says, trailing behind us.
I speed-walk furiously until we reach a fork in the hallway, where I spin right, then turn back to the left. Was this the point where we turned right and went through the double doors? Or was this the point where we turned left and passed the room with all the bookshelves? I look helplessly at Yago, who arches an eyebrow at me.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to be rude. I just—I really have to go. I’ll explain in a second, but could you just—I mean, these hallways are just—what I’m trying to say is, where do we—”
Yago points down the hallway on the right.
I take a deep breath and start walking again. Watch as Kevin puts his jacket on and takes his car keys out of his pocket. He gives me a look: What is wrong with you?
“Yago,” I say, as we go back through the double doors, down the stairs, past the kitchen and into the foyer. “Congratulations on getting into Harvard. Seriously. That’s amazing. And I promise I won’t tell anyone about your real name, mostly because I don’t think anyone will believe me. But I have to go now, because you found out about Harvard eleven days ago, which means Lin probably found out about Brown eleven days ago, which means that either all of her dreams have come true or she’s totally crushed, and I totally forgot. I just completely forgot.”
“Oh,” Kevin says.
“Oh,” Yago repeats.
I pull Kevin out the front door.
33.
It takes twenty minutes for Kevin to drive from Yago’s house to Lin’s. The car—perhaps out of respect for the gravity of the situation—actually doesn’t thump at all on the way there, but I still spend the entire ride terrified that we’re going to break down in the middle of the highway, and then who knows when we’d make it to Lin’s? (Although, a voice in the back of my head reminds me, it’s already been eleven days. What difference is another few hours really going to make?)
“Should I stay?” Kevin asks, shifting into Park in front of Lin’s house.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I mean, if Lin and I end up hanging out for a while, I can just text you and then you can go and I’ll have my mom pick me up or something. But if it goes poorly...”
I don’t finish the sentence, and I don’t have to. “Got it,” Kevin says. He switches the engine off and pulls his keys out of the ignition. “I’ll just wait here, then, and study for my biology final, I guess. Do you think I can learn all twelve systems of the human body before second period tomorrow?”
“Well, it’s only four-thirty,” I say. “If you do one per hour, you might even be able to get a couple hours of sleep.”
“Sleep,” Kevin repeats. Then, drily: “That would be the nervous system.”
I grab my backpack from the backseat and open the car door, but before I can swing my legs out of the car, Kevin grabs my shoulder. “Hey,” he says.
I turn to face him. “Kevin, I really need to go,” I say. The panic has been swelling and swelling inside me and I’m starting to feel like I might throw up from a combination of anxiety and terror and guilt. Mostly guilt.
“I know,” Kevin says softly. He hesitates for a second, then leans in and kisses me. Like, really kisses me. As if I’m not the worst friend in the world for totally forgetting about Lin’s Brown application and the worst girlfriend in the world for making Kevin drive me across town the afternoon before his biology final.
“I just wanted to say good luck,” he murmurs.
When he pulls back, he’s smiling.
“So—good luck,” he says.
“Thanks,” I say. And I realize as I step out of the car that despite everything that’s happening, despite everything that’s about to happen, I’m smiling, too.
I count four seconds between when I ring the doorbell—fingers crossed behind my back, just in case the universe is feeling benevolent today—and when Lin’s mom opens the door. Her entire face lights up when she sees me, which, of course, makes me feel like a complete and utter piece of shit. “Stella!” she says. “So good to see you!”
“Hi, Dr. Chen,” I say. “Is Lin home?”
“Of course Lin is home,” Dr. Chen says. “Studying hard for finals, you know how she is. Come in, come in. Do you want to stay for dinner?”
“Uh,” I say.
Lin’s mom ushers me through the door and hands me a pair of slippers.
“You girls let me know, okay? I’m making dumplings. Lin is upstairs in her room.”
“Thanks, Dr. Chen,” I say. I take my shoes off and put on the slippers, and then I rush up the stairs and down the hallway to Lin’s room. The door is closed, but I can hear soft instrumental music playing in the room. Lin’s study music.
I knock twice.
“Yeah?” Lin says.
I push the door open.
“Mom, I can’t really talk right now,” Lin says, spinning around in her chair. “I’m worki—oh. Hi.”
“Hi,” I say.
I wait for her to ask me what I’m doing there or to tell me to leave, but the silence stretches on and Lin doesn’t do either of those things. She just looks at me, expression slightly pinched but otherwise inscrutable.
“I texted you,” I say. “Fifteen minutes ago. To let you know I was coming. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Lin gestures across the room, where her phone is plugged into a charger.
“Oh,” I say.
Silence fills the room.
“Lin. I am so sorry,” I say. “And I wish—I wish I had something else to say, you know? I wish I had a reason or—or anything that could remotely justify what I did—or didn’t do, I guess—and I wish there was something, anything else I could say other than I’m sorry, but I just—”
“I didn’t get in,” Lin says abruptly.
“Oh,” I say.
“I didn’t even get deferred. I just got flat-out rejected. Which is good in some ways, I guess. It’s better to know.”
“Oh,” I say again. And then: “I’m sorry.”
Lin shrugs. She spins her desk chair back around and turns her music up. “You didn’t have to come here, you know,” she says, her back to me. Her voice is calm, almost alarmingly casual. “You could’ve just texted and asked.”
“What?” I say. “I wanted to come, Lin. I didn’t want to just send you a text. I wanted to apologize here, in person. I wanted to see you.”
Lin snorts. “Yeah? Could’ve fooled me there.”
The comment stings, but what stings more is how matter-of-fact she sounds. Like: Yeah, Stella, you fucked up, but I don’t even care enough to be angry about it.
“Lin,” I say, “I deserved that,
and I know I deserved that. And if you’re mad at me, I totally get it. You should be mad at me! I royally screwed up. I’ve been the worst friend in the world. But you have to know that it’s not because I didn’t care, right? You’re still—you’re still one of my two best friends, and you always have been, and you always will be—well, until you finally decide that you can’t stand to be best friends with someone who hasn’t read East of Eden, anyway. I fucked up because I’m an idiot, not because I didn’t care. Because I did. And I still do.”
In the car ride over here, I pictured a thousand versions of this conversation, each more depressing and disastrous than the last. Every gut-wrenching variation involved some combination of Lin yelling at me, Lin bursting into angry tears, Lin throwing stuff around her room, Lin throwing stuff at me, all while I apologized, over and over again. But now that I’m actually here, now that Lin and I are face-to-face for the first time in weeks, now that Lin’s told me the news I should have known about a week and a half ago, I’m the one falling apart. It’s my voice shaking. I’m on the verge of tears, and Lin just turns her desk chair back around and looks at me evenly, coolly.
“People don’t just forget about the people they really care about,” Lin says.
“I didn’t forget about you!” I say.
Lin snorts—the most emotion I’ve gotten out of her so far. “Stella, I’ve been talking about getting into Brown for the last two years. And it’s the only thing I’ve talked about for the last, like, four months, not that you’ve been around for two of those. I slaved over those essays. I spent hours tweaking individual words on my application just in case the difference between saying ‘driven’ and ‘motivated’ was enough to make or break my chances—lot of good that turned out to be. The point is, you knew how much this meant to me. Everyone knew how much this meant to me. Even Bobby bought me this stupid box of chocolates after Katie told him I didn’t get in, because even Bobby fucking Leveux knew how devastated I would be. If you hadn’t forgotten about me, you wouldn’t have forgotten about Brown.”
“Lin,” I say. I’m starting to sound desperate, I’m starting to sound pathetic, I don’t care. I thought I was prepared for this—for the conversation to go badly, for Lin to be angry with me—but now that it’s happening, I feel like someone has grabbed on to the inside of my chest and started twisting. It hurts, it really, actually, physically hurts.