“Uh—no thanks,” I said, standing. “More coffee?”
Oliver shook his head. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a small object roughly the shape and length of his forefinger. When he held it up I saw that it was a little silver pocketknife tarnished almost black. On one side an elegant monogram spelled OFOW in extravagant arabesques. Oliver flicked it open and a glittering blade appeared, like a minnow leaping from dark water. He speared a triangle of overdone meat. “Would you like some liver?”
He polished off three plates. I couldn’t bring myself to eat anything, and I was so nervous I drank coffee till my ears rang. But I didn’t care. I felt the way you do when you wake up in the morning and, before you even get out of bed, remember it’s the first day of summer vacation. Here I was, on my own for the first time, with all the Gothic mysteries of the Divine to be explored and an entire city to discover. The sickening loneliness that had haunted my first days was abating, but that wasn’t what made me feel light-headed, so giddy I laughed at everything.
What it was, was Oliver.
He was so beautiful, and so odd, and so utterly unself-conscious. If I’d been older, I might have found him insufferable, with his fey affectations and prep school jargon; but I’d never met anyone like him. He smoked hand-rolled cigarettes made of dried flowers from England that smelled sweet as rain. He claimed secret knowledge of IRA gun-running operations and military experiments using LSD. He showed me a tiny scar on his right hand, beside his pinkie, where he said a useless sixth finger had been amuptated hours after his birth. And there was his beauty, and the way he made me feel that I was in on a secret. Most of all, I guess, it was how he seemed to take for granted that I was his confidante, that I would always understand what he was talking about.
“Here,” he said, after finishing his last plate of liver. He took my hand, placed a neatly folded paper triangle in the palm, and closed my fingers around it. I opened it: the page that Angelica had given him during class, now covered with spidery drawings.
“Hey!” I smoothed the paper on the table. “These are really good.”
They were funny, rather wistful caricatures of Oliver and Angelica and myself, with Professor Warnick a Nijinsky faun dancing in the foreground, sistrum upheld, sparks shooting from his little horns.
Oliver grinned. “You’ll like The Golden Ass,” he said, leaning back in his chair.
“Actually, I’ve read it.” I hadn’t, of course, but figured by tomorrow I would have.
“We-ell.” Oliver’s chair thumped forward. “I thought so,” he said softly, and began telling me his history.
He was from Newport, from an old, old money family that had its roots in County Meath in Ireland. Oliver claimed some character in a Fitzgerald story was based on his grandfather, and that Booth Tarkington had written The Magnificent Ambersons after the tragic death of Oliver’s great-great-aunt. His parents were famous (and famously wealthy) anthropologists, now estranged.
“Sort of,” Oliver explained. “Mom lives in the carriage house and does her pottery. Dad’s still in the main house, because of all his America’s Cup stuff.”
Oliver himself was the youngest of six brothers. The two oldest had enlisted to fight in Vietnam. Osgood died there. Vance returned a junkie and now lived in San Francisco. Another brother, Leopold, was a well-known female impersonator in London. Cooper played piano in Newport jazz clubs; Waldo had become a Buddhist monk.
That left Oliver.
“So what are you doing here?”
He shrugged. “I’m a legacy. We Crawfords all attend the Divine. I didn’t really have a choice. They tapped me a long time ago. I went to Fairchild Abbey—”
A preparatory school in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, run by an obscure order of brothers. Not Jesuits, Oliver was quick to explain; not Benedictines either.
I laughed. “So what’s left? Capuchins? Franciscans? Cathars?”
“No.” He frowned so fiercely that I looked into my coffee cup, abashed.
“There’ll probably be some there tonight,” he said a minute later, and sighed. “At that damn reception, I mean.”
I waited for him to go on. When he said nothing, I took a deep breath and asked, “So what are they? The Molyneux scholars, I mean?”
Oliver only gazed at the ceiling again. When I glanced up I saw squares of petrified Jell-O arrayed across the acoustical tile, like Mah-Jongg pieces. I decided to save face by getting more coffee. But then—
“Magicians,” he pronounced as I slid my chair back.
“What?”
“They’re magicians.”
For a moment I caught the full force of his eyes: so improbably brilliant and defiant he looked slightly deranged. Before I could say anything he glanced at his wrist.
“Uh-oh! Four o’clock, time for tea!” He stumbled to his feet.
“But it’s—I mean, it can’t be more than three—”
Oliver gulped the last of his coffee, held up his wrist so I could see the faded timepiece drawn there. “Wild Bill—harvesting the psylocibin—paid him last night—got to get back to the dorm. See you at seven—”
I watched him lope down the aisle, waving distractedly at a table of guys in fraternity sweatshirts. On the wall above them a dusty-faced clock showed it was nearly four.
“Damn!” I grabbed my knapsack. If I hurried, I might make my last class of the day.
When I finally got back to my room, there was a note on the door from Angelica, elegant lettering in peacock blue ink.
Sweeney—
We’re going to dinner early but it won’t be the same without you! Meet us out front!
Angelica
I drew the note to my face and smelled the woodsy odor of sandalwood and a sweet scent like mandarin oranges. I went inside and changed, throwing my velvet pants and sweat-soaked shirt on the floor and flinging on a T-shirt and black jeans. I pulled off my lace-up boots, thought of putting on sneakers but decided on my old, battered cowboy boots. They were of worn black cowhide with faded crimson stitching and pointed steel toes, still lethal enough to punch holes in drywall. I tugged them on and thumped back downstairs.
Angelica was waiting outside the dining hall, another girl beside her. I felt a jolt of disappointment that we wouldn’t be dining alone.
“Sweeney! Do you know Annie Harmon? She’s my roommate, she’s in the Music School—”
“No. Hi—”
Annie stuck out a small sticky hand. “Pleased to meet you. Nice boots.”
Her throaty voice was totally incongruous with her appearance: a weary old whore’s voice coming out of this little girl. She only came up to my chin, a slight figure in old green fatigues and a moth-eaten flannel shirt and very small red tennis shoes. Her thin brown hair was cut short and stuck up in a ragged cowlick. Next to Angelica, with her bird-of-paradise hair and exquisite makeup and expensive clothes, Annie Harmon looked like an inquisitive quail. But she had beautiful woeful eyes, deep brown touched with violet, and I was certain she was not wearing tinted lenses.
“Thanks,” I said. “Nice to meet you.”
Annie nodded solemnly. “Charmed.”
We walked into the fake medieval Dining Hall, Annie and I first. Angelica followed, smiling and nodding as other students passed. I felt as though we were in a procession, clearing the way for the Queen. Angelica had changed into a tight black dress that ended just above her knees, the bodice inset with a revealing panel of black lace, and replaced her Coach bag with a tiny lozenge-shaped purse covered with jet and lapis beads.
“Kinda dressed up for dinner, huh?” Annie remarked, cocking a thumb at her roommate.
“You never have a second chance to make a first impression,” Angelica said primly. She let loose with that improbable laugh, and pointed to something bubbling on a steam table. “What do you suppose that is?”
We found a table in a corner. Angelica was quiet, picking at her salad and sipping ice water. I was so tired I was happy to let Annie do all the talking
. She rambled on in her throaty voice, eating whatever we left on our plates.
“So they didn’t let me in the first time I applied,” she said, taking the crust of my apple pie and eating it with her fingers, “So I tried again in the spring. Zilch. But then I tried again in July, and bin-go! Third time’s the charm, and they accepted me.”
Angelica smiled fondly, as though this had all been her doing. For all I knew, it had been.
We left when we heard the Shrine’s bells ringing 6:45, faint tolling beneath the clatter of silverware and eager conversation. Angelica went first this time, and more heads turned as she passed. A few people called to her by name. She smiled and waved, but didn’t stop.
“Get used to it.” Annie nudged me. “Living with Angelica is an amazing experience. I walk into a room with her and poof. I’m invisible.”
Outside, the sultry afternoon had faded into a glowing early evening. The sky had deepened to a pure lacquered blue. A few supernaturally bright stars defied the jaundiced glow of the campus crimelights. We walked without speaking, Annie noisily scuffling her sneakers through the damp grass. The air smelled of mud and marijuana smoke and roses. It was so warm that I felt as though I had no skin; as though my blood flowed directly from my veins into the soft blue light. From off in the distance a percussive beat echoed from a stereo, melody and vocals smelted away by the heat. Angels looked down upon us from the stone facades of dorms and classroom buildings, and a skein of friars in their white summer habits strolled across the green lawn, silent but somehow companionable as they watched a few students playing Frisbee and hackeysack. From the onion-shaped dome of the Ma es-Sáma mosque came a ululating cry, and the echoing croon of sleepy mourning doves settling in the elms. It was all improbably lovely and strange. We approached Reardon Hall, and the great white porticoes of the Colum Library, and finally crossed onto the Strand.
“So you had lunch with Oliver, huh?” Annie asked. She paused and removed her sneakers, wiggling her bare toes in the grass.
“Yeah,” I said. “How’d you know?”
Annie pointed at Angelica. I shook my head. “I mean, how do you know Oliver?”
“Oliver? Hey, everybody knows Oliver.” Annie yawned and wiped a bead of sweat from her lip. “I mean, look at him. He’s like the E-ticket guy for the whole freshman class. Someone in my Composition Seminar saw him at the Vigilant last night with Maxwell Rheining.”
“Who’s he? What’s the Vigilant?”
Annie glanced at Angelica, who said nothing. “It’s a gay bar in Southeast,” Annie said at last. “Max Rheining’s artist-in-residence at the Pater Theater this semester. You’d recognize him if you saw him.”
“A transvestite bar,” Angelica corrected her. “On a houseboat in the Potomac. Rheining does a lot of work Off-Broadway. He’s pretty famous.”
I tried not to look impressed. “So how does Oliver know him? I thought he just got here last night.”
“Oliver is a very busy young person,” said Annie.
“So how do you guys know all this?” I persisted.
Angelica gave me a sly smile. “See what you miss when you skip class?”
Annie laughed. I slung my hands in my jeans pockets and turned to look at the Shrine. “Oh.” I felt a sudden hollowness inside me. “Well, that’s cool, I guess.”
“So, Sweeney.” Angelica adjusted her earrings and smoothed the bodice of her dress. “What did you and Oliver talk about at lunch?” Her tone was casual, but her eyes fixed on me like two searchlights.
“I dunno. Just stuff. Where he grew up, his family, stuff like that.”
“That’s all?” Angelica’s eyes grew even wider, and her voice rose in an exaggerated schoolgirl squeak. “Nothing else? He didn’t ask about me?” She laughed.
“I don’t think so.” I was starting to get pissed off. I glared at the Shrine and tried to think of some excuse to leave. I’d left my knapsack and all my books back in my room, so I couldn’t really go to the library. But I didn’t feel like returning alone to the dorm, either. Before I could say anything Annie’s hoarse voice broke in.
“Well, I hate to miss all the fun, but I got to hit the stacks for a while.” She raised an eyebrow at Angelica. “You gonna be home tonight?”
“Eh sì, bella.”
“Okay.” Annie stood on one foot, arms outstretched like a bird taking flight. “Wish I could go with you to your pah-tay, Angel, but…”
“Oh, man…” I gazed in dismay at my T-shirt and black jeans, the patina of dried mud on my cowboy boots. “I forgot all about the reception! I can’t go like this…”
Annie poised in mid-flight and eyed me quizzically. “But you can’t go. You’re not one of them, are you?”
“Huh?”
“A Molyneux scholar.” She glanced at Angelica and then at me again, her face expectant: as though in those intervening seconds I might have changed into someone else. “Naaaah…”
I felt myself blushing. From the Shrine came the first notes of the carillon. “I don’t—”
“Of course she can come.” Angelica’s tone was offhand. “She’s my guest; I mean, they’re not going to say I can’t bring a guest, are they?”
Annie sniffed. “That’s not what you told me—”
“This is different, Annie.” Even as Angelica smiled, there was a soft threat in her voice: don’t argue with me. “Sweeney and Oliver and I are in the same class.”
Annie started to protest, then shrugged and looked away. “Whatever you say, Angel.”
And that was that. With a satisfied smile, Angelica turned to stare at the Shrine: the great Byzantine folly silhouetted against the darkening sky, a few stars salted across its dome. Suddenly, as though it had been strafed by an invisible enemy, the entire huge edifice burst into flame. I gasped, and Annie’s hand shot out to steady me.
“Hey! Relax, girl—it’s just a light show—”
It was, but like nothing I’d ever seen. There were spotlights, footlights, rays of gold and silver and blue streaming from hidden recesses. The bell tower tolled seven o’clock.
Bong. Bong. Bong…
I looked up with a growing sense of unease. I felt as though some strange game was being played out by everyone I met, and I hadn’t been cued in to the rules. But when I glanced at Annie, my own anxiety sharpened into a blade driving deep into me. Because she was staring at Angelica, and her eyes were bright with fear.
“Do you really have to go?” she whispered. “Do you, Angelica?”
Angelica seemed not’ to hear. “Do you?” Annie asked again.
Now I was getting freaked. “Hey, Annie—you okay?” But when I tried to touch her, she shook me off.
“I never heard that they had a guests policy,” she said coolly.
“Oh, come on!” Angelica gestured dramatically at the floodlit Shrine. “That’s for us! I mean for the reception—all of us, the alumnae and everybody. They do it at Homecoming too—”
“And when we win a field hockey game,” Annie snapped. “Keep it in perspective, Angel.” She spun on her heel. “Bring her home by midnight, will you, Sweeney? I don’t want her waking me up at dawn.”
“Ciao, Annie,” Angelica called.
“Chow chow chow,” echoed Annie, and headed for the library.
“They really do light it up for us,” Angelica said as we started away from the Shrine. The last echoes of the carillon hung in the sultry air. “It costs a thousand dollars a night. This reception is going to be great.”
I sighed. “I don’t know, Angelica. I’ve got all this work to do, and—” I gestured at my T-shirt and scuffed my boots in the grass. “I just don’t know if I really feel up to it.”
Angelica took my hand. She pulled me after her into a narrow drive that led up a tree-covered hill to where a single domed building gleamed in the darkness. The breeze brought me the sweet musky scent of her perfume, sandalwood and oranges. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Sweeney, come on. And don’t worry, you look fine, very gamine.
Garvey Hall stood at the far end of the campus, atop the hill known as the Mound. The broken concrete drive wound through white oaks and tangles of sumac, with a row of ancient iron lampposts casting a bleary yellow glare through the leaves. We saw a few other people straggling up the path—middle-aged couples in evening dress; students in thrift shop finery, stained velvets and satins; a tall black woman wearing elaborate African tribal robes. One young man in a dusty tuxedo did a double take when he saw Angelica, turning to stare at her so that he ran into a tree. Angelica pretended not to notice, but when we rounded a curve in the path she burst out laughing.
“They really do think with their dicks, don’t they?”
“That one was walking with his.”
She giggled, tilted her head to regard me with pursed lips.
“May I?” she asked, and gently smoothed the hair from my temples. “You know, you should cut your hair, Sweeney.” Her touch gave me goose bumps. “Really. You have such beautiful eyes, they’d really stand out if your hair was shorter. I’ll do it for you if you’d like.”
I laughed uneasily. “Yeah, well, maybe. Maybe over the weekend. I’ll think about it.”
Angelica continued to stare at me, her gaze intense and yet somehow oblique. I glanced away, finally said lamely, “Look, about this party—I just feel a little under-dressed, that’s all.”
“I told you, you’re with me.” Her voice took on that same tone it had earlier with Annie: impatient, subtly threatening. “Look, Sweeney—do you want to go to this thing or not?”
She grabbed me, not roughly but with unmistakable insistence. “Do you?”
I swallowed but didn’t pull away. A few inches from mine her eyes were huge, their color washed to topaz in the sulfurous light. I tensed, resisting her. If she let go of me, I was certain I would fall.
“Do you?”
Waking the Moon Page 10