by Orts, Teresa
How did he do it? I suddenly felt the urge to know what he was talking about. There was something about his childish smile and his messy look that seemed to take hold of me.
“Okay, but then I have to go.” I couldn’t believe I’d given in so easily. I was going to be late for my meeting with Professor Silverman. What was I thinking?
Paul continued down through the basement and after opening another door, we crossed what seemed like a food preparation area. There were sinks and refrigerators on the side and two stainless-steel counters in the middle. I couldn’t contain my imagination. For a moment, I thought this looked just like a torture chamber with the counters and the drains on the floor.
I had to stop scaring myself. This was obviously the cafeteria preparation room, as the cafeteria was right above it. At the end of the room next to one of the refrigerators, there was another door. Paul came to a halt in front of it.
“Are you ready?” He rested his hand on the door handle as he looked back at me.
“Come on! I’m going to be late for my meeting.”
He could tell that he had some power over me. Here I was standing in front of a black door when I really needed to get going. Paul pushed the door open and a small room with three ragged sofas and black walls appeared behind it.
“What are you guys doing here?” Paul burst into a laugh.
There was a thick cloud of smoke in the room. Two guys were sitting on a sofa, barefoot. One of them was wearing a pair of boxers, an NYU T-shirt, and a pair of sunglasses. The other one was wearing striped pajama pants and a tank top. There was someone else sleeping on another sofa at the back. I thought it was a girl, but I wasn’t completely sure. A pillow was covering her face and her feet were dangling over the armrest.
The two guys seemed confused.
“It’s 2:30 p.m.,” Paul said with incredulity. He waved his hand in the air as if to move away the thick cloud of smoke.
“Are you still here from last night?” Paul asked, shocked.
There were empty beer bottles covering the floor and two ashtrays filled with cigarette butts. A small, white refrigerator hummed at the back of the room.
“What are you talking about? You just left. It’s still dark.” The guy in the tank top pointed at the black walls.
“I left at 2:30 a.m. Twelve hours ago!” Paul said as we stood by the door.
I squinted, as the smoke was getting in my eyes. I didn’t know how they could breathe in here. The smoke was so thick I could barely make out their faces. They must’ve been smoking all night even though there were no windows to let the smoke out.
I realized that Paul’s puffy eyes were not from lack of sleep or studying all night. From what they were saying, it was due to a long night of hard partying.
“Whatever!” the guy in his boxers said.
“Why is he sleeping there?” Paul pointed at the person on the sofa at the back of the room.
It wasn’t a girl. His legs were so skinny I’d pegged him for a girl.
“His roommate needed the room to study with a friend.” The guy in boxers winked at Paul.
These guys were funny. This situation seemed straight out of an American Pie movie.
“Who are you?” The guy in the tank top pointed at me.
Before I could reply, Paul came to my defense. “She’s Sophie Bennett.”
“I haven’t seen you around before.” The guy in the boxers didn’t seem prepared to let go.
“I… I don’t study here yet,” I said, biting my bottom lip and looking down at my feet. I could imagine a big neon light flashing on my forehead: “High School Student.”
I wasn’t planning to tell them, never mind that I was still a junior.
“She’s from one of those tours you do to pick up chicks, isn’t she?” One of the guys laughed.
I could feel the blood rushing to my face. Was he serious? Did Paul do this tour to meet girls? It didn’t really suit him. I thought I was good at spotting guys with bad intentions, but Paul totally tricked me.
“We were leaving anyway.” Paul stepped out of the room, seemingly annoyed about that comment. I followed, and when he was about to close the door, someone shouted, “Tell her about tonight’s concert! She seems cool!”
Paul closed the door, and running his fingers through his messy blond hair, he quickly apologized. “I didn’t know they were still there. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have taken you there.”
I wasn’t really listening to Paul. The words were just bubbling in the back of my mind. Did someone in college just refer to me as cool? That was probably the first time in my life, and it had been by a college student. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was utterly flattered.
“I don’t… I don’t do these tours to pick up girls,” Paul stuttered. He was blushing around the ears. I couldn’t believe he cared what I thought.
“I don’t have a rich dad to pay for my tuition, unlike those two. I do these tours to get some pocket money. I’m here on a tennis scholarship.”
Paul pressed the elevator button as he fidgeted on his feet.
“Don’t worry. I don’t think anyone could ever take those two too seriously.”
A hint of a smile appeared in Paul’s face. He crossed his arms on his chest and scrutinized me from head to toe. As he looked directly at me and in the confined space of the elevator, I didn’t know where to look.
“You have a tennis scholarship? That’s quite impressive,” I managed to say.
Like me one day, Paul wasn’t here because his rich parents were paying for it. He’d worked hard to get a scholarship.
“I’m in the US top five hundred, but I need to work harder. I want to make it to professional tennis.”
That explained why Paul appeared so athletic. Probably, he trained six or seven hours a day. It made me wonder how he managed to have time to study and party while training and playing matches. The sports-based scholarships were given based on your athletic ability, but you still had to maintain a B average in your academic curriculum.
I’d taken some tennis lessons in junior high, but I wasn’t good at it. For a while I tried a few different sports to see if I was good at any, as sports scholarships could be really generous. They could cover your full tuition and on top of that, you got a monthly allowance. But like every member of my family, I was okay at most sports, but didn’t excel at any.
I don’t know why, but I didn’t mention I was after a scholarship too—in my case, academic. I wondered why I reacted like that. It was as if I were embarrassed that I couldn’t afford college on my own. Or maybe, I was afraid I wasn’t going to get in. Whatever it was, I blocked the words from coming out.
Paul pressed the elevator button repeatedly as if by doing so it was going to arrive faster.
“We’re going to this concert in a club in Chinatown tonight. Do you have plans? You can join if you want.”
Oh my God! This was too much for one day. Was I hallucinating or was a NYU sophomore asking me out? And not just any college student, one who was on the tennis team. I suddenly wished Emma and Megan were around. We would’ve psychoanalyzed this moment from every angle: why we thought he asked, what we thought his true intentions were, and whether we thought he was into me.
“I can’t,” I said cuttingly while zipping up my coat.
I had to focus. Nate was going to be waiting for me after the meeting with Professor Silverman. I couldn’t let my mind play tricks on me. He probably just asked me to the concert because his friend suggested it.
“If it’s because you’re underage, we know the bouncer. It won’t be a problem,” Paul insisted.
I had to think of a non-rude way of declining his invitation. I liked him and I didn’t want to hurt him.
“I’m here with someone else,” I apologized.
“Bring her, then,” he quickly answered.
That was an amazing comeback. However, Paul assumed I was here with a girlfriend, and I wasn’t planning to declare the contrary. Paul had to give me
a break. I was trying really hard not to be rude. He should’ve known by now that I was trying to decline his invitation, but he wasn’t making it any easier.
As the elevator opened, he held it so I could get in. “I’ll take you to the lobby.”
He brought his cell phone from his jeans pocket. “Let’s do something. Give me your phone number. You don’t have to decide now. I’ll text you the time and address of the place, and you think about it.” Paul smiled, showing me he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
After we exchanged phone numbers, Paul insisted that if I needed any help with the application or anything else, I should definitely contact him.
He walked me to the street, and catching me unprepared, he gave me a hug and a pat on the back, Brooklyn-style.
“Take care, Soph!” He waited outside the dorm’s main entrance, staring at me as I walked away.
I couldn’t ignore the connection I felt with Paul. I felt happy to know, unlike what I often thought, there was a place in the world where I could fit in. I did want to see Paul again. A part of me wished I could go to that concert tonight. A part of me also wished that Nate had never come into my life and that my main worry was only boys and parties instead of deciphering prophecies and paranormal activity.
I didn’t regret choosing Nate. There was no doubt about that. But I couldn’t stop myself from fantasizing about what course destiny could’ve taken if I’d been able to attend that concert.
CHAPTER XVII
AFTER RUNNING ALL THE way to the northeast corner of Washington Square, I rushed into NYU’s College of Art and Science building and continued to the second floor where Professor Silverman’s office was located.
It was 3:15 p.m. I was already fifteen minutes late.
If Professor Silverman had left the office and I missed him, I was never going to forgive myself. He held the key to unlocking the prophecy, and I might’ve blown it because I got caught on a campus tour.
Students moved in mass along the hallway into classrooms. The layout of the building caught my attention. The corridor faced the street and had large windows along the side, facing Washington Park Square. The classrooms were in the inside part of the building—strangely, without any natural light.
Now that I thought of it, it made sense to not have windows in the classrooms. It eliminated the temptation of daydreaming in class while staring at the outside world—something I do constantly.
Nate was going to meet me in the lobby at four o’clock, and I was hoping to have some good news for him. I hoped Professor Silverman could maybe take us to the crabs that same evening.
The more time I spent at NYU, the more I realized how different the students were from those at my high school in L.A. They were what I would describe as the urban type, just like Paul. The majority were not bleach-blond or the Abercrombie type. They were a mix of people from different cultures and backgrounds, with an edgy indie style. Some guys wore tight jeans with old T-shirts, showing they weren’t afraid of expressing themselves. The girls ranged from gothic to the ‘80s-obsessed ones. What impressed me the most was everyone seemed to respect the need for people to experiment and find their true identity, whether it was through their clothing or through their lifestyle.
It was time to accept that I was falling in love with New York City, and I knew it wasn’t a momentary infatuation. This was going to be a long-term relationship.
Afternoon classes were probably about to start because students were trooping to the classrooms. I walked in the opposite direction, like a fish swimming against the current. The students shifted along the corridor in harmony. This was so different from the lousy chaos I was used to at West Hollywood High. There, when the bell went off, the students rushed into the classrooms like a cattle stampede.
I followed the corridor. There was a sign on the wall pointing to rooms 215 to 220. Professor Silverman’s office was 218, so it had to be in that direction. The hallway continued around the corner where it was almost deserted. There was only one student in this section of the corridor. He was seated in the window frame, staring out into Washington Square.
I stood next to the door of 218 and took a deep breath. I had to do it. I had to pretend that my life was normal because Professor Silverman knew Dad very well, and the last thing I needed at the moment was Professor Silverman raising any alarms to my parents. I could do this. I could pretend that everything was under control and that I was in New York for the sole reason of looking around NYU.
Closing my eyes, I knocked softly on the door, but to my surprise, there was no answer.
I waited a few seconds and knocked again, this time more energetically. Still no answer.
I turned the handle in case Professor Silverman hadn’t heard me, but the door was locked. Panic took hold of me. Professor Silverman had already gone. What was I going to do?
“Are you in Silverman’s class?” the guy sitting in the window frame asked naturally, as if we’d known each other our whole lives.
“Nope,” I mumbled, bringing my gaze to the notebook I was holding tight to my chest. I couldn’t get used to people’s forwardness at NYU.
“He’s always late for office hours, but he’ll appear sooner or later.” The guy in the window squinted to stare at me as though the light filtering through the window was blinding him.
He tilted his head to one side, moving away from the light.
He had close-cropped dark hair and bright blue eyes. He was one of those people in his early twenties who seemed caught between adulthood and adolescence. He looked like a man with part child left in him.
Like everyone in this university, his outfit was a statement of self-confidence. He was wearing an unbuttoned black checked shirt with a gray T-shirt underneath that read “The Bronx is Burning.” On the bottom, he wore a pair of black skinny jeans with a keyboard belt.
He stared at me, relaxed, as I fidgeted. We’d exchanged a couple of sentences and I could already sense he wasn’t what I would call timid.
“Are you staying at the dorms?” he continued, trying to make some conversation while we both waited for Professor Silverman to materialize.
What was it with NYU students? No guy ever spoke to me at school, and all of a sudden I was the most interesting girl on the NYU campus.
“I’m actually not a student here.” I pressed my lips together, wondering whether I should break the news right away.
I knew what his next question was going to be, so I decided to voluntarily confess. “I’m still in high school. My junior year.”
His face brightened as the words “high school” escaped from my mouth. “You’re after the Arcadia Scholarship, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, how did you know?” I said, stunned. I finally relaxed, lowering the notebook that I’d been compressing against my chest.
“I’m a junior, but my roommate is a freshman. He got it this year. I know Professor Silverman is in charge of choosing the recipient.”
What was with this place? Everyone was so charming and civilized. This was the second full grownup conversation I’d with a stranger in one day. NYU students were definitely exceeding my expectations.
“If you’re planning to major in history, I’d recommend getting into Professor Silverman’s classes. He’s by far the best, but it’s not easy to get a place in his classes.”
The cheerleader squad already felt like a distant memory. Why waste any time being popular in high school when everyone knew that’s not going to dictate who you will become in the outside world?
That thought brought back to my mind the real reason I was standing right here in this exact moment. The thought of Nate possibly not being around blotted out all my other thoughts.
Footsteps clattered against the floor behind us.
We both looked back to discover a man coming down the hallway, fumbling through his briefcase to grab a set of keys. I was sure he had to be Professor Silverman.
“By the way, I’m Kevin,” the guy offered as Professor Silverma
n approached us.
“Sophie.” I smiled, hoping everyone at NYU was just as nice as Kevin and Paul.
“Hi. Apologies for keeping you waiting.” Professor Silverman unlocked the door.
“I’ll see her first, then you, Kevin,” he said, holding the door open for me to come in.
I hadn’t met Professor Silverman before, even though he was one of Dad’s best friends. However, he definitely lived up to the history professor stereotype. He had crazy white hair that hadn’t had an encounter with a hairbrush in a couple of months, thick glasses outdated by at least two decades, and an office crammed with books and papers not ordered in any particular manner, just like Dad’s.
“Please, take a seat.” Professor Silverman nodded toward the chair across from his desk.
The desk was piled up with books constructing a barrier between him and me.
“You look just like your father.” He shifted the books to one side and bundled them up on top of the other ones so we could see each other’s face.
He grabbed a folder, pulled a paper from it, and turned on the desk lamp to examine it closely. He looked over his glasses and pressed his lips as he stared at the paper.
“How did the tour go?” he said without lifting his gaze from the paper and as if he didn’t care much about my answer.
I didn’t really know what to say, as telling him the truth—an unofficial tour of the dorms—wasn’t a possibility. I decided to go for a short, safe answer. “It was all right.”
I couldn’t contain my mind. If I asked about the prophecy and Professor Silverman didn’t have a clear answer, or he couldn’t get us to the crabs, what were we going to do? I wanted to go right into it, but I had to be subtle about it.
“Your Dad sent me your transcript,” Professor Silverman said, still scanning through the piece of paper.
Honestly, my priorities had changed. The scholarship was really important to me, but right now, Nate was the only thing that mattered.
“Are you working on a special paper to get some extra credit?” Professor Silverman asked, finally dropping the paper on top of his desk and meeting my gaze.