“Wait a minute,” I say. “What exactly do you mean, together?”
“Hel-lo. As in a double date?” Tiff says. “Me and Matt, you and Gabe? It was his idea,” she adds. “Gabe’s.”
“Really,” I say. “How did he know I was coming?”
“Um—” Tiff blushes. “You’re not upset, are you?”
“Just—wondering.”
“Okay, Matt mentioned it to him,” she says.
I suppress a groan. I’d prepared myself to see Gabe. I’d even planned what I would say to him. Well, more like what I wouldn’t say. But I’d thought that seeing him would just be a matter of … well, seeing him. Not that I’d be going on a date with him. I’m in no way prepared for that. Plus, Josh and Heather will be there.
I could strangle Tiffany for setting this up without my permission. But trying to stay mad at her would be like trying to stay mad at Harp. So I sink onto my old desk chair and let her rattle on about what a great time the four of us are going to have at the Phi Delt beach party after the race, all the while feeling nearly sick with dread.
They’ve brought in truckloads of sand to make a beach in the yard, she says. Rented dozens of chaise lounges and some of those cute little striped cabanas. Right now, the spring pledges are blowing up all the kiddie swimming pools they bought at Wal-Mart. Those will be the ocean. It’s only too bad that both Matt and Gabe and are riding tomorrow, she concludes—because this evening they’ll be carbo-loading with the other guys on the team.
“Gabe’s riding?” I say stupidly. “He smokes like a fiend.”
“Yeah?” This is distinctly Valley-girl in tone.
“Never mind,” I say.
I’m thinking about how my dad used to light up a cigarette after running a 10K race, how funny he thought that was; but I don’t dare mention this to Tiffany for fear she’ll catch on to the fact that Gabe Parker being a cyclist and smoking is perversely appealing to me.
Later, the two of us go out for strombolis, then drive around campus in my Jeep. There are people everywhere: mobile parties and evidence of all kinds of mischief. Greek letters are stenciled in bright colors on the porch steps of rival fraternity houses; tree limbs are hung with streamers of toilet paper; vendors hawk X-rated T-shirts on the street. At the Acacia house, a bunch of guys with fire hoses shoot water in huge arcs onto the sidewalk and send some girls screaming. Tiffany leans over and honks the horn when we pass them, and a couple of them wave and holler at us to come back. But we speed on, pass under the huge banner across Third Street that reads “Little 500: The World’s Greatest College Weekend.”
We luck out and find a parking place just off Kirkwood. We get some frozen yogurt and walk over to Dunn Meadow, where a local band is playing Sixties music, much to the approval of a crowd of people my parents’ age and older. They clap and hoot and yell out requests. Tiff and I sit on the grass watching the Frisbee players. Most of them have dogs with them: big, rangy mutts that wear bright bandanas around their necks and leap and twist to catch the Frisbees their owners throw. I have a sudden image of myself among them with Harp, and I like the feel of it. So what if Josh is stupid enough to fall in love with girls like Heather, so what if Gabe Parker thinks I’m pathetic. I wouldn’t feel so lonely and out of it living here if Harp were with me.
Meanwhile, Tiffany talks. She’s joined a sorority, and gives me a blow-by-blow account of pledging, recounts all the pranks her pledge class has played on the actives, clues me in on which girls are nice and which ones are bitches. Suddenly, in the middle of telling me about these pissy red-haired twins who give demerits every time a pledge gets them confused, she starts to laugh.
“What?” I say.
“You would hate it so much, that’s all. Being in a sorority.”
I start to apologize, assuming I’d somehow let her see how dopey it sounds to me.
“No,” she says. “It’s okay that you’d hate it. My gosh, Emma, we’re nothing the same; but I love that. Really. Ever since we’ve been friends, I can’t help it—whatever I do, I wonder what you’d say about it, and it starts to seem funny to me.”
Well dang, I think. Who knew Tiffany actually had a clue about me? All I can do is look at her; for once, I’m completely without a smart remark.
Then she surprises me again. “Listen, Emma, I know you’re worried about Josh Morgan being at the party. He will be, okay? But not with Heather.” She hesitates, then forges ahead—but not in that chirpy, in-denial-about-reality voice she’s always used talking about my love life (well, lack thereof) in the past. Downright matter-of-factly, she says, “He’s been doing a lot better. His grades are up. And—well, he’s been dating this girl in my sorority. Amy. She’s nothing like Heather. I mean, she’s a nice person. Which is good, right?”
“Just peachy,” I say. “And we’re all going to this party together?”
“You and I and Matt and Gabe are going together,” she says, firmly. “Josh and Amy will be there, that’s all. If it gets weird, we’ll leave. Okay? I swear.”
I don’t answer.
“Emma? I just thought you needed to know. You’re not mad at me, are you?”
“No.” That’s all, because I couldn’t begin to explain what I do feel—even to myself.
Tiff looks anxious. “You know, when we talked?” When you left? When you were on your way to Michigan?”
I nod.
“You said you weren’t leaving because of Josh. You meant that, didn’t you? I mean, you’re not still—?”
“No!” I say. “I just don’t want to see him. I know I have to some time. But I don’t want to deal with it—”
“Emma, could you please just tell me what happened between you?” she asks, quietly.
This time I surprise myself—and tell her the whole truth about it.
“I just want to kill him,” she says, her eyes brimming over with tears when I’m through.
I shrug. “It’s over.”
“Emma, is it?”
“Maybe,” I say. “I think maybe it is.”
The next morning, we sleep till ten o’clock. Matt’s still incommunicado, bonding with his teammates. Tiffany, of course, needs sufficient time to prepare for our upcoming social event, so I go out and get us some bagels. When I get back, she’s showered and dressed in a pair of khaki shorts and a Phi Delt T-shirt. She’s sitting on the bed, her toweled head in her hands, reading the arrest list in the Indiana Daily Student. She grabs the bagel I hand her, takes a bite, and munches thoughtfully.
“God,” she says. “I know three people on this. Remember that Kristin girl, down the hall? She’s one of them. Ha. And she goes to church every single Sunday.”
“Then she’s saved,” I say. “A little earthly trauma like an arrest shouldn’t freak her out too much.”
Tiffany snorts.
I watch her dry her hair, then pull it back and make a perfect French braid. All this she does in silence, with intense concentration. She does her makeup next, wielding her half-dozen or so brushes with the deftness of a painter. She looks beautiful when she’s through, tendrils of errant hair curling at her temples, her cheeks dewy and pink.
I had showered and dressed in black shorts and a white T-shirt before going to get the bagels. But I’d let my hair air-dry in the Jeep, so now I spritz it down with water, borrow Tiff’s hair dryer, and step up to the mirror to get the cowlicks under control—at which point, it occurs to me that Gabe Parker’s never seen my hair buzzed. Did Tiffany clue him in to the fact that the girl he’s stuck taking out tonight is even weirder than the girl he remembers?
Obsessing about Josh and his new girlfriend, particularly about the moment I’m going to actually have to come face-to-face with them and say … something, has distracted me all morning, but now the anxiety I have about seeing Gabe again comes back full force—and deepens wh
en I get to the stadium, see him standing with Matt and the other two guys on their team, and feel just like I felt when I first caught sight of him that day at the Daily Grind. Josh is there, too—in the Phi Delt pit, doing some last minute adjustment on the bike. And I am okay about seeing him. Or maybe it’s just that I can’t stop looking at Gabe.
God. When I met him, it was winter; he was wearing khakis and a sweatshirt. Now he’s wearing biker’s garb, and his strong, muscular body makes me feel faint. I’m not exaggerating. Tiffany’s beside me, waving madly, calling out Matt’s name, and it’s all I can do to keep from grabbing her hand and yanking her down to sit on the bleachers beside me. But I just sit there like a prisoner. Matt looks up eventually, and waves back. Gabe smiles and waves, too. But I adjust the bill of my baseball cap and pretend to be looking the other way.
There’s plenty to see. The stands are filling up, each team block on the north side of the stadium recognizable by its concentration of bright T-shirts. Fraternity pledges take turns running their huge banners up and down the bleacher steps. An occasional Frisbee whizzes overhead like a little spaceship. A beach ball is kept aloft by hundreds of reaching hands.
In the center of the track, people bustle about importantly among the red-and-white-striped tents. Student Foundation members mostly, dressed like executives in navy blue suits. There’s a long table, the Little Five Hundred trophy on it, glittering in the sun.
The bikes, thirty-three of them, have been laid out in rows of three on the cinder track. The riders are gathered behind the last row, stretching or running in place. Gabe stands off to the side a bit, tapping his fingertips thoughtfully, his expression intent, as if pondering some deep philosophical question.
Then, at some unseen signal, the lead riders move to their places beside their bikes, the others to their pits, and the festivities begin. “The Star Spangled Banner,” of course; and “Back Home Again in Indiana.” Then skydivers float down beneath rainbow parachutes to land on the grass—one, two, three, four, five—right in front of the podium.
“Gentlemen,” the president of the university says. “Mount your Roadmasters.”
They do. The pace car moves into place ahead of them, hundreds of balloons stream upwards, and Queen blasts out over the sound system as the riders start on the parade lap.
“I want to ride my bicycle …”
The whole crowd roars the song as the cyclists make their first circle around the track, then speed up, preparing for the green flag. A weird nostalgia overtakes me, and I think of all the stories my parents told me about the Little Five Hundred, almost as if they’re my own memories. Then, as the bikers approach the starting line, Tiff grabs my arm and I’m up shouting, part of the madness, making a memory all my own.
Twenty–nine
Afterwards, back at the dorm—shades of the coffee “date” with Gabe in the fall—Tiffany tries to shape me up for the party. Since it’s a beach party theme, she’s wearing very short shorts and a cute little pink top. When I opt for my usual jeans and a T-shirt, she raises an eyebrow.
“That’s it? That’s what you’re wearing to a beach party?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Is that a problem?”
She just looks at me.
“Okay, I guess I could go for the Hawaiian look.” I grab a red carnation from the vase of them Matt had sent her for one of their various, known-only-to-them anniversaries, and hold it to the side of my head. “Got any Scotch tape?
“How about Valium?” I add, when the phone rings to alert us to the fact that Matt and Gabe are waiting downstairs for us.
“It’s going to be fine,” Tiff says. “Come on. Really.”
I just moan. Walking down the hallway toward the elevator I feel like Harp must feel, being dragged on his leash somewhere he doesn’t want to go. But, hey, look on the bright side, I tell myself when the elevator doors open and I see Gabe; at least he’s fully clothed.
“Emma?” he says, as if seeing a ghost.
Clearly, Tiff did not tell him about my new look.
“C’est moi.” I run my hand across my head, attempt a jaunty expression.
“I like it,” he says. “It’s—”
“Could short be the word you’re looking for?” I say, grateful when he laughs.
Tiff and Matt have been hugging all this time, having been cruelly separated for more than twenty-four hours. Now she gives Gabe a hug, too. “You guys were so great,” she says.
“Come on, we sucked,” Matt says cheerfully. “Except for Gabe. If we’d let him ride the whole race, we might have done okay.”
“Like that movie,” Tiff says. “Breaking Away.”
“Yeah,” Gabe says, lighting up a cigarette. “But scratch the Puccini. I’d do it smoking.”
Matt punches him in the arm. “He could have ridden it alone,” he says as we set out for the party. “No shit. He’s that good.”
Gabe shrugs, embarrassed. “I grew up in Speedway,” he tells me. “I hate auto racing, so what do I end up doing? Racing bicycles. I don’t know, I guess something about the place must have been contagious.”
“Emma ski races,” Tiff says, proud as a mom.
“Jeez, not seriously,” I say. “Just NASTAR races with my dad. That’s hardly—”
“Pooh,” Tiff interrupts. “She has medals: gold ones. I’ve seen them.”
“Your grandfather said that,” Gabe says. “That day we—” He stops short. “Uh. Emma, I heard. I mean, Josh—”
“ … told us about Dutch dying,” Tiff finishes for him. “He found out from someone you guys knew in high school.”
“Probably Lisa Cochrun,” I say. “She knows everything.”
“Maybe,” Tiffany says. “All I know is, I felt really awful when I found out. It was so fun that day he came. I hate it he didn’t get to take that big trip he was planning.”
“He was a cool guy,” Gabe says.
I nod, blinking back tears because I can’t help remembering what a shit I was the day they met.
We walk up Fraternity Row, Tiffany holding up everyone’s end of the conversation. Gabe smokes, moodily it seems to me. I wrack my brain trying to think what to say to him.
“So, did you do any Little Five reporting for the IDS?” I finally ask.
“Nah,” he says. “I don’t work for the paper anymore. I changed my major.”
“Why?”
He grins. “It’s your fault. Remember, you said that thing to me when we went for coffee? About how there was no Pulitzer Prize for being nice?”
“But I was kidding,” I say, stricken. “I mean, it was funny. That’s all I was trying to say. You got me talking about my parents and the lottery, just like a reporter would, then you were like, ‘No problem if you don’t want me to write the story.’”
“And I didn’t write it,” Gabe says. “That’s the point.”
“You didn’t write it?”
He shakes his head.
“Emma, wouldn’t I have sent you the story if he’d written it?” Tiffany looks hurt. “My God. I never dreamed you thought Gabe had written a story about you and I just didn’t bother to send it to you.”
“Duh,” I say, thankful when she giggles at me, appeased.
But I feel bad. I only half-read all those e-mails she sent me, just like I only half-listened to whatever she was saying when we lived together. Plus, there’s wrecking Gabe’s career plans to feel guilty about.
“Hey, you did me a favor,” he says when I apologize for that. “You made me realize I don’t really like poking around in other people’s lives. I’m no good at it. So I’m an English major now. I figure, how can I do any damage to made-up stories written by dead people?”
“I’m an English major,” I say. “Well, I was—”
“Yeah,” he says. “I remembe
r. So, are you coming back in the fall? To be an English major again?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe.”
We walk the rest of the way to the house without talking, but it’s a more comfortable silence. At the fraternity house, the party’s cranking up. I stand, taking it all in, while Gabe goes to get some drinks. The windows of the frat house are open and you can hear the band from halfway down the street. The front sidewalk is lined with plastic blow-up palm trees. The yard, front and back, is completely covered with sand and dotted with striped cabanas and lounge chairs.
“Surf’s up,” some dipshit yells. Dressed in baggy shorts and the ugliest Hawaiian shirt I’ve ever seen, he holds a mug of beer aloft and splashes through the long row of baby pools that make up the ocean.
And there’s Josh, with—I guess—Amy, heading toward me.
She’s elfin, with copper-colored hair, freckles, and intelligent brown eyes. Nothing like the Heathers he’s always been attracted to. When Josh introduces her, she surprises me with a quick hug.
“I feel like I know you,” she says. “I’ve heard so much about you from Josh.”
Josh looks anxious, like he thinks I’m going to be mad (madder) because it’s obvious he’s told her the whole story. “It’s really good to see you, Emma,” he says. “Really. Listen, sometime could we—”
Thank God, Tiffany arrives and starts talking before he can finish the sentence.
What a great race, she says, too bad we didn’t win—though it wasn’t for the lack of a great mechanic! Josh was awesome with the bikes, everyone said so. And isn’t this the coolest party, ever? How many little swimming pools are there, anyway? How long did it take to fill them up with water? Not to mention shovel all that sand?
Josh looks stunned, which sort of amuses me.
“Well. Sorry, you guys, but I’ve absolutely got to steal Emma,” Tiff concludes, linking her arm with mine and guiding me firmly away from them. “Gabe’s been looking all over for her,” she calls over her shoulder. “See you later.”
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