Among Friends

  I had an evening rehearsal at school, and when it ended, I didn’t catch a ride with anybody and I didn’t call my mother. I just started walking.

  I didn’t button my coat, wanting the wind to freeze me. I didn’t zip my pocketbook, wanting the money and the credit cards to fall out. I didn’t walk in the sunlight, but late at night, downtown, in dark shadows past littered gutters. I chose neighborhoods where crime is heavy and violent.

  But nothing happened.

  And in the end I came out at the corner of High Street and Ridge Road, and who pulled up next to me? Paul Classified. “Get in, Jennie,” he said. “I’ll give you a ride home. What are you doing walking around at this hour?”

  I walk in places where I could get mugged and raped, and what happens? I end up just where I’ve wanted to be all along: Paul Classified’s car.

  The night was extraordinarily dark—cloudy, with no moon. Leaves flickered across the pavement like scurrying animals; I kept thinking we were going to run over a squirrel. We were trapped in the car together for the eleven miles to my house.

  Paul said, “Had a pretty tough day in school, didn’t you?” He drove very well: hard, as if the sharp curves of narrow Connecticut roads were a test of life.

  “Every day is a tough day now.”

  He was staring straight ahead. His features were so clean in profile, like something that should be on a gold coin—something you could outline with a pen and frame. Paul said, “Do you need to talk?”

  Oh, but there were so many problems. I didn’t even know how to start. How could I have turned a whole school against me just because I’m good? I had to fight sobs. Oh, how I wanted Paul to care about me. I wanted him to touch me, or hug me. I felt like a little kid with a skinned knee: somebody please put a Band-Aid on my cut!

  “I’m listening,” said Paul a mile later.

  “Emily and Hill are jealous.” Better for once to start small than my usual technique of starting impressive.

  “I know.”

  “They’re my best friends.”

  Paul nodded. “It hurts them that you succeed left and right hardly trying, and they muddle along behind you.”

  He was on their side, too. He didn’t care that it hurt me—only that it hurt them!

  “Stay out of those neighborhoods,” he said suddenly. “You’re playing with fire.”

  “Do you care?”

  Paul Classified stared at me, his face blank. “I have gone out of the business of caring. Don’t expect caring from me, Jennie.”

  “Why?”

  “I have no emotion to spare. I’m using it for something else. I go to school for an education, and that’s that. Not for friends or fun.”

  “Oh, Paul! That’s terrible. Education is the least of the things you go to school for! Friends and fun are higher up!”

  Paul actually laughed out loud. “You don’t really think that, Jennie. You who have to succeed or die trying. You read that in a magazine somewhere. It has nothing to do with your life.”

  “Success doesn’t matter that much to me.”

  “Oh no? I think, Jennie, that you would give up almost anything in order to succeed. Including Emily and Hill.”

  “They’re giving me up!”

  “So fail a little,” said Paul. “They’d come back then.”

  To fail, I would have to fail on purpose. Say to myself: Now I will write a stupid paper; now I will figure out the wrong answers on the quiz; now I will forget the melody to my own song. “Fail?”

  “Scary word, huh?”

  I guess it must be, because I leaped away from failure and I said to him, “So what is this huge problem that uses up all your emotion, Paul?”

  He said nothing.

  We turned up Talcott Hill.

  “Answer me. It’s the courteous thing.”

  “I’m giving you a ride home, lady. Taking myself miles out of my way for you. The courteous thing is not to interrogate me.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Sorry about that.”

  Unexpectedly he took his eyes off the road to smile at me. A smile to be cherished, because it was infrequent: like getting a compliment from a teacher who rarely gives A’s. “Jennie,” he said, “your timing isn’t so good. Just trust me. We all have problems. Some of us can only deal with them in silence.”

  Oh, how I wanted to know more! “I’ll help!” I said. “Is it money or family or alcohol or drugs or prison or illegal aliens? Tell me! Let me be part of it!”

  “No,” said Paul Classified.

  The wind caught on the whip of an antenna and screamed as the car turned up Talcott Hill.

  “Here’s your house, Jennie.” He sat very still behind the wheel, neither looking at me nor reaching toward me. I knew that if I flung myself on him he would still just sit there, staying out of it. He won’t let me in his life, and he won’t come into mine. He leaned over me, but did not touch me, and opened my door. Cold wind brushed over us both, but it was the only thing we shared.

  I went in the house. He waited to be sure I got in safely. How crazy life is. On Lost Pond Road, where everything ends happily ever after, cushioned by money and style, he waits to be sure I’m safe.

  I drive at night. I can’t sit in the darkness alone at home. Funny how I still call it home when it’s just a place where my clothes are in drawers. Found Jennie Quint of all people wandering around a slum.

  I worry about her. I will explode from the inside: secrets will burst my skin. But Jennie will explode from the outside: pressure will detonate her control.

  And what will she do when she explodes? I’m different: I have a mother to visit. But Jennie has to get away from her parents! Or maybe away from herself.

  Where will she go? Can she wait for college: one and a half years? A girl walking alone in the freezing dark is not in a waiting mood.

  Success.

  Jennie’s success is going to tear her to pieces.

  Me, if I could succeed in just one thing, I’d be so happy. All I want to do is be sure Mom knows she’s my mother. Candy’s gone. It’s as if Mom had never tucked her in at night, or read her stories, or been her Brownie Scout leader, or fixed her banana milkshakes. It’s all on me. I have to be a great son from now on, because Mom is counting on me to be the child she succeeds with.

  I guess the real definition of love is that there are no conditions. They love you no matter what. I love Mom no matter what.

  But nobody loves Jennie no matter what. People love her because she’s brilliant and exciting. Even her mother and father …

  I didn’t know a diary would be like this.

  I didn’t know that all day long part of my mind would sift through my thoughts choosing the ones I would write down.

  Miss MacBeth, are you safe? I watch you now, in class, weighing you. I am pretty sure now I will never pass this in. I’ll get an F. But I don’t have a mother anymore who either knows or cares. Jennie’s parents would kill her for getting an F. They’d probably kill her for getting an A minus.

  Or am I wrong? After all, her parents aren’t doing all this composing and writing and test taking—Jennie is.

  Maybe Jennie would kill herself for getting an A minus.

  Snow days.

  Oh, magic!

  No school!

  White, cold, shivery freedom.

  In the old days, The Awesome Threesome was at its best on a snow day. Snowmen and sleds and skis.

  I was sitting in my bedroom, staring down at the meadows and woods and hills of Lost Pond Road, thinking how gloriously beautiful it was in the first snow of winter.

  And I truly thought—I’m not kidding you—I am not lying—I am not exaggerating—I am not trying to cover for myself! I truly thought those two men were some horrible gang, coming to rob or rape or vandalize. The roar of the snowmobiles was like the hill opening up, and the stones screaming.

  Nobody around here has a snowmobile. We use skis. We don’t desecrate the serenity of Lost Pond with screaming, screeching snowmobile
s. They sound like a gang of berserk chainsaws committing murder.

  And those men—they were dressed all in black. Black boots, black jackets, black pants, black gloves, black helmets.

  Naturally I ran down to rescue Hillary and Emily. (And, I suppose, rescue our friendship while I was at it.)

  Well, okay.

  It was an error.

  A major error.

  But it seemed reasonable at the time.

  I guess that’s how it is with all major errors.

  “Ye season, it was winter.”

  Oh is it ever. And me frozen out.

  They swung their snowmobiles in tight screaming circles. What a turn on! Literally! Scott twisted in two circles coming down the hill in our backyard, and Brandon fishtailed, and then they circled Hillary and me, and we were laughing and thinking—two boys! And two of us! Now that’s arithmetic!

  Scott had filled out. All the boys do, between ninth and eleventh grade, but you forget just how much filling out is involved. Scott’s over six feet, and still thin, but now the thin isn’t junior-high scrawny: it’s senior-high lithe and athletic. He got a buzz a while ago, and it’s somewhat grown out: light brown bristles curling in places, and straight up in the air in others. I had to stifle an impulse to flatten it down with my hand. He no longer wore glasses: probably had contacts. His complexion was dark because he needed to shave.

  Wow! If that’s what prep school does for boys, they should all go.

  Oh, I hate Jennie Quint.

  She did it on purpose.

  She sat up there at that window of hers, and she couldn’t stand it that Hillary and I might have something she didn’t have.

  My new ski outfit is mauve. I love it. And my day was perfect until two snowmobiles, huge screaming black models, like Harley-Davidson motorcycles without wheels, shrieked across the snow and cut through the top of Jennie’s land.

  Snowmobiles are for people who are lazy and out of shape and hate nature. Nobody on Lost Pond Lane would ever think of owning one. Whoever rode that snowmobile over Talcott Hill was trespassing, ruining the peacefulness of our road with that garbage.

  But I certainly knew who it was.

  And Emily and Hillary certainly knew.

  Look how fast they waltzed out into the snow and stood there so nobody could miss them posing.

  I said to Jared, “Two boys at a time. Even for Jennie Quint, that is conspicuous consumption.”

  “What’s conspicuous consumption?” said Jared.

  “You retard. We just learned about it in economics. Having too much just to show off by.”

  Jared laughed. “That’s not just Jennie. That’s everybody on Lost Pond Road.”

  Snow days. The whole town is out skiing and skating and making snowmen and tearing around on snowmobiles. We used to do that. Mom and I. Dad and I. Candy and Mom and Dad and I.

  I thought I would stay Classified and have only the problems of Mom and Dad and Candy to deal with. (Only?)

  But there are more!

  There’s Emily—I owe her a debt, and I can’t seem to do anything about it.

  There’s Mr. Lowe—he’s written me a letter and enclosed some cash. I spent it, which obviously means I accepted it, and now I have a debt there, too. And an extra debt, because Jared and Ansley obviously know nothing about it.

  And there’s Jennie. Who would kill herself over an A minus.

  Would she really?

  Those girls ganging up on her? Losing Emily and Hillary? Wandering around a slum at night? Getting weird talking about silver and gold?

  Jennie I should help.

  How crazy. The boy who has nothing thinking about helping the girl who has everything.

  Me, naturally, I’m wearing Aunt Vicki’s old coat with the rips, and Emily’s little brother Trip’s scarf he usually uses on snowmen. Because I wasn’t going anywhere except Em’s. Jennie, naturally, she’s flung her mother’s new scarlet cloak over her shoulders, so she looks romantic, and snowy, and feminine, and perfect.

  “Jennie!” says this so-called threatening robber. “It’s only been two years and you don’t recognize me? I guess that’s what happens when you’re famous. You develop a whole new circle of friends and don’t talk to the old ones.”

  “Scott van Elsen,” says Jennie, laughing. “I thought you were a fierce robber trespassing on Lost Pond Lane.” She gives him a hug. “Oh, Scott, you look simply wonderful. Of course, attack black is not your best color.”

  “Looks good against the snow,” Scott tells her. And then, as if Emily and I are not standing there, he performs introductions. “Jennie, I’d like you to meet my roommate, Brandon. Brandon, this is the famous composer, musician, lyricist, and scholar my mother was telling us about. We missed your pageant, Jennie, but I hear from my mother it’s going to be published.”

  Jennie laughs gaily, flirting a mile a minute. She doesn’t say hello to us. She doesn’t even pretend to notice us. In fact, I don’t think she did notice us. “Your mother heard that from my mother. My mother would like to have it published, but so far it’s all in her head.” Now she starts flirting with Brandon, who is not half as good-looking as Scott. Maybe not a third as good-looking. Ten percent on a good day. “I’m from Georgia,” said Brandon. “I’m used to snow now that I’ve been at the Academy for three years, but this is my first time on a snowmobile.”

  Listen, there’s no snow on Jennie. Quick as an ice storm, she cries, “I’ve never ridden on one myself.” Never mind that she wouldn’t be caught dead on a snowmobile, that we all hate them, that people with snowmobiles should be shot. Jennie bats her eyes, and sure enough, “But you’ve got to try mine, Jennie,” cries Scott, right on cue, as if Jennie had handed him the script of her life, “and then you’ll change your mind. We’ll see the woods the way you never have. Put away that ritzy uptown jacket and I’ll take you out.”

  If looks could kill, Jennie would be embalmed. Now she turns to us and says, “Hi.” She swallows, like she doesn’t know how to keep her boyfriends and have her friendships too. I’m not surprised. I don’t know how she’s going to do it, either.

  She says, “How are you?”

  I say, “Oh, we’re quite well, thank you, Jennie.”

  Scott is laughing at us.

  Even when she’s being rotten, Jennie wins! Scott thinks I am funny because I’m jealous, and Jennie comes out smelling like a rose because she’s not jealous!

  “A little New England hostility here, Brandon,” says Scott, revving his motor and following Miss Quint. “Kind of the opposite of southern hospitality, you know what I mean?”

  Brandon must know, because he goes after Scott, ignoring us, and Jennie has two boys for the day.

  Some snow day.

  So I’m on a snowmobile for the first time, vibrating all over from the engine, my legs straddling Scott, his warmth soaking through me.

  I am thinking of Emily’s face, and Hillary’s eyes, and I am afraid ever to come back down Talcott Hill.

  How could I have done that?

  I was terrible, I was awful, and every moment when I could have stopped myself, I didn’t.

  It’s because I’m so mad at them both!

  It isn’t my fault I’m smarter than they are! If they can’t flirt right with Scott and Brandon, that’s their fault! I tell myself, louder than the motors on the snowmobiles.

  But I’m lying. I was getting back at them. I don’t care one whit about Scott or Brandon or their entire prep school of male bodies. I wanted to smack Hillary and Emily as hard as they’ve smacked me all year.

  We skirted the old stone walls to find breaks. We came out at Burying Hill, which I didn’t even know you could get to from Lost Pond. The roar of the motors was like a great crashing chord that didn’t stop.

  We went to the very top of Burying Hill, the thick snow welcoming us, slipping through thickets that would be impenetrable in spring. Scott turned off the engine. Brandon swerved up, slid in the snow, and turned his off, too.

&nb
sp; In the sudden silence, I looked down on the valley as the first settlers must have known it. Ye Season It Was Winter. A sonnet to snow formed in my mind: beaten down by the elements, and yet worshipful. Reverent before God and nature.

  Scott said, “What are you doing this weekend, Jennie? Want to go into the city with Brandon and me?”

  Well, there were three of us again. But this time the third was Ansley, and we were definitely not awesome. We were awful.

  Basketball season, right?

  We’re having a reasonably good year, which considering it’s Westerly High is absolutely amazing. We do stuff like ski team, fencing team, soccer team, and diving team, but we don’t exactly shine in basketball.

  Still, everybody basically likes basketball, so there we all were, in the gym, at night, yelling our heads off.

  Ansley is without Jared. She says this in a way that makes you think she’s without arms, or hair. “He’ll be here later,” she says carelessly. “We just couldn’t manage all the cars tonight, what with everybody going in different directions.” Ansley frowns a little tiny frown to match her little tiny mind. She said, “Having a boyfriend really makes life complex, you know.”

  We should all have that complexity in life.

  In comes Jennie. She pauses at the door of the gym, and looks across the bleachers. It’s that where do I sit? look. Remember—from junior high, when you were so afraid you’d have nobody to sit with? And you didn’t even go places unless you already had somebody? I suddenly realized that was one reason The Awesome Threesome existed to start with—that way, we would never be alone. Everybody would know we were popular.

  I stared at Jennie, alone in the gym door. We were packed into the fourth bleacher up. There was not a single space … unless, of course, we picked up all our coats, and piled them somewhere else, and squished over, and let Jennie in.

  Jennie walked toward us. She was nervous. You could tell.

  Hillary looked at me. Everybody else looked at both of us. Would we be loyal to our best friend and give her space? Or would we stare at her and let her be alone?