Five
Brand lay on his back on the single bed in his room and stared up at the ceiling. He was trying to think of how to begin the next chapter of his novel, A Soul In Purgatory. So far his protagonist, a young man very much like Brand, had arrived in a fictitious town and encountered people very much like Brand's own family. The people appear normal at first, but gradually it is revealed that they are, in fact, homicidal zombies. The whole thing was supposed to be a grand allegory for his own life. Brand had learned about allegories last year, in English Lit, and the idea had come to him then: he must write the Great American Novel. He could be the next JD Salinger or Douglas Coupland. His allegorical tale would be a bible for disaffected teens for generations to come.
So far, though, he had only managed to write a few hundred words. And most of it sounded like a fifteen year old complaining about how no one understands him. It was lacking something, something deep and engaging. He couldn't put his finger on what it was, but right now, it sucked.
There was a light knock on the door, then Jas poked his head around. He grinned, then held up a pack of cigarettes.
"Shall we?" He nodded over at the window.
"Abso-fucking-lutely." Brand let out a long sigh and got up from his bed. Being back at school was weighing heavily on his mind, even if they had only been back for two hours. He walked across the room and pushed up the sash window beside his desk, then he hopped up onto the ledge and carefully squeezed out onto the roof. They were three stories up, facing the fields that spread out behind St Croix. The dormer window poked out from a long, wide roof of heavy slate, and he and Jas easily clambered up the shallow pitch to a flat area behind the tall chimneys. They hunkered down against the crumbly brickwork and Jas passed a filter-tipped cigarette to Brand, lighting his first then passing the lighter to his friend. They smoked in silence and gazed out over the beautiful landscaped grounds of St Croix.
Jas felt peaceful. He watched a flock of seagulls silhouetted high up against a bank of cloud in the distance. Moments like this, he thought to himself, are good for the soul. He knew that he ought to spend more time relaxing, but too often he got swept up in the pace of his life and his parents and their lives. And he always felt like he had to squeeze the most out of every experience, or life would pass him by. Drink up while your life is sweet; that way it can't turn sour, his father was fond of saying. He wasn't quite sure what he meant by that, but he was pretty sure it involved partying hard, meeting interesting people and experiencing everything he possibly could. The trick was knowing how to balance it all with chilling out, with friends like Brand, or by himself. And, he guessed, with Mills, although he couldn't tell where things were heading with her.
As if reading his mind, Brand broke the silence,
"What's the deal with Mills? You two still on? She looked pretty hooked on you in the car." He dropped the butt of his cigarette and ground it into the slate with his toe. Jas shrugged.
"It's cool, I guess. I mean, things feel pretty good." He offered Brand another cigarette, taking one for himself, too.
"That's great, man. I mean, she's pretty awesome. And she seems to have gotten even hotter over summer." Brand gave Jas a knowing sideways glance.
"Yeah, she's beautiful, for sure, but..."Jas trailed off. Paige's exotic, sexy face appeared in his head.
"But? It's a fact, Jas. What's the problem?"
Jas didn't answer immediately. He stared at the tip of his cigarette, watching the glowing ember and the thin streamer of bluish smoke rising into the air.
"I don't know, Brand. It's just, I'm fifteen. And Mills is fantastic, but do I really want to be so serious about one girl, no matter how incredible she is, right now? What if there's someone else even more perfect than her?"
Brand looked at his friend. Was he joking? Brand couldn't imagine having a girl like Mills hanging off his arm, adoring him, but Jas seemed to treat it like a pain in the ass. He tried to imagine himself with Tibby at his side, her hand resting on his thigh, whispering things in his ear. He couldn't believe how selfish Jas was being. He sucked on his cigarette and scowled at the horizon.
After what seemed like a hell of a long time, Brand realized Jas was looking at him. He could feel it. He fought the urge to look for as long as he could, but finally he couldn't bear it any longer. Still scowling, he turned towards his friend. Jas was grinning broadly,
"What a fucking asshole I must be." Jas said, laughing. "Ungrateful bastard. I don't know what the hell is wrong with me!" He laughed again, coughing and spewing smoke.
"Oh my God, Jas. You're my friend, but you are a fucking asshole." Brand started laughing, too.
"I am! I truly am! Oh my God, next time I see Mills I am going to pick her up, throw her over my shoulder and take her away somewhere and, well..." He trailed off.
"Are you guys doing it yet?" Brand assumed Jas would have told him if he'd started sleeping with Mills, but he couldn't be sure. He didn't think so. And Jas wasn't the sort of person who would make shit up, especially to Brand.
"We aren't there yet. Mills is too classy, and anyway, we've done a bunch of other stuff, so there's no hurry."
Brand admired his friend for his restraint. Many of the other boys at St Croix with considerably less experience talked a lot more shit about it. It was the most popular school pastime - compare notes on each others' sexual exploits. Jas wasn't the sort to join in, though, and Brand hoped to be the same way. Of course, he assumed he had much less to talk about, too, so he wasn't about to start prying in Jas's private business.
On the other hand, there was that thing with Rachel Menken, while he'd been staying in Miami Beach. Did that count? She was staying at the neighboring house, and as it turned out she and Brand had bumped into one another a few times before, over the years. Their parents knew each other informally, and that afternoon had gone out on his father's boat. Brand had wanted to stay home, though, and he had settled into a lounger beside the pool as he did every day, and picked up his copy of Infinite Jest. It weighed a ton, and had something like a million pages, but Brand had read about it online after the author, David Foster Wallace, had killed himself. It was supposed to be, like, the best novel ever written, and a whole internet community had sprung up around it. Each year they held an event, Infinite Summer, where fans of Wallace encouraged each other to read the entire novel, with all the footnotes and everything. Footnotes! It even had footnotes! Brand had bought a copy immediately and dived in, but he had to admit he didn't really get what all the fuss was about. Okay, so he had only read about a hundred pages, but so far it just seemed really confusing.
In fact, he was squinting at the tiny text of yet another footnote when he noticed Rachel waving at him over the wall.
"Is that you, Ari Brandeis?" She smiled broadly at him.
"Rachel?" He hadn't seen her for at least three years, so he couldn't be sure. Last time, he remembered, she had been really gawky, with a big nose, braces and tightly pinned-back black frizzy hair. Of course, he'd been pretty funny-looking, too, just a few months away from his Bah Mitzvah, scrawny, pale and very into Lord Of The Rings.
"How are you? It's been a while! My mom mentioned that your family was down for the summer. I just arrived yesterday."
"Wow, yeah, it has been a while." Brand didn't know what to say. This was a totally different Rachel to the one he remembered. In the place of the shy, awkward little girl was a pretty, bubbly teenager. "I hardly recognized you." He said, finally. It sounded lame, but it was true.
"Do you want a drink?"
"Sure. Shall I come around?" Brand glanced back at the lounger with Infinite Jest beside it. It has to be better than fighting my way through that, he thought to himself.
"Just climb over the wall if you want." She turned away and headed back up through the neighboring garden to the bar on the patio. Brand hauled himself up over the pink stucco wall and dropped down the other side. He felt slightly self-conscious in his swim shorts and flip-flops, and he wished he'd had a chance to grab a
shirt or something. Still, she had told him to hop the wall, and he didn't want to seem hesitant. He watched her crouch down and peer into the refrigerator.
"Beer, or soda? We also have rum or vodka. Want a vodka and Coke?"
"Yeah, thanks." Brand sat down at one of the stools and leaned on his elbows.
"So, where are you going to school now?" He asked, taking the glass of ice and vodka from her and pouring in Coke from a chilled can.
"Fleischer Country Day. It's in Manhattan."
"Off the park? At 91st St? I know it." It was pretty near Brand's parents' Upper East Side apartment - an exclusive Baby Ivy for JPs all over Manhattan. If Brand had had a sister, his parents definitely would have sent her to Fleischer.
"That's right. And my mom said you're at St Croix, right? Didn't your brothers go there, too?" Rachel faced him on the other side of the pool bar.
"Yeah, all three of us." Brand gulped down his vodka and Coke. Why was he nervous? He had never thought about Rachel in this way before, but here she was, looking really cute in a white camisole and tennis skirt. She still looked like the old Rachel, but now Brand noticed her eyes had been carefully made up with pale blue mascara, and she had grown into her features. What used to be an over-sized beak was now an elegant, feminine nose, and her teeth were immaculate. She looked great, he had to admit. She had confidence, too, which Brand knew she would have gotten from being at Fleischer. It was very sexy. She was looking him straight in the eye. He looked down at the ice in his glass.
"Another one?" She laughed, casually. She, too, was pleasantly surprised at what she saw. Brand was no longer the nerdy little kid who seemed to be built out of bendy straws. He had bulked up. A lot. And his shoulders and arms had some nice definition to them. His hair was cute, too. He sort of looks like Adam Sandler, she thought to herself as she poured a good slug of vodka into Brand's glass.
He had a few more that afternoon, and so did Rachel, before Brand finally excused himself. He had made her laugh, and told her about his friends. She had listened attentively, and talked a little about her friends in New York. Then she had gone inside to attend to something, and he didn't want to seem like he was overstaying his welcome, even though Rachel had asked him over. Anyway, he was feeling really drowsy from the vodka and Cokes and the humidity. If he had made it back to his house right away, perhaps nothing would have happened, but he had paused at the side of the pool for a moment, and seeing the deliciously refreshing-looking water, he had sat down on the edge and dangled his feet in. Before he knew it, Rachel was beside him in a black Victoria's Secret one-piece swimsuit.
He couldn't be sure what happened next, but somehow they both wound up in the water and Rachel was pushing her lips against his and he was holding her waist, and her hands were all over his back. Then his hands were on her ass and hers were on his waist. And they may have rubbed up against his junk once or twice, because pretty soon Brand was aware of some tent-pole action in his swim shorts and maybe Rachel was aware of it, too, because she raised her eyebrows and smiled wickedly at him.
Who knows where it would have gone from there if her parents and his parents had not returned home together at that moment. They appeared on the patio, drinks in their hands, laughing and looking relaxed and tanned. Rachel hopped out of the pool and sat on the side, dripping. Brand decided to stay in the water until things calmed down in the trunks department.
His mom was thrilled to see him with the Menkens's daughter; she had imagined a match-up years ago, and the Menken's had a place near theirs on the Upper East Side. She had set up her eldest son, David, with a lovely Jewish girl from Long Island. They had gotten married the year before, and her middle son, Benjamin, was seeing a girl at Harvard from a old Boston Jewish family. That left her baby, Ari, and who better for him than Rachel? They were practically childhood sweethearts!
Fortunately for Brand, the cool water of the pool coupled with his close encounter with Rachel had sobered him up enough so that he could excuse himself politely and without any additional embarrassment when his parents left.
As far as sexual conquests went, it might not impress too many of the other guys at St Croix, but Brand had certainly enjoyed revisiting it in his head, oh, a few hundred thousand times.