Despite what she had told Corliss and Donna, she really didn’t expect they or she would do this again. If she had any expectation for it, it was that it would prove boring a second time. Buying clothes was fun because it was different from buying clothes with her stepmother, but that was as far as she had expected they would go. She wished she could believe in fate and destiny, just as Corliss had suggested. Meeting Leo did seem serendipitous. If Corliss hadn’t seen that coyote go under the fence, they might not have challenged one another to go off the grounds, and if they hadn’t done that, there would be no chance even in an infinite universe for her to have met someone like him.
Could she believe in something so intangible, something that had no empirical evidence to support it, an event that couldn’t be shown to be true in a laboratory and something that depended so much on inexplicable feelings, almost magic? Deep in her heart, she wanted to believe it.
I’m behaving foolishly, she thought, just like some of the airheads at my previous school I won’t go back there tomorrow night. Why bother?
Convinced, she turned over to go to sleep, but when she closed her eyes, despite herself, all she saw was Leo smiling at her. The image had her tossing and turning most of the night.
• • •
Neither Corliss nor Donna spoke to her about it before lunch. When she saw them in the morning, it was as if she had imagined it all. She wondered if they had talked about it without her and had decided to pretend none of it had happened.
Finally, at lunch, Corliss made an announcement. “Neither Donna nor I think we should go back to the mall. Analyzing it from all angles, we concluded there’s no positive result for you or for us. The chances are probably slim that this Leo guy will be there, and even if he is, what percentage is there in anything meaningful happening? He’s a drifter, and I don’t mean like us.”
“This was supposed to be our little experiment,” Donna added. “We thought having all our observations would make anything that happened different. We’d weigh the pros and cons so that none of us would do anything foolish.”
The definiteness of their conclusion annoyed Mayfair for some reason. Perhaps they were jealous, she thought. Leo had concentrated on her mostly. She wondered if she sounded as arrogant as they did when she offered an opinion. Was it simply in their nature to be that way, something that came from their confidence that whatever they said had to be certain, had to be true?
“I’m not sure we gave it enough time,” Mayfair said after a moment.
“There are some conclusions that don’t require much time to be reached,” Donna said.
“What makes you so sure this was one of them?” she fired back, now not hiding her annoyance.
“All this is hypothetical anyway,” Corliss added. “He won’t be there tonight, and even if he was, the chances are he’d ignore us. We didn’t give him enough satisfaction.”
“And you know this because . . .”
Corliss smiled. “Experience, and before you say it, some things don’t require all that much experience.”
Mayfair nodded.
“Why don’t we wait a week or so and do it again?” Corliss suggested. She could see the displeasure on Mayfair’s face. “Fresh eyes.”
“Good idea,” Donna seconded.
“Whatever,” Mayfair said. She knew they were looking for a compromise that would save everyone’s ego.
“Thanks for bankrolling us,” Corliss said. “We’ll pay you back when our parents send us some money or come to visit.”
Mayfair nodded. The small knot of contradictory emotions seemed to tighten inside her. She ate silently, listening to them talk about their work, their letters from home. She thought about her emails from her stepsister. The girl relies too much on my advice, Mayfair thought. I don’t have the experience Donna and Corliss refer to, and I certainly don’t feel qualified to give her any guidance when it comes to boys. Her mother is a waste of time for her, though, and there is just so much my father can do for her.
She looked around the dining hall. Most of the other students were in animated conversations about their favorite subjects. From the way the listeners at these tables reacted, she thought most were really talking to themselves. Everyone here thought what he or she had to say was more important than what the others were saying. They never stopped competing for attention and the superior position.
“Once in a while,” she blurted, as if Corliss and Donna were able to hear her thoughts, “it might be a good idea to plant an ordinary student in here. He or she could be a normal A student, but the contrast might help us geniuses come back to earth.”
The two stared at her as if she had just landed from another planet.
“We’ve been through all that, Mayfair,” Donna said. “They’d either be bored or intimidated by us.”
“And most people here don’t have the patience to explain every word said,” Corliss added. “It would be a form of punishment to put a so-called normal A student in this place. I’d feel sorry for him or her. It would be like throwing Christians to the lions.”
“So we’re destined to live in our own minds,” Mayfair said. “Is that it?”
“Whatever,” Donna said. “I plan on being very rich. I don’t care about fame.”
“Sounds good to me,” Corliss added, smiling. “Run again tomorrow morning?”
“Sure,” Donna said. “Mayfair?”
“We’ll become Dr. Marlowe’s little darlings,” Mayfair said, sounding neither positive nor negative.
They waited for her to answer.
“Sure,” she said, relenting. “All progress requires some form of sacrifice and punishment.”
“Heavy, heavy,” Corliss joked.
They left to go their separate ways. No matter what Mayfair did that afternoon, however, she found her mind drifting, not that any of her teachers would notice. Unlike at a regular school, no one ever pointed out that you weren’t paying sufficient attention. The teachers at Spindrift were very subtle when it came to directing a drifter toward one topic or another. The philosophy was simply that the student had to make up his or her mind solely on the basis of his or her own inclinations. You chose your own path, and they simply helped guide you toward your own goals. If you looked bored with what you were doing, they expected that you would change direction on your own.
Mayfair told herself she was still exploring her options when it came to what she wanted to do with her life, what subject she could be passionate about; but deep inside herself, she lived in fear that she would never find one, never discover a path or a direction, and simply float in this universe of knowledge like an asteroid, without any destination. She thought she was a true drifter.
On the other hand, Corliss and Donna seemed to be moving toward something, despite their attempts to sympathize with her and claim that same fear. Those two were more centered, perhaps because they had real family. Losing her mother when she was young, her father remarrying a woman who basically feared and despised her, and her distance both mentally and emotionally from her stepsister left her feeling quite a bit more alone than her two friends. They had every reason to be more cautious and determined. They really wanted to please someone else besides themselves.
She had her father, of course, but was pleasing her father important anymore? She felt like an astronaut whose last tie to the space station had snapped the day she was brought here. Her father’s rationalizations and sincere emotions lingered, but only for a while, like the echo of a laugh, the image of a smile, and the whisper of “I love you.”
Suddenly, the silence in Spindrift was deafening to Mayfair. Her dislike for her room was palpable. She felt like clawing at the walls. When Corliss and Donna stopped by to say it was time to go to dinner, she told them she would be right down.
Corliss’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Are you upset with us about our comments concerning this Leo guy?”
Mayfair was never great at hiding her feelings, because she never believed it was nece
ssary. What was a more futile lie than that? Sooner or later, even the dimmest of friends and relatives would sense your unhappiness if you were unhappy, your anger if you were angry, she thought.
“Upset is too strong a word. Disappointed, maybe, but maybe that’s my own failing,” Mayfair said.
“We’ll talk more about it,” Donna promised. “The only thing final is the word final.”
“Oh, spare me, little Buddha,” Mayfair said, and both Corliss and Donna laughed. It eased her mood and lessened her tension. “Let’s eat,” she said. “I’m ready.”
The Supremes marched down to the dining room.
Mayfair deliberately avoided discussing their conclusions about the evening now known to her as the Night Below the Fence. Although both Donna and Corliss knew she was deliberately avoiding the subject, they let her direct their conversation to gossip about some of the other drifters. Maybe they wanted to avoid talking about it themselves.
They had a choice of things to do after dinner. An old but famous silent movie, Battleship Potemkin, was being shown in the media center. Peter Townsend, because he was good at it himself, had proposed a Ping-Pong contest in the game room, and a guest NASA scientist who had been given the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers was available tonight and tomorrow for conversations about oceanography and public health. One had to be impressed with the expense Spindrift would go to for only a handful of students. But as Dr. Marlowe had said on more than one occasion, every one of them was a potential new Einstein.
Corliss decided she was going to the Ping-Pong contest. She declared she wanted to beat Peter Townsend’s ass. Donna wanted Mayfair to go with her to the NASA scientist’s forum, but Mayfair said she wanted to see the movie. She had read about it but had never seen it.
“Boring,” Donna declared.
“If it is, I’ll join you, or I’ll go watch Corliss play Ping-Pong.”
The compromise worked, and the three parted, attracting the surprise of Dr. Marlowe, who had observed how the three did almost everything together. Thirty minutes later, with everyone off someplace, the lobby, cafeteria, and lounge were empty and silent.
Twenty minutes into the film, Mayfair rose.
On the way out of the media center, she felt Dr. Marlowe’s hand on her wrist.
“Bored?”
“No, I realized I had seen it,” she said. “I’m going to watch Corliss win the Ping-Pong contest.”
Dr. Marlowe nodded. She was sitting with Lars Stensen, who perked up at the sound of Corliss’s name.
“I’ll join you,” he said. “I realized I saw this, too.”
Dr. Marlowe gave her a knowing smile. Lars’s infatuation with Corliss was obvious, especially to Corliss. Mayfair and he left the media center.
“I wasn’t lying,” he said. “I know all about that film. It has the scene with the flag that was hand-painted on the film itself. Startled the audience in those days.”
“Yes. Human ingenuity is fascinating,” Mayfair said dryly. “Go on without me. I have to do something first.”
He nodded and hurried away. She turned the moment he was gone and headed toward the kitchen. She had made up her mind the moment she woke up this morning, actually. Minutes later, she was out the door and crossing to the woods.
• • •
For a few moments after she had gone under the fence, she paused and debated with herself.
It took only that long to dismiss fear and put aside any caution. She practically ran down the hill and once nearly toppled.
That would have been utter disaster. But she was fine.
She broke out exactly where the three of them had the night before and hurried to the entrance of the mall. She thought someone was playing the drums but realized quickly that it was only her heart pounding.
The mall was a little busier than it had been the night before, but this time, without her companions walking in sync, she wasn’t attracting the same attention. She didn’t mind that, but she almost wanted to touch base and turn right around as if she was in some relay race. That way, she could get herself back to Spindrift before her absence was noticed even by Corliss or Donna.
She almost did just that when she reached Olaf’s microbrewery restaurant, because she looked in and didn’t see Leo. She hesitated a moment in the doorway, glanced at her watch, and then entered and went to the same table she, Corliss, and Donna had taken before. The same waitress, in fact, came over to her. This table was probably part of her assignment. She obviously remembered Mayfair.
“Lemonade?”
“Do you have Perrier?”
“Perrier?”
“Mineral water?”
“Oh.” She thought a moment and nodded. “Onion rings?”
“No, nothing else for now.”
The waitress smiled and headed off. Mayfair sat back and took a breath. It had been so long since she had been anywhere by herself at night. Men had it better when it came to being alone. They attracted little attention, but at one point or another during the next five or six minutes, everyone in the place had glanced at her, some gazing longer than a glance. One woman was obviously annoyed with her escort, her boyfriend or husband, because he stared at Mayfair too long.
The waitress had brought her a small bottle of mineral water and a glass. She looked like she was going to stay to talk to her, but someone signaled and she walked off. Mayfair filled the glass and sipped at it.
Why am I doing this? she wondered. Is it simply because those two decided I shouldn’t?
She sat forward and hovered over her glass, looking down at the table to avoid eye contact with anyone else. Minutes seemed to take longer than sixty seconds. When she looked at the clock on the wall across from the bar, she saw that she hadn’t been here more than seven or so. She began to plan her return. For now, she would rather that neither Corliss nor Donna knew she had gone back to the mall and the brewpub. There would be that damn I told you so look that was practically a mask worn by everyone at Spindrift at one time or another.
She took what she expected to be her final sip of the mineral water and looked up to find the waitress. Instead, he was standing there smiling down at her.
“Lost some weight, I see,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“Your bodyguards aren’t here.”
She stared up at him. He didn’t change expression. Then she smiled and shook her head. “They’d beat your ego to a pulp if they were here and heard you refer to them as bodyguards.”
He looked around as if he were terrified. Then he put his hand on the chair across from her. “Okay?”
He sat before she said yes.
“Maybe you’re the undercover agent,” he said, and signaled to the waitress. When she approached, he ordered a beer before turning back to Mayfair. “Want those onion things?”
“No.”
“We’re fine for now,” he told the waitress, and she left.
“What kept you here another day?” she asked him.
“Truthfully?”
“Yes, for a change, why not?”
“Hoping to see you,” he said.
She shook her head.
“What?” he asked with a feigned look of indignation.
“Did it take you a long time?”
“To do what?”
“Get around the block. You’ve obviously been a number of times, I bet, to develop that smooth a come-on.”
“Not really. I’m too much of a loner to be a ladies’ man. Was it that smooth?”
She nodded and sipped her drink. The waitress brought his brew. He took a sip, keeping his eyes on Mayfair.
“Is it true,” he asked, “that women favor men who are inexperienced?”
“I haven’t read any statistics on it, but I imagine there’s a certain safety in getting involved with a relatively inexperienced man,” she said, and thought about Alan Taylor. “It’s always better for us when it’s weighted more on our side. So little is otherwise.”
If he challenged her, she was ready to rattle off facts like how much a woman makes compared to a man for the same work. She was glad he didn’t question her. She desperately wanted to be different and sound different with him. That desire interested her more than anything. In fact, she was genuinely more curious about herself at this moment than she was about him.
“Okay,” he said, putting his glass down and looking at it. “Here I go. I was in college when one day, I asked myself why I was there. I didn’t have a satisfactory answer, so I got up, gathered some things, got on my motorcycle, and left. In my case, it was heading west. That was about five months ago.”
“And for money?” she asked.
“I had some, but I took an odd job here and there for both the experience, companionship, and some bucks. I’m pretty handy when it comes to auto mechanics. On my way here, I helped two families who had broken down on the highway, in fact. Easy fixes, but I could see the man of the house rarely used a can opener, much less a wrench.”
“What about your family?”
He sipped his beer. “I haven’t told anyone any of this since I left,” he said, and looked away for a moment. She thought he wasn’t going to answer. “Funny, but no one I’ve worked for or met has asked,” he said when he turned back.
“Maybe you scared them off from asking.”
He smiled. “Could be.”
He drank some more of his beer but kept his eyes on her. “My parents died in a brutal car accident involving a tractor trailer. I’m an only child. They had set up my college fund. I was sixteen at the time and lived with my mother’s sister and her family until I started college. Once I was eighteen, I was on my own, not that I didn’t like my aunt and uncle. I just—”