An Off Year Read online

  “I’m kidding,” he said. “Fine, we’ll go upstairs.” He poured three huge scoops of the cocoa mix into the mug, added some water, stirred it with a spoon, and handed it to me. I thought Mike, after being more of a quiet guy all those years, had suddenly developed a little attitude. Unless I had turned into a social idiot around him all of a sudden. It was possible both things had happened.

  “All right,” he said, settling down on the floor of his room. “You happy now?”

  “Almost,” I said, and grabbed our high school yearbook off his shelf. I had to have something in my hands. And the hot chocolate was still too hot. “I’m going to laugh at the things people have signed here.”

  “Be my guest,” said Mike. “Hold on a second.” He was the only person I knew on the planet who bought and played LPs. He put on an old Beck album.

  “Are you still playing guitar?” I asked.

  “Haven’t had the time,” he said. “Plus, you know, the college guy strumming alone in his dorm room thing. I don’t want to be that guy.”

  “Yeah, that guy would be weird,” I said. I didn’t know of said guy, but I could sort of imagine it.

  “It’s just not my thing anymore, you know?” he said. I admired that he could say that he had a “thing” and then he didn’t. I didn’t even know if I had a thing to begin with, let alone not. Maybe not going to school was my thing?

  “So what have you been doing so far?” Mike asked, taking a seat on the carpet. He leaned against the bed. I leaned against the opposite wall. We could have had a pretty good kicking match if we wanted to. The music was just the right mix of melodic and weird, stuff I’d never listen to on my own but was perfect for hanging out.

  To Miguel—It was fun sitting next to you in Spanish. Sí. That’s all I can remember, can you believe that?—Erin

  I sighed. “Like, nothing. I haven’t even been doing any thinking.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Well, I feel like I have to justify this year somehow and I haven’t. So I’ve mostly been sitting around getting pissed at everyone.”

  “Better than having everyone be pissed at you.”

  “Who says they aren’t?”

  Mike—You’re amazing. I know you’ll go far. Don’t be a stranger! XOXOXOX Tracy

  “Maybe we should have a fight over whose parent is more pissed at them right now—your dad or my parents,” Mike said.

  “I think you’d win,” I said. “My dad is mad—well, I don’t know if he’s mad. I don’t know what he is.”

  “I still can’t get over how angry my mom and dad were,” he said, rubbing his eyebrow with his ring finger. “Things are just starting to get a little more normal since we’ve been spending some more time around one another.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Here’s what happened. In October, I told them I couldn’t take being without Wendy anymore and was transferring to UK. I had already taken care of the paperwork and everything. They didn’t speak to me until they were on campus three days later. They got me in their hotel room at nine A.M. and wouldn’t quit yelling at me literally until nine P.M. We actually ordered room service so they wouldn’t have to yell at me in public.”

  “That’s incredible.”

  You have an odd aroma. I will not hold it against you. —Kate

  “And then Wendy and I broke up.”

  “Oh really?”

  “All my mom could do was laugh when I told her Wendy and I were breaking up. Not in a mean way. I mean, I had to laugh, too. It was almost like a joke when I called her. ‘Hey, Ma, you’re never going to believe this.’ ”

  “Why did you guys break up?” I realized that I knew nothing about Wendy. I had had a few classes with her in high school. She seemed all right. Bland. She had played soccer, so she hung with the sporty-girl crowd that I didn’t know very well.

  Mike—Well, you know . . .—Meg

  This was written in huge slanty letters in bright red ink, taking up a big corner of the inside cover.

  “This is going to make me sound like an asshole,” he said. “But right when I got there, I realized that it wasn’t going to work out. Once I arrived, it was only about an hour before I said, ‘I transferred from Harvard to be here with you!’ I didn’t want to be a jerk, but I did feel mad, disappointed. I thought I was being a great guy and this would really change the trajectory of my life. I was excited all the way, and then that first night on campus that we spent together, I was just like, ‘Oh great.’ ” Mike sighed and laughed, sat forward, and then let himself fall back against the side of the bed. “It was dumb,” he continued, after we had listened to a few seconds of music. “Really dumb. I don’t know. But it’s kind of funny to me, too. I don’t know, what can I do, you know?” he said, looking at me and then looking back straight ahead. “I won’t lie: I’m still freaked out. I’m in Kansas, for God’s sake. But,” he said, and leaned back up, looking me in the eye again, “I’d probably do it again.”

  A chill went through me. Looking at him, for a second, he seemed like a totally different person. He looked older than me; he looked like, well, a man—a young man—and not my guy friend from high school. I could imagine walking past him on the street, thinking he was older than me, not considering him my age but someone off doing more important things. It freaked me out, seeing him like that. But it was kind of thrilling, too.

  “You’d really do it again? I mean, if you meet another girl at Kansas and she wants to transfer to the University of Hawaii, you’ll go there? When will it end, Mike? Oh when will it ever, ever end?”

  “Shut the eff up,” he said, kicking me. “I just mean, if I had that same chance again, I probably would have done the same thing.”

  Mike—This feels weird, writing in here. Everything feels like it’s too obvious to write down. So can I just say, “Have a great summer”? I love you.—Wendy

  “So you seem okay with it,” I said. “Good for you.”

  “I wouldn’t say good for me,” he said. “It wasn’t a bright move. I’m not, like, happy I did it. But I just don’t want to freak out about it anymore. I’m still really bummed about Wendy.”

  “Huh, yeah,” I said, not wanting to talk about Wendy.

  “Besides,” he said, “maybe this is just the way that things were supposed to go anyway. Maybe I would be a total nothing at Harvard, but in the end I’ll be a superstar at Kansas.”

  “I guess it just depends on whether a superstar at Kansas is still better than a nothing at Harvard,” I said, and then regretted it. To create a distraction, I took out my elastic and redid my ponytail.

  “Your hair’s gotten long,” Mike said. Distraction accomplished.

  “Has it?” I actually hadn’t noticed it, but I guess it had been a long time since I’d gotten it cut, probably right before that drive to Kenyon. It was usually about shoulder length when I had it down, which was not often, because it was curly and I didn’t feel like bothering to make it look not freakishly frizzy. I pulled it down and could see that it was hanging below my shoulders. I wondered how long my nails would have grown if I’d stopped cutting them as well. I’d look like a crazy mountain hermit man.

  “I wonder if I can make a beard out of this,” I said, pulling the ends up under my nose.

  “You look like Chewbacca,” Mike said.

  “I bet you wouldn’t have conversations like this at Harvard. Deep serious ones.”

  To Mike—Have a nice summer. You seem nice. Cecily. P.S. If you can’t remember in 20 years that this is a joke entry, then I never knew you.

  “You’re right,” Mike said. “I made the right choice.” I felt bad for him, for putting himself on the line like that and maybe not making the right choice. But at least he had a plan, a reason for doing what he did. And I could tell he would be a superstar no matter where he ended up. Jesus Christ, I can’t believe I hung out with him so much and never realized how amazing he is. Maybe things would go well for me, too, I thought. I put the yearbook back on the
shelf and, without thinking, ran my hand across all the spines so they lined up. I glanced at him to see if he noticed—he was watching me but didn’t say anything, didn’t raise an eyebrow or smirk.

  “So did you have a hard time?” I asked. “I mean, meeting friends and stuff? During the transfer?”

  “Not really,” he said. “I think it’s almost harder not to make friends in college. It’s programmed that way, practically. You really have to go out of your way to avoid meeting new people.”

  “Meeting new people isn’t the same as having friends,” I pointed out.

  “Are you scared of not having any friends?” he said. “Don’t worry about it. You’ll be fine. You have friends now, right?’

  “Barely,” I said. “I mean—”

  “Get over it,” he said. “I’m your friend, right?”

  “Maybe I can walk around with a button that says ‘Has at least one friend!’ on it.”

  “There you go. But why wouldn’t you make friends with people? You’re funny. You’re fun. You’re creative.”

  “I think I just hung out with funny, fun, creative people. Because I’m not feeling very funny, fun, or creative right now.”

  “You just need to find people like that, then, and get associated with them.”

  “Easy!” I said. “Thanks, Mike!”

  “So do you think you’ll go back?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe. Probably. I still don’t have any idea why I’m suddenly so defective.”

  He shrugged. “You can cultivate an aura of mystery about you. You’re inexplicable and you can’t be pigeonholed and no institution can tie you down!”

  “I don’t think that’s true.”

  “Nobody knows that, though. When I got to UK, people had already heard about me. I felt like explaining to them, ‘Actually, I’m more than just the guy who transferred here from Harvard to be with a girl,’ but in the meantime, hey, at least they thought something about me. And it’s a good story to tell at a party.”

  “So I just need to get invited to some parties,” I said.

  “Good luck with that.”

  My hot chocolate had finally cooled off enough to drink, and I decided to go home soon. I was worried about staying up too late, getting too chatty, trying to share too much, and looking foolish. Even though Mike and I had been left alone in his house or my house together several times, I was aware for the first time that I was alone with a guy in a while. I was afraid of staring at his face too much. I was afraid of acting strangely and getting called out on it. But I was glad that I saw him. He was still my friend. I couldn’t fuck that up.

  “I don’t want to put pressure on you,” I said when we were at the front door. “But you have to keep in touch. Not all the time. Not even that frequently. But just . . . sometimes. Because if I don’t talk to you, I’m not talking to anyone.”

  “What about Kate?”

  “Kate’s changed.”

  “She seems like she’s coming out of her shell to me,” said Mike.

  “I didn’t even think that she had a shell,” I said. “But seriously. Only friend. Obligation.”

  “I have to tell you, it takes a lot of balls to be that pitiful,” said Mike. Mean but true.

  “Just send me the occasional e-mail or call me, will you?” I said. “I’ll try calling Kate, too, so the pressure’s not all on you. But she’ll probably be too busy having drunk sex.”

  He widened his eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “That came out of nowhere. It’s just—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Mike said. “What am I going to do, go tell her you said that?”

  “You’re going to go have drunk bar sex with her.”

  “All right,” Mike said, opening the front door. “Yes, I promise I’ll keep in touch. But only because we weirdos need to stick together.” If Mike was a weirdo, I didn’t know what I was. A freak of nature.

  “Well, see you,” he said, putting up a fist. I bumped it.

  “Not if I see you first.”

  “I don’t even know what that saying means.”

  “Me either.”

  I drove the five minutes home in silence. I felt more real after seeing Mike. I also felt lonelier than I had in a while. But at least I had something to tell Jane.

  By my next appointment, the weather had turned freezing and slushy—my jeans were already stained with salt and I’d only gone from the house to the garage to the car to the office building—yet Jane looked pristine in a cream sweater, green tweed skirt, and shiny black stiletto boots. Maybe she changed at the office. If I ever chose to dress to impress, I’d have to ask her her secrets.

  “Hey, it looks better in here,” I said when I entered her office, which now was painted a warmer taupe color and carpeted in navy.

  “Yeah—the carpet’s that crappy industrial stuff but still better than hearing my voice echo in here. So what’s new with you?”

  “So I guess I’m losing Kate,” I said. “I don’t know. I feel really sad when I hear a song that we used to sing together or remember some stupid joke that made us laugh until our stomachs hurt. I doubt we’ll ever be that close again.”

  “Well, you don’t know,” said Jane. “A lot of people grow apart at first and then get back in touch once they’ve settled down and figured out who they are at college.”

  “Kate hasn’t had a problem figuring out who she is,” I said.

  “Why do you think that?”

  “I don’t know. She doesn’t sound like it. She sounds like she’s having a lot of fun, and she’s really popular, and she’s, like, drinking and being totally cool.” I started getting really sarcastic in the second half of that sentence. “And she fucks everything that moves,” I said.

  “Whoa.”

  “Okay, I didn’t mean to say it like that,” I said. “She’s having a lot of sex, I guess, or so she tells me. I guess that’s what you do in college. That’s fine. I can admit I’m sort of inexperienced or prudish, so maybe I’m jealous. But it’s like—she seems to think it’s making her cool. And she was . . . already cool before. It makes me sad.”

  “Maybe she’s just not meant to be your friend anymore,” she said.

  “She outgrew me.”

  “Who says?” Jane said. “Just because she’s in college? Or she let a guy put his penis in her vagina? That doesn’t automatically mean she got more mature than you.”

  I shrugged.

  Jane smiled. “Did you consider that maybe she’s not that cool if she’s leaving you behind in the dust?” she said. “Maybe she actually kind of sucks.”

  “Well, still. I’m not wearing a sombrero and having people drink tequila out of my belly button,” I said. “Nobody’s drinking anything out of my belly button. But you know what, I don’t blame her. I feel like I forfeited the right to have friends or something.”

  “How so?”

  “I don’t know . . . why should I expect my friends to take their precious college time to talk to me, to pity me just because I couldn’t move on somehow?”

  “What about your friend Mike?”

  “Mike’s a nice guy. Everyone likes him.”

  “But if everyone likes him, wouldn’t that mean he’d also be too busy to talk to you?”

  “Maybe he just wants to talk to me because I make him feel better about himself—like maybe he might have transferred from a really good school just to be with a chick, but at least he’s in school. Talking to me makes him feel better.”

  “Why would you bother talking to someone who just pities you, then?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Have you and Mike ever hooked up?” Jane asked. I snorted. “Why is that so funny? Are you guys not saying ‘hooked up’ anymore?”

  “No,” I said. “We just don’t have that kind of relationship. He dates other girls. I’m his pal. I wouldn’t want to make things weird. Even if I could make things weird, which I wouldn’t. I haven’t even tried.”
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  “You don’t want to go there,” she said. I rolled my eyes. “People don’t say ‘go there’ anymore? I’m the youngest person in this office, but I feel so old when I talk to patients like you.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “No, I haven’t wanted to ‘go there.’ ”

  “Hmm, okay, so maybe you didn’t go there with Mike—what about other guys?”

  But the truth was, overall, I hadn’t even really thought about guys very much since coming back from my day at college. It was hard to feel seductive or cute or just not ridiculous when you lived at home with your dad because you ran away from school. It was easy to ignore the fact that I had no romance in my life so far. There was very little to remind me of such things until I did see Mike and I was suddenly reminded of said things, and it reminded me how much nicer it was to pretend these things didn’t exist.

  My experience with guys was pretty limited at this point. And, by and large, I didn’t mind it: the guys in high school didn’t impress me too much, and typically they didn’t seem to be worth breaking up a friendship over, which is what they typically seemed to do. The only experience I had to speak of was the summer between sophomore year and junior year of high school, when Kate and I were assistant counselors at a sleepaway camp in Michigan. My campers loathed me, and I hated them right back. They were spiteful, bitter little sixth graders who had hoped for a counselor who would help them curl their hair and make bead bracelets as opposed to rolling her eyes throughout their talent-show practices and refusing to buy them candy on her night out. One of the only things I really liked about camp was that it was totally acceptable to do things like quit shaving your legs and stop wearing makeup. I took advantage of this by going as long as I could without washing my hair, which I kept in a permanent set of braids.

  Camp was more stressful in some ways than school, because everybody matched up and hooked up, despite the greasy hair and mosquito-bitten legs. Kate found Joe, a freakishly tall and thin fellow with long blond hair who was actually from Michigan (ooh la la). The two of them would hold hands and quietly disappear into the woods together. In those days, she didn’t feel the need to report every detail of her love life, plus there was only one guy to keep track of.