Class - Cecily Von Ziegesar [30]
“I’m totally not marrying you now,” Eliza told him when she returned.
The Grannies finished the song and put down their instruments. Nick thought he saw one of them exchange money with another student. Scoring some pot was crucial if he was going to have to watch Shipley and Tom kissing in the next bed for the rest of the year. Even more crucial was his idea of erecting a yurt out in the woods somewhere. He would need a place to go, an escape pod, a zen retreat. He might even get credit for building it.
“Welcome to Dexter.” Darius Booth, the first Home-born president of Dexter College, took up a microphone in his frail hands and beamed at the crowd. He was eighty-two years old and had started as a janitor at the school, slowly working his way up the ranks and to the front page of the New York Times on his inauguration day. It was just the kind of small town story the Times liked to report during the summer when there wasn’t much newsworthy news and most of the writing staff was in the Hamptons or on Cape Cod. Mr. Booth was beloved by the college faculty and staff for his devotion to Dexter and for his steadfast, by-the-book leadership. The consensus among the students was that he was a bore. “This is the second or third or even fourth barbecue for some of you, but for our first-year students this night is very special. Why don’t we lead them in a round of ‘Bravo, Dexter, Bravo’? They’re going to have to learn it sometime. I’ll give you a hint, boys and girls,” he said in his hokiest Maine accent. “The tune sounds a little bit like ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem.’”
The Grannies dutifully picked up their instruments and played an intro to the college’s corny anthem. As long as they humored their dotty old president, he’d never bust them for doing and dealing drugs, or stealing ether from the chemistry lab.
“Upon this hill, through winter’s chill, Dexter so divine. Snow swirls round our heads, trees wrapped in its glistening glory. Brave men and women write their own stories. Bra-vo, Dexter. Bra-vo.”
Everyone was so busy trying to learn the song or mock the lyrics, no one noticed the tall, beautiful, dark-haired girl stride across the grass on the opposite side of the lake. It was Tragedy, looking like she’d gotten lost somewhere between Rio and Bangor, in a yellow bikini top, a flippy white miniskirt, and bare feet. She’d come to spy on Adam and the blonde from Connecticut, getting busy, and was disappointed to find Tom getting busy with the blonde instead. Adam held up his hand, signaling her to wait. He left the group of singing, dancing, kissing freshmen and circled the water, glad to have talked to Shipley for a little while at least. Maybe she’d think of him in November, when it came time to vote.
7
And so it went. Shipley lost her virginity to Tom that night. It was a Friday night, and Root’s halls and walls thrummed with music and general insouciance. Tom’s room was in the basement, near the dorm kitchen, and the air smelled perpetually of curry. Two windows at ground level faced the woods behind the dorm. Nick had decorated the white walls on his side of the room with trippy tapestries made from the same sort of cloth as the Grannies’ skirts, and the window ledge nearest his bed was strewn with candles and incense burners. The walls on Tom’s side of the room were bare. Beneath his bed was a pile of balled-up dirty socks. The bed was made up with the plaid flannel sheets his mother had had shipped directly to him from L.L.Bean. Nick’s bed didn’t have sheets, just a red nylon sleeping bag on top of the ticking-striped mattress, and a pillow in a plain white case.
“I’ve never done this before,” Shipley murmured as Tom slipped her white dress over her head.
“That’s okay,” Tom said. “I have.”
Some girls might have been grossed out. They might have begun to imagine Tom with other slutty, possibly diseased girls. They might have imagined that Tom was an egomaniacal player,