Class - Cecily Von Ziegesar [42]
The boys followed him to the van. Tom slid open the back door. A blast of cooked air hit him in the face.
“Van’s been parked in the sun all day,” Professor Rosen explained as he slid into the seat behind her. He’d never noticed how beautiful and shiny her hair was—coppery brown, with gold flecks like mini sun rays. It was darker than Shipley’s, but just as complex. Shipley’s hair, Tom remembered, was what had inspired him to take up painting in the first place. It was Shipley he needed to paint, not the sky or the leaves, and definitely not Eliza. Shipley was his gorgeous golden goddess—his woman, his love, his muse!
The other boys slid into the van after him. “We went for a walk,” Liam told Professor Rosen, glancing conspiratorially at his bandmates. Next thing he was going to tell her all about the E they’d taken.
“Hey, teach, what’s with the bumper sticker?” Wills demanded cheerfully. “Is that like a quote from Chaucer or something?”
“It means ‘Honk if you speak Latin.’” Professor Rosen glanced in the rearview mirror. “Hey, Tom, are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah, but I just gotta paint something,” Tom said, rubbing his hands together and chewing hard on his gum. “I gotta find some paint.”
“And we gotta go swimming,” Wills mimicked Tom’s urgent tone.
“Brrr,” Liam agreed, rubbing his arms. “Oh man, you gotta feel this!” He offered his arm to Tom. “Here, rub it.”
Tom met Professor Rosen’s gaze in the rearview mirror. She had the prettiest greenish brown eyes, and skin like milk. Milk! He could drink a whole carton of it right now, a gallon even. Milk was so white and pure and cold, and all of a sudden he was extremely thirsty.
“Why don’t you harness some of that creative energy for our rehearsal?” Professor Rosen suggested. “And then maybe later you can paint.”
“Okay, but I’m super thirsty.” Tom stuck out his tongue and began to pant. “Think we could grab some milk?”
Professor Rosen grinned. Tom appeared to have done his homework. He was coming unhinged right there in her car. “Sure, sure.”
Adam was early. He sat cross-legged on the floor of the small, dimly lit studio on the second floor of the Student Union, reading through the script.
The Zoo Story had nothing to do with the zoo, and not much happened until the ending. It was all about these two lonely guys who run into each other in Central Park. Peter, the part Adam played, was just an everyday businessman, sitting on a park bench after work, watching the world go by. Jerry, the part Tom played, was this scary creep who starts talking to Peter and basically ruins his life. Peter was actually a lesser role because Jerry did most of the talking, including a giant monologue about a slobbering, mean, black dog that went on for six pages. How Tom was going to pull that off, Adam had no idea.
Professor Rosen was very passionate about the play. She said it was about the loneliness and isolation we all feel, and the ways in which we reach out to others to find meaning in an existence that is basically absurd, since we’re all going to die anyway. It was actually sort of depressing. But Adam had been looking for a reason to spend more time on campus, and when Professor Rosen accosted him in the bookstore and begged him once more to try out, he gave in.
That she’d seen Peter written all over his face astounded him. When he looked in the mirror, he didn’t see anything written on his face, not a thing, except freckles and a shadow of red stubble. Why hadn’t she cast him as Jerry, the explosive lunatic who terrorizes Peter? Jerry was virile and alive, while Peter was robotic and uninteresting. Still, he liked the deliberateness of acting, and it was nice to be someone else for a change, even if the guy he was playing was just as lonely and lackluster as he was.
This was their third rehearsal. Tom and Professor Rosen arrived together, Tom swilling from a gallon of milk. It ran down his chin as he chugged it thirstily. Would Shipley find that attractive? Adam wondered with dismay.
“All right, boys,” Professor Rosen began. “Are you