Class - Cecily Von Ziegesar [5]
“How will it surprise me?” Tom demanded, pressing the gas pedal to the floor. He thought maybe his dad was going to tell him about Dexter’s underground secret society, where the men were weeded out from the boys and the women wanted one thing and one thing only.
But his dad just clapped him on the shoulder and grinned cluelessly. “I have no idea.”
The van’s windows were down. Tom stared at the grassy lawns—so green it hurt—and listened to the birds singing their heads off. He’d always noticed stuff like that—the ambient background of what was going on. He really dug that shit. He turned to the guy seated next to him, his new roommate. They’d met briefly in their room before he and his parents had taken off to grab some lunch.
“Nicholas?” Tom addressed the wool-flap-hat-wearing freak. “Is that what you go by?”
The guy pulled his earphones out of his ears. Dirty blond curlicues of hair fell down over the collar of his oatmeal-colored embroidered freak shirt. Actually it was more like a tunic, since it came down almost to his knees.
“I prefer Nick.”
Tom jiggled his legs in annoyance. If Nicholas wanted to be called “Nick,” why didn’t he just put “Nick” on his registration forms the way Tom had put “Tom” on his? No one called him “Thomas,” not even his great-grandmother.
“Hey, Professor,” he called to the guy behind the wheel. “Any chance we could get moving soon, dude? This van could really use a little air circulation.”
“He’s a she,” Nick whispered. “Professor Darren Rosen. She teaches a senior seminar called Androgyny. I read about her in one of those college guides.”
“Jesus.” Tom wondered if it was too late to transfer to a school with fewer freaks. He glared out the window, his gaze scanning the vast wasteland of dingy woods, muddy farms, and depressing shit-ass towns scattered around the hill the college was perched on. “Mud, grass, and trees. Mud, grass, and trees,” he muttered.
One of the girls behind him kicked the back of his seat. “Come on, dude. This is Maine—vacationland? People come here for the scenery. You should feel honored.”
Tom turned around to glower at the girl with short dark bangs and a permanent snarl.
“Nice to fuck you, too,” Eliza added, acknowledging his glare.
“I was thinking of camping out on campus. You know, while the weather’s still warm? Maybe build a yurt?” Nick mused aloud, oblivious to Tom and Eliza’s little repartee.
Nick was one of the happy people, Eliza could tell. He wore the standard boarding school hippie uniform, and his perma-grin was probably pot-induced, but she bet he smiled like that even when he wasn’t stoned. A guy as happy as he was drove her insane. She wanted to devour him or molest him, or both.
Nick stuck his headphones back into his ears. Eliza was right, he was happy. Never happier than when he was listening to one of his favorite albums: Simon and Garfunkel’s The Concert in Central Park. His mom had taken him to the concert when he was seven years old, just the two of them. She’d shared a joint with the people dancing in the grass next to them and had even let him take a hit, just for fun.
After four years of boarding school, Nick should have been used to being separated from his mom and little sister, but he was already homesick. He’d spent the entire summer in the city with them, listening to records and eating picnics in the park. The bus ride up to Dexter had been lonely indeed. He’d even forgone a Subway sandwich with Tom and his parents so he could call home. His mom was at work and Dee Dee was at day camp, but it did him good just to hear their voices on the machine.
“So what’s a—what did you call it? A yurt?” Tom asked him now.
“Huh?” Nick kept his headphones on, trying to tune out the fact that his new roommate was going to kill him and eat him before school even started.
“A yurt.” Tom spoke up. “What the hell is it?”
Nick brightened. Maybe Tom would lighten up if he received enough good vibrations. “Oh, it’s like a big, permanent tent. I’m going to ask the college if I can