Class - Cecily Von Ziegesar [9]
The boy blinked mutely back at her, obviously depressed that he’d dropped so miserably low in her supreme estimation. “Do you still want your mochaccino?” he asked timidly. “I’ll throw in an extra biscotti.”
“Fine. Sure.” Fair trade or not, she really did want the coffee.
She turned her back as the guy fussed with the machinery. Afternoon sun flooded into the Student Union through a giant wall of glass facing the road. Adam tooted his horn and she waved at him, waggling the fingers of her left hand to indicate that she’d be back in the car in five minutes, tops.
Adam was such a loser. In two days he’d be starting college at Dexter as a day student. Dexter, of all places! So what that it gave Maine residents discounted tuition? So what that it rated up there with the Ivies and had a brand-new Starbucks café? So what that it had been selected as 1992’s Prettiest New England College by both USA Today and Yankee magazine? Adam could have gone to California or Colorado or Florida or the Sorbonne, in France. Even U-Maine Orono—where most of Home High’s college-bound graduates went—would have been ten times more interesting. Orono was far enough away that he would have had to live in a dorm. He would have been able to eat nonorganic, artery-clogging, delicious dining hall food. And she could have left Home to visit him.
Dexter prided itself on being part of the community and encouraged Maine residents to apply. Because Adam had graduated from high school with honors, Dexter had given him a free ride, but due to the housing squeeze, it had fallen short of providing him with a room. He would be a day student and continue to live at home. This was fine with him. He hadn’t even signed up for the freshman orientation trip, claiming that it was too expensive. “I know where I am,” he’d insisted. “I don’t need any orientation.”
In truth, Adam had no idea where he was. He was eighteen years old and bursting with potential. He liked to read and play tetherball. He could pick a shitload of blueberries. He could weld. He could shear a sheep. But he’d lived every one of his eighteen years with a sense of detachment that frustrated him. When would he start to live, full throttle? When would he begin to engage with his surroundings? Even the Dexter College campus, which had existed prettily in the background throughout his entire life, felt strange and menacing. He felt as if he were seeing it for the first time. The buildings were pristine. The grass was green. The chapel was as white as his car had probably been when it was new, long before his time. He was about to spend the next four years of his life here, patrolling these green lawns, attending seminars in these immaculate brick buildings, or concerts and lectures in the quaint white chapel, but right now he was too terrified to even get out of the car. Tragedy was right, he was a pansy.
Adam tapped lightly on the horn, but he doubted his sister could hear him. The glass walls of the new Student Union were incredibly thick, built to withstand the frigid temperatures of the long Maine winter.
The guy behind the counter was still grinding, filtering, and steaming. Tragedy was about to inform him that she could have flown to Guatemala, picked her own coffee, milked a fucking cow, and baked a batch of biscotti herself by this time, when the door to the bathroom swung open and a guy with a blond beard wandered into the café. He wore a black parka, maroon Dexter sweatpants, and old work boots. A thick book was clutched in his grease-streaked hands. He looked young and old at the same time, as if he’d been through a lot and didn’t want to talk about it.
“Shit,” he muttered as he walked by.
“Hey!” the guy behind the counter called out. “Hey man, I told you yesterday. You’re not supposed to use the bathroom unless you’re a student or a customer.”
Ignoring him, the bearded man pushed