The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth - Alexandra Robbins [107]
That afternoon, Eli was overjoyed to receive a text from Tad, his neighbor, asking him if he wanted to hang out. Tad, a freshman in college, showed up at Eli’s dad’s house with Willis, another neighbor whom Eli had known for years but hadn’t seen in months. The boys walked around the neighborhood catching up on their lives. They drove to Taco Bell so that Eli could pick up some dinner before going to his busboy job.
On the ride back, Willis asked Tad, “Do you drink or smoke a lot?”
“Nah, not too much,” Tad answered. “I drink more than I smoke. You?”
“Me, too. I think the last time I smoked a lot was Halloween.”
Eli was disappointed. Were drugs and alcohol really that prevalent? He knew his neighbors drank, but he considered smoking to be pointless and abhorrent. “Wait,” he said from the driver’s seat, “are you talking about cigarettes or pot?”
“Pot,” Tad replied.
“Okay, they’re both disgusting,” Eli said.
Tad and Willis seemed amused by Eli’s emphatic opinion. “Sorry to disappoint you,” Willis said from the backseat.
As much as he liked these guys, who had always been nice to him, Eli was disappointed. Their conversation worried him. He said later, “Personally, I don’t know how I’m going to fit in in college without smoking or drinking. Then again, it’s not like I want to be with those people anyways, so I guess I’ll have to find a small group of friends who also don’t smoke or drink? I mean, I don’t think I’d mind going to parties, even if people are drinking there, but I won’t drink. But I think going to a party where people are smoking is too much for me.”
...
THE GIRL WHO SAT in front of Eli in calculus turned around and asked, “Eli, are you really going all the way [across the country]?”
“Uh, yeah.”
Josephine tuned in to the conversation. “But won’t you miss your family?” she asked.
Eli shrugged. “Not really. I mean, are you going to live with your parents forever?”
“No,” said Josephine, “but, like, you’ll just be so far away. Won’t you miss them?”
“It’s not like I’m really close with my family, anyways. I don’t hate them or anything, but it’s not going to be difficult.”
He was surprised to see Josephine, who was usually aloof toward him, flash a sympathetic look.
Later that week, Eli was at home rummaging through photographs of himself for a scholarship application. He found his sophomore school picture and, pleased, laid it aside. To his delight, he had just been accepted into WCU’s business program. This had been a good day.
His mother walked by. “What’s that for?” she asked. She pointed to the photograph.
“A scholarship application,” Eli said.
“No! Don’t use this one! You look like you’re in eighth grade!”
A half hour later, when Eli was watching TV, his mother broached the subject again. “Why don’t you ever change your haircut?” she asked.
“Does it really matter?” Eli said. “You aren’t the one living with the haircut.”
“It just looks like a t-t-t-” She stopped herself.
“A t-t-t- what?” Eli asked.
“Well, a typical geeky haircut.”
Eli tried to brush off the comment by baiting her until she grew frustrated. “Mom, why don’t you think about changing your hair? Maybe some black? Black hair? Hmm? A little change? Dye it black? Some black hair, maybe?”
She didn’t understand that this was what he often felt like in her company. When she insulted his hair, he explained later, “I felt . . . diminished. I mean, this is right after all this exciting college stuff happening, so it just feels like she’s saying, ‘Yeah, that’s great, but what about what other people think about what you look like?’ That just really pisses me off. It’s a depressing social commentary. It’s a lonely feeling more than anything.”
The conversation reminded him of a recent afternoon when he was playing the Wii while his mother tidied his room. She was gone for