Wildalone (19 page)

“I'm not defending the Communists. The way I see it, these brigades were just something we had to go through as part of growing up. It's one
thing for the state to say everyone has to contribute. But to have parents send their children out to make money? I don't know, seems messed up to me.”

“I agree.” Our youngest guest, a lab assistant, nodded across the table. “If you can't afford to pay for your children, you probably shouldn't be having them in the first place.”

“It's not about
affording
.” Pavko's wife raised her voice over that of the TV host, who had just remarked how idleness was toxic for adolescents. “This is America we're talking about. I'm sure people can afford a lot, compared to us and to the rest of the world. They are only trying to teach their kids values early on.”

“Really? Like what?” My mother could no longer contain herself. “That the best thing they can do with their time is to wait tables six days a week?”

“Point taken! Who are we to argue about raising children with someone who has raised
this
?” Pavko laughed, pointing to my piano awards framed on the wall. “The parents' job is to make money, while the kid's job is to become a genius, right? Slavin, what do you think?”

“What I think is that . . .” My father paused, glancing at Mom to make sure she agreed with what he was about to say. “I think that if you wait to teach your children values only after they are old enough to work, by then it's too late.”

There was silence at the table. On-screen, a woman in a fiery red suit who claimed to be a “family wealth consultant” began to talk about the Rockefellers, and how the grandson used to earn his twenty-five-cent allowance by raking leaves eight hours a week.

“Which is why the Rockefeller children never became world-famous pianists!” Pavko winked at me, but nobody else was laughing.

My parents stared at each other. Then my usually composed-to-a-fault mother stood up, changed the TV channel and, without a word to anyone, left the room.

Now, years later, I looked around at Rocky—the opulent Gothic dorm that the fortune of the leaf rakers had bestowed upon the school. One of those cloistered rooms had belonged to my sister. Through its window, she had watched life unfold in the Holder Courtyard. Buzz of early mornings. Drop
of fall leaves. Students going in and out of arched entryways. Dusks. Rains. And that infamous first frost which, as Pratt just told me, had spiraled into the first sign of trouble.

We don't do what the others do . . .

Then it struck me: What if my parents knew about the Nude Olympics? If my mother's reaction had nothing to do with Elza's dorm, but with having been told that her daughter had run naked, one November night, with a group of men outside Rockefeller College?

And so—I was back to square one. Elza may or may not have lived here. She may or may not have walked down these alleys, under these trees, through these arches . . . But did it make a difference either way?

I realized the futility of it. Of my quest for clues that seemed to point in a certain direction until, inevitably, they began to point in another. And as I headed back to Forbes, I decided to try what everyone seemed to think would be best for me: leave the ghosts to the past and live my own life.

“VEGETARIAN MEDLEY OR MEAT CASSEROLE?”

Medley—casserole
. . .
Medley—casserole
. . . I didn't know what either word meant, and taking a look at the dishes didn't help either. Usually closed on Saturdays, Procter Hall had a special event featuring food from local restaurants, and my job for the evening was to give each graduate student a choice: two dubious food concoctions, one of which sounded like a drunken party and the other—like a fancy horse carriage. Worst of all, we were required to wear chef jackets and tall paper hats.

“Would it be such a disaster if we skipped the hats?”

The dining hall manager gave me an offended look. “Skip them?”

“I was thinking what happens if this thing falls off.”

“Well, just make sure it doesn't.”

Clearly, asking management to reconsider the protocol was equivalent to telling a cop he should rob a bank with me. So I just went through the shift, hoping to be done before Rhys would walk in to see me armed with a spatula and crowned with a paper cylinder.

“When and where am I picking you up tomorrow?” he had asked me the night before.

“At nine, from work.”

“Work?”

“Graduate College dining hall. It's part of my financial aid.” I waited for a reaction but there was none. “You aren't saying anything. Is there a problem?”

“Not yet, no.”

Yet.
A tactful way of saying that dating the dishroom girl was fine, so long as no one had seen him with her (except perhaps his butler).

“Rhys, I am not rich. If that bothers you, I'd rather know it now.”

“Why would it bother me?”

Because I've heard about the friends you hang out with. And I've seen the car you drive. And the house you live in.

When I didn't answer, he hurried to explain: “I just don't want a job to take too much of your time away from me. Especially on weekends.”

Luckily, by the end of the shift there was no sign of him. Since everyone else was in a rush to hit the Street, I volunteered to shut down the place and started the usual checklist:

Power off the dishwasher.

Lock the freezers.

Turn off the lights (kitchen, pantry, serving area).

Then the final stop: Procter Hall.

On the other side of the stained glass, night had already fallen. The windows had lost their color, so now the only light came from the hesitant bulbs of the chandeliers. I turned around, to check if the vestibule door was still open—

And I found myself face-to-face with someone who had been waiting in silence, leaning against the closest table.

“Hi, Thea.”

I recognized him intuitively—his voice, the way he said my name. Then I saw the silhouette. The white flower in his hand. But also something else: unmistakably different body, unfamiliar face. For one last instant, my brain refused to accept it. Then I was hit with the obvious truth:

This had to be the guy from my concert. And it wasn't Rhys.

Before I could react, he smiled and came up to me. The slow, cautious moves again, stopping just as his body was about to touch mine.

“Who . . . who are you?”

“I think you know.” He reached for my hand. Slipped the flower in it. “I had to go away for a while. But I thought of you and your Chopin every single minute.”

The air began to spin from his quiet voice.

“How did you . . .” My throat was dry; the words stayed trapped in it.

“How did I what?”

“. . . know I was here.”

“I promised to find you. And I did.”

I took a step back. How could I have mistaken Rhys for him? They looked alike, but only from a distance. Up close, everything was different: the body (equally strong but leaner, less assertively built up); the face (just as stunning but more chiseled); and the eyes (a darker blue but also warmer, unimaginably warm)—

Steps echoed through the hall.

“I see the two of you already met?” Rhys hurried over to us, leaving no time for a response. “Ferry mentioned you might be coming home tonight, but I didn't think he'd tip you off to look for me here.”

The guy shrugged mechanically, the lie made easy for him.

Rhys put his arm around me. “My brother is mad at you because you ruined his plan.”

Brothers?
I stared at him, horrified. “What plan did I ruin?”

“For years, I've been sick of this campus and trying to convince Jake to move with me to Manhattan. But he loves it out here—the peace, the quiet. Beats me, frankly. So we struck a compromise: stay for another year and be done with it. Then two weeks ago, out of the blue, he agrees to move. Even finds us a place in SoHo, gets me to pack and drive out of here. Except . . . you know the rest. I came back for one night and, unbeknownst to him, I ended up meeting you—which, to my dear brother's chagrin, has put my move to New York on indefinite hold. Unfortunate timing, isn't it, Jake?”

There was no reaction, not even a nod this time.

“Funny how Princeton always manages to keep me on a tight leash. First my brother, now you.” Rhys took my hand, finally noticing the flower in it. “And this is from . . . ?”

It was the moment I would always remember. That split second in time when, against all odds, the universe pauses to catch its breath, fate looks the other way, and you are allowed, just this once, to have what you want if only you can name it, but you must speak up or else it would become too late, and once it is too late it remains too late forever.

The flower is from . . . ?

I felt their eyes on me, expecting my answer. But what was I supposed to say? That I was dating Rhys because I had mistaken him for his brother? Jake was the one who owed Rhys the truth. This was his mess, not mine. And the rest was something the two of them had to hash out between themselves.

I walked up to one of the centerpieces still left on the tables—all kinds of white blooms, including roses—and slipped the stem among the others, as if it had been there all along.

“Guess I'm off the hook, then.” Rhys smiled—his usual nonchalance. “For a moment there I thought I'd have to challenge my own brother to a duel!”

Jake looked away.
Coward
, I thought.
You are such a coward.

“I'll see you at home.” He walked past Rhys, without acknowledging my presence, and before the air found its way back into my lungs, he was gone.

T
HE RAIN HADN'T
stopped all day. I kept hearing its tap against the window: . . .
now what? what?
. . .
what?

Then, around six o'clock, it got tired of being worried—and gave up.

I wished I could do the same. Or at least not see anyone. But I was due at the Mercer Street residence by seven, for dinner with Rhys and his brother.

My attempt to find a way out of it hadn't gone very far. Rhys thought the occasion (my meeting Jake) called for a special celebration. And, as usual, he had to have things his way. I was sure that the dinner wouldn't happen, that he would call and cancel as soon as Jake told him the two of us had already met—twice—and almost kissed in a museum basement. But Sunday afternoon rolled into evening, and that phone call never came.

I couldn't stop thinking about our Procter Hall episode. What should I have done differently? Had my real connection been with Jake all along? Or was Rhys the guy for me? And who was this mysterious brother of his anyway—this subdued, elusive, unfathomable Jake, who affected me so much I was barely able to finish a sentence in his presence?

Rhys hadn't revealed much about him the night before and I hadn't asked
much either, afraid that my curiosity would seem suspicious. No, they were not twins. Jake was his little brother—“little” meaning twenty-seven, but as for himself Rhys would only tell me they were close in age. They were also close, period. Although he feared this might change, with Jake now living in New York.

It took me half an hour to figure out what to wear: black leather pants and a black wraparound sweater, hopefully sexy enough without trying to provoke anyone. Now the real nightmare was about to start. Me, with the two of them. Stuck for hours—doing what? saying what?—in the same room.

When I reached the familiar trees, the wind woke their branches with its melancholic hum, shaking down a few drops of leftover rain. A figure rushed out of the house.
Rhys or Jake?
This was just the beginning. I had to get used to it: the intuitive question, the attempt to distinguish one silhouette from the other. And the need to prepare my heart either way.

It was Rhys, of course. He had offered to pick me up from Forbes but I insisted on walking; I needed it. Now he ran over and lifted me in his arms.

“Rhys, what are you doing?”

“The ground is all wet. You'll ruin your shoes.” He carried me across the entire lawn, didn't even seem out of breath. “Remind me to show you the main entrance next time. The driveway is the reason we call the house Pebbles—looks like gravel, but it's actually made of marble pieces supposed to evoke some sort of riverbed. The guy who built it imported them from Italy.”

So—Jake hadn't said a thing. I gave myself too much credit, thinking that he might. That he would try to win me back, fight with Rhys if he had to. Instead, he was going to sit back and watch his brother be with me.

We came into the living room. Jake was facing away from the windows, in one of the armchairs, and for a moment the only visible part of him was his hand—his long, sculpted fingers, hanging down from the armrest. Under them, on the floor, was an empty glass.