Hold On Tight (7 page)

“Oh,” the first girl said. She was giggling. Then she hissed: “C'mon, we're going back to my place. Ted's brother and his friend can sleep here.”

“Okay,” Lara drawled back. She put the cigarette in her mouth and stood up.

Arno cracked his semi-open eye a little wider and watched as she moved between the ugly dorm furniture toward the hall. When she reached the doorway, she turned back toward him, parted her lips in a sexy smile, and winked.

The morning sunlight streaming through the windows woke David from a dream in which he was being crowned Mister America in a seaside ceremony that involved numerous old-timey bathing beauties, a fleet of FBI men for protection, and an ocean of whiskey. Literally, an ocean of whiskey, although that was also the part of the dream he couldn't remember so clearly. He scratched his bare head and sniffed himself. He smelled of chlorine.

Pushing himself up, he realized that he was on the floor of a really nice room. There were several legs extending from the grand, fluffy bed, and he recognized the short, muscled, non-female ones as Mickey's. He gave himself a little inner nod of satisfaction; this Vassar place was all right. From the numerous, handsome clocks in the room he gleaned that it was a quarter past ten, and from the nervous feeling flowing through his body, he knew that he was up for a reason.

The interview was at eleven-thirty:
That
was why he
was awake so fully and suddenly. He wouldn't have been so nervously anticipating it, except that he was a nervous person born of nervous people, and any sort of rejection was crushing for him. It also occurred to him, as he walked across the shiny, antique-looking floorboards and surveyed the two water polo players who were softly snoring next to his friend, that he probably didn't want to blow his chances of getting into this particular school.

That was when he reached the bathroom mirror and realized that he was wearing boxers, a dress shirt with two red, smeary splotches on the chest, and black mid-calf-high socks. It was not an outfit that recommended his scholarly abilities. His suit jacket was draped over the shower curtain rod. The only item of clothing that hadn't ended up in the pool were his pants (somehow they had been pulled off of him on his way to being tossed into the pool). He found them a few moments later in a bedroom farther down the hall, where two more water polo players slept. At least they smelled more like the Grobart's hall closet than the Vassar pool. But then David remembered how the pants made him look like an overgrown child.

David scratched his head nervously and fought the urge to call his mother and demand that she fix everything. Then he took a few slow breaths and told himself that if he expected to get into a top-tier college he better quiet his inner sissy and start thinking creatively.

Forty-five minutes later, David was hustling across the grassy quads of Vassar looking about as preppy-hipster as he ever had. He had found the master bedroom of the President's Guest Cottage, with its clean stock of campus casual wear. The blazer and white V-neck shirt he'd borrowed weren't labels he knew, although he was sure Jonathan did, and as he made his way toward the admissions office in the main building he was keenly aware, for the first time, why people sometimes paid so much for clothes. What he had on now smelled and fit better than anything he'd ever worn in his life.

David didn't feel remotely like a little boy anymore. He felt comfortable and in control, the way athletes were supposed to. He felt a little more like a real man.

By the time he'd sat down in a wood-paneled and book-lined office, opposite a guy dressed more or less exactly as David was dressed (Anson DeLine,Vassar ‘01), he was feeling pretty confident indeed.

“So you're a ball player?” Anson DeLine asked, clasping his hands and leaning his elbows on his desk so that his face came toward David with a wide, if slightly disingenuous, smile.

“Yeah,” David said, “I've played varsity since sophomore year, and I plan to play next year.” Anson nodded at him leadingly, so David went on, “And I'd like to play
in college, too.” He cleared his throat. He had rehearsed this line in his head during the car ride, and now he actually felt bold enough to use it. “But what's really great about basketball is how it's informed the rest of my life, especially my academic life. It's taught me to jump high and hustle, and that's one of the reasons I think I would be the kind of well-rounded person Vassar looks for in prospective students.”

Nice
, David thought to himself. The interviewer seemed to think so, too. He leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head like he and David were old buddies just hanging out at the Eating Club.

“Tell me what you've been reading lately,” Anson said.

David's stomach clenched up suddenly. How could he have been so
stupid
as to not have anticipated this question? He opened his mouth to mumble something about
Madam Bovary
, which he was reading for his English class, when there was a loud noise from the hall. It sounded like a door being slammed, and then slammed again several more times. David's interviewer look alarmed, and when he jumped up and headed toward the hall to see what was happening, David followed behind him.

The door to the office next to the one they had been sitting in was indeed being slammed, repeatedly. The
person doing the slamming was a miniature blonde in a tiny miniskirt and oversized sweater, and David knew immediately that it was Sara-Beth Benny, the child star whom his friends had hung out with on the educational cruise they'd taken last winter. He knew (because Jonathan had told him) that she partied a lot in New York, and also that she was always on the verge of breaking down.

“Susan, are you okay?” Anson called over Sara-Beth's shoulder to the person yelling from behind the door. David was suddenly reminded of his interview and decided that diffusing this situation might be a good recovery from the fumbled book question.

“Hey, Sara-Beth,” he said gently. She ignored him and continued slamming the door. Then he stepped closer, slipped his arms around her waist, and gently pulled her back. To his surprise, she didn't fight him. Instead, she collapsed against his chest and began to sob. “Hey,” he whispered, looking apprehensively at his interviewer and the woman who had come out from behind the door.

“I'm so glad you're here,” Sara-Beth said between teary gasps. David paused and tried to think how to take this. He had just been hoping she would remember him at all, but the touchy friendliness they were engaging in now was definitely without precedent.

“Um, you too,” he said, trying not to sound surprised. “Are you okay?”

“No!” she shrieked.

The two interviewers looked at David expectantly. “What happened?” asked Sara-Beth.

“This moo-cow, she … she …” Sara-Beth started sobbing again, and for a moment it seemed like she wasn't going to be able to finish her sentence. David took the opportunity to inhale the vanilla smell wafting up from her heaps of multihued blond hair. “They asked me to do the routine.”

“What routine?” David said. He realized immediately that this was probably the wrong thing to say, but he was just glad that his mouth was still able to form words.

“You know, the opening dance routine from
Mike's Princesses.”

“Oh.”

Mike's Princesses
, the show Sara-Beth started acting in when she was six years old, began with a song and dance routine in which she and her two fictional older sisters introduced themselves and their basic personality traits. It was very show-tuney and, even to a bunch of second graders, very obviously lame. It ended with Mike's swinging all the girls around until they squealed, and then kissing them on the forehead.

Sara-Beth whimpered into David's borrowed white
V-neck as he turned to look at the two interviewers. The funny protective feeling he was feeling toward her must have shown on his face, because the woman named Susan gave him this apologetic look and plaintively said, “I'm a fan.”

This elicited a loud sob from Sara-Beth, and she took a fistful of David's shirt.

“Well, I really don't think that's very appropriate,” David said. He could feel Sara-Beth nodding vigorously into his chest. He cleared his throat and raised his voice. “Or very classy.” The interviewers stepped back. They did actually look sort of chastised. David moved away from them toward the entryway, half supporting, half dragging Sara-Beth. He wondered briefly if the clothes were transforming him into a more confrontational person, but before his doubts could slow him down he was saying, “And, come to think of it, there's no way I could consider attending a school like Vassar where stuff like this is allowed to happen!” He had the door open, and he and Sara-Beth were practically out of there. The interviewers were staring at them, mouths agape.

Sara-Beth didn't let go of David until they were safely outside, with the quiet campus all around them. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“It was nothing,” David said. “I just feel bad for you.”

“No, you don't understand,” Sara-Beth said as she picked up his hand and squeezed it. “Arno, no one's ever done anything remotely like that for me before.”

Um,
Arno?

“I find your work especially courageous,” said the chair of the Vassar Art department. “I mean this conflagration of talent is so rare, especially in an artist so young.”

The chair, Brenda Breton, dragged her fingers across Mickey's knee as she spoke. They were sipping Sancerre in a small room, which Professor Breton had several times referred to as the
salon
, adjacent to the lecture hall. The room did have silk upholstered chairs and wall sconces, which did seem kind of elegant to Mickey. Despite the fact that she was well over forty, the professor's cleavage was smooth and tremendous. Mickey, who was wearing a vintage Charlie's Angels shirt and David's little kid suit pants, was finding it difficult to concentrate.

“Thanks,” he said.

“How are you liking the cottage?” asked the auburn-haired woman sitting in the sofa chair on Mickey's other side. She appeared to be a few years younger than
Professor Breton, and her name was Lourdes. Professor Lourdes Soto of nearby Sarah Lawrence college, who specialized in postmodern art movements. She was wearing a flowing, fashionable dress that Mickey found surprising on an academic.

“It's sweet,” Mickey said.

“Usually Brenda has me stay there when I visit, but I guess she thought you were more important,” Professor Soto said, smiling conspiratorially and fluffing her sable bob.

“Oh, hush, Lourdes. You know it's only because I like having you stay in my house,” Professor Breton said.

“But I can't say I disagree about your importance,” Professor Soto went on. “We're all very impressed by the attention you've managed to garner already.”

“Seems like there's enough room in that cottage for both of us,” Mickey said, winking at Professor Soto and taking a healthy gulp of wine. “It's pretty phat.”

“Mmmm …,” Professor Soto said. “You know, we have lovely grounds, too.”

“You mean at Sarah Lawrence?” Mickey asked, remembering his earlier poolside conversation with David. “That's one of the seven sisters, too, huh?”

“Why, yes,” Professor Breton said, gesturing to the grad student who had been darting in and out of the room to refill her wine. “It's quite grand, although I
think you may find our modest
salon
more comfortable.” She waved a hand at their low-lit surroundings. The walls were decorated with many romantic landscape paintings, several of them featuring big, moody clouds, hung in gigantic gold-leaf frames.

“My colleague is
too
modest,” Professor Soto said icily. She reached over and brushed something off Mickey's shoulder, letting her fingers linger there. “But Sarah Lawrence has its charms. It was a private mansion originally, you know, so it is more intimate than Vassar.”

“No kidding,” Mickey said.

“Perhaps you would like to come and see it?” she said.

“That would be awesome. I mean, I'm leaning toward applying to art school next year, but I want to see as many schools as I can.”

“Mickey, you've got to stop talking like that. Art school! You're a
real
artist now,” Professor Breton said, leaning close enough to him that he could smell her heavy perfume. Mickey felt like Fergie had just told him he could really dance.

“I hate to admit this,” Professor Soto chimed in, “but she's right. You're a hot ticket. In fact … would you consider giving a lecture at my college?” she said slowly, as though it had just occurred to her. “Our speaker for next Saturday cancelled, and it would be a major coup to have a Pardo at the lectern.”

Professor Breton choked on her wine. “He doesn't lecture for free, you know,” she said sharply.

“Oh, we'll take care of him,” Professor Soto said, rubbing Mickey's shoulder again.

Mickey could almost
feel
his career taking off. He just hoped that the friendship between the two hot professors didn't get destroyed in the process. Luckily the grad student who had been pouring their wine reappeared before either of them said anything too mean.

“Everyone's seated, Professor,” she said. “You want to go on in five?”

“Excellent, darling,” Professor Breton replied, waving the grad student away. “So, Mickey, I've prepared a glowing introductory speech …”

“Professor Breton
always
gives good glow,” Professor Soto said.

By the time the grad student returned, Mickey was feeling pretty good about his prospects for wowing just about anybody.

They stood up and walked across the Persian rug toward the door to the lecture hall. Professor Breton, right behind him, rested her hand on Mickey's shoulder and whispered, “I am going to compare you to Gauguin in your artistic quest for freedom and unique understanding of the human form.”