Friends Like These(11)
After a while, I push myself up off the bench in the center of the quad. Following the sidewalk as it curves past the library and the chapel, I finally stop at another bench across from the English building, Sanders Classroom. I sit down again and watch the door. I’m earlier than I planned. Derrick’s class doesn’t even finish until 5:00 p.m., but he’ll be coming out right after that. He’s a punctual, responsible guy, always has been. He lives an hour’s train ride away these days, with his wife. Married young, which isn’t much of a surprise. Derrick was a grown-up early on. The fact that he is also now old enough to be a full-fledged Vassar professor himself is still hard to wrap my head around. All those years gone, and yet in so many ways time is frozen still.
Finally the door to the building opens and out the students pour, laughing, in twos and threes. Eventually there’s a pause in the stream, and a moment later there is Derrick, walking quickly, bag in hand. He looks good. Older, of course, but he’s no longer the nerdy, ghostly pale writer he once was— he is legitimately an almost-hot literature professor, fair skin tanned, stride much more assured. He even looks taller. I feel relieved seeing him. Derrick is a kind person, always has been— even if, in a way, you could say it was his terrible decision at the very end that was the actual key to everything. Literally and figuratively. Like handing a match to someone soaked in gasoline. Were it not for him being so generous with his car, everything could have been different. That’s what everyone thinks, even if they’d never say it to Derrick’s face. I’m the one person in the world who knows it isn’t true.
Anyway, with a situation like this, it’s far too complicated to point a finger in a single direction. No matter how much better that would feel.
Derrick is only a few yards from the door when a young blond woman bounces out behind him. She has on jeans and a very tight midriff top that barely covers her breasts. She’s so beautiful and bright, she glows.
“Derrick!” she calls out as she rushes after him.
He stops, dutiful but a little annoyed maybe. A professor trying to stay patient with an overeager student. Derrick must be beloved on campus— young, talented, kind. Handsome. And he is an actual acclaimed novelist. It’s no surprise if the students, the girls especially, chase after him. Still, it is something to watch firsthand.
Derrick and the young woman begin to walk side by side, talking seriously. And for a moment I feel guilty for judging her by her long legs and large breasts. She’s probably a gifted, dedicated student, merely trying to do a good job. I really have gotten old.
But then I see it— she reaches over and runs a finger along Derrick’s hip. It’s a quick gesture, one that I might have missed were it not for the way Derrick smiles in response. As they continue on, their sexual chemistry is all I can see.
Oh, Derrick. Come on.
I stay sitting, watching them from afar. And as Derrick and his student disappear into the distance, my disappointment in him is slowly replaced by something else— relief. It’s proof: no one is truly innocent. And so it’s only fair that no one is truly free.
KEITH
FRIDAY, 7:39 P.M.
I handed Finch his drink and sat down next to him on that neon couch. Who the hell buys a couch that fucking bright red? The glare was like a nail in my temple. Or maybe it wasn’t the couch. My head had been pounding ever since I got into Derrick’s car. Into the driver’s seat. God only knows why I asked to drive, but I did. And of course Derrick said okay. He’s my yes man, just like I’m Finch’s.
The headache always started first for me, even before I was all the way down. Soon my head would feel pinched in a vise, tighter and tighter until my thoughts would barely be making it through. And then I’d get turned around. And turned around. Already the room was starting to spin.
Goddamn Jace. If he’d just called me back before we’d left, I wouldn’t feel like such shit right now. Because these days that’s what using was about for me: not feeling like shit. There was no getting high anymore, not really. Oxy gets into your bones and eats away the marrow. The artist I’d first used with had warned me I’d be aching to fill that emptiness forever. Of course, that hadn’t stopped me from giving it a try. What I hadn’t considered was just how much it would suck living this way. Not to mention how fucking expensive it would be. These days, I could only go a couple hours before I needed to do a few lines. Lately, it was costing me almost $4,000 a week. That’s why people switched to heroin. Not me, not yet. But I’d glimpsed it on the horizon.
Right now, it had been four hours. If I went six or eight, things were going to get bad, fast.
I reached for the glass of Macallan winking up at me from the coffee table. Monogrammed glass. House with a name. Locust Grove. Only Jonathan. A second later, when I looked down at my hand, the glass was empty. I didn’t remember taking a sip. Couldn’t taste even a trace on my lips. Gone with everything else down the not-high rabbit hole.
“Dude, Keith, are you even listening?” Finch asked.
He’d been talking— Finch was always talking, and I was always supposed to be listening. Actually, I was supposed to be fucking entertained. Luckily, I was good at pretending. That was my job. And under the circumstances, I needed to be extra nice to Finch. But that was easier said than done when my joints felt like they were being pried apart with a screwdriver.