Friends Like These(42)
ALICE
They’re saying now that he was there to burglarize dorm rooms. There’ve been break-ins— a laptop and some cash stolen from Main Building. Campus security jumped at the chance to blame him— poor Evan— whose only crime was coming home with me.
What’s done is done. Everyone is right about that. But we could at least make sure people know he wasn’t a criminal.
Stephanie was, of course, immediately all about “the how.” How was I going to do that without accidentally revealing what really happened? It made me angry that she was right— I didn’t have any guarantees that we’d stay out of trouble.
Derrick and Jonathan pretty much had the same questions. Each in their own way, of course— Jonathan worried most about his dad, Derrick worried most about all of us getting arrested. And Keith— well, him I’m avoiding. I have this feeling he’s going to break up with me, which would just be perfect.
Maeve was the most open to the idea. She was kind, mostly concerned with how I’ve been feeling lately. Maeve knows way too much about me and my meds— the roommate always knows. But I know her secrets, too. I love Maeve, but she is kind of self-centered and also a klepto. I’ve cut her extra slack because she’s had a hard life— but still.
Whatever. I’ll think about it some more. Like everyone wants me to. Maybe I’ll even think about catching up on my pills.
But, really, I can’t imagine a scenario where I’m just going to be able to leave this situation like it is. Not forever, at least.
KEITH
FRIDAY, 9:55 P.M.
No one was happy I’d brought along a girl. Even with every muscle in my body shrieking, I could feel the real clear vibe of me having fucked up massively the whole drive back to Jonathan’s house. Meanwhile, there was the girl sliding her hand up and down my thigh, chewing down hard on her Juicy Fruit. Juicy Fruit and gin— that’s what she smelled like. I could smell her, but I could barely feel her hand over the ache in my bones. Everything was starting to look blurry, too, like I was seeing it in one of those warped subway mirrors where you can only make out the fact that something bad is coming, but not exactly what.
To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure how she’d ended up in the car with me. We were talking inside the bar— no, I was talking. Crystal, yeah, that was her name. Crystal was asking me where I was from, teasing me about modern art. She was cute and funny and sharp, but I’d kept the conversation going mostly because I’d hoped she was holding. The one guy selling in the bathroom wasn’t interested in taking my watch as collateral.
Turned out she wasn’t holding, but she had cash. Bathroom guy was pissed at her about something, so she was avoiding him. But she said if I bought from him with her money, she’d cut me in. So here we were. I did feel bad that she was there on Jonathan’s bachelor party weekend, but I felt more good that I was about to get high. I’d do just about anything to avoid the horror that would be headed my way if I didn’t use soon.
My phone buzzed in my pocket then. Took some effort to tug it out. You’re running out of time, the message read. Then a second later, another: Your friend Maeve will be first. I squinted at the screen. But no matter how narrow I made my eyes, the words were the same. Maeve would be such an easy target, too. You have until 10:00 a.m. tomorrow.
I put my phone face down on my leg and turned toward the window. Hadn’t they said twenty-four hours only a few hours ago? Not that I was in a position to object to their telescoping timeline.
“Why is everybody so fucking down?” Finch called out to no one in particular. “Is this a fucking bachelor party or a funeral?”
“Be quiet, Finch,” Derrick said from the driver’s seat, keeping his attention on the road.
“We’re tired, Finch,” Jonathan said. “We are all exhausted.”
Exhausted by me. By this. By the nice but still random, probably high girl I’d invited to join our private party. By the asshole client I’d let tag along. By me and all my bullshit. Fair enough. I was tired of me, too.
“Do you have any food at your house, Jonathan?” Stephanie asked.
“I could make something for all of you! I’m a great cook!” Crystal called out, gripping Stephanie’s shoulder in an overfamiliar way. “I’d just need some garlic, a tomato, a few other spices and some chilies or even some chili flakes. I can make this delicious penne arrabiata.”
“Sounds great,” Maeve said politely. Maeve would probably be polite to my friends from Staten Island, too, right up until they blew her face away.
It was insane that I’d allowed myself to get mixed up with them. But it had seemed so logical at the time. I could still remember the way Frank’s heavy Scotch tumbler had felt in my one hand, the fat cigar gripped in the other. We’d been standing on his Todt Hill patio, surveying the Manhattan skyline and the huge, gaudy stone houses in every direction. Frank had been hilariously talking casual shit about his various neighbors for at least an hour, and I’d been loving every crazy second of it.
“But, you know, most of them are good people,” he’d said. “Nonjudgmental.”
Frank Gardello was a big Italian man with a curvy, blond, heavily Botoxed wife named Griselda. Frank had a guy who drove him around in a huge Cadillac Escalade to “business meetings,” the meaning of which was obvious. I’d liked Frank the second I met him at the gallery, though— coming in off the street, browsing for art like Griselda probably browsed at Prada. After twelve minutes, they’d bought a $26,000 Luca Baglio painting.