My Last Innocent Year(69)

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BUT BEFORE ALL of that, graduation.

I met Abe in front of the bookstore on Saturday afternoon. He looked only slightly out of place, reading the New York Post on a bench under a green-and-white striped awning. He had on khaki-colored pants I’d never seen before and a navy sweater.

I gave him a quick hug. “Where’d you park?”

“By the supermarket. It was hard to find a spot. The town is jumping.”

Wilder was at its picture-perfect best, everything manicured and clean, all dressed up for company. We had time before dinner, so I took Abe on a tour of campus: the library and student center, the information desk where I’d spent so many hours. It was simultaneously thrilling and unsatisfying to see Wilder this way, like listening to the greatest hits album of a band you loved—the songs were great but without the B-sides and liner notes, something was missing. Most underclassmen had already gone home, and the few who remained ran past us seniors like we were a virus they might catch. I already envied them, the way they moved around campus with a sense of ownership I could feel slipping away.

At five o’clock, the bell tower played an extralong set of songs—the alma mater, “Auld Lang Syne,” Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”—and I remembered the first time I saw Wilder, on that long-ago high school visit. It was one of those glorious spring days that always came at the end of a long winter. Everyone was in motion, biking or jogging or slicing across the road on long, skinny skates—training skates for Nordic skiing, I would learn, which was different from alpine skiing, as I would also learn. Abe, seeing what I saw, turned to me and said, “Are you sure this is the place for you?”

Our tour guide that day was a hyperfriendly junior in a green-and-gold Wilder sweatshirt and track pants that made a swishing sound as she walked. I caught a glimpse of myself in a window and saw that my look—motorcycle boots, ripped 501s—was all wrong and made a mental note never to wear any of it again. I was seventeen years old and thought my life was over. But here, I could taste the possibility. There were other ways I could live. There were other people I could be.

On our way back into town that graduation weekend, Abe and I stopped in front of the Arts Center, where the Tunemen were giving an impromptu concert. Bo stepped forward for his solo in “Oh, What a Night,” and I waved at him but he didn’t wave back. We hadn’t spoken since the night we’d kissed in the basement of Gamma Nu. It was only a few weeks ago, but it felt like a lifetime. Later, when we started dating, he’d tease me about it, those weeks he’d pined for me and how I’d ignored him. It was the best round of hard-to-get he’d ever seen played, he said; he even mentioned it in his toast at our rehearsal dinner. But that afternoon I could tell how hurt he was. I felt bad about it somewhere distantly, but it was hard to know because I felt bad about so many things.

After the Tunemen finished their set, Abe and I headed to dinner. On our way, we passed a copper bust in front of the Admissions building. Wilder tradition held you were supposed to rub its nose each time you passed for good luck.

“Let’s rub it,” Abe said.

“Really?” I wasn’t sure I’d ever rubbed it, other than maybe once or twice freshman year.

“Yeah, why not? We could use a little luck, couldn’t we?” Our hands touched as we reached for it at the same time.

We’d made a reservation at a Middle Eastern restaurant in town. It was the night before graduation and most restaurants had been booked for months; Kelsey’s parents had made their reservation at the Wilder Inn freshman year. Abe and I were shown to a table in the back, and I felt a kind of kinship with the people there, who I imagined lived the way we did, without boundless optimism for the future and the blessings it was sure to bestow.

“So, you’re going to take that apartment,” Abe said after the waiter took our order.

At the table next to us, a kid in orange glasses was playing tic-tac-toe with a woman in a jewel-colored sari.

“Yeah. You said it was nice.”

“It is nice. I just worry you won’t have enough money. That job doesn’t pay much after taxes.”

“Kelsey and I agreed I’d pay less because my room is smaller.”

“It’s hardly a room. And there’s more than rent, Isabel—there’s electricity, heat, health insurance.” He didn’t mention the student loan payments. When I’d met with the financial aid officer, I found out that, starting in January, I’d be responsible for paying back $175 a month. For the next ten years. It was a sum I couldn’t contextualize at the time but would turn out to be just enough to keep me from joining Kelsey and Jason for dinner or being able to buy a new pair of boots or a handbag. In other words, just enough to keep me from enjoying my life in the city.

“I thought we agreed I could swing it,” I said, “if I was careful.”

“You’ll have to be more than careful. You’ll have to be a magician.” He tore off a piece of pita bread. “Benji’s living at home. The commute from Crown Heights is terrible, but at least he’s saving money.”

“You think I should live at home?”

“No. It’s just—these glamour jobs, Isabel. They’re for rich girls, like your friends. I know you want to be a writer, but it’s a hard road.”