Chapter 6 #3
Safie and Stephen hung back, chatting with Priya and Colin as the crowd filtered out.
Hal said some genuinely kind things while congratulating himself for thinking of me.
“Looking forward to the book,” Susan said, which felt like praise but also a threat, but I took the compliment.
Marissa from class had brought her mother, who looked like she couldn’t shake a foul stink from her nose and said it was a “very interesting topic.” Marissa’s face contorted in apology, and I smiled and thanked them for coming.
“We really enjoyed it,” Charles said, as he and the others made their way down. “When this one—” he squeezed Tyler’s shoulder “—insisted we spend Friday night at a lecture, I wasn’t so sure.”
“Really, just fascinating,” Lauren said. “I would never be able to do that. Thinking out loud like that, with an audience.”
“You do it all the time in court,” Addison said, laughing.
“For a bunch of legal bureaucrats and corporate hacks. Nothing like this.”
Tyler, who had been standing beside them, finally spoke.
“That was really great,” he said. “I have like a million questions, but I’ll save them for later. My mind is totally spinning.” He laughed at himself, almost giddy.
“Alright,” I said. I was smiling as well, I couldn’t help it, or I didn’t care. Tyler’s pleasure felt like a gift, and I wanted to accept it. “I look forward to that.”
“I hate to tear us away,” Lauren said, “but we should get back to the hotel. Dinner reservation—it’s been so busy in there.”
“You should join us after, when you’re back downtown,” Charles said. “Let us buy you a drink.”
I politely declined—“I wouldn’t want to intrude”—and we said our goodbyes. The rest of the room had emptied out, so there was just the group of us left: Stephen, Safie, Colin, and Priya.
“You were amazing.” Stephen grabbed me, planting a wet kiss on my cheek. If he’d been annoyed with me before, it had passed. “It’s nice some students came.”
“I guess there isn’t anything to do in Sawyer on a Friday night.”
“Come on,” Stephen said. “They obviously love you.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“You were really on tonight,” Safie said. “And very funny. You had the crowd in the palm of your hand.”
“You think so? Some of the parents seemed a little surprised.”
“They should be,” Priya said. “It’s good for them.”
“You nailed it,” Colin said, “you really did,” and he sounded sincere. “And now, where to?”
This led to a debate about the Stacks, the closest bar to campus, but Safie thought it would be overrun.
Stephen suggested a place on the northside, but Colin didn’t think it was worth going that far.
Priya thought that would be fine, but she said she was fine with anything, really.
Safie knew some people from History who were going to O’Reilly’s.
Colin liked O’Reilly’s; they had a decent burger.
I stood silently as the merits of the burger were considered, thinking about Tyler and how happy he looked. I smiled to myself at the image.
“Okay, it’s decided,” Stephen said. “I’ll take Mark and Safie.”
Outside, the skies had thickened; it looked as if it might snow in the night. As we walked across the plaza, I paused, saying something before I realized I would.
“I think I might just head home.”
Stephen stopped and turned to me. “But it’s your night.”
“I don’t think I’ll be any fun,” I said. “I’m completely wiped out.”
Stephen’s face blanched, holding something back. “Okay,” he said. “Sure. You can leave your car here and I’ll take us back to yours.”
“I can get myself home,” I said. “You go. Enjoy it.”
Safie shot me a look.
“Really, I’m fine.”
“Well, I need a drink,” Safie said. She laced her arm through Stephen’s. There was something protective in the gesture that irked me; she was my friend.
“Are you sure?” Stephen asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Go.”
Servers swooped in quick loops from the side rooms to the center bar and back.
It was packed, the feeling augmented by the compact design of the space: low ceiling and dark walls, dimly lit.
The noise of crowds deep in conversation and drink reverberated from all directions at once.
It was odd to feel such life in Sawyer, and I was overwhelmed in an instant. This was a mistake.
I was about to turn to leave when I saw Lauren stepping from the restrooms.
“You made it!” She gripped a small leather purse. Between two freshly painted lips—oxblood red—her perfect teeth gleamed.
“My plans ended early and I thought—I don’t mean to crash.”
“Nonsense. The boys will be thrilled you’re here.
” There was a swell of noise around us and she raised her voice.
“We’re in back. It’s quieter there.” She caught the attention of a server and pointed at me, motioning that I would need a drink.
She rested a hand on my arm and I bent to hear.
“The food is really quite good, but the service—well, I guess they’re still figuring it out.
In L.A. every waiter thinks you might be their big break.
They bring a bottle of Evian and it’s an entire production. ”
She pulled me into a paneled room, moody in the low, warm lights. She was right, it was much quieter, the noise dampened. “Look who I found. Charles, make some room.”
Tyler’s face lit up, eyes and smile wide. “Here.” He moved Addison and then himself down the booth, so his space was open for me. The leather upholstery still held Tyler’s heat and as I sat I was conscious of his closeness; just a shimmering slice of air between us.
Charles sat across from us, next to a man I didn’t recognize.
“Really glad you made it,” he said. He pointed at me.
“This is the star of the night.” The guy—I didn’t catch his name—in a dark suit, perfect fit, was a friend of theirs.
He lived in Chicago but was in Cleveland on business.
“Sawyer’s a great school,” he said. “Terrific. I never could have gotten in with my grades. Much less a job here.”
Somehow Lauren had already maneuvered to get another place setting and was piling it with food. “You have to try this, really,” she said. “Addison complains there’s nothing to do in Sawyer, but I think this is wonderful. It’s all from local farms.”
You wanted to hate the Mitchells; no one should be that beautiful and that rich, one should have to choose.
But there was something comforting just being in their presence.
They emanated a gracious energy, nothing cliquish about it; they invited you in.
Charles was raising money for a new film, a staggering amount, hundreds of millions.
He relished it, all of us in the grip of the story as he played it up, saying he couldn’t reveal a thing.
“These days, they’ve got NDAs for every possible scenario.
” (“Non-disclosure agreements,” said Lauren, leaning across the table.) But Charles dropped enough hints that we all knew which actress had signed onto the lead.
“Don’t say a word!” he said. “Dad, come on,” Addison grumbled. “Give it a rest.” But he was grinning.
And they clearly loved Tyler, whose own family wouldn’t be able to afford this trip, probably not even this meal.
Charles and Lauren asked about a class project and egged on his ridiculous stories.
The visiting friend asked after the soccer season.
They had just narrowly triumphed over Carnegie Mellon.
The day of the match, the assistant coach, a new hire, a young guy who had just graduated from Michigan, showed up reeking of booze and brutally hungover.
An hour outside Pittsburgh, he threw up on the bus.
“The driver went ballistic,” Tyler said.
It was a charter bus and the driver didn’t feel he owed the college anything.
He pulled over and insisted the assistant coach get off, right there on the side of the highway.
He wouldn’t listen to any pleading on the coach’s behalf.
“And he did! He walked right off. Or staggered off, actually,” Tyler said, swooping his body in imitation, and everyone laughed.
Somehow or other, the coach had found his way to Pittsburgh, arriving right at the start of the second half.
Tyler lowered his hands and his arm brushed mine.
I tilted my face toward him, the slightest shift, and caught the sweet punch of his breath.
“But Mark.” Lauren turned to me, chin resting on clasped hands, ice blue eyes intent. “I can’t stop thinking about your lecture. Did you really work in a forensics lab?”
“Well, I interned. Just a few months.”
“That must have been fascinating. But forgive me, a little gruesome.”
“Go easy, honey,” Charles said. “He’s not on trial.”
“It’s okay.” I laughed. “I guess I’ve always had a bit of a morbid streak.”
“I suppose we all do,” Lauren smiled, “buried somewhere inside. But what was it like? Tell me everything.”
Our private little room grew in warmth as the night went on, not stuffy heat but a cashmere prickle, the amber lights glinting off the flocked wallpaper and bathing us in a tactile glow.
The rumbling bass of the classical music piped overhead and the softening murmur of the dissipating crowds beyond our walls melded into a soundtrack just for us.
We stayed for hours, Charles ordering bottles of wine in twos, making a big fuss about letting Addison and Tyler drink.
He grinned at me, wolfish—“Don’t report me.
” He lifted my glass and a maudlin wave of sadness crashed over me. Did everyone have a family like this?