14. Limerence, Part II
Hakeem is leaving on a recruiting trip—first to Princeton, then Columbia, Harvard, and Dartmouth.
The night before he leaves, things get very hot between him and Taylor during Intervis and they go almost all the way.
“Come on, baby,” Hakeem says. “You can’t make me leave for these recruiting trips as a virgin.”
“I’m not ready,” Taylor says. “And I don’t want it to be like this, with the door cracked and Mr. Rivera down the hall.”
“We could go to God’s Basement,” Hakeem says.
“Hakeem,” Taylor says. “No.”
Later, Hakeem stops by Dub’s room. Dub thinks maybe Hakeem feels bad because while he has four Ivies interested in him, Dub hasn’t been contacted by any college scouts.
Or, possibly, Hakeem wants to review the playbook because he’s missing practice all week and their final game—against longtime rival Old Bennington—is on Saturday.
But it turns out, Hakeem is there to talk about Taylor.
“She won’t give it up to me, man,” he says. “I just turned seventeen. It’s embarrassing that I’m still a virgin.”
Dub can’t believe Hakeem is confiding in him like this; he thought those days were over forever.
“How did you convince Cinnamon?” Hakeem asks.
“I didn’t. We never…”
“You never slept with her?”
“No,” Dub says. He understands why Hakeem finds this shocking: Dub and Cinnamon Intervissed every night and there were plenty of weekends when Dub sneaked into Classic South and spent the entire night with Cinnamon.
But there had been no sex on those nights.
Cinnamon was just really sad and wanted Dub to hold her.
Hakeem says, “There’s a chick I’ve been texting with at Dartmouth. She’s a freshman, a student athletic trainer for the team.”
“You’re not thinking about… I mean, dude, you wouldn’t cheat on Taylor, would you?”
Hakeem says nothing, which means yes.
Wow, Dub thinks.
The second Hakeem’s car service pulls out of the Tiffin gates the next morning, Dub gets a text from Taylor: Piano Bar tonight?
Dub isn’t sure how to respond. He and Taylor haven’t spoken much since the episode in the locker room.
That was the price of restoring peace with Hakeem: Dub and Taylor couldn’t be close.
But with Hakeem gone, the restriction feels silly and pointless.
Dub hasn’t been to Piano Bar all year, though as a fourth-former, he and Cinnamon never missed it. Cinnamon was Mr. Chuy’s favorite.
Ok, Dub responds.
Since they’re going to Piano Bar in the Grille, they end up eating dinner together beforehand in the Paddock.
They don’t take the Booth, that would be too high profile; instead they find seats among the randos of the fifth-form (some of whom Dub has never exchanged a word with).
It’s Burger Night, so he and Taylor get their usual: Angus burgers medium rare with cheddar, bacon, pickles, and an extra side of special sauce.
Hakeem always ate his burger in a lettuce wrap without cheese or sauce because, he said, his body was a temple.
They don’t talk about Hakeem, however. They don’t need to, they’ve never needed to.
Taylor tells Dub about the spring musical. Mr. Chuy has chosen Mean Girls, and Taylor can’t decide whether to go out for the part of Cady or the part of Regina George.
“Cady,” Dub says. “More complex.”
“I love that you know the roles in Mean Girls, ” Taylor says. She dips one of her french fries in his ketchup. “I’ve missed you.”
When they get to the Grille, Dub buys Taylor a peppermint stick milkshake even though he’s down to the last ten dollars on his stipend and the school won’t deposit more money until next semester. When Dub doesn’t order a milkshake of his own, Taylor buys him an Oreo one on her account.
At the piano, Taylor takes a seat on the bench next to Mr. Chuy and Dub stands at her side.
A few minutes later, the third- and fourth-formers arrive, along with the theater kids and Annabelle Tuckerman, Lisa Kim, and Ravenna Rapsicoli.
The sixth-formers are starting to get nostalgic; they have only six months left at Tiffin and they want to enjoy every second.
There’s a third-form kid who plays on Dub’s offensive line named Benj; he looks surprised as hell to find Dub Austin at Piano Bar, and he gives a tentative wave as if to say, Are you really doing this?
Dub nods. There’s no reason to be embarrassed.
Mr. Chuy launches into “Wagon Wheel,” and they’re off!
Dub knows he has a good voice. They sing “Don’t Stop Believin’,” then “Can’t Stop the Feeling.
” Then Mr. Chuy asks Taylor and Dub if they want to duet on “Shallow,” and honestly, they sound so freaking fantastic together—Taylor knows how to harmonize—that when the song is over, everyone cheers.
Dub takes Taylor’s hand and helps her to her feet so she can bow.
The hour passes too quickly. Mr. Chuy plays “Friends in Low Places,” because he knows Dub likes country music, then he segues into Taylor Swift’s “Love Story,” always the final song of the night.
Dub and Taylor walk back to the dorms together, both of them on an adrenaline high. It’s an even better buzz than the one he gets when he runs off the field after a game. He should have been singing every Monday all year. What was he afraid of?
Taylor links her arm through his. “That was fun.”
“Thank you for dragging me.”
Taylor is quiet but Dub thinks nothing of it. What he likes best about Taylor are their companionable silences.
Suddenly she says, “Hakeem wanted to have sex last night. He pressured me but I held out.”
Dub inhales the cold night air through his nose.
“I don’t want to lose my virginity to Hakeem,” she says.
“Taylor,” Dub says. “Tonight was amazing, and probably just what I needed. But I’d rather not talk about Hakeem. Okay?”
“Okay,” she whispers.
Later that night, as Dub is climbing into bed, he gets a text from Taylor. I want to lose my virginity to you. Dub stares at the text for a long while, but he doesn’t respond, and although he knows he should, he doesn’t delete it.
The days pass quickly. Dub and Taylor return to their usual routine: They sit together in English, history, and Spanish, they eat lunch together, once even claiming the Booth.
Dub practices hard after school—if there was ever a year they can beat Old Bennington, this is it—and then he meets Taylor in the Paddock for dinner.
A couple of nights they go straight to the Sink to study.
But they don’t Intervis and Dub is careful not to touch Taylor, even casually.
He pretends she never sent the text and she doesn’t bring it up.
Hakeem is due back to school on Saturday at nine; kickoff against Old Bennington is at noon.
The rest of the school has been gearing up all week, making posters that say PULVERIZE THE POETS!
(Old Bennington is where Robert Frost is buried.
Their mascot is, yes, a white-haired dude in a suit.) Dub used to dread Rivalry Weekend not only because he was embarrassed to be consistently whupped by a team called the Poets but also because he didn’t want the season to be over.
(In the winter, Hakeem plays hoops and, on advice from Coach Bosworth, Dub does strength and conditioning.) But this year, Dub is pumped! They could win. They will win!
When Dub wakes up on Saturday morning, he sees the alert: New post on Zip Zap. He thinks Zip Zap is as annoying as hell, but he clicks into it anyway.
Fifth-former Taylor Wilson wants QB1 to pop her cherry.
Before they dress for the game, Coach Bosworth calls both Dub and Hakeem into his office. “We’re not going to have a problem on the field today, are we?”
“No, sir,” Dub and Hakeem say in unison.
On the way back to the locker room, Dub says, “Bro, you know that app is bullshit.”
“The funny thing is?” Hakeem says. “It has yet to be wrong.”
“I haven’t touched her, bro.”
“But you hung out all week.”
Hakeem had spies, Dub thinks. People texting him, sending videos. “Nothing happened. We studied, we ate, we went to Piano Bar.”
“You sang a duet, I heard.” From Benj, the offensive lineman, Dub thinks, who was only masquerading as an ally.
“Hakeem.”
“She’s saving herself for you, ” Hakeem says.
“You, not me.” He runs a hand over his head; somehow, Dub is only now noticing that Hakeem got a fresh cut while he was away, his number, 62, shaved into the side fade.
Dub also notices the puffiness around Hakeem’s eyes and that he reeks of alcohol.
“But it’s no big deal. I fucked that Dartmouth chick. ”
Dub flinches. “You did?”
“I did,” Hakeem says. He holds out a fist. “So we’re good, bro.”
But they’re not good. Hakeem misses two catches in the end zone and blames both on Dub’s throws. (Dub’s throws were perfect.) Then, in the second half, Hakeem catches the ball but fumbles it running; it’s recovered by Old Bennington and returned for a touchdown.
Tiffin loses 7–0.
Win some, lose some, Audre thinks as she strides across the field to shake hands with the Old Bennington Head, Mikayla Ekubo.
Mikayla is the newest and youngest Head in ISNEC—like Audre, she took over from a long line of staunchly conservative white men.
In Mikayla’s case, taking the helm was more daunting…
because Old Bennington has long been ranked the number one boarding school in the country.
Audre has done her best to serve as a mentor to Mikayla; she counts her as a friend.
“Good game!” Audre says, opening her arms. “Are you ready for Thanksgiving? I know I am.”
Instead of embracing Audre, Mikayla offers a stiff hand. Hmmm, Audre thinks as she shakes it. She gets the Feeling.
“You should know, Audre, that I signed the inquiry letter,” Mikayla says.
Audre drops Mikayla’s hand. Why would Mikayla sign the letter?
Old Bennington was ranked number one, so why would anyone else’s placement on the list matter?
Is Mikayla worried that Tiffin will claim the top spot next year?
Does she prefer to be the sole female Head in the top five?
(So much for women polishing one another’s crowns.)
“It’s a witch hunt,” Audre says.
“You have to admit, Audre, a seventeen-spot jump is puzzling when there have been no discernible changes here in the past year,” Mikayla says. “Everyone knows the head of your board is problematic.”
“Why?” Audre says. “Because he’s rich?”
“He’s a robber baron,” Mikayla says. “He got his start buying up low-income housing and transforming it into luxury apartments, displacing thousands of innocent tenants.”
Did Mikayla do a deep dive into Jesse Eastman’s business? Or is this something Douglas Worth dug up and shared with everyone on the council?
“None of that has a single thing to do with our ranking, Mikayla,” Audre says.
“I just think it warrants looking into,” Mikayla says. “For due diligence’s sake.” She points a finger at Audre. “Also? Rumor has it, Tiffin has a Zip Zap problem.”
There’s a bonfire down on the beach by Jewel Pond—this is a tradition on Old Bennington weekend, win or lose—but Dub doesn’t go.
Taylor sent him a barrage of messages: Did you show my text to anyone? I’m confused. Why would you do that? Did you tell anyone? Hakeem blocked me. He’ll never speak to me again. Dub? Hello? WTF?
It wasn’t me, he finally responds. I told no one, showed no one. He wants to say that he’s just as freaked out by this as she is. Whoever is running Zip Zap is like a sniper, strategically assassinating characters all over the school. I’m sorry about Hakeem. He’ll get over it.
But a little while later, Hakeem posts a picture on his Snapchat story of him with his arm around a third-form girl named Cassie Lee at the bonfire.
Alone in his room, alone in the entire dorm, Dub opens his laptop. The file from Cinnamon is where it always is, in the upper right-hand corner of his screen. DO NOT OPEN THIS FILE UNTIL THE MORNING OF OUR GRADUATION.
This file is his last link to Cinnamon, and Dub needs her tonight more than ever. He rolls his cursor over the file. One click and he would be in touch with her again.
He sighs, then opens his email instead. He writes to Ms. Robinson.
Can you please shut down the Tiffin Zip Zap app? It’s bad for the school.
Sincerely, Dub Austin.