18. Gobble Gobble #4
At the end of the evening—after pie and a box of chocolate truffles passed around the table, and a sportive (“lively”) game of charades and the final football game somehow still only at halftime—Davi offers Sunny Wu a ride back to Tiffin in East’s truck.
Once they climb in, Davi feels like she and Liam are parents, Sunny their child.
When they pull into the Back Lot, Sunny thanks them for the ride and says, “You two are cute together.”
Davi expects Liam to protest, but instead he wraps an arm around Davi. “Thank you.”
When Liam and Davi reach the front of Classic South, there’s a long, tight hug, then Liam says, “Will you text me when you wake up?”
Davi wants to ask him to come inside—there’s no way Mrs. Wully is showing up here tonight—but what if he says no because of Pippa?
She manages half a smile. “Happy Thanksgiving.”
“Yeah, it was,” he says.
At eight the next morning, Davi texts Liam to see if he wants to come with her to hot yoga in Capulet Falls, and he shocks her by saying, Hell yes!
Liam is the only guy in the class; everyone else is a mom, complaining about how much they ate the day before. The moms sneak looks at Liam.
“Hot guy in hot yoga,” Davi whispers.
Liam sets his glasses in the top corner of his yoga mat and squints at Davi. She loves him.
That afternoon, Davi and Liam hang out on the Senior Sofa.
Liam helps Davi with her pre-calc—he’s really smart—then she reads The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Liam reads Flannery O’Connor for his Literature of the South class.
They start out side by side on the sofa, but as the afternoon wears on and the light through the arched windows turns a crepuscular (“of or relating to twilight”) shade of violet, Davi rests against the arm of the sofa sideways with her knees tented.
Liam mirrors her, but his legs are a lot longer, he looks uncomfortable, so she says, “You can stretch out if you want.” The next thing she knows, the lengths of their legs are touching.
It’s the most erotic moment Davi has ever experienced, though it’s still wholesome.
She wants to stay right there on the Senior Sofa forever; they have the entire library to themselves.
Is it possible to feel nostalgic for the present?
In two short days, she knows, everyone will be back and the bubble they’re living in will burst.
But not yet. Not yet.
They order a pizza delivered right to the Sink, and as they eat, Liam starts telling Davi things.
Liam’s parents split when Liam was twelve, then his older brother, Simon, dropped out of high school and became an addict.
Liam’s father kicked Simon out of the house, so then he lived on the streets.
He used to show up at the McDonald’s where Liam worked, and Liam would give him food, but never money.
“Because you know what happens when you give an addict money.”
“Yeah,” Davi says.
“Whatever, he ended up OD’ing anyway, this past winter.” Liam pulls up his sleeve to show Davi his tattoo—a heart with his brother’s name and dates woven through the center.
“I’m so sorry, Liam,” Davi says. “I know how you feel. I lost my best friend here to suicide at the end of fourth-form. Cinnamon Peters.”
“Ah, okay,” Liam says. “East told me about Cinnamon.” He locks eyes with her. “We’ve both been through some stuff.”
When the chapel bells toll nine forty-five, Liam walks Davi to the door of Classic South. “I don’t think Mrs. Wully is staying here,” she says. “You could come in.”
Behind the lenses of his glasses, Liam’s eyes close. He gives Davi another hug. Davi rests her head against his chest, he lays his chin on top of her head.
“Text me when you wake up tomorrow,” he says.
She’s crushed.
When Davi enters the dorm, she hears a strange noise coming from somewhere in the building, and she nearly calls out for Liam to come back—she’s that shameless—until she realizes the noise is drumming. Sunny Wu lives on the second floor; she must be practicing.
Good for her.
As Davi lies in bed, she scrolls TikTok and Instagram looking for signs of Pippa.
She often appears on the feeds of her famous friends, but not this weekend.
There’s a nobility in her elusiveness, Davi realizes.
Pippa doesn’t need 1.8 million people to validate her as she tries a new mascara or loses three pounds of water weight at hot yoga.
Davi clicks on a reel with the caption: Day in the Life of a 26-year-old living in Maine.
She assumes this is a satire… but no, this chick Melanie has filmed herself in earnest: doing her skin care routine, making a matcha, attending a class at SolidCore, going to work as a store manager at the Coach outlet in Kittery, Maine.
Then it’s home to light up her gas fireplace and cook dinner for her boyfriend, Robbie.
She makes chicken breasts on an indoor grill and tosses a salad.
After dinner, she and Robbie settle in to watch Netflix.
Is there a point here? Davi wonders. It doesn’t seem so. Melanie just wants to broadcast the minutiae of her life to—Davi checks—2,844 followers. All Davi can think is that she’s glad she’s not a twenty-six-year-old living in Maine.
But are Davi’s posts any less basic? What, exactly, is Davi adding to the culture?
Nothing is the answer. Davi posts from aspirational locations—London, Montepulciano, Ibiza, and Tiffin (her Tiffin posts are actually her most popular)—and she promotes a variety of brands, but does the world need to know about another setting spray, another hair mask?
No wonder Liam prefers Pippa, Davi thinks. Davi has an unhealthy relationship with her phone. It’s appalling! The best time Davi has had all year is the four hours she spent on the Senior Sofa with Liam; neither of them looked at their phones once, except when Davi ordered the pizza.
Davi marches up to Room 207. The drumming is so exuberant that a knock will never be heard. Davi will just have to take Sunny by surprise.
Davi opens the door. Sunny’s drum set takes up most of the available space in the room. Sunny has on headphones, and her eyes are closed as she whales away on her set. Davi feels the reverberations of the bass drum in her feet and the chinging of the cymbals in her teeth.
Davi is content to stand there listening, though she’s worried about jump-scaring poor Sunny Wu, a person Davi hasn’t given a passing thought before this weekend but to whom she now feels strangely bonded.
When Sunny reaches the end of the song, the drumming ceases. She opens her eyes, sees Davi.
“Oh, hey,” she says. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Not long.”
“Am I too loud?” Sunny asks. “I obviously can’t play like this when everybody’s here.”
“No, no, it’s fine,” Davi says. “I actually came to see if you wanted my neon sign. The new one? It says, ‘Comparisons are odious.’”
“I’ve seen it on your TikToks,” Sunny says. “It’s cool and I happen to agree with the sentiment. But I can’t take your sign. It sort of… defines you.”
“That’s the problem,” Davi says.
When Davi gets back to her room—maybe Sunny is right, maybe Davi would regret giving away her new sign—she grabs her phone to finally FaceTime Charley back, and she sees a text from Liam, sent two minutes prior: Can I come over?
Davi types back Hell yes! and then runs to the front door to let him in.