29. Green Flag / Red Flag
Dub received his acceptance to CU Boulder with a partial academic scholarship in late February, so it only makes sense to spend spring break with Cal, who can show him around the university and introduce him to people.
Their time together is fun and relaxed—they hike, they mountain bike, they go to frat parties, they hang out on the Hill and on the Pearl Street Mall.
Cal tells every single person they meet that Dub will be starting there in the fall, and people are only too happy to strategize about how to score a single in Sewall and to make sure Dub knows that Intro to Astronomy is no joke, half the class routinely fails the midterm.
Dub bobs his head and smiles, but his heart isn’t in it. He wants to play football—and yes, Boulder has a competitive intramural league, but will that scratch the itch? He hears his mother saying, I didn’t send you all the way out here just so you could end up back home.
The day before Dub is due to fly back east, he receives an email from Atwater College in Vermont. This is the only private liberal arts college with a football team where the coach has expressed interest.
Dub has been accepted with a full ride, no loans. They want him to play quarterback.
Dub wishes this could be a triumphant moment—Atwater wants him! They won the NESCAC last year, beating schools like Middlebury and Bowdoin!—but he can’t bring himself to share the news with Cal.
They spend their final night smashing tacos at Torchy’s, where Cal says, “This is going to be our whole life next year, man. You and me, every single day.”
You and me every single day sounds like heaven to Dub. He loves being with Cal, their relationship has been both a revelation and a balm. It has completely transformed the way Dub views himself.
But Atwater, football, his mother. It’s an impossible decision. The good thing is he doesn’t have to make up his mind until May 1, which is more than a month away.
“Yeah,” Dub says with as much enthusiasm as he can muster. But he’s not a good actor like Taylor, and Cal notices his hesitation. He takes Dub’s face in his hands. “I love you, man.”
Dub feels like everyone in the taco joint must be looking at them, but of course it’s Boulder: Nobody cares if two gay men are having a moment.
“I love you too,” Dub says, and they kiss.
The next day on the plane, Dub opens his laptop so he can reread the letter from Atwater.
He instantly notices something wrong.
The file from Cinnamon is gone.
Dub experiences an instant of full-blown panic…
until he realizes the file isn’t gone, it’s just not where it’s supposed to be.
Since Dub received the file, it has resided in the upper right-hand corner of his home screen, patiently waiting for graduation morning.
But now Dub finds the From Cinnamon file in the bottom center of his screen.
He tries to ward off a very bad feeling. Do icons move on their own? Did his laptop reboot and the icon get displaced somehow? He tries to remain chill—but at some point this week, Dub told Cal that 61726 was his password to all his devices (Dub and Cal’s first date was June 17).
Did Cal open the file from Cinnamon? He would have had ample time—when Dub was in the shower, when Dub went for a run in the mornings, when Cal’s friend Anya took Dub to her Ethics of AI class.
Dub’s gut is watery and his hands shaking as he waits for the plane to deboard (Dub is in the second-to-last row). Once he makes it into the terminal, he calls Cal.
“Miss me already?” Cal says.
The thing is, Dub does miss him already; he feels like the left side of his body has been lopped off.
Before opening his laptop, Dub had all but decided to go to Boulder.
It’s considered one of the “public Ivies”; Dub wouldn’t even necessarily have to tell his mother about the acceptance to Atwater because he’s eighteen.
Dub would have a better college experience if he were happy, and being with Cal makes him happy.
Cal could have done anything else—flirted with the barista at the Laughing Goat, been weird about holding hands in public, confessed that he’s a card-carrying member of the NRA—and Dub would have been able to forgive him.
“Did you open it?” Dub asks.
“Open what?”
Dub swallows. “Open the file that Cinnamon sent me. Did you go into my laptop and open that file?”
Cal’s pause is a second too long. “What are you even talking about?”
“You did,” Dub says. “You opened it.”
Cal sighs. “I mean, yeah, I did. That night after Beta when we were so drunk, you passed out and your laptop was open, man, remember, because you were showing me that Josh Mancuso video on YouTube. It’s not like I hacked in.
I was just drunk and stupid and your computer was there and I was fucking curious. ”
Dub’s throat is so constricted—with anger, sadness, confusion—that he can barely speak. “You were curious?”
“I don’t know how you’ve exercised so much willpower all this time,” Cal says.
“I did it,” Dub says, “because Cinnamon asked me to.”
“Right, I know… Listen, man, I’m sorry. Like I said, I was plastered. Do you want me to tell you what it—?”
“No!” Dub’s voice is so loud that the people sitting at the nearest gate look up, startled.
“Sorry, I just thought—”
“You violated my trust,” Dub says. “She’s dead, man, and the one thing she asked…” He focuses on the sign for Gate B12 until tears blur his eyes. He could forgive anything but this. Anything. But. This.
“Take a beat and calm down,” Cal says. “The file is actually very—”
“I don’t want to know!” Dub says. “I’m… whatever, I have to go.”
“You’ll make your connection?” Cal says. “Call me when you—”
Dub hangs up, then blocks Cal’s number. He darts into the nearest men’s room to splash his face with cold water and get a grip on himself. Then he finds a bar that sells deep-dish pizza and that accepts his fake ID so he can get a beer.
He texts his mother, I got into Atwater with a full ride plus stipend as long as I keep my grades up, guaranteed starting QB as long as I stay healthy.
Although his mother is at work, Dub’s phone lights up with a call.
His mother is happy-screaming. “You’ll accept, right?” Her voice contains a shred of concern. She knows how he feels about Boulder, about Cal.
“Yes,” Dub says. “I’m going to Atwater.”
Both Cordelia Spooner and Rhode Rivera spend spring break on Tiffin’s campus, and whereas only a month earlier Cordelia might have invited Rhode to her cottage for a glass of wine or Rhode might have suggested a quick, collegial dinner at Moon Palace, now they circle each other warily like boxers in a ring.
They both want to be Tiffin’s next Head of School.
It’s important to remain civil, however, and so every morning when Rhode and Cordelia see each other at the fitness center, there’s a smile and a wave, then a few moments of chat by the water fountain once they’ve finished.
One morning, Rhode says, “Do we know if anyone from outside the Tiffin community is applying for Head?”
Cordelia, of course, does know. Because Audre is on St. John enjoying snorkeling trips and frozen painkillers, Cordelia has been tasked with handling school emails.
The day before, a letter and résumé came in from Douglas Worth, Head of School at Northmeadow.
Cordelia clucked, assuming this was some kind of clever prank, but further investigation proved the letter and CV were sent in earnest. Douglas Worth was applying to be Head of Tiffin.
What on earth for? Cordelia wondered. Heads of School did sometimes move around, but the more common scenario was for them to settle in and build a legacy.
That’s what Douglas Worth’s father, George, had done: He’d been Head of Northmeadow for forty-two years.
Maybe the younger (and, dare Cordelia say, lesser) Worth wanted to step out of his father’s shadow and prove himself elsewhere.
Maybe Douglas Worth was facing pressure from his board to move on because Northmeadow’s ranking had dropped.
Or maybe Douglas Worth had always coveted Audre’s job as Head of Tiffin because Tiffin is, for lack of a better word, cooler.
But there’s no way Audre will allow Douglas Worth to succeed her. Of this, Cordelia is confident.
“No one of any consequence,” Cordelia says.
Rhode visibly relaxes for a moment, then his guard seems to go back up.
He pulls a slim paperback volume out of his gym bag and hands it to Cordelia.
“The Sewanee Review,” he says. “My second published story appears on page sixteen. I wouldn’t normally foist it on you, but since it’s break, I thought you might have time to read. ”
“How magnificent,” Cordelia says. What she’s actually thinking is that the man is without a scrap of self-awareness.
He’s an egregious self-promoter, and his message is clear: He believes that being a “published author” gives him an advantage in the selection process.
“Thank you. I’ll read it tonight by the fire. ”
And read it she does, with her mouth agape.
The story, “Mr. Fantabulous,” is about a prep school teacher looking for love at the local dive bar, “the Jefferson” (an obvious nod to the curmudgeonly bartender of the Alibi).
He meets a mysterious woman named “Secret” who lures the teacher to her home around the corner, where she seduces him in her eccentrically decorated She-Shed.
He later discovers Secret is the mother of one of his students.
This is, Cordelia thinks, a (thinly) fictionalized account of Rhode’s affair with Pippa Sacks’s mother, Sondra.
If anything, this story incriminates Rhode; he should be disavowing this story, not promoting it. What a misstep!
The next day when Cordelia sees Rhode, she tells him how much she enjoyed the story. He’s a man; he thrives on praise. Cordelia tells Rhode that she’s leaving the Sewanee Review on Audre’s desk for Audre to read when she gets back.
The job of Head will be Cordelia’s, no question.
Or is there a question?