Hold On Tight (16 page)

The thing is, I'm finicky. I always have been, and even though I knew this was going to be a really
great thing to be involved with, I was doubting my ability to get down in the mud. And the dirt. And work.

I thought about this for the rest of the documentary. Finally, it ended, with a helicopter shot of forests and the dramatic score rising and filling the nearly empty theater. I snuck out before the credits so as not to have to talk to Lily Maynard, and then I walked downtown in a hurry because I was afraid I might run into her again.

I thought and walked, moving downtown with my hands stuffed into my pants pockets. And then I saw something that pushed my thinking in an entirely different direction.

There, in front of the Quad theater, was a crowd of screaming preteen girls. They were standing around gasping over a little starlet and a tall, dark-haired guy. The object of the crowd's affection, I realized after a few beats, was Sara-Beth Benny, and the handsome dude at her side was David. They were climbing into a cab, heading back downtown, and one young girl had thrown herself in front of the car.

This was one of those scenes that makes the world you live in every day seem foreign all of a sudden.

Then I remembered seeing David and Sara-Beth together, as though in a dream, at a diner in Vassar. I realized with a chill that I hadn't talked to David since last weekend, when we all drove up north, and that fact was so weird in and of itself that I couldn't do anything but keep on walking.

Mickey woke up unusually early on Thursday morning, having slept just over two hours, because yet another irresistible invitation had been extended to him the night before at the Met. Porter Aronsky, the dashing financier and art collector, had invited him for a morning spin around the island on his yacht. He had actually called Manhattan the island, and he had actually referred to the proposed trip as a spin. Mickey admired that kind of flair and had said yes immediately. He dressed quickly and was almost out the door when he heard a familiar voice whisper, “Where do you think you're going?”

Mickey hadn't seen seven o'clock in quite a while, and he hadn't anticipated anybody else being up in the Pardo house, either. But there was Caselli, ready for him at the door. Mickey smiled weakly at his minder, hoping he didn't look as disheveled as he felt. “I'm going for a
spin
around the
island,”
he said, wondering as the words spilled out of his mouth if he were still drunk. “At least, I think I am.”

“Oh, no you're not.” Caselli crossed his arms over his chest, looking all of a sudden very much like Mr. Clean. “Even art stars have to go to school.”

A shower, a change of clothes, and a pot of black coffee later, Mickey was being deposited from the back of Caselli's Triumph at the door of Elizabeth Irwin.

“Thanks, man,” Mickey said.

“Bye, Mickster.”

Mickey watched Caselli ride off. Just as he was admitting to himself that it was too late to catch the spin around the island, his cell phone started buzzing in his pocket. He was surprised it still had juice, but even more surprised that Philippa's name was in the caller ID box.

“I can't believe you're up already, too,” Mickey said by way of hello.

“Mickey?” Philippa said. The urgency in her voice socked him with a sudden need to be very close to his ex-girlfriend. “I need to see you now.”

“Whoa, sister,” Mickey said. “It's going to take me at least five minutes to get to wherever you are.”

“I'm at Doma.”

“Give me five.”

When Mickey walked into the West Village café, it took him a moment to spot Philippa, because she was sitting in the corner and wearing a gigantic gray cashmere turtleneck that might also have been worn as a
dress. Her hair was pulled back in a neat ponytail, and she wasn't wearing any makeup.

Mickey kissed her on the cheek and sat down across from her.

“You were in rare form last night,” she said.

“It was really fun hanging out with you.” Philippa turned her face away from him, and gave the street a long, pensive look. “So what did you need to see me about so urgently?”

Philippa collected herself for a moment, and then said, “My parents heard about the pictures.”

“Which pictures?”

“Your pictures. The naked pictures. They haven't seen them, but they know about them from their friends. They heard I was posing with a bunch of lesbians.”

“Well, that can't really shock them now. Right?”

“Um,” Philippa tugged the neck of her turtleneck up around her chin. “I haven't really told them yet. I know, I know. I seem all rebellious, but … I just couldn't. I will, but I can't yet.”

“They haven't met Stella?”

“They think she's my SAT tutor.”

“Oh. Wow.”

“Mickey, the thing is, you can't show those pictures anymore. That thing you did at Vassar just blew up, and I know you were planning to do it again this weekend.
But you can't show those photos again. If my parents keep hearing these rumors, they'll start thinking it's true. And then they'll know.”

Mickey looked at his ex-girlfriend and tried to deal with the fact that what she was saying wasn't a prelude to asking if he wanted to get back together. For a moment he was afraid she might cry, but then she didn't. She just said, “Do it for me, okay? Retire the naked pictures.”

Mickey saw his whole art career flash before his eyes. He stopped thinking about the fact that Philippa didn't want to get back with him, and started thinking about the fact that all week he had been riding on one fluke accomplishment. “But what am I going to talk about at Sarah Lawrence?”

Philippa just stared at him with her wide, pale eyes.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. I won't show the naked pictures anymore.”

“Good. And you never know, maybe this will lead you to do something even better.”

“You think I can start over again? With photography?”

Philippa gave Mickey a twisted, adorable smile. “Maybe you're about to take the best pictures of your life.”

The balmy warmth of California made Patch feel better almost instantly, although as he approached the ranch he was still wracked by some pretty big emotions, like anger and confusion, that he didn't experience very often.

After Greta had confessed to cheating on him with her ex-boyfriend and promised that it didn't mean anything and that she still wanted to be with him if he could forgive her, Patch had said he was going to have to think about it and call her back in a few hours. He still hadn't figured out how he felt about it, which was why he still hadn't called her back.

As he walked onto the campus of his Uncle Heyday's alma mater, he was struck by how different Deep Springs was from Vassar. The buildings weren't grand, and they were mostly just one-story, but the chalky foothills rising up in the background were definitely impressive. It might have been that Patch had taken the red-eye flight from JFK, but the vastness of the
sky and the mountains struck him as really awe-inspiring.

It was also weird how much activity was going on for such an early hour. Young men seemed to be dragging farm equipment every way he looked. As Patch approached the low-lying ranch building at the center of campus, he saw a guy about his age plucking at a banjo.

“Hi,” Patch said once he was close enough to be heard. He took off his Yankees hat and stuffed it in a pocket of his worn corduroys.

“Hi,” the guy said. He was tall and tanned, with broad shoulders and light blond hair that rendered his eyebrows and eyelashes practically invisible. There was something Viking like about him, and as he looked up at the visitor, he didn't exhibit any signs of curiosity, excitement, or irritation. He didn't look like a guy who got irritated about much.

“I'm here to visit your school,” he said. “My name's Patch. I'm from New York.”

“Where's that?” the guy said.

“It's, um—”

“I'm just kidding, I know where it is. New Yorkers are sort of like Deep Springers, actually. We all think we live in the center of the universe.”

Patch nodded. “I'll buy that. Man, it smells good here.”

“Yeah, takes the new guys a while to get used to it.” Patch turned to survey the ranch. There were a few, faint stars in the patch of lavender sky at the top of the mountains. “A lot of activity for such an early hour.”

“It ain't easy, going to Deep Springs.”

“Doesn't seem like a regular college at all.”

“But you come to love it. Me, I'm dairy boy this semester, so I have to be at work with the cows by six. But last night I was up all night reading Heidegger, so I haven't slept much.” The guy plucked the banjo for emphasis. “Just waiting on breakfast right now. Mario's preparing the fixings. Can you smell it?”

“Not really,” Patch admitted. “Mostly it's just alfalfa and mud that I smell right now. But it's all new to me, and I haven't slept much, either. What did you say your name was?”

“Recently, people have been calling me Dairy Boy. I have a real name, too, but for now you can just call me Dairy Boy. I don't really want a name to come between me and my identity as a worker.”

“Okay,” Patch said. It was weird how little this guy seemed to care about talking to him, although after all the unwanted attention he'd been getting in New York, he couldn't say he minded. “Hey, I'm looking for the admissions office. Is it in here?”

“There's no admissions office as such,” Dairy Boy
said. “But most of the administrative stuff gets done in there, yeah.”

“Thanks,” Patch said.

“Hey man, you seem pretty far from home.”

“True enough.”

“Maybe you should come with us on our midnight hike tonight.”

“Okay, I could do that.”

“We'll go up into the foothills and build a fire. I'm going to bring my banjo. Maybe we can talk about what kind of home you're looking for.”

As Patch headed into the building, he considered calling Greta. But deep down he knew that he still hurt too much to do that.

It started innocently enough. At lunch on Thursday, I met up with Arno and we got hotdogs and walked down Fifth Avenue.

“Where've you been, man?” I asked.

“I don't know. Around, I guess.”

“Seems like everybody's been doing their own thing since we went to Vassar.”

“Yeah, I guess that's true. Maybe we should all get together tonight?”

“Okay,” I said. It was a nice gesture, Arno arranging the group hang and everything, but I was feeling too stressed about my stalling care campaign to really feel psyched about going out.

“I'm supposed to have dinner with that girl Gabrielle, the one we met Monday night, so it will have to be after that.”

“Oh. Are you still in love with her?” I asked.

“I think the feeling might be fading. We're not
doing anything special, anyway, just dinner at Republic.” Arno balled up the wax paper from his hot dog and threw it in a garbage can. “I guess it's time to go back, huh?”

“You go,” I said.

“See you tonight?”

“Yeah.”

I watched Arno walk back in the direction of Gissing, and then I continued down Fifth Avenue. I looked around me, but none of the people milling in the streets were familiar, so I cut over to Madison.

I walked by the Ralph Lauren store and looked in the windows for a moment. The mannequins were all wearing gorgeous, summery boating wear. Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore. I went in. And I shopped. And when I was done with Ralph Lauren, I went to Lacoste, and then Thomas Pink. God help me, I went to Barneys.

A few hours later, I emerged from Barneys feeling foggy and low. It felt like I'd really done lasting damage in the quest to recreate myself. I swung my shopping bags in irritation as I walked back up Fifth, dwarfed by all those consumerist havens.

“Save the penguins?” A timid voice said.

I looked, through bleary eyes. A slender guy in a
yellow T-shirt was standing in front of me with a clipboard. “Excuse me?”

“There are nineteen species of penguins in the world, and eleven of them are in danger of becoming extinct. Would you like to help save the penguins?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Yes. That sounds like an important cause. A cause I could care about. Care about
tremendously
. What can I do?”

“Well, I work for Greenpeace, and I'm trying to collect signatures for this petition. We're trying to legislate various protections for Alaskan penguins. The way it works is—”

“I'll sign,” I said quickly. “I'll sign twice. Once for me and once for a friend.”

“Once is good,” the guy said, handing me the clipboard. I signed, and handed it back to him. “Thanks.”

“Thank
you
,” I said. We both stood there awkwardly, and when I realized that I was the one who was supposed to move first I waved and walked uptown through the crowd. There, I thought. I did a good deed, and I didn't even get my hands dirty.

I pushed through the crowd, figuring I could at least make my last class. There were a lot of tourists on the street, though, not moving and staring up at the building façades or whatever.
Suddenly I pushed into a short woman in a yellow T-shirt.

“Sorry, sorry,” I said.

“That's okay,” she said. “Care to save the penguins today?”

I paused for a moment. The woman had thick black bangs and a prominent chest that I'd run right into, and her voice was definitely not timid. “Yes,” I said. “Yes I would care to save the penguins.” I figured I'd sign Patch's name.

“You're one of the good ones, sir. We're trying to legislate protections for Alaskan penguins—there are a variety of species of penguin and many of them are endangered.”