The Year of the Great Seventh (31 page)

“Hi, Joe.” Paul walked over to the desk as he checked his mail.

“Can I help you?” The man didn’t seem too pleased to see Paul.

“I have a guest. Sophie Bennett.” Paul moved his gaze from the mail to me for a split second.

The man ran his finger down a piece of paper that seemed to be a roster. “I don’t think so. You already used this month’s guest pass.”

“Oh! This isn’t a personal visit. I’m doing a prospective student tour.” Paul grabbed the guest pass from my hand and showed it to the man behind the desk.

The man sighed, frustrated, and grabbing a piece of paper, he instructed without making eye contact, “Please write your name and the time here.”

I did as the man requested and then he handed me what seemed to be another pass. Paul shoved all his unopened mail into a trash bin before we caught the elevator.

“It’s all junk mail,” Paul explained.

Even though he was probably nineteen or twenty, he seemed to have the situation totally under control. He appeared to be much more mature than most people his age. There was something appealing about his self-confidence. Or maybe my opinion was biased by his looks. To make it even harder, he seemed extremely athletic.

Paul showed me around the dorm’s cafeteria, his floor, and all the common areas. He explained that when you sign up for the dorms, they ask you to describe yourself as they try to fill each floor with the same type of people. He recommended I say I’m quiet and like to study after class. Paul said the party floors were unbearable, as you were never able to sleep or study. He suggested applying for a quiet floor because you could still access the party floors. That way when you felt like a quiet night, you could go back to your room and leave the noise behind.

“Okay, this is where the unofficial tour starts,” Paul said as he got in the elevator and pressed the basement button. “Don’t worry. I’m not planning to kidnap you.” He noticed my surprised look.

My face turned scarlet. I couldn’t hide that I was still a high school student. I couldn’t deny that I’d freaked out for a split second when he pressed the basement button.

Since I was kid, I had this thing with basements. I was absolutely terrified of them. I guess it was another media stereotype. In movies, the murderer always hid in the basement, and every time I had to go down there, I started thinking there was someone in there about to attack me.

When I was little, I always started asking for my birthday present a few days before my actual birthday. One year, the night before my birthday, Mom told me that my present was hidden in the basement. She explained exactly where it was and told me if I got over my phobia, I could go to the basement and have it early. All my eagerness disappeared at once. I found a million and one reasons why I should wait to get my birthday present on the real day. Thankfully, with the passing of the years, I’d managed to almost get over my fear.

The basement was dimly lit and had low ceilings like any other basement. There were boxes filled with papers everywhere. We walked down a hallway lined with shelves, which were filled with folders and papers. At the end of the room, there were two big laundry trolleys with white towels on them. Green emergency exit lights illuminated a passage between the shelves.

To my surprise, it didn’t seem as scary as I expected. Or maybe it was Paul’s attitude. He moved along as if he knew the basement better than his own room.

“Did you hear Joe mentioning that we get one pass per month to have someone sleep over?”

I nodded as I followed behind him.

There was a metal door on the ceiling that seemed to lead out onto the street and a steep metal ladder under it. It looked exactly like the cellar door under the restaurant we’d seen earlier on the street.

“This is the garbage chute to the street. I have a key, and we get people in and out of the dorms through here.”

My mouth was wide open as I gazed up to the gate in the ceiling. I wondered why the guy at reception didn’t seem to have much sympathy for Paul. He seemed to know how to bypass any dorm rule.

Paul was giving me what you could call a true NYU experience. I could imagine my life here, enjoying the city, the lectures, and my newfound friends.

What was I doing? The future I just pictured didn’t include Nate at all. He was everything to me. I couldn’t allow myself to do that ever again. I couldn’t let anything or anyone make me forget about him. If there was a future, it was only with Nate.

Panic was taking hold of me, and not because we were in a basement. I had to get out of here as soon as possible. I had to meet Professor Silverman at 3:00 p.m. I couldn’t be late. We needed to see those crabs today.

“Paul, I really appreciate you showing me around, but I really have to go.”

Paul turned around, confused, as if he didn’t understand why I was in such a hurry all of a sudden. “Let me show you one last thing. I’ll be quick. It’ll have been a privilege to have been there. We don’t normally allow freshmen.”

How did he do it? I suddenly felt the urge to know what he was talking about. There was something about his childish smile and his messy look that seemed to take hold of me.

“Okay, but then I have to go.” I couldn’t believe I’d given in so easily. I was going to be late for my meeting with Professor Silverman. What was I thinking?

Paul continued down through the basement and after opening another door, we crossed what seemed like a food preparation area. There were sinks and refrigerators on the side and two stainless-steel counters in the middle. I couldn’t contain my imagination. For a moment, I thought this looked just like a torture chamber with the counters and the drains on the floor.

I had to stop scaring myself. This was obviously the cafeteria preparation room, as the cafeteria was right above it. At the end of the room next to one of the refrigerators, there was another door. Paul came to a halt in front of it.

“Are you ready?” He rested his hand on the door handle as he looked back at me.

“Come on! I’m going to be late for my meeting.”

He could tell that he had some power over me. Here I was standing in front of a black door when I really needed to get going. Paul pushed the door open and a small room with three ragged sofas and black walls appeared behind it.

“What are you guys doing here?” Paul burst into a laugh.

There was a thick cloud of smoke in the room. Two guys were sitting on a sofa, barefoot. One of them was wearing a pair of boxers, an NYU T-shirt, and a pair of sunglasses. The other one was wearing striped pajama pants and a tank top. There was someone else sleeping on another sofa at the back. I thought it was a girl, but I wasn’t completely sure. A pillow was covering her face and her feet were dangling over the armrest.

The two guys seemed confused.

“It’s 2:30 p.m.,” Paul said with incredulity. He waved his hand in the air as if to move away the thick cloud of smoke.

“Are you still here from last night?” Paul asked, shocked.

There were empty beer bottles covering the floor and two ashtrays filled with cigarette butts. A small, white refrigerator hummed at the back of the room.

“What are you talking about? You just left. It’s still dark.” The guy in the tank top pointed at the black walls.

“I left at 2:30 a.m. Twelve hours ago!” Paul said as we stood by the door.

I squinted, as the smoke was getting in my eyes. I didn’t know how they could breathe in here. The smoke was so thick I could barely make out their faces. They must’ve been smoking all night even though there were no windows to let the smoke out.

I realized that Paul’s puffy eyes were not from lack of sleep or studying all night. From what they were saying, it was due to a long night of hard partying.

“Whatever!” the guy in his boxers said.

“Why is he sleeping there?” Paul pointed at the person on the sofa at the back of the room.

It wasn’t a girl. His legs were so skinny I’d pegged him for a girl.

“His roommate needed the room to study with a friend.” The guy in boxers winked at Paul.

These guys were funny. This situation seemed straight out of an
American Pie
movie.

“Who are you?” The guy in the tank top pointed at me.

Before I could reply, Paul came to my defense. “She’s Sophie Bennett.”

“I haven’t seen you around before.” The guy in the boxers didn’t seem prepared to let go.

“I… I don’t study here yet,” I said, biting my bottom lip and looking down at my feet. I could imagine a big neon light flashing on my forehead: “High School Student.”

I wasn’t planning to tell them, never mind that I was still a junior.

“She’s from one of those tours you do to pick up chicks, isn’t she?” One of the guys laughed.

I could feel the blood rushing to my face. Was he serious? Did Paul do this tour to meet girls? It didn’t really suit him. I thought I was good at spotting guys with bad intentions, but Paul totally tricked me.

“We were leaving anyway.” Paul stepped out of the room, seemingly annoyed about that comment. I followed, and when he was about to close the door, someone shouted, “Tell her about tonight’s concert! She seems cool!”

Paul closed the door, and running his fingers through his messy blond hair, he quickly apologized. “I didn’t know they were still there. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have taken you there.”

I wasn’t really listening to Paul. The words were just bubbling in the back of my mind. Did someone in college just refer to me as cool? That was probably the first time in my life, and it had been by a college student. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was utterly flattered.

“I don’t… I don’t do these tours to pick up girls,” Paul stuttered. He was blushing around the ears. I couldn’t believe he cared what I thought.

“I don’t have a rich dad to pay for my tuition, unlike those two. I do these tours to get some pocket money. I’m here on a tennis scholarship.”

Paul pressed the elevator button as he fidgeted on his feet.

“Don’t worry. I don’t think anyone could ever take those two too seriously.”

A hint of a smile appeared in Paul’s face. He crossed his arms on his chest and scrutinized me from head to toe. As he looked directly at me and in the confined space of the elevator, I didn’t know where to look.

“You have a tennis scholarship? That’s quite impressive,” I managed to say.

Like me one day, Paul wasn’t here because his rich parents were paying for it. He’d worked hard to get a scholarship.

“I’m in the US top five hundred, but I need to work harder. I want to make it to professional tennis.”

That explained why Paul appeared so athletic. Probably, he trained six or seven hours a day. It made me wonder how he managed to have time to study and party while training and playing matches. The sports-based scholarships were given based on your athletic ability, but you still had to maintain a B average in your academic curriculum.

I’d taken some tennis lessons in junior high, but I wasn’t good at it. For a while I tried a few different sports to see if I was good at any, as sports scholarships could be really generous. They could cover your full tuition and on top of that, you got a monthly allowance. But like every member of my family, I was okay at most sports, but didn’t excel at any.

I don’t know why, but I didn’t mention I was after a scholarship too—in my case, academic. I wondered why I reacted like that. It was as if I were embarrassed that I couldn’t afford college on my own. Or maybe, I was afraid I wasn’t going to get in. Whatever it was, I blocked the words from coming out.

Paul pressed the elevator button repeatedly as if by doing so it was going to arrive faster.

“We’re going to this concert in a club in Chinatown tonight. Do you have plans? You can join if you want.”

Oh my God! This was too much for one day. Was I hallucinating or was a NYU sophomore asking me out? And not just any college student, one who was on the tennis team. I suddenly wished Emma and Megan were around. We would’ve psychoanalyzed this moment from every angle: why we thought he asked, what we thought his true intentions were, and whether we thought he was into me.

“I can’t,” I said cuttingly while zipping up my coat.

I had to focus. Nate was going to be waiting for me after the meeting with Professor Silverman. I couldn’t let my mind play tricks on me. He probably just asked me to the concert because his friend suggested it.

“If it’s because you’re underage, we know the bouncer. It won’t be a problem,” Paul insisted.

I had to think of a non-rude way of declining his invitation. I liked him and I didn’t want to hurt him.

“I’m here with someone else,” I apologized.

“Bring her, then,” he quickly answered.

That was an amazing comeback. However, Paul assumed I was here with a girlfriend, and I wasn’t planning to declare the contrary. Paul had to give me a break. I was trying really hard not to be rude. He should’ve known by now that I was trying to decline his invitation, but he wasn’t making it any easier.

As the elevator opened, he held it so I could get in. “I’ll take you to the lobby.”

He brought his cell phone from his jeans pocket. “Let’s do something. Give me your phone number. You don’t have to decide now. I’ll text you the time and address of the place, and you think about it.” Paul smiled, showing me he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

After we exchanged phone numbers, Paul insisted that if I needed any help with the application or anything else, I should definitely contact him.

He walked me to the street, and catching me unprepared, he gave me a hug and a pat on the back, Brooklyn-style.

“Take care, Soph!” He waited outside the dorm’s main entrance, staring at me as I walked away.

I couldn’t ignore the connection I felt with Paul. I felt happy to know, unlike what I often thought, there was a place in the world where I could fit in. I did want to see Paul again. A part of me wished I could go to that concert tonight. A part of me also wished that Nate had never come into my life and that my main worry was only boys and parties instead of deciphering prophecies and paranormal activity.