Cum Laude

by Cecily von Ziegesar

  Afterward, they fell asleep in each other’s arms. They were sleeping still when Nick crept in around one in the morning, eyes strained from reading up on yurts in the library, grateful for the cozy warmth of his sleeping bag.

  Cut to October. The air was nippy and the foliage was on fire. Dexter College had never looked finer, a shoo-in for every prettiest college campus award in the country. So far no one had fallen from an upstairs window after taking too much acid, or driven into a tree. No professor had molested a student. The president of the college hadn’t had a stroke, or been arrested for being drunk and disorderly at a saloon downtown. Not a blade of grass was out of place. The errant black Mercedes with Connecticut plates did occasionally disappear from the parking lot, but it was always returned, albeit with an empty gas tank.

  Most nights, Shipley slept in Tom and Nick’s room. She even kept a few outfits in Tom’s closet to avoid the morning Walk of Shame back to her dorm. There was nothing shameful about her and Tom. By now they were practically married.

  Nick was well on his way to finishing his yurt. He’d researched the construction carefully. Hundreds of pamphlets on yurt-building had been published on the World Wide Web, and scrolling through them had actually been fun. One yurt builder extolled the virtues of yurt dwelling in such a seductive way that Nick was sure he was onto something:

  “On clear nights you can lie inside the yurt and see the stars through the open crown. In poor weather there is plenty of room for you and your friends to sit comfortably around a warm stove, listening to the storm rage. From outside, the yurt radiates a welcoming glow….”

  It didn’t have to be big. Just big enough to lie down in and entertain a visitor or two. And the smaller it was, the easier it would be to erect. Nick was no carpenter. The most complex structure he’d ever put together was a balsa wood airplane.

  At last he discovered an outfitter in Colorado who sold yurt kits with the timber cut to size, the screw holes already drilled, and a weighted wax canvas cover and flap door that Velcroed on and off. The company claimed it would only take six hours to put it together. Nick ordered the fourteen-footer—the smallest and most inexpensive kit they offered. He used his mom’s credit card number, promising to pay her back with the earnings from his AV job. Three days later, the giant box arrived via Federal Express.

  He’d borrowed a stepladder and tools from the guys at Buildings and Grounds, found the perfect building site bordering the woods behind Root, and followed the kit’s simple instructions. Six days later, it was still a wobbly work in progress and his hands were blistered from hammering, but he was determined to get it done. Once it was complete, he could sleep there instead of staying up late reading in the library or watching TV in the common room until Shipley and Tom had finished fooling around and gone to sleep.

  This was just such a night. From outside the door, Nick could hear Steve Miller Band’s “Fly Like an Eagle” playing on repeat, a good sign that Tom and Shipley were still naked. Nick wandered down the hall to Root’s ample kitchen, where Grover, Liam, and Wills, the juniors who made up the Grannies, were making curry. Unlike the residents in Dexter’s other dorms, Root residents could opt out of the meal plan and cook for themselves. This was particularly attractive to students with special diets, like the Grannies, who were vegan.

  “All right, man?” Wills greeted Nick.

  Nick had met the Grannies in person a few weeks before when he’d missed breakfast in the dining hall and wound up in Root’s kitchen, foraging for cereal. Most of the food in the kitchen belonged to the Grannies, and they were generous with it. They were also generous with their pot. They’d already given him a Ziploc bag full of it for $20, way less than it cost in the city. Nick had only just finished smoking a joint out behind his unfinished yurt. Now he was starving.

  “Brewtarski?” Wills opened the fridge, pulled out a can of Busch, and handed it to Nick. Tonight Wills wore a red tiered skirt with black cats batiked all over it and a red and black plaid wool shirt. His platinum blond hair was plaited into messy half cornrows, half dreadlocks that pattered against his shoulders as he stirred the enormous pot of curry simmering on the electric stove.

  Nick cracked open the beer and pointed at the curry. “Hey, you guys mind if I have some of that?”

  Wills grimaced. His bloodshot eyes rolled around dramatically. “Aw, man, we just chucked in a gigantic eggplant. Stuff’s raw. Plus, we need more tasty vegetable ingredients. Wanna come divin’ with us?”

  “Diving?” Nick wasn’t sure he’d heard right. The nights were already cold, and the coast was at least an hour away.

  Grover hitched up his blue-and-white-striped OshKosh B’Gosh train conductor overalls and stuck a wad of chewing tobacco in his bearded cheek. Nick had heard that Grover was from Bethesda, Maryland, an affluent suburb of Washington, DC, but he dressed like someone from the Deep South at the time of the Great Depression.

  “Dumpster diving,” Grover explained. “We hit the Dumpsters out behind the Shop ’n Save. Stuff they throw away you wouldn’t believe. Last week I found a perfect pineapple. The best pineapple I ever tasted.” Grover ran his hand over his shaved head. Most of the time he wore a red bandanna tied like Aunt Jemima’s, but tonight he was going commando. “Come with us. You’ll see. Best food you’ve ever had, completely free. And the store doesn’t care cuz they’re throwing it out anyway.”

  Nick frowned. He liked the idea of free food, but it seemed like more trouble than it was worth. Was there some profound philosophical point being made by rooting around in Dumpsters for your food? After all, the tuition at Dexter was pretty high. The Grannies could probably afford groceries. But it seemed like something Laird Castle would have done.

  “Let’s hit it!” Liam jangled his car keys. His orange and gray wool flap hat was pulled down so far that his murky hazel eyes were almost completely obscured. Nick flipped up the flaps on his own hat in an effort to distinguish himself.

  Moments later he sat in the back of Liam’s red Saab, listening to Phish sing “Proud Mary.” The road into town was dark and the air was chilly. Nick thought he might have even seen a stray snowflake.

  He wondered if Shipley and Tom had finished having sex. The sight of her in Tom’s bed depressed him. He didn’t like Tom to begin with, and the fact that Shipley had chosen Tom over him or even that redheaded local boy made him question her judgment. Tom ate meat three times a day, he was totally unspiritual, he snored and farted loudly in his sleep, he’d signed up for the expensive laundry service instead of washing his own socks and underwear in the laundry room down the hall, and he wanted to major in Economics with only a concentration in Studio Art. Tom also refused to address Nick directly except to say, “See you later, man.” Tom was a dick.

  We are all one and connected, Nick reminded himself. I am you, you are me. Your good fortune is my good fortune. Your misfortune is my misfortune. If Tom is a dick, then I am a dick. Hopefully Tom’s redeeming qualities would reveal themselves in time.

  Shop ’n Save bore a giant neon orange sign and seemed to be the only place open in town. Even so, the parking lot was nearly empty.

  “Shhh,” Wills whispered as they clambered out of the car. “Be werry, werry quiet.”

  “Hey dude, you knit?” Liam whispered, tweaking Nick’s hat as they approached the Dumpster.

  “Nah,” Nick responded. It occurred to him that the Grannies might be a harmless-looking Grateful Dead cover band by day and torturous psycho killers by night. Had they brought him here to stuff his mouth full of brown bananas so he couldn’t scream while they took turns scalping him and pulling out his toenails? He pulled the flaps of his hat down over his ears again, steeling himself.

  The Dumpster was gigantic and black and stank of rotting cabbages. The Grannies were experts. They had their method down pat. First Grover got down on his hands and knees. Then Liam climbed onto Grover’s back and got down on his hands and knees. Then Wills climbed aboard and did the same, his red and black skirt d
raping elegantly over Liam’s shoulders.

  “Come on,” Wills called to Nick. “You go first. You gotta experience a virgin dive.”

  Nick climbed the human ladder, careful to distribute his weight evenly. When he was up on Wills’s back, he peered into the blackness of the Dumpster.

  “Go on, get in there,” Liam urged.

  The sickly sweet smell of rotten fruit was so powerful Nick could hardly breathe. He closed his eyes and, using Will’s back as a springboard, somersaulted into the depths of the Dumpster.

  “Cannonball!” Grover shouted as Nick dropped down into the garbage.

  His back hit something hard and he rolled away from it, pain shooting down his spine to his coccyx. Before he could orient himself, a harsh light shone in his eyes. Fuck! Was Shop ’n Save Security after him already? Nick blinked, making out a pair of pale blue eyes behind the flashlight’s beam. The furry-faced creature brandishing the flashlight held up a heavy book with an illustration of an erupting volcano on its cover.

  “Hello,” Nick said cautiously. He sneezed. “Sorry to disturb you.”

  The blue eyes blinked and a voice mumbled something complicated about the survival of a unit of life.

  It was Sunday. Patrick had been reading his book inside the Dumpster for over an hour, waiting for the bakery staff to throw out all the out-of-date bread, a regular Sunday night Shop ’n Save ritual. French bread, Tuscan farm bread, kaiser rolls, and bagels. Sometimes there were muffins and donuts too. He’d fill the trunk of the Mercedes and live on the stuff all week. The last thing he wanted was to share his cache with a bunch of stoned Dexter idiots.

  Trembling, Nick took an unsteady step forward on the stinking heap of garbage. A grapefruit swelled and then gave way beneath the sole of his Birkenstock, bursting with the sweet, acrid odor of overripe citrus. He squinted into the harsh ring of light, trying to get a better look at the guy. Maybe he was just another Dumpster diver, who, without the comradeship of the Grannies, had gotten lost along the way.

  Nick took another wary step and sneezed again. “We’re just looking for some…tasty raw vegetable ingredients? For our curry?” he told the guy, feeling stupid.

  “Hey!” The flashlight swung toward him. “Get the hell away from me!” The stranger’s voice was throaty and vicious. “Leave me alone!”

  “Okay, okay. Sorry.” Sheepish and terrified, Nick backed away. “Guys, can you help me? I want to get out!” he called out to the Grannies. He didn’t care how many perfect pineapples he left behind. He jumped up and clawed helplessly at the Dumpster’s inner wall before toppling back inside it again.

  “Get anything good?” Wills asked, dangling his arms inside the Dumpster. He spotted the flashlight, still pointed at the back of Nick’s frightened head. “Holy shit! Come on, man.” Wills flapped his hands at Nick urgently. “What the hell? Who is that?”

  Nick grabbed his hands and Wills heaved him out of the Dumpster. The other two Grannies were still in their two-tiered Ringling Brothers formation, but the force of Will’s heaves and Nick’s extra weight sent them crashing.

  “Aw, ya broke it! You broke my neck!” Grover screamed, writhing around on the pavement. The other three boys crouched on the chilly asphalt, breathing hard, the orange Shop ’n Save sign glowing above their heads.

  Liam giggled. “Dude, you’re not dead, right? If your neck was broken you’d be way dead.”

  “Jesus,” Nick muttered, rubbing his sore hands together. “Hey, can we go now? There’s someone creepy in there.” He stood up and started for the car, wanting to run, but fearful of looking like a huge chicken.

  “Someone’s in there? Holy cow!” Grover exclaimed. He leapt to his feet and sprinted toward the car.

  “Damn, why didn’t you say something?” Liam chased after him.

  “Yeah,” Wills agreed, falling into step with Nick. “We can go diving another time. Maybe try a different Dumpster, like the one behind the natural food store down in Camden.”

  “Or maybe you should just go to the store and buy stuff like everyone else,” Nick snapped in annoyance. “A head of cauliflower costs what—a buck?”

  “Dude, that’s not the point,” Wills reminded him. He lowered his voice. “Hey, who do you think that was with the flashlight anyway?”

  Nick opened the door to the Saab and scooted into the backseat next to Grover. “I don’t know. Nobody, I guess.”

  Nick returned to the site of his yurt, leaving the Grannies to finish their curry without him. He would have invited them in, but the roof wasn’t covered and the Grannies were loud. He’d only managed to convince the Office of Student Housing and Campus Life and the Dean of Students Office to permit him to build the yurt by claiming it was for “spiritual purposes.” It was no party pad.

  The yurt was supposed to be built right on top of the ground, but he’d cheated and built a platform out of plywood and cinder blocks scavenged from a pile behind Buildings and Grounds, hoping to add some distance from the earth come spring when the mud thawed and the rains came. It was rumored that Dexter’s campus had been erected on top of an old turkey farm and in the March–April mud season, the whole place stank of turkey shit. Right now though, his yurt smelled of freshly cut wood.

  From his dorm room window the yurt looked like a tiny circus tent. It was a good eight feet high, and once he’d installed the waxed canvas cover, the crown of the roof could be rolled back to reveal the sky or to provide ventilation for a stove or fire. He had to be very careful with fire in the yurt. There was an entire booklet on it in the kit, covered in bold exclamation points and the word “WARNING” in red. Without proper ventilation, the whole thing would go up in a matter of minutes, since it was basically made out of twigs.

  Eliza was huddled on the rough plank floor, reading his book of daily zen meditations. She looked up. Nick’s headlamp shone from her forehead. “Do you really believe all this shit?” she demanded.

  Ever since Shipley had virtually moved into Tom’s room, Eliza had tried to enjoy her roomy single. Studying at the desk beneath the window, she would flick booger bombs onto Shipley’s unwrinkled Ralph Lauren sheets. What a shame to have such nice sheets and never sleep in them. Sometimes she fantasized that the bearded guy in the ripped parka would return and either befriend her or stab her in her sleep. Her own solitude had become oppressive, and he seemed like someone who was used to being on his own. Maybe he could give her a few pointers. To her surprise, college was even lonelier than high school. At least in high school she’d had her parents to blame for the lousy state of things. It seemed to her that at college you had to be in love not to be lonely. You had to have someone to hold hands with while walking to class and someone to eat with in the dining hall. You had to have someone to lie down with on the lawn and kiss, or someone to sleep with, packed like sardines in a narrow single bed. If you didn’t have someone, if you weren’t in love, you felt like an asshole.

  What Eliza and so many of her classmates were discovering was that living on a small college campus in the middle of the woods was like being trapped in a snow globe. The best way to interrupt the tedium of student life—the to-and-fro from classes and meals, the reading and studying, the occasional private talk with or great lecture by an inspiring professor, attending a semi-decent film or play, getting drunk or stoned on Saturday night and sleeping in on Sunday—was to fall in love and have as much sex as possible. Otherwise life could get pretty lonely, especially after winter set in.

  “It’s not really a matter of believing.” Nick sat down beside her and picked up the zen meditations book. “It’s like learning an instrument. I’m not very good at it yet, but if I practice these…these simple truths, they’ll eventually become part of my everyday existence, and I’ll achieve zen.”

  Eliza rolled her eyes. “Good luck with that.”

  Nick pulled his bag of pot and Zig-Zag rolling papers out of his pocket, sneezed five times in succession, and rolled himself another joint. He was still starving, but he’d
just have to make do with getting high. “So, what do you think?” He sneezed again and gestured at the yurt’s bent wood walls. “Like it?”

  Eliza lay on her back with her head in her hands and gazed up at the yurt’s half-finished roof. She flipped the hood up on her wool army jacket to keep the spiders out of her hair. “You need something to sit on, like a futon or at least some pillows. And it might be nice to have one of those little cooking stoves, and a cooler for food. I don’t know about you, but all this fresh air all the time has really fucked with my metabolism. I should just attach a bag of Cap’n Crunch to my gut and keep it pumping all day, like a reverse colostomy.”

  Nick licked the joint and tamped down the ends. “Soon as I get the roof done, I’ll bring my sleeping bag out here.” He lit one end of the joint and offered it to Eliza, but she waved it away.

  “Did I ever tell you about my toilet seat back home?” she asked when she realized the yurt did not have a bathroom. She didn’t wait for Nick to answer. Since Shipley and Tom had paired off and Nick had started building his yurt in earnest, their little orientation gang had entirely dispersed. Nick didn’t know any more about her than what he’d learned the first week of school.

  “My mom has a Disney fetish. Anytime they have a sale at Kmart or Penney’s or Sears, she’ll buy anything with a princess on it. Our whole house is like a Disney shrine. My toilet seat is yellow with light blue flowers on it, and when you put up the lid, it sings that song from Snow White, you know: ‘Whistle while you work!’

  “My parents have an office over the garage. They rent real estate in beautiful Erie, Pennsylvania, where no one in their right mind would want to live. When I was little, like, before I could go to school, they’d park me in front of a Disney movie and head out to the garage. When the movie ended I’d tap on the window and one of them would come back inside and flip me a Rice Krispie treat or a fruit roll-up and stick in another video. I didn’t fucking care. Kids get molested and abused at day care. I always was a little scared of that toilet seat though. Sometimes I’d pee in the bathtub just so I didn’t have to listen to it.”