by Bert Murray
Davanna Books
New York, NY
Copyright © 2010 Bert Murray
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1439275300
ISBN-13: 9781439275306
E-Book ISBN: 978-1-61789-699-6
LCCN: 2011900360
Cover design by Carl Graves
For Carmen Martín Gaite
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT PAGE
PART ONE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
PART TWO
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
PART THREE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20 EPILOGUE
About the Author
PART ONE
1.
I PULLED MY copy of Wuthering Heights out of my backpack.
“So, what’s up with you and that hot blond chick you met at the Campus Pub?” Karl whispered as he leaned into me. He wore a Boston Red Sox cap backward and tinted-black sunglasses. He was my best friend at Elerby and the backup quarterback for the football team. His dimples seemed to attract every good-looking girl on campus. His piercing blue eyes and wavy blond hair didn’t hurt either.
“She’s perfect.”
“Perfect?”
“Yes.”
“So are you two, like, dating?”
“Yeah, I guess you can call it that. She told me I look like Jim Morrison.”
Karl took off his sunglasses and put them on his desk. “Really? Did she say that before or after she was drunk?”
“What’s the difference?”
“Look, Colin, why tie yourself down so soon? School just started. There are tons of new freshmen you haven’t met. Like last night, I met the hottest chick from New Hampshire—”
“First of all her name is Jasmine and she’s not just some chick. She’s exactly what I’ve been looking for.” I was sure even Karl, with all his girls, had never dated anyone as beautiful or as fascinating as Jasmine. There wasn’t a girl on campus who could compare to her.
“But you don’t really know her yet. What’s it been, three days?” Karl opened his notebook.
“Trust me, I know her much better than you’d think.”
“What’s that supposed to … Wait, no way! You guys did it already? Damn, either Jasmine really does think you look like Morrison or she was drunker than I thought. I’m betting on the latter.”
“It’s none of your business. Now shut up so I can hear the lecture.”
Mr. Parker scribbled Heathcliff’s and Catherine’s names on the humongous blackboard. He stood in front of the podium in the Burnett Hall Auditorium and spoke in a baritone voice. “Welcome to British Literature. I hope all of you have picked up the novel at the Campus Store already, but if you haven’t, please do so by our next class.”
Karl kept pressing. “Come on! I’m your best bud, which means you’re required to give me all the juicy details. Like, what does she look like naked? On a scale of 1 to 10, what would she be?”
“An 11.” I stared ahead at Mr. Parker, hoping Karl would get the hint that I didn’t want to discuss Jasmine any further.
I slouched in my chair and opened my notebook. It was the start of my sophomore year at Elerby University, in upstate New York, and the first week of September 1985. I started taking notes on the doomed love of Heathcliff and Catherine. Karl doodled in his notebook. He tapped my arm and held up the paper for me to see. I smiled. There was Professor Parker—short, balding, wearing thick black glasses, a rumpled shirt and a tie that was too long.
“I’ve never just known,” Karl whispered as he made air quotes.
I put my pen down and sighed in frustration. There was no way I was going to hear the lecture. And I knew when we were assigned our first paper that Karl would want me to help him write his, too.
“Known what?” I asked.
“That a girl seemed like the one.”
“Haven’t you ever gotten depressed over someone who left you?”
Karl whispered. “Well, I was really bummed when I lost Maggie.”
“There you go. You’re human. Now shut up so I can take some notes. You’ll be happy I did when you want help with your assignments.”
“I still miss that damn pooch,” he said flatly.
I stared at Karl in disbelief. “Wait a sec. Maggie was a dog?”
“Yeah, a gorgeous black lab. And a total chick magnet. I got so much play whenever I took her to the dog park.” Karl took his baseball cap off and scratched his head.
“Jesus, Karl. You really should try falling in love with a girl sometime.” He always had a pretty girl, but he never stayed with anyone for long.
He smirked. “Who needs love? All I want is a good hookup with no strings attached. Besides, a lot of good love did for Heathcliff.”
“You actually did the reading?”
He tapped the unopened copy of Wuthering Heights that sat next to his loose-leaf binder. “No, I rented the movie.”
“Even you have to admit it’s a great love story.” I remembered that on Milk and Honey Yoko compared herself and John to Heathcliff and Cathy. What was the name of that song? I had heard it a hundred times. You’re the One. Yeah, it was You’re the One. I had to play it for Jasmine.
“Don’t be a sucker, buddy.” Karl poked his elbow into my arm. “Heathcliff ended up crazy. All because of some girl. That’s not for me. Anyway, I know what this whole thing with Jasmine is about. You’re just desperate to have a girlfriend. That’s all.”
I felt a sharp twinge of annoyance. That often happened when I was with Karl. He was a great friend to have, but he was too damn cocky. He thought he knew everything. Especially everything about me. He didn’t. “What’s wrong with my wanting to have a girlfriend?”
Karl grimaced. “Nothing. But you’re better off not chasing after things too hard.”
He just didn’t get it. I didn’t feel desperate at all. Just lucky.
&nb
sp; Things always seemed to work out for Karl. To be honest, I was jealous. It was hard not to be. I don’t think he knew the meaning of the word rejection, and girls were putty in his hands. My record wasn’t nearly as impressive. But now there was Jasmine.
Karl’s family was wealthy and lived in Boston. He had four older sisters. All of them were married already. He’d gone to Deerfield Academy like his father and grandfather. If he’d studied harder in high school, he would have gotten into Harvard, but he’d been too busy having fun. Every summer Karl and his parents would go to their house on Martha’s Vineyard, where he spent his time working on his tan and every eligible girl on the island.
My father really liked Karl. After he met him the first time he said, “Now that’s a man.” I often wondered what he meant. But Dad wouldn’t have approved if he knew Karl had taught me how to cut to the front of the registration line during freshman year.
2.
I MET JASMINE a week before classes started. It was Saturday night at the Campus Pub and I put a quarter in the jukebox and flipped through the music choices. I found the Beatles’ Hey Jude, punched in 1-4-4 and hit “play.”
As soon as the song began, a girl I had never seen before whispered to me, “Are you trying to kill the mood?” She was sitting to my left on a bar stool with her long legs crossed.
High cheekbones, long blond hair. Her white peasant top revealed full breasts and bronzed skin. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was so damn hot.
“Do you have something better in mind?” I asked over the music.
“As a matter of fact, I do.” She hopped off the bar stool. Her skirt swished as she walked toward me. She dropped a hemp bag next to the jukebox and began to flip through the selections.
“There. Now this is what I’m talking about. Do you have a quarter?” she asked.
“Sure. But what song are you going to play?”
“You don’t trust my taste? I was going to play Light My Fire.”
Her pouty lips made her seem innocent and sexy all at once.
“So, you’re a Jim Morrison fan?” I asked, handing her a quarter.
“Yeah, I love him to the max. Hey, anyone ever told you that you kinda look like Morrison?”
“I do?”
“Totally,” she said, selecting her song.
I knew that was my opening. “The Doors had great lyrics.”
“And I love his voice.”
I realized that I was drumming my fingers on the jukebox’s glass. I quickly pulled my hand away. I didn’t want her to see how excited I was.
“What I love to do is have a really mellow night in my dorm room, light candles, smoke weed and listen to The Crystal Ship. Are you into meditation?”
She was soulful. It was a good sign. “No. But I always wanted to try it. What’s it like?”
“Mind-blowing. You can escape to a totally different place if you do it right. It’s all about your breathing.” She licked the top of her lips. “I got into meditation when I started doing yoga. I got totally hooked. You should try it.”
I’d try anything with her. “What’s your name?”
“Jasmine.” Her voice was hypnotic, drawing me in. “And yours?”
“Colin. Isn’t jasmine a kind of tea?” As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew it was a stupid question. I was afraid I’d blown it.
But she smiled again. “Actually, it’s a flowering shrub. I’m from California. Anything goes.”
Good. I was still in the game. But I had to be more suave. Like Karl or Sean Connery in a Bond movie. Relax, I told myself. Think like Karl. Picking up girls is like fishing, he said. Wait while they bite hard on the bait. You can’t rush to reel them in. “So, where are you from in California?”
“Laguna Beach. It’s a small beach town south of L.A.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of it.”
“Used to be full of hippies. No more. It’s suburban now.”
I was running out of things to say. “Must be great to have warm weather all year.
“Yeah, but I needed a change. I’m, like, so done with Laguna. I decided to come to the East Coast.”
Hey Jude ended and the first bars of Light My Fire poured out of the jukebox.
“Finally!” Jasmine swayed her head to the music and moved closer to me. Her hair brushed my arm. “So you didn’t say where you’re from.”
“Manhattan.”
“I love New York City.” Jasmine gathered her long hair into a ponytail and twisted it tightly. She held the hair in place with one hand as she bent over and pulled a black metal Chinese chopstick out of her bag with the other. She stuck it through the twisted hair and it stayed.
“You travel a lot?”
“Backpacked Costa Rica, hiked Thailand, toured Italy. You name the place.” She looked at me, cocking her head slightly. “By the way, what dorm are you in?”
“Livingston.”
“Me, too. Maybe I’ll have the chance to improve your taste in music this semester.” She winked and walked away.
3.
WHEN I MADE it back to the dorm that night I found that the bathrooms on my floor were shut for repairs, so I went down to the basement. Sitting at the bottom of the stairs, I saw a strange-looking guy wearing a Pink Floyd T-shirt, a gold chain around his neck and a red hunting hat, just like the one Holden Caulfield wore in The Catcher In The Rye. He was smoking a joint.
I stepped over him. “Hey, what’s up?”
He stared up at me. “Nothing. I’m just vegging out.”
He didn’t smell good. His limp red hair was slicked back, probably with grease, and his small brown eyes looked like a ferret’s. His unshaven face was covered with short, curled red hairs. His hands were small, and he had pint-size sneakers, about the same size as the ones I wore in seventh grade.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Chester.”
“I’m Colin. Nice to meet you, Chester.”
I reached out to shake his hand, but he ignored me and looked the other way. A skull and bones were tattooed on his left forearm. Chester didn’t look like he belonged at Elerby.
“Your face is familiar. Haven’t I seen you before? Maybe at the Campus Pub?”
“The Campus Pub? No way. I’d rather go to a cremation.” He stared at the ceiling. “I’m out of time. I’ve expired.” Chester began to roll the joint nervously back and forth between his pointer finger and thumb. “Target practice is over. I missed the clay pigeons.” He took another drag on the joint.
I stared at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I can’t put the pieces back together again. I’m Humpty-Dumpy.”
Intelligent but wacky. He had pimples and acne scars on his left cheek. I wondered what his problem was.
“What are you saying? Are you depressed? Cause that’s something I can understand.” I knew depression. After one of my really bad fights with Dad in high school, I used to listen to the Beatles’ I’m Down until I was blue in the face.
“I’m on the outside. The outside of it all.”
“Do you ever go to anything around campus? A football game or a frat party?” I asked.
“Me? Go to a frat party? You can’t be serious.”
“Why not?”
“I’d stick out.” Chester rolled the joint between his pointer finger and thumb again.
“Nah, you wouldn’t. You should see some of the people who show up at these things.”
“I wish I had a VCR.”
What a flake! Oddball. He was from another planet. But he intrigued me. “What would you do with a VCR?”
“I’d rent The Birds.” Chester scratched his red hair under the hunting hat. He probably had dandruff. It looked like he hadn’t showered in days.
“You’re into Hitchcock, huh?” I asked.
“Yeah, everyone gets clawed to death.”
“You’re a real happy camper.”
Chester was still avoiding eye contact. “I ran away from home when I was 14
.”
“Where’d you go?”
“The Humane Society. I slept next to a pit bull. I kept both my hands on my crotch.” He continued taking small drags on his joint.
“Your problem is that you’re a ‘glass half empty’ type of guy.”
“Maybe the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. I took a course in positive thinking once, at the YMCA.” He started to bite on a fingernail.
I was getting tired of standing there. And I had to take a piss. But I felt sorry for him. “How’d the class go?”
“Very insulting. The teacher kicked me out.”
“Why?”
“I was depressing the other students.”
“What you need is a little fun.”
“How can you have fun at Elerby? There’s way too much work.”
“You have to find the right courses. I love my classes this semester. Especially musical theater. We even got to act out scenes from Hair.”
I don’t know why Chester looked totally surprised.
“Wait a second. You can sing? You don’t look like one of those wacko theater nuts.”
I laughed. “I like singing. Listen, it was good to meet you, but I really have to go to the bathroom.”
“No problem.” Chester gestured toward the bathroom door. “By the way, there hasn’t been any toilet paper for three days.”
I couldn’t imagine ever feeling as low as Chester. The poor guy was really messed up. I walked into the bathroom and pissed in the urinal.
4.
THE NEXT DAY I was sitting in Livingston’s TV lounge half-watching Three’s Company. All morning I had been singing some lines from Strawberry Fields Forever to myself.
I tried to sing the lines the way John Lennon does. I was giving it another try when I turned my head and saw Jasmine walking down the hall. She came into the lounge and sat next to me on the burgundy sofa.
Jasmine was intoxicating. Her hair smelled faintly of wildflowers. I was thinking about what I should say, but she broke the silence.
“I was hoping to run into you. I enjoyed our conversation last night.”
“Me, too.”
“You look good in white.” Jasmine fingered the sleeve of my T-shirt. “Everyone is so into pastels now, but I think white is sexier.”
