The Latecomers Fan Club

by Diane V. Mulligan

  “No, don’t be ridiculous,” her father said, turning his gaze to his daughter. “Abby?”

  “She didn’t come home for a nice little visit. She came home to break her mother’s heart.”

  “Mom—”

  But her mother pushed her chair away from the table and was walking down the hall to her bedroom. Abby heard the door slam. Jeremy took a long drink and stayed where he was, spectating at the scene of his little sister’s downfall.

  “Is that boy going to marry you?” her father asked.

  “I don’t know,” Abby said.

  He nodded and took his napkin from his lap and placed it on the table. “I need to go see if your mother is all right.”

  When he was gone, Jeremy came back to the table. “Holy shit, Abby, I was just making a joke. I didn’t know.”

  “Not your fault. I was going to tell them. I was. Just, not right this minute.” Abby’s hands trembled as she took a sip of water.

  “Maybe you should have told them before you came. Gave them a chance to get used to it.”

  “Too late now.”

  Jeremy finished his beer and set the bottle down. “You want to take a walk?” he asked.

  As warm as the day had been, the evening was settling in now and there was a chill in the air. Abby let Jeremy set a slow pace as they walked along the street where they’d grown up and out of the development, which had been build in the 1980s, onto one of the old streets full of hundred-and-fifty-year-old Victorians. They picked their way along the uneven sidewalk, treacherously upheaved by the roots of the big maples that lined the street. They passed the haunts of their youth, homes where friends had lived, the ballpark, the brook where they used to catch frogs. Sooner than Abby felt ready, they were turning around, retracing their steps. She hoped that by the time they got back, her mother had calmed down a little. They could talk. It would be OK. She needed her mom, and her mom had never let her down before.

  “You remember that time in high school when I got arrested?” Jeremy asked.

  How could she forget? Arrested the night before the big football game for vandalizing the opposing team’s football stadium.

  “Mom didn’t talk to me, I mean not a single word, for two weeks.”

  Abby remembered that, too.

  “She did get over it, though. It took some time, but she got over it.”

  Abby nodded. But this wasn’t a juvenile screw up. This was life altering, for more than one person, too.

  Jeremy put an arm around her shoulder. “You want me to go beat Nathaniel up for you?”

  Abby smiled. “It’s a little late for that.”

  “Just to keep him in his place.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Abby said.

  They rounded the corner and came back up their parent’s block. Abby could see her parents sitting in the living room. Light from the TV flickered through the window and onto the lawn.

  “It’s gonna be okay,” Jeremy said, giving her a final reassuring squeeze before they walked back into the house.

  Nathaniel

  Nathaniel had to be the only person in the entire city who wasn’t happy about the freak March heat wave. It wasn’t that he didn’t like sunshine or flowers, but the atmosphere of the entire metro area became that of a beach carnival when the weather was like this, and it didn’t suit his mood. He would have preferred a stormy, cold, gray March, the sort that dragged on with an oppressive succession of rainstorms to make people hide indoors. Instead people were putting the tops down on their convertibles, blasting music from open windows, standing in line down the block for ice cream at JP Licks in Harvard square. On the morning news, the weatherman said it was the first time Boston had a temperature over eighty degrees in March since 1921. The year before there was still snow on the ground in the second week of March, but this year the Magnolias were in bloom. It should have been in the mid-forties, but it had been over seventy for five full days. Nathaniel’s already lack-luster students checked out entirely as the temps soared. On the Thursday before spring break, only six of the eighteen students showed up for his Intro to Philosophy class, not that he really cared. He planned to show a video from PBS of Alain du Botton explaining some detail of ancient Greek philosophy.

  The worst part, the part that drove him insane, was the way all the girls had shed their winter clothing. One day they were bundled in sweaters, swathed in scarves, their pretty little toes hidden in boots, and the next they were all bare-legs, bare-shoulders, toes with red polish wiggling in little flip flops. It was indecent. How could a man think with a half-naked girl in front of him, chewing gum, twirling her hair, her crossed leg bouncing listlessly? It astonished him how little clothing a woman could wear and be considered fully dressed. Even in the summer, if a woman placed her hand on his waist, it would be separated from his skin by a belt, his pants, his tucked-in shirt, an undershirt, and the elastic top of his boxers. But if he put his hand on the slender waist of a pretty young thing, all that would separate his hand and her skin was a wisp of fabric. One wisp.

  Ever since his run-in with Julie, Nathaniel had been trying to learn his student’s names, to look them in the eye in class and connect the names on his roster to the people before him. It wasn’t easy. They all looked the same. Julie, at least, he always remembered. She was in his Introduction to Philosophy at Minuteman Community College. She never missed a class, and ever since their run-in at the bar, she volunteered to answer questions.

  On that week of sudden summer, Julie lingered after class. As everyone else bolted for the door, ready to enjoy the remains of a gorgeous afternoon and to kick off Spring Break, Julie slowly put her things in her pack and then approached the desk at the front where Nathaniel was sorting through his papers. She stood across from him, her binder clutched across her chest, one strap of her sundress slipping off her shoulder. Nathaniel wondered how someone so short could have such long legs.

  “I was wondering if we could go over my last paper,” she asked, biting her lower lip and peering at him from under long, thick eyelashes.

  Nathaniel hated going over papers with students. All they really wanted was for him to realize he’d made a mistake and give them back some of the lost points. “How about after break?” he asked, figuring that by then she would have forgotten.

  “Oh. Okay,” she said, but she didn’t move.

  “Is there anything else?”

  “No, I just, um, I’m using to getting A’s, and you only gave me a B, so I’d really like to know what I can do better, and we have another due right after break, so...” She looked at him expectantly.

  “Right, well, do you have it with you?” Nathaniel asked, shoving his things into his bag.

  Julie nodded and pulled her paper from the inside of her binder. She was about to set it down when she snatched it back and said, “Want to look at it over coffee? Or maybe iced coffee?”

  Nathaniel tapped his pen on desk and looked at her as if the answer might appear on her forehead.

  “Come on. After all, it’s now officially Spring break,” she said.

  For her, but for Nathaniel, it was only break at two of the three colleges where he was teaching. He rubbed his eyes. “What the hell. Let’s do it.”

  Nathaniel followed Julie out onto the sunny street. He knew there was a Starbucks on the corner; he often stopped there on his way to class. Abby liked to say that he went to Starbucks just so he’d have an excuse to complain about how overpriced their coffee was.

  “No, there’s a better place this way,” Julie said, seeing Nathaniel turn to the left. She spun to the right and Nathaniel had to hurry to catch up with her.

  After they had walked three blocks, Nathaniel started to wonder where she was leading him. “How far away is this place?” he asked.

  “Almost there,” Julie answered, turning onto a side street.

  This wa
s not a neighborhood Nathaniel ever frequented. It wasn’t a bad area or anything, but it was off the beaten track with no famous restaurants or other points of interest. Midblock, Julie stopped in front of a little storefront with a dingy green awning. Cuppa Convo it said on the window. She pulled open the door and smiled at Nathaniel. He stepped behind her to hold the door and followed her inside. The interior was dim despite the bright day outside and it was stuffy. Nathaniel noticed a door in the back was propped open, but it wasn’t helping much, and if they had air-conditioning, it wasn’t turned on, which made sense since it was only March and it was New England, for God’s sake. But the air was so thick with the heat and the smell of coffee beans that it was no wonder it was mostly empty. Nathaniel took in the pastry case, the shiny cappuccino machine, the chalkboard menu behind the counter, and the glass-front refrigerator full of craft beers. So this was not a little breakfast spot that kept college students caffeinated all day. It was a bar. He should not have come. He should not have a drink of coffee or anything else with this little girl. But he was already there. He’d already crossed the point of no return.

  Julie set her things down at a table near the back wall and bounced over to the counter to order. Nathaniel followed her lead and scanned the list of drinks. All the usual coffee drinks, both the plain versions and the overdone versions full of various flavor syrups and topped with whipped cream, iced or hot, and then the beer, wine, and cocktail list. Lastly, there were the coffee cocktails. Julie ordered one of those, something that looked like a milkshake but with an alcoholic kick. Nathaniel deliberated for a moment and then ordered a fancy microbrew. If he was going to make this mistake, he might as well go all in.

  “So, your essay,” Nathaniel said as they settled in at the table.

  “You don’t want to go over my essay,” she said, sipping her drink through the straw and peering up at him through those gorgeous eyelashes.

  “I thought that’s what we were doing here,” Nathaniel said, even though he knew that wasn’t true.

  Julie rolled her eyes. “What we’re doing here is celebrating the start of spring break.” She raised her glass to toast.

  “Spring break for you, but not for me. I still have to teach all week.”

  “Oh.” She looked out the window for a minute and then turned back to him with a bright smile. “Well, you can help me kick off my break, anyway.”

  “I imagine you have friends who could do a better job than I could.” Nathaniel wondered what this girl saw in him. She was young, pretty, and cheerful. He was too old, too gloomy for her. He knew she had been flirting with him on Valentine’s Day, but he thought that was just her personality, her way with men. But this was different. She had invited him here, and for what?

  Julie shrugged. “I don’t have a lot of friends at Minuteman.”

  Nathaniel had noticed that she didn’t have many friends among her classmates, but she must have had friends somewhere.

  “I’m just biding my time, you know,” she said. “I’m going to transfer to a four-year school after next semester.”

  “Good for you,” Nathaniel said. He liked the wispy baby hairs that framed her face and swirled near her part. He wanted to run his fingers over them.

  “It’s just so expensive, so I’m doing the whole community college thing to save money, that’s all.”

  “Make sense,” he murmured, but he was hardly listening.

  “What about you?” she asked. “You obviously wish you were doing something other than teaching here.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Most of the young professors are excited and they try so hard to get the class interested.”

  “But not me.”

  “No. Not you.”

  Nathaniel knew this, of course, but he didn’t like it pointed out to him. He wanted to be one of the cool, young, popular professors, but they didn’t pay him enough for that. It was hard to keep his enthusiasm up when he was sprinting from one campus to another and still hardly making rent.

  “What about your band?” Julie asked.

  “We’re going to do a gig next month,” Nathaniel said, draining his beer. His Valentine’s Day meeting with Charlie and Jeff had been a success, and Nathaniel had managed to book O’Grady’s Tavern on the first Thursday of April. They hadn’t practiced yet, but they only really needed a refresher. Anyway, they didn’t want to be over-rehearsed.

  “So that’s your dream? To be a rock star?”

  When she put it that way it sounded juvenile and he had to laugh. No, it wasn’t that he wanted to be a rock star. He just wanted proof that he wasn’t ordinary. He didn’t really care what form that proof took. Yes, there was a time when he thought he’d be the next Bruce Springsteen, but that was long ago. Now he willing to be the front man of a local cover band, to have people tell him what a great show he put on and ask him why he wasn’t famous.

  “Want another drink?” she asked.

  “I really shouldn’t,” Nathaniel said, pushing his chair out to stand up.

  Julie placed her hand on top of his. It was soft and warm and small. “Come on,” she said softly. “One more. For me.”

  “Yeah, all right.”

  Julie ordered them both beers, and as Nathaniel pulled out his wallet to pay, she winked at him and said, “You can get the next one.”

  “I thought you said one more,” Nathaniel said, rolling up the sleeves of his oxford shirt. Although he didn’t feel compelled to wear a tie to work, he did try to look somewhat professional, but it was too warm in the bar. He could feel sweat beading up along his brow.

  “Sure, one more for now, but next time, it’s on you.” Julie sat back down with their drinks, and as she did, her leg brushed against Nathaniel’s. The sensation made him shiver.

  They sat and talked and the next thing Nathaniel knew, it was dark outside and they were on their fourth drinks. Nathaniel had no idea what she was talking about most of the time—something about flunking out of her first attempt at college, bartending, her desire to move to New York City.

  “This town is just so dead, you know?” she said.

  Nathaniel didn’t know what had preceded that comment, but he could agree. “But the thing is,” he said, leaning across the table, “every place is the same. Everywhere you go, it’s going to be the same. There’s no such thing as a culture of a place any more. It’s all chain restaurants and chain stores. Everyone is wearing the same jeans and listening to the same music and eating the same crap.”

  “I don’t think that’s true,” Julie said, shifting away from him. She seemed surprised by this sudden, passionate contribution to the conversation. In fact, Nathaniel himself was surprised to hear the words come out of his mouth. “In New York—” she started, but he cut her off.

  “New York. Maybe you’ve listened to ‘Empire State of Mind’ a few too many times. It’s just another place but more crowded and dirtier.” Nathaniel set his glass on the table with more force than he’d intended. Julie jumped.

  “So then what’s a person supposed to do?” she asked. “Sit around and wallow in self-pity, hating everything? Go live in the woods like Thoreau?”

  “Why not?” Nathaniel said. “Maybe he had it right all along.” Thoreau was one of his favorites. He hated having to teach Walden to his dim, uninspired students because they always ruined it for him with their utter inability to comprehend any writing above a fourth grade level. He doubted Julie had ever even heard of Thoreau before taking his class, even though Walden Pond wasn’t twenty miles from where they sat.

  “You know what I kept thinking about when we were reading that?” she asked, her tone softening. “That part in The Catcher in the Rye when Holden asks Sally to marry him, to run away to Vermont and chop wood.”

  It had been a long time since Nathaniel had read The Catcher in the Rye. That was high school stuff, which for him was a half a lifet
ime ago, but of course Julie was only a few years removed from high school.

  “But Holden wound up in a mental hospital,” she said. “People who think like that are nuts.”

  “No. Society is nuts. Holden wasn’t crazy, Thoreau wasn’t crazy. Society can’t handle free thinkers, that’s all. It’s easier to dismiss people who don’t fit in than to fix all the things that are wrong.” There was only one part of The Catcher in the Rye that Nathaniel could recall, the part where Holden sees the words “fuck you” written on a wall and tries to wipe it off only to realize that you can never erase all the fuck yous. Nathaniel understood that feeling perfectly.

  “Hey, take it down a notch,” Julie said. She nudged his foot with hers and got him to look her in the eye. “It’s all good.”

  “Sorry,” Nathaniel said, running a hand through his hair. God, it was hot.

  “You want to go grab a bite to eat?” Julie said.

  That was exactly what he needed. Food. He’d had too much to drink on an empty stomach. It had gone to his head.

  “We could just get a pizza or something,” Julie said, as they stepped outside. “My roommate it out of town. We could do take out.”

  The evening was cool, but not cold, much warmer than the average mid-March evening, and the breeze on his clammy skin was a blessed relief. Nathaniel stopped and looked down at her. From his height and at this close range, he could see straight down her dress, and he was overwhelmed with the urge to draw her close, to feel those perky breasts against him, to press his lips against hers, and let her feel his desire for her. He wanted there to be no mistake about what would happen if he went to her apartment. But she had to know already what would happen. She started this.

  “I like you,” she said, slipping her hand into his. “Come home with me.”

  He wished she wouldn’t talk. It would be easy enough to go along with her, to let her be in charge, if only she wouldn’t talk. When she spoke, he was jolted from fantasy to reality, and he wanted to stay in fantasy. Stuff like this didn’t happen to him, not anymore, but here he was, with this girl tugging on his hand, pouting up at him in a way that was at once childlike and seductive. Something about her reminded him of Maggie. They didn’t exactly look like alike, but their mouths were the same shape and they both had the same way of tucking their hair behind their ears. He hadn’t even called Maggie in over two weeks. He knew he had to tell her about Abby, but he wasn’t ready. Not yet.