Most of the night we spent standing with a cluster of girls who were, of course, discussing college application strategies. Aside from whatever was happening on Instagram and Snapchat, that’s all anyone in my circle ever talked about.
Alexis Stewart had just announced that she’d applied to all nine University of California campuses.
“Even Riverside and Merced?” asked Emma.
“Well, only as an extra precaution,” Alexis explained. “Don’t want to end up like Jen Heatherton.”
“Who’s Jen Heatherton?” I asked.
“You didn’t hear this story?” Mia asked me. “Jen is Sarah Wise’s cousin. She was a year ahead of us. Anyway, Jen had a 3.9 GPA, was in honors courses, competitive sports, all that stuff. She only applied to Cal, UCLA, San Diego, and Davis. Davis was her safety school. Got rejected by all four. By then it was too late to apply to the rest without a deferral.”
“You have to hedge your bets,” said Alexis.
“Jen’s the one who tried to kill herself last year,” added Mia, next to me, more quietly.
“Well, a 3.9 is not competitive enough for those schools,” said Emma. “What was her counselor thinking?”
“I know.” Alexis shook her head. “But it was a 4.1 weighted . . .”
I wondered if Emma hadn’t heard Mia’s final comment and was about to ask if Jen Heatherton was okay now, but the conversation had already shifted to the fairness/unfairness of weighted versus unweighted GPAs.
People were applying to seven, eight, nine schools?
I too had applied to only four.
An annoying little gremlin perched itself on my shoulder and whispered in my ear:
Maybe you shouldn’t have been so sure of yourself.
Skipping AP History is going to cost you!
Your essay was so boring. YAWN.
YOU are boring.
Your applications can’t just be good — they need to be exceptional. ARE they exceptional? Are YOU?
Have you demonstrated knowledge? Passion? Integrity? Authenticity? Confidence? Initiative? A commitment to service? Special talents? Grit?
The gremlin would not shut the hell up.
“Does anyone know where the bathroom is?” I asked.
“Inside the sliding door and down the hall to the right,” said Mia. “You can’t miss it. It’s huge.”
I walked inside, found the enormous bathroom, and, as I washed my hands, reassured my well-lit reflection that everything was going to be fine. Everything was on track. I could always send out a few more applications if I wanted to. Even so, my heart — the one I used to have — was racing around in my chest like a hamster on a wheel. I took a deep breath.
Instead of heading back out to the pool and patio, I wandered farther into the house. Past the family room, where a bunch of kids were playing beer pong, as well as several rooms with closed doors. Bedrooms, I assumed, and likely occupied. At the end of the hallway, I peeked into a darkened room that looked like an office or a library, with shelves of books lining every wall except for the one that consisted entirely of a floor-to-ceiling glass door that opened onto a large deck sweeping out over the valley below.
I hesitated on the threshold of the room. It was empty, and it felt like I shouldn’t be in there. But I was also curious.
I stepped inside and spent a little time studying the spines of the books on the shelves. It always fascinated me to see what other people read. Or at least what they wanted people to think that they read. Craig’s parents were into Philip Roth, modern art, and mid-century architecture, apparently.
I pushed open the sliding door, made my way to a pristine white chaise lounge, and took a seat. Out there, the voices of the partygoers in the back blended into a pleasant hum, indistinguishable as individual conversations. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the light breeze tickling my face. I remember feeling really tired. Tired of being at the party. Tired of talking about school.
Until Liam Morales dropped abruptly into the seat next to me, nearly scaring me out of my skin. My heartbeat surged so fast that it hurt.
“Hey, Russell.”
He calls everyone by their last name. It’s an annoying habit.
“Jesus, Liam. You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that.”
Liam had been Emma’s crush since fifth grade. When we were in middle school, I spent many a sleepover night with her, studying his Instagram feed and devising plans to pass by his lunch table or “unexpectedly” bump into him on our way to the community pool near his house. Along with probably scores of other girls. Liam, with his impossibly long-lashed brown eyes and wavy hair, was the movie star of our class. And as we had made our way through high school, he had only grown more and more good-looking — a fact I was not unaware of as he sat mere inches away from me, shirtless and wrapped in a pool towel.
I also noticed that he was pretty drunk.
“I didn’t mean to sneak up on you, Russell,” he said. “Just curious who was out here drinking alone. Are you depressed or something?”
“No, just bored of talking about college applications.”
Liam swayed his drink in my direction. “Cheers to that.”
So we talked about something else. I don’t remember what. I actually didn’t have a drink, so Liam shared the rest of his. It was soda mixed with a lot of gin and tasted terrible. Then he found a bottle of some kind of syrupy dessert liqueur in the office/library. We passed it back and forth.
Later, I do remember him telling me this: “You know, you’re actually pretty cute. I’m kind of wanting to make out with you right now.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said, rolling my eyes.
He looked surprised that I wasn’t immediately flattered. “No, I mean you’re so serious all the time, it’s sort of hard to notice.”
“Am I?” I asked.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Well, maybe you’re just not that funny. You know how good-looking people don’t have to work too hard to get people’s attention?”
“So you think I’m good-looking.”
“Liam, that means nothing. You know you are good-looking.”
“But I’m not funny?”
“Only very lucky people can be both.”
“Maybe you’re just mean and have no sense of humor.”
I kicked his chaise and he caught my foot in his hand. Then he ran his hand up my bare calf.
I’m not going to lie: Liam didn’t have to work very hard to get me to kiss him. My head was spinning from whatever it was we had been drinking, making me care less than I should have about Emma, who had been annoying me with her college admissions obsession that night. Plus, his hand on my calf was so warm. His face so perfect. His body so close. He pulled me toward him, onto his chaise.
I remember thinking that when it came to kissing, Liam knew exactly what to do with his lips. His hands. His tongue. Not that I had a ton of experiences to compare him to. I had kissed exactly three boys during my time in high school: Henry Shrader, once, in my sophomore year after the homecoming dance; Ajay Shah, on the orchestra trip to Disneyland, during the fireworks; and Matt Cohen, who I made out with for a couple of weeks, in my room, while we were working on a joint school project. He had always seemed a little unsure of his technique. But while Liam was the complete opposite of unsure, there was also something so methodical, so impersonal, about the way that he kissed me. I sensed that this was how he kissed every girl. Many girls.