The Poison Apples (19 page)

“Snowboarding, actually,” Judah Lipston the Third said.

I shrugged. Molly snorted into her hand.

“Please,” Newman said to the class, “it's Wednesday. You've got a three-day weekend coming up and a big trip to Mount McKinsey. Try to focus a little before Friday, when you'll cease to remember that Humanities class even exists.”

I would never forget,
I tried to telepathically communicate to him.

The bell rang. Everyone leapt out of their seats.

“Finish the book by tomorrow!” Newman hollered.

“I finished it a week ago,” Molly whispered triumphantly, “for the fourth time.”

“Oh, shut up, Mol,” said Alice, who was sitting to my left. She stood up and started gathering up her things. “You're such a Goody Two-Shoes.”

“Reena's the one who's ‘superhuman,' remember?” Molly said, and poked me in the ribs.

Alice shook her head and stuffed her copy of
Zen Ventura
into her backpack. “I just don't think Newman gives us enough time to do all the reading. I mean, doesn't he know we have homework for our other classes?”

I studied Alice as she bent over her bag, her blond hair falling in strands across her pink cheeks. “Are you okay, Alice?”

“I'm fine,” she snapped, and disappeared into the crowd of students filing out of the classroom.

“Whoa,” I said.

Molly shook her head. “Don't take it personally. She's just upset that she can't get through the novel.”

“What do you mean?”

Molly pushed her glasses up her nose and leaned in confidentially. “We were studying together in the library yesterday and she had
Zen Ventura
sitting in front of her for like two hours. You know how many times she turned the pages? Three.”

“Well, maybe she was distracted.”

“Maybe. But it looked like she was trying pretty hard.” Molly held up her own well-worn copy of
Zen Ventura
and pointed to the author's photo on the back. “It must be tough to have a hard time getting through your own father's book.”

I shrugged. The book wasn't hard for me to understand, but I did think it was pretty dull. The plot consisted of a bunch of New York intellectuals sitting around in living rooms, drinking wine, discussing politics, and occasionally deciding to get divorced.

By this time the classroom had pretty much emptied out. Newman approached me and Molly. My heart began to palpitate wildly.

“How do the two of you like the book?” he asked. Molly opened her mouth to speak, but then he shook his head. “Scratch that, Miller. I know you love it. How many times have you read it? Three?”

“Four,” she said happily.

“What do you think, Paruchuri?” Newman asked, his head cocked to one side.

I found myself unable to look him in the face, so I gazed down at my hands and picked furiously at one of my cuticles. “It's okay.”

“Okay?” he asked, and laughed. “Okay means you hate it.”

I looked up. Our eyes connected. “Well,” I began reluctantly, “I guess I just think everyone in it is kind of a … jerk.”

Molly gasped in indignation. Grinning, Newman put up a hand to shush her. “Interesting. Why is everyone a jerk?”

“Well, they just talk about their problems all the time. They're so self-involved. They never get up and actually do anything.”

Newman smiled. “Well, exactly. You've just articulated my favorite thing about the book.”

I frowned. “
What's
your favorite thing?”

“That sense of stasis. These sad people sitting around wanting to do things differently, but they're never actually able to get off the couch and change their lives.”

I tried to nod, but the real world was fading around me. I was drowning in the shiny black pools of David Newman's pupils.

“And it's so realistic,” Molly added, waking me from my dream state by shaking my elbow. “I mean,
Zen Ventura
is showing us what real people are actually like.”

“Yes,” Newman nodded. “It's all so painfully real and human.”

I shook my head. “I don't think it's realistic,” I said, “I'm not like that. I don't sit around and complain like those people. I get things done.”

Newman smiled, beautiful crinkles springing up around the corners of his eyes. “Oh, really?” He turned to Molly. “Is that true, Miller? Does Paruchuri get off the couch and get things done?”

She considered this, chewing on her chapped bottom lip. “Yeah,” she said after a pause, “I guess she does.”

I could have kissed her.

Newman rocked back on his heels and observed me, his head still cocked to the side in that mischievous way. “I'm impressed, Paruchuri. And jealous. I'm definitely just a good-for-nothing
Zen Ventura
kind of guy.” He picked up his big leather bag, which was stuffed full of our term papers, and nodded to us. Then he walked out of the room.

I sighed, closed my eyes, and pressed a palm to my burning forehead. Molly scrutinized me.

“Ew, gross,” she said.

“What?”

“He's way too old for you.”

“Love knows no bounds, Mol.”

“Oh, my God. Don't make me retch all over myself.”

We walked out of the building together and stood outside on the pavement, shivering and staring up at the sky. Gray clouds were floating ominously overhead.

“Okay, hold on,” I said. “Newman just said that he was a
Zen Ventura
kind of guy. Do you think he was trying to, like, communicate something to me?”

Molly scrunched up her red nose. “What are you talking about?”

“Well, he's shy. He can't ‘get off the couch.'”

Molly's mouth hung open as she stared at me, uncomprehending.

I sighed in exasperation. “He was telling me to make the first move!”

Molly shook her head. “No. No.”

“Don't be so quick to—”

“I'm sorry, Reena, but you have completely lost your mind.” She pulled on her wool cap and mittens and started walking back toward the dorm. “Come on. Let's go find Alice and eat lunch.”

I refused to move from my spot on the pavement. “I don't think you understand.”

“I do understand. You've gone berserk. Newman is not trying to subtly communicate to you that you should make a move. He's like forty.”

“Thirty-two,” I corrected her.

“Whatever.” Her frizzy hair stuck out goofily from beneath her cap and her glasses were half-steamed up from her breath. “Let's go.”

I wasn't done yet. I had to make her understand. I'd grown to love Molly in the past few weeks, but sometimes she acted so … immature.

“I know that the idea of dating an older man is difficult for you to comprehend, Mol,” I said. “But you and I are very different.”

“Oh, yeah? How?”

“Well, I don't think you understand romance in quite the same…” I trailed off. It was hard to explain. “I mean, it just seems like you don't think about boys that much. You don't even have a crush on anyone, and you—”

“How do you know?” Molly snapped.

I raised my eyebrows. “You have a crush on someone?”

Her face turned bright red. “No, I just … I just…”

“Who?”

She folded her arms against her bulky jacket and stared at the ground. “No one. Never mind.”

“See?” I said. “I just don't think you know what it's like to have really, really strong feelings for someone.”

Molly pulled her cap farther down over her ears and refused to look at me. “You know what? Do whatever you want. I don't care.”

“Thank you.”

I walked over, linked arms with her, and the two of us started heading back toward the dorm. Molly kept staring at the ground. She was clearly brooding about something.

“Don't worry, Mol,” I said. “You'll find someone eventually.”

She didn't respond.

“I mean, who knows—maybe you'll even meet a guy during Mount McKinsey weekend!” I added hopefully.

Molly nodded. Suddenly I noticed a few specks of white falling on the collar of her jacket.

“Oh, my God,” I gasped. “I think it's…”

We stopped in our tracks and looked up. Cascading out of the sky toward our upturned faces were thousands of snowflakes. One landed in my eye and dripped down my face. I yelped happily and did a little dance, sticking my tongue out into the cold air.

“My first snowfall!” I yelled.

Molly nodded and held out her mittened hand, watching clusters of snowflakes form in her palm. “Funny,” she said. “I think I've seen about a thousand of these.”

*   *   *

It was Friday,
and Mount McKinsey weekend had finally arrived. The storm had—to the delight of the entire school—lasted for all of Wednesday night and most of Thursday. We'd gotten almost a foot and half of snow. I'd basically spent the last two days staring out of our dorm window and whispering:
“Amazing.”

Now every Middleton resident was standing on the snowy walkway outside the dorm, waiting for the bus that was going to take us thirty miles north to the top of Mount McKinsey. Everyone was talking and laughing so loud that I could barely hear myself think. So I just looked down at the snow and admired my hot pink galoshes.

I looked pretty good in them.

A yellow bus came rumbling up the road and screeched to a halt in front of us.

“No more than two in a seat!” shrieked Agnes the RA, but she was drowned out by the sound of fifty girls all jostling one another to get on the bus first.

I pushed my way into line behind Alice and Molly, but then suddenly felt a hand on my arm. I turned around. It was Kristen.

“Hey,” she said. “Long time no see.”

I nodded, feeling guilty. I'd been kind of avoiding Kristen for the past few weeks. Well, not kind of avoiding. Definitely avoiding.

The thing was, I really, really liked Alice and Molly. I liked them because they were smart and interesting and, most important, they made me feel comfortable. Like I could be myself. And ever since that night in Jamie Vanderheep's dorm room, I'd been wondering why hanging out with the cool kids had always mattered so much to me in the past. My friend Katie in LA was one thing; she was popular and well-dressed, but she was also really nice to everyone. But making my way into the cool crowd so effortlessly at Putnam Mount McKinsey made me reevaluate why being part of the cool crowd was, in itself, so important. Kristen, in particular, had started to drive me crazy, even before I became friends with Alice during Parents Weekend. For one thing, Kristen was never into talking about our families. It seemed like she had a perfect life, and judged anyone who didn't. Her favorite activity was sitting around, painting her toenails, and talking about who needed to get a decent haircut and start dressing better (Molly's name would come up frequently).

So, slowly, I'd started to pull away from her. And after Parents Weekend and the first official meeting of the Poison Apples (which made me happier than I'd been in a long, long time), I'd pretty much decided that I didn't really want to be friends with Kristen anymore. At all.

But she was having a hard time picking up on my cues. In her defense, I think it was the first time anyone had ever stopped wanting to be friends with her. She was clearly one of those people who had, since her first day at preschool, radiated power and popularity.

“Where have you been?” she demanded, a weird, aggressive smile plastered across her face. “You didn't come to Rebecca's party the other night!”

“Yeah,” I said, digging a little hole in the snow with the tip of my pink boot. “I know. I had a lot of homework. Sorry.” The truth was, I'd stayed up late with Alice that night drawing goofy self-portraits of ourselves and laughing.

“We had an amazing time,” Kristen said. The line to get on the bus moved forward, and I saw, to my chagrin, Alice and Molly get lost in the swarm of students.

I nodded. “Yeah. It sounded really cool.”

There was a pause, and I saw a wave of insecurity wash over Kristen's face. She looked amazing—her long red hair was streaming out beneath a green cashmere cap that perfectly matched her green woolen peacoat and her short green-and-blue skirt and leggings—so seeing her turn pale with self-doubt was sort of incredible. It was like she'd never experienced rejection before, on any level, and so the feeling of rejection didn't come naturally to her. It clashed with her outfit. It clashed with her perfectly made-up face.

“Well…” Kristen hesitated. “Are you, like … okay?”

I was kind of touched. Kristen had never ever asked me if I was okay before. Her normal way of greeting me was grabbing my elbow and whispering something mean about the girl across the table in my ear.

“Yeah,” I said. “I'm actually doing great.”

She looked completely baffled.

“How are you?” I added.

“Um,” she said. “Oh. Yeah. I'm fine. I'm fine. Yup. Fine.”

“Good.”

The line moved forward, and I climbed up the steps to the bus, Kristen right behind me. Sitting in the third row of seats were Alice and Molly. Together. Of course. I mean, why wouldn't they sit together? I'd lagged behind.

“Hey guys,” I said, relieved to just see them again, and started to squeeze into the seat with them.

“Um, Reen,” Molly whispered, “it's just two to a seat.”

I blanched. “Oh.”

“Sorry,” she said, and looked at Alice for help. Alice shrugged and made a what-are-we-supposed-to-about-it? face.

I felt a hand grabbing my arm again.

“Reena,” Kristen said from behind me. “We're sitting together, right?”

“Oh,” I said. “Um … yeah. Sure.”

“Vanderheep and Saperstein are going on the second bus. Which sucks. Because,” and she leaned forward to whisper this last part loudly in my ear, “that means we're stuck with all the dorks.”