Jimmy's that night was a 'summer school' party for all those who would walk but still had classes to finish up. We were standing on the deck overlooking his back yard.

"I was going to print out all these fake diplomas for people. You know cause they weren't really done."

"What happened?"

"No one knows if they're going to graduate or when they're going to graduate."

"Come on. People know."

"What about you? When are you done?"

"End of the quarter." I said dismissively then paused. "Shit."

"What?"

"I quit that internship before they turned in the paperwork giving me credit for it. I'm probably four credits short."

"See. No one knows."

"Shit."

Ryan came up to us still wearing a tie and dress shirt from work. He had spilled something down the front and weaved from side to side.

"Hey working man." I said.

"Man, I miss college. Free beer."

"What are you up to these days?" Jimmy asked.

"Politics."

"What?" I said. "You're not in politics."

"Hey." He said, surprised to see me standing there. "What do you think of politics? I'm going to work for a campaign this summer."

"What about grad school?"

"Yeah. That's a good idea. I could go to grad school." His eyes unfocused from me and he swayed for a moment before he found Jimmy again. Once again surprise washed over his face.

"Hey Jimmy. You throw a hell of a party." Jimmy looked uncomfortable.

"Thanks, it didn't really work out how I wanted."

"No man, this is really, really great. I miss this." The three of us stood for a moment.

"I really miss this." Ryan said again after a moment. We stood there for a moment and I caught Georgia's eye, she was standing by the keg and I walked away as Ryan laid another round of compliments on Jimmy.

"Hell of a party." She said.

"It's better than rehab."

"You don't like Tim, do you?"

"Tim's a moron."

"You don't know him though. You've never talked to him."

"Trust me, I can spot moron from a long way off."

"Do you think we're going to be okay?"

"You and Tim?"

"No. All of us. We worked so hard to finish college and instead of it being this big reward, we're all just fucked. No one has any idea what they're doing after graduation. Ryan spent an hour telling me how much he hates his job. And he's, like, the success story. He got hired right out of school. So what's that mean for the rest of us?"

"We're doomed." I said.

"We're doomed." She repeated as we touched our cups in a toast.

The night ended with just a few of us sitting around on lawn chairs. Most of the people had left and I was glad when Ryan passed out in a lawn chair because it gave me an excuse to leave too.

"I'm not even looking forward to graduation." Georgia was saying. "It's just another pain in the ass thing I have to do." Jimmy's was ending how everything ended these days. All we could talk about was graduation and there was nothing left to say. We'd worried the life right out of it. To hear us talk, we could have been preparing for our own funerals.

I dropped Ryan on the couch and looked at my phone but she'd still be with her parents, maybe. She hadn't called and with Ryan snoring on the couch, I didn't want to sit at home waiting for her to call.

"Hey." I said when Marie opened the door.

"Hey."

"I just wanted a cigarette."

"You walked over here for a cigarette?"

"Yeah."

"Then I guess it's good that I'm a smoker."

Later we turned her couch to face the sliding glass door and sat in the dark watching people in the apartment building across the way.

"That one there, he's my favorite. I think he's a musical theater major. He spends all night singing and dancing around his living room."

"Where?"

"The one with no furniture."

"Maybe he's a gay cokehead."

"I don't think so. The girl he's sleeping with is smoking hot. I've seen them fuck on the floor a few times. It's pretty hot." She said.

"How about those two there?" I asked, pointing at two people who looked like they were fighting.

"Brother and sister."

"Really? How do you know that?"

"He was in a psych seminar I had."

"Who'd want to come to college and live with their sister?"

"I think the parents bought them the place."

"Oh."

"But you're right. They fight like that all the time. They both sleep with each other's friends. One night he was drinking with a friend of his and they both passed out. He's on the chair and his friend is sleeping on the couch. His sister comes home and sits on the couch and kind of slaps the friend in the face till he wakes up. Then she kisses him, leads him into the bedroom and like an hour later, he sneaks back out and falls asleep on the couch again."

"This is what you do, sit here in the dark and watch people?"

"It's better than TV. Why, what do you do?" She asked.

"What do you mean?"

"When you need a break. When you need to recharge."

"I don't know. Go to the bar I guess."

"You go to a bar?"

"Yeah. I mean, if you get there early enough, no one's there. You can just be alone for a few hours."

"That's the most pathetic thing I've ever heard."

"At least I'm not stalker weird."

"Shut up."

"What are you doing after graduation?" She asked after a while.

"Why?"

"I want to know."

"Why do you want to know?"

"I don't know anything about you. We have all the same friends and I've seen you around for three years and I don't think we've ever had a real conversation."

"I don't know."

"Come on, you've got to have an idea."

"I just realized tonight that I might need summer school. I got into the internship program but I quit it and I haven't applied to any grad schools. I'm really trying not to think about it. How about you?"

"PhD program for anthropology."

"Seriously?"

"Got the letter this week. Early admit."

"I thought you ... I guess people say ..." I trailed off.

"People say a lot of things about me. Most of it isn't true. So hush you."

"Well congratulations, doctor."

Sometime in the middle of the night Marie's roommate came in humming to herself. We could hear her knocking around the apartment. Then she was gone again.

"When does she sleep?" I asked.

"I don't think she does. Not more than a couple of hours here and there."

"You don't worry about her?"

"Of course I do. But anything is better than last year."

"When she would just cry all the time?"

"When she would just cry all the time."

"About what?"

"I don't know. Nothing. Everything."

"And this is better?"

"She's up and out of bed. She's going to class. She even went on a date with a boy in her class. So yeah, this is much better."

The next morning we were up early with nothing to do. We lay in bed talking for a while.

"You want go to breakfast with me?" She asked. "There's this little café, I probably told you about it, but I love it early when no one is out."

"You mean like a date? I don't know if I'm ready to start dating."

"You're so weird." She said as we got dressed.

It was still early enough that no one was out, no cars on the streets. We walked into town and it was as quiet as I'd ever heard it.
"I can't remember the last time I was up this early." I said.

"It's nice isn't it?"

"It's a little eerie."

"I think I've walked past this place a hundred times and never realized it was here." I said when we were seated.

"Hiding in plain sight." She said. "It's my favorite place to eat because you can people watch and they never know you're here."

"Not at this hour. No one else is crazy enough to be awake."

"You're the first person I've brought here." She said.

"It can be our little secret."

"I like that." She said. "That me and you have a secret."

---

Chapter 11 | Suicide and Keg Stands Index | Chapter 13

Posted by Ben Corman at 9:13 AM

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Posted by: kate at January 14, 2008 01:39 PM

Posted by: Ryan at January 21, 2008 09:03 PM

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