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“No-o-o…”
“You’re sure? Don’t fuck with me now, Jojo.”
“I’m sure, Coach.”
“Okay, and who is this tutor we’re talking about?”
“Adam…Gellin, is his name.”
“And you and him, you’re on good terms?”
Jojo stared off and compressed his lips…and decided, in a flood of shame, he’d better not fuck with Coach now. “No, not exactly. I could’ve treated him better, I guess.” The picture of Adam’s face when he had paged him at midnight that night came to mind.
“Does that mean you’re on bad terms?”
“Well…I don’t know, but Coach, it don’t matter. The guy don’t have enough here”—Jojo tapped his sternum with his fist—“to do anything about anything anyway. You know that kinda guy, Coach. You told me about ’em.”
“Yeah, well, I’m still go
Jojo’s spirits edged upward for the first time in days.
Coach was calming down and thinking about ways to do something. “He just might find it instructive to know that if you get into deep shit over this, he will, too.”
“He already knows that, Coach. That was the first thing he thought about when I told him what Quat said. He’s saying, ‘I didn’t actually write it, Jojo,’ and ‘I was just helping you polish the rough edges, right, Jojo?’ Like I told you, he’s not what you’d call a ballsy little guy.” Jojo smiled for the first time since they had started talking. It pleased him to think that he and Coach were two stand-up guys in a world full of weaklings.
Over the next few weeks, Charlotte didn’t know what to do about Adam. She was obviously on his mind all the time now. He’d call her room, he’d go out of his way to intercept her on the campus, he’d check by the treadmills in the gym to see if she was there, he’d leave notes saying why didn’t she come over and “hang” or “chill” with the Mutants, who would be getting together at such and such a place at such and such a time, and finally he had taken to doing the unheard-of at Dupont: he’d ask her out on “dates,” out to real restaurants even—and he’d pay for it!
At Dupont, nobody asked anybody out on a date unless they were already spending most nights in each other’s beds, and even then the boy would word it along the lines of “Whatcha doing tonight? Wa
Charlotte could no longer kid herself that she was going out on these dates just so she could have some decent food for a change. She was also willingly dropping by from time to time to hang out, to chill, with him and the Mutants. No—she literally did not know what to do with Adam. She didn’t know whether to encourage him or not encourage him…or, since in fact she was encouraging him, going on these dates, just how far to go with him. He obviously wanted more than just di
Or was calling it a mercy kiss just another way of kidding herself? The truth was…she wanted to fall in love with Adam. If only she could! How much tidier life would be!
One night Adam took her to an event at the Phipps—it was hard to say what to call it, a concert, dance performance, or what—featuring a group called the Olfactory Workers. Charlotte had never even heard of anything like it. She guessed not many others had, either, because the Phipps was only about a quarter full. But Adam was eager to go. He didn’t know exactly what it was about, but he had read a reference to the Olfactory Workers somewhere. He had such a curiosity, it was infectious.
The Olfactory Workers were six young men and four young women, all dressed in black tights—even the four sort of fat ones—black tank tops, and black vests with mandarin collars and no buttons. Six of them played musical instruments, two trumpets, a French horn, an oboe, a bassoon, and drums. Four of them were dancers who did a kind of modern dance, Charlotte guessed it was, the kind of dancing she had seen in movies, very close to gymnastics, except crazier. But strangest of all were the four big black kettles with lids, up on black metal legs, two on this side of the stage and two on the other. The kettle lids were outfitted with nozzles and a series of levers. Two performers, one on each side, operated the braziers, spraying some sort of odor-bearing mists from the nozzles up into the air…musk, sandalwood, pine knot, cedar, ta
A small matter, very small, for Charlotte was now transported!…not so much by the Olfactory Workers and their odors and music and dancing and singing as by the fact that this was something experimental, esoteric, cutting-edge (she had picked up that term in the modern drama course), one of the exciting, sophisticated things Miss Pe
As they left Phipps, Charlotte felt so transported that she voluntarily hooked her arm inside of Adam’s and leaned against his shoulder. Adam, she might have known, immediately misinterpreted the source of her excitement and sought out her hand, finally got it, and leaned his head against hers just as she was attempting to disengage.
There was an absolute blaze of light as they emerged from the opera house lobby and went out onto the portico, a blaze strong enough to light up the trees in the Grove—and what if someone saw her cuddling with a…dork?
She immediately hated herself for even thinking such a thing, but the worst of it was that it wasn’t even a fully formed thought. It was a visceral reaction.
And she wanted to want Adam! She wanted to want to kiss Adam good night in a deeply committed way. Adam had an interesting mind, an exciting mind, an adventurous mind, as did his friends, the Mille