It's 4:12, and I'm the last one awake in 401 Wick. I'm listening to the pulpy, grandiose score of Ragtime, and the scent of a long-vanquished omelet is still wafting through the house. It's been a night of heavy hobknobbing for Nicole. Even eight months after graduation, when people come into a Brown party and see Nicole there, they assume she's running things from under the table. "Good music," someone told her tonight.
Eventually the party was shut down and, as we filed out, everyone grabbed a fistful of Starbursts off the kitchen table. (It reminded me a little of the procession of departing chimneysweeps in Mary Poppins who, one by one, all shake Mr. Banks's hand.) While walking home, Meara and I drifted from group to group, swapping Starbursts with people. Nobody seems to care for lemon, so the lemon squares were worthless for bartering--they were like chump change. We'd try to offer people lemon and they'd laugh in our faces.
Jake is gone till tomorrow. Knowing that I've a fondness for snooping, he's speckled his bedroom with imperious little post-it notes. "THIMBLE COLLECTION: PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH!" reads one. "BOYS ONLY," says another. Charmingly, each post-it concludes with Jake's small, sloppy signature--as if he was afraid I'd think they were the work of an imposter.
Do Nicole and I feel like interlopers? I can't speak for her, but I don't. Like last semester, there are bastions at Brown. Meara, Jake, Sara, Emmett--they're like embers, the ruins of a once-great civilization.
I love lemon Starbursts.
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