Tags:
Fiction,
General,
Fiction - General,
Coming of Age,
Maine,
Crimes against,
American Contemporary Fiction - Individual Authors +,
Women college students - Crimes against,
Women college students,
College Freshmen,
Community and College
package of Oscar Meyer thick cut bacon. And thatâs what he ate that dayâraw bacon and Tabâuntil he made it back to Moab and got a bus home.
His parents were on a cruise in the Greek Isles, so he hid out in Greenwich for a whole month, lying beneath the sprinklers out on the lawn, letting the water tickle his tongue. When they came home, they didnât want to know anything about what had happened. All they knew was his dirty laundry was all over the floor, heâd drunk everything in the liquor cabinet, and the kitchen was a disaster. His sister came home from camp looking happy and suntanned, with a wristful of lanyard bracelets. Soon after that heâd left for another boarding school. He was never home much.
Patrick reached for the warm coffee and took a sip. It tasted like a hot fudge sundae made with coffee ice cream. It was blended heaven, better than anything heâd ever tasted.
Dexterâs overnight orientation trip had been much the same. Heâd introduced himself as Pink Patrick just to see how everyone would react. Of course they laughed, and then they avoided him. Heâd requested a single in Coke, so when they got back to campus he kept to himself. Those first few weeks he tried to go to class, but he couldnât see the point. He felt like he was standing outside a fish tank watching a busy school of fish. They just kept on swimming.
Since leaving school heâd been as far as Miami, but he always circled back to Dexter again. He liked Maineâs extreme weather, its rugged shoreline, its endless greenery, and its relatively tolerant population. No one minded a loner like him. Plus, it was always easy to find food or grab a shower and some clean clothes on campus. But he always had that nagging feeling that he was waiting for something.
He took another sip of the warm, sweet coffee. Maybe this was it.
3
I tâs often said that the best way to strengthen a relationship is to go camping. The simple tasks of choosing the campsite, unpacking the supplies, setting up the tent, gathering firewood, preparing and cooking the food, and washing the dishes allow each person to demonstrate their strengths and encourage teamwork. At the end of the day, when the coals are dying and each member of the group is snuggled up in their warm sleeping bag under a starlit sky, they can congratulate each other on a job well done, feeling grateful that they were not alone to conquer the elements.
âKeep looking,â Tom commanded as Nick scrambled around on his hands and knees. Before leaving them to fend for themselves for the night, Professor Rosen had split the group in two. The three girls in pink Dexter T-shirts were on one side of the river while Tom, Nick, Shipley, and Eliza were on the other. As soon as sheâd dropped them off, Professor Rosen had disappeared into the woods with her sleeping bag, promising to come back for them at daybreak.
Shipley and Eliza put themselves in charge of setting up camp and sent the boys to collect firewood. Tom was really jacked up about it. He snapped a thin twig in half with his hands and tossed it onto their measly pile. âCome on, man, before it gets dark.â
Nick wasnât at all sure he would survive the night, let alone a whole year, living with this brute. He sneezed four times in quick succession and wiped his nose and eyes on his shirt. âAny special wood we should be looking for?â He assumed Tom knew all sorts of manly stuff about which wood burns the longest and the cleanest.
âFuck if I know.â Tom peeled a skinny green branch off a nearby bush. âIâm from Westchester.â
Nick pressed his lips together in a determined half smile and tried to maintain his usual sunny outlook. Life at boarding school often fosters a hunger for philosophical exploration. The Berkshire School in Massachusetts, from which Nick had graduated in June, went so far as to offer a course called Adventures in