The Expectations Read online

  * * *

  Eventually it rang ten thirty, the time he had set for himself as okay to head back to Hawley before check-in at eleven. As he passed the other dorms he saw kids getting out of cabs with the airy melancholy of coming back to school. He avoided making eye contact in case it was that group of guys.

  Ben walked into Hawley and came into the common room. Leon and Hideo were sitting in front of the TV watching Fletch; Chevy Chase was playing tennis. Mr. Tan, the school’s Chinese teacher, was on duty, and Ben waved to let him know he was in. Mr. Tan made a mark next to Ben’s name and nodded and smiled to him as though Ben had supplied a word in a stubborn crossword puzzle. According to the microwave, which had by now spread its smell through the common room, it was 10:37. If Ben stayed here until eleven, everyone coming in would know that he had checked in this early. As he climbed the stairs, Ben strangely envied Mr. Tan; how nice and simple it must be to be an older dignified Chinese man, how clear the ways you’re supposed to act.

  He looked at his Great Auk as he opened the door. The room was exactly as they had left it, the comforter twisted up on his bunk, smoothed out on Ahmed’s. Ben wondered whether Ahmed had servants at home, and if so, how he had learned to be so fastidious. It smelled like Ahmed: Polo cologne, that tangy body odor. Ben opened the window to the air.

  The older guys, Ennis and his roommate, Fitzy, had already started bringing newbs up to their room to drink. The two of them lived in the Chute, a third-floor room so named for its long, narrow shape and slanted eave ceilings. It was the most desirable room in the dorm because it was the farthest away from the faculty apartments, and Ben couldn’t figure out whether Ennis and Fitzy had gotten the Chute because they were cool, or whether they had become cool because they had drawn the Chute in the housing lottery.

  If the Chute had him up to drink, then maybe that would spark something, and then maybe he could start wearing the Marlboro hat, and then maybe it would take off from there even if he couldn’t afford to do certain things. Other than Rory and a couple other guys on the team, no one seemed to care about him and squash, really. Maybe even at St. James squash was kind of a niche sport, or maybe he would only get credit for it once the season started and he started winning. He hoped that his becoming cooler would somehow mean that the school would be less likely to ask him to leave. He was also slightly bruised that Ennis and Fitzy hadn’t yet invited him to drink. The fact that he was Teddy’s brother alone should have been enough, so maybe he had already started acting like a kid who couldn’t pay.

  He sat down into his desk chair and set his elbows on his knees. The kids that Ennis and Fitzy had chosen to bring up to the Chute were an odd assortment. They hadn’t had Jed up, but they’d invited Jeremy Cohen, who was right on the edge of being pretty lame.

  He wondered whether Ahmed was back from town yet. He imagined what the common room downstairs would be like right now. Slowly, kids would be coming in from the outside air that had started to cut in earnest, and one by one they would sit back into the stiff fabric couches with something like an old man’s sigh.

  Tomorrow was Sunday, the empty day, when everything you did was a decision not to do work for Monday classes. The kids down in the common room were enduring a temporary reprieve, aching for time to move slower. Here was their gap of a few hours after the end of Saturday classes and games but before school loomed again, the few hours when nothing was expected of them. Even deciding what to do—to go up to someone’s room and talk, to play video games on the illicit Nintendo, to maybe just go to sleep early—any of those definite actions would mean the end of possibility and the death of their reprieve. So they delayed, and just sat in the common room doing nothing.

  Ben looked down at the linoleum tiles on the floor of his room and tried to find any kind of repeating pattern in the darker green and lighter green spots. He didn’t want to be in the common room, but he didn’t want to be in here alone, and he definitely didn’t want Ahmed to come in and find him here alone. He went down to Jed’s room once the clock read 11:02. Jed was there, peaceful with his black buzzed hair and hawk’s nose, reading a Punisher comic book while his roommate, Gavin, played Minesweeper. Jed had gone into town with a couple of guys on the football team, and Ben said he’d had to stay in: there had been a bit of a family emergency, nothing serious, but he had had to be on the phone and had missed Hutch and the other guys. Ben realized he hadn’t had any dinner and was abruptly tense with hunger, and Jed had some Doritos and Ben ate those. At 11:33 Ben decided to go to sleep just to close the door on the day and get up tomorrow and start new.

  When he came back to his room it was still empty, and he was surprised. Ahmed should definitely have been back. He went to get his toothbrush and toothpaste out of the cup on his dresser.

  The door opened, but it wasn’t Ahmed’s voice that said, “Hey, Weeksy.”

  Ben looked up and saw Ian Richardson, the upper-former he had seen with Alice, staring intently into the room through an opening just wide enough for his face. Ian did a quick scan of the place.

  “You all right, man?”

  “Yeah,” said Ben. “Yeah, just got in. What’s up?”

  “Here, come upstairs.”

  Ben looked around for anything he might need.

  They hurried down the hall as though they were already doing something against expectations. Ben thought of the little blue book, and somehow it seemed in support of what he was doing. Ben tried to think of something to say, but nothing came to him as they hit the hall door and took the stairs two at a time. He realized that Ian had already been drinking; Alice liked him in part because he could get wet.

  As they came onto the third-floor landing, Ian pulled open the fire door into the Annex, the small hallway where two single rooms were situated along with the Chute. As soon as they came through, Ben could already smell the difference up here. It smelled like older guys. Right Guard spray deodorant, Salvation Army furniture, light patchouli, and the slightly nauseating off-brand Lysol that the cleaning crews used, which smelled almost more like hairspray than germicide. The guitar solo from “More Than a Feeling” wafted faintly out to them. Ben felt his chance; maybe everything wasn’t lost.

  Ian opened the door to the Chute without knocking, and the twin guitars approached their apex. The lighting was dim. Boston was actually a pretty lame band, unless the Chute was listening to it ironically, which was hard to tell. Directly in front of them stood a bookcase that hid what was going on in the rest of the room; furniture used for this purpose was called a delay. The bookcase had been pushed against the left wall and its top corner sawed off to conform to the eave. Ben and Ian stepped around the delay into the main part of the room, and Ben took in at a glance the people there: Ennis, Fitzy, and Jed. Ben remembered how they all had looked during newb boxing, the fully dressed older kids divided so sharply from the newbs in their underwear, but now Jed seemed piled alongside the others, not quite comfortable, but a member of the same species. Even though he had been in Jed’s room just a few minutes before, it felt like Ben hadn’t seen him in a day.

  They were sitting on parallel couches along each wall. A single standing halogen lamp pointed directly into one of the eaves, and a red lava lamp sat on an overturned milk crate next to the arm of one of the couches. Posters clung to the eaves in a slight catenary, but the angled light cast glare across them and Ben couldn’t see what they were of.

  “Weeksy!” said Ennis with a wide-open grin. “Take a seat, man.”

  Ben sat next to Fitz, who was blond and round, always slightly breathless and with his khaki pants almost falling off his hips. His roundness reminded Ben of Ahmed. Ian pulled up one of the desk chairs, turned it around and sat in it backwards, and looked moodily at Ennis, and all at once he knew: among sixth-formers, these guys weren’t considered very cool. Hawley House in general was considered kind of lame. Ben wondered whether Teddy had made these guys’ lives hell. He felt a tiny, slightly disappointing power over everyone in the room, and he
smiled. “What’s happening, guys?”

  “Not a lot, man,” said Fitzy, whose eyes seemed unable to open more than halfway. “What’s up with you?”

  “Not a lot.”

  “You up to wet a little?”

  “Um, yeah, definitely.”

  Everyone laughed, and Ben laughed too.

  “Set him up,” said Ennis. Fitz leaned over the far arm of the couch and did something down out of sight. Ennis smiled at Ben. “What’s goin on?”

  “Not much, just, you know, work and stuff.” This felt lame to him, and now he worried that they would want him to pay for the liquor, but then he told himself that this was ridiculous.

  “How’s Teddy?”

  “Ah, pretty good, I think. He’s liking Kenyon. I actually haven’t talked to him in a while.”

  “He was a fucking legend.”

  “Legendary,” said Ian.

  “Crazy, man, I remember,” said Fitzy, sitting back again and looking into the past, “some of the shit he used to do, I for sure thought was going to kill us.”

  They went on for a few minutes with Teddy memories.

  “Did you ever wet with Teddy?” Fitzy asked.

  They all looked at him, even Jed who had maybe never heard of Teddy before now, and Ben felt how much they wanted him to be Teddy in that moment, to deliver something mythic and undeniably right into their lives. And he wanted to do that so badly too.

  “Um…”

  “Is it set?” Ennis looked at Fitz, who nodded.

  “Switch with him, man.”

  Ben got up and they switched seats. The CD changer clunked and spun, and Hendrix, “The Wind Cries Mary,” came on. The Chute had done a sound check with Dennett and there was a mark in Wite-Out on the amp dial that showed the maximum allowed volume.

  “Oh, I love this song,” said Ben.

  “Glad to accommodate you,” said Ennis, laughing.

  Ben looked down behind the arm of the couch. A Snapple bottle three-quarters full of what looked like tea stood next to a little brass cup. From above, it was hard to tell how big the cup was. He reached down and was surprised to find that it had a stem and a pedestal; it looked like an Indian oil candle. He picked up the cup and held it in front of his face to inspect it.

  “Don’t hold your shot, man. Take it,” said Ian.

  “What?”

  “Don’t hold it!” said Ennis. “Drink that shit.”

  Ben put the rim of the cup to his lips and tasted what was there. It was like warm paint thinner. He tipped it all into his mouth. His gullet clenched against it, he gripped the little cup around the stem, but he stayed still and managed, after many seconds, saliva flooding his mouth, to get it down.

  “Wow, that looked smooth,” said Fitzy. Everyone laughed, including Ben, genuinely. He felt better. “Hoo,” he said.

  “Is this firsting?” Ennis asked with wonder.

  “It is, yeah.” Should he have made up a story about stealing gin with Tim Green?

  “Yes! Oh, that is so great,” said Ian. “Sketching Teddy Weeks’s brother! All right, set one up for me and then we’re going back to you.”

  Ben opened the Snapple bottle. He poured out the whiskey, making sure the liquid came out just as wide along the rim as before.

  He stood up and switched with Ian, who clapped Ben on the shoulder so hard that he had to step over a little to keep his balance. Ben sat in the turned-around chair and looked at Jed again. They smiled at each other.

  Ben knew what song would come on after this one ended, and sure enough, “Fire” came on. He looked at the poster above Fitzy’s head—the Hindenburg’s elongated egg devoured by black-and-white flame. Here he was. He tried again to make it feel right.

  It was his turn again. He took another shot—this one was much easier. He poured one. He switched with Jed.

  A copy of the Student Directory, which everyone called the scopebook, lay on the table, open toward the middle, and Ennis picked it up.

  “Oh, dude, Danica Morales,” Ennis said.

  “She’s awful, Ennis,” said Fitz.

  “Fuck you—it’s not a good picture. Tell me you haven’t seen her ass and wanted to deep the shit out of it.”

  “Yeah, but she’s friends with all the track guys.”

  “Have you guys seen Lily Jarvis?” asked Ian.

  “Who’s that?”

  “She’s this newb in Paige. She’s so tasty, she’s got this little blond haircut. She could just tuck it behind her ears while she’s…” Ian demonstrated the hair tuck and laughed, and Ben never would have guessed he could be so playful.

  Ennis flipped two pages back. “Yeah. Wow, yeah.” He took a pencil off the table and brought his knees together to serve as a desk. Ben expected him to lick the point of the pencil before he started writing: “Get…your…lips around…my pole.” Everyone laughed. Ben thought he felt good.

  “How about Nicole Berger?” Jed said.

  “Who?”

  “You mean Nicole Rieger,” said Ian.

  “No, Berger, the fourth-former.” Everyone was quiet for a second.

  “Yeah, she’s all right,” said Ennis.

  “She’s cool,” said Ian. Everyone nodded.

  “Or the girl with the huge artillery,” Ben started, glancing at Ian. “She’s not like scary pretty, but her boobs are just…Alice…Help me here.”

  “Alice Morehead?” asked Ian.

  Ennis, Fitzy, and Jed all said at once, “Aaalice Moooorehead! Yes!”

  “Jesus, those things are epic,” said Ennis. “Right, dude?” He leaned over and punched Ian in the leg. “You gotten pounded with that artillery yet?”

  “Fuck off,” said Ian, scowling.

  “Benny boy, write what you feel.” Ennis handed the book to Ben.

  He wrote, “These guns will end the Battle of the Bulge.”

  He handed it back to Ennis.

  “Ha!” Ennis read it to everyone, and they all seemed to think it was okay.

  “I hear she wanted to maybe get them reduced,” said Fitz.

  “No!” Ennis moaned. “Ugh, what a crime. A crime against humanity, seriously.” Ennis turned to Ian. “So what’s your deal with her, man? You guys scrumping yet?”

  “We’re talking,” Ian said. His shoulders were back up and tense. “I don’t know. I just wish she was better in the face. Just like, she’s so close.” Everyone nodded, and Ben detested him.

  Ennis turned to Ben. “So what’s it like to be roommates with Ahmed?”

  “Um, it’s pretty strange.” He laughed and expected everyone else to laugh, but they didn’t. Ben wanted to describe how Ahmed smelled but he thought that would sound racist. He wondered what Ahmed would do if he were in this room with alcohol around him. He realized he had never seen Ahmed pray. Weren’t Muslims supposed to pray all the time?

  “He’s a happy person, I’ll say that. He keeps asking me questions about how to act here. Sometimes it’s like I’m his sherpa.”

  “Huh,” said Ennis. This seemed to have lost them, and Ben wanted them back.

  “I just want to show him how to be easy. You know?” Ben took a breath. He wanted to have easiness. He wanted the older guys to need him.

  “But I can’t believe he just walked out of newb boxing…” Their eyes moved with discomfort, and some small power returned to Ben. “Did Phelps have you guys in to talk?”

  “Yeah, it was fine,” Ennis said, and the rest of them nodded and kept nodding. All of them had sat in Phelps’s office and wondered aloud how the rumor could have started that Hawley had done newb boxing. They had all listened to the same talk about you think it brings everyone together, culture of fear, St. James stands against that.

  “It is bullshit, though,” said Ian. “You don’t just walk out.”

  “But just,” started Jed, “Ahmed just seems completely clueless, you know? Even just like getting food at the Dish. I saw him talking with the dining hall lady who puts chicken patties on buns, and like twenty people are piling
up behind him. It’s not that he’s trying to go against anyone, he’s just like…like an absolute beginner. He doesn’t know anything about how to act.” Jed looked like he was advertising cereal as he said this, his dark buzz cut over his ruddy face and the cliffs of his forehead and cheekbones.

  “I guess,” Ben went on. “It’s just, how do you learn that stuff? How are you taught to handle yourself?”

  Fitzy rolled his face over to Ben. “Totally.”

  “It’s true,” Ennis said. “It’s total bullshit. Newb boxing was going perfect until he pulled that shit.” He stared at Ben and Jed, bulling his face at them. “Right? You fuckers were terrified.”

  Ben nodded emphatically. And he was close, he almost had something. “And I guess it’s just, like, how would Teddy handle that, you know?”

  “It’s true,” Ennis said. “Just cause he’s a foreign kid, just cause he’s so clueless, doesn’t mean he gets to do whatever. And now his dad donating a fucking pool? It’s like, be here more than five minutes. And acting like you own the school, deciding whether or not you newb-box. We’d never let them”—Ennis pointed his chin at the two younger boys—“we’d never let them get away with it.”

  “Yeah, that’s all I’m saying,” said Ben, and then committed to shutting up for good now.

  “It’s true,” Ennis said again. “It’s total fucking bullshit. As though we can’t run a group of fucking newbs.”

  The Hendrix album ended and the changer moved again and Ray Charles started singing “Georgia on My Mind,” which no one wanted to hear, and Ennis told Fitzy to pour him another one while he found something good to play.

  Ben had another shot, and then another. He wondered vaguely what time it might be, whether his father was sleeping or awake. The digital clock on one of the desks said it was 6:07 p.m., which he knew it wasn’t. The rotation went around again. When he looked at the Snapple bottle, there was just a rind on the bottom, and Ennis went to fill it up again from the closet. They finished that one too. Ben took another shot, he should have been counting, and stood up to let someone else go, and when he dropped into the couch, his head flopped back and met the wall. It sounded like an apple against the kitchen floor, and incandescent amoebas floated in front of him for a second. Everyone said “Ohhh!” and pain clapped into him and he laughed in pain and tried to make his vision go back to one copy of everything.