I didn’t feel rejected. Instead, her reservation piqued my interest even more. I was curious.
“Seems like there were a lot of druggies in there,” I said, once we were outside. “Do you think they use that blood?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it.”
The sun was high in the sky, there were birds chirping, and Grace was standing stock still with her head down, her eyes trained on a line of ants heading toward a trashcan.
“What do you want to do now?” I asked.
She looked up. “Wanna get some weed and hang out in Washington Square?”
I laughed. “I thought you’d never ask.”
“Come on, druggy.” She yanked on my hand and we were off. A block down, she tried to pull her hand out of mine but I wouldn’t let her.
“You have tiny hands,” I said.
At the corner, as we waited for the crosswalk, she pried her hand away and held it up. “Yeah, but they’re bony and ugly.”
“I like them.” When the walking sign lit up, I grabbed her hand again and said, “Come on skeletor. Let’s go.”
“Funny.”
She let me hold her hand the rest of the way.
We stopped by Senior House so I could get my camera. Grace grabbed a blanket and the skinniest joint I had ever seen. On our way out, Daria, our RA, stopped us as we passed the registration desk. “Where are you two headed?”
“The park,” Grace said. “What are you doing here?”
Daria popped the last bit of a fish stick into her mouth. “Lots of people movin’ in today. I’m just gonna keep getting bugged. I might as well sit here. By the way, I wanted to talk to you, Grace. The cello-playing at night can get pretty loud. It was okay for the first few days, when no one was here, but...”
“I don’t mind and I’m right next door,” I interrupted.
Grace turned around and shook her head at me. “Don’t. It’s okay. I’ll keep it down, Daria.”
We turned and left the building. “Daria looks like a man, huh? Like David Bowie or something?”
She scrunched her face up. “Yeah, but David Bowie looks like a woman.”
“True. Maybe you should learn some Bowie songs to keep Daria happy.”
“Yeah, maybe I will.”
At the park, she laid the blanket down near a big sycamore tree and sat with her back against the trunk. I lay on my stomach, facing her. I watched as she lit the joint, inhaled, and passed it over to me. “Do you think we’ll get busted here, out in the open?”
“No, I come here all the time.”
“Alone?”
“A bunch of people from the music department hang out here.” She took a long hit and then looked up, startled, and coughed a puff of smoke out. “Oh shit.”
“What?” I turned around to see a man in his early to midthirties coming toward us. He was dressed in khakis and had a severely receding hairline. “Who’s that?” I asked, grabbing the joint and stubbing it out.
“That’s Dan—I mean, Professor Pornsake. One of my music teachers.”
“You call him Dan?”
“He told me to. I don’t think he likes his last name.”
