“I hope not.”
“Jake! My God!”
“Didn’t you like it?”
“Why didn’t you just tell them you planned to blow up the school?”
“I don’t want to blow up the school. It’s valuable real estate.”
She stares at him in wonder and exasperation, then turns to me. “What do you think of this, Mr. Sullivan?”
I swallow hard, look to Jake for guidance. His face is as blank as I’ve ever seen it. I don’t know how he wants me to play it, so I decide to go with the truth.
I clear my throat. “Actually, I thought it was a hell of a good essay.”
“You did?!”
“He made some excellent points, and it’s a smooth read.”
Sarah looks from me to Jake and back to me, trying to figure whether we’ve both gone insane, or if it’s all a big gag of some kind. We’re all going to share a big laugh, and then Jake’s dad is going to spring for a nice meal at a tablecloth restaurant of her choice on the Upper East Side. Oh, you guys! You had me going, there!…
“It wasn’t just the essay,” Jake adds. “They actually threw me out because I wouldn’t apologize.”
“Why wouldn’t you apologize?”
“I wasn’t sorry.”
Sarah hands the essay back to Jake, who folds it and sticks it in his hip pocket.
“Jacob Perez-Sullivan. You are such a child.”
“I think it would have been childish to apologize.”
“You realize, of course, that you’ve just squandered your entire future.”
“You think?”
She lets out a shrieky noise, like a cat that’s just had its tail stepped on, a noise that makes a few coffee drinkers turn around for a look.
“Come on,” she says. “Get real. Do you know what this means? The Ivy League schools are out. And the whole second tier is probably out, too. Where are you going to go now, to a state university!”
“I can’t even think about that stuff, unless I finish high school.”
“Unless!”
“Well, yeah. I mean, technically, I’m a dropout.”
“Oh my God, oh my God.”
“Sarah.” Jake reaches for her hand, but she pulls it away. “I didn’t kill anyone. All I did was write something they didn’t like. Can’t you see? If I apologize for something 1 believe in, I’m a dead man.”
She sits back, puts her hands to her temples. “Everything’s ruined,” she says, and the tears in her eyes appear to be real.
“Calm down,” Jake says. “Nobody died.”
“Your future just died!”
“Sarah—”
“Nantucket’s out, I’m sure you realize.”
“What?”
“I was going to invite you to our place in Nantucket next summer. Mom and Dad will never allow it now.”
“Because I’m not in private school anymore?”
“Because you’re not serious.”
“Sarah. I am dead serious about what I wrote.”
“You just had to do it, didn’t you? Not that I’m surprised. Not with your…” She hesitates, thinks about it, and finally finds the right word…
“…background.”
The coffee in my mouth turns to acid. I’m Jake’s background, and as Sarah says it she doesn’t even bother looking at me.
Jake stares at her with a blend of amusement and disappointment. There’s a sad grin on his face, the grin of a scientist whose lab rat has just confirmed his theory about how strenuous circumstances induce dreadful behavior.
But the experiment is not yet over. Calmly as a priest Jake says, “My background? You mean my dad, here?”
“Well, yes.” And still she’s not looking at me! “Working for that horrible rag. That’s where your self-destructive attitude comes from, in case you wondered.”
“I don’t work for that horrible rag anymore,” I say softly, trying to be helpful. At last she turns to look at me. Her face is now all but crimson with rage, and it highlights a slight bump on her nose I hadn’t noticed before. She’s not so perfect after all.
“I’m sorry I said that,” she says, not sorry at all. “But I’m glad you don’t work there anymore. It’s a dreadful, fascist publication that caters to the lowest impulses in human beings.”
Clearly, she’s quoting one of her parents from a Park Avenue dinner table rant. “Anyway,” she adds, “I think it’s good that you quit.”
“I didn’t quit. They fired me today. Jake’s out of school, and I’m out of work.”
This is more than Sarah can take. Her family’s idea of drama is when somebody parks the car on the street instead of tucking it into a nice safe garage. She’s just found out that her boyfriend and his father are a pair of bums. She jumps to her feet as if a fire alarm has just sounded.
“I’m sorry, Jake.” She shuts her eyes, holds up her hands. “I just…it’s more than I can deal with. I’m sorry, but we’re through.”
Jake nods, but remains seated. “We are through, Sarah. You’re right. But not because of this. We’re through because last weekend you fucked Pete Hogan.”
My stomach is in free fall. Sarah’s mouth literally drops open. She covers it with her hands as Jake continues speaking, calmly and slowly.
“Pete bragged about it. Didn’t you think he would? Don’t you know what he is? I go away one weekend, and look what happens.”
“Jake. Please listen. Somebody put something in my drink. I never—”
“If you wanted to fuck Pete Hogan, all you had to do was tell me you wanted to fuck Pete Hogan. I’d have understood. Hell, his parents have a house on Martha’s Vineyard. That’s just a ferry ride from Nantucket, isn’t it?”
“Jake, please let me—”
“Don’t bother, Sarah. No point in trying to explain something so complicated to someone with my background. I’d never understand it.”
He makes a shooing motion with his hand, as if to chase away a lazy fly. “Just go, Sarah. Leave.”
Sarah knocks over what’s left of her latte as she hurries away. Jake waits until she’s nearly at the door, then yells her name. She stops where she is and turns to face him.
“Your father spends his life finding loopholes in the environmental laws so the companies that pay him can keep dumping their toxins in the rivers!” he shouts, loudly enough for every coffee drinker to hear. “That’s your background, baby! Live with it! I’ll take my background over yours any day!”
Sarah all but sprints out of Starbucks. I grab a wad of paper napkins and start soaking up what Sarah has spilled, amazed that it’s still warm, that everything that’s just happened took place in less time than it takes for a three-dollar latte to lose its heat.
Jake sits back and sips his latte, like a weary assassin after a successful but dull