Gold Diggers, Sanjena Sathian [hardest books to read .txt] 📗

“What do you mean?”

“Just that. You get there. To Harvard. What happens next?”

She looked at me like she had something sour on her tongue.

“Whatever the fuck I want.”

•   •   •

You could almost miss the entrance to Anita’s school as you passed by the old-style Southern diner boasting, on a signboard, the butteriest grits in Atlanta and the sweetest tea to boot. We caught sight of the brick gates just in time. Two tennis courts loomed to our right, ringed by old magnolias. A sign in bright orange lettering congratulated the Bobcats on winning the state championship in men’s and women’s cross-country—Anita’s team—and then cycled to add more titles collected that fall: football, robotics, quiz team, show choir . . .

“Maybe if I went to school here, I wouldn’t wait to dick around, either,” Wendi said bitterly as we crossed a small blue bridge running over a creek. My window was down. The water warbled. Campus was dark, but a few lights switched on automatically as we drove.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“This is practically already the Ivy League. She’s got a free ticket.”

I stiffened. “Turn right here, I think,” I said, trying to remember the directions Anita had given me. “She said she’s in the old junior high.”

“She’s not going to barf in my car, is she?”

“No,” I said. “And she doesn’t have a free ticket. She works really hard.”

“Didn’t say she didn’t,” Wendi said, and briefly that puckered face loosened. Suddenly, she slammed her horn, hard. We’d nearly hit a train of figures sprinting across the road.

“Wendi!” I said. “They have security on campus!”

“Security? Why are these kids drinking here on a Saturday, then—” but she shut up as I pulled out my phone and dialed the number Anita had called from. Three rings, four, no reply. “You got a cover story ready, superhero? I’m not taking the fall for this chick.”

“You’re supposed to be the fast thinker,” I snapped.

I tried the number once more, and this time a guy’s voice answered. It was deeper than mine, cloaked in a friendly Southern burr. “Are you Anita’s brother?”

“Brother?”

“She said her brother was coming to pick her up?”

I paused. I assented.

The voice directed me where to come. “Hurry,” he said.

The crowd that awaited us, in a parking lot next to a one-story brick building, was wedged against a broad tree. Two figures peeled away: a guy taller than me, and a girl leaning on him. The guy was white and had dark brown hair that fringed above his ears. He looked annoyed.

Anita grinned at me dizzily. “Neil. Happy happy to see you.”

“Is she okay?” I reached out an arm so she could lean on me instead.

“She didn’t drink that much,” the guy said. “But I don’t think she really knows how to handle it.” He sounded sober. “We’re all trying to get gone, though. We would have taken her home, but she wouldn’t say where y’all live.”

“Far,” I said. “Thanks.”

We found a towel in Wendi’s trunk, and I sat in the backseat with a dozing Anita and laid the towel over her lap in case of emergency. We pulled out of the vast compound and Wendi lowered the windows. The air was fresh but cold and smelled like peeled potatoes.

“Can’t she choke on her vomit?” I asked.

“I dunno,” Wendi said. “Better that than spewing.”

We were minutes from the interstate, on one of those roads with gated houses, when Anita suddenly began knocking on the door. “Pull over, pull over,” I said. Wendi did, and I edged out with Anita. We knelt on the grass by a Keller Williams realty sign, and I caught her hair while she retched. Vomit splattered the sign. After expelling, she inhaled deeply. “Alcohol. It’s fun, everything gets more fun.”

“You’re not making the greatest pitch.” I pointed at the ruined open house sign. I had defended her to Wendi, and I’d meant it—she did work. But I felt betrayed. I’d thought we were both waiting. “Why were you guys drinking at school?”

“Issa cross-country thing. Haaazing.” Her words ran into each other like cramped cursive handwriting.

Anita was wiping her mouth with her hand and picking at the un-vomity grass, and I got the sense from the way she was screwing up her shoulders that she was preparing to release a torrent of pent-up feelings on me the way she had in her kitchen a month ago. I wanted none of it now. I couldn’t win—either she kept me at a distance, which ached, or she drew me close, which resulted in disgust that she’d shown herself to me at all, followed by an even crueler distance.

Wendi honked, unconcerned about disturbing the residents of the nouveau plantations.

“Homeward bound, Ani,” I said, and she giggled. I stood. Anita grabbed my hand and hoisted herself up next to me. She linked her arm through mine and stumbled back to the car while I bore much of her weight. Every touch that might have felt sacred some other time now felt like confirmation that she took me for granted. In the backseat of Wendi’s car, Anita laid her head on my lap, and I hastily shoved the towel beneath her hair to make a pillow, to separate her hot cheek from my zipper.

Wendi surveyed me in the rearview mirror knowingly, rolling her eyes, and switched on Death Cab for Cutie until we reached the Dayals’.

“It was fabulous to meet you,” she said to Anita as we hopped out. “I’m sure I’ll see you at Harvard.”

Anita’s eyes crossed. “You like-like Neil,” she said. “That’s why she’s so mean to you.”

I tugged her to her door, my face burning. As Wendi sped away, I checked over my shoulder—my house was dark. I was still, to my parents’ knowledge, at debate.

“You’re sure your mom’s not home?” I whispered, and Anita laughed, as though the prospect was ridiculous. Inside, I put her in her bed and kept a trash can by the pillow, copying the gestures my mother adopted when someone fell sick. Anita’s nightstand was piled high