Chapter 23

Considering Rona’s face was still kind of bleeding, it seemed like the polite thing to walk her home.  Except he felt nervous to offer, like it would be presumptuous, like maybe she was too important to hang out with him now that she was a celebrity.

He decided to just start walking alongside her towards her dorm without saying anything about it.  She didn’t tell him to cut it out and go home.  

“So like, how…?” 

There was so much to ask, he didn’t even know where to start.  Knock that crazy girl on her butt? Scare her into giving up? Get so completely bad-ass, when you seemed so nerdy and regular?

“How did you…”

He leaned down to remove somebody's pink wool glove that was sticking to the front of his pants leg. University Drive was the main corridor between east and north campus, so everything was blowing down it—angry gusts of wind, dead leaves, fast food wrappers, lost articles of clothing.  Also a lot of drunk undergraduates and homeless guys. They all seemed okay to Gavin, fellow-travelers on this symbolic path of life and all the funny places it could lead you.

“Learn to box?” she asked.   

Oh!  Learn to box.  Watching all those angry people trying to beat the crap out of each other, he had forgotten that it might be the kind of thing you learned.  It looked like everyone was just winging it.  

“My dad taught me when I was little.  But just hitting pads or a punching bag.  I never actually boxed another person before.”

“You must be a natural.”

“Not really.  That girl just sucked.”

It was weird: she seemed so blasé about the whole thing, while he felt like he had just jumped out of the way of a train.  His hands were shaking, he was dizzy, sweaty.  Everything around him, even the crappy wind and the fast-food wrappers, seemed sort of beautiful, that exaggerated kind of beauty that happens immediately after you escape death.

And Rona—Rona who had actually done the thing, who had taken on death and punched it in the face like it was a schoolyard bully—she seemed like a god.

An icy gust of wind shot right at them, opening Gavin’s unzipped coat and getting all into the fabric of his sweater.  Rona moved a little closer to him.  He couldn’t tell if it was on purpose, like to use him as a wind block, or if she just got blown that way. Either way, it sent kind of a jolt through him. 

“She threw a lot of punches but they were crappy punches,” Rona was saying.  “It’s better to throw a few really good punches than a million crappy ones.”

Someday he would need to ask her what the difference between a good punch and a crappy one was.  It actually sounded pretty interesting. But not right now.  They were approaching the broad steps in front of Roebuck Hall, and he needed to figure out what to do.  He and Rona were just friends, and friends didn’t kiss each other goodbye.  But when your friend’s cheekbone was swelling up because she had gotten punched in the face in front of a hundred people and it didn’t even faze her, and when you had never met anyone close to that brave and would never be that brave yourself, even if you worked at it for the rest of your life—under those circumstances, just a regular handshake didn’t seem like it would adequately convey the depth of your respect and admiration.

“Do you want to come in and have a drink?” she asked.  They were twenty feet from the stairs now. 

Rona wants to have a drink.  With you.  A warm feeling exploded in his stomach, like when Frick said he belonged in the Ivy Leagues, like something really good had just happened. 

Pull it together!  It was just Rona Gomez.  He’d had four drinks with her already, just a couple hours ago.  

“Sure,” he said, like he didn’t care too much either way.  “A drink is cool.”

“Let’s go to the store.”

They walked right past her dorm and into a really lit-up corner store filled with liquor, cigarettes, condoms and ramen.   And a whole wall of cell phone accessories. Gavin splurged on a sixty-dollar bottle of Glenfiddich, even though he knew they had it at Beverage Depot for like forty.  Rona got about six protein bars.

She had already eaten half of her first one before they were back out on the sidewalk, and she ripped open a second one on the stairs to her room.  She handed him one, too, and he took a few bites.  Coconut, kind of sweet for his taste, but it probably wasn’t a bad idea to get some food in his stomach after all that stress and alcohol.

She opened the door to her room with a keychain that only had one key on it. 

Rona’s room.   

It was just a regular dorm room, which weirded him out.  But what else would it be?  It had two halves, each with a desk, dresser, and twin bed.  It was pretty obvious which side belonged to Rona. The right had a neat flowered comforter on the bed, a perfect grid of cheerful posters on the wall.  Animals, sunsets, ocean views.  There was a dresser with about seven framed photos of the same guy on it, and above that, a reproduction of that Klimt painting every girl had in her room back when Gavin was in college.

“She’s in Bloomington,” Rona said.  “She goes there every weekend to see her boyfriend.”

The other side of the room, the dark, messy side, had nothing on the wall except an actual painting. A swirl of gray and black and midnight blue.  In the middle, two bright figures, their bodies twisted around each other in a way that could be sex or a fight or a dance.

“My friend made that.  In New York.”  She gathered up back clothing items from the bed and desk and floor and tossed them into the bottom of her closet.  “Have a seat and I’ll grab some cups.”

He wasn’t sure where to sit, so he just stood and watched her rummaging through a bunch of plastic dishes in her top dresser drawer. It was cool to see her here, in her natural habitat.  He tried to imagine her doing her regular activities here: reading Stump’s plays ahead of time (Where? On the chair?  The bed?), drawing pictures of trees, looking up stuff about forests. Brushing her hair, maybe, or folding her laundry if she ever did that.  Maybe doing some cleaning, in her pajamas.  He wondered what she slept in.  Faded black sweats?  An antique slip?

“I don’t have any real glasses,” she said, placing two plastic juice cups on the seat of the desk chair . “These are from the dining hall.”

She straightened out the tangle of sheets and blankets and sat down on the bed, her legs crossed in front of her.  Miniskirt, black leggings, gray socked feet.   She pulled the chair next to the bed so it was like a coffee table.

“Sit down.”  She patted the spot next to her, but that was too close. The flimsy mattress would buckle and then he’d basically be on top of her. So he sat far away, as far as he could get while being on the same bed. 

Rona Gomez sleeps here.  My butt is touching where Rona sleeps. 

That was trouble.  You weren’t ever supposed to think things like that when you were in a girl’s room, especially if she was just your friend.  You had to think about something like politics or literary criticism.

He ran his hand over the comforter, stone gray, woven out of some kind of textured fabric like soft burlap.   This comforter goes over Rona’s body when she sleeps. He could almost see it falling over her hips, clinging to her waist, curving across one bare shoulder.

He looked down at his right hand and saw the paper bag. That’s right.  They were supposed to be having a drink.  He pulled the Scotch out—it came in a canister that he had to pry open with his shaky hands, and then unscrew the bottle—and poured two cups.  Rona sniffed at hers and poked her finger into the surface.

“Um,” she said.  “I need to ask you about something.” 

Stomach lurch.  

“Sure, yeah. Go ahead.”

She looked at him and bit the side of her lip, like he was a particularly cryptic abstract painting or something.  He looked back at her. The black eye didn’t seem too bad, no massive swelling like last time, just a little puffiness and a purple mark.  Her hair was still tied back, a little messed up on top from the fight.

“I was thinking.” The liquid lurched to one side of her glass, and he was sure she was about to spill it all over the nice gray bedspread.  But no, she lifted it to her face and swallowed the whole thing like it was cheap tequila. Her eyes scrunched up for the tiniest second, but other than that she kept a blank face.  

“Do you think it would be a good idea for us to have sex?” 

Major giant stomach lurch.  Klimt poster spinning upside down, flowers and sunsets twirling and blurring.   He pulled the half-eaten protein bar from his pocket and chomped a big bite out of it.  Chew, slowly, slowly.  Swallow.   

That helped. At least the posters were back in their regular order now.  He took a sip from his own glass and held it against his tongue. It burned at first and then melted into something warm like maple candy.

“I thought it wasn’t a good idea,” he said.

“Yeah, but the tension is getting kind of distracting. I’m having trouble focusing in class.” 

Rona Gomez can’t concentrate in class because she wants to… He couldn’t even say it in his head.  He really wanted to, because it was one of the best things he’d ever heard in his entire life.  Rona’s having trouble focusing because… 

“Are you okay? Eat the rest of your bar.”  She reached down to the floor, where she had thrown her coat, and pulled another one out of the pocket.  “Here, eat this one, too.” 

<Chapter 22

Chapter 24> 

Chapter 22

Fuck fuck fuck! 

Rona was standing seven feet in front of him at eye level, in black leggings, borrowed gloves, and combat boots.  She had tied her hair back with a rubber-band or something.  She was about to get smashed into to dog food, right in front of his face. 

Unless he could stop her. 

The crowd in front of the ring was packed tight, but he wedged his way through them, using his two hands pressed together in front of him like an arrow. Watch it, fuckface, someone said, and a couple guys shoved him.  The announcer guy was leaning against the far side of the ring, and Gavin was almost within screaming distance… 

“Stop the fight!”

Okay, that didn’t make sense, because no one was fighting yet.  The frat boys and biker thugs turned to look at him, and the announcer guy smirked, just like you’d expect from a punk ass twenty-year-old Brandon. 

Gavin tried again.  “Don’t start!”

He was pretty close to the announcer now, close enough to reason with him instead of just making a scene.

“She doesn’t know how to fight,” Gavin said. “She’s gonna get hurt.”

“Hey, Big Ted,” the announcer yelled into the ring.  The ref came over and squatted by the edge of the ropes.  Even though he was giant and tattooed and dressed in a bunch of black leather, up close he looked kind of reasonable, with calm mouth and tired wrinkles around his eyes.

“What is she, your girlfriend?” he asked.

“She’s my… yeah, she’s my girlfriend.”

“Well listen.” The ref smiled in a kind way, like, I get you, buddy.  “No man likes watching his woman fight.  But this is all pretty safe.” 

Pretty safe? What kind of definition of safe was this guy working with?

“But the last two fights—”  

“Those guys are fine.”  He stood up, signaling that his kind-and-patient act was over.   “Anyway, we’ve got a paramedic.  Look, we’ve got to start.”

“She’s drunk!” Gavin yelled, last-ditch.  The ref just shook his head. 

So that’s it.  They were just going to let this bloodbath happen.  It seemed weird to stand and watch it, but what was he supposed to do?  Jump in there and carry Rona out?  If he even could.  He’d never lifted a grown woman before, that he could remember, and he’d probably remember something like that.  And of course, he’d have to get past Debbie.

So he just stood there, helpless, one of those sad brave mothers watching her son’s ship sail off to war.  He was an asshole just for agreeing to come here with her.  What did he think was going to happen?  Well, not this.  On the list of things he had expected from this night, Rona boxing a bloodthirsty hillbilly was somewhere way below the bottom. 

The second the bell rang to start the fight, Debbie flew out of her corner like a wet cat with rabies, just snarling and punching.  

Holy shit.  This was fucking terrifying.

“Look out!” Gavin yelled, which was not a cool thing to yell to someone in a boxing match—even he knew that—but it’s just what came out.  Anyway, fuck being cool.

Rona put her arms up and covered her head as Debbie threw about twenty punches at her face.  Gavin wanted to look around and see where the paramedic was, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the fight for even a second or she would get knocked out for sure.

“Nya!” Debbie grunted, swinging one of her pretty gold gloves at Rona’s head, as hard as she could, it looked like.  “Nya, nya! Nya!”

Gavin was getting kind of dizzy just watching it.  Some percent of him wanted to jump into the ring and save Rona.  But a much larger percent wanted to run away, back to his apartment, to get into bed and lie under his blankets in the dark where things were peaceful.   

Stay focused!  If he didn’t pay attention to every single second, there was no way he could control this fight with his mind.  That’s what he was doing: using every telekinetic possibility in his brain to hold Debbie back, sap her power.  He needed—to stay—focused. 

CRACK.  Rona’s face cracks open like a walnut.

People are screaming.  Somebody get her to the hospital!!!  Holy fuck, someone is saying, and someone is sobbing.

Hospital lights in a dark hallway, fuzzy, flashing by, blinding.  Just like a TV show. Running with a gurney, medical tools, get her to surgery, STAT!

The doctor meeting with Gavin, stern, disappointed.  Permanent brain damage.  Possibility of death. You’re the boyfriend?

No, I was lying, Gavin says. We’re just friends. 

WHAP!

He wasn’t sure exactly what happened—he sucked at staying focused sometimes—but Debbie was sitting on the ground at Rona's feet.  Not unconscious though.  She popped right back up, looking more pissed off than before, like maybe she was a wet mother cat with rabies and Rona had just eaten a couple of her kittens. The ref lowered his hand to start the fight again.  

Actually, so far, Rona looked okay. Her nose was a little bloody but intact, and her face didn’t looked ripped open or anything.  She had looked way worse the time she tried to walk through the wall. Even though his part of the fight was exactly like the beginning—Debbie throwing a million angry punches, Rona covering her head—Gavin felt a little better.  Rona had survived the first attack.  Maybe the ref was right.  This is all perfectly safe. 

CRACK!

Rona stumbled backwards. One of Debbie’s punches had gotten her square in the face.  Gavin felt something sick in his stomach, the taste of warm milk. Flashes of bad dreams.  The doctor: You’re her boyfriend?  Why did you let her…?  Debbie was closing in for the kill, her hands all over the place like a whirling golden tornado. 

And right through the middle of the tornado came two faded red gloves, one-two.  The first one was Rona’s right hand, which knocked Debbie’s head backwards.  The second was her left hand,  which slammed into Debbie’s raised chin.  And after that, Debbie was on the floor again.

DING DING DING!

The round was over, with Debbie still sitting on her butt, Rona standing over her with her usual frown.  

Gavin exhaled.  It felt like he hadn’t done it in a while.  So, one round down.  How many more to go? Two? Four? None of the other fights had made it past a round, so he had no idea.  He wasn't sure how much more of this he could take before he straight up fainted like  some kind of girl.

Wait, what was going on?  The ref was talking to Debbie, over in her corner. She was standing, leaning on the ropes, her arms stretched over them to hold herself up.  Her gloves were on the floor next to her.  

The ref pulled Rona into the middle of the ring and held her gloved arm in the air.

“The winner,” said the announcer, “by technical knock out—Rona Gomez!”

There was lots of cheering, but Rona was already out of the ring. She had ducked through the ropes the moment the ref let go of her arm.  She sat on the ring’s edge right by Gavin and the announcer, pulling off the gloves, shimmying back into her skirt.  She was starting to get a black eye, and there was some dried blood under her nose.  Otherwise she looked pretty good.

Gavin felt kind of shy to even talk to her, like she was a rock star or something. 

“Nice work out there,” the announcer said.  Fuck that guy.  Gavin grabbed her coat from her so she wouldn’t have to carry it, like an actual boyfriend would, and pulled her away from the ring.

“Do you want to stick around?” he asked her.

“Nah, that’s enough.”  She sounded a little out of breath, but not super tired or beat-down or anything.  “We can go.”

Everything was opposite from before.  He had her by the hand, leading her back towards the house.  And as they walked, everyone stepped aside to make room, offering their respect to the rock star. All the guys were smiling at her, and the less bitchy-looking girls, too, and saying stuff like, Good one, Way to go, You’re a bruiser.  Gavin kind of wanted to rush her, to pull her away from these fucking sycophants.  But of course this was her moment, and he needed to let her enjoy it.  He kept a moderate, steady pace until they were inside the empty fraternity.

“Um.” He wasn’t sure what to say, but he felt like he should say something.  “That was awesome.”  He felt weird even saying it, like who was he to state the obvious?

“It wasn’t a TKO,” Rona said.  “Just so you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“A TKO would mean the ref stopped the fight.  But he didn't. She quit.” She wrinkled her nose, like she had done watching the two guys box, and took her coat from him. Her hair was sweaty and matted to her forehead and there was some kind of sooty black stuff smeared on her cheek. “That’s way worse than getting knocked out.”

And there it was, just for a quick second: the smile.  It was gorgeous. 

<Chapter 21

Chapter 23>

Chapter 21

“Fights are starting!”

Some girl was yelling the news up and down the halls.  Fights are starting! Fights—are— star—ting!!!  

Gavin and Rona gathered up all their coats and gloves and everything under their arms and joined the creeping herd.  It moved down the long hallway, through a kind of pantry/mudroom in the back, across a covered outdoor deck.  Down into the giant back yard, which was already packed with all those people who had been standing in the front yard before.

The set-up was actually pretty nice.  A boxing ring way back by the back fence, a tarp overhead,  a couple of those giant party tents in case it started raining. Heat lamps.  Considering what a dump the house was, this was downright swanky.

From way in back, Gavin could see the elevated boxing ring, but not too well.  There was a big tattooed guy in a leather vest—the referee, it seemed like.  And then, he had been expecting boxers, but no.  Instead, there were two guys hugging, really desperately hugging, like lovers who were about to be separated forever, just falling on top of each other.  Gavin wasn’t a martial arts expert or anything, but he knew this had to be wrestling. He’d been taught how to do it during two extremely awkward weeks of high-school gym class.  Plus he had watched ultimate fighting a few times when his old roommate had gotten it on pay-per-view.  The main thing he had learned was that in high school wrestling, whoever was on the top was winning, while in ultimate fighting, whoever was on the bottom was winning.  But he didn’t know what kind of wrestling these guys were doing, and anyway they were standing so nobody was on top.

“This way.”  Rona grabbed his hand again—bare skin this time—and pulled him off to the side of the ring, right against the fence.  The view was great.  Kind of sideways, but it’s not like people faced forward when they fought. Girls had such a good eye for stuff like that; Gavin would have just stayed in the back.

The two guys were lying on the ground now, only about five feet in front of him. They looked like New Buffalo undergrads, clean and well-cared for, not scary or anything. On the bottom, there was a kind of chubby white guy in a red sweatshirt.  On top was an insanely ripped Asian guy in a gray tank-top that showed off his giant arm muscles.  He was lying on Sweatshirt Guy in a funny way, like he was trying to squish right through his body and into the floor.  

“Red is winning?”  Gavin was just guessing.  That backyard wrestling he had watched on YouTube was more like like ultimate fighting than high-school wrestling, and since this was also in a backyard, maybe it was more like ultimate fighting, too.

Rona shook her head.  “I don’t think so.” 

Damn. 

The two guys squirmed around some more.  Red-Sweatshirt would turn his body to the left, and Tank-Top would spin like a break dancer on top of him.  Red-Sweatshirt would turn back to the right, and Tank-Top would spin again.  It was pretty boring, but Rona seemed into it, standing up on tiptoes, leaning in to get a better view.

Finally something happened.  Gavin could tell, because everyone in the crowd starting yelling and saying stuff like aw yeah and finish him. Tank-Top had slipped behind Red-Sweatshirt. They were lying on their sides, spooning.  Tank-Top had his arm wrapped around Red-Sweatshirt’s face, like he was trying to strangle him or just smush his nose off. 

“He’s out!” the ref yelled.  Tank-Top got up. A guy in medical scrubs jumped into the ring and crouched over Sweatshirt guy, who was still on the ground, waxy-faced and unconscious.

After a few seconds he opened his eyes and sat up.  The ref was already holding Tank-Top’s well-defined arm up in the air.

“The winner,” announced a Brandon with a microphone on the far side of the ring, “by rear-naked choke: Tony Nguyen!” 

Rear-naked choke?  Wow. This whole wrestling thing was even gayer than Gavin remembered from high school. 

Tony Nguyen and his shaky-but-conscious opponent hugged, a really hard hug like they loved each other.  Then they left the ring and two new guys came up wearing boxing gloves.  One was a kind of skinhead-looking guy in a wife-beater and stompy boots, which seemed like a weird thing to box in, but of course Gavin didn’t know anything about boxing.  The guy was hopping around from the second he got into the ring, throwing punches in the air. The other one had a black sweatshirt with the hood up, kind of dark skin and a hook nose and eyes like he wanted to murder somebody.  He wasn’t hopping, just standing there glaring like a psycho.

“Scary,” Gavin whispered to Rona.

“Maybe.” She didn’t sound too scared.  She might be used to angry people from growing up in Miami, which was supposed to be kind of an intense city. They probably had guys like this teaching kindergarten.

“Fighting out of the blue corner,” the announcer-guy said.  “From West Lafayette, Pete Metzger!”  Skinhead got more hyper, jumped around faster, threw more punches in the air.

“And in the red corner, from New Buffalo, Sam Rojas!”  Hoodie Guy did not get hyper.  He just stared at the ref like he wanted to kill him.

“That guy looks crazy,” Gavin said.

“He’s scared shitless,” Rona said.

A bell rang to start the fight.  Skinhead ran full-force at Hoodie, his fist cocked up over his shoulder. The crowd gasped, but Hoodie jumped backwards.  The punch hung in empty air for a second, then fell downwards before Skinhead could regain control of it. 

Rona sighed really loud.  “Jesus Christ.”

Hoodie kind of shuffled towards Skinhead, his dark eyes still glaring.  But Rona was right: he looked terrified.  He kept his gloves up around his head, like he was expecting to get hit.  When he  threw a couple punches, they didn’t look like they were really meant to reach Skinhead’s face.  Skinhead lowered his glove to his waist, stuck his jaw out, and took a giant swing at Hoodie, which seemed like it hit him, though things went crazy after that and it was hard to see what was happening exactly.  There was just a lot of spit and fists flying everywhere.  The crowd was freaking out, yelling drunk directions as though the fighters could hear anything past all that punching and with everyone screaming at once.

“They suck,” Rona said.

Wow, really?  Gavin didn’t know anything at all about boxing—his old roommate wasn’t into it and they didn’t do it in PE—but it seemed to him like they were doing okay.  They were managing to hit each other a lot, anyway. Wasn’t that the point?  And when they got hit, they were standing there and taking it instead of jumping out of the ring and running away like Gavin would have, so you had be impressed with that at least.

He turned to look at Rona. She was staring at the ring, biting her lip, her nose wrinkled up like she was smelling something really foul, which she undoubtedly was, beer and body odor and cologne.

“How do you know so much about fighting?”

She kept watching the boxers. “My family’s into it.” Right, Miami, Cubans.  Scarface.  It sort of made sense.

Hoodie was in trouble now.  He was stumbling backwards, way backwards, into the ropes at the edge of the ring.  Skinhead stood there and watched him for a few seconds, like he was considering following him but hadn’t decided yet. Then, a burst of murder-rage lit up his eyes. He cocked his hand down by his waist and flew at Hoodie.  His fist was going to enter the front of Hoodie’s head and come out the back.

“Cross!” Rona said, not loud, but in her Divine Sharpness voice, clear like a paper airplane flying above the crowd.

Maybe Hoodie heard her, or maybe he was just thinking the same way she was. Right cross.  Skinhead’s giant crazy punch was coming, coming, almost there, and WHAM!  It was Hoodie’s punch, snapping straight into Skinhead’s jaw.  His eyes rolled back, and he tottered on his feet for a second.  When he fell, it was in a weird, crashing way that was more like a tree than a person.  

The guy in scrubs jumped back in the ring.  He sure was getting a lot of action tonight. But Skinhead was already sitting up, legs stretched in front of him like a kid.  “I’m good, I’m all good,” he was telling Scrubs.  He stood up, and when Hoodie was declared the winner, Skinhead gave him a giant bear hug.  It seemed like all these guys just loved the fuck out of each other the moment they stopped beating each other up.

Now a girl came into the ring. She was ready: tight jeans, black sweatshirt with Bully written on the back, shiny new gold boxing gloves. Hair shaved on one side of her head, the other side braided back in cornrows.

“We have a woman who would like to fight,” the announcer said. “Debbie McMahon from Crawfordsville.  Weighing one hundred and thirty pounds.  Any females out there want to step in the ring with Debbie McMahon?”

She stood in the ring, gloves at her side, lower lip pouting out, kind of angry and kind of sad.

“If you want to fight Debbie, please come to the front immediately.” 

The ref went to the side of the ring and said something to the announcer.

“Folks, it looks like we have our fighter!  What’s her name?” 

Her name is FUCKED.  Gavin turned his head to tell Rona the joke, but she was gone.  He looked back towards the fraternity building to see if she was heading inside, maybe to the bathroom.  Then he turned back, and there she was: at the side of the ring, pulling off the miniskirt from over her leggings and handing it to the announcer.  The ref was strapping her hands into a pair of worn, red boxing gloves. 

“From New Buffalo,” the announcer said. “We have Rona Gomez!” 

 <Chapter 20

Chapter 22>

Chapter 20

Frat boys and biker gangs.

That seemed to be the target audience for Fight Night.  At least, based on the front yard of Theta Mu Delta.  It was all baseball caps, white button-downs, cute floral boob shirts, leather pants, mullets, tattoos, black scary boob shirts.  Great wafting clouds of cigarette smoke. A lot of pushing and shouting.  It looked like maybe he’d see a fight before he even got inside.

He had been to a few frat parties in college.  They were always like thirty guys and eight girls drinking screwdrivers around a pool table.  Fun enough, but you kind of felt embarrassed to be there. At Berkeley, fraternities were like the uncoolest thing ever.  They had to beg people to join.  They couldn’t even do hazing because all the pledges would just quit.  Looking at the front yard of Theta Mu Delta, he was pretty sure fraternities in New Buffalo didn’t have that problem.

He was across the street, leaning against a wall while he waited for Rona.  Greek Row was on the East side of campus, halfway between his apartment on the south side and Rona’s dorm on the north, so they were meeting here. 

“Yo, teacher!”  

Some random Brandon punched Gavin on the arm.  He was holding a bottle in a paper bag.  His girlfriend was stumbling just behind him in skinny jeans and stripper heels.

“This guy.”  He pointed at Gavin like he couldn’t figure out how best to sum up the obvious truth about him. “This guy’s class was so fucked up.”

“Who?” said the girl.

Gavin squinted at the guy.  He was completely generic: Pacers cap, freckles, half-assed goatee.  Maybe he had been Gavin’s student at some point, but there’s no way Gavin could have picked him out of a lineup.

“Oh fuck, that book with the blood.”  The guy bent over himself, hiccupping like he was about to fall on his head, but he grabbed the girl’s hand and straightened back up.  “Dude.”  He draped himself over Gavin’s shoulders in a kind of goodbye hug. “You’re fucking sick.”

“Nice running into you.”  Gavin said.  “Good luck with your semester.”

The guy pulled his lady friend out into the street and towards the party, both laughing, the girl wobbling on her stilts.

Fucking Rona Gomez.  He liked hanging out with her, but she always came up with the most annoying things to do. 

When she finally did show up, maybe ten minutes late like Marjorie Mendelssohn, she was with some guy.  Some punk-looking townie guy. He was tall and skinny and stoop-backed with a lot of black leather and metal studs everywhere.

“Gavin, this is Dylan,” Rona said.  The guy made a point of extending his hand before Gavin did, and his handshake was firm.  Like, way too firm.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Dylan said.

Funny. I haven’t heard anything about you.

He looked sort of familiar.  Gavin pictured him at a cash register.  Maybe he worked at White Castle or Seven Eleven or something.  Gavin really didn’t want to make conversation with him.  Luckily, it seemed mutual.

“I’m gonna head in,” Dylan said.  “Rona, I’ll text you or something.” He turned and crossed the street, hands in pockets, walking fast.  

“Who’s that?”

“I don’t know.”  Rona pushed her hair out of her face and looked at the crowd that Dylan was disappearing into. “I just met him on the way here.”

Oh!

So the guy wasn’t her actual friend or anything.  Not like Gavin, who was her friend, officially.  She had said it in the car that night: they were friends.  Gavin wanted to tell her not to talk to random hooligans, but of course she was a grown woman and could do whatever she wanted.

They crossed the street and cut through the crowd, who smelled just like they looked, cigarettes and sweat and beer.   And then there was a giant porch, with people on lawn chairs and an old sofa, passing a bong shaped like a skull.

Just inside the door, two Brandons were sitting at a folding table.  Gavin expected them to ask for ID—did they card people at frat parties?  But they just pointed at a jar on the table, with a sign: Donations for Alcohol and Medical Personnel.  Rona dropped in a twenty for both of them.

“Want a beer?” she asked.

Please.  He had never needed a beer quite so badly.

She grabbed his hand.  It seemed kind of intimate, but he was still wearing his leather gloves, so their skin wasn’t touching or anything. She was more leading him through the crowd, the way girls do when they don’t want to get separated. She walked quickly, like she knew just where she was going, down a hallway and into a giant kitchen, where the keg was sitting in a bucket of ice.

“You’ve been here before?” he asked.

“A couple times.” 

She poured two beers from the keg in that expert way he remembered from when he was an undergrad, back when it was important to look cool when you did things like that.  She was wearing a ripped black denim miniskirt—probably the same one as that time she slept on his couch—over some kind of thick black leggings.  Her hair was loose, a wild tangle down her back. If you had to put her into the Greek or biker contingent of this party, you’d have to go with biker.  And Gavin’s polo shirt and blue sweater would make him Greek, by process of elimination.

She handed one of the beers to him and lifted her glass. 

“To Maddy,” she said, like maybe she was still trying to make him feel guilty about the adopted baby in No No Not Now.  Whatever.  Maddy wasn’t even a real person and her baby wasn’t a real baby.  He clinked his plastic cup against Rona’s and drank. It was cheap piss-beer with a metallic smell, but it tasted kind of perfect anyway.

The fights weren’t starting until at least eleven, so Rona found them a corner of a couch to sit on.  The room was packed, with a gaggle of Ashleys on the other half of the couch, and bikers standing around talking about fighting.  Dylan came into the room a couple times, but he left as soon as he saw Gavin.

It was surprisingly cozy to sit in a pile of their own coats and drink cheap beer and talk about trees.  She told him about the Eucalyptus that were common in northern California where he grew up.  They were an invasive species, they were highly flammable, they had caused the giant fire in the Oakland hills.  When they catch on fire, they explode!  It was pretty interesting, actually.  She got up twice for more beer.  The second time she returned with cups of something clear.

“Gin,” she said.  “They were waiting for a new keg.”

Nothing like crappy gin, straight up.  Gavin didn’t even care.  He was in one of those moods where it didn’t matter what he drank.  It just felt really nice to be drinking.  It’s fun to be friends with your student.  Just friends.  It was fine.  He liked it.  He should do this more often.

Rona didn’t seem to mind the cheap gin, either.  Her forehead looked kind of sweaty and her cheeks were flushed pink, which looked nice on her.  She should try wearing some colors besides black and gray, Gavin thought.

“Tell me about your job presentation thing,” she said.  “I heard it went pretty well.”

What do you mean, heard?  It wasn’t the kind of thing everyone was talking about.

“Sinder told me,” she said. 

 “Oh, Sinder.”  Bad answer. Bad. “When did you talk to him?”

“Last weekend. We went to the Medical History Museum in Indianapolis.”

She kept sipping her gin and playing with a strand of her hair like nothing was wrong, like it was completely normal that she had—she must have—gotten in Sinder’s car and driven to another city.

Okay, think. There were so many problems here, Gavin couldn’t figure out which one to think about first. A) Why was she hanging out with Sinder?  B) No fair. Gavin got sensory deprivation and fight night and Sinder got a  freaking museum?  C) They better not be having sex, or he was going to kill Sinder.

“He didn’t tell you?” Rona said.

“Oh, yeah, maybe he did.”  Like I would forget. “I think he said something about it.”

“It was really cool.  Lots of organs in jars and skeletons and stuff.”

Oh god, did she make that face in front of Sinder?  The inspired-Rona face, eyes wide, not quite a smile. The thought made Gavin want to puke nasty gin all over some biker.

“Just so you know, nothing’s going on with him,” she said.  “We’re just friends.”

Oh!

“Like me and you are friends.”

“Right.”  

His heart was pounding like he’d just swerved away from a car crash.  Why did it even matter? If Rona was his friend, he’d have to be okay with her having, you know, a boyfriend.  He was okay with it. Just as long as she didn’t, like, talk about it. And not Sinder. Or Dylan.  This night was actually kind of stressful.

“I know it would be weird for me to date your roommate.”

“Whatever,” Gavin said, finishing his gin. 

<Chapter 19

Chapter 21>