Read Online Come to the Edge: A Memoir by Christina Haag - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Christina Haag
Tags: United States, General, Social Science, Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography, Entertainment & Performing Arts, Biography, Rich & Famous, Motion Picture Actors and Actresses, Popular Culture, Television Actors and Actresses
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Andover—“postgraduate year” was the polite term. We talked about the party. “It’s all going so well, don’t you think?” She stood close to me and it felt like a confidence.
Together, we turned to watch John in the middle of the dance floor, a long white scarf flung about his neck. We agreed that he was having fun, and I saw her face light up. Remember this , I thought. Remember this moment, that one day you might be forty-eight and filled, as she is, with this much joy and wonder .
I had seen him earlier that fall at a party in Cambridge. What are you doing here? we both said, although I knew he was visiting his girlfriend, Jenny, at Harvard. Weeks later, he showed up at my dorm at Brown. “I’m here to see you,” he said coyly. I looked at him for a second, then decided it was a tease. When I told him I already had plans that night, he admitted “Well … I’m here for my interview, too.”
Jenny was with him at Le Club. Funny and smart, with a mane of blond hair and bedroom eyes, she sported an offhanded sexiness that anyone would have envied if she weren’t so approachable. I liked her. They look happy , I thought wistfully. Things had ended that spring with the Frisbee whirler. He was miles away in Santa Cruz, and I knew I would never fall in love again. To make up for it, I danced all night.
Later, there was cake and sparklers, a speech by John’s uncle and applause. By midnight, the older crowd began to clear out. We held on till four. The Boys, like lords of the manor, drank stingers out of goblets and smoked cigars with their legs propped up on the banquettes. Some of them even danced.
Outside, the street was deserted except for the press. They scrambled from their cars as soon as the doors to Le Club opened. I left with the first wave to find cabs. We crossed the street and began to walk to First Avenue. Then a shock of light and shouting. I turned back to see an older friend of John’s I didn’t know take a swing at a photographer. A fight broke out. John tried to stop it, to hold his friend back, but soon he had joined the scuffle and fell out of sight behind a car. Where’s John? Is he all right? Can you see him?
Some of the Collegiate boys ran to get help. I hid behind a parked van. There was no rescue this time, no Secret Service to step from the shadows, his detail having ended two years before.
Then someone came bounding from the darkness with news. “Hey, it’s all cool. John and Jenny caught a cab with Wilson on Second. They’re on their way to 1040. Everyone’s fine.”
Like a movie, it ended as it should have—with a getaway and the enemy vanquished. There were high fives and smiles of relief as we said our goodbyes and split cabs north, west, and south.
The next day when I woke up, my father asked about the party. “Did you have fun? It’s in all the papers.” He smiled and tossed the Daily News in front of me. John in dark glasses. The silk scarf, the drunken buddy, the comely girlfriend.
I was confused. It appeared sordid in black and white. I had been standing across the street when the picture was taken. I had seen his arms outstretched, the light flashing off his aviators, but I didn’t recognize this. I stared at the photograph for a moment, curious, before pushing the paper aside.
“That’s not how it was,” I told my father. “That’s not everything.”
T hat October there was a spike of heat in the Northeast, a brilliant backlash of summer. Providence, a city that would soon be bundled and galoshed—held captive by snow and rain for the next five months—was drinking in whatever warmth it could get. At Brown, on one of the highest of the seven hills that overlook the city, coats and sweaters were abandoned, classes were cut, and stereo speakers, perched high in open windows, blared the Allman Brothers and Grateful Dead, the drum solos drifting down through the air like a wild pagan call. Banners—sheets spray-painted NO NUKES/END APARTHEID
Together, we turned to watch John in the middle of the dance floor, a long white scarf flung about his neck. We agreed that he was having fun, and I saw her face light up. Remember this , I thought. Remember this moment, that one day you might be forty-eight and filled, as she is, with this much joy and wonder .
I had seen him earlier that fall at a party in Cambridge. What are you doing here? we both said, although I knew he was visiting his girlfriend, Jenny, at Harvard. Weeks later, he showed up at my dorm at Brown. “I’m here to see you,” he said coyly. I looked at him for a second, then decided it was a tease. When I told him I already had plans that night, he admitted “Well … I’m here for my interview, too.”
Jenny was with him at Le Club. Funny and smart, with a mane of blond hair and bedroom eyes, she sported an offhanded sexiness that anyone would have envied if she weren’t so approachable. I liked her. They look happy , I thought wistfully. Things had ended that spring with the Frisbee whirler. He was miles away in Santa Cruz, and I knew I would never fall in love again. To make up for it, I danced all night.
Later, there was cake and sparklers, a speech by John’s uncle and applause. By midnight, the older crowd began to clear out. We held on till four. The Boys, like lords of the manor, drank stingers out of goblets and smoked cigars with their legs propped up on the banquettes. Some of them even danced.
Outside, the street was deserted except for the press. They scrambled from their cars as soon as the doors to Le Club opened. I left with the first wave to find cabs. We crossed the street and began to walk to First Avenue. Then a shock of light and shouting. I turned back to see an older friend of John’s I didn’t know take a swing at a photographer. A fight broke out. John tried to stop it, to hold his friend back, but soon he had joined the scuffle and fell out of sight behind a car. Where’s John? Is he all right? Can you see him?
Some of the Collegiate boys ran to get help. I hid behind a parked van. There was no rescue this time, no Secret Service to step from the shadows, his detail having ended two years before.
Then someone came bounding from the darkness with news. “Hey, it’s all cool. John and Jenny caught a cab with Wilson on Second. They’re on their way to 1040. Everyone’s fine.”
Like a movie, it ended as it should have—with a getaway and the enemy vanquished. There were high fives and smiles of relief as we said our goodbyes and split cabs north, west, and south.
The next day when I woke up, my father asked about the party. “Did you have fun? It’s in all the papers.” He smiled and tossed the Daily News in front of me. John in dark glasses. The silk scarf, the drunken buddy, the comely girlfriend.
I was confused. It appeared sordid in black and white. I had been standing across the street when the picture was taken. I had seen his arms outstretched, the light flashing off his aviators, but I didn’t recognize this. I stared at the photograph for a moment, curious, before pushing the paper aside.
“That’s not how it was,” I told my father. “That’s not everything.”
T hat October there was a spike of heat in the Northeast, a brilliant backlash of summer. Providence, a city that would soon be bundled and galoshed—held captive by snow and rain for the next five months—was drinking in whatever warmth it could get. At Brown, on one of the highest of the seven hills that overlook the city, coats and sweaters were abandoned, classes were cut, and stereo speakers, perched high in open windows, blared the Allman Brothers and Grateful Dead, the drum solos drifting down through the air like a wild pagan call. Banners—sheets spray-painted NO NUKES/END APARTHEID
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