Prep Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright Page

  Friday Night

  Saturday

  Sunday

  Monday

  PREP

  The toughest hoods in Manhattan’s prep schools aren’t like other street thugs. They aren’t poor and angry—they’re just angry. They aren’t outsiders; none of them have spent their lives trying to make it out of anywhere. They go to the best schools and spend their summers in the Hamptons.

  Prep-school hoods try to dress just like hoods from Harlem and Brooklyn, except their clothing is always brand-new designer-label. Their chinos are usually a size too big, so that they hang loosely at the hips and bunch up around their Timberland boots, and bright Tag Heuers are on all their wrists. They normally wear a Tommy Hilfiger or Polo shirt with a nice-size label, and a North Face jacket, hood and all. Some of them even sport crest rings. They’re kind of funny to watch, until they decide to put somebody in the hospital.

  OTHER SPEAK BOOKS

  Special thanks to Elaine Markson Literary Agency

  SPEAK

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Published in the United States of America by Dutton Books,

  a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2003

  Published by Speak, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2005

  Copyright © Jake Coburn, 2003

  eISBN : 978-1-101-17677-1

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  New York City

  not so long ago ...

  Friday Night

  The streets were empty but I didn’t mind. A little after four in the morning, Manhattan settles quietly into a cool dawn. As I jogged across 92nd Street, looking for a pay phone, all I heard was the occasional clicking of traffic lights and the steady breathing of steaming manholes. Birds don’t sing on Broadway.

  The night had been a bust from the start. I was supposed to meet Victoria at Bella Luna at eight, but by eight-thirty I was nursing my second beer. There were two girls in a booth near my table and, waiting there with a pair of menus in front of me, I felt like they both knew I was getting stood up. I probably should’ve bailed, but I hadn’t gone out on a date in a while and I was tired of being alone.

  Victoria and I had been set up on a blind date by our match-making math tutor, Rachel Line, and I was beginning to worry that I wouldn’t recognize her. I knew Victoria was a senior at Dwiggins and a brunette, but I’d daydreamed the rest. All week, I’d been imagining fragile green eyes and a long, doorstep kiss good night.

  At a quarter to nine, a girl in a navy pea coat walked into Bella Luna. She scanned the tables and picked me out of the lineup with an apologetic wave.

  “I’m so, so sorry,” she said, slipping out of her jacket and sitting down at our table. Victoria was wearing a cashmere turtle-neck and a serious pair of heels, and sitting there in jeans, I couldn’t decide if I was underdressed or she was overdressed. “I’m doing this internship at a lab and I couldn’t get away.” She had warm almond eyes and a stunning figure that made me swallow.

  “No problem. What sort of work were you doing?” Without thinking, I reached for my water glass. I wasn’t thirsty. In fact, I had to go to the bathroom.

  “Biology,” she said, adjusting her silverware so that the knife and fork were equally spaced from the plate. “But it’s really more like bio slash chem. We’re studying the effect of these new seizure medications on hamsters.” Victoria lifted her pointer finger and hailed the nearest waiter. “Can I get a Diet Coke with two pieces of lemon?”

  “I hear your father’s a director,” I began. Rachel had mentioned that Victoria’s father was a documentary filmmaker, and I’d decided that was a sign. I’d spent an entire study hall making a laundry list of directors for us to discuss. “What sort of stuff does he do?”

  “Mostly political topics, like civil rights and abortion.”

  “It’s got to be pretty cool to hear about different projects and shoots.”

  “I guess. But it’s more my younger sister’s thing than mine. I haven’t seen the last couple.”

  “You feel like splitting a bottle of wine?” I said, trying to loosen up the evening.

  Victoria laughed and shook her head disapprovingly. “What kind of a girl drinks half a bottle of wine for dinner?” I could name one, but I didn’t answer. I was starting to get that student-government vibe. Maybe just a lot of extracurriculars.

  The waiter walked back over with Victoria’s soda, and she ordered the salmon with mashed potatoes on the side. I picked the pasta special and asked for another beer. After a pair of heavy pauses, I asked a few more questions about her father’s documentaries. She didn’t even know if he shot on video or film—I couldn’t believe it. On the walk to Bella Luna, I’d scripted the entire evening so perfectly. Now I felt cheated.

  After dinner, we window-shopped on Madison and then caught a midnight show of A Streetcar Named Desire. It’s an old Brando film that I’ve watched dozens of times, and I figured Victoria would appreciate a Hollywood classic. But in the cab back to her apartment, she kept arguing that Stella should have left Stanley ten minutes into the movie. What can you say to that?

  We got to Victoria’s building around three. Her parents were in Connecticut for the weekend, so she and her sister had the place to themselves. Victoria kicked her heels into the living room, and I followed her down a short hallway.

  She tapped lightly on a door. “I’m home,” she said, twisting the glass knob.

  “ ’Night, Vic,” her sister mumbled. “ ’Night, Steve.”

  I looked at Victoria. I’d been called a lot of different nicknames, but never Steve.

  Victoria wrapped her fingers around my wrist. “He’s a guy that I was seeing.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive,” she said and led me into the living room. “Completely positive.”

  She flicked on an oldies radio station and I walked toward the sliding glass doors leading out to the balcony. Across the river, New Jersey was spotted with distant lights, and from inside her apartment they looked like the tiny embers from a stamped-out fire.

  I could see Victoria’s reflection in the glass as she walked up behind me. She asked me to dance and I wrapped my arms around her waist. Before I could remember the name of the song, she was resting her cheek softly on my collar. I closed my eyes and listened to her gently exhale.

  Halfway through Otis Redding’s “Pain in My Heart,” we started to kiss. Victoria rested her palms on my chest and let out a moan. I opened my eyes—I froze. I couldn’t do this. She looked up at me with this confused expression, but I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even like this girl.

  All I wanted was to see Kris.

 
“This isn’t right,” I said, stepping away from her.

  “What?”

  “We’re rushing it.”

  She stared up at me. “What do—”

  “I can’t explain it.” I was furious at myself for leading her on, for leading myself on. “It’s not you.”

  “I’m not asking for marriage,” she said, sexily tilting her head.

  “I’m really sorry. I just gotta go.”

  I felt like such an asshole leaving, but I knew I had to. I grabbed my jacket off the floor and left her standing there in the middle of her living room. Downstairs, the doorman opened the cast-iron door for me and I faded out into New York.

  Now I was staking out a pay phone, trying to figure out what to say to Kris. You can’t just call a girl up at four in the morning and tell her that you love her.

  I saw Kris for the first time about a year ago. She was sitting at the counter of the Three Brothers diner on 82nd, a Lucky Strike dangling from her mouth, writing on a paper napkin. Her long black hair rested on her shoulders, and her light blue eyes filled the room.

  She had this wonderful rhythm where she’d write a sentence, take a long drag, and exhale while she read it over. Every few minutes she would grin and begin writing urgently. Then there were periods where she wouldn’t move at all.

  I spent nearly an hour at the diner trying to figure out a good opening line. Normally when I meet a girl, she’s with a group of people, girlfriends on either side dressed in the same fashion, just in different shades. They need each other, and they’re never by themselves. But Kris sat alone on that diner stool and made every stranger around her look like extras.

  I wanted to be able to slide up next to her, but I didn’t have the courage to make that sort of move. On the screen, guys are always walking up to beautiful girls and charming them accidentally. They bump heads or say the same thing and laugh, but I needed to plan or I’d make a fool of myself.

  It was my first time at the diner and I asked my waiter if she came there often. He laughed. “Every night.”

  Kris’s answering machine picked up after three rings. Her new message was a clip from an early Tom Waits song, that was all. I missed the soft inflections of her voice. I hung up the phone and checked my watch. Her townhouse was only about fifteen blocks away, so I started walking. She’d probably be asleep, but I thought I could wake her. At least I could try.

  When I first met Kris at the diner, we were stuck at “friends.” She was dating this twenty-one-year-old guitar player named Luke Booker, and Kris’s lips would curl into a smile every time she mentioned his name. Luke had gone to college for a semester or two, but he’d dropped out to promote his first album, Starboard. Luke’s acoustic LP was all about sailing and weather patterns and how tough it was being him. I’d hung out with him a half-dozen times, and Luke loved to talk at me like he was Bob Dylan.

  For the first few months, I kept trying to show Kris how full of shit Luke was without actually coming out and saying it. But it was hopeless, not even a dent. A girl will believe almost anything if a guy puts it in a song, especially if he’s a really good-looking guy. So, I guess I settled for a best friend. I mean, right from the beginning Kris and I could talk for hours about the most random stuff, from applesauce to Zen and back again, and we never got bored. The way I saw it, the time Kris and I spent together was better than any date I’d ever gone on. She knew me better than anybody else. I just never got to wake up next to her.

  On 88th Street, I passed the flashing yellow sign of a pool hall. The fluorescent “l”s in the word “Billiards” were pool cues, and I could see a guy at the bar studying a carefully folded newspaper. I sort of felt like joining him for a drink, but at that moment Kris was the only thing.

  Then about a month ago, Kris called and told me that Luke was going on a cross-country tour, that they’d broken up. I was standing in my bathroom, smoking a Lucky out the window, and I suddenly felt like falling to my knees and kissing the bath-mat. She said it was both their decisions, but for the next few weeks Kris was a wreck. When she wasn’t crying, she was talking about how she was so happy not to be in a “relationship.” It drove me crazy. I understood that she needed to talk about Luke but I couldn’t handle all the details. And every time I felt like she was finally starting to get past him, he’d write her a letter or leave some staged message on her answering machine that she’d play for me over and over again.

  I stopped at a bodega on 85th and Broadway. The tile floor squeaked as I walked in, and the soggy air smelled like overripe bananas. I ordered a large coffee, regular, and slipped a dollar bill out of my wallet.

  I still couldn’t believe I’d walked out on Victoria like that. For the last year I’d been able to go out on dates, I’d even had a couple drunken hookups, but Victoria was my first date since Kris and Luke split. And at some point during our kiss, I realized I was done pretending or ignoring or whatever—I was in love with Kris. I didn’t have a clue what to say or do, but I knew that I had to be with her.

  The woman behind the counter walked away to get a paper cup and I thought about reaching for a bag of M&M’s. I hadn’t swiped a pack since seventh grade, but I knew she wouldn’t spot me. Even if she did, I’d just pay for them. The woman walked back toward me with my coffee, then turned around again to get the sugars. My right hand darted out and slid the small bag into my pants pocket. Before she came back, I pulled the M&M’s out and tossed them onto the counter. I used to be able to grab two.

  In junior high, we’d stage fights inside bodegas to distract the cashier. Four of us would roll in wearing our school blazers and sagging ties, and when the guys in front started roughing each other up, we’d trick-or-treat our way down the aisles. The fights never lasted more than a minute or two, but you can only fit so much in a backpack. We were such punks. We always had the money to pay.

  By the time I reached Kris’s place, I’d finished the coffee and half the candy. She lived in a white four-story townhouse with her mother and younger brother. When Kris was twelve, her father gave up his advertising job and skipped off to California to open a restaurant.

  I tossed a few more M&M’s in my mouth and held the next one carefully, like I was guessing the weight. I noticed my fingers were shaking. There’d been so many nights when I wanted to walk over to Kris’s and wake her up, but I’d never had the nerve to actually do it.

  I leaned back and threw the M&M at Kris’s window.

  I went back to Three Brothers the next night with the idea of asking Kris out. She didn’t go to my high school, so I figured if everything went horribly, at least nobody but the two of us would know. A block before I reached the diner, I stopped at a bodega and bought a pack of her cigarettes, Lucky Strikes. It couldn’t hurt.

  I strolled into the diner with enough hubris to captain the Titanic. Just as I’d hoped, she was sitting at the end of the counter scribbling away. But this time, she was writing in a brown leather diary.

  I walked smoothly up to the counter and sat down two stools away. Signaling to the waiter for a cup of coffee, I fumbled in my pocket for a cigarette and pretended to search for a lighter. With as much charm as I could muster, I asked if I could borrow hers.

  Kris didn’t even look up. Instead she just slid her lighter across the counter like a bartender and kept writing. As I went to light my cigarette, she suddenly stopped, turned toward me, nearly said something, and then turned back.

  I walked down to her with my coffee in one hand and the lighter in the other. “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”

  She stopped writing again and rested her pen in the diary. “Do I have a choice?”

  The M&M arced over Kris’s third-story window and disappeared onto the rooftop. Fuck. I should have gotten peanut M&M’s. They were heavier, but you didn’t get as many in a bag.

  I poured out two more and threw. The first one sliced to the left but the second bounced off the lower pane of Kris’s window. The sound of the candy smacking against the glass echoed down
the row of houses. I checked the block and leaned up against a Camry. If the M&M’s didn’t work, I could try and climb the ivy to her balcony.

  Halfway through my next windup, I spotted Kris’s younger brother, Danny, turning the corner. He strode loosely down the block, his legs swinging like a marionette’s and his forty sloshing back and forth with each of his long strides. Danny was a fresh-man at a small prep school for kids with really high IQs. We’d only hung out together a couple times, but Kris loved to tell me stories about him.

  I checked Kris’s window again. No light. Nothing. When I turned back to Danny, he’d vanished. Walking out into the street, I scanned the block. Where the hell had he gone?

  I emptied the bag of M&M’s into my palm, ate a few, and then pitched the entire handful. Two or three of them shattered against Kris’s window and splintered back down to the sidewalk.

  “Nick?” Danny whispered.

  I turned around. Danny was peeking out from behind a couple of garbage cans up the block. “Man, am I glad to see you,” he said.

  “Why’d you hide?”

  “I was just surveying,” he said, smiling. “I wanted to make sure it was you.” As Danny climbed over the wall of garbage cans, the forty seemed to throw off his balance, and he ended up knocking a trash can over. It crashed against the sidewalk, and he burst out laughing.

  Danny didn’t take himself too seriously. He was a joker at heart and I liked that about him. I wasted so much time trying to guess what other people were thinking about me. Danny just didn’t give a shit.

  “Who’d you think I was?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I stepped on some guy’s toes tonight,” he said, walking over to me.

  Danny looked trashed. He had a long, lean face and Kris’s sloping cheekbones, but his eyes were bloodshot and the color had drained out of his lips. His hair was short and choppy and scattered.

  “You should try Milk Duds,” he said, grinning at the empty bag in my hands. “You’d get better accuracy.”