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“Jordan, that’s not funny.” Abby halfheartedly elbowed him.
“You’re right. Shit. I’m sorry, just … being back at this place … I knew it would be weird, just not this weird. The carnie vibe isn’t helping any.”
Dan couldn’t fault him. All three of them grew quiet as they walked the path snaking through academic buildings and fraternity houses. The admissions building where they were supposed to meet their hosts was on the far side of the campus and had its own separate driveway for cars of parents dropping off their kids. It looked like Dan, Jordan, and Abby must be the only three students who’d come by bus.
The walk took them past a small, gated cemetery. Dan had never given it much thought over the summer, since it was little more than a manicured patch of grass, the gravestones haphazardly arranged in no real line or pattern. Some of the grave markers were so old they weren’t much more than crumbling stubs. But now, a bright flash of red on one of the newer markers caught his eye. At first he thought it was just an ordinary flower arrangement, but when he looked closely, he saw that it was a wreath of red roses shaped, more or less, like a skull.
A thin carpet of mist wound through the headstones.
“That’s an odd choice,” he muttered, thinking aloud more than anything else.
Jordan followed his gaze. “Yeah. Real tasteful. Jeez. Why didn’t they just put a big blinking arrow that said: ‘Hey, look! A dead guy!’?”
Abby paused to look at the wreath, and Dan bumped lightly into her back. “Oh, sorry,” she said distractedly, “I was just thinking it almost looks like an ofrenda.”
“Huh?”
Jordan and Dan had said it together.
“For the Day of the Dead?” Abby asked. She drew closer to the cemetery gate and leaned forward, studying the flower wreath. “An ofrenda.”
“Just saying it over and over again doesn’t explain what it is,” Jordan said.
“Right.” She rolled her eyes a little and pointed to the flowers on the headstone. “Basically, it’s like the flowers you take to the graves of loved ones, the offerings. Usually you bring marigolds, but skulls are a big part of the Day of the Dead, too, so maybe somebody combined them? I’ve never seen a design like that.”
“Maybe he left it,” Jordan said, nodding his head down the path to where a stout college-aged boy was curled up against the cemetery gate. His head rested on an empty rum bottle. Someone had covered his face in marker.
“Man. Looks like someone had either the best or the worst night of his life,” Dan said.
“Ugh. Hazing. I don’t get that crap,” Jordan cut in. His suitcase left narrow, wet tracks on the path as they continued on toward Wilfurd Commons, leaving behind the snoring frat boy. “Why would I pay a bunch of roided-out jocks to be my friends just so they can get me completely wasted, write all over my face, and leave me in a graveyard? What’s the point?”
They stepped into the tall shadow of Wilfurd Commons just in time—a light rain had started to fall, and the mist Dan remembered from the summer was rising in full force. Other prospective students were mustering outside on the grass, herded this way and that by NHC students in bright orange T-shirts. “I don’t know,” Dan said. “I sort of get the appeal of a frat. Everyone wants to feel like part of something.”
“Sure, but what’s the point if you have to pay your way in?” Jordan snorted.
“We should hurry up,” Abby said. “It looks like most people already dropped off their stuff inside.”
“Yup, we need to blend in,” Dan said, following her and Jordan into the big blob of high school students pushing their way into Wilfurd Commons. A knot grew in Dan’s stomach as he realized just how many student chaperones were there to keep an eye on them.
He tightened his grip on his bag, eyeing the chattering high schoolers with suspicion, even annoyance. Over the summer, making new friends had been one of his top priorities; now, he wanted to do everything in his power to avoid it.
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“Don’t worry about your friend there.”
“Hm?” Dan hadn’t noticed he was staring, but apparently he was—at Abby. She was walking close to her host, and the two girls were laughing as if they had known each other much longer than ten minutes. Abby just had that way with people. Dan strained to hear what they were giggling about. “Oh, I wasn’t worried.”
“Really?” His host, Micah, lifted a thick, dark eyebrow and clapped Dan on the shoulder. “’Cause you look plenty nervous from where I’m standing.”
“We’re, um, sort of dating, that’s all,” Dan said. He and the other prospective students—“coolly” called “prospies”—were being marched back across the academic side and down the short road that led to the dormitories. Paired off with their hosts, most of the students were busy getting to know their campus buddies for the next few days, no one more so than Abby.
“Hey,” Dan called, waving to her. A few steps ahead, she smiled and tossed back a quick twiddle of her fingers.
“Who’s that?” he heard her host say.
Abby’s response was too soft to overhear.
“I think your girl is busy,” Micah said gently. “Don’t sweat it, man, you can catch up with her later. Do you two go to the same school?”
“Not really,” Dan said. “I mean, no, no, we don’t. We actually met over the summer at the program they have here.”
“Really? Well, come on now, that’s great. So y’all just couldn’t get enough NHC? Had to come back?” He chuckled, and even his laugh seemed to have a Southern accent. Dan would almost guess his host was exaggerating the effect in an attempt to be funny or something, except that Micah didn’t seem like the type to be ironic, as far as Dan could tell.
“We met Jordan there, too,” Dan explained, pointing, half trying to rope Jordan into the conversation. Jordan didn’t appear to be warming up to his own host, Cal, with anything resembling enthusiasm, despite Cal’s previously hyped good looks. It couldn’t help that Cal seemed to be doing all the talking. “The three of us sort of became inseparable,” Dan said, unable to keep a note of pride out of his voice.
“Think you’re keen to apply? I don’t mean to be nosy, but when you intern for the admissions office it kind of comes with the territory,” Micah said. They were passing back by the frat houses now. Dan wondered which one was missing a pledge.
Dan redirected his attention to Micah, still unsure whether his host was making fun of him or not. Who said “keen” in earnest, anyway? Well, Dan supposed maybe Micah did, with his neat, modern glasses and a goatee that he reached up to rub every time he spoke. “Maybe. I’m mostly into history and psychology—do you know Jung? Yeah, him—but I have a few different interests. I still have to see if NHC is a good fit.”
“You should talk to Professor Reyes in the Psych Department. She’s running a senior seminar in the old asylum on campus, but I have her right before for Psych 200. I can ask her tomorrow if she’d let you sit in on a session,” Micah offered.
Dan tried to think of something to say, but his mind blanked.
“The asylum’s called Brookline, but you probably read about it already this summer,” his host continued amiably.
“Yeah,” Dan said. “I’ve heard of it.”
“Damn it.” Micah snapped his fingers at the host walking next to him, a short boy with scraggly red hair. “We got stragglers already. Grab that prospie before the frat boys eat her up.”
The redheaded boy responded without question, peeling off from the group and trotting over to a girl who was caught up in conversation with a little huddle of fraternity brothers clustered near the sidewalk.
“Don’t want you folks wandering off,” Micah explained lightly. “’Specially not to any frat parties. Those things get out of hand fast. We’ve been complaining to the new dean about their parties, even made a petition. I think this year a few houses will get their charters yanked.”
“Who’s ‘we’?” Dan asked, his eyes roaming across the front lawns of all the frat houses. Some of them had yards that were littered with trash.
“Reasonable folks,” Micah answered directly. “You’d know what I meant if you went here.”
“I bet,” Dan replied. He pointed his thumb over his shoulder toward the way they’d come. “We saw a guy passed out near some gravestones. He didn’t look too good.”
“Sig Tau douche bags can’t hold their liquor. Sorry, pardon my French. Just don’t like those guys. They’re always throwing ragers and one kid or another is getting alcohol poisoning. It’s a damn disgrace. Like I said, we’ll make sure they get gone this year.” Micah motioned to the same redheaded boy who had collected the wandering prospie. Out of breath, the boy jogged up to them as they continued their way across campus. “Dan here says there’s a Sig Tau pledge passed out near the cemetery. Get someone to check on him, yeah?”
“Sure,” the boy said, nodding eagerly. “As soon as we—”
“No, Jimmy. Now. We got prospies all over the place—trying to set an example here. Don’t want them thinking we’re just a bunch of drunken morons.”
Jimmy nodded so hard Dan could hear his neck crack.
“Wow,” Dan said, watching Jimmy trail off behind the group. “Are you like head host or something?”
“Who? Me?” Micah laughed, throwing back his head. “Nah, nah … We just like to keep things orderly is all.”
It struck Dan as more than orderly, but he wanted to disappear, not call attention to himself, so he nodded politely and kept his eyes forward.
“Hey!” Abby dropped back to walk next to him, bringing her host with her. “This is Lara. Lara, this is Dan. She was just telling me about this art installation she’s working on for her semester project.”
“Oh, cool.” Dan reached across Abby to shake the girl’s hand. She was short, only just clearing Abby’s shoulder, and her dark, glossy black hair swung back and forth, cut into a severe wedge around her face. “Nice to meet you, Lara.”
“Seriously, I can’t wait to see her installation,” Abby raced on. “It’s a mixed-media room with statue pieces and music and live models. She’s going to take me to check it out tomorrow!”
“Actually, it’s an auto-destructive critique of the masks we wear as people of color to erase our heritage and become white,” Lara said in a flat monotone. She was either a master of deadpan humor or deadly serious. Maybe all college students just spoke a different language.
“That … sounds complex,” Dan said.
“Complex. Don’t get her started,” Micah bit out from clenched teeth. “She’ll talk your ear off about Dada futurism mumbo jumbo, who even knows what all.”
“Despite what your folksy Southern upbringing told you, ignorance is not becoming. Much to the contrary, in fact,” Lara said darkly. “Much.”
“Jeez. Tense much?” Jordan popped up between Abby and Dan, leaning his elbows onto their shoulders. “Relationship gone wrong?”
“I’d really rather not talk about it,” Micah said tightly. “Anyway, like I was saying … If you want in on any particular classes, Dan, you just let me know. I’ll make it happen.”
“That’s really nice of you, thanks,” Dan said, brushing off Jordan’s elbow.
“Hope you guys aren’t too hungry,” Micah added. “We’ve got a bit of an orientation planned before we eat. It’ll go down in Erickson, but I s’pose you know where that is since you stayed there over the summer.”
“Actually, we stayed in Brookline,” Dan said.
They crossed one last street that separated the row of fraternity and sorority houses from the main circle of dorms.
Micah looked at him funny, and Dan realized he’d acted like he hardly knew anything about Brookline a minute ago. He was going to have to do better keeping his stories straight.
“You’ll have to tell me all about that. I’ve heard crazy stories about that place,” Micah said finally.
And then, as if on command, there it was.
Dan thought he would be prepared for this moment—it was just a building, after all, and he had no reason to go in it now. Felix’s addresses were all off campus. But it didn’t matter. Dan stared up at its chipping white facade and the sagging columns struggling to support the roof and he shivered. And yet there was that magnet in his chest. It pulled him not just to the college but to Brookline itself, and a serpentine voice in the back of his head whispered, “Welcome home, Daniel.”
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Inside the newly renovated, warm Erickson Dormitory, Dan finally felt the chilly influence of Brookline break. The volunteers led them up to the third floor, where a bank of overstuffed couches had been set up along the walls in a U shape. A few students disappeared down the hall, taking piles of luggage to a room to be sorted and divvied out later by host and dorm building.
Dan grabbed a seat between Abby and Jordan, who clambered out of their coats and scarves, red-faced and sweating from the jump in temperature. It was almost too warm in the spacious common room, overcrowded with bodies and furniture.
“My host seems nice,” Dan whispered to them.
“Mine’s okay,” Jordan replied with a shrug. “Not very bright, and a little WASPy, but okay.”
“Lara is awesome.” As if to prove it, Abby gave her host a little wave. All the student volunteers stood near the archway leading out into the hall. There was an elevator on the right side of the room and windows all along the wall behind where the prospies sat. Dan felt the cold from outside seeping in when one of the hosts finally opened a door. Jordan’s host began pulling orange folders from a few cardboard boxes and passing them out to the various rows.
“You don’t think she’s a little … frigid?” Jordan asked. “I’m getting some serious robot, type A vibes off of that one.”
“She’s serious about art, Jordan,” Abby muttered. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Find your folder, please,” Jordan’s host instructed. “They’re all labeled.”
“At least you two got paired with hosts who have stuff in common with you. Don’t ask how I got paired up with Cal because I have no frakking clue,” Jordan whispered. “He’s an economics major.”
“Economics involves math,” Dan suggested. “Right?”
“Maybe for most people. I get the impression Cal is just trying to learn how to handle a trust fund.”
“How could you know that already?” Abby whispered. “I say give the guy a break.”
“I will not. He’s wearing boat shoes. Ugh. Boat shoes and he is nowhere near a stupid boat. Justify that, Captain Tolerance.”
“What are you even—you know what, never mind.”
Abby handed him one of the orange folders, and then Dan quickly located his before passing the remaining stack along. He cracked open his folder to find a long schedule of events he did not plan on attending. Abby had been right—the “Campus Carnival” for prospies took the top spot in a huge font.
“If you have an emergency,” Cal was saying at the front of the room, “you’ll find the list of campus numbers in your folder. Any phone on campus can connect you easily to the main switchboard if you just dial 555 …”
He droned on about safety precautions and campus policies, but Dan had stopped paying attention. A small, sharp elbow was prodding him repeatedly in the ribs.
“Ouch. What?”
“That kid,” Abby murmured, nodding discreetly to a boy just down the row from them. He glared back at Dan through a curtain of stringy black hair. “He’s been staring at you ever since we walked in here.”
“So? He’s probably just socially awkward.” Dan would know. He couldn’t rightly say he was completely out of his shy nerd phase himself. “Or is there something on my face?”
“Dan, it’s not funny. He’s … off. I don’t think he’s blinked for the last five minutes.”
“She’s right,” Jordan hissed, chiming in so suddenly Dan jumped a little in his seat. “His eyes are all glassy.”
“He’s a host, too,” Abby pointed out. “He’s wearing one of the volunteer shirts.”
“I’m calling it now,” said Jordan. “Dude’s wasted.”
Carefully, Dan turned his head to look at the kid again—he didn’t even seem to be breathing he was so still. And Dan had to admit, that look did make him feel unsettled. There was no mistaking it—unless the kid was bird-watching out the window behind Dan, he was staring unblinkingly, intently, directly at him.
“Maybe Jordan’s right, he’s stoned or something. Anyway, we’re not here to worry about that crap, or Jordan’s problem with Cal’s stupid shoes—”
“Hey,” Jordan said.
“So let’s keep some focus,” Dan finished. He didn’t want to look at the staring kid anymore. Between him and the cold air radiating against the back of his neck, Dan was starting to get a distinctly creepy vibe about their weekend residence.
And this is supposed to be one of the good dorms.
“I hope you all plan on coming to the carnival,” Cal said, flashing them a trust-fund-worthy smile. “We’re bringing it back this year and you lucky folks are just in time to see it. Usually Student Affairs just organizes some half-assed trick-or-treating thing for the weekend.”
