Anna K Read online

  Dustin would have scoffed at the idea that the kid who once ate a June bug on a dare when they were four years old could ever become a senator, but the fact that the current president was once a reality star who cheated on his pregnant wife with a porn star gave him pause. Instead Dustin thanked her for her counsel and immediately called Dr. N. and requested an emergency therapy session. After fifty minutes of therapy, Dustin was no closer to a decision. He eventually reasoned that all teenagers, rich and poor alike, probably had the same capacity for good or evil, and the best way to combat evil was through education—that is, if no lightsaber was available. (Dr. N. casually mentioned at the end of the session that if Dustin turned down the job, perhaps he might recommend his nephew for the position, as he was a poor law school student at Fordham. Dustin found this suggestion ethically questionable.) After a week of intense hand-wringing, Dustin accepted the tutoring job, warning his mother that if he felt even a twinge of inner turmoil, he’d quit.

  What Dustin found after his first month was that the nine hours a week he spent tutoring Steven was not in fact an Aristotelean battle between good and evil like he had feared (nor a biblical, Shakespearean, philosophical, or even George Lucasian one), but was instead fun. His childhood friend wasn’t as entitled and insufferable as Dustin had assumed he would be. Steven had grown up to be very much the same as he was when he was a toddler, a charismatic boy with a good sense of humor who enjoyed expensive toys and was happy to share them with his friends (and who would probably still eat a bug if he was dared to do so).

  By the second month, Dustin had begun to find his time spent with Steven amusing, even though he would never admit it to his mother. On more than one weekend, Dustin found himself looking forward to their Monday study session, when Steven would no doubt regale him with some outlandish story from his “lit AF” weekend. The two boys had polar opposite high school student experiences: Steven’s were all drugs, nightclubs, and hot girls while Dustin’s were mostly coffee shops, study groups, and smart girls who always, always “friend-zoned” him.

  By the end of the fall semester Dustin had whipped Steven into fighting academic shape, witnessed Steven ace his finals (without cheating), and found himself prouder of Steven’s 3.3 GPA than his own 4.0 (though with APs his GPA was actually higher). The two boys celebrated their shared victory over a massive steak dinner at Peter Luger in Brooklyn, and when Steven toasted Dustin for achieving the impossible—Steven’s father told him he was proud of him for the first time ever—it dawned on Dustin that he was going to miss Steven during the monthlong winter break. The fact that he had been proven so wrong about his old friend didn’t annoy Dustin, but instead filled him with joy. Feeling superior to his peers often made him lonely, and that night over a feast fit for a king, he felt a profound sense of connection to someone his own age, and he liked it very much.

  This was when Steven invited him to his annual New Year’s Eve party, which, though he didn’t know it at the time, would forever change the course of Dustin’s life. It was never Dustin’s soul that was at stake upon reuniting with Steven, it was his heart. The reason for this was that Steven’s girlfriend, Lolly, had a little sister, Kimmie, who was to become Dustin’s newest infatuation and perhaps his greatest love.

  III

  Unlike Steven, Dustin had always been an intense, bookish kid, which meant he didn’t have many friends, but this never bothered him because he had no time to be social. He put all his time and effort into his schoolwork, the debate team, and worrying about global warming and the rising sea levels. However, he did have one source of real joy: movies. Sitting in a dark theater, he could momentarily stop worrying about his extensive AP course load and just breathe. Because of this escapism, he had seen an impressive number of films, with his favorite guilty pleasures being the high school comedies of the eighties and nineties. It was these very movies that ignited the flame of his one super-secret, shameful fantasy that he had never admitted to anyone in his entire life, not even his therapist.

  This fantasy was that Dustin wanted to end his high school career by going to his senior prom not with a pack of guy friends, or even a smart Ivy League–bound girl whose GPA he admired, but with a gorgeous, completely out-of-his-league hot girl (he didn’t even care if she was smart). And he didn’t want just any pretty high school girl, he wanted a girl who was on the not-so-secret “secret” Manhattan private school Hot List that came out every year during the Christmas holidays, ranking the top ten private school girls in every grade. (He knew, of course, that the very existence of such a list was shallow, misogynistic, and demeaning to girls, but it’s not like he actively participated in the making of the list; he just viewed it. And then promptly hated himself for doing so.)

  Dustin was wise enough to know this reverie of his was fueled by the fantasy-filled teen movies he loved, where the “nice guy” always ended up with the “hot girl,” but he didn’t care. He wanted what he wanted, and even though he felt guilty for having such a frivolous hankering, especially when the entire political landscape was a shit show these days, he let himself off the hook by viewing the matter scientifically. What he was experiencing was a biological imperative, or to put it more crudely, it was because he had just as much testosterone as every other teenage boy in America.

  This prom fantasy of Dustin’s had morphed into an entirely different beast six weeks ago, on the night of Steven’s annual New Year’s Eve party. This infamous party came into existence four years prior when Steven had no choice but to attend Baruch, a New York City public school, for the first semester of his freshman year after he managed to get kicked out on his first day of Riverdale Country School. Steven, worried he was going to lose his social standing while he waited for his mother to get him into a new private school, asked his father to let him throw a New Year’s Eve party, while his parents spent the holiday as always at their beach house in Maui.

  His Korean father, who was constantly worrying about his half-Korean son fitting in with the best of New York society, agreed and gave his son the sage advice that for a party to be memorable, it needed not only to be lavish but exclusive as well. It was his father’s idea that Steven should restrict his party to only upperclassmen (private school juniors and seniors) even though he was himself only a freshman. And to attract these cool upperclassmen his father paid handsomely for A$AP Rocky to perform. It was his mother’s idea to “paper the party” with twenty young Wilhelmina models paid to be pretend guests, something she had heard about from a friend who made his fortune investing in nightclubs. The original party was an enormous success, and Steven’s reputation as the host-with-the-most (models and booze) was now legendary.

  This very party five weeks ago was Dustin’s first time being invited, though he had heard stories about the infamous gathering over the years. When Dustin showed up that night, he had convinced himself that the party, like most things in this town, was more than likely 50 percent hype, but as soon as he entered, he knew he was wrong. This party was unlike anything he had ever seen before.

  It was as if Santa Claus had quit the toy-making business and opened a strip club. Sexy models dressed like holiday elves circulated the professionally decorated party, handing out truffle mac-n-cheese balls and poached purple potatoes with caviar. There were two top-shelf liquor bars manned by scantily clad bartenders. (This being her second year as gf of the host, Lolly had made sure there were hot male bartenders as well.) There was a stream of professional DJs who were in charge of the music. And right when you entered the foyer, the first thing you saw was a seven-foot-tall ice sculpture fountain of Rick and Morty, in which champagne poured into Morty’s hand, then would travel through Morty (sitting on Rick’s shoulders), and come out Rick’s “Pickle Rick” dick perfectly chilled.

  The fountain was the most Instagrammed photo of the party.

  Steven’s parents’ only new rule this year was that there would be no smoking cigarettes inside because of the fifteen-million-dollar Matisse-cigarette-burn
incident of last year’s soiree. Solving this problem was easy. They simply opened their roof access, the stairs in the hallway outside of Steven’s front door. (Steven’s parents shared the floor with only one other family and the C.s were gifted the K.s’ Parisian pied-à-terre keys for their holidays to ensure they wouldn’t be home to deal with three-hundred-plus teenagers rampaging on the rooftop.)

  After wandering from room to room in the main party, Dustin decided to go check out the roof before he dumped his coat in Steven’s sister’s bedroom. Upstairs he found throngs of people smoking spliffs and cigarettes under heat lamps, a Ping-Pong table and an ice hockey table in full action, and a pop-up shop from Serendipity 3 manned by someone dressed in a penguin suit. Overwhelmed by the sheer insanity, Dustin got himself a hot chocolate and walked over to check out the view. Central Park was breathtakingly beautiful, still blanketed in white from the first early snowfall of winter. As Dustin stared out across the park, he couldn’t help but wonder if Steven’s dad had paid for it to snow.

  Turning to scan the crowd of faces, Dustin didn’t see one person that he knew, and he realized the only people who had spoken to him since arriving were paid waitstaff. He made the decision, after finishing his hot chocolate, to leave before Steven even knew he had shown up. This party was obviously not his scene and these were not his people, and admitting this allowed him to finally relax. When Dustin checked the time on his iPhone, he saw an alert reminding him that OSIRIS-REx was going into orbit around the asteroid Bennu, and even though this was happening 70 million miles away he looked up anyway and found the night sky to be quite calming. He was gazing upward when he heard a sweet voice ask him what he was looking at with such fierce concentration.

  When he looked down to see who had spoken, his first thought was that he had gotten a contact high from mistakenly walking into the kitchen pantry earlier, which was being hotboxed by three Dalton seniors, because the girl standing before him looked like a blond angel, otherworldly and ethereal, sparkling in a silver dress with a pale pink pashmina wrapped around her shoulders to cover her wings.

  As a man of reason Dustin did not believe in the phenomenon known as “love at first sight,” but in that moment it absolutely happened to him. He spoke to this gorgeous girl about how he had the New York Times Astronomy and Space calendar alerts on his phone and how he had just received a notification, and she told him that she never really “got the whole stargazing thing” until she spent a year living out West where there were no tall buildings and the sky was bigger than she ever believed possible, chock-full of a zillion stars. Dustin adored her use of “chock-full” and how she guilessly admitted she hadn’t understood that bright city lights were the reason why she never saw the stars in Manhattan.

  Dustin gently corrected her, explaining that on a clear night it was possible to see a few constellations if you knew where to look. He then explained why the spacecraft OSIRIS-REx’s first orbit around the asteroid Bennu was significant and how exciting it was that such a thing was happening in space while they were standing there. “Can you even imagine the years of preplanning that went into this one event? It’s such a huge accomplishment for all involved.”

  “Sure sounds that way,” the angel, whose name he didn’t even know, replied and then shivered in the wind. Pulling her wrap tight around her shoulders she told him she needed to go find her sister, but she hoped they could talk more later. And then she was gone. If she hadn’t touched his arm telling him it was nice to talk stars with him, he would have wondered if she had ever really been there at all.

  He ended up staying at the party until a little after midnight, which he owed to the good fortune of running into two girls he knew from SAT prep class who let him tag along with them for the evening. Stephanie and Tasha were friends of Steven’s girlfriend from Camp Laurel in Maine, and they both admitted to being first-time party attenders as well. Dustin was relieved to hear they were as overwhelmed as he was by the spectacle, but they said they were sticking it out to the bitter end, unsure if they’d ever score an invite again.

  Luckily the two girls were chatterboxes, so Dustin stayed his usual quiet self and just listened while secretly scanning the crowd for the girl from the rooftop. It was only minutes after the New Year was welcomed, via screams and confetti cannons, that he saw her again. He was in the library sitting on a couch with Tasha and Stephanie, when his mystery blonde hurried by the doorway. He pointed her out to Stephanie, and she matter-of-factly informed him the angelic beauty was Kimmie, the little sister of their friend Lolly.

  “I didn’t know Lolly had a sister,” was all he had to say before Stephanie and Tasha unpacked Kimmie’s entire life story. Kimmie had just started Spence as a sophomore, because her freshman year had been spent living in Nevada and training to be an Olympic ice dancing hopeful. Six months ago, she moved back home after a terrible spill during a competition when Gabe, her skating partner and gay BFF, mistimed a deep outside edge lift, lost his balance, and fell backward, causing her to fall forward and shatter her kneecap. She spent the whole summer recovering from surgery and was told her career as an ice dancer was over.

  Tasha then added, “Well, if I had to choose between the Olympics or being on the Hot List, I’d pick the Hot List for sure.”

  At the mere mention of the list, Dustin choked on his now-warm champagne, which escalated into an embarrassing coughing fit. After getting pounded on the back by both girls, he finally managed to get out in a raspy voice, “She’s on the list?” Dustin tried to sound as casual as possible, because truth be told, he hadn’t known the list was even out yet.

  Stephanie nodded. “She came in at number three, which is incredible since she didn’t even campaign for it.”

  Tasha added, “And she doesn’t dress slutty like all the other girls.”

  “Well, not at school,” Stephanie said. “But there’s plenty of videos of Kimmie in some skimpy-ass ice dancing outfits on YouTube.”

  “Do you thinks it sucks for Lolls to have such a gorg little sister?”

  “Nah. I’d rather have a bf like Steven than be on the list.”

  “Same.”

  Newly awash in so much information, Dustin, not wanting to give either girl reason to be suspicious, artfully changed the subject and then left the party twenty minutes later. He chose to walk home across the snowy park so he could replay the night in his head, marveling at how every choice he’d made in his entire life led him to that serendipitous encounter on the roof. As much as he tried to stop himself from going there, near the end of the walk he couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to walk into his prom with Kimmie S., the third hottest sophomore in all of Manhattan.

  IV

  School had been back in session for almost two weeks, and Dustin had seen Steven six times and had been unable to find the courage to talk to him about Kimmie directly. When he thought about why this was, all he could come up with was that he didn’t know if he wanted to hear the truth. Because if he were to learn he had only a miniscule chance in hell with her, where would that leave him? But as Dustin crossed the park in the late afternoon for tutoring, he thought about what he’d just discussed in therapy. Today was lucky number seven and he was finally going to grow a pair and confess to Steven his love for Kimmie.

  Dustin knew something was wrong as soon as he stepped into the apartment, and Steven embraced him in an awkwardly long bro-hug. He then said, “Dude, you can’t even believe my day. Come in. Come in. Good you’re here.”

  Dustin’s first thought was Steven was on drugs. While getting himself some water in the kitchen, he checked his friend’s eyes. Steven’s pupils looked normal given the amount of light in the room. Dustin’s older brother was currently in rehab, so he had some experience with people on drugs, and though he knew Steven used, he was certain Steven wasn’t currently high.

  To Dustin’s surprise, Steven settled down in the formal dining room at a table that could comfortably seat twenty-four people. He made a big show of ope
ning his physics textbook, telling Dustin they could start working on his problem set right after they had a shot. Ordinarily, Dustin would have refused, but he needed to steel his nerves. The booze was surprisingly smooth and when Dustin said as much, Steven replied, “It fucking well should be, this shit is ninety-five hundred bucks a bottle!”

  When Dustin heard this, he shook his head, grabbed the bottle, and did some quick calculations. “We just imbibed seven hundred and sixty dollars’ worth of booze!”

  “And we’re doin’ it again!” Steven said, pouring two more shots.

  Dustin, unable to deal with his growing anxiety, blurted out, “Is it absolutely impossible to believe Lolly’s little sister would ever go out with me?” and then downed his second shot.

  Steven sat back in his chair, let out a slow wolf whistle, and said, “Dustin, you dirty dirty direwolf, you.” (A love of Game of Thrones was one of the few things the two boys had in common.)

  Dustin ignored the whistle and kept going. “Ever since I met Kimmie on New Year’s Eve she’s all I can think about. My father caught me watching her ice dancing videos on my iPad and now is probably wondering if I’m gay. Thank god I met her after I got into MIT, because that girl is a GPA-wrecker.”

  “Is that nerd-speak for crazy hot? Me likey.” Steven laughed at his friend’s outburst, set the front legs back down on the floor, and then said quite seriously, “Real deal, I think Kimmie would be into a smart guy like you. Plus, girls high-key freak out over the status that comes with dating seniors.” Steven paused, which Dustin instinctively knew meant trouble.

  “But…?” Dustin prompted.