Three Quarters Dead Read Free

He was writing his optional senior thesis on PACs and GSEs in the last two Congressional elections. What were PACs and GSEs? And how much more evolved could Spence get?
    Some noons we just had to wait for the guys to go away before we could get back to ourselves. One time Tanya got caught in the crossfire between Noah Brolin and Bob Silverman. They were debating about which was a better backup college, Bucknell or Tufts. Something like that.
    Finally Tanya had heard more backup college talk than she needed to hear. “Guys, please,” she said. “It’s not like you’re looking at Harvard or Princeton. Bob, your father went to Brown. He gave them a building. You are so in there.” Her eyebrows arched their highest. “And Noah, you and Nate are looking for swimming scholarships. You’ll go where the money is. End of story.”
    This sort of left Bob and Noah just standing there. Tanya could talk guytalk better than the guys. And she put up with very little from them. She was amazing. “Enough with the colleges. We’re seniors. Let’s be seniors,” she told them. “Let’s live in the moment, okay?”
    Because Tanya was definitely the Queen of Now.
    But what did we spend all that time talking about when the boys weren’t buzzing and butting in? Why can’t I remember more? Why can’t I live in that moment? I reach for us, and we slip through my fingers. I strain to hear, but we’re fading now and farther off. The four of us, our heads close, just out of earshot.
    One thing I remember that really impressed me was about prom dresses. The subject came up a lot even in October. Also, who would you shop with for your dress?
    “I’ll take Joanne,” Tanya remarked, and Natalie stared at her.
    “Joanne?”
    “Why not?” Tanya said. “Not the first round, of course. Not for actually picking the dress. We’ll do that first, at Nordstrom. Maybe we could all go into the city and have a look at Bergdorf—do lunch upstairs there. Stay overnight at my aunt’s. We’ll make the basic dress decision. But then I’ll take Joanne back later—let her think she’s part of the process.”
    I wondered as long as I could, then had to ask. “Is Joanne a senior?” I limped along behind as usual, and they all screamed, even Makenzie.
    Because Joanne was Tanya’s dad’s live-in girlfriend. Tanya’s parents were divorced. So were mine, but in Tanya’s perfect life she lived with her dad. Her mother was an archaeologist. She was always on a dig in Syria, or someplace. I wished my mother was on a dig in Syria, or someplace.

    THEN THERE WERE other noons when the girls were too busy for much talking. They’d be texting the questions on some Algebra II or science test from that morning for people in the afternoon class. “It’s my take on community service,” Tanya said. “It’s not like we owe the afternoon people anything in particular. But we have to keep some control over the teachers. Really, the way they make us grovel for grades. Honestly, who do they think they are? Could they even get real jobs in, like, business?”
    Tanya put up with very little from teachers.

    SO I SUPPOSE I actually remember quite a lot about those noons, and what was said. What Tanya said. But surely there was more to the code than I ever cracked. Moments I missed. Clues. An hour here, an hour there, now gone forever.
    There’s one thing I almost noticed. Lunch at Tanya’s table sometimes seemed to go on longer than regular time. Of course the bell at the end always went too soon, right in the middle of a sentence, which was annoying.
    But for lots of lunches, time just seemed to stand still, the clock locked at high noon. The rest of the food court and school, and the world, kind of fell away. It was funny. Odd. We hung there in Tanya’s special space, this island in time, because she said so. She really, truly was the Queen of Now.
    But then came that miracle noon I hadn’t even dared to hope for. It was the last golden day of October,