Which doesn’t even make sense.
I said I’m not like them. I don’t want to marry someone from high school and be here forever. And they gave some lip service, saying they knew that, but Shawn is so wonderful, blah, blah, blah and prom etc.
In the middle of this, Allison came in from roller-skating up and down the street and asked what was going on. When she found out she started bawling. Like someone had died. I get it. She’s twelve, and Shawn has been around since she was nine. He’s like an older brother. But what am I going to do? Get married to him because my little sister loves him?
Anyway, the house was a mess for about two hours. Even Cookie started barking and wouldn’t stop. I went to my room and listened to records with my headphones on. I played Rumours. I listened to the song “Never Going Back Again” five times. That song goes right into “Don’t Stop.” I feel like they’re guiding me. “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow, don’t stop, it’ll soon be here.”
It had better be.
UPDATE, 10 P.M.
It’s okay here at home now. I think my parents realized that I was serious about what I wanted and they trust me. Allison knocked on the door and asked if I wanted to go to Sizzler for dinner. We’re good now. She gets it. She’s the best.
APRIL 12, 1978
Oh my god. I got into Columbia. I got a scholarship.
Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.
Don’t stop, it’ll soon be here.
APRIL 14, 1978
Interesting thing at lunch today.
Shawn and I don’t have the same lunch period. He has fourth. But for no reason I can make out, he appeared at fifth lunch today. It’s the first time since the other night that I felt really and completely flustered when I saw him. I turned toward the lunch line, and I felt him come up behind me. He said, “Can we talk?”
I told him I wanted to eat lunch. Mostly, at that point, I felt like I was going to barf. No one wants a sloppy joe under these conditions.
He asked again, and I started gripping the tray rail, and then something happened. Diane McClure, who was a few people ahead of me, stepped back and joined me in line.
She said, “She said she wants to eat lunch.”
Shawn stammered something, but Diane was not having it. So Shawn backed away. I swear to god I almost started crying in thankfulness.
Diane was waiting tables the day when I broke up with Shawn at the Duchess. She saw it all go down, so she must have figured out what was going on there in line. She said to me, “Why don’t you come sit with us?”
Diane hangs out a lot with Eric, Patty, Greg, and Todd. I don’t know if I want to get involved with them? Eric is okay, and I know Todd, but I don’t really want to hang out with them. Patty and Greg are always sucking face, everywhere, at all times.
But any port in a storm. They were at one of the picnic tables outside, and actually? It was okay?
Diane said I can have lunch with them every day if I want, and maybe I will?
MAY 2, 1978
Back with my new lunch group today.
I don’t know how I feel about being around Todd Cooper. I never really figured out where I came down on what happened with Michael. I think that before I was more inclined to believe that the police were right, that Todd had nothing to do with the accident. But now that I spend more time with him, I see that he is a jackass. Not deliberately scary or hurtful, but someone who could hurt someone by accident so easily. He doesn’t seem to notice that other people are real? Does that make sense? Like he could hit someone with his car and know that he did it, and somehow justify to himself completely that it wasn’t his fault. That’s how he seems to me. I mean, I still don’t know and it seems terrible and impossible but. . . ?
Diane is totally dedicated to him. I believe she would lie for him.
Eric is . . .
Yeah, Eric is different. Eric is okay? Maybe Eric is more than okay?
MAY 31, 1978
Finals are over. It’s done. High school is done.
JUNE 6, 1978
It’s so weird having nothing to do. I don’t know if I’ve ever had nothing to do. Camp orientation and training starts next Friday, so I have a week and a half to do whatever I want. What do people do with free time?
I was cleaning my room, because I had no idea what else to do, when Diane called.
She said that they were going to hang out at Patty’s house. They have a big pool. Did I want to come? I said sure. So she and Todd came to pick me up.
I knew the Hornes had a nice house, but I’ve never been in it. It’s up on the end of Sparrow Road. It’s huge. Behind the house is a pool patio that stretches almost to the wood line. Mr. Horne has a beer fridge that he doesn’t mind if we use, and he even came out to make hot dogs on the grill.
Is this fun? Am I having fun?
I think I might be?
JUNE 8, 1978
Two things happened today. I don’t know what to do.
After lunch, Greg turned up at the door and asked me if I wanted a ride to Patty’s. I said sure. When we got to Sparrow Road, he didn’t park in the driveway—he parked at the end of the street and we walked up. I asked why. He said that Patty told him to use the pool, even if she wasn’t there to let him in. But it annoys her dad, so she told him to park down the street and come in through the back gate. That way the neighbors don’t say anything to Mr. Horne about people going in and out of the house when neither of them are home.
I asked him where Patty was, and he said she was out shopping. He said that Eric and Diane would be coming by soon. Diane was doing a shift at the Duchess and Eric was doing “milkman stuff.” (I’ve come to understand that when Eric buys grass and makes deliveries, he calls that being “the milkman.” A few months ago, I would have been more freaked out about that. I’ve grown.)
Anyway, we swam, hung out. Greg is Patty’s boyfriend, so it was fine that we were there. But then there was a noise from inside the house.
He said, “Shit, shit! Grab your stuff!”
He was laughing, but I could tell he was serious. I grabbed my bag and towel and followed him into the cabana.
This is when things got really, really strange.
Mr. Horne and a man came out of the house and sat by the pool, not far from where we were in the cabana, and started talking. The man’s name was Wendel something. He was saying that he hadn’t seen Mr. Horne since Harvard. Mr. Horne started joking, asking how the man had found him. The man said that he had been at his dentist’s office and was leafing through the Bicentennial edition of Life magazine in the waiting room when he saw the picture with Mr. Horne and all of us in it.
Mr. Horne started speaking in German. The man asked why, and Mr. Horne said because whenever he talked about the war, he preferred German in case neighbors could hear, because of the nature of what they did. The man seemed to understand that.
My German isn’t perfect—I’m good enough to basically follow things, but some of it was too advanced/idiomatic. I’m writing down what I remember. I didn’t get all of it.
Something like:
Man: After Berlin, I never heard from you again. I thought the Russians killed you.
Mr. Horne: They almost did.
Man: How long were you in prison there?
Mr. Horne: Eight months.