There were other factors, too, of course, such as alcohol, everyone’s favorite culprit, specifically the four strawberry Boone’s Farm coolers I downed on an empty stomach. Throw in the intensity of emotions that come with that bittersweet summer sandwiched between high school graduation and the rest of your life, supreme hometown boredom, and a dash of bad luck—or good, depending on who you ask. And of course, the final ingredient: Conrad Knight himself.
Conrad wasn’t my type up close and in reality, but he was pretty much everyone’s type from afar and in fantasy, and I certainly wasn’t immune to his seductive blue-gray eyes, just-long-enough dark hair, and cheekbones Janie called “epic” years before the word became overused. He seemed mysterious and a little dangerous, an image some kids tried to cultivate—but only Conrad seemed to achieve naturally. He had a tattoo on his forearm, rumored to be his mother’s initials and the date of the car crash that killed her. He smoked hand-rolled cigarettes, drove an old, black Mustang, and sang in a garage band downtown. A few girls with fake IDs who had gone to see him compared his voice to Eddie Vedder’s, swearing that he’d be famous someday. His father, who was actually a retired actor, having starred in a now-defunct soap opera and a still-running commercial for Tums, returned to L.A. intermittently for auditions, taking Conrad with him for long stretches of time. Despite his absences from school and spotty academic record, he seemed smart and somehow worldly—or at least profoundly indifferent to the social order of high school, which gave him an aura of sophistication. In short, he was nothing like the affable jocks I had dated throughout high school—nothing like I was, for that matter—but not in a dramatic, cliques-at-war way, just in a way where our paths never really crossed. We occasionally said hello in the halls, but hadn’t really talked since elementary school.
“Marian Caldwell,” Conrad declared when I ran into him in Janie’s backyard. At least half of Glencoe had come to the party after word had spread that her parents were out of town. He was expressionless, yet something in his eyes told me that we were about to have a meaningful exchange.
“Hey Conrad,” I said, self-consciously swaying to the swell of Sarah McLachlan’s “I Will Remember You” coming from the boom box in Janie’s upstairs bedroom window.
He gave me a half-smile, and then, as if continuing a long-running conversation, said those words I’d replay for years to come. “You can run, but you can’t hide.”
As he took a sip from a can of Dr Pepper, I surveyed the scruff on his face and inhaled the scent of his skin—a mix of cedar, salt, and Calvin Klein’s Eternity cologne.
“Who’s running?” I said. “And what are you doing at a party like this?”
I still cringe when I think of the question. I might as well have said a party with the “popular crowd,” of which we both knew I was a sustaining benefactor.
“Lookin’ for you,” he said, his eyes smoldering as much as light eyes can. I glanced around, assuming he was joking, expecting his fellow bandmates or his girlfriend to be returning from the bathroom. I had never seen her—she went to another school—but Janie had spotted them at the mall together once and said she was a dead ringer for Kate Moss, right down to her gypsy top, long, floral skirt, and Birkenstocks.
“Well. Looks like you found me.” I laughed, feeling bolder than usual as I touched his forearm, right on the black ink numbers, like Braille on his skin, determining that he was not only alone but completely sober.
“So how you been?” He glanced at his naked wrist where a watch would have been if he had worn one. “For the past six years?”
“Six years?” I asked, then reminded him that we had gone to school together since the fourth grade.
“Last time we talked,” he said, running his hand through his hair, wavier than usual from the humidity that was so thick I felt like we were treading water. “I mean, really talked. We were on the bus coming back from that field trip.”
“From the Shedd,” I said, nodding, remembering the trip to the aquarium in the sixth grade—and especially the bus ride back to school.
Conrad smiled, and for one second, relinquished his cool posture. He looked twelve again, and I told him so.
His smile grew wider as he said, “You gave me half of your Twix and told me you wanted to be a marine biologist.”
I laughed and rolled my eyes. “Yeah…I don’t want to be a marine biologist anymore.”
“I know,” he said. “You’re going to Michigan, then film school, then L.A. or New York where you’re going to do great things and become huge. The next Nora Ephron or…well, that’s about the only girl director I know.”
I gave him a look of surprise until he divulged his obvious source. “The yearbook. Remember? Plans for the future?” He made quotes in the air, clearly mocking the whole exercise.
“Right,” I said, thinking that he must also be aware that I had been voted “most likely to succeed”—just as I was aware that he had won “best eyes.”
“And what are your plans?” I asked, something telling me that he had left the yearbook questionnaire blank, until I remembered his three-word reply: Color me gone.