The plan had been for Anton to return home immediately after finals. But as the time grew nearer, he found himself searching the Internet for a last-minute ticket to San Diego. Bradley and his friends from Stanford had rented a five-bedroom house on the beach for a week and had invited him. He had refused earlier, but now he was tempted. After the beach vacation, Brad planned on flying to South Korea and would not get home until the week after Christmas, and Anton didn’t want to wait that long to see him. So Anton made a pact with himself—if he found a ticket for less than four hundred dollars, he would go.
The fare came to $463, but he booked it anyway. He needed to get away from Harvard and from home, needed to clear his head about Carine. Somehow they had lost their equilibrium, and things hadn’t gotten back to where they were before the trip to the Cape. Now, try as he might, he could see her only through the eyes of his parents, and from that vantage point, he didn’t much like what he saw. He could almost hear his parents say the words: Impetuous. Unstable. Not Our Kind.
Brad would not be so quick to judge. He had met Carine briefly and had seemed to like her well enough. If anyone could help Anton decide whether to break it off with her or not, it would be Brad.
Brad picked Anton up at the airport and drove him to the house they were sharing with three other guys, two of whom Anton knew. The third one, Jeff, was from Seattle and seemed nice enough, if a bit quiet. Anton never figured out who had bought the bottles of booze that lined the kitchen pantry—they were all underage and unable to buy alcohol legally—but the others had already started drinking, and there was nothing to do but join in.
He was a bit hungover when Brad shook him awake the next morning. “Come on,” he said. “Throw on some sweats and let’s go for a walk before the others wake up.”
Anton was still groggy as they walked the nearly deserted beach. But it was nice to hear the sound of the waves, the cries of the gulls. Even in the morning fog, the Pacific looked so different from the Atlantic, with its promise of blue. Whatever his future brought, Anton hoped it included lots of travel. He would like to see all the oceans in the world before he turned forty.
Thoughts of the future made Carine bubble to the surface of his brain. This is your brain on Carine, he joked to himself, looking out at the fog, which seemed to have entered his head.
“So, this is great,” Brad said, giving him a sidelong look. “I can’t believe you’re actually here.”
“Me, neither. You’re doing well?”
“Can’t complain. Stanford’s great. You?”
Anton sighed. “I’m okay. Actually, not so good.” He slowed his pace. “It’s Carine.”
“What’s wrong? Last time I was there, you couldn’t keep your eyes off her. Or your hands.”
“I still can’t.” He pointed to the wooden steps leading away from the beach. “Shall we sit?”
“So what’s up?” Brad asked after they were settled, his face already red from the Southern California sun. “You just said you’re still hot for her, right?”
Anton slipped off his sneakers and brushed the sand from his feet. “It’s not that, Brad. It’s just that she’s, like, wild. Mouths off the weirdest stuff at the most inappropriate times.”
“Like what?”
“Like . . .” And he told Brad the story of Carine’s behavior at the Cape, noting Brad’s shocked reaction with grim satisfaction.
“Wow,” he said when Anton finished. “She said that to Pappy? Man, that’s pretty rad.”
“I know. And everything with her is about race. It drives me crazy.” He stopped for a second, then took the plunge. “For instance, she said the only reason you don’t . . . that you’re not aware of my race is because I’m invisible. To you.”
Brad frowned. “That’s insulting.” He looked at Anton, squinting in the sun. “Though I’m not sure which of us should be insulted. Both, I guess.”
“Exactly. And when I said we didn’t think along those lines, she mocked me.” Anton stopped abruptly, feeling like a six-year-old tattletale, afraid that he was betraying Carine and painting her in a much harsher light than she deserved.
“Man, I tell you, these black chicks sure have a bug up their ass.”
Anton turned his head sharply. Brad’s tone was confiding, intimate, unself-conscious. He had said that thing about black women as if unaware that he was talking to a black man. Damn. Carine was right. Brad didn’t even consider him black. But that was a good thing, wasn’t it? I mean, Anton argued with himself, why would he? They’d known each other half their lives. They had double-dated together, had their first sexual experiences within two months of each other, gone to the same high school, been on the school’s lacrosse team, vacationed together, gone rock-climbing together. Hell, he and Brad were like an old married couple. It would be downright odd if Bradley were suddenly aware of his blackness.
Damn Carine. She was messing with his head. If he had never met her, he never would have noticed what Brad had said, would’ve grinned and teased him about how many black chicks did he know and was his knowledge firsthand? This was what drove him crazy about Carine—how she took something beautiful and innocent, like his relationship with his best friend, and turned it into something sinister. Carine was a tortured person, that was it, and like most tortured people, she would drag down whomever was around her.
“Hey, dickhead,” Bradley said. “You’re not pissed by what I just said, are you?”
Anton stared at Brad; it was the first race-specific comment he had ever heard his friend make. He rubbed the rough stubble on his face, unsure how to answer.
“What I mean is, I wasn’t making any specific comments about Carine’s ass,” Brad continued, a goofy grin on his face. “Although it’s a monumentally great ass.”
The sense of relief Anton felt was palpable. In response, he put Brad’s head in a chokehold. “What’s the matter, jerk?” he said. “Aren’t you getting laid?”
Brad shook his way out of Anton’s grasp. He dug his toes into the sand and then asked, “Seriously, though. What are you going to do? I mean, you still love her, yes?”
Anton looked out at the ocean, mulling over Brad’s question. “I’m crazy about her,” he said finally. “In many ways, I think she’s the greatest person I’ve ever met. I mean, she’s kind and loyal and funny and wicked smart. And she has a heart of gold.”
“And the problem is?”
“The problem,” Anton said slowly, “is that I don’t know if I can live with her. It’s exhausting. It’s like . . . she wants me to be a better person than I really am.” He looked at Brad, furrowing his brow. “You know me pretty well, Brad. You know I like my creature comforts. I’m . . . I’m basically a happy, easygoing guy, right?”
Bradley made a face. “If you were any more easygoing, you’d slide right into Hawaii.”
“Well, there’s nothing easy about Carine. She’s too intense, man. It’s like she wants to change the world now. Every fucking day.”