The Last September: A Novel

IT WASN’T THE BEAR. And it wasn’t my youth, or the fact that I’d been a virgin, though certainly all those details played their role. When I think back to that night—or really any night with Charlie—it was the way he could be so utterly convincing. That he felt exactly the way I’d been waiting for someone to feel about me. Smitten.

That night, after we’d escaped the bear, we left the skis back at Eli’s house and walked to my dorm, holding hands. My mouth still carried the chocolate-tinged remnants of Charlie’s spiked cocoa, but I wasn’t drunk, not at all, except on his nearness. We walked through the overlit halls of my dorm, and into my small, dark room, and although I’d said no to more than one boyfriend, I didn’t utter a word of protest as Charlie eased my sweater over my head, and I knew I wouldn’t, not even a token one. Light from the courtyard spilled through the blinds, illuminating his serious face, his blond curls, the fair stubble across his jaw. How could I even consider letting a word like no intrude upon this moment? Instead I told him, because I thought it was information he needed, that I had never done this before.

“Well, then. We don’t have to do this.”

“No. I want to.”

Charlie stroked my hair away from my face, staring at me long and hard before kissing me softly, gently. It was all I could do not to say I love you, I love you, I love you, over and over again. It never occurred to me that he wasn’t employing the same struggle. His face, his eyes, his tenderness—completely absorbed and entirely believable.

LIKE THE GENTLEMAN HIS brother wasn’t, Eli persisted in our friendships with phone calls and invitations. When he started dating Wendy, she didn’t object to our continued friendship, but it made me sad to be around them sometimes—Eli was a sweet and solicitous boyfriend, pulling out chairs and picking up checks.

“You can ask me about Charlie, you know,” Eli said. “If you want to.”

A Saturday, the two of us were in a classroom in Muenzinger. I had my own core curriculum worries and couldn’t pass Psych 101 until the rat I’d been assigned learned to get through a maze.

“Thanks,” I said. “But I’m trying to leave it behind me. You know?”

“It’s a good plan,” Eli agreed. He scooped up the rat gently, repositioning it midway in the maze. “If he can remember from here,” Eli said, “then maybe he’ll remember from the beginning.”

“Wait,” I said. “Which is the good plan?”

“Leaving it behind you. But I think the rat would do better if you gave him a name.”

“The rat doesn’t know if he has a name or not,” I said as the rat found himself faced with yet another tiny wall.

“Maybe he does,” Eli said. He picked the rat up and returned him to the middle. “I think you should try it.” As I was about to speak, he said, “And don’t name him Charlie.”

I laughed. “Fine. How about Templeton?”

“Something less expected,” Eli suggested. “Something smarter.”

“Templeton was smart.”

“Something nicer.”

“What’s Latin for rat?”

Eli cradled the animal and raised it to his nose. Its whiskers twitched, and its long, furless tail wound around his hand. I shuddered a little.

“Julien,” Eli said, feeding him a piece of the cheese we’d placed at the finishing point. “It’s a good, smart name.”