Cecily Von Ziegesar Read Online Free PDF Page A

He could shear a sheep. But he’d lived every one of his eighteen years with a sense of detachment that frustrated him. When would he start to live, full throttle? When would he begin to engage with his surroundings? Even the Dexter College campus,which had existed prettily in the background throughout his entire life, felt strange and menacing. He felt as if he were seeing it for the first time. The buildings were pristine. The grass was green. The chapel was as white as his car had probably been when it was new, long before his time. He was about to spend the next four years of his life here, patrolling these green lawns, attending seminars in these immaculate brick buildings, or concerts and lectures in the quaint white chapel, but right now he was too terrified to even get out of the car. Tragedy was right, he was a pansy.
    Adam tapped lightly on the horn, but he doubted his sister could hear him. The glass walls of the new Student Union were incredibly thick, built to withstand the frigid temperatures of the long Maine winter.
    The guy behind the counter was still grinding, filtering, and steaming. Tragedy was about to inform him that she could have flown to Guatemala, picked her own coffee, milked a fucking cow, and baked a batch of biscotti herself by this time, when the door to the bathroom swung open and a guy with a blond beard wandered into the café. He wore a black parka, maroon Dexter sweatpants, and old work boots. A thick book was clutched in his grease-streaked hands. He looked young and old at the same time, as if he’d been through a lot and didn’t want to talk about it.
    â€œShit,” he muttered as he walked by.
    â€œHey!” the guy behind the counter called out. “Hey man, I told you yesterday. You’re not supposed to use the bathroom unless you’re a student or a customer.”
    Ignoring him, the bearded man pushed open the glass door and stepped out into the sun.
    â€œHow do you know he’s not a student?” Tragedy demanded. “He’s wearing Dexter sweatpants.”
    The guy placed an enormous cup of coffee on the shiny black countertop, squirted a dollop of whipped cream on top, and sprinkled it with cocoa powder before securing the lid.
    â€œWe only opened a few days ago and that guy’s been in here every day to use the bathroom. He never buys anything. He’s always wearing the same clothes. He always looks a little dirty and acts a little weird. He’s no student.” He slipped a cardboard sleeve around the cup and handed it to her. “One venti mocha cap with two shots and two biscotti,” he announced, pushing the cellophane-wrapped cookies across the counter. He winked. “No charge.”
    The coffee weighed a ton. Tragedy grabbed the cookies and tucked them into her back pocket. “You tell your bosses the next time I’m in here I want to see some fair trade fucking coffee,” she reminded him.
    The bearded man was sitting on a bench in a sunny spot outside the Student Union, reading his book.
    â€œHey,” she greeted him. “I’m Tragedy. What’s your name?”
    He looked up, his gigantic light blue eyes staring without seeing. His face and hands were dirty, and he was younger than she had first thought, but older than her brother was. His parka had a feather-oozing gash in the chest and must have been hotter than hell. The book in his hands was Dianetics, by L. Ron Hubbard. She recognized the erupting volcano on its cover from a 60 Minutes episode she’d watched one Sunday night. The report was all about why Scientology was so appealing to celebrities, who tended to have “lifestyle problems.” The Church of Scientology encouraged fucked-up people to delve into their pasts and “audit” their shitty memories or “engrams” to get “clear.” The thing was, you had to pay them to do the auditing because, goodness knows, delving into your past is not