Three hundred and sixty-four days ago, in late October, nineteen and a half year old Drew Zelman was beginning his first semester at the prestigious Ivy League school, Columbia. The first months of his first semester consisted of all the typical experiences of a first semester freshman; he met lots of new people, he went to lots of new classes, he had lots of new experiences. He was, generally, having a good time just living. But that was all about to change.
In November, just a few weeks into his new semester, Drew fell in love. The first weeks of November, Drew had the good fortune of sitting near a pretty girl named Allie in his biology class.He asked me an unusual question.
" Are you in a relationship and how are you doing your laundry?"
He was more of a friend, a classmate and a mentor. My superior was willing to help me and sometimes he even called me for some advice. He was very nice to me.
I had not started looking for a girlfriend yet. He admitted to me once, how he had fallen in love with a girl again. He had not been that serious about his married life. He left her infidelity on the line.
I was not in a relationship. I was at the age where I liked the idea of having a relationship with the opposite sex but I was not in a period of seeking a lover.
It was confusing because I was not fond of his appearance. He was handsome and thick but I liked the curves of her hips more than his waistline. My spirit was paying attention to her waist. I had never seen a girl with wide hips. I liked a waistless girl. His clothes looked unfashionable and the clothes were always wrinkled.
His office was connected to my office. I could not meet him in his office because the corridors were crowded.The ice-cream machine sat on a patch of AstroTurf lawn keeping itself cool with a fan-cooled condenser in the valley between two hills in the shape of petites cuisses de nymphe.
The school's gutters, being made of baked clay, were thick enough to hold back the runoff from the roof but too narrow to provide an inlet for rainwater. The streets had not been graded since the French and Indian War, so they were not smooth, but had a cambered, old-fashioned, cobbled character. Peculiar to the little town of New LaFayette, which in French means "New Lafayette," was the fact that it was the unlikely site of a thriving medical pharmaceutical company and its research facility, which was a satellite in a series of clusters between which the occasional children's birthday party or other activity were beamed. The not-too-humble voice of the school principal explained to a group of back and forth walking teens of these curiosities as they passed it on their way to class.
Near the ice cream machine sat a group of boys in wildly diverse clothing. The six young men, ranging in age from eleven to fifteen years, were well aware of all their company had in common. They were tall, even the shortest of them. They were more or less big up top which was where they took pride in themselves. Their hips and legs were sinewy, but not due to any special training. At night, they could hear each other's heartbeats next to one another in their respective beds.
