“But I only have one key to my aunt’s,” Martha said. “How will you get in?”
“I’ll figure something out,” I said.
“I got a room at the Hilton, and you can crash there,” Dede said.
“Thanks,” I said, and Martha looked at me incredulously. “I’ll call you in the morning,” I told her.
I ended up sleeping in my skirt and blouse, sharing a bed with Dan Ponce and Jenny Carter; Jenny slept between Dan and me, and Dede and Sohini Khurana slept in the other bed. We turned off the light at quarter of four, and I woke at seven-thirty and left immediately. I didn’t feel as bad as it seemed like I ought to, I couldn’t not stand up or walk, and so I thought maybe the alcohol hadn’t really affected me after all.
I boarded the T at Copley and rode to Park Street, where I knew I had to change to the Red Line to get to Martha’s aunt’s house. But Park Street confused me-while at Ault, I’d ridden the T only a handful of times-and I went down a set of stairs, then up again. The upper level was crowded and very green, and everyone around me was rushing. Not the Green Line-that was what I’d just gotten off of. I went back downstairs, to where it was red and a little calmer but not actually quiet. I was standing there in my clothes from the night before, clogs and a long skirt and a short-sleeved blouse, and as I gazed down at the track, it moved a little, then moved again in another place. Mice, I realized, or maybe small rats-they were skittering all over the track, almost but not quite blending in with the chunky gravel.
I remembered it was Monday. And rush hour-that was why the station was so crowded. Around me on the platform, people passed by, or stopped in a spot to wait: a black man in a blue shirt and a black pin-striped suit; a white teenager with headphones on, wearing a tank top and jeans that were too big for him; two women in their forties, both with long ponytails, both wearing nurse’s uniforms. There was a woman with a bob and bangs in a silk skirt and matching jacket, a guy in paint-speckled overalls. All these people! There were so many of them! A black grandmother holding the hand of a boy who looked about six, three more white guys in business suits, a pregnant woman in a T-shirt. What had they been doing for the last four years? Their lives had nothing at all to do with Ault.
It’s true that I was hung over for the first time, and still naÏve enough not to understand what a hangover was. But these people, making their way through the morning, all their meetings and errands and obligations. And this was only here, in this station at this moment. The world was so big! The sharpness of that knowledge went away almost as soon as I’d boarded the T, but it has returned over the years, and even now sometimes-I am older, and my life is very different-I can feel again how amazed I was that morning.
Acknowledgments
My amazing agent, Shana Kelly, believed in this book before it existed and has helped me immeasurably with her encouragement, hard work, and level-headed intelligence. Also at William Morris, Andy McNicol has, with gusto, gone to bat for Prep and for me. At Random House, I truly have the best editor in the world: the wise and hilarious Lee Boudreaux. At every stage, Lee has known what’s in this book’s best interest, has allowed itself to be itself, and has shown such enthusiasm. I am similarly indebted to Laura Ford, who rooted for the book early on and is a patient hand-holder and generally terrific person, as well as to Lee’s and Laura’s Random House colleagues Holly Combs, Veronica Windholz, Vicki Wong, Allison Saltzman, and my all-star publicity team-Jynne Martin, Kate Blum, Jen Huwer, and Jennifer Jones, who floored me with their creativity and dedication.
I have learned a tremendous amount from my teachers, including Bill Gifford and Laine Snowman. Most recently, at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, I was privileged to study with Chris Offutt; Marilynne Robinson; Ethan Canin, who was a wonderful adviser; and Frank Conroy, who cares so much about writing and whose beliefs have been so inspiring to me. I also learned from my challenging, insightful Iowa classmates, especially Susanna Daniel and Elana Matthews, who are my dear friends, and Trish Walsh, who always told me to just keep writing.
During the time I worked on this book, I received financial assistance from the Michener-Copernicus Society of America. In addition, I literally was a given home by St. Albans School, and welcomed-so welcomed, in fact, that here I still am-by St. Albans’s students, teachers, and staff.
I have been able to support myself without working in an office only because of assignments from various magazine and newspaper editors, including Rory Evans, who has been a mentor since I was seventeen years old. Bill Taylor and Alan Webber, the founding editors of Fast Company, hired me for my first and only full-time job and continued to give me incredible writing opportunities after I moved on.
I am deeply grateful to my other friends, readers, and combinations thereof: Sarah DiMare, Consuelo Henderson Macpherson, Cammie McGovern, Annie Morriss, Emily Miller, Thisbe Nissen, Jesse Oxfeld, Samuel Park, Shauna Seliy, and Carolyn Sleeth. Matt Klam was a much-valued advocate and a sender of wacky and excellent e-mails. Field Maloney provided smart and timely editing advice. Peter Saunders brought my hard drive back from the dead and performed other feats of technological wizardry. Matt Carlson makes me happy in many cities.
Finally, of course, there’s my family: My aunt Dede Alexander has been a stylish and attentive presence for my entire life. My other aunt, Ellen Battistelli, is my most faithful reader, has at times been my only reader, and is my kindred spirit in neuroses. My sister Tiernan gracefully suffered the indiginity of being the main character in pretty much everything I wrote until the age of eighteen. My sister Jo talked through many aspects of Prep with me, including names and titles, and-when not coming over to my apartment, sitting an inch away from me, and chatting Jo-ishly-kept insisting, correctly, that I needed to finish the book. My brother, P.G., was himself in high school during the years I was writing about Lee Fiora’s high school experience, and he sagely advised me on math, sports, and matters of the heart. Lastly, for their great love, I thank my parents. I am very lucky to be their daughter.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CURTIS SITTENFELD won the Seventeen Magazine fiction-writing contest at age sixteen, in 1992, and the Mississippi Review’s annual fiction contest in 1998. Her writing has appeared in Fast Company, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Salon, Real Simple, and on public radio’s This American Life. A graduate of Stanford University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she is the recipient of a Michener-Copernicus Society of America Award. Sittenfeld was the 2002-2003 writer-in-residence at St. Albans School in Washington, D.C., and continues to work at St. Albans as a part-time English teacher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2005 by Curtis Sittenfeld
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sittenfeld, Curtis.
Prep: a novel / Curtis Sittenfeld.
p. cm.
eISBN 1-58836-450-X
1. Teenage girls-Fiction. 2. Preparatory school students-Fiction. 3. Self-destructive behavior-Fiction. 4. Massachusetts-Fiction. 5. Indiana-Fiction. I. Title.