Free Crossroads by Mary Morris Page B

our talk was being cut short. “Are you crazy? Isn’t that dangerous?”
    But she had her heart set on picking up a hitchhiker. She shifted into reverse. “There are two of us and one of him.”
    The argument didn’t hold up for me. “I don’t care. We were going to get a drink.”
    I turned and saw a blond-haired boy rushing toward the car, a look of gratitude on his face. “We’ll get a drink after we drop him on the main road,” Jennie said, rolling down her window. “How far you going?”
    The boy looked to be about eighteen and he kept pushing his long hair off his face. He wore an orange and black Princeton T-shirt and a pair of bleached-out jeans. He had a nice smile, so I assumed he wouldn’t drag us off into the bushes somewhere.
    Bobby Jones introduced himself to us and jumped into the front seat beside me while I leaned forward so that he could climb into the back. He was going to a party outside of Cranford and if we could get him to the highway, that would be “just super.”
    â€œYou would have been on that road all night,” Jennie said.
    â€œI would’ve missed the party if you girls hadn’t stopped.”
    I was taken aback at the word “girls.” Both Jennie and I were old enough, technically, if I did a quick calculation, to be this boy’s mother. “Do you go to Princeton?” I pointed to his T-shirt.
    â€œI’m here on a swimming scholarship. I broke their butterfly record last year.”
    We were pressed tightly into the car and I could feel his arm muscles against mine. I pictured him as a butterfly, a yellow swallowtail, beautiful, elusive, transient, touching down on a soft petal, then moving on. “You look like a swimmer,” I said.
    â€œYou girls just cruising?”
    Jennie switched on the radio. The BeeGees were singing “Stayin’ Alive” and Bobby Jones started bouncing his left leg up and down. “We’re going drinking,” Jennie said.
    â€œWell, it’s going to be a great party. Why don’t you come?”
    â€œI told my boyfriend I’d be over.” Jennie started to speak with Bobby Jones’s relaxed, laid-back inflection.
    â€œSo give ’im a call.”
    Jennie glanced at me and winked. “Well, we could give you a ride to where you’re going, but I don’t think I’ll go to the party. We’ve gotta get back.”
    â€œIt’s a long drive. I’ll jump in the back.”
    I didn’t want him to jump in the back. “The dog sleeps in the back,” I said.
    â€œI sure don’t want to smell like a dog tonight.” He fluffed his golden hair. He looked Nordic, Aryan, the opposite of men I’d known, completely uncomplicated. “You girls go to school?”
    We gave him our names, so he stopped calling us “girls.” Jennie used her maiden name. I’d never changed mine. “I go to Rutgers,” Jennie said. “Debbie’s a junior at Barnard.”
    â€œThey got a nice pool at Columbia.” He turned to me. “What’re you studying?”
    â€œShe’s going to be an architect.” Jennie spoke for me, knowing I had a hard time lying.
    â€œI’m not sure,” I put in. “Maybe journalism. Journalism and urban planning.”
    â€œSounds pretty heavy to me.” It seemed he had trouble absorbing the heaviness of my professional choices. He returned to the pool. “You swim in it?”
    â€œAll the time.” Jennie had started the game and I knew that for half an hour or so I could pretend.
    â€œYou swim distance or speed?”
    Distance sounded as if it would entail less discussion, so I said I swam fifty laps three times a week and he nodded,
impressed and silenced. What I liked about lying to him was that Jennie and I were conspiring again, the way we had when we were kids. And if Bobby Jones was dumb enough to believe we were college