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Chapter Text

Having an extra graduation ticket at Pulitzer University was like holding a map to the library of Alexandria.

Each student got three tickets which was enough for almost no one. It was like a cruel joke. To cap off four years of no health insurance, exorbitantly priced textbooks, and skyrocketing tuition that nearly strangled everyone but the trust fund babies and Roosevelters, Pulitzer’s facilities were insufficient to support anyone who knew more than three people.

David, of course, knew more than three people. He had his parents, Les, and Sarah all of whom were getting on a plane and flying out and graduation was three days away and he still didn’t have tickets he still didn’t have tickets he still didn’t have tickets.

He had three, sure. But who was he supposed to kick out? Yeah, Les had made some noise about staying back at the apartment, but Les was talking more and more about not going to college and David needed him to see what going to college meant.

It was all David could think about and, as Spot was very patient concerning, it was all he could talk about.

They were in the dining hall at a table alone because their friends never ate lunch at the same time. They wouldn’t see each other for dinner because David had an end of the year potluck with his Debate team, and Spot was taking the staff at The Sun out.

Of course, between David eating at work half the time and Spot living off Twizzlers, they had hundreds of dollars of leftover dining hall dollars. Even though it wasn’t their money, they had bought shelves of energy drinks that were sitting in canvas grocery bags on their table, between them as they sat staring at their phones.

David broke the silence. “Do you want to go back to hating Aunt Elane?”

Spot looked up from his phone. “You’re the one who wanted me to use all my tickets. You’re the one who was like—“

“I know.”

“—‘oh Spot! Look at your life! You have all these people who care about you and want to see your success! Invite them all!’”

David sighed. “I meant that. I did. I just kind of wish you were still an isolated little asshole? Just on Saturday.”

Spot rolled his eyes. “I may seem like the most desolate person you know, but there were dozens for sale on Race’s website until a few weeks ago.”

David scoffed. “For a thousand dollars! Race was price gouging!”

“He was doing that supply-demand shit. Now his rent is taken care of for months.”

Rent.

Right.

They were moving out in four days to a $2,200 two bedroom with Jack and his girlfriend. David’s graduate internship would start in a few months. Spot was floating him in the meantime—something David never would have considered three years ago. Spot’s paper business was still going strong, though he spent more of his time delegating papers than he had when they met. Jack and his girlfriend were a whole other thing.

“Excuse me for not having a thousand dollars,” David said, “I’m just saying. Maybe someone will offer Kloppman a faculty ticket and you can give me his?”

“Do you want me to uninvite him? He is so old, he probably forgot I invited him.”

“Fuck. No. Alright. Wishful thinking.” David slumped and took a drink of his coffee. “Les will be alright without seeing me graduate, right?”

“I don’t know.”

“What!”

“I don’t know!”

“You’re the Human Development minor!”

“That don’t mean I’m an expert on what makes your brother tick. He’ll probably be fine. Hell, he’ll probably have more fun watching TV at our place.”

David sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “He’s flying out here. He should see the thing he’s flying out for.”

Spot shrugged. “Do you want me to do my thing and try to get you a ticket?”

Yes, David super did, but Spot’s thing involved outsourcing hacking, and occasionally in person intimidation, and David wanted to do this the right way. He shook his head.

“I’ll ask Denton if he has any ideas tomorrow.”

During his senior year David’s main job was coaching a Debate team at a local high school.

It was amazing.

It wasn't like a movie, at all. He didn’t inherit a downtrodden unskilled team and dazzle them with brilliance. His team was pretty well equipped to begin with, David just started filling in in September when their sole coach quit unexpectedly. The vice principal at the high school was a former Roosevelter, and reached out to Denton for someone desperate enough to accept what public school paid their extracurricular activity staff, when there was a budget for one at all.

He went to state with his team and consoled them when they didn’t get to nationals. He broke fundraising rules and returned to his roots and sold candy bars across Pulitzer. He got the other Roosevelters in on in too, bribing them with a cut of the chocolate action. Jack was unsurprising adept at selling anything at all, even $4 chocolate bars, and David couldn’t order enough to keep up with his sales.

He was able use some of the money for competition dress for his team, something he would have been deeply grateful if his own high school had done. And maybe he had Spot had more chocolate bars in their freezer than they would ever be able to eat in the next three days.

A good third of his students were graduating that weekend too, so David picked up a cake on his way uptown. Dinner was in the choir room where all their practices were, and David wasn’t surprised when he arrive 15 minutes early and found that half of his team was already there, playing mafia on the floor.

“Mr. Jacobs!” they cheered mockingly when he walked in. David grinned and carefully set the cake down on the broken down piano in the corner. He’d told the kids to call him David, and they did until a few months ago the administration caught wind and insisted he go by Mr. Jacobs. Which he explained to the kids with enough derision that none of them took it seriously and only called him Mr. Jacobs as a joke.

“Mr. Alvarez! Ms. Washington! Mr. Johansson! Mr. Cho! Ms. Cho! Ms. Monger! Bully to see you!”

“Bully to see you!”

David was glad this wasn’t a goodbye. While he hadn’t exactly told his supervisor or advisor at NYU that he was planning on keeping this job, he’d signed a contract for another year with the school so they would have to deal with it. Spot and Debate were all that kept him together the past year, between scrambling with an overtime load to keep his double major and having to fly home more than once. Debate made him happy.

He borrowed a tradition from his high school team and celebrated graduating seniors by laying out black t-shirts and silver sharpies and instructing all the students to fill them with accolades and inside jokes and “tasteful” verbiage, the last piece of advice was nearly always eschewed. David couldn’t wear his own shirt from class of 2016 in public.

He wasn’t disappointed when the kids demolished his cake and covered their senior’s shirts. David was approached by more than one student who wanted coaching over the summer, which he turned down politely. He couldn’t give his time away for free, not anymore, and he couldn’t give the kids who could pay an advantage over the others.

Sometimes when he was with the team he felt like a full on adult. They thought he was an adult, for the most part, and he took care to dress professionally because he didn’t look more than four years separated from them. But today he felt even more like an adult, dressed extra professionally, having come from a meeting about commencement, and being the one in charge of feeding a team of minors.

He sat on the steps of the choir tiers and listened to the kids chatter. One of them—Penny—came up and showed him pictures of Bowdoin where she was going to college, and enthusiastically talked about their Speech team. She asked him, “So wait, why are you going to college again?”

“I’m going to graduate school,” David explained, “It’s for advanced degrees, after you already have a bachelor’s degree.”

“For why?”

“It’s required for most of the jobs I want.”

“That’s a rip off.”

“I don’t disagree.”

“Why don’t you just be a high school teacher?”

“That’s not what my degrees are in.”

“You have two?”

“I’m about to.”

“Daaaaaaaaaaaaamn.”

David smiled. Having one degree, just four year ago when he was in Penny’s position, seemed so impossible. Now he was done with finals, his grades were in and he was looking at not one, but two degrees.

And he was about to do it all again.

He had hoped for some leftover cake, but should have known better. He had plenty of leftover napkins, which he stuffed in his backpack and took the subway home.

Home was Badger Building, where he and Spot had been living in the same apartment since the summer after sophomore year. It was on a different floor than the one they had the summer after freshman year—they actually had a window in the bedroom in this one. Neither of them were into tchotchkes or decorations in general—Swifty and Mush’s apartment down the hall was the direct opposite of theirs—but it was lived in. They had two bookshelves filled with records and books accumulated from David’s old job at the library, and freebies that Spot got. They had decided to bring it all with them to the new apartment, and David had arranged for a U-Haul to be picked up on Sunday.

Their stuff was in boxes—far more stuff than they had lugged from the Lodging House a few summers ago. It was all labeled meticulously, but the kitchen hadn’t been packed at all.

That was their real pride. Filled with second-hand hardy cookware, spices, and matching plates they’d saved up for. Both of them had mastered how to cook in the tiny space of their kitchen, and when he got home David smelled garlic and lemon.

“Why are you cooking, you goof?” David called as he shook his backpack onto the floor. Spot stuck his head out from behind the pillar in the kitchen. “You just finished dinner at Tibby’s.”

Spot didn’t like leaving the kitchen while he was cooking, so David walked over and kissed him quickly before looking at the chicken thighs Spot was painting with some yogurt concoction.

“Remember when you didn’t know what French toast was?” David teased.

“Sh,” Spot said, “I’m meal prepping. We’re not going to be able to cook when we get to the new place, with everything in boxes, so I’m making some stuff to freeze.”

“So fucking domestic.”

David took a beer out of the fridge and stood leaning against the pillar while Spot finished up and put the chicken in the oven. He wouldn’t leave the kitchen while it was cooking, David knew, so he wasn’t surprised when Spot turned on the oven light and sat in front of it. David sat down too.

“How was dinner?” he asked.

“Eh,” Spot said. 

“Eh.”

“Eh. Everyone ordered a ton of shit to give me shit, but like jokes on them they have no idea how much money I have. It was no skin off my nose. We each brought the worst things we’d written in college, so of course, I brought your hot dog story.”

“Thanks. “

“You’re welcome. The last editor, Yael Diaz, she was there because that’s the tradition. She gave me some shit for graduation.”

“Some shit?”

Spot shrugged and leaned in close to the oven, as though the cooking chicken had done something suspicious. “I’m going to the office tomorrow to clean out my desk. If you were like, bored between nine and ten tomorrow.”

David recognized a request when he heard it, so he nodded and took a sip of his beer. “I look forward to seeing how much booze you’ve hidden in your desk.”

“Jesus Christ, I’m not some twentieth century fuck. It’s a perfectly reasonable amount.”

He was going to be ridiculously busy tomorrow. In addition to Denton’s last Roosevelter meeting, and visiting his favorite professors one last time, he had to clean out his own desk in the Student Affairs office, plus he was picking up his family from the airport. But he could make time for this.

Spot didn’t take his eyes off the chicken, but held his hand out for David’s beer which he offered. “I’m thinking Jacobi’s when this is done cooking? Obviously we’ll go to Jack’s party, but that’s not supposed to start until eleven, and Blink and Race as going to be there starting soon.”

David wanted to yawn but he didn’t. “I’ll have to change. But yeah. Let’s do it.”

It wasn’t just Race and Blink at Jacobi’s. The favorite Roosevelter bar—the favorite bar of all scrappy Pulitzer students—was a twenty-minute walk away and very familiar territory. David had changed into a t-shirt and jeans, and Spot was wearing one of David’s jackets even though it was going to be sweltering in Jacobi’s.

“My my my!” he heard Race’s voice as soon as he walked in. “Look what we have here. The First Couple of the class of 2020 Roosevelters.” Their group had taken over a table up front with four stools and six people crowded around. There were Race and Blink, plus Swifty and Mush were draped against each other, and Crutchy and Dutchy were animatedly playing games on each other's phones.  

“Hey!” Mush objected. “Why aren’t were the First Couple?”

“Yeah!" Swifty agreed. “We’re so much sweeter than them. And we might actually win if we ran for office.”

“David is total office material,” Spot objected. “Plus we’ve been together longer.”

“We’ll have Denty decide tomorrow,” Dutchy interjected, “you two are two drinks behind. Go to the bar.”

They started with shots, which Race bought for them, then moved on to beer. It would be a long night of drinking, David knew. But neither of them had driven a car in years. So David wasn’t too worried. He’d learned to pace himself, after a slightly wild sophomore year, and whatever was left of Spot’s liver kept him relatively sober even when he did things like down three shots in five minutes, which he did.

“I’m not going to drink at Jack’s,” he informed David. “His beer is always shit.”

Blink came up behind them and yelled over the dozens of voices crammed into Jacobi’s, “Hey, you coming to my party tomorrow? My sisters are coming in, and they can party.”

Spot shook his head. “David’s parents are staying with us.”

“The parents! Have you met the parents, Spotty?”

It was far too loud for a conversation, but bless him Spot tried anyway, “Yeah, remember my rom-com trip to Chicago summer before sophomore year? They love me. I slept on their floor and listened to them snore. We’re damn close.”

The truth was, David’s parents did like Spot quite a lot. And they’d learned his name, firmly. David was glad his parents were coming out, not just for his graduation, but so that they could see his and Spot’s life here for the first time. David knew Spot’s people much better, because they were all a subway right away, but David’s family hadn’t been to New York since Sarah drove him out summer before freshman year.

“What about your parents?” Spot asked Blink. “Jesus wouldn’t let them leave whatever country they're in?”

“The good word don’t spread itself!” Blink said, a touch more loudly than necessary, “But my heathen sisters? They’re in the clear! They’re coming and they are awesome.”

“Maybe Sarah will want to hit up a party,” David said, “We might be able to come for a little while.”

“Ooooooh, your sister?” Race butted in, “I’ve been hearing about this sister from Jack for years. I’ve got to meet her.”

“Shut it,” David said, “She would have no interest in you. She’s taller than me.”

“A crack about my height? David, I’m hurt!”

“You have a girlfriend!”

“That don’t mean I don’t have feelings!”

Jacobi’s got fuller—with finals ending at all 110 universities in the city and it’s 594,000 students looking for somewhere to celebrate. At eleven the group showed no sign of leaving, and David started corralling them out the door. Jack would be super bummed if they were late. Some junior Roosevelters who were at the bar came along, but maintained some distance, staying behind and sharing a cigarette.

Crutchy was using a chair today, and he moved faster than the rest of them as he sang the Pulitzer fight song. Mush rushed to keep up with him and joined in, while Swifty hung back with the rest of them.

“Swifty, is your mom coming?” David asked.

Swifty nodded heartily. “And my brother! I sold my third ticket, so my rent is taken care of for next month.”

David was glad the third person who the ticket had previously been promised to was no longer in the picture, but his heart sank as he saw another ticket that was previously available disappear.

“Where are you living again?” David asked, trying to keep his mind off the ticket he needed.

Swifty took two leaping steps and spun around in some ballet move. “Astoria! It’s close enough to the rehearsal space, and the rent is good. Mushie’s parents wanted him to live with them another year, so I’ll have some roommates from the company, but I’ll only be a mile from him. I’m jealous of you and Spot, living together with no parents objecting.”

It was true, his parents didn’t mind at all that he was living with his boyfriend. He’d been living with him for years now. If anything, the only thing they should be worried about was him living with Jack who still partied like he was eighteen.

They crammed into an elevator. Jack lived on the seventh floor, but they started hearing the music on the fourth.

Good thing no one ever called the cops in Badger Building, no matter what.

The door was thrown open, and even though the party had only been going on for twenty minutes there were people David didn’t know spilled into the hallway. The music was loud and indiscernible which meant that in order to keep Skittery at the party, Jack had put him in charge of the music.

He was good, like that.

Spot had gone downstairs to get the bottle they’d agreed to contribute. Crutchy went in first, making a path with his chair which David followed behind until he found Jack in the kitchen, pulling a tray of Jell-O shots out of the fridge. Jack lived in a two bedroom, so the kitchen was bigger and when he and Spot got particularly ambitious with a meal they borrowed his kitchen. Tonight it was full of sweaty seniors who dived on the Jell-O shots when Jack handed them off.

“My buddy my pal,” Jack said, throwing his arms around him. “My last party! Can you believe it! Oh man. Our next place is going to be smaller than this, I won’t be able to go all out like this again!”

David returned the hug, even as he took in what Jack had said. Did he plan on having parties like this in their new place? Not every building was a college building, they couldn’t pull off stuff like this in their new neighborhood, necessarily.

A conversation for another day.

“Where is your cohost?” David asked.

“She’s—”

“Here!” a voice behind David said.

He turned around and took in Katherine Plumber in the flesh. Her hair was piled high on the top of her head and she was wearing a giant sweater that made her look tiny. David grinned and pulled her into a hug, even though he’d seen her that morning for breakfast in the dining hall.

Katherine was smiling wide, as though a raucous party filled with guys and what sounded like polka was totally her scene.  

“I’m trying to do a theme!” she said, holding out a nametag sticker and sharpie to him. He noticed that her nametag, affixed to her pink sweater, said Katherine Pulitzer, New York Times Editor. “Do yours! It’s where you’re going to be in ten years. I figure it’s inclusive of anyone who doesn’t have a job yet, but hopeful! We can be as optimistic as we like. I’ve asked a lot of people, and no one has done it yet so please do it.”

David turned around and scribbled quickly and affixed it to his t-shirt. Katherine took it in and her face lit up. “Wonderful,” she said, “I love it.” Then she turned her gaze sharply on Jack. “Mr. Kelly. You haven’t done yours yet.”

Jack held his hands up in surrender. “I don’t know what the future holds, lady! Just because my immediate future is a boring sales job don’t mean that’s me ten years from now! I could end up anywhere!”

“As long as you don’t plan on going anywhere soon,” Katherine said, “We have a lease, bud. Here—” she wrote on the nametag and stuck it on Jack’s t-shirt. Jack Kelly, Katherine Plumber’s Husband.

He found Spot ten minutes later in the hallway outside the apartment, talking to Skittery who was wearing his headphones on one ear and had the other side held an inch away from his ear so he could hear.

“They have planes in Wyoming?” he heard Spot ask.

“Yeah,” Skittery admitted.

“So it’s not like you’re never going back. Relax. It’s cool.”

David didn’t know what conversation he’d walked in on, but he sidled up to Spot and handed him a glass of water while he held onto his own beer. He smiled at Skittery who didn’t smile back, but David knew better than to expect that.

Despite being kicked out of the Roosevelt program at the end of their freshman year, Skittery had remained a solid part of their group. He stayed at Pulitzer and continued to study Music Business and had announced in great detail on Instagram that he had accepted a position as Program Assistant at music hall in Jersey.

It was a surprise to David, who assumed from the way Skittery constantly complained about the city that he would be moving back to Wyoming to live with his Grandpa.

A thought occurred to him.

“Hey Skittery,” he started, “do you have free tickets?”

Skittery rolled his eyes. “Aren’t you a little late to be hitting people up for tickets?”

He was, he knew it, but he’d assumed things would work out the way they typically did. Except graduation was in three days—two really, at this point—and he still didn’t have a fourth ticket.

“I gave one to my grandpa, duh, and one to my boss at the music store. I sold the third one.”

Fucking Race and his fucking website.

“Okay,” David said, “no worries.”

“I know,” Skittery said, “it’s not my fault you didn’t get on this sooner.”

David laughed. “No,” he allowed, “it’s not.”

Spot pulled him close and said quietly, “Hey, how long we staying?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s the last party. I kind of want to stay for a while.”

They did stay for a while. The party just got louder and louder as Katherine’s friends and strangers and juniors showed up, but he always found someone to talk to and a place to sit and had the same drink in his hand all night.

Even though it was wildly different, it reminded him of the first party Jack threw in their dorm room at the Lodging House, freshman year. The first check of the Roosevelt stipend had been deposited and Jack used a good chunk of it to buy beer of a senior on the fourth floor. David was in their room, reviewing his newly bought textbooks and preparing for his first day of classes in the morning. Despite having been on campus for over a week and going through orientation, he still considered himself relatively friendless and was convinced it would stay that way. Jack had taken him under his wing, but David figured that was because they were roommates and he would tire of David quickly.

His fears seemed to be confirmed when Jack showed up in their room with two cases of Natual Light beer that he unceremoniously dropped in the middle of their floor. David turned around.

“That’s illegal,” he said immediately.

“This is college,” Jack laughed, “don’t no one care. We’re having a party. Right now. Come with me to get people.”

A party? Shouldn’t David have been consulted on this matter? Wasn’t that roommate etiquette. He didn’t have time to consider that because Jack physically pulled him off out of his chair and dragged him across the hall. David protested between each door they knocked on as Jack said to acquaintances and strangers, “Me and my pal Davey as throwing a party, and you’re invited.”

Once the entire floor had been invited, David beelined back to their dorm with the intention of grabbing his books and going to the common room. But there was a crowd of people outside their door, including Spot who was a sour-faced stranger then, waiting for the party.

It was disorganized and not nearly as crowded as their later parties or this one. Jack found David’s speaker from Target and got some music going and Race organized a card game and Blink opened a beer bottle with his teeth and it became the template for all their future parties. The same things that happened that night were happening tonight. Sitting on Jack’s gross couch with Spot next to him, David watched strangers and juniors slowly clear out, until all that was left was the ten of them, the original class of 2020 Roosevelters, and Katherine.

Katherine who had joined their group and dorm parties sophomore year like she had never been outside of them, a visitor and valued member at the same time. One the party thinned out, she took her hair down and pulled off her sweater, revealing a crop top underneath. She sat cross-legged on the floor and reached out for Jack to join her.

Jack squeezed her hand but stayed standing. He held up his glass. “Here’s to us,” he started.

Everyone grabbed their glasses, ready for a famous Jack Kelly toast.

“I know this ain’t the last party y’all are going to go to on this campus, but it’s my last party. And I hope, in your heart of hearts, you know it’s the last good party you’ll go to.” Everyone laughed and Jack grinned. “I’ve been keeping track, and in my four years on this campus, I’ve thrown forty-seven parties. That’s on the low end, but let’s not forget I studied away, so you gotta cut me some slack. I’ve seen y’all grow up before my eyes, and to be honest, some of you were better looking in 2016 than you are now. But you can’t do anything about that. I just wanted to say, you’re welcome for supplying beer and a good time and my fine company. It was all worth it. We all know me and David are the best friends in this squad, but the other nine of you ain’t so shabby either. I’ll miss stuff about each of you. And I’m glad I got to see you one last time.”

Skittery pulled off his headphones. “You guys literally have a Roosevelter meeting tomorrow at eleven.”

“Hush,” Jack said, “this is what counts.” Jack lifted his glass. “That’s for coming to my last party in university housing. I promise as soon as we get unpacked at casa Kelly-Plumber-Jacobs-Conlon, you’re all invited back for an even better one. Until then, take fucking care.”

To that, they toasted.

Chapter Text

They had a total of $162.52 dollars left at the dining hall, so despite not getting home until three, David was woken up at seven by Spot tapping him on the face.

“We have to go to the dining hall,” he said, “Jack and Katherine are waiting. I want French toast.”

David groaned and got up. “I hope you know I’m only doing this because I love you.”

“You’re only eating breakfast because you love me?” Spot teased.

“Waking up. Hungover. Very hung over.”

Jack and Katherine were outside their apartment when he and Spot were ready to go ten minutes later. Katherine didn’t live in Badger Building—she lived in one of the expensive dorms closer to the union—but she was always around, and David figured she’d probably spent the night.

“Good morning!” Katherine chirped. “If I had any dining dollars left I’d be thrusting a cup of coffee at each of you. Since I don’t, thank you very much for feeding me.”

Jack slung his arm around her, “You’ll never go hungry around us.”

David knew they probably wouldn’t be at the dining hall again. Dining dollars expired at 7 PM tomorrow, and after breakfast, every meal was a celebration. So they had a lot of money to burn.

The fact that he had let himself hold onto extra dining dollars that would potentially go to waste would have killed him when he first arrived at Pulitzer. He calculated the amount her could spend on each al a carte meal in the dining hall and got nervous when he went too far over or under. Gradually he began to loosen his control, as meals became more difficult to plan and his schedule grew more complicated. It both helped and hurt he and Spot began treating their dining dollars as shared—because sometimes that meant that it was okay if he ran out in the last week of December, sometimes it meant that Spot used David’s card to buy a pound of candy without telling him.

They figured it out.

During their junior and senior year they both selected the lightest dining plans and took the refund check from the Roosevelt Scholarship. They’d gotten into cooking and were both too busy to go to a third location just to eat.

So.

$162.52

“We should have invited more people,” David said as they walked into the quiet dining hall. “I’ve never managed to spend more than twelve dollars on breakfast.”

Jack shook his head. “Ye of little faith. You have no idea what I’m capable of.” With that he picked up two plates and headed straight for the bacon.

The menu didn’t ever change, even though David remembered being sold on a world class dining experience when he was a senior in Chicago. The omelet station was closed, but the trays of donuts from Glazed were there which Spot made an immediate beeline for.

They met back up at a table their group frequently used, a large circular table with twelve chairs, and took up four chairs in a corner. Katherine made two trips to get four bottled cold Starbucks coffees, and had a plate piled high with pastries and fruit. Jack had a lumberjack breakfast spread across two plates and a large coffee and three energy drinks. Spot had done the very least, but had two energy drinks and a plate covered in donuts. And David?

David had done what he never would have thought possible when he arrived a Pulitzer.

He blew—demolished—fifty-four dollars on a stacked breakfast of home fries, biscuits, fried eggs, pancakes, a giant waffle, and a large black coffee. The rest of the damage was from four novelty water bottles that said I LOVE A PULITZER GRAD that David hadn’t seen anyone buy.

He internally laughed at the idea of Les would bring it to high school.

There was a time when spending more than thirty dollars on a weeks worth of groceries would have made him sweat. Those feelings weren’t exactly gone, but he was more amused by them than anything and watched as they passed by while they tucked in to their breakfast.

“What’s on the docket for today?” Jack asked the group. “Our last day as un-degree-d lay abouts.”

Spot snorted, “We ain’t never been lay abouts. Me and David are cleaning out of desks. Then we all got the Roosevelter meeting, then lunch at Tibby’s after. It’s real exclusive, I know I’m supposed to invite you, Kath, but it’s a Roosevelter thing.”

With a dramatic put upon sigh, Katherine said, “Oh fine. Not like I’ve ever heard that before. Then David’s parents come right?”

David nodded. “Not till four, so after lunch, I’m visiting some professors, and Spot is going to Kloppman’s apartment. We’re taking a fucking cab to LaGuardia to pick them up at four.”

“A fucking cab?” Katherine repeated.

“A fucking cab. You guys?”

Katherine opened her second bottle coffee. “I have to get the graduation edition of The Banner to the printers otherwise no one is picking them up at commencement.”

“There’s a graduation edition of The Banner?” Jack asked.

“Jack Kelly!” Katherine said sharply. “I have been talking about this all week.”

“Have you?” Jack played dumb, “Did you say something about it being your last edition as Head Editor and it being a tradition and you having a column in which you reflect on your time at The Banner and it having a blurb about every damn single graduating senior and something about you and the selection committee being the only ones who know who is giving the Senior of the Year speech?”

“Yes,” Katherine said, “that edition.”

“You know who the Senior of the Year is?” Spot asked, “Who is it?”

“You care about a school event that doesn’t relate directly to The Sun?” David teased, trying to move on from this quickly. “I wonder what our blurbs say.”

Katherine tapped her cap against the bottle. “You both know I can’t tell you any of that.”

“But David,” Jack asked through a mouthful of food, “you wrote an essay for Senior of the Year. They didn’t tell you who got it?”

The Senior of the Year application was something everyone assumed he would submit. By the end of his senior year, David had been involved in Student Affairs, Center for Diversity and Inclusion, the art gallery, the social sciences lab, not to mention the off-campus jobs and internships he’d held. He wasn’t the typical Senior of the Year who was involved in Greek life or student government. But once he got used to college, he became a classic overachiever. Denton asked him how his Senior of the Year application was going before he even told him he was applying.

“Maybe I got it,” David said boldly, “Rude of you to assume I didn’t.”

Spot snorted. “You would have told me. Actually, you would have told Jack first.”

“True,” Jack agreed, “Sorry, Davey. Shouldn’t have brought it up.”

He shrugged. “I’m sure whoever got it will make some dumb speech that everyone would forget once it’s over.”

David had a little higher expectations for his own speech giving abilities, but he wasn’t about to mention if that was relevant.

They spent their last eleven dollars on Monster drinks before going to the English building. The Sun’s office was a small room in the English building with a handful of desks and the last issue’s layout still taped to the wall. Spot used a passcode to let them into the building and a key to get into the office.

“Are you going to have to give that to someone?” David asked.

Spot shook his head. “I’m supposed to wear the key around my neck at graduation. That and a flash drive with all the editions I worked on attached. Yael brought like, a fancy fucking lanyard for me to put it on at dinner last night. I’m supposed to make one for next year’s editor.”

“Because you’re so crafty?”

“They should have put that in the Head Editor application, I wouldn’t have gone for it if I knew in a year I’d have to make some shit for Amanda.”

The room was empty, which David didn’t expect. Every time David came to the office, even if Spot wasn’t there, at least three people were working on computers, or playing boredom games or sleeping. Hell, Jamison was almost constantly sleeping in a corner with a pillow, but he wasn’t here today.

Spot’s desk was in the back corner of the room, something David knew was a departure from how Yael ran the room. He had a swear jar that was currently empty on this desk, but David had seen crammed full of ones and quarters throughout the year. David pointed at the jar.

“Used it for dinner,” Spot said. He went to a back closet and pulled out some paper boxes. He sat down and pulled his ergonomic mousepad out from under the university computer’s mouse. The top of his desk was totally clear, which was very Spot, and when he opened a bottom drawer he revealed hanging files that were meticulously labeled.

Spot put on some music, and started making piles. He put a lot of the paperwork on Amanda Smalls’ desk, in incoming Head Editor, and put others in a paper box he found in a closet. As with most things, Spot didn’t reveal emotion as he went through the desk he’d had for the last three years in his work at The Sun.

David was surprised when sophomore year started and Spot casually mentioned he’d gotten a proofreading job at The Sun. “To appease the old man,” he insisted, “since he did good by me over the summer.”

A lot of Spot’s life choices were allegedly to “please the old man.” Declaring a Creative Writing major halfway into that semester. Ignoring his advisor’s advice and literally only taking classes Kloppman taught in the spring, because it was Kloppman’s last semester before retirement. As Spot moved up the ranks of The Sun, he would grunt, “hope the old man is happy.” Even when he earned the position of Head Editor.

Spot put a set of The Sun copies in his box, as well as a bottle of rum and some cups. After ten minutes it seemed like he was done, but Spot sat down at his desk and looked over the office.

David waited.

Finally.

“I’m going to miss this place,” he said, “I’m going to miss the staff.”

“We’re not leaving the city,” David said, “You can always visit.”

“It’s not the same.”

It was odd, sometimes, remembering that Spot used to be an Economics major hell bent on making his first million. He should have figured from the fact that he wrote other peoples papers for a living that this writing thing wasn’t just a gig to him.

There was a board in the back of The Sun office that was labeled in dry erase marker, Brag Board. On it were the accomplishments of the staff, from pieces that had been published elsewhere to mentions in the Banner to the two awards that The Sun had won in the past year.

David pointed to the awards. “Are you taking those?”

Spot glanced at the certificates and accompanying printed articles. “Those don’t belong to me. They belong to The Sun.”

“But you know that they wouldn’t have won them if it wasn’t for you.”

“I know,” Spot said. He did get up and remove two ripped out packets of paper from other literary magazines, the work he’d gotten published outside of Pulitzer that year.

“This was my idea, you know. I told Grady about it junior year,” he said, staring up at the board. “Employees are happier in settings they’re celebrated in.”

“Jesus Christ, you fucking sap,” David said, “I’ve never done anything like this. I didn’t know this was you.”

“It was,” Spot said, “student becomes the master, I guess.” Spot gripped the papers and turned around. David looked where he was looking at tried to see the office though Spot’s eyes. There were clusters of desks, boards for layout, and hundreds and hundreds of copies of The Sun dating back decades. There was a board that outlined in hand written dry erase marker the staff from the Head Editor to the proofreaders, along with their cell phone numbers and emails.

Spot’s name was faded and under cell phone number he’d written “none of yours business” then someone had written his phone number on a post it and put it over that. Spot had never taken it down. He’d told David all about it, he was pissed about it, but he never took it down.

“I should erase this,” Spot said.

“You don’t have to,” David said.

He picked up an eraser off the brag board and walked over to the contact board. Spot picked up the post it and put it in his pocket. “If I don’t erase it, someone else will. Amanda should be up here now.”

Spot took a deep breath and in one intentioned motion erased his name from the board.

At the Office of Student Affairs, things were buzzing. There was a program for decorating your graduation cap with sparkly glue and pattern paper. David thought of their gowns hanging in their bedroom closet.

“Did you bring your caps?” Dina, the person running the program asked. David shook his head and pointed to the cluster of internship desks in the back corner.

“Closure,” Dina said, “gotcha.”

It took longer to clean out David’s desk. He’d only had his internship at the Student Affairs office for the past semester. Much shorter than Spot’s tenure, but the Student Affairs office had become his epicenter over the past few years. Before this he stashed his stuff in an empty cabinet, but now that he had an internship doing participation analysis, he had is own place.

“What the fuck is this?” Spot asked, holding up three gallons sized ziplock bag full of Box Tops.

David groaned. “Oh damn. I forgot to send those in. They’re for the high school. Damn. That’s like, three dollars.”

Spot turned a baggie over. “Do we eat this much cereal?”

“I got them from the service fraternity that Dutchy is in. He told me they were just stashing them in their office and hadn’t donated, so I swiped them.”

“Damn, always a badass.”

David took a few minutes to get all his files off the university computer and makes sure he had all the flash drives from his research. He thought it might technically belong to the university, but he’d done it. So it was his.

He took a moment, like Spot did, before leaving the office. He knew the campus wasn’t disappearing, but starting Saturday it wouldn’t belong to him anymore.

Some staff he wasn’t close to were in their offices, but David wanted to leave. He wanted to be early for the last Roosevelter meeting.

Spot had been reading at another intern’s desk and looked up when David stood up and grabbed his own paper box. “You’re already done?”

“Yes,” David said, “we have to get to the meeting.”

“Don’t you want to like, cry?”

He didn’t. He liked interning at Student Affairs, it was basically necessary for what he wanted to do with his future, but it wasn’t where his passion was.

His passion was downstairs in the administrative center, in an oak walled room that David sometimes snuck into to do homework. The room had paintings of all the past Pulitzer Presidents down to when the school was founded in 1899.

It was used as the boardroom, for official meetings that David sometimes was in on as he got more involved in campus. He wasn’t sure how Denton got the right to use it during lunch four times a week, but each class of Roosevelters had their own mandatory lunch meeting, once a week, every week they attended Pulitzer University. It had to be a ton of work for Denton.

There were wood desks that created a hollow square and lined the room, with two swivel chairs at each desk. He and Spot always sat in the back corner. They were the last ones to arrive today, but their desk was open.

Denton was fiddling with his laptop, which he consistently was unable to properly hook up to the projector until Dutchy or Blink came over to help. Lunch was catered, even though the meeting was an hour earlier than usual, pizza this time. Without asking, Spot got up and got them two plates and cans of Sprite.

He was surprised, though he shouldn’t have been, to see Skittery at the meeting. He’d never stopped being a Roosevelter, even if the funding had ended. It was all ten of them.

Usually, Denton let them eat and talk for a while, but today he got right into it. Without waiting to be asked, Dutchy got up and set up the computer for Denton and once it was up, a PowerPoint with the word “Beginnings” displayed on the screen.

This was going to be a bitch and a half.

Denton was dressed not in a suit, but in a blue t-shirt and jeans. He’d never looked so casual. He smiled as he stood in front of them and watched the room grow silent.

“This is my seventh of these. It never gets easier. I spend four years watching you grow and change, and then you’re gone. It’s what’s right. But it’s hard. This isn’t about me though. It’s about you.”

The room was uncharacteristically quiet. It occurred to David that one of them should shout something like they always did, and Denton would smile amiably before moving on. But he stood there and intently looked them over, making eye contact with each of them.

“I’m going to embarrass you,” Denton warned them. “I’m going to highlight your successes, and expect you to stand up here and accept your cords. You do not have to say a few words, but you can.”

On the front table next to Denton were nine plaques and ten sets of cords—braided ropes within intertwining colors of green and white. Graduation cords were offered to students in honorable positions, like being part of honor societies or on boards if important organizations. David had been offered a few, but he wasn’t willing to spend the $15 they each cost to look a little fancier at graduation. Even if maybe he rightly should have, considering what he’d be doing. He couldn’t help but feeling a little excited at the idea of having one, especially one shared with his friends.

Denton gave them a small smile and hit the next button on his computer remote. It didn’t work. He hit it again. Nothing. Dutchy raised his hand and said, “You’re pointing it at the wrong place. The console on the ceiling.”

With a laugh, Denton pointed the remote at the right place and the slide switched to a photo of Dutchy. It had to be from the very first Roosevelter meeting in August of 2016. He had wide eyes and his rimless glasses and his hair was longer then, at eighteen, compared to the close-cropped blonde he wore now.

“Luuk Bakker,” Denton said, “nicknamed Dutchy, by you all if I’m not mistaken? Came to us from Andover, Minnesota wearing a winter coat as he walked into the Lodging House. Dutchy started as Human Geography major and is leaving as an Education major who will be teaching Social Studies in the Fall. Dutchy, like all of you, worked very hard to get here and has managed to not only spend all four years going to observations all over the city, he worked in an after school program. His calm presence and drive to help others make him extraordinary and I am proud of him.”

Denton gestured for him to stand up, and a furiously blushing Dutchy stood and allowed Denton to drape the cords over his neck and accepted a plaque.

Denton did this for everyone. Blink was next—Louis Balletti—who ran up before Denton was done explaining he completed a major in Women and Gender Studies and would be doing marketing for a rape advocacy organization. He gave Denton a big hug. He preened cords around his neck and held the plaque above his head before skipping to sit by Swifty and Mush. Once he got there he stopped before sitting down.

“Oh wait,” Blink said, “a few words, right?”

“If you like,” Denton said.

Blink grinned. “I mean. We all know what’s the same truth for all of us. Without Roosevelt—without Denton—we wouldn’t be here. I am who I am because I googled 'free college' and saw the Roosevelt Scholarship on the fourth page. You know, being here. I did great work, I think. And I’m proud of me too.” They cheered as Blink sat down.

He knew that Denton was going in alphabetical order and he knew who came next. Judging from the way Spot shifted and tugged on his hoodie sleeves, he knew who was next too.

Denton clicked the remote and Blink’s grinning picture was replaced by an eighteen-year-old Spot glowering at the camera. It was cartoonish, how angry he looked. Everyone burst out laughing, and even Spot momentarily covered his eyes and laughed quietly. At eighteen, Spot was wearing the same black hoodie but he didn’t fill it out the same way, and was working overtime to look murderous.

Sitting in the board room, Spot wasn’t exactly relaxed, not when someone was about to talk about him, but he was smiling and fiddling with David’s fingers nervously, none of which would have been considered even remotely possible to the boy in the picture.

“Spot Conlon,” Denton said, “of Brooklyn, New York, and he’ll tell you that quickly. Spot came to us an Economics major, if you could imagine such a thing, and is leaving as Head Editor of the literary journal with a Creative Writing degree and Human Development minor. His work has been published in two journals and he is joining The Vibrance as a copyeditor. I knew when I read Spot’s application he was ambitious to a fault, but I didn’t know where that ambition would take him. I’m pleasantly surprised and I’m proud of him.”

Having heard that parting sentiment three times now, Spot knew that meant it was his turn to go up. He stood and carefully walked up to Denton, who held out the green and white cords. Spot ducked his head and let Denton drape the cords over his neck. He accepted the plaque and took two steps back to their desk before stopping.

He laughed. “Fucking hell, right?” he said. David laughed loudly. he understood what Spot was saying. Like, Jesus, how were they here? Spot gave him a grateful look and raised two fingers in recognition to Denton before coming to join David.

Denton didn’t waste time on sentimentality. He stated what they had done, gave one or two sentences of detail then said he was proud of him. Yet David felt himself getting emotional as the incredible accomplishments of each of his friends were shared.

Next was Crutchy—Samuel Davison--who was up before Denton was done sharing how he was a Communications major who DJ'd the college radio show from 2-3 AM every day for almost four year and was going on to work for a radio show in Jersey. Crutchy gave a long speech, relative to Denton’s brevity, and by the end of it, David was having trouble blinking.

Next was either Race, skipping Skittery, or Skittery would be included. David was grateful when he was included. Denton literally said,

“Tradition said this person should be excluded but fuck tradition.”

They burst into applause and Racetrack literally stood up and yelled, “That’s right!”

With a wide smile, Denton hit the button and the photo switched to Skittery—Arthur Grigas--looking into the camera wearing a torn Sex Pistols t-shirt. The cheering hadn’t quite died down when Denton—with no mention of Skittery being kicked out of the program—boasted about Skittery’s work at a record store and his internship at a music festival. David expected Skittery not to say a word as he accepted his cords—no plaque for him (“The board orders those, I order the cords”)—but he was surprised when Skittery stopped and looked at all of them.

“Thank you,” he said. Then sat down.

Race was next—Anthony Higgins—who David was always surprised to hear was pre-law and was going to Columbia law school. Race’s only speech was to say, “Store is still open. Buying and selling,” before tapping himself on the nose.

Denton groaned. “Please, no one tell me what that means. Now, next.”

David knew who was next.

He was grinning in his picture, wearing an orange debate team shirt that had since become a rag. His had had never been that short since, and he looked so damn young.

“David Jacobs,” Denton said, “of Chicago. The first Roosevelt student to completely change the scholarship through a grassroots campaign. Came in undeclared, but when he declared he declared a Sociology and Urban Studies double major, which he accomplished with several overtime loads and CLEP tests. As you all know, David has completed more internships than any student I have ever seen, including one with the Roosevelt Scholarship. It should come as no surprise that David is pursuing a Masters in Higher Education and Student Affairs and no doubt has a future of upending more programs and scholarships to make them more equiatable. I expect nothing less.”

David held his breath, not ready for the words that came.

“I am proud of him.”

David said some words, with the weight of the plaque in his hands and the cords around his neck. But he didn’t want to repeat himself, so he kept it short. As always, when he spoke publicly, he forgot more of it after he was done speaking and sat down next to Spot, offering his hand to be squeezed.

“You’re killer,” Spot whispered.

Kelly, Jack Kelly, was next and Jack bounced in his chair while Denton described how he had accomplished not one but two minors in Graphic Design and Computer Science along with his History degree. Jack didn’t have a list of extracurricular involvements, but David knew that everyone knew that Jack’s real role on this campus was being an outstanding friend who would stay up all night with you even if he was done studying hours ago.

When Denton started to describe Jack’s new job in print sales, Jack yelled “Boring!” and stood up, rushing up to the table as though to cut Denton off.

Denton stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “I’m proud of him,” he finished.

Mush—Michael Meyers—was next, an Art Education major who was going on to teach art classes at a rec center in Queens. Mush teared up as he thanked Denton and the cohort for all their “Damn boundless love.” David looked around and saw other people getting emotional, but he was getting exhausted. He needed to save some emotion for later.

That’s what he thought, until it was Swifty’s turn.

Swifty, Nathan Rake, was a Dance major going on to dance in a modern company. That everyone knew. Swifty was proud of his new position, and he was constantly dancing up and down the halls of Badger Building. Swifty stood and accepted the plaque and cords, then stood in front of the board room.

“I’m Nate,” he said, “but everyone calls me Swifty. Those are probably the first words I said to most of you. What I didn’t tell you is that I got that name because I’m able to get away from a threat fast, and in Hawaii, I used to. A lot. I could get away from anything. I got other scholarships, but I chose this one because it got me on the other side of the country. Halfway on the other side of the world. I got here, and I thought, I could get away again if I need to. These guys are nice, and it’s easy for me to be nice to them. But they’re not really a family. And I thought, even though Denton says they’ll become my family, they won’t. I’ve heard that lie before.

“But I remember, that first week with you all, I told you about my mom's husband. I didn’t mean to, it just happened. Everyone was telling stuff, or most everyone. And I did. I remember, it was the first time I’d told anyone about it, and I thought, man, what does it matter? I’m 5,000 miles away from this secret. I didn’t expect what happened next. Everyone approached me that day and said the kindest things. And I know what you’re thinking. ‘Oh, everyone but Spot? Skittery?’ No. Everyone.”

David looked to Spot, who was staring calmly at Swifty.

Swifty took a deep breath. “You guys know who I am. You know what I’ve been through. You know what I want to do. And you still love me. I didn’t think I could get that, not in a men’s scholarship program with nine randos. But I got it from you.

“I know I’m not the only one of you who didn’t have a solid family before coming here,” Swifty said, “but none of us are leaving without one. So,” Swifty raised a hand, gesturing for them to stand. And they all did, holding their cups of Sprite and Coke, without remark. Eleven men in perfect focus, standing at attention for one another.

“To our man Denton, and to us.”

For a second time in twenty-four hours, they toasted.

Chapter Text

There wasn’t a table big enough for all of them at Tibby’s. It had been a problem for the last four years. Today they split up over three booths. David was with Dutchy, Denton, and Mush. Dutchy and Mush were comparing Pinterest boards and every few minutes Dutchy would defensively say, “I just have it for classroom planning,” and Mush would say, “Yeah, obviously,” and go back to showing him pictures of dogs.

“Are you ready for commencement?” Denton asked David quietly.

David looked around. Denton could know, could he? He wasn’t on the selection committee. So he played it cool.

“All I have to do is walk across a stage,” he said.

Denton nodded. “And your family is coming? All four of them?”

This was his opening. “Well yeah,” he said, “but only three of them are coming to the ceremony. Because of the tickets. Thing. I was wondering, Denton, do you know any way to get extra tickets?”

He’d asked Denton for nothing but favors since arriving in August four years ago, but he needed to ask for one more. He needed everyone to see him at graduation. But Denton wasn’t always able to deliver. He shook his head.

“In past years I’ve seen it where students would give each other tickets,” he said, “Selling or trading or even just giving a ticket isn’t allowed by university policy, but. There is always a black market. This year though, I understand there have only been sales.”

Fucking Racetrack.

“We don’t know nothing about that Denty,” Mush cut in.

“Of course,” Denton said, “my boys always keep it above board.”

They went their separate ways. They’d see each other around Badger Building, or at graduation. No one said goodbye. David headed to the Social Sciences building and searched for his favorite professors.

He didn’t hang around office hours like some students, but he had worked with Dr. Nussbaum for the past two years on his study on perception of public aid recipients and he owed him a goodbye.

But Dr. Nussbaum wasn’t in his office, or anywhere in the building. No one was. Maybe they were at lunch.

David should have seen it coming. Finals were over, and professors had lives. He should have emailed. It was okay though. He wasn’t moving far, and Dr. Nussbaum had promised him more work if he wanted it.

Spot was at Kloppman’s apartment, doing whatever he did when he went there. God knows he never invited David, or told him what it involved. He knew Spot went to readings once a month, but the other times? When he returned with plants or a loaf of rye bread? Were a mystery.

David decided to go home and pack their kitchen, only somewhat put out that his planned spontaneous closure with his professors was put on hold. Maybe it was enough closure for the next couple days, anyway.

At three thirty Spot came in holding two sleeping bags under his arms. “Yo,” he called out.

“Hey,” David called from where he was boxing the last of their extraneous pots. The stuff they’d need for breakfast and snacks were still out. “That for us?”

The sleeping bags were tossed in a corner. “Told the old man we had four people coming to stay and hadn’t figured out where we were sleeping. He called us the ‘picture of youth’ and gave me these.”

“We had it figured out. My parents were going to sleep in our bed, Sarah was going to sleep on the couch, Crutchy was loaning us an air mattress, you and Les were going to sleep in…okay we hadn’t figured it out.”

Spot came up behind him and wrapped his arms around David’s waist. David wasn’t particularly tall, but he was taller than Spot who was too short to hook his chin over David’s shoulder, so David spun around and kissed him.

“Hey,” he said, “who do you think will do worse with PDA, us or Jack and Kath?”

Spot snorted. “Jesus Christ, we’ve barely gotten less chaste than when we were in the closet. And Jack and Kath? Fuck. Those two can carry on.”

“We’ll have to establish boundaries,” David decided.

“Jack. Boundaries. Sounds super doable.”

Living with Jack and Katherine was a no brainer. They couldn’t afford their own place, and they’d been basically full-time double dating with Jack and Kath since those two got together sophomore year. While Jack and Spot would never be best friends, weirdly Spot and Katherine had an odd, close relationship and periodically got coffee alone.

Even if it all went to hell, David had seen their new apartment. It was bigger than the one he shared with his family, and he and Spot would have a door they could close. It would be fine.

“Hey, you know what?” David said, pulling away. “My parents are going to be the last ones sleeping in our bed. We have had sex in our bed for the last time.”

Spot looked like he was considering this. “We still have twenty minutes.”

“Ha!” David laughed sarcastically. “It has never taken us twenty minutes. And are you suggesting my parents sleep on sex-laden sheets?”

“We have extra sheets,” Spot said, even as he walked away and put the sleeping bags in a better arrangement in the corner. It was clear he wasn’t serious, because seriously. They were not about quickies.

Nor were they so sex-crazed that they needed to get one in before having guests for a few days. Even after learning about the trauma Spot had endured, it took longer than David expected for them to start having sex, and when they did it was it careful stutter steps with constant checking in and occasionally calling the whole thing off. Now they were used to one another and sought it out at side moments like when they had an hour before meeting the guys, or when Spot moving around woke David up at 5 AM. But it still wasn’t the core of their relationship. Cooking together was. Going on walks together was. Arguing about things they didn’t care about was.

“It’s like we’re seventy years old,” David said once.

“I’d rather be seventy than twenty-one,” Spot said, uncharacteristic for someone who had only recently started pushing back his mental life expectancy. “At least in terms of this shit. Wouldn’t you?”

David considered. Did he want to be having sexcapades, finding empty rooms in the union, hitting the club? No. They had enough shenanigans in their social life. He wanted to help Spot find the record he was looking for that week, find that soup David had when he was drunk three years ago and forgot where he was, and eat packed lunches in each other’s offices.

“I guess we’ve given this apartment it’s last show,” David said.

“Unless your parents decided to give our bed a—“

“Shut up.”

They didn’t waste too much time before getting in a cab and heading to LaGuardia. David had been tracking his parent’s flight and it was only twenty minutes late. He needed to be there when they landed. At some point in their lives, everyone except Les had been on an airplane, but they’d never been to LaGuardia before and they still weren’t totally familiar with navigating airports, so David didn’t want them to have to wait.

“Remind me that your parents like me,” Spot requested as the waited at baggage claim.

“My parents like you,” David said immediately. “They ask about you every time we talk. They don’t care that we’re gay.”

“I know,” Spot said, like he hadn’t asked for reassurance just a second ago.

David had last seen his parents in March. They had gone through probably the biggest crisis since Papa’s injury. Someone had bought his parent’s building to turn it into a luxury condo, and their landlord informed them through a note under the door that they had a month to get out.

Rent control was the only thing that kept them in Chicago through rising rents and falling incomes. Even with Mama’s job at the dry cleaners and Sarah’s Assistant Manager money they couldn’t find a place on short notice. David flew home to pack up the apartment and move it into a storage unit while his parents and Les went to family, and Sarah moved in with a friend.

It was exhausting.

It was horrible.

Mama was crying nonstop, Papa was shouting. Spot wanted to come out, but there was nothing he could do. David was resolute, packing everything in the house into boxes he’d collected by walking up and down the streets asking for them out of stores, the same way he did in New York. Everyone chipped in, and by the time their things were in a storage locker and his family was settled in Skokie, David had missed two paper deadlines and a test and spent his last $240 dollars flying home.

Right now his parents were looking for an apartment close to their neighborhood but it was looking more and more like Les would be starting school in the fall in Skokie.

Sarah was frustrated with the whole thing. “I can get a two-bedroom in the city and take Les, but David. Now that I’ve experienced not sharing a bedroom with a teenage boy? I’m not going back. And Mama and Papa have this idea that I should only be paying a third of the rent, which is ridiculous because that was never happening. So they won’t even consider a place where that’s not possible and by the way, that place doesn’t exist.”

David answered calls and listened but he stayed out of it. His checking account remained stable and he sent home money only once during the crisis. He never said no, but he wasn’t asked. Things had shifted.

He felt guilty, even though he and Spot and Sarah had paid for the plane tickets. He wanted them there for selfish reasons. Because he wasn’t just walking and it wasn’t just about the ceremony and he wanted them there. His mother was missing days at work, his sister had to put in time off requests when the Walgreens was down a manager and—

And that all went away when he saw his parents and siblings approaching.

Les—tall and decidedly grown up as he was closing out ninth grade—coolly hung back but Sarah and his parents rushed forward and swept him up in hugs. Spot stood back. His parents, who he had reminded of Spot's preferences in a recent phone call, greeted him with handshakes and a hand on his shoulder. Spot smiled politely and took his mother's bag. 

They piled into a Lyft XL and he and Spot sat in the middle seats so his parents could admire the city. He spouted as much information as he could about the layout of the city, and what they passed and his parents just wanted to know where Ellis Island was.

“I don’t know if we’ll have time to go there,” David hedged. They were only there for a few days, and most of it would be taken up with graduation and moving.

“We’ll do what you have planned, David,” Mama said. “Oh!” she said, responding to what, David didn’t know, “look at that.”

At Badger Building they piled into the elevator. Badger Building was run down as far as student housing went, the cheapest apartment-style housing Putlizer offered, but he stared at the gold-painted elevator buttons and thought of their tacked up posters from MoMa and realized that it was better than what his parents had right now. It was a home of their own.

The apartment was almost entirely packed up, all their boxes stacked on top of one another in various corners. The only thing intact was the kitchen and their posters. Even their books and records had been packed up that morning. Still, when they walked into the apartment Papa nodded approvingly.

“Good,” he said, “good, good.”

Les looked around and asked, “You got anything to eat?”

“Pretzels?” Spot offered, speaking to a member of his family for the first time in an hour.

Les nodded and followed him into the kitchen.

Sarah breezed into the apartment, walking all the way to the back and poking her head into the bathroom and bedroom, before coming back by the door, smiling quietly.

“So you’ve lived here the last two years?” she asked.

“Almost,” David said, “But we’re moving on Sunday.”

Sarah gave him a goofy look. “I know, we’re here to help you move. We owe you.”

“Now now,” Papa cut in, “family is not a game of dice. We don’t owe each other anything except to be there for one another. The most important thing is that we are all here to see David graduate.”

He was graduating.

“Except me,” Les called out from the kitchen. Where Spot had not only gotten him a bag of pretzels, he’d gotten him a can of Dr. Pepper that David didn’t know existed and had appeared a bag of Twizzlers.

David remembered that from when Spot had come out summer between freshman and sophomore year. If they ever went out with Les, Spot bought him more food than he asked for and left bags of sour gummy worms on Les’ pillow before they left for their bus ride home.

“What?”

“Sarah said you don’t have enough tickets for everyone, so I’m going to stay here,” Les said in his annoyingly grown-up voice.

David cut a look to Sarah who held her hands up. “I said,” David said, “I was working on getting a fourth ticket.”

Never mind he’d exhausted every option except asking Jack. Who Spot had suggesting asking in the first place, but David said, “I don’t feel good about asking a functional orphan,” and Spot said, “I’m a functional orphan and you asked me, asshole.”

But Jack had friends from Santa Fe coming. So even that asshole option was gone.

“I’ll figure it out,” David insisted, even with graduation less than twenty-four hours away, “we’ll all be there.”

He was a Jacobs. Desperate optimism was in his blood, even if it was dormant.

The plan had been set weeks ago. They would relax around the apartment for an hour, then go to dinner at an Italian restaurant that David’s supervisor at his summer internship had brought him to. Spot was going out to dinner separately with Boots and Aunt Elane, but he would meet up with them at Central Park where they would walk around before calling it a night.

Papa wonderfully unboxed their book box to examine which books they owned while Mama and Sarah sat on the couch with him and talked about how their jobs were going. The apartment had been much more crowded before with all the parties they’d hosted, but it felt extra crowded today with the density of family in the room. David didn’t realize how much time had passed until Spot walked out of the kitchen and said, “Aunt Elane and Boots are downstairs.”

Papa stopped rifling through their stuff. “That’s your family?” he asked.

Spot paused. He would claim Boots as his brother in a heartbeat. But Aunt Elane? That was a little more complicated. Still, he constantly called her Aunt Elane instead of Mrs. Arbus or even just Elane. But David expected it when Spot shook his head and said, “It’s my brother and his aunt.”

“Well invite them up!” Papa insisted. “We’ll be sitting with them tomorrow won’t we? We should meet.”

Spot shot David a desperate look. David realized they hadn’t talked about it, but yeah they all probably would be sitting together, wouldn’t they? They might as well meet.

“Invite them up,” he said, “we can split up for dinner.”

“Split up for dinner?” Papa objected, “don’t be ridiculous.”

Spot looked like he was going to die.

Especially when Aunt Elane came up and smiled at David’s parents before turning to Spot and shaming him with, “Were you really going to try to keep me from meeting your boyfriend’s family?”

When Boots—now seventeen and taller than Spot by several inches, with a smart patterned button-up shirt and a FitBit—did some sort of teenage boy greeting with Les and struck up a conversation about Pokémon Go, Spot looked seriously anguished.

And when he tried to hustle Aunt Elane and Boots out the door and Aunt Elane turned to him and said, “Did you think we were going to have separate dinners?” it was like the entire world had conspired against him.

David made an excuse and pulled Spot into their bedroom. “What do you want?” he asked Spot.

Spot had gotten better at answering this question. “I want to have dinner with Aunt Elane and Boots alone. Tonight. We can do something together tomorrow.”

“Do you want to do something together at all?”

The twist of Spot’s shoulder’s screamed unease, but his gaze was steady when he said, “They’re going to have to know each other, right? That’s what’s normal?”

David’s only real experience was a high school romance and their families definitely didn’t know each other. But Spot was his partner and yeah, David was pretty sure his parents should know Boots and Aunt Elane.

“We can make dinner here all together tomorrow,” David decided. Things would feel more in control on their own turf. “You could invite Kloppman, even.”

“I’m not inviting Kloppman.”

“Well, whatever. Go tell Aunt Elane the plan and I’ll get my parents to back off.”

It took some public speaking skills, but it worked. Spot left with Boots and Aunt Elane and ten minutes later the Jacobs were walking out of Badger Building into the thick New York heat. 

They took the subway to the restaurant uptown, which Les loved. He looked so grown up, with headphones looped around his neck, holding onto the above-head rail. He had mental images of being with his parents and sister on the L which made this less novel, but he hadn’t been on the L with Les since he was a little boy. Solidly in high school, there was nothing little about him anymore. He would have to start thinking about scholarships, if he got his head out of his ass about not going to college. Thanks to Sarah, he may no longer qualify for the Roosevelt Scholarship, which David was simultaneously grateful for and worried about.

Without a significant disruption in his education—ditching school constantly to work in David’s case—he would be more prepared for college than any of David’s friends were. But based on what Sarah had told David about his new friends and the hours he was keeping, he may disqualify himself from any other scholarships without even trying.

David had called Les once after a video chat with Sarah and demanded, “You’re smoking pot now?”

Les groaned. “God, Sarah ratted me out?”

“Someone has to. You realize if you get caught you can kiss scholarships, the Pell Grant, the MAP Grant, college goodbye?”

“It was one time! And the way that high school smells, it could have just been that I walked in the wrong hallways and came home smelling like it. So you and Sarah are jumping to mad conclusions. Are you telling me you’ve never smoked?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Well we can’t all be perfect David,” Les said, then hung up.

Yeah, Les wasn’t a little boy anymore. Not by a long shot.

It wasn’t that David thought what he was going to do at graduation was going to transform Les’ life. That wasn’t his goal when he was writing it out. It wouldn’t help with the idea that Les seemed to had that David thought he was better than him. Maybe it was better that Les probably wasn’t coming.

David shook his head as he listened for their subway stop.

“What are you thinking?” Sarah asked.

“That I can talk myself into anything,” David answered. “That’s our stop.”

The restaurant was less nice than David remembered. There was a long hallway and a dining room in the back, which was strangely empty. Even though it wasn’t primarily a pizza place, there were parmesan and red pepper flakes on the table. They sat at a round table and picked up the menus.

David looked up the prices and thought they were reasonable and he was prepared to treat (with a secret and previously discussed Venmo with Sarah), so he was a little unprepared when he felt everyone freeze as they read the prices.

David looked over his parents who were casting each other silent looks and re-examined the menu. It was more expensive than Tibby’s but not as expensive as some of the places he’d gone with Denton. A good middle ground. Safe, he thought.

“I’m going to—” he started.

“Get whatever you want, everyone,” Mama said, “this is on Papa and me.”

“No,” David said firmly, “this is my treat. Seriously. Let me—”

Mama shook her head rapidly, a touch too emotional. “You got yourself through college on your own. You worked two, three jobs at a time. You got us through…” she took a breath, “We are going to buy you dinner.” To the whole table, she said, “Get whatever you want. We are celebrating.”

Les said, “Good. I want butter noodles.”

Butter noodles were the cheapest thing on the menu.

“Me too,” Sarah said.

This wasn’t what David wanted. “Guys, the lasagna here is really good, and there’s another dish…” he trailed off. He knew what they were doing. They’d all done this dance plenty.

“I’m going to live large,” Papa said, “Pepperoni pizza, I think. David, get whatever you want.”

What David wanted was to pay for this dinner and for everyone to order what they actually wanted, but more than that, he wanted to feel less alien within his family’s culture. He wanted to feel less fraught about a dinner celebrating his graduation.

“Butter noodles,” he decided when the server came, “with a coke.”

The sun wasn’t setting until eight these days, but the world was already thrown into twilight by the time they got to the park. Spot texted that dinner with Aunt Elane and Boots was going long—which was unusual and something that David found intensely curious—and he’d meet them at home. So it was just the Jacobs walking through the park.

There was too much that David wanted to show them. They started at the south end of the park, so he started with the carousel, which Les was excited about because he’d just read Catcher in the Rye. Sarah took hundreds of pictures as they walked, stopping at the fountain and continuing to the Alice in Wonderland statue. Every once in a while she would make them stop and take photos with David with his parents, David with his siblings, David alone.

“Get used to this,” she said, “I deleted half of my apps to make room for photos tomorrow. You are going to feel like you’re at the center of a conspiracy from all the photos I’m going to have of you.”

Eventually, it was getting too dark to stay, so David walked them to a subway stop to get them home. Mama stopped him before they went down the stairs.

“Are you sure this will get us to your building?” she asked.

“It goes downtown, and yeah. I’ve taken it a thousand times,” David said, not sure what she was getting at.

Mama nodded. “It’s odd,” she remarked, “seeing that somewhere else has become your home.”

David was beyond used to this fact, but he supposed it was true. It must be new to his parents, seeing the easy way he got on and off the subway and stepped around buskers and found his way home.

At home, Spot was in the shower. They’d had a hilariously awkward conversation about the fact that Spot’s extended showers would have to be planned around not monopolizing the bathroom when they had four house guests and almost the second their heavy front door closed, the shower turned off. Giving Spot a minute to get dressed, David started setting up the couch for Sarah, and setting out the sleeping bags for him and Spot and inflating the air mattress for Les.

“You’re sleeping on the ground?” Mama protested, “David that’s not right, this is your home. Your father and I can take the sleeping bags.”

David laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous! You’re our guests. Besides, student housing mattresses aren’t exactly the most comfortable, so we’re not doing you a big favor.”

Spot emerged from the bathroom, with wet hair and dressed in his pajama pants and hoodie despite the heat. He nodded politely and said, “Hey, sorry I wasn’t at the park.”

“You were missed,” Mama said genuinely, “but we understand you wanted some time with your family. Where did you three go?”

Noticeably, Spot didn’t correct her wording. “Um, we went to a sushi place?” David raised his eyebrows—Aunt Elane tended towards vegetables and soups, not sushi. Spot caught his look. “Boots is going through a phase. We don’t say no to him about food stuff, so.”

“I’m sure New York has very good sushi,” Papa said, diplomatically. “Come, let’s chat. David, I don’t suppose you have tea?”

David had gotten tea from Swifty in anticipation of this moment, and he got water boiling. Spot put some pretzels in a bowl, and they all gathered around the couch and coffee table, with his parents on the couch and the rest of them on the floor.

“You could write a review for your magazine!” Sarah said to Spot, “Of the sushi place, get a jump on content.”

“I’m not making content,” Spot said, “I’m just doing copyediting. I’m not actually interested in working for The Vibrance for a long time, not long enough to be writing for them anyway.”

“No?” Papa asked, “What do you want to do?”

David expected Spot to deflect attention, but he was accepting it, making eye contact with David’s parents and answering their questions. “I just wanted a job that didn’t overtake my life so I could focus on writing.”

Mama grinned. “Yes, David sends up copies of The Sun and the two poems you got published. We’re very proud of you.”

“Oh,” Spot said, “Wow. I don’t think—shit. I mean. Wow. Okay.”

David tried to change the subject, sensing Spot’s unease, but he didn’t change it enough, “Spot’s brother writes poetry too. He got in published on bus ads a few years ago.”

“Wonderful. Do you see your aunt and brother often?” Mama asked Spot.

Spot shrugged. “A couple times a month. They live in Washington Heights, so I go up there when I have time or Boots comes here.”

“He seems cool,” Les said.

“He is cool,” Spot said proudly, “He’s applying to the scholarship for the summer application, he’ll be a senior next year.”

“So he’ll be there tomorrow?’ Mama asked.

“Yep.”

“And your parents?”

Spot stopped in mid-reach for a pretzel. He shot David a questioning look. David cursed himself for never having this conversation with Spot: what to tell his own parents about Spot’s parents, or lack thereof. He had gone as far as telling them that Spot had a brother who wasn’t his biological brother, to avoid the possibility of sideways questions when Boots showed up and decidedly did not look likely to be Spot’s biological brother. But he’d skipped the whole story—which David had hard-won the details of. He wasn’t going to give them away.

But that meant that Spot was in this position, forced to talk about this with people he didn’t know well but whose opinion was very important to him.

“They’re not coming,” he said.

“Oh!” Mama said, “are they out of town? Oh no, boys. You didn’t have to buy us tickets when Spot’s parents—“

“Mama,” Sarah cut her off.

“I don’t know,” Spot said honestly, “they might be. Public records don’t have them dead or in prison, so. I don’t know. They might be two blocks away. But they aren’t coming.”

There was a moment of silence, which Mama—bless her—finished with the words, "Well I am very glad we're here. For both of you."  

And they moved on. 

They held conversation about New York, Sarah concluding that Chicago was better in almost every way and Les demanding to see more sites from Catcher in the Rye. They went through all the tea by the time Papa looked at his watch and said, “I hope no one will be hurt if I, at least, go to bed early? It’s been a long day.”

Mama yawned. “I’ll join you. You kids don’t be shy about making noise though, you know your father and I can sleep through anything.”

Once his parents were in bed, Les got up and found the bag of Twizzlers in the kitchen. “I’m guessing you’re too uptight to let me at some of the beer in the fridge?” he asked.

“Yes,” Spot answered for David, “we are much too uptight.”

Les groaned. “Oh come on,” he said, “I thought you were the cool one.”

“Well I’m of age,” Sarah said, “And I’ve been deprived of the chance to drink with my brother.”

David remembered that Blink was having a party down the hall and thought of suggesting they sneak off to that, but realized there would be no good way to keep Les from drinking, especially knowing their friends. So he didn’t bring it up, just quietly handed Sarah a beer which she accepted with a grin, and opened one for himself.

Spot handed Les a Dr. Pepper.

“Seriously,” Les said to Spot, “you’re ruining my image of you.”

“Good,” Spot said, “I’ll help you kill it.”

A gentle knock came to the door, too gentle to be Jack or Racetrack or Blink, the three most likely to be knocking on their door at this hour. David looked to Spot who shook his head—nothing he knew about—before looking through the peephole.

There was no one there—it could just be a drunk fool—so David opened the door enough to look around the hallway.

Katherine was just to the side of the doorway, like she didn’t want to be seen. She gestured for him to come into the hall. David looked behind him and saw that no one had looked up and noticed her, so he stepped outside.

Katherine was in pajamas, a matching purple set, but she had her messenger bag on her. She reached inside and held out an envelope.

“Graduation ticket,” she said.

Confused, David accepted the envelope. “You want me to hold yours?”

“David,” Katherine said, “I’m giving you a graduation ticket.”

Still unsure, David opened the envelope and took in a blue cardstock ticket with the words Pulitzer University 2020 Graduation embossed on it in gold.

“If you bought this for me,” David started.

“I didn’t buy anything,” Katherine said, “it’s one of my original three.”

She was looking at him head-on, daring him to question her. Even in purple pajamas, she was intimidating, but David was up for the challenge.

Katherine wasn’t close to her family, but she talked to them at least once a month that David knew of. They were in the city, but she didn’t visit and David had never met them. He knew who they were, of course. He read about them in some of his courses and there was that giant painting of her grandfather in the union that people just loved to send defaced photos of to Katherine on Snapchat. Despite the name change, everyone knew that Katherine was a Pulitzer as in a Pulitzer and as far as David was concerned, that meant that Katherine probably had dozens of people who were going to be at her graduation. She was the last person David thought would have an extra ticket.

“Does your family get like, Pulitzer tickets, like trustee tickets?” he asked, stupidly.

“Maybe,” Katherine said, voice steady, “I wouldn’t know. They aren’t coming.”

The word rang silent in the hallways that was thumping with noise from Blink’s party down the hall. David stared at Katherine, unsure of what to say.

“Are they in Switzerland?”

“They are on Park Avenue,” Katherine said, “and my father’s assistant has informed me that they are ‘inextricably double booked’ tomorrow. They will not be coming. I am giving one of my tickets to my nanny—shut up—and the other to one of Jack’s friends who came unannounced, and the third I’m giving to you.”

“Katherine—”

Katherine held up a hand. “I knew what I was doing when I took a job at an alternative weekly instead of at one of my father’s holdings. I knew this was a possibility. I was prepared for it.”

“But Katherine,” David insisted.

“I’ve already cried on Jack’s shoulder, now I want to do something about it. I know you have two parents and two siblings, and I know you needed another ticket.”

David looked at the envelope in his hand. It solved all his problems, but he didn’t want it like this.

“Maybe your parents will change their mind, and they’ll need this.”

Katherine shook her head. “I don’t want them there. And don’t forget. I am the only other student on this campus who knows who got Senior of the Year.”

David played dumb. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Katherine refused to play dumb, “You deserve to have your family there. And I deserve to have my tickets go to someone decent.” With a nod, David put the ticket back in the envelope. “Does Spot know?” she asked.

“I’m surprising everyone,” David said.

“Well, that's nothing if not on brand.”

Chapter Text

David could almost always sleep through Spot waking up. He either woke up at four, or at ten but more often at four. He and Spot had talked ahead of time about the fact that they’d be sleeping in the living room with Sarah and Les. So Spot couldn’t just sit on the couch and attack his keyboard until David woke up. 

They agreed that he’d wake up David and they’d go to Tibby’s. David wrote a note and taped it to Les’s forehead, then they snuck out. 

Tibby’s at 4:20 AM on Saturday was nearly empty, and the people there were finishing overnight shifts. There was a man in an MTA uniform balancing his head on his hand as he gazed into a cup of coffee. There were a couple of kids in Taco Bell uniforms, no doubt from the 24-hour location around the corner. And a girl their age with glitter rubbed over her face was dead asleep with her head on the counter. 

They would never be these people, David realized. They were graduating from a renowned university, virtually guaranteed jobs with rolling chairs and daylight hours. Both their jobs were enough for them to live on without extra work. Spot didn’t even need to keep the paper business going anymore, his job would get them through easily. Though David suspected that he would be facilitating fraudulent papers until the internet shut down. 

There were on the precipice of normal. 

It seemed like Spot was going through the same thought process. They ordered their food but didn’t talk much until it arrived. David felt awkward asking for more hot water for his tea–it always seemed like a big pain for the servers, but Spot politely asked for a third cup of coffee. 

"Do you worry at all they made a mistake? I keep picturing them calling me up on the stage just to tell me to get the fuck out,” Spot said. 

He didn't realize until a week ago that Spot hadn't actually even been to a graduation ceremony. The alternative high school he graduated from just shook his hand and took away his student ID. David didn't put the pieces together until he caught Spot watching old Pultizer graduation ceremonies on YouTube, scrawling notes on a notepad. 

"They don't call you up if it's not to graduate," David said. "But you're going to graduate. They would have told you if you hadn't, you haven't failed a class since sophomore year."

"I cheated the whole fucking time."

Davis thought it through. "I mean, you didn't cheat on your own work. You just aided and abetted. Professionally."

"Fine, whatever. I just have no business with a college degree, you know? Someone like me. I used to be homeless.”

"Yeah, famously," David said as he cut into his French toast. "Super homeless."

Spot nodded with mock seriousness, covering up his incredible seriousness. "Eating out of the garbage homeless."

"Not just that, you were orphan homeless. How is there not a movie about you? They have to let you graduate, just so it has a good ending."

" Functional orphan homeless," Spot corrected. "Honestly though, that just kind of makes it more pathetic.” 

And there it was. David still didn't know how to talk about this. Spot had an uncomfortable pattern of only directly talking about his life prior to arriving at Pulitzer only in self-conscious jokes, or desperate confessions. They never actually talked about it. Certainly not over French toast. 

“Do you…want  them to be here today?” 

“Why?” Spot asked. He finally noticed the food in front of him and attacked the egg yolks, spreading the yellow goo across his plate. “To thank them for their involvement in my education? ‘Oh thanks to my mom and dad for letting my teeth rot out of my head, that emergency abscess surgery gave me exactly the extension I needed to pass World Religions.’” 

“I mean it did.” 

“Yeah, see?” Spot stabbed seven bites worth of food onto his fork and shoveled it in. “None of these rich fucks had an abscess. I’m lucky, really.”

“You’re okay though, right?” 

“Oh yeah,” Spot said. “Anyway. This day ain’t a big deal for me. By the way, you got anything you wanna tell me?” 

“You look beautiful with yolk on your face.” 

Spot grinned and rubbed at his face. “No, I mean, about your day. Your, David Jacobs only, graduation experience.” David thought over how to proceed, and Spot threw him a bone. “You were practicing your speech in your sleep.”  

David laughed. “Are you serious?” 

“Uh-huh. It was the same thing when you talked at that scholarship dinner. Practically knew it by heart the next morning. Plus you’re drinking tea. Fucking tea.” 

He couldn’t keep from laughing. All the weeks of knowing and keeping it secret, Spot not even knowing yesterday, all to give himself away in his sleep. “How do you know I’m not some kind of egomaniac?” 

“Because I am intimately familiar with your ego. Why didn’t you tell me?” 

David shrugged. “I’ve kind of been convincing myself they made a mistake and they’re going to take it away from me, give it to Elandria Nixon. It would be so embarrassing if they called her name and not mine.” 

While he talked Spot took several more large forkfuls of food, but he still made the effort to talk through it. “See? Ego.” 

Right. “And we have the same fears for today, I guess.” 

Spot nodded. He looked pretty pleased, actually. “Listen. If the president or whoever says anyone's name but your own, I’ll pull the fire alarm and cause a massive disaster. And if security tries to remove me?” 

“For the fire drill or not being graduating material?” 

“For not being graduating material, keep up.” 

“Right. If security tries to drag you out I’ll start a fire. Give them something to really talk about.” 

Ever since it was announced that there were only three tickets available per student all anyone could talk about was how fucked that was. Three people? Three? Their graduating class wasn't that big, it wasn't like NYU or anything. It seemed like one of the many needless obstacles that had defined David and Spot's time at Pulitzer. 

But as they made their way to Pulitzer's basketball stadium, all David could think was that there couldn't possibly be enough room. The crowd made it difficult to even get within 100 feet of the entrances. Their jokes about fires and fire alarms weren't that far off. David's notes were folded into his back pocket. Spot dutifully pretended not to know what was coming, he didn't even ask about the speech. Still it felt better to have someone know, it made the whole thing a little more real. 

"Everyone else is wearing their robes," Spot said, looking around. They'd dressed up, solely because Mama, Papa, Les, and Sarah changed into formal clothes--very formal--that morning. David was wearing jeans because that's what was clean, with a blue bottom-up shirt. A tie was in his back pocket, but from the small area he could see beyond robes, the other men weren't wearing one. Spot wore jeans too in solidarity, even though his once-worn job interview outfit was still hanging in the closet. But he was wearing a nice shirt too with his Sun lanyard, and even found red suspenders from last Halloween to complete the look. 

But their robes were not on, still wrapped in plastic. Papa was holding don't them both. Their phones had spotty services, and the five of them when on Scooby Doo-level adventures walking through the stadium looking for Boots and Aunt Elane. By the time they connected, almost every student had left their family. 

"We really need to go," David said. He was meant to have talked to the people announcing things already. He held out his hands and Papa handed over both robes. 

Spot scratched his ear. "We should put those on?" 

"I don't know, everyone has the sashes and ropes on a certain way. I don't know how they go on." 

Aunt Elane and his parents looked at each other. "It looks like there's a zipper, sweetie," Mama said. 

None of them knew how to put on college graduation robes, the only people who did were in the stadium where they were supposed to be going. 

"Boys!" 

They all looked back and saw Denton, hurrying toward them. Denton started talking before he was fully within speaking distance. "Hello! Are these your families? Hello, I'm Bryan Denton. You folks have raised some wonderful young men." 

"Who's this?" Aunt Elane whispered to Spot. 

He whispered back, "Uhhh. Our caseworker."

"He's tall."  

Denton didn't hear that. He grinned and slowed down only enough not to blast past them. "What a great bunch, we'll see you out there. David? Spot? Let's get in there, it's time." 

Spot broke away from the group first. "Can you help us put this crap on?" 

"Of course. Let's get moving." 

David followed them, taking care to turn back and wave before walking through the open doors. 

The first speech David gave was in second grade. His elementary school hadn't had a mascot before and decided that year it was time. The school let students choose animals for the ballot, and a special assembly was called so they could present art, dances, and songs about their special animal. 

Twelve years later, David remembered the speech he gave by heart. Speech giving was not an offered activity, but David had no interest in dancing around and singing about penguins. He was also the only kid who wanted the mascot to be a penguin, so he really had to do his own thing. 

He researched the speech at the library and practiced standing on Mama and Papa's bed all through dinner the night before. Papa gave him pointers on slowing down. He had given plenty of speeches and protests, and his speaking style was authoritative, grounded. David did his best to embody it at the assembly. 

As the years went on, David continually went back to his penguin speech to hone his public speaking skills. Would settling on a specific kind of penguin had done the deal? Was he too loud? Too fast? He was continually competing against his high eight-year-old self. 

David's graduation speech was well-researched. The temptation to make the speech all about him and the Rooseveters was one he resisted--no one got through all four years just to listen to that. So he was going to talk about education being more than books. There were metaphors--actually, there was one big extended metaphor that he re-introduced, revisited three times, then brought back at the end in one tiny bow. 

He didn't even need notes. David had it all memorized. 

They sat in alphabetical order, which put Jack in the row behind David. Once they were all seated David felt a tap on his back. Smiling, he turned around. 

"Hey." 

"Hey, Davey." Jack was leaning across two students they didn't know to reach out and offer David a flask. "It's champagne." 

David looked around. No one was looking at him. He took the flask and bent over. The drink was cold, and bubbles went right to his nose. He handed it back. The bubbly wine sloshed a little as he did. "Shit, sorry." 

Jack swing the cap back around and twisted it shut. "Race got his new apartment keys already. It's huge. Party tonight, okay? Bring your sister." 

He hadn't been able to think past this moment. Of course there was a party. All his friends would be there because they all always were. While researching his speech he came across statistics he immediately knew weren't speech material. That the graduation rates of poor students, first-generation students, students of color, and students raised on chaos didn't graduate at nearly the same rate as the Katherine Pulitzer and the Elandria Nixons of the world. 

The fact that they were all here, even Skittery, after four years was a miracle. David in love was a miracle. The presence of everyone he loved in this room was a miracle . Education happened at every college in this city, but those miracles didn't. 

"It is my pleasure to announce the Pulitzer University class of 2020 Senior of the Year: David Jacobs, Bachelor of Arts Sociology and Urban Studies." 

As he walked up David saw more than he heard. Racetrack was sitting right ahead of him, and dramatically turned around and held his hands up to his face in cartoonish shock. Skittery good-heartedly flipped him off, and David only barely had enough focus not to return the gesture. This was being filmed, next year's Spot Conlon would watch it and take notes. 

His speech notes were still in his back pocket. As David stepped up to the podium with a practiced smile on his face, he granted himself a beautiful excuse. To get his notes he would have to reach under his full-length robe to retrieve them from his jeans pocket. And how was he supposed to give that bland speech without the notes? 

"Hello," David said. "My name is David Jacobs. I am a graduate of the Larkson School of Social Sciences, Pulitzer University, and the Roosevelt Scholarship Program. I am not supposed to be there. And I am not alone." 

The names and tassels went by in a blur, David leaned into cheering loud for his friends and marveling at how many there were. Deciding whether to choose this moment as an indictment on the higher education system was a good choice or not could wait at least a few weeks. 

Spot walked across the stage with the confidence of someone who expected to his entire life. He did stop at the far edge of the stage to stick his tongue out in David and Race's direction, which was honestly shockingly tame. 

David held tight to his diploma when all was done. They didn't discuss a meeting place, but somehow they all found each other right where Denton had found them.

Spot was just out of earshot talking to Kloppman. Despite being monumentally important to Spot, David had only spoken to Kloppman a few times, and he more than suspected that it was intentional. David did him the favor of averting his eyes from what seemed like an almost intimate conversation as he rushed by. 

Mama and Papa enveloped David in a hug. David let himself be hugged. It was warm and even though they’d been here over twenty-four hours now, they smelled like home. He hugged them back, hard. "I love you," he whispered. 

Tomorrow if they tried to hug him or give him advice David might not let them. He couldn't help it, he wasn't sure why. But Mama and Papa had done a lot more than let his tooth abscess. This was a victory for all of them. 

When they untangled, they found his siblings and Spot's family plain staring, Sarah gestured between herself and Aunt Elane. "We decided where we're going to dinner. Indian buffet okay for everyone?" 

It was a brilliant choice. It eliminated David's stress in watching his family deny themselves good food, and Spot and Aunt Elane's stress over watching Boots do the same. 

When Spot left Kloppman Mama asked, "Is he joining us? I sat next to him, he is a very interesting man. Did you know he lived in Nicaragua for five years?"

"Uh, yeah. No, no I'll see him later. I'm fucking starving, let's go."

Spot grabbed David's hand as they walked to the restaurant. "That was fucking anarchist. I love you so fucking much."

David kissed Spot's cheek and relished the immediate blush that filled them. "I made you so fucking proud?"

"Are you kidding? Eighteen-year-old David would be shaking in his boots." 

Les and Boots entered a competition for how high they could stack their plates with food and both seemed to be winning. Mama and Papa wanted to talk to David about David, and he decided to enjoy it. It created the unusual group of Sarah, Spot, and Aunt Elane who seemed to be getting along famously, talking about 80's movies. 

Papa was on a tear, comparing David's speech to one of his own from his union days when his gaze drifted across the table. David followed it. 

Aunt Elane slid Spot a plain white envelope on the table between them. Spot arched away from it like it was poison. "What are you doing?"

"Don't go getting excited, it's fifty dollars."

Spot laughed a little. “Thanks?"

“Don’t thank me, that’s not the gift. You’re coming with me to see my banker, get this in the right account. If you contribute ten dollars a month, by the time you’re my age it’ll be $20,000.” 

Sarah’s eyes widened behind Spot. David knew that Spot already knew all this, he had their financial futures mapped out in as much detail as could be without proposing marriage. But it wasn’t about that. 

“So this is actually $20,000?"

“That's right. How do you think it is I haven’t punched a clock in five years, my boy?” 

Spot reached out, his hand. It hovered over Aunt Elane's arm and if he were to make contact it would be a gentle gesture of appreciation. But he withdrew his hand before that happened. 

"Thank you."

"You are welcome."

The whole table stopped to watch the exchange, and David felt dread poke holes in the calm but real happiness he was feeling. Mama and Papa didn't have $50. Graduation presents hadn't even occurred to David, how could they have known?"

Papa cleared his throat. "Now David. Ours isn't here yet."

"That's okay, you just coming is so amazing. Thank you for being here."

Mama put her hand on David's wrist. A gentle gesture . 

"We have been saving, doing research," she said. "We are going to take you to get your first suit tomorrow."

He couldn't help looking at Sarah for confirmation. Was this really budgeted for? Or was it a spontaneous choice that would ruin them for months? 

She smiled. The latter then. David turned to his parents and smiled even wider. 

"Thank you, I really need one."

A thousand pounds of food later they went back to the apartment. It was so completely packed, that in order to do anything at all they had to unpack some box to use something. The sheets on the combined bed were all that was left, and they would be folded and packed before David got the truck in the morning. 

“You are so responsible,” Mama said. “I thought we’d be doing so much packing.” 

“Well, we’ve known about this a while.” 

“Still! If you boys have a party to get to, Papa and I are ready to go on a walk through that beautiful park. I'm sure Les would come with us.”

Les stared at his phone and raised his hand like he was in class. "Actually, Boots wants to come pick me up and take me to the skate park. So I'm out."

"Well that sound wonderful," Papa said. "Maybe you two can come here together next year?"

Les agreed enthusiastically and was gone within an hour. Sarah had packed for a party, she emerged from their empty bathroom in a shimmery dress when it was time to go. Spot was two shots in and David finished the bottle of wine his parents had started before they went adventuring.  

She brushed her hair away from her face and grinned. "Ready?"

Jack let himself into the apartment, stumbling as the found the door easier to come through than he thought. He grinned at the three of them. "Howdy."

"Ready?" David asked.

He made a face somewhere between a grin and a grimace. "Hi. Yeah. So. Um. Me and um, Skittery, and you know. The boys. We have to be out tomorrow by noon?"

"Uh huh," Spot said in a loud, mocking tone.

"Right. Um so you know, we just don't want them calling the cops when we aren't because, you know Herman in Res Life fucking hates me. And we aren't the most packed, but if you help us we'll owe you forever, and who doesn't want that?"

Sarah groaned. "Nooo. No. I want to go to a college party for once in my life."

Katherine popped up in the doorway. "Hi. I apologize for my boyfriend, and I have no intention of helping him. Sarah, right? Do you want to come with me?"

"Yes, strange girl, I do." Sarah shimmied by them and disappeared, leaving Jack smiling dopeily in the door.

The bottle of whisky came with them. Their pregame had only been extended, and if they finished the bottle it was one less thing to move. Jack, Skittery, Blink, and Dutchy made for strange roommates but they had one thing in common, all of them: they hadn't packed a single damn thing.

And they were all on the way to drunk, except for Skittery who was absolutely no help. Blink had cheered when they came in and said, "Oh my god! It's the two most anal dudes on campus! We're saved."

And he was kind of right. They ordered a pizza and packed, for hours. David helped Jack pack and enjoyed seeing the belongings he hadn't seen since they were roommates freshman year.

"Do you remember your first party?" David asked as he pulled a stack of cowboy novels off a shelf.

"Oh yeah," Jack grinned. "I ever tell you I was testing you? Testing my perception of you, actually. I thought if this kid can actually relax and enjoy himself? We'll be friends. If he just white knuckles through it but doesn't call the RA? Fuck, we'll be best friends. I'm gonna see him come to life."

David laughed. "Yeah, that makes sense. Shit, it's going to be good to be roommates again. I feel like the four of us will balance each other out really well."

Jack nodded. "Totally. Be a pal, go find me a trash bag. I think my socks will fill one up, all on their own."

Over the course of the night, they moved from packing to being the second-party location, as the rest of the Roosevelters trickled in. By sun-up, they'd ordered delivery three times, and David wasn't even sure who the Venmo. At the end they packed up the empty beer cans, and takeout containers, and dropped them in the trash chute, leaving the packed apartment behind.

Papa drove the U-Haul, because David determined that he was definitely, still kind of drunk. Spot offered to drive it, but he didn’t know how to drive and also was still kind of drunk. Sarah unearthed their coffee maker for a third time, and made pot after pot of coffee as the six of them ferried boxes into the truck. Papa found a space only around the corner from the Badger Building doors, which was a New York City miracle.

They weren't supposed to live in the same apartment year after year, it was against some twisted college policy. But Spot wrote an email that he was very proud of detailing how he'd never lived anywhere longer than ten months at a time, and how it not only would reduce administrative costs not to move them, it would be a radically stabilizing force in the life of a student breaking the cycle of poverty.

Looking at Spot's face as they prepared for the last trip to the truck, David remembered every word, line for line. Spot had shown the email off after sending it and said, "Shit they're going to think they're saving my goddamn life."

"Sweetie? Are you alright?" Mama walked up to where Spot was frozen, staring at the linen closet door.

Spot took a deep breath and blew it out slowly.

"I'm....mmm."

David knew that Spot wanted nothing more than for no one to be looking at him right now. He was throwing all his slowly earned coping skills at the wall and didn't like other people being around to see it. But he didn't run.

"We have all of our stuff, right David?" he asked. "We have all of our stuff. All of it, right? It's...it's all on the truck. And that's going to our new apartment. And we have a lease, so they can't kick us out of it. We have jobs, and they're going to pay us, so we'll pay rent, and they can't kick us out so we'll live there."

It was the most he'd ever spoken at one time, and David knew if he reacted too strongly it'd be the last time.

"Yeah," he said. "That's all true."

"We're going somewhere."

"We are going somewhere."

Spot took a deep breath and nodded. "Okay." He grabbed the last box of books. "Let's go."

The new apartment was just that: new.

Technically 1970, rehabbed in 2014.

Fucking new.

Kath and Jack were already there, unpacking in their bedroom. She had called in a sandwich apartment when she was showing pictures, and it was clear why. The bathroom was on the left as you walked in. Then a huge square living space with a kitchen in a corner, and an alley view with a fire escape. On opposite walls were bedroom doors. Full walls too, not fake ones, solid doors not glass paned. A proper, grown-up apartment.

"Holy shit, this a dishwasher?" Spot hurried to the kitchen and fiddled with what looked like a drawer pull next to the sink. He pulled it down and a full-on dishwasher popped out. "I have literally only seen this twice, fuck. This is a New York holy grail. Oh my fucking God."

Their bedroom filled quickly with boxes, but they still talked about where they would put a bed and a dresser, eventually. David's fellowship was a month and a half away, and Spot didn't start his job for another two weeks. Plus it had been a freaking expensive weekend. They'd be back to pasta bake days for a while.

"We could get a blow-up mattress," David suggested. "Did Kloppman ever tell you what he's giving you when he dies? Was it a bedroom set and a queen mattress? Could you ask him, and also get an estimate on when that will be."

"We’re extremely resilient people,” Spot yawned. “We can sleep on the floor a few days.” 

David pulled him into an exhausted hug. "How long do you think it'll be until we find out what Jack and Kath sound like when they have sex?"

"Forty-five minutes. Longer actually, you're going to get that suit with your parents?"

"You're not coming?"

"No, I'm gonna put my books right, and then I gotta make sure Kloppman isn't dead. Fingers crossed I’ll bring a mattress if he is. We still gonna to to Res Life together to turn in our keys? We both need to sign their stupid fucking form?"

It was a lot to ask, actually, for a boyfriend to watch a suit be bought and then travel to the airport to drop of your family. It would be good to do it alone with them, anyway.

"Okay, I'll see you after?"

"Are you wearing socks?" Spot asked. "You need to wear socks when you try on a suit, it's a thing."

"It is?"

"Yeah, Denton told me when I was interviewing."

"Huh. Okay. And since I'm not at a water park, yeah, I'm wearing socks."

"Okay good, because you need to be."

"Okay weirdo," David kissed Spot and checked his pocket for his phone and wallet. "See you later darling."

There might be a point where David didn't feel guilty every time he said goodbye to his family, but it wasn't that day. Monday had nothing in it. Not even a plan of what he would eat for breakfast. He could feel nothing tomorrow, today was for feelings.

David rode a bus and the subway, holding a plastic-wrapped suit over his shoulder by the hangar, sniffing and breathing, and doing his best to get off at the right stop. He knew this line well enough to feel it more than here the stop, and he hurried up and out into the street.

The Res Life office was in the same building as Student Affairs, Spot was waiting for him outside.

"What are you doing? It's almost five. We're going to get fined if we miss it today."

"Oh, I lied."

"What?"

Spot smiled shyly. "I lied. I feel like you forget because I don't do it to you that much, but I'm actually spectacularly good at it. I handled it all, I just distracted them and signed your name. It's a fucking zoo in there, they didn't care at all. I just needed to get you to this neighborhood."

He laughed and held up the suit over his should to display, "You're telling me I could have gotten off like...a thousand stops ago to go lie on a floor? Okay, what is it? Hi. I love you."

"Are you okay dude?"

"I'm just tired."

"Yeah, okay. Let's go do something fun. No more of this serious shit."

Along for the ride, David followed Spot up a few blocks, seemingly going nowhere. He was the one to stop though, when they landed at the entrance to the Lodging House. It was the shittiest dorm, everyone knew it, and the small plain door with a buzz box, not even a sign proclaiming it as part of Pulitzer University.

"We should take a selfie," David said.

"Yeah okay," Spot said. As David pulled out his phone Spot walked right past him and pulled the door to the Lodging House wide open. "Oh my fucking god. David, look. Something terrible must have happened. Let's investigate."

He hadn't been back in the Lodging House since freshman year, only freshmen went to parties there. "I honestly don't have the emotional bandwidth--"

"Jesus fucking Christ Jacobs. It's going to be fun."

It smelled the exact same as it did back then. Eighteen and nineteen-year-olds must have some kind of terrified new adult smell because it brought David right back to that year. They claimed the steps all the way to their floor without talking about it. Spot stuck his head into the student lounge like he might find their past selves celebrating the first night of Hannukah in there. All the dorm rooms were open and empty, with navy vinyl-covered mattresses on lofted beds, and grimy floors.

Spot came and found him, "Hey, you said no feelings, right?"

"Right."

"Good. Floor ain't waxed but when else are we going to have the chance? You wanna do some sliding? I figured socks were safer since we have old bones, but the mattresses are--"

A grin spread over his face. David dropped his suit on the closest desk. "I'll risk another trip to the ER. Let's do the mattresses."

At first, they only dragged one mattress into the hallway and took turns running and throwing themselves at the mattress and sliding down the long narrow hall. Waxed or not they went fast, and David felt like he was getting on a roller coaster over and over. It was exhilarating. Spot suggested they take another mattress out of a room and run and slide at each other in opposite directions.

Exhausted and sweaty, David deflated onto the mattress. Spot had crashed into him, and lay on his mattress, letting his head fall onto David's chest. The white-speckled ceiling tiles were like reverse stars.

"We should take mattresses," David decided.

"What?"

The idea sounded better by the second. "Yeah. We need a mattress. We've been sleeping on two twin mattresses for years, and they have tons in storage. Let's just take some."

"What, carry mattresses on the subway?"

"Yeah, it's a New York rite of passage to bring something onto the subway that shouldn't be there."

"David, what if the school finds out? What if they're angry at us ?"

"Fuck it. They can't take our degrees away."

Spot sat up so fast he almost fell back down. "Yes. Fucking yes. Let's do it. Security is one second closer to finding us every second, up. Now. Let's do it."

They threw the mattresses down the steps, one floor after another. They made a tremendous clattering sound as they went, and the two of them chased them all the way into the New York sun. 

On the street, they stacked the mattresses one on top of the other, with the suit lying on top. They each took one end. They were almost too heavy to hold up. Spot caught his breath. “Oh fuck. We aren’t strong enough to do this.” 

“Yes, we are. It’s three blocks to the station.” 

“It’s going to take forever.” 

David ensured his grip and looked over his shoulder at the crowd coming at his back. “Come on. We’ll take turns going the wrong way round.”