Paradise, Nevada by Dario Diofebi

Author:Dario Diofebi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

The dining hall was a big-windowed room overlooking a back patio with a brownstone fountain. Inside, faded hardwood and orange-brown walls gave it a warm, welcoming feel in spite of its spacious proportions, its vast rows of tables sparsely populated by a dozen or so intimidating Tau Kappas in slim-fit shirts and studiously coiffed preparty hair. At the center of the wall opposite the windows, a polished glass displayed the lucky steel ruler that, Trevor explained, had been passed down the Tau Kappas from generation to generation since the founding of the fraternity in 1852. The original ruler had been lost during World War II, but to this day every new chapter was gifted with an appropriately rusty copy upon foundation, and instructed to keep it safe at all costs. Beneath it, a heavy gold plaque was etched with the fraternity motto “ἄνθρωπος µέτρον,” translated below in dainty serif as “Man is the measure of all things.” The whole presentation was quite impressive.

“You guys are not seeing the big picture here,” said Trevor. Once they were alone, Patrick having excused himself to attend to party-related business in the main hall, Ana and Tom had both quickly expressed a desire to call it an early night. They were now being submitted to bilingual attempts at persuasion by their respective roommates. “For both of you, this is likely to be the last chance in your life to attend a real American college party!”

They were walking sideways in single file along the food spread. Farm-to-desert-to-market greens languished in aluminum foil trays to the left of the table, transitioning to carbs and beans in the middle, and climaxing as glorious buckets of fried chicken to the right.

“Is true!” said Larissa. “Ven a la fiesta Ana, realmente quiero ir!”

“I’m tired, and we have a long day tomorrow,” said Ana.

“Come on, Tom, come to the party!” said Larissa, a sweet dimply smile pointing like two upturned arrows to her mint-slushy eyes. While Ana would barely look at him and conducted herself with a distant, attractive haughtiness, Larissa was consistently nice to Tom, which of course made her even more terrifying.

“Besides,” said Ana, “what makes you think we would even want to attend an American college party in our lifetime, anyway?”

Something in Trevor’s expression changed. He still looked cheerful, but Tom could now see something strained in his friendliness. It was something automatic, reflexive, his alpha training kicking in as he autopiloted a response to this textbook shit-test by his opponent.

“Cool,” he said, lingering back among the broccoli and baby kale. “Not everybody likes to have fun. If you just want to sleep, that’s what you should do.”

Plates full, the girls headed back toward their table in rapid-fire Spanish conversation. Like most Italians, Tom had always felt a mixture of curiosity and shame hearing this language so close to his, with so many words he would recognize as his own, but that for the life of him he could never understand. From the way she stretched her

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.