“Not yet.” I remind myself to call the post office and find out how long it takes for a change of address to kick in.

“Mine just came,” Arno says. “Yours’ll probably be here in a day or two.”

“Where’re we gonna stay?” Milton asks.

“Who knows? We’ll bring sleeping bags.”

“And a tent?” Milton asks.

“Sure, a tent.” Arno turns to me. “So how was Maine?”

The mention of tents must have reminded him. I tell them it sucked.

“Robin leave for camp?” Milton asks.

I nod. She’s been gone roughly thirty hours, and I’ve already written two letters. Three, if you count the one I handed her through the car window yesterday morning.

“Heard from Goddard?” Arno asks.

I hadn’t planned to tell anyone about the thin envelope. Not until I come up with a strategy to keep from getting a one-way ticket to Southeast Asia, since that is bound to be the next question everyone will ask. But Arno knows what my hesitation means.

“God . . . damn idiot.” He draws out the words, then switches to his Lucas imitation: “‘Man, with my SATs, Goddard’s gotta take me.’”

Oh, the inescapable agony of regret! Robin’s first choice was Middlebury, and with her grades, SATs, and extracurriculars, it had been a near certainty. Goddard is about half an hour away from Middlebury, and I thought I fit their applicant profile perfectly: alienated, antiwar, underachieving, and perpetually stoned (institution of higher learning, indeed). Perhaps my grades weren’t what they could have been, and my extracurricular activities were limited to reading, skiing, writing poetry, getting wasted, and sexual intercourse. But my SAT scores were (surprisingly) good, and I thought the epic poem I composed in iambic pentameter as my essay (in a single night with the help of a couple of Arno’s mom’s diet pills) was so unique and groundbreaking that the admissions people at Goddard would instantly recognize the boundless creative potential inside me crying out to be unleashed.

My mother, being more circumspect, had filled out applications for four additional colleges, even going so far as to write the essays for me. All I’d had to do was sign my name. I’d been rejected by all of them and wait-listed by Goddard, which asked to see my final-semester grades before making a decision. That meant that while everyone else got to enjoy senior slump, I was supposed to study hard and apply myself. I’d intended to. . . . I really had, but mostly I’d applied my tongue to rolling papers.

“Told your parents?” Arno asks, and again mimics me before I can answer: “‘No way, man. They’re the last people I’d tell.’”

“Can it, zitface,” Milton cautions, then leans toward me, his voice solemn: “Great Neck’s probably the toughest draft board in the country.”

“How’re they gonna know I wasn’t accepted?” I ask.