双语·当呼吸化为空气 我高中最好的朋友叫里奥

我高中最好的朋友叫里奥，也是毕业典礼上的学生致辞代表和我认识的家里最穷的孩子。高中最后一年，学校辅导员建议他：“你很聪明，应该去参军。”
Senior year, my close friend Leo, our salutatorian and the poorest kid I knew, was advised by the school guidance counselor, “You’re smart—you should join the army.”

之后他跟我说起这事。“去他的，”他说，“要是你会去上哈佛、耶鲁或者斯坦福，我也要去。”
He told me about it afterward. “Fuck that,” he said. “If you’re going to Harvard, or Yale, or Stanford, then I am, too.”

我去了斯坦福，里奥去了耶鲁。这两件事带给我的喜悦程度实在不分伯仲。
I don’t know if I was happier when I got into Stanford or when Leo got into Yale.

暑假过去了。斯坦福开学比其他大学都要晚一个月，所以我的朋友全都四散而去，把我一个人留了下来。很多个下午，我都独自深入沙漠，找个地方打个小盹，等着我的女朋友艾比盖尔从金曼唯一的咖啡馆下班。沙漠是穿过山野进入城镇的捷径，步行也远比驾车来得有趣。艾比盖尔二十出头，就读于斯克里普斯学院。她不想申请助学贷款，所以休学一个学期，好存点学费。她身上那种世俗气深深吸引了我。她知道的那些秘密，只有大学生才知道。她还上过心理学的课呢！我们经常在她下班以后见面。她就是甜蜜爱情与美好生活的先兆，是几个星期后我即将进入的新世界的预告。一天下午，我打盹醒来，抬头一看，秃鹰就在我头顶盘旋，可能错把我当成了一具尸体。我看了看表，快三点了，要迟到了。我拍拍牛仔裤上的尘土，一路小跑着穿越沙漠，直到黄沙尽头，抵达道路起点，建筑开始映入眼帘，我跑到街角，看到艾比盖尔手里拿着一把扫帚，在清扫咖啡馆外面的地板。
Summer passed, and since Stanford began classes a month later than every other school, all of my friends scattered, leaving me behind. Most afternoons, I’d trek into the desert alone and nap and think until my girlfriend, Abigail, got off her shift at Kingman’s lone coffee shop. The desert offered a shortcut, through the moun-tains and down into town, and hiking was more fun than driving. Abigail was in her early twenties, a student at Scripps College who, wanting to avoid loans, was taking a semester off to stockpile tuition money. I was taken with her worldliness, the sense that she knew secrets one only learned at college—she had studied psychology!— and we’d often meet as she got off work. She was a harbinger of the sub rosa, the new world awaiting me in just a few weeks. One afternoon, I woke from my nap, looked up, and saw vultures circling, mistaking me for carrion. I checked my watch; it was almost three. I was going to be late. I dusted off my jeans and jogged the rest of the way through the desert, until sand gave way to pavement, the first buildings appeared, and I rounded the corner to find Abigail, broom in hand, sweeping the coffee shop deck.

“浓缩咖啡机我已经洗了，”她说，“所以你今天没有冰咖啡喝啦。”
“I already cleaned the espresso machine,” she said, “so no iced latte for you today.”