“Thanks for walking with me,” she said cheerfully. “And for the pep talk this morning.”
David stuffed his hands into his coat pockets and leaned in. “Anything for you, just Katy. Are you sure you’ll be okay?”
Katy turned to the stone façade of one of Harvard’s oldest buildings. “No, I’m not sure,” she replied earnestly. She was feeling emboldened after her successful walk to class, but she knew that things could change at any moment. She turned back to David. “But that’s okay. I’m still going to give it my best.”
David’s gaze intensified as it dropped down to Katy’s lips. These were the still-new little moments that she so relished since that night they had kissed in the snow in Lorria. Katy could’ve lived in that feeling forever, the feeling of electric anticipation right before physical contact. She felt that way every time she kissed David. It was wonderful.
But she didn’t have the time today. Today, Katy was on a strict timeline to impress Professor Bissenhof. So instead of waiting and savoring the moment, she rushed forward, pressing her lips quickly and roughly against David’s. Then she pulled away and darted up the steps.
“Talk soon!” she shouted over her shoulder.
Katy made her way to the designated room and quickly took a seat. Made it! With a few minutes to spare, even. She exhaled and leaned back in her chair. Perhaps she wasn’t quite as famous as she thought she was. Maybe everything was going to go back to normal, just like it had been for her first semester at Harvard.
“Psst, Princess Katerina,” a voice in the seat behind Katy’s whispered.
Then again, maybe not.
Katy turned around to see a freckled brunette girl wearing thick glasses. She paused. How was she supposed to respond? The girl continued.
“Oh my gosh, I just wanted to make sure that was you. I can’t believe I’m sitting behind the princess of Lorria!” The girl’s mouth parted slightly in shock. Katy struggled with a response.
“Um, nice to meet you,” she finally managed. She turned back to the front of the classroom and took a deep breath. If that was the only awkward encounter that she had today, then she’d still count herself lucky.
Professor Bissenhof walked into the room at nine o’clock sharp. He was a small, portly man in a tweed jacket and pressed khaki slacks. He had a ring of straw-colored hair around his head (not unlike a monk) and rimless glasses. He carried a leather briefcase in one hand and a thermos of coffee in the other. He doesn’t seem so bad, Katy thought. From the department rumors, she had half-expected a drill sergeant to head the class.
“All right,” he began in a nasal voice. “Of course you’ve all received the syllabus on our online portal and thus came prepared by reading Wittner, chapters one through four. Now you should all be ready for discussion.”
Uh-oh. Online portal? Katy hadn’t even checked it before the first class. The first day was supposed to be a syllabus read-through, right?
“So let’s call on a student to get our conversation rolling, shall we?” Bissenhof went on. He pulled a sheet of paper out of his briefcase and started to look it over.
Katy swallowed hard as her heart began to race. The professor’s reputation had preceded him. So why didn’t you check the online portal?
“Oh,” Bissenhof said in surprise. “I see we have a familiar face in our midst.” He looked up from his class roster and began to scan the crowd until his eyes met Katy’s.
“Princess Katerina, I presume,” he said.
A titter of whispers and gasps carried through the room at the mention of her name. Katy felt her cheeks go rosy with embarrassment.
“Y-Yes,” she sputtered. And thanks for calling me out! Katy certainly hadn’t read the assignment. Of course she had been foolish by not checking Harvard’s online class portal beforehand, but what kind of professor assigned that much reading before the first class? And now Bissenhof was about to find out that she hadn’t done the reading at all. Then what? Would he berate her? Ask her to leave until she could come prepared? Katy braced herself.
Professor Bissenhof stared over his glasses at her for a beat and then went on. “Well, Princess. Glad to have you. And now for our discussion.” He looked back at the roster. “Williamson. Let’s start with you.”
Katy breathed out slowly and steadily. She had gotten lucky this round. And now she would have time to prepare for the next class.
As unlucky Williamson stumbled through a response behind her, Katy considered her day as a whole. So far, the spring semester was going well. People recognized her, just as she had been afraid they would, but no one had made a big deal out of it yet.
Katy pulled a spiral notebook out of her bag and felt her nerves steady. Maybe David was right; maybe she had been overthinking things all along. Maybe spring semester was going to be a lot easier than she thought, even without her fake identity.
Either way, Katy was just happy to be at Harvard and close to David. Besides, she still had the support of Cassie, her cousin and best friend.
Katy was up to the challenge. So bring it on, Bissenhof.
2
David
“Over the course of this class, we’ll find that equilibrium is the heart of financial theory—which you will be able to demonstrate effectively in a culminative project that I will grade in lieu of a final exam.”
David added one last bullet point to his class notes and then closed his notebook and looked up at Professor Bell. There were still a few minutes left in class, and while the other students had already begun to put their things away and talk quietly amongst themselves, David respected Professor Bell enough to await his dismissal.
“A final note before you go,” Bell went on, making eye contact with David. The room grew quiet again. “The economics department is offering a market internship over the summer for one incoming junior. I’ll announce more details as the deadline approaches, but in the meantime I suggest polishing up your resumes and considering a financial topic of interest for your application essay.” The professor waved his hand. “Till Wednesday.”
Students began to stand and exit the room, but David took his time, waiting for Zeke.
“New game plan for studying this year?” David asked in amusement, watching Zeke pack his bookbag.
“I’m going to stay organized from the beginning this time,” Zeke said as he gathered a sizable arrangement of multicolored highlighters and Post-it notes. It looked like Zeke was in art class rather than Financial Theory. “So I don’t get overwhelmed halfway through the semester again.”
“Good plan,” David replied. He didn’t want to talk his friend off the ledge for a second time. But he couldn’t see that happening anyway; Zeke was doing so well now, juggling school and family and even a new girlfriend. “Nur isn’t taking Financial Theory this year?”
“She took it last semester. Game Theory this semester. She’s too smart for me.” Zeke stood and threw his bag over his shoulder. “But luckily I have this bomb personality, so it evens out.” The fondness in his tone made his typical bad joke more bearable.
David chuckled as he stood. Maybe there was such a thing as therapy working a little too well.
Before they could leave the room, Professor Bell spoke from his desk.
“Will you be applying for the internship this year, gentlemen?”
David stopped and turned to Bell with a warm smile. Even before Bell had shown a personal interest in his family situation, David had considered him his favorite professor. The more time he spent around the professor, the more he admired him. “Absolutely.”
Professor Bell nodded and turned to Zeke. “And you?”
“Actually, sir, I’ll be interning at my father’s business this summer,” Zeke replied.
“Ah.” Bell turned back to David. “Well, David, the competition will be fierce, but I must say I have high hopes for you. Start thinking about your essay. I’ll post the details on the online portal this afternoon.”
“Will do, sir. See you on Wednesd
ay,” David replied.
Zeke and David stepped out of the room together, heading to the other end of the bustling hall. Harvard was once again bursting with students rushing to and from classes, filling David with excitement about the fresh start. He was taking some advanced courses and seminars that he couldn’t wait to start working on.
“Are you taking Hart for Behavioral Economics?” he asked Zeke.
“Nah, I’ve got Labor Economics with Bloom now.”
“Ah, I’ve got his Welfare Policy seminar tomorrow. Tell me how it goes,” David replied. It felt good to be using all of the academic lingo again, after a long and eventful break.
“Sure. Nur and I are having lunch after this class. Want to meet? You can bring your princess.” Zeke winked.
David delivered his friend a playful but pointed look. “I’ll text you afterward. But you should know that if you call Katy that again, it’ll probably be our last double date.”
Zeke waved as he turned into an open classroom while David kept walking to the end of the hall. All in all, Zeke had responded pretty well to the revelation of Katy’s identity, although that might’ve been because David had made him swear that he’d still act casual. The last thing David wanted was to make Katy uncomfortable, especially around his friends.
As David walked, Zeke’s teasing voice echoed in his mind. Your princess. He already knew that Katy would hate the sound of that, but if David was being honest, he thought it had a nice ring to it. She was his. After months of waiting and wanting, he could finally call her that. It still didn’t feel real, and putting it like that still felt wondrous to him.
David had almost made it to his next class when a hand clapped down on his shoulder. David spun around, uncomfortably casting off a stranger’s hand. But the man seemed unperturbed and continued to smile at David expectantly.
“David, right?” he asked.
“Yeah. I’m sorry, do I know you?” David looked over the man’s face, trying to remember if he had seen it before. He just looked like one of hundreds of Harvard frat boys, decked out in a pastel polo shirt and shorts even though the weather was still wintry.
“I’ve seen you around at the Wolf Club, man,” the stranger replied. “I’m Michael.”
David looked toward his classroom and then back at Michael. He didn’t want to be rude, but he also didn’t want to stand around and catch up with an acquaintance he hadn’t even recognized. “Cool, Michael. I guess I’ll see you around.” He turned to leave.
“For sure, David,” the frat boy went on as David walked away. “Just wanted to give you props for bagging a princess.”
David stopped in his tracks. Bagging a princess? The very sound of the crude words made his stomach curdle. Katy wasn’t some prize that David had won, and he certainly hadn’t taken possession of her in any way.
He turned back to face Michael, his teeth clenched, ready to spit out a biting defense. But before he could muster the kind of response he wanted, Michael was already walking away with a lecherous wink.
David stood for a beat, trying to cast off the gross feelings, before he turned and walked into his next class.
* * *
“If we’re talking about the same Michael, then that guy threw up in our kitchen sink after a party once. He’s a douche. Just ignore him.”
Zeke was lying back on his bed, tossing a baseball into the air and catching it while David sat at his desk.
“I just hope he’s the only douche who thinks like that and not representative of the entire frat community,” David replied, looking at his friend from his desk chair. “I don’t want to deal with a bunch of bros asking about my business all year.”
Zeke tossed the ball up and caught it again. “I get it. But you had to have understood that people would be curious. I mean, wouldn’t you be curious if I told you I was dating some royal chick?”
David rolled his eyes. “But she’s not some royal chick. She’s Katy. You knew her before all this, and she’s still the same person now.”
Zeke tossed the ball up but fumbled the catch, and the ball came down squarely on his chin. He groaned and then swung himself up. “Why would my dad send me a baseball anyway? He knows I’m not into sports. I’m about as athletic as my great-grandmother.” Rubbing his jaw, he looked over at David, the pain apparently making him more straightforward. “Look, I get it. You’re a private person. Katy is a private person. But you should be happy that the paparazzi aren’t crowding you every time you walk out of a class. You’re just going to have to ignore the creepy guys like Michael. Unless you see him here at a house party, in which case definitely don’t let him near our kitchen sink again.”
Zeke tossed the baseball toward his closet, and David watched it whizz through the air before speaking again. “I thought your parents didn’t want you to assimilate too much. Baseball is about as American as it gets!”
Zeke shrugged. “They just always want me to be something I’m not. And now that my grades are better and they can’t yell at me about that anymore, they need to find something new for me to fail at. But this time the joke’s on them, because I’m not even going to pretend to use the baseball or the bat. I’m just going to keep doing stuff I like. Like the drama club.”
“So you’re signing back up this semester?” David asked with a bemused grin.
“It was a lot of fun last year.” Zeke shrugged, perhaps a bit embarrassed but not backing down. “And Nur might even join. Aren’t you and Katy going to do it?”
David thought of time he spent with Katy the previous semester in their drama club: the flirty improv they’d shared, Katy’s obvious enthusiasm, even the disastrous final project. It had been a lot of fun. But with Bell’s internship coming up and the rigor of his courses, David wasn’t sure he had as much time to spare.
And, now that he thought about it, he wasn’t sure how Katy would do in the drama club with her identity out. Would she still want to participate in extracurriculars? Or was she going to keep her head down and try to shoulder through until graduation?
“I guess I’ll ask Katy about it tonight,” he finally replied. “We have a dinner date planned.”
“I was wondering why you were in slacks,” Zeke said. “Thought maybe you were trying to be more regal.”
David scoffed and turned back to his desk. He still had a couple of hours before his date to work on an application essay for the internship, and he didn’t want to waste any time.
Twelve hundred essay words later, David was knocking on Katy’s door in his slacks and a nice sweater. He didn’t know where they were going yet, but she had told him to dress up, offering at least a clue as to what she had planned.
Katy’s mousy housemate Laura answered the door. “Hey, David!” she said cheerfully. “Katy wanted me to tell you that she’d be right down and you can come on in.”
David thanked her and stepped into Katy’s shared campus house. It was always much cleaner and better-smelling than the Wolf Club, likely because it wasn’t constantly hosting rowdy parties.
“You look nice.”
David turned to see Cassie approaching from the kitchen. She was dressed down, walking through the house in pajamas, holding a packet of ramen in one hand.
“Thanks,” David replied. Then, in the vein of small talk, he added, “Fancy dinner you’ve got there.”
“We can’t all go to Lafayette’s for dinner,” Cassie replied with a smirk.
“It was supposed to be a surprise!” Katy exclaimed, walking down the stairs. David’s breath caught as he looked at her.
She was wearing a navy-blue, one-shoulder dress that cinched at her waist, draping enticingly over her hips, and then flowed out at the bottom. Her décolletage was exposed, flooding David with an unexpected heat at even the hint of her lovely figure. Katy’s long hair was swept up and pinned at the base of her neck, and her lips were painted red.
“Oops,” Cassie said, breaking David’s spell with a snicker. “Sorry, hon.”
Katy strode
down the stairs to David as he tried to pick his jaw back up and regain his composure.
“You look stunning,” he managed.
She beamed and kissed him, gently and demurely, barely a brush of the lips, in greeting. If Cassie hadn’t been standing right there, David would’ve grabbed her around her waist and pulled her back in for more. But alas . . .
“I know you’re not much for pomp and circumstance,” Katy said. “But I thought it’d be fun to have a really good dinner to celebrate the start of the semester. The car should be here any minute to take us to Boston.”
“That sounds wonderful,” David replied. And it did. Pomp and circumstance or not, he was never one to turn down a good dinner.
A car horn beeped outside, and David followed Katy to the door, helping her into her coat before stepping back out into the cold.
“You two have fun!” Cassie called out after them.
After a brief limousine ride—which David definitely wasn’t used to yet—he helped Katy out of the car, and together they walked into one of Boston’s finest restaurants. David couldn’t help but notice that all eyes were on Katy as they walked in and were seated by the hostess.
“Enjoy your meal, Princess,” the hostess said as she walked away from their candlelit table in the back of the restaurant.
Katy nodded politely in response, but as soon as the hostess was gone, her face scrunched up with obvious displeasure.
“Damn. I used a fake name for the reservation and everything. Was hoping we might not get recognized.”
“I can’t imagine they’ll harass you too much in a restaurant, right? Bad for business,” David conjectured, unrolling his silverware to place his elegant napkin in his lap.
“Yeah, but getting paparazzi photos of a celebrity leaving your restaurant is good for business, unfortunately,” Katy replied. “The hostess will tip them off.”
A Love that Endures 2 Page 2
