Peculiar Treasures

by Gunn, Robin Jones

  Katie dropped her garbage bag.

  “I know. Shocking, isn’t it? I was up until after midnight the past three nights. I’m way too focused on making my surroundings pretty.

  It’s a sickness.”

  Katie turned to Nicole, and in a voice sharper than she meant to use, she said, “Don’t you ever say this is a sickness.”

  Nicole pulled back.

  “Your room is beautiful.” Katie redirected her thinking to a more positive approach. “That’s what I was trying to say. What you did with your room is amazing. Don’t dis on your art. It’s a talent, Nicole, not a sickness. You took a bunch of space and nothingness, and you made art. You made beauty.”

  Nicole’s eyes teared up. She gave Katie a big hug. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “Thank you for saying that. Thank you for making me feel as if maybe it’s okay that I love to make my room pretty.”

  “It’s the truth,” Katie said. In her imagination she could almost see a pack of slimy slugs running from the truth she had just spoken into Nicole’s room.

  Nicole nodded slowly. “Yes, it is the truth. What did you call it? My art? You’re right. I’m just like my mom; this is how I express myself. Thank you, Katie.”

  “You’re welcome. I hope your creativity rubs off on me this year. I’m a minimalist, and my mother is barely an enough-ist. Or maybe she’s more of a why bother-ist.”

  Nicole laughed, but Katie didn’t. “It’s true,” Katie said.

  “Come on, we have to take our minimalist retreat stuff down to the fountain.”

  As they slung their trash bags over their shoulders like Santa Clauses, Katie said, “So tell me what to expect.”

  “It’s hard to say. You know that last year we went to a conference center in the mountains and stayed in cabins. I heard rumors we might be going there again.”

  “Why do they keep the location a secret?”

  “I think it’s to put everyone on the same level at the start. No one knows what to expect, and since we can only take what’s on the list, we’re all sort of even.”

  Several dozen students were gathered at the fountain area when Katie and Nicole arrived. More seemed to be coming from all directions. Katie found it strange to watch so many people walk around campus with big, black garbage bags.

  “How many RAs are there?” Katie asked Nicole.

  “Last year the total was thirty-six, eight from each dorm.”

  “We only have four dorms. That would be a total of thirty-two.”

  “You forgot Brower Hall. That’s where the other four are.”

  “Oh, yeah. How could I forget Brower Hall? That’s where I lived last semester. Before that I lived in Sophie Hall.”

  Sophie Hall was the newest, most impressive of the dorms. The hall’s entry was designed to look like the lobby of a classy hotel. In the center of the building was an open patio complete with what Katie called “the jungle.” Tall palm trees, lots of leafy plants, and a walkway with benches made the patio a favorite spot for couples to go for their heart-to-heart conversations.

  Katie preferred the fountain area at the center of campus. The way the sunlight continually changed the look of the water against the blue tiles made her feel as if this was the place where life and hope sprang up in the middle of the surrounding buildings. It offered her a little bit of happiness every time she passed by or stopped to put her feet in the cool water.

  She also decided she preferred Crown Hall to the other dorms on campus. The rooms were a little smaller than in Sophie Hall and Brower Hall, but Crown offered larger windows. She also liked the lobby in Crown better than Sophie. It was straightforward. The sliding glass doors opened to a large area with couches, a pool table, and coffee tables made of heavy wood that could take whatever students placed on them — feet, laptops, books, or board games. To Katie, Crown Hall’s lobby felt like the bonus room of the home she always wished she had grown up in. The only bonus room cliché missing was a stuffed moose head on the wall. Or maybe a stuffed marlin with a long, pointy nose.

  The other feature Katie loved about Crown Hall was the “secret nest” on the roof. The stairway led up to a door that opened to a flat area on the roof. The wall railing around the nest was tall enough that a person could sit at the patio table or stretch out in one of the three lounge chairs in the compact area, and no one would know anyone was up there. Katie already had plans to utilize the hideaway for a place to breathe or take a quiet nap.

  “Here.” Nicole handed Katie a roll of duct tape and a permanent marker. “You need to write your name on the tape and then put it on the side of your bag.”

  Katie obliged, adding a smiley face after her name.

  “You should add your last name,” Nicole said. “There’s another RA named Katie in Sophie Hall.”

  “You’re kidding.” Katie looked around. “Do you know who she is? Is she here?”

  “I haven’t seen her yet.”

  Katie didn’t know any other Katies at Rancho. Her name wasn’t particularly popular, and she didn’t have to share it often. In this small group, she didn’t like being one of two Katies. She knew it was ridiculous, but her uniqueness suddenly felt diluted.

  “I’ll introduce you when I see her,” Nicole said.

  Katie wrote “Weldon” on another piece of duct tape and added it right after the smiley face. If she couldn’t be the only Katie onboard, at least she could be the only one with a smiley face for a middle initial.

  Their bags were tossed into the back of a rented trailer. Greg and two of the other resident directors stood on the edge of the fountain and called out directions to the crew. They were told to pick up their breakfast from the tables under the tarp and then to board the chartered bus waiting for them across from the soccer field. Katie and Nicole each grabbed an apple, a banana nut muffin, and a bottle of water, and stepped onto the bus.

  “That’s her.” Nicole nudged Katie and nodded toward a girl with short dark hair and cute sunglasses. Katie recognized her because she used to check people in at the on-campus workout room. The other Katie had a quiet temperament and kept to herself. In an odd way, knowing that the other Katie didn’t have red hair or resemble her in any particular way was comforting.

  Once everyone was on the bus, one of the leaders passed out T-shirts that had the Rancho Corona University logo on the back. Each dorm had a different color, and the dorm name appeared on the right sleeve. The RAs from Sophie Hall were handed white T-shirts, and Brower Hall RAs were given blue T-shirts. Next came Crown Hall; Nicole was happy when their T-shirts turned out to be chocolate brown.

  Katie caught her shirt when it was tossed to her and thought, Cocoa brown, just like Rick’s eyes.

  A sudden uh-oh feeling covered her like a net. She hadn’t called Rick back. He didn’t know she was leaving today for the staff training retreat. If Katie had read her training manual ahead of time, she would have known the details about the day and could have told Rick.

  Katie pulled her phone out of her backpack and tried to call. She got his voice message and decided not to leave a message since people around her would hear what she said. Also, she wasn’t sure what to say.

  Opting instead to send a text message, Katie typed out that she was off-campus for the next three days for training. Pressing “send” on her phone, Katie knew why the uh-oh feeling was so intense. This was the first time today she had even thought of Rick or remembered that she should tell him what she was doing.

  Gazing out the window as the bus lumbered down the freeway, Katie asked herself, So what does that say about my commitment to Rick?If I cared about him as much as I think I do, would I forget about him for big chunks of time? Maybe we’re not getting gummier. Maybe we’re getting floatier, and we’re floating away from each other.

  16

  After an hour during the bus ride of group speculation about their destination, one fact was obvious. They were heading west, toward the ocean, and not east toward the mou
ntains. Katie liked the idea of a beach retreat. Not everyone shared her interest. It seemed those who had heard about the mountain location last year had locked into that idea and were disappointed, even though they didn’t know where they actually were going.

  All of them were surprised when the bus pulled off the freeway in Long Beach and headed to a harbor-side parking area where the sign read, “Parking for Catalina Island Ferry.”

  A wild buzz ran through the group. Almost all the RAs had slipped the various colored T-shirts on over whatever they were wearing, adding to the general feeling that a race was about to start. One of the girls behind Katie and Nicole said, “I love Catalina! I’m so glad we’re going there! My family used to rent the same cottage every summer when I was in grade school. I haven’t been back to the island for almost ten years. This is going to be great. I know all the good places to swim.”

  The off-loading of the bus took a lot less time than the boarding at Rancho had taken. Katie helped to form a brigade line as they passed the bags from the trailer to the waiting ferry. Tourists as well as island residents boarded the huge sea craft, and all of them took a long look at the small army of Rancho students that must have appeared to be preparing for an invasion.

  “Let’s go up on the top of the ship,” Katie suggested to Nicole. She didn’t want to be stuck on a bench seat on the inside cabin when the view would be so much better in the open air on top.

  Talitha joined them. The midmorning sunshine reflecting off the ocean seemed twice as bright as it had been in the parking area. The three Crown Hall women flipped on their sunglasses and headed for the last available seating at the front of the top deck.

  “I’m telling you,” Talitha said, “the RDs really outdid themselves in planning this. I’ve always wanted to go to Catalina Island. I heard it’s really laid-back, and that everything is pretty much the same as it’s been since the fifties or something like that. Vintage California. This is so great! I’m going to swim every chance we get.”

  Katie’s cell phone rang as the ferry was leaving the harbor for the hour’s jaunt to Catalina. She saw the ID on the screen and stepped away from the rest of the group as she answered. “Rick, hi. Sorry I didn’t call back last night. Did you get my text?”

  “Yes. I’m really missing you, Katie. It’s killing me that you’re not here at work. Where are you?”

  Katie looked out at the California coastline. The most visible landmark, the Queen Mary, a huge steamer permanently docked in Long Beach Harbor, was shrinking in the distance. “You’re not going to believe this. I’m on a ferry on my way to Catalina. I wish you were here.”

  “I thought you were in staff training for the next three days.”

  “I am. This is our staff retreat. We’re going to Catalina. It was a big surprise for everyone.”

  Rick’s end of the line was silent.

  “Are you still there?”

  “I’m still here.”

  “I thought maybe I lost the signal because we’re heading away from the shore. If the signal does cut out, I’ll call you back when I can.

  We’re supposed to be gone until Friday, but I don’t know if we’re going to be on Catalina the whole time. The training location is a secret.”

  “Another secret?”

  “Yeah, we don’t know if we’re going to be on the island, on a boat, or what. It’s crazy.” She cupped her hand around the mouthpiece to protect it from the interference of the ocean breeze that suddenly kicked up and made a loud crackle over her cell phone. “I should tell you why I didn’t call back last night. We had training on campus all day as well as last night. Then I had to pack for this retreat, and we had to report in at seven this morning. We didn’t know where we were going until we saw the signs about Catalina. . . .” Katie kept going, blabbering on, making good use of her try-always-to-be-entertaining defense mechanism.

  “So, by the time I pulled all my stuff together last night, it was after one, and I knew I could still call, but if you were asleep, I didn’t want to wake you, so . . .”

  She paused and realized the line was dead.

  “Hello? Rick?”

  The message on the screen of her cell phone read, “Signal faded.” She didn’t know at what point the call had dropped and how much Rick had heard of her explanation. Not that it mattered. Rick could have heard all of what she said or none of it, and still the “signal” between the two of them would be “faded.” This was the worst thing for her: to feel emotionally disconnected from the people who were supposed to be the ones who mattered most.

  Katie went back and sat next to her friends on the prow of the upper deck. An RA from Brower Hall joined them. She was the only blue T-shirt in with their five brown ones. It was funny how putting on a colored shirt set up an unspoken boundary.

  Katie set her chin toward the open ocean and drew in the brisk sea air. The Brower Hall RA looked over at Katie and said, “Hey, I met a guy who knows you last night. Carley told him I was an RA too. He asked if we were still in our training session, which we thought was funny because we were at the movies. But then he said your group was still in training, and we told him you must be with Crown Hall because they’re the overachievers.”

  The other Crown Hall RAs had responses to her “overachiever” comment.

  Katie interrupted them. “Who was the guy you saw?”

  “His name was Rick. He was sitting in front of us.”

  “At the movies?”

  The girl nodded.

  Rick went to the movies without me. That felt strange.

  “Carley said he was her old boss too. He seemed really nice.”

  “Carley?”

  “She was with Rick last night at the movies.”

  That bit of news went down Katie’s throat like a jalapeno pepper. “Who else was there?”

  “Just the two of them. Rick asked if we had seen you yesterday because I guess he tried to call you a couple of times.”

  Katie nodded, still keeping her expression fixed. Trying to change the subject, she asked, “Anyone know where the restroom is on this thing?”

  “The ‘head,’ ” the other RA said. “On a boat they call it the head.”

  Katie didn’t care what it was called. She wasn’t going there anyway. She was just looking for an easy out so she could walk away from this conversation. As soon as she was out of view, she dialed Rick’s number and waited for the phone to connect. Eleven attempts all produced the same response: “Signal faded.”

  Katie drew in a deep breath and felt the brisk air from the open ocean chill her lungs. She tapped out a text message to Rick and tried to send it. Whenever it went through, at least Rick would know she was thinking of him that morning and missing him too. The most important thing for Katie to remember at the moment was that she had no reason not to trust Rick.

  Carley she wasn’t so sure about.

  “Hi there.” Julia came up to Katie and leaned against the railing, looking out to sea. “Gorgeous day, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  Julia turned and gave Katie a long look. “Everything okay?”

  With a sigh Katie asked, “How much do you want to hear?”

  “Everything. Or at least as much as you want to tell me.”

  Katie looked at Julia. Here on the deck, in the open air with the reflection of the water on her face, Julia looked like a reflecting pool. When Katie looked into the calm blue of Julia’s eyes, she felt as if she could see herself looking back.

  “This could get lengthy,” Katie said.

  “I’m not going anywhere for the next, oh, forty minutes or so,” Julia said.

  “Okay, well, there’s this guy . . .”

  “Yes?” Julia smiled as if she had heard a few stories before that started with the same opening line.

  “His name is Rick, and I just found out he went to the movies last night with someone I don’t get along with that well. I can’t explain why I don’t like her. I just don’t. So I don’t know what’s going
on with him. He called me last night and asked me to go to the movies, but I couldn’t. Part of me thinks he probably tried to set up a group trip to the movies, but in the end Carley was the only one who could go.”

  Katie stopped herself. “Oops. I wasn’t going to say her name.”

  Julia gave a slow blink with a “keep going” sort of gesture.

  “I guess I should tell you how Rick and I got to be where we are today.” Settling into a corner out of the breeze, Katie explained how she and Rick first met in junior high and how she had a crush on him even then. She moved on through high school and how she was the school mascot, Katie the Kelley High Cougar, and Rick was the popular quarterback for their winning football team.

  “He didn’t really pay attention to me back in high school. All the girls were after him. Then Christy moved to Escondido. Christy is my best friend and has been for years.”

  “I know Christy,” Julia said. “She was in the one elective class I taught last year on intercultural studies.”

  “That’s right. You were at her wedding. She and I met at a sleepover when we were sophomores. We toilet papered Rick’s house. He took one look at the elusive Christy, and the guy was smitten. That’s a really long story.

  “For my part of the soap opera,” Katie continued, “aside from a few odd blips in high school, Rick didn’t notice me until last fall. By that, I mean he didn’t notice me as a potential girlfriend. He’s changed a lot since high school, and I guess I’ve changed too.”

  Katie unpacked for Julia the extended version of Rick’s high school crush on Christy, his wild college years, and the two kisses he stole from Katie in the middle of all that, starting with their first kiss at the Rose Parade on New Year’s in Pasadena.

  “The Rose Parade is actually a sweet memory in a strange way,” Katie said. “A bunch of us were camping out on the street waiting for the parade the next morning. It was midnight. Everyone was kissing. I was there. Rick was there. He kissed me. End of details.

  “The second time we kissed was a few months later. It was late at night outside Rick’s apartment in San Diego. Christy was inside watching, but I didn’t know that at the time. Rick didn’t ‘give’ me a kiss that time. He definitely took one from me.