I’m not sure if this is actually reasonable or if I’m too tired to think clearly, but I soldier on. “So once your signal came through, the radio in my brain got better at picking up all the other signals around me. That’s why I’ve been seeing Beth’s dreams, and Jackie’s, and all the other people I’ve seen.” And the killer. Because his broadcast is coming from the tallest radio tower with 50,000 watts behind it, even if nobody in their right mind would ever want to tune it in.
And then Brian has to go and ruin my wonderful theory. “If all that’s true, if you’re right–does it help at all?”
No. I can’t see how it helps. I start to say something nasty, but I catch myself. Barely. To be totally honest about it, if our places were switched and he’d just told me what I told him, I’d probably have asked exactly the same question.
I sigh, and I grab his arm and pull him down until we’re lying next to each other, and I pull the covers over us. “It doesn’t help. But you know what does? You do.” I say, and I kiss him quickly. “We can still get some sleep. I’ll be OK now. I’ll be OK as long as you’re with me,” I say, and with him holding me I do feel–well, not OK, but a lot closer to it than I was. I guess that’ll have to do for now.
***
Brian and I walk over to breakfast, but that’s all the time we’ll have together today. I have to keep at the physics, and Mark Bainbridge from upstairs agreed to take two hours to try and help me. Hopefully that’ll get me to the point that I can go to the review session a few of my classmates are having tonight and be able to keep up. On top of that I’ve got some paperwork that’s due Monday to finalize things for the volunteer program at University Hospital that I’m going to be doing next semester. So it’s a busy day.
We chat about Christmas, and what our families will be doing. Brian just found out the other day that his brother won’t be coming this year. He’s got just the one brother, Jack, twelve years older than him. The story is that Jack went into the army right after high school, got sent to Germany, got married, and stayed there after he was discharged. He’s got two kids that Brian’s never even met. Apparently, there was some hope that Jack would bring the family back here this Christmas, but it fell through. I think it’s really sad, that Brian has a niece and nephew he hasn’t ever met.
We still haven’t figured out when we’ll be able to meet over the holiday. I guess we’ll just have to play that by ear. We’ve got nine days to be together before then, though, and I intend to make the most of them.
We “dilly and dally” over our food, as my Mom puts it, until I can’t put off studying any more. Brian walks me back to Carson House before heading off to the library, and he kisses me just outside the front door. A girl could get used to that.
Then it’s up to my room, and I get working on the paperwork for the hospital. There’s a ton of it to go through, and it takes me a good hour to finish it. Just as I plop myself down on the bed for a few minutes before I move on to my least favorite course, there’s a loud, heavy knock on the door.
“Hang on,” I call out and I sit myself up, get to my feet and open the door. Jim Quarters, who I’ve known since my first day here, fills my doorway. I mean that literally; he’s a lineman on the (not very good) football team. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him on my floor in all the time I’ve lived here. “What’s going on?”
He’s looking into the room. “Your roommate’s not here, right?”
He can see that, so I’m not sure why he’s asking but I hold back a smart answer. “She’s at the library, finishing up a paper. I can tell her you’re looking for her.”
He shakes his head. “No, I thought that’s where she was. I wanted to ask you something without her here,” he says.
I’m confused; I can’t imagine what he wants with her. He can’t be interested in her, can he? He’s got a serious girlfriend, and he knows she’s got a boyfriend. I’m pretty sure they aren’t in any classes together. On the other hand, he’s never been anything but decent to me, so it probably can’t be anything too weird. “Come in,” I say, ushering him into the room. He sits down on my desk chair and it creaks a little. “You’re being very mysterious. What’s the big secret?”
“It’s the Secret Santa. I’ve got your roommate, and I have no idea what to do.”
Secret Santa completely slipped my mind. I’m glad for the reminder, and I’m also glad that suggesting a gift for my roommate–unlike the dreams, or my physics final–is a problem that I can actually solve. “No problem. You want to play it straight and give her something she’ll like, or embarrass her a little?” I wouldn’t say that, except I know Beth wouldn’t really mind an embarrassing gift, so long as it wasn’t too mean-spirited. Jim isn’t up for that, though.
“Straight.”
The only rule is that you’re supposed to spend less than $25 for all the gifts. But considering it’s finals week, it’s also got to be something that’s relatively easy and quick for him to get. I think I can suggest something that’ll cover all that, and that she’ll get a good laugh out of as well. On top of all that, it’s even something she’s dreamed about, in a way. “OK, we can do this. Five gifts. Let’s see,” I’ve got a pretty good idea, if I do say so myself. “Can you get somebody to give you a ride up to the mall?” He nods. “You’re twenty-one, right?”
“Last month.” He doesn’t bother to ask why I’m asking. It’s nice when people put themselves in my hands and just let me run the show sometimes.
“Good. You’re going to go to the state liquor store and get her a decent bottle of gin. That’s the big gift. The other gifts, you get her everything else to make a martini with. Olives, toothpicks, maybe you can find one of those cocktail shakers for five bucks somewhere. Sound like a plan?”
He seems very pleased. “Nice!” which he says as though the word has four or five syllables, is his answer. But then he lapses into deep concentration for a minute. “You’re missing an ingredient. Vermouth, right?”
True, I think. “But the limit is $25 and you’ll already be going a little over as it is.” There’s a solution to that. I get my wallet, fish out a $20 bill. “Here,” I say. “Buy a bottle of vermouth, too, and drop it off to me when she’s not here. I’ll give it to her after.” I have no idea how much vermouth costs. I wonder if I’ll see any change?
He looks doubtful, but he takes the money just the same. Then he peers at me more closely. “Are you all right?” he says with some concern in his voice. I guess that means he’s noticed the circles under my eyes and the hollow, lifeless stare that’s been looking back at me in the mirror far too often the last couple of weeks.
“I haven’t been sleeping all that well the last few nights,” which is as much truth as I’m interested in telling him.
“I know what you mean,” he says knowingly, even though he doesn’t have the slightest idea. “This semester’s been brutal. These group projects are killing me; I’m up until two in the morning every night trying to get everything done.” I wish schoolwork was the only reason I’m up until two in the morning. I’d trade with him in a heartbeat.
“Yeah. Exactly,” I say. “Anyway, do what I said, Beth will love it.” He gets up, starts to head for the door. “Oh,” I stop him, remembering something else. I take the box with George’s slinky in it and hold it out to him–I don’t even remember when I put it in a box and wrapped it, which I think is kind of a bad sign. “Here. Can you put that by 418 when you go upstairs?”
He takes George’s gift. “Sure. And thanks!” he says as he goes, closing the door behind him. Well, I’ve done another good deed, and now I get my reward. Several hours of studying physics. That seems very unfair somehow.
***
At about five o’clock or so, after Mark graciously spent not two, but nearly three hours trying to force my protesting brain to understand some of the things it’s refusing to grasp about physics, Beth
tries to get me to take a break. I refuse.
Brian calls at seven-thirty, after two and a half more hours of working on my own–I didn’t feel up to the review session with my classmates after all–to try and tempt me out of the room. I refuse again.
It’s almost nine o’clock now, and I don’t think I can stand to look at my notes or that textbook for another second. I feel like my eyes are about to start bleeding from the strain. I turn my attention to a small, very nicely wrapped box, my Secret Santa gift. I tear open the paper, open the box, and find–nothing. It’s an empty box. Someone went to all the trouble to do a professional wrapping job, with a bow and everything, for an empty box. Why would someone give me an empty box? What does it mean?
There’s a knock at the door, interrupting my questions. I get up to open it, and Mona the RD is standing there, with Melanie Vondreau and another of my floormates, Janet Black, right behind her. “Get your coat,” Mona says. “You’re coming out with us.”
I just stand there. I’m not sure what’s going on. “Come on,” Janet pleads.
I’m still looking blankly at the three of them. “Where?”
“I’m taking you girls out to the movies,” Mona says.
But the campus movie is usually at seven and nine o’clock. We already missed it. I don’t know what Mona’s talking about. “I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer. Now get your coat and your hat and whatever else, we need to get moving,” Mona demands.
With the three of them all glaring at me, I don’t feel like I have much choice. I grab my coat, scribble a quick note to Beth and leave it on her bed, and follow them out. Mona leads us downstairs and out the back door of the dorm as I button up my coat. Her old, beat-up Jeep is parked right there and we all pile in.
She’s a much more aggressive driver than I’d have imagined. She’s laying on the horn, passing people in what doesn’t seem like a very safe manner and not even worrying about the patches of black ice that I’m sure are out there on the roads. Despite all that, we manage to get where we’re going in one piece.
Where that is, is a second-run movie theater about ten minutes away from campus. As we walk past the posters outside the theater I realize why we’re here, and why specifically it’s me, Melanie and Janet that she took. “Four for ‘Gross Anatomy,” Mona tells the pimply boy in the ticket booth, and she sends me and Melanie in to get seats. She and Janet join us a couple of minutes later, passing out drinks and popcorn to us as they do.
Then the lights go out, the projector whirs to life, and for the next two hours, I watch a pretty good story about a plucky group of people struggling through their first year of medical school.
***
In the car on the way back to the dorm, Melanie asks Mona how accurately the movie portrayed life as a medical student. “It’s pretty close,” she says. “It brought back a lot of memories.”
Janet, shaking her long red hair out of her eyes, asks about something that had struck me as well. “Matthew Modine’s character said they had to do 3,000 pages of reading a week. That can’t be right, can it?”
“It’s not far off,” Mona answers, and while I can’t see Melanie’s expression from the back seat, I’m willing to bet it’s exactly the same mix of surprise and terror that’s on my and Janet’s faces. Mona scoffs at our fear. “You’ll get used to it. Believe me. You’ll be amazed when you see what you’re really able to do, once you’re in the middle of it.”
I don’t find that nearly as reassuring as Mona probably intends it to be. Still, despite the high probability of more answers we don’t really want to hear, we keep asking her about the movie and how it compares to her actual med school life the rest of the way home.
“Thanks, Mona,” we say in unison as we get out of the car once Mona’s back in her space behind the dorm.
“Don’t mention it. I figured my pre-med girls could use a little treat. Besides, I didn’t feel like going alone,” she says, heading for her little apartment in the lobby. “Now go get some sleep,” she tells us as she disappears inside.
I go upstairs, and the note I left for Beth is still on her bed; I have no idea where she is, although I can make an educated guess. I think about calling Brian, but he’s probably asleep and we did say our good-nights earlier, before I was abducted out to the movies. I don’t want to wake him. After last night and me keeping him up, he can use some restful sleep.
For that matter, so can I…
***
I open my eyes. Through the cracks in the blinds, I can see a light-ish sky. Which means I actually slept through the night, with no interruptions, no nightmares, no anything.
Beth is in her bed; she’s just starting to stir as I quietly sit up and look at the clock. It’s almost eleven o’clock. We got back from the movie last night at eleven-thirty or so, and I fell straight asleep, and that means I’ve slept for nearly twelve hours. I don’t know the last time I’ve slept that long.
I hear mumbling from Beth. I tiptoe over to listen more closely. “Stop poking me! Can’t you see I’m taking a test? Chrissy, leave me alone!” Then she rolls over, facing me, and her hand waves out; I’m so surprised I don’t step back and she connects with my elbow. She lets out a yelp, her eyes open and she’s staring at me with utter confusion on her face. “Chrissy, I told you–oh–Sara? What?”
“Morning, Beth!”
She rubs her eyes, blinks several times and then, slowly, sits up. “I must have been dreaming.”
I nod. “And talking in your sleep. I’ve never heard you do that before. You were yelling at your little sister.”
“There’s a surprise,” she says getting her feet on the floor and unsteadily standing up. “I’m not going to get back to sleep. You mind waiting so I can take a quick shower and then we can get some breakfast?” Sounds like a good plan to me.
“You mean lunch. But, yes. And I could use a shower, too, before I venture out among the living.” It’s nice to feel like I belong among them, for a change.
Beth showers, I shower, and we go over to Lardner to eat. I call Brian to see if he wants to meet me there, but he’s already eaten and he was just heading to the computer lab to finish typing up his final assignment for Expository Writing. We plan to get together for dinner, though.
After a lunch of cold cereal, Beth and I go back to our room. We’re both going to review statistics. My exam is tomorrow and even though I’m very confident about it, a little more studying can’t hurt; her exam isn’t until Friday but she needs all the help she can get.
As we study, Beth keeps telling me to worry about my own exam, but I tell her that helping her is helping me with my own review. Which is–well, it’s not completely a lie. Besides, I owe her. Aside from the fact that I’d help her because she’s my best friend, I owe her for getting me through two semesters of French (which she speaks nearly fluently thanks to her grandmother) last year with my grade point average still intact.
About four o’clock in the afternoon there’s a noise right outside our door, and by the time I get over there and open it up, there are two boxes sitting there on the floor–our Secret Santa gifts. Beth opens hers to reveal a jar of olives. She’s not much more impressed by that than she was by yesterday’s box of toothpicks. I avoid her eyes and mumble something about how I agree that her gifts have been really inadequate so far. Mine is another very well-wrapped empty box, which isn’t so much inadequate as frustrating. There must be a good reason for it, but I can’t imagine what it might be.
I had Beth drop off my gift for George earlier–it’s a Frisbee today, and tomorrow it’ll be a little wind-up robot that walks along your desk. I realize that’s not very impressive, but at least children’s toys are a theme. If nothing else, the final gift is halfway decent. I remembered that I did know at least one vaguely personal thing about him. He was very vocal in his disappointment when it came out that his favorite comic str
ip, Bloom County, was going to end this last summer. And completely randomly I saw a nice big stuffed Opus the Penguin doll when Beth and I were downtown yesterday. In the display he had a baseball cap on, so I bought the cap as well.
Anyway, opening our gifts seems like as good a reason as any to take a break for a little while. A little while stretches out until dinnertime, and at five-thirty I meet up with Brian for dinner. I invite Beth along, but she says she’s going to skip the dining hall tonight. “You two lovebirds go have fun,” she tells me as she shoos me out the door.
***
We have a very pleasant dinner. Well, the company and the conversation are pleasant, anyway. The actual dining, as usual, isn’t quite as good. We linger there until Lardner closes at seven o’clock, and then even though it’s freezing out we walk slowly around the back of the building. We go past the other three undergraduate dorms out behind Lardner and the ten story building that’s for grad student housing before we loop around and come back to the front door of Carson House. He doesn’t seem to mind the cold, and with his arm around me I don’t either.
He’s got exams Monday and Tuesday, so I won’t be seeing much of him until after physics on Wednesday. I can see in his eyes that he’s thinking exactly the same thing. It hits me that this is the exact spot we stood in a week ago Saturday, after our first date, when it felt like the whole world was waiting to see what I would decide.
Right now, standing here in the same place there isn’t a world at all. There’s just him, and just us, and I pull him close and we kiss.
Dream Student (Dream Series book 1) Page 12
