by M. F. Lorson
“So this is happening? We’re being sick now? Not twenty minutes ago when I asked you to?” Sydney looked at me for an answer not Robyn. I shrugged.
“I guess she just needed a little girl time.” I tried to sound convincing but even I wouldn’t have believed me.
“Excuse me while I puke” said Sydney. Together we began to put the barrack back together. It was a futile attempt given how short we were on time.
“You need to let the other girls in, that’s the only way to speed this up.” Sydney was reluctant but she agreed. Their reaction was priceless.
“Holy shit!” exclaimed Ariel “Mess much?” Robyn and I were silent. I couldn’t begin to think of how to explain things to them. There was nothing that would explain away the mess without throwing Robyn under the bus.
“Find what's yours and put it back together. I’ll explain later.” Sydney paused for a second. “Or I won’t, either way will be fine.” For twenty minutes we steadily chipped away at the mess before the knock we were expecting finally came. Sydney took a deep breath before opening the door.
“Dean Humphries. We’ve been expecting you.” He took a quick look around the room.
‘You could have fooled me! What the hell happened in here?”
“I misplaced something.” Said Sydney
“I should say. This is a strike, you know that.”
“It was valuable.” Said Sydney, slow and calculated.
“How valuable?” asked the Dean, equally slow and calculated.
“I wouldn’t want it found by someone else.” Dean Humphries eyebrows shot to the top of his forehead.
“Find it. Or that’ll be strike three for you.” Sydney didn’t argue. It was as if they were speaking in code. I wasn’t the only one who noticed. All throughout the barracks conversations were being had in whispers. Whatever just transpired between Sydney and the dean had clearly been a risk for her. We would have to make it up to Sydney. She had saved Robyn at least one strike tonight and in doing so successfully diverted Wanda from suspecting what we were really looking for. The dean turned to leave, for a brief moment it seemed as if he had forgotten the real reason he came. No such luck. He turned before reaching the door.
“Where is Miss Berkshire?”
“Over here” Said Sydney directing the dean to Robyn's cot. Robyn sat up slowly, slinging her legs over the side of the bed and groaning softly.
“You missed fourth period.”
“I’m sorry.” Responded Robyn, she paused pressing her hand against her stomach before finishing, “I feel awful. I honestly didn’t think I could make it through class.” The dean raised one suspicious eyebrow.
“Is that so?” It was more of a statement than a question. “I trust then that you will have no objection to going to see the school nurse?” Robyn groaned again, holding her breath as if her stomach would explode at any second.
“Sure.” she gasped rising slowly to leave. She took three steps forward before making an abrupt stop. She leaned forward clutching her stomach with one arm while she used the other to hold on to the wall for support. It was all I could do to stifle a laugh. Sydney must have been struggling as well because I noticed that she had turned her body completely away from the dean. From where I stood I could just make out the corners of a smile.
“I’ll walk her!” I called out. “She’s in no condition to go alone.” The dean rolled his eyes.
“Just go.” As we made our exit I stole a quick glance at Sydney, her shoulders were convulsing in silent laughter. I could just imagine her pulling it together in time to turn back around and deal with the dean, let alone the rest of the girls. We weren’t ten yards from the barracks before I burst into hysterical laughter.
“My God Robyn. Don’t quit your day job. Your acting is atrocious!”
“I know!” she howled. “That’s honest to God the first time I’ve ever really lied to someone. I have no skills!”
“And what is it exactly that you have? Montezuma's revenge? You have cramps but also your dizzy and what…constipated? You looked constipated!” We laughed all the way to the nurse's office. The nurse, if she was wise to our deception, did not let on. Instead she sent Robyn home with extra strength Tylenol , a note for the dean and three condoms.
“Condoms!” hollered Robyn. “What kind of girl do you take me for?” The nurse laughed.
“Your fifteen. You come in this door I give you a condom. I give you six condoms, ten condoms as many as I can. I don’t care if you make balloon animals out of them just as long as you take them.” This day had gone from awful to fantastic in record time. We spent the rest of the afternoon reliving Robyn’s stellar performance and making jokes about whether or not Bill could find us a do it yourself guide to making condom balloon animals.
This was the part of friendship I had forgotten about. It wasn’t all drama and feelings. There were the fun moments too. The side splitting laughter moments. Tonight when I dreamed of Chelsea I hoped it would be those things that I remembered. I was beginning to realize that I could mourn her forever without it ever changing anything. Maybe it was time to forget how things ended and remember what made her worth loving in the first place. I would do that. I promised myself I would…after I made him pay.
Chapter 11
Jordan and I were making progress, though I wished it were faster. Every training run with him was like a race. I had to fight to keep up but it was the fighting that was making me better so I couldn’t complain. I certainly wasn’t learning from his extensive arsenal of running knowledge. The boy knew nothing about form or strategy or anything else that would account for him being the highest ranked runner on the Huntley and Drake cross country team. Still I couldn’t fault his training methods. Even without any real guidance running with him made me a better runner. Maybe it was just my competitive nature but I wanted to beat him, at least once. At first I had assumed his smooth easy stride was the result of rigorous coaching. Very quickly I came to realize that Jordan could never have been coached. His answer to everything was, you have to run faster, or you have to run harder. Sometimes I asked him irritating mechanical questions just to see his reaction. For example, once I said “I read online that if you cup your hands while you run, you scoop the air away from your body, therefore making you more aerodynamic, therefore faster, is that true?” He crinkled up his nose in disgust.
“If you want to run faster then you should run faster.” It was all very simple to him. He was a natural born talent. That same type he talked about in orientation. No wonder he had never had to worry about whether or not he would make cuts. He’d have to outright fail all of his classes to get cut here. Funny thing was, he wasn’t far from it. I had never seen him study. Not once, all that time in the library was spent soaking up the wireless so he could dink around online. I asked him once about his grades. He said it was an ugly topic and we should concentrate on the running. Usually Jordan was happy to waste time listening to me ramble, but if the subject matter wasn’t something he wanted to delve into he closed up like a clam in no time. The thing was tonight I needed to talk to him. The subject matter was tricky and I figured there was about a fifty- fifty chance he would shush me immediately. The thing was there wasn’t anyone else I could ask. Ever since my talk with Sydney about finding out what was wrong with Robyn something had been bugging me. She had said that her and Robyn came from similar worlds. Yet that seemed impossible to me. From what I knew of Sydney and what I knew of Robyn there was no connection. Since her freak out Robyn and I were spending a lot more time together. At this point I felt like I knew her well. If there was a link between her and Sydney why wasn’t I picking up on it? Maybe it was none of my business but not knowing made me uneasy. I told Jordan the whole story, how Sydney had come to talk to me, how she was particularly interested in Robyn and how Robyn had gone ballistic in the barracks. Every last detail, save for the condom balloon bit. I anticipated a big reaction but I didn’t get one. I guess in barrack B a little theft and destructio
n was an everyday occurrence. We were jogging at a slow pace now. Slow enough that I could talk without having to gasp for air. After a while of no response from Jordan I probed further.
“I’m curious about Sydney. I don’t see how she could have anything in common with Robyn. They’re too different. Sydney looks like a stunt double for GI Jane while Robyn could be on the cover of Cosmopolitan.” Jordan raised his eyebrows.
“I wouldn’t go that far”
“Okay, but you know what I mean. Why would Sydney want to help Robyn. There are twenty girls in that dorm. We’re all struggling. I’d understand if they were both east coast private school girls or something but I’ve never heard Sydney mention anything like that and it just seems really, really, unlikely.”
“Sydney is definitely NOT from the east coast” replied Jordan.
“Okay, so where is she from? I want her story.”
“Why”
“Why not. She’s supposed to be our mentor yet she hardly talks to any of us. We don’t know anything about her.”
“But she did save Robyn from getting a strike and she did take care of Wanda the night she got attacked. I’m not judging you for asking but I think Sydney has done a pretty good job as a mentor.” He had a point. She hadn’t ever dropped the ball. All she was really guilty of was not being our friend. I felt stupid for asking. In my head it made sense but out loud it just came off like complaining. I guess Jordan could tell I was feeling bad because he didn’t let the silence linger for too long. “I can tell you her story if you want but you can’t tell anyone else and you can’t act different around her either.” I nodded, excited that I was finally going to find out what made Sydney tick and relieved that Jordan didn’t think I was a jerk for asking. “Prepare to have your mind blown” he said.
“Uh huh”
“Sydney is from Utah!”
“Utah?” By look on Jordan’s face it was clear that my expression demonstrated legitimate surprise. I pictured Sydney as a teenage runaway, leading some band of delinquents in a variety of illegal activities, not needle pointing in Utah. Or whatever else you do there.
“Yep, our dear Sydney came from Salt Lake City. You know, homeland of the LDS church.” I let that sink in a bit more.
“Actually” I thought. “Maybe that makes sense after all. Small pond big fish sort of thing. The way she is, I bet she stood out pretty easy.” Jordan smirked.
“Uh huh. Your right the way she is she would have stood out. But Sydney wasn’t the Sydney you’re used to back then. She was different to say the least. We should sit down. This stories good and long.” It took us a few minutes to find a bench and get settled. I still wasn’t seeing how any of this connected to Robyn. Afterall, Utah was about as far from the upper class society Robyn was from as you could get. Still, it didn’t matter. I wanted to know more about Sydney and she sure as hell wasn’t going to tell me herself.
“Define different” I asked.
“Let me put it to you this way. When I met Sydney at orientation she was wearing a cardigan. Seriously, just take a moment to picture that. Sydney in a sky blue cardigan with a sensible skirt and the prettiest blond hair I’d ever seen. It went all the way down her back. She was a complete knock-out.” Jordan was drawing lines in the dirt with his shoes. “ Everyone was into her but it didn’t matter because she wouldn’t allow herself to date anyone outside of her faith. And that’s how she put it, not me!” I got the feeling that when he said “Everyone” it included him. I knew was a little selfish but I didn’t love hearing Jordan talk about another girl that way. Even if it was in the past and even though I really had no reason to be jealous. I didn’t like him liking another girl. I got a bad feeling that I was slowly but surely growing feelings for Jordan. Feelings that were obviously going to be unrequited if he had a crush on a cardigan wearing blonde mormon. I was nothing like that nor could I magically morph into anything similar.
“Sydney has a faith?” I asked
“Sydney had a faith. She was mormon. How many of those you think there are at Huntley and Drake? I’m willing to bet she was the one and only.”
“Did this place really change her that much?” Jordan let out a long and deep breath before answering.
“This place didn’t. It’s what happened when she went home that pushed Sydney over the edge.” The tone in his voice let me know that the fun part of the conversation was over.”
“What happened at home?” Jordan wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
“It’s not really public information.”
“Oh” I replied, slightly hurt by the implied lack of trust.
“I’ll tell you.” He said “ It’s just a bit of a downer.” I wondered who it was more of a downer for Sydney, or half the boys on campus who missed her perfect hair and “sensible skirt”.
“When we were freshman students were allowed to go home for thanksgiving. Not a lot of students did though. Sydney on the other hand was looking forward to it. She was from a big mormon family, heavy on the traditions. She had been desperate to go home for weeks. She even got that job at the coffee cart just so she could save up for the plane ticket. She was supposed to be gone for a four day weekend but she came back the next night. I could tell right away something was wrong because she shut down right away. Before she left we used to sit out here and talk for hours.” Again with the jealousy. I knew Sydney never had any interest in Jordan yet it still bugged me that they were close and that he clearly wanted to be closer. “She talked about her family a lot. They basically did everything together and she missed the closeness because here, as I’m sure you’ve learned it’s difficult to know who to trust and who wants something from you. I tried talking to her right away but she hardly left the barrack all weekend. Boys can’t go into barrack A so there wasn’t much I could do. When she finally did come out she didn’t want anything to do with me. She just ate and slept and went to class. It wasn’t until a lot later that I found out what happened. When Sydney got home, there was no home left. She said she tried the key on her front door and it didn’t work. She thought maybe her family had changed the locks for safety purposes so she rang the doorbell. Only when the door opened it wasn’t her parents. Kate, they moved without telling her. All the letters she had been sending home. Not one of them went through. She knew right away that they didn’t want her to find them so she didn’t bother looking.”
“Jesus.”
“I told you it was a downer.”
“My family and I aren’t close. But, they’d never cut off communication completely. They’d at least tell me where they were going, even if I wasn’t invited to go with.” Jordan nodded.
“If that happened to you or I or just about anyone else we’d move on. We’d be angry not hurt. But Sydney was different. She loved her family and she thought they were waiting for her to come home with open arms.” Maybe this was what made Sydney and Robyn similar. Robyn had never said anything bad about her family. If she had the option to go home for Thanksgiving she probably would have taken it. Maybe Sydney was afraid that Robyn would get hurt.
“I guess that’s how her and Robyn are similar. I don’t know anyone else here that would go home if they were given the chance.” Jordan nodded.
“Maybe….” He said.
“You don’t sound like you really believe that.”
“I don’t know for sure what Sydney was referencing. But I have a pretty good suspicion.”
“Out with it!” Jordan sighed
“I can’t tell you everything you know.”
“Skip everything and start with this.” He smiled briefly.
“Kate, how much do you really know about Robyn?” I thought about the question. The truth was not much. I knew what type of guy she liked and what subjects she liked, I knew she liked expensive clothing and once sat next to Kylie Jenner at a New York fashion show. But I didn’t know much about her that she wouldn’t tell anyone who asked.
“Not too much I guess.”
“And by criminal background you mean….?”
“I mean, that's enough questions for one night. Come on, once more around the campus and I’ve got business to attend to.” I loved Jordan and all but I found his strong silent type persona very irritating. Especially since he tended to clam up whenever we started talking about anything interesting. I didn’t tell him as much, but I was planning to turn a sharp eye on both Robyn and Sydney. Whatever they had in common I wanted to know about it. Friends were supposed to get each other and thus far I hadn’t the foggiest idea what made Robyn the person she was. Sure, I could ask but let's be real, no one here told the truth especially when it came to WHY they were here.
Chapter 12
Robyn was unusually perky during lunch. Since her necklace disappeared she had been too sick with worry to eat but today she was her old self, wolfing down mac and cheese like the end of the world was coming.
“I have a plan” She declared. “And it involves you”
“I was afraid of that”
“Don’t be, it's brilliant”
“mm hmm I’ll bet. Let's hear it”
“We’re gonna steal back my necklace.”
“Riiiight, wasn’t that always the plan?”
“Yes, but now I have a strategy. An action plan if you will.” Robyn cleared the table in front of us. She stationed the salt shaker in one corner, the pepper in another and three pieces of silverware in various other locations. “This is the campus.” she said. “Salt is the art building, pepper is science and silverware represent the barracks. Ours is the fork.” I laughed.
“You know you could have told me this plan without the props. I think I could have managed to follow.”
“Shush!” Said Robyn excitedly. “I’ve been plotting this all day and you're squashing the fun.” I threw my hands up in the air.
“By all means continue.”
