Trip the Light Fantastic

by Nicole Bea

  Nicole Bea

  Trip the Light Fantastic

  Copyright © 2021 by Nicole Bea

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  First edition

  Cover art by Lucy Rhodes

  Editing by Jennia Herold d'Lima

  This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

  Find out more at reedsy.com

  “Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.”

  - Voltaire

  Chapter 1

  The air in Patrick’s Cove smells like dead fish, sea salt, and burnt rubber. The first two come from its proximity to the ocean. The latter stems from Huxley Barton’s souped-up old Honda that he likes to race down the empty highway against nobody in particular. It’s the kind of scent you get used to if you live here, and you notice if you don’t. It’s also the aroma you think about when you’re packing up to leave for university an hour away, trying to breathe in the memory of home while being excited about everything that’s to come.

  However, smells have lost their potency for me in the last few months. Maybe it’s because Brandon cheated on me at our grade twelve graduation party with my best friend, Amy. Maybe it’s because the two of them ditched me for the summer. And maybe, on top of that, it’s because a horrible July led to a terrible and lonesome August filled with ruined vacation plans, no boyfriend, no best friend, and nobody to help me pick my courses and to share in the excitement of moving out and going to university.

  The gauzy curtains of my girlish bedroom blow in the wind, that familiar aroma blowing around my room in such a way that I barely notice it. I’ve just shoved the last of my clothes into my second suitcase, stuffed between all the other things in my room I figure I’ll need while I’m away. I know I’m not going very far, but fifty-five minutes away from home is long enough that Mom and I decided that I could get a dorm at the school so I could focus on my French and Criminology majors.

  Zipping the red bag closed, I look around the room one final time. It’s full of memories, things that remind me of high school—though the things that remind me of Brandon and Amy have since been hidden in the back of my closet—but they aren’t things I’m going to need at Bedford University. I’m going to be a different person once I get there. I’m ready to meet new people. Even though some of my classmates will undoubtedly be from here, I hope that I look different enough that they won’t recognize me with my bleached hair and a new wardrobe thanks to my well-paying summer job at the Strawberry Rhubarb Restaurant.

  There’s a little knock at my door, and Mom pokes her head in. “Ready to go? I think I remember you saying that Frosh Week starts today at four. Don’t want to be late signing up for activities and meeting the other new students.”

  I bite the rough skin of my chapped lips as the idea of being alone in Bedford hits me hard. They taste a bit like the way the air smells, and I reach for a tube of my favorite lip balm on the dresser that I almost forgot to stick in the pocket of my jean shorts.

  “Yeah, this is the last bag.” I nod toward the suitcase as I uncap the balm and spread it over my lips. No matter how much I put on, it never seems to last.

  “Oh good, and I put the rest of your stuff in the car.” She gives me an excited—but anxious—smile. “Are you excited?”

  There’s a little skip in my heart as I try to figure out whether I’m more excited about going to university or getting away from Patrick’s Cove and no longer passing by Amy’s house every day on the way to work. It could equally be both, so I nod. “Yeah, I think so. I’m a little nervous too, I guess.”

  “That’s normal,” Mom replies, crossing the room to pick up my final bag. “You’ll be a mess like me until you get to your room and then I bet you’ll be making friends at the welcome events in no time. They’ll probably even give you special shirts or something so everyone knows you’re new and to welcome you.”

  The idea of being able to be picked out as new is horrifying, and I vow not to make myself a potential target for any freshman jokes. I don’t need to be obvious; I just want to blend in for a little while until I can figure out how to get out of my comfort zone.

  Mom doesn’t give me a chance to respond before she carries the bag out of the bedroom and calls over her shoulder, “Come on, Chelsea, say goodbye to your bedroom! You won’t see it again until Thanksgiving!”

  Thanksgiving. The holiday might as well be forever away. Forever in a good way. Maybe by Thanksgiving, I’ll be reformed into a person who doesn’t even remember who Brandon and Amy are and doesn’t care that they ruined my last summer of childhood freedom.

  “Bye, room.” I whisper the words under my breath, looking around one last time at the bed, the now-empty dresser, and the floaty curtains hanging next to the open window. For a moment, memories cascade through my head: Dad installing the curtain rod and it falling on his head, the dresser leaving a mark on the doorframe as we tried to squeeze it through in ninth grade, and that little bed that never quite fit both me and Mom when I’d have nightmares as a kid. I’m leaving it all behind for a different room now, different memories. Mom calling my name from the other end of the house tears me away, and I step out of the room onto the faded hardwood of the hallway.

  The yellow wallpapered walls are lined with photographs of me as a baby and Mom when she was my age. They continue all along the corridor to the steps by the front door, and I shove a pair of espadrilles on my feet before I head out into the early September sunshine. Mom’s already got my last bag in the trunk, she’s in the driver’s seat, and the vehicle is running. It might look like she’s trying to get rid of me as fast as possible, but I know that isn’t true. Mom’s a crier, and I know she’s going to have tears at least once before she drives back home.

  “Alright, let’s get this show on the road.” She shifts the old Santa Fe into gear and the tires crunch on the gravel as we turn around in the wide driveway toward the old road to town. I’m really doing this. I’m really going to university to study the very thing I always wanted to study ever since I started watching Crime Scene Mysteries when I was in grade seven.

  As we turn away from the house and take a left, there’s a pang inside my chest. It’s almost as if the town, and my heart, know I’m leaving Patrick’s Cove behind. There’s happiness inside the feeling, but a sense of sadness too, knowing that I’m leaving Mom alone.

  The ocean stays visible for half the drive into town, the sparkling blue like large diamonds on top of the water, while the wild blueberry bushes are tinged with red along the rocky hills that lead to the cove. I watch them roll by as we zip through small villages on the way to Bedford, the area getting gradually more and more populated until the water disappears, and houses line the road instead of scenery. Soon after that, the small houses with large yards turn to large houses with small yards, the streets narrow, and Mom’s navigating around Bedford on roads originally meant for horses in a vehicle meant for the country.

  We arrive at Bedford University at four on the dot, the Santa Fe’s clock switching over to the new hour as we pull into a side parking lot. This is perfect because I don’t want to be the first person to show up to any of the activities that are listed in the orientation e
mail the Frosh Week organizer sent me a few days earlier. I’d much prefer browsing on my own time, to watch the more extroverted people participate. Then I can decide how far out of my comfort zone I want to go in making new friends.

  “I have to pick up my keys from the front desk,” I say to Mom before she can make a note about how I’m not going to have time to make it to whatever the first activity is. However, even after my statement, I don’t move from the car, though I do manage to unbuckle my seatbelt.

  “Well, go on in then, I’ll wait here. Probably don’t want your mother poking around at your new school on your very first day. I remember what you were like the first day at high school. Didn’t even want me to drop you off by the front door.”

  I give Mom a little half-smile, remembering that day with the kind of fogginess that rolls in many winter mornings in the Cove. Like the memory is there, but only half visible. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  I hop from the SUV and try to situate myself, hoping that I’ll remember where everything on campus is based on the tour I took back in the spring. I know the building in front of me is the family dorms, but there’s a long, covered corridor that leads to a separate building-Harris-which is where I’ll be staying. The stout, brick building stands surrounded on one side by a grove of tall trees, and I hope that my room is one of those overlooking them instead of the football field. I’m excited to be here but my nerves are acting up, and my stomach is doing little cartwheels to remind me that this is my new home for the next few years and I won’t have my familiar gauzy curtains or dented doorway.

  Walking with as much purpose as I can muster, I cross the parking lot and walk along the outside of the pedway toward the entrance to the Harris Building. I’m just about to pull the handle to go inside when a tall, handsome, dark-haired boy nearly smashes me with the door. He’s looking down at his phone, clearly not paying any attention, and frowning. I can’t help but look at him—the way his body moves with a dancer’s grace, and the rustle of his hair in the gentle breeze as the door swings open.

  I launch myself out of his way, crashing into a thorny bush lining the pathway. The prickles dig into my bare legs, and I know I’m going to have a bunch of little cuts.

  “Um, hello?” The words blurt from my mouth, and I immediately regret my annoyed tone because the boy looks up and has the most gorgeous pale blue eyes I’ve ever seen. I find myself swimming in them as he stares at me with what looks like concern, like I’ve been underwater for my whole life and now I’m just coming up for air and can finally breathe again.

  I’ve never seen a boy like him before-lithe but muscular, broad-shouldered, long legs. I’m used to Huxley and Brandon and the other boys from Patrick’s Cove, which there aren’t that many of anyway.

  “Aw, shit—sorry. I didn’t even see you. Are you okay?” His words break me from my state of intoxication, and I take a step out from the brambles.

  “I’m fine. Just, maybe these bushes shouldn’t be here, you know? Especially with a bunch of distracted students around. Someone’s going to get hurt.” I try my best to sound like I’m joking, and for a second, I think I’ve made the wrong choice because he doesn’t react. Maybe he can’t tell that I was making a joke.

  We stand there in awkward silence for a moment before the boy smiles, his expression somewhat amused as he raises an eyebrow at me, his blue eyes sparkling like the ocean. “I’ll be sure to pass on your message to whoever is responsible. You must be new.”

  I’m not wearing one of the telltale shirts Mom suggested might be a thing, and I thought I was doing a good job at not being conspicuous. Yet I’ve only been on campus for thirty seconds and this guy’s already pegged me as a freshman. So much for flying under the radar.

  “What gave it away?” I ask, feeling my cheeks burn red.

  “Your walk.”

  “My what?”

  “Your walk,” he repeats, as if that’s going to clarify what he means. “Like, the way you’re marching along trying to make it look like you have somewhere to go. Classes haven’t even started yet, so you walking like you’re on some kind of mission makes me think that you’re trying to blend in. Also, you didn’t avoid the bush.”

  I silently curse the stupid prickly thing behind me and my idea that if I ‘walked with purpose’ then I might look like I know this campus like the back of my hand. Breathing out a sigh, I respond, “You’ve got me. Just moving in. Trying to figure out where to go to pick up my key. I’m in Harris.”

  “Inside, to the right in the pedway. There’s a desk and an office for residence services.”

  “Thanks, uh…” I trail off, realizing that I don’t know his name in order to thank him.

  He smiles again, a dimple forming on his cheek. “Lux. Senior, French major.”

  “Chelsea. Freshman, hopeful double major in Criminology and, er, also French.”

  “Ambitieuse?” His accent is practiced, and the French word for ‘ambitious’ comes from deep in his throat.

  “Un petit peu.” I shrug. I’m a little ambitious, but with my near-perfect grades all through high school, I’m pretty sure I can manage two majors in four years.

  Lux opens his mouth to say something, maybe in French again, when I hear the familiar footsteps of my mother’s clog shoes coming across the cobblestone walkway. She’s dragging my suitcase behind her with my duffle bag perched on top, my new Paris-patterned bed-in-a-bag on her arm. The wheels make a click-clack noise as they bump along the rocks, and I silently beg her to realize that I’m talking to someone and not to say anything. But of course, being my mother, she doesn’t read my mind.

  “Chelsea! Come take this, please. I thought you got lost.”

  The dull heat that was in my cheeks now feels like someone turned an electric stove on in my face; there’s no hiding my embarrassment at my mom hauling her way across the back of the building carrying all of my things. My Paris bedding seems a little too on the nose and childish now that I’ve talked to Lux, and I wish that I’d bought something a little more grown-up.

  “Your mom?” Lux offers me a gentle smile like he’s trying to calm my obvious anxiousness.

  I push a lock of hair behind my ear as I watch Mom get the wheel of my suitcase caught in a rut, the whole thing tumbling over on its side. “Yeah. I should go. Thanks for directing me.”

  “See you around, maybe.”

  Lux barely has time to finish his sentence before I take off, rushing over to Mom while attempting to wipe the stupid half-grin and crimson glow from my face.

  “Who was that? Did you get your key?” Mom places the plastic bag with the blankets in it on the ground as she rights the suitcase and adjusts the duffle bag on top.

  “Nobody, and no-I wasn’t sure where to go. But now I do. Inside, to the right in the pedway. There’s a desk and an office for residence services.” I repeat Lux’s instructions to her, picking up the bed-in-a-bag and hoisting it over my shoulder before I look up toward the doors leading inside. I secretly hope that Lux is still there so I can get another glimpse of him, but when I look up, he’s gone.

  “Okay, let’s get this in your room.”

  My room. Right. But what if I run into someone equally as attractive, or more attractive, than Lux? What if Lux wanted to help me take my things to my room? What if nobody else on my floor has their parent with them and I look like a little kid?

  “On second thought, Mom, I think I’ve got it.” Embarrassed, I reach for the handle of my suitcase, brushing her fingers with my own as they meet on the black plastic. “You don’t have to worry about dragging all my things in. I’ll probably just throw them in the room and then take a walk or something anyway.”

  Mom bites her lip, and I worry for a moment that I’ve upset her. “If you’re sure, Chelsea. I don’t want to get in the way of this new experience.”

  “You’re not in the way,” I correct her, trying to ease the sudden awkwardness that’s appeared. “I just, I don’t know. This feels like the right time for me
to go. Maybe you could take a picture for your friends of me walking into the building for the first time? You can even tag me in it if you want.”

  Mom’s face brightens. She loves posting on social media and connecting with her family who lives on the other side of the country. “Oh, I’d like that. What a lovely idea.”

  She pulls her phone from the cross-body purse slung over her, fumbling with it for a few seconds before she has it on the right screen. I used to try to help her out with it, but she likes to figure things out on her own. So she says, anyway.

  “Okay, Chelsea, pull your bag into your side a little bit and smile. I want to get all your gear in the photo too. I bet Nana will find it funny to see all the luggage you’re bringing with you.”

  “It’s only two bags…” I tug the suitcase into my side as directed and flash a smile at the camera.

  “Three, two, one, click!” Mom smiles down at the screen. “It’s perfect, I’ll post it later, after we say goodbye. But for now, come give me a hug. I’ll let you go so you can get your things set up and maybe run into that cute boy again. I bet he gave you his number, didn’t he?”

  “Mom!” The fading heat in my face flares up again, probably giving me away.

  “I’m just kidding. You be safe, okay? I’ll miss you very much. The house won’t be the same without you, but you’re going to do great here. You’re going to make so many friends and learn all kinds of great things and become the woman I know you’re meant to be.”

  Mom’s eyes look a little misty at this point in her pep talk, and I bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from welling up at the same time. I haven’t been without Mom for this long ever, and my anxiety is rushing over me like a wave at the idea of being alone. What if I get lost? What if I don’t make any friends? What if I fail?

  “Chelsea, honey, I know your brain is going a million miles a second. Just remember that this is a new opportunity for you. You can be whoever you want. But most importantly, just remember to be you, okay? Even if you have blonde hair now.” Mom chuckles, but the sound is broken up in her throat as she reaches out for me. I collapse into her hug, leaving my luggage behind, and breathe in the scent of her rosewater perfume and the leftover smell of the ocean.