by Claire Adams
“Take a chair.”
I shrugged and sat down. It wasn’t likely that Grant was going to chew me out—or at least, I hoped it wasn’t likely.
“What’s up?” I asked, trying to keep my nerves from showing. Grant leaned against the desk.
“I wanted to talk to you because I’ve been reading your papers for these past eight weeks and they’re… well, frankly, they’re well above the level you’d need to do well in this class.” I smiled, relieved; even though I knew I had done well, it was good to hear it. “If I graded on a curve, the entire class would hate you.”
“Oh come on,” I said, laughing. “I’m not that good.”
Grant nodded his head slowly. “You are. In fact, you’re so good that I wanted to ask you to consider joining the college newspaper. There’d be a little pay for it—not a lot, but enough to finance the occasional food run—and it would be a good early experience for you.”
My eyes widened at the offer. Grant wasn’t just a professor—he was the Journalism Department head and the faculty member in charge of the campus paper. I hadn’t even been aware that there were any openings.
“There’s an opening?”
Grant nodded. “We can always use news and features material. It would be a staff reporting position—nothing too major, but a way to get your feet wet. Your first few assignments would come from the editorial board, but once we know you can cut it on your own, you’ll be covering your own beat—whatever you want to write about, with editorial discretion.”
It was as good an offer as I could ever get. It wasn’t professional publishing, but if I did good work, I could eventually expect a column, maybe an editorial position to pad my resume with.
But on the other hand, a gig like that—even part time as it was—would take away from my studying. Not all of my classes were as interesting or easy as Intro to Journalism. I was hanging on to a steady high B average in Statistics—but I could slip on that easily. Math had never been my strongest subject. It was a tough choice, because as much as it could advance my career in the future, it could also screw me up—which wouldn’t look good on a resume.
“That’s… I can’t even believe it,” I said, smiling—knowing that Grant expected me to say something. “It’s a pretty big time commitment, isn’t it?”
“At first it shouldn’t take you more than a handful of hours a week. Of course, as time goes on and you prove yourself, that will change. But for right now, consider it maybe five or six hours out of your week, for research and writing.”
I thought about it. The opportunity the offer represented was a lot greater than the risk of losing a few hours per week studying.
“I’d love to,” I said, smiling at Professor Grant. He returned my grin.
“Excellent. The next meeting is in a week,” he told me. “I will add you to the email group list in the meantime, and I’ll send you log-in information for the Blackboard sub-site we use.”
I picked up my bag—now that I had made the decision, I was excited more than I was afraid. I couldn’t wait to get started. First, I had a study session in the library before my next class.
I was thinking about the opportunity, considering buying back-editions of the campus paper to get a feel for the voice—something that Grant had mentioned in passing when he did the first lecture on voice and style—while I walked to the library. All of my homework was done for my next class, but I was still struggling with a couple of things in American History and I wanted to put in an hour or so. I had reserved one of the rooms; really, for the purposes of seriously studying, it was either that or my dorm. The main part of the library was always full of people working on papers or getting tutoring—it was loud, impossible to focus.
I looked up and saw Zack walking into the library a few yards ahead of me and stopped dead in my tracks. It wasn’t so much seeing Zack—though that was plenty strange, to see him twice when I hadn’t caught sight of him at all in my first eight weeks at the college—it was seeing him going into the library that was weird. Zack had always been fairly smart, but he’d barely kept up a high C-average in high school, getting extensions on projects and assignments and taking the test under special circumstances because he was a member of the football team. The idea of him going to the library—studying, or even taking an interest in any of his classes enough to look things up for it—was beyond weird. It was like walking in on your parents having an orgy; not the kind of thing you would ever expect to see, and too shocking to actually process for a moment.
For a moment my plans weren’t changed at all; Zack was probably meeting with a tutor or something. The private study rooms were in a completely different part of the library. But I would have to go through the main areas to get upstairs to the private rooms, and there was the possibility that Zack would spot me. If he spotted me, he might talk to me. I shook my head. I shouldn’t let him break my routine; we were nothing to each other, even if he had kissed me—even if he had said he missed me. He certainly hadn’t missed me enough to put much effort into finding me at the party. I was surprised that had apparently bothered me. It shouldn’t have, and I knew it shouldn’t have. But all the same, I didn’t want to risk running into Zack. Instead of walking to the library, I turned at the fork in the sidewalk and headed back towards the dorms.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Evie, come on,” Jess said at my door, a slight whining edge to her voice. “I need a partner in crime! I need someone to talk to during the game!”
I sighed, rubbing at my face with my hands. I had managed to get my studying done, and technically I didn’t have anything left to do for the evening.
“I don’t care about the game; I don’t care about football.”
Jess rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to care about it. It’s an excuse to hang out and watch hot guys throw themselves at each other and to talk to other hot guys who are all excited by it.”
I laughed. “Put that way it sounds like we’re going to watch a gay orgy and talk to other gay guys.”
“Well, think about it however you want. But I need you to come with me.”
I tilted my head back against the footboard of my bed. “What do I get out of this?”
Jess looked at me shrewdly for a moment. “I’ll get someone to buy you a beer and I’ll help you study for the Stats midterm.”
I pouted. Jess had a natural talent for math—how, I had never been able to understand. It wasn’t that I thought she was stupid; in order to manage good grades with all of her partying, she had to be smart, but I wouldn’t have thought that math, of all subjects, would be her strong suit. She was planning to major in Physics and become either an engineer or a theorist.
“Fine. I will go with you, if you’ll help me ace the Stats midterm.” If I got an A on the midterm, I could almost—not quite, but almost—coast until it came time for finals without having to worry too much about my grades.
“Good girl! Okay, get dressed in something comfortable but cute; you never know who you’ll run into at a game.”
Jess ran off to her room to get ready, and I rummaged through my closet. Comfortable but cute. I frowned at my choices and finally settled on a skirt that came to my mid-thigh and a light sweater in the school colors. I pulled my hair back into a pony tail and changed clothes, putting a little bit of makeup on my face before Jess called to me from the common area of the dorm. “Aren’t you ready yet?”
“Coming!” I shouted back, feeling irritated already.
We walked out to Jess’s car in the student lot next to the dorms; by the time we got to the car, two other girls were waiting for us. My irritation increased. Why did Jess need me to go with her if she had two other friends already going? Admittedly, I didn’t have anything special planned for that night—I was going to hit the dining hall for some take-away dinner, and maybe stream a few episodes of Bones—but the fact that Jess had gotten me to go along with her on a lie bothered me.
Fortunately, since I was her roommate, Jess decreed tha
t I had infinite call on shotgun; the other girls piled into the back seat and we made our way to the game, blasting Beyoncé and Lorde all the way out to the stadium. The campus was huge—almost a town in itself—so with all the people headed to the game, it was slow enough to enjoy the ride. I started to relax; I had watched enough high school games as Zack’s girlfriend to know what was going on around me, and I had heard that we had a decent marching band. It could actually be an interesting evening out. It still bothered me that Jess had convinced me to come even though she didn’t really need my company, but I told myself that it was something at least that she wanted my company with her, even with the other girls she’d invited. It wouldn’t be too bad, all in all, I told myself as we pulled into the parking lot outside of the stadium.
Jess had managed to score surprisingly good tickets, and the four of us found our seats down on the lowest level of the stands, close to the band but with a good view of the game itself, too. The stadium was packed—both the rival school and our own college were out in force. The other team wasn’t from that far away—maybe a few hours—and the game was starting early in the evening, so most of the people from the other school would have plenty of time to get home. Against my better judgment, I looked around on the bench in the sidelines and spotted Zack. He looked good in full gear; but then, he had looked good in his gear in high school, too. It shouldn’t surprise me that he still looked great. I turned my attention to the band, to anything but the guy I had dated in high school, while we waited for the game to get started.
Jess was chatting up everyone around us, especially the guys; the band was playing a set of golden oldies hits, something for the alumni in the crowd to appreciate. I had grown up on the music—my mom had loved the Beatles and Motown—so I sang along under my breath, trying not to laugh at the way Jess was obviously flirting with one of the guys seated near us. Her other friends were chatting people up too, and for a moment I felt like, in spite of the fact that I didn’t really want to, I should be following their lead.
The game started and Jess at least had to pretend to be interested in it. I knew our team was decent, but as I watched, I started to actually get invested in us; I was swept up in the energy of the crowd. Near the end of the first quarter, I heard myself groan along with everyone else at the sight of the harsh tackle our QB took—and then everyone went quiet as he failed to get up right away. We all waited to see what had happened, and I felt my heart pounding. Football was a brutal sport; even in high school, with more safeguards in place than professional ball, I’d known several guys on the JV and Varsity teams alike who went out for a few games at a time due to injuries. Finally the QB got to his feet and limped off of the field, helped by one of the coaches. There was no penalty—technically the tackle had been fully legal—but it was clear from the way the quarterback was limping that he was out of the game. My heart skipped a beat as Zack walked up to the coach, nodding a few times before he put on his helmet and charged out onto the field.
“Man, that’s some bad luck,” the guy Jess was talking to said, shaking his head. “They better rally fast.”
I looked over, wondering at the comment. Jess caught me looking and shrugged.
“We have the best quarterback in the nation,” she explained to me. She turned to the guy she’d been flirting with. “It is going to be a tough climb—we’re still a few games away. We have to win this game and the next one to get to the playoffs, and that didn’t look like a minor injury.”
I nodded; I had heard that we had a great team—and that the starting QB had held the title of number one in the nation the previous two years. It was bad luck for him that he’d fallen the wrong way.
Zack huddled and the rest of the team and the crowd—me included—watched with bated breath. What was he going to do? Would he be able to take over from Saunders? I knew that Zack was a good QB; he had gotten into the school on a scholarship, and though he wasn’t a top-line pick, he was at the top of the second tier of recruits that the colleges had all looked at. It was just his bad luck that the starting QB was too valuable to sit out many games. But I knew that Zack was feeling the pressure. For a moment, I felt sympathetic towards him.
But from the first play after Zack took over—a long pass that he handled like a pro—it was clear that Zack would be just fine. He played every bit as well as the original quarterback, and I was cheering as loud, or maybe even louder, than the people around me as he went through play after play. In high school Zack had been more of a passing QB; he had a great arm, and could throw not only far but accurately. It looked like he had improved his running game since I’d last seen him on the field. I could barely pay attention to the half time show, thinking about Zack in the locker room, how psyched he must have been for the chance to prove himself. He hit the field just as hard in the second half, and I cheered as wildly as before. I had no reason to be personally gratified by the fact that Zack was doing so well, but a little part of me was warmed by the fact that the guy I had dated in high school was kicking ass on the field.
In the end, we won by a wide margin, and I almost had to sit down as everyone started to straggle and file out of the stadium seats. It had been such an exciting game, my heart had been pounding and I had cheered until I was nearly hoarse. I told Jess that I needed to use the restroom, and that I’d meet her at the gate; she nodded, barely hearing me. I went to the restroom, shaking my head at my roommate. I was glad, deep down, that she had convinced me to come to the game. I wasn’t a huge football fan, but it had been fun, and it may have been one of only a few opportunities I would have gotten to see Zack playing as a college QB; I had no doubt that the coaches and staff would work hard to get the starting QB back on the field as quickly as possible. I washed my hands and smoothed my hair before I left the restroom, making a beeline for the gate where we’d come in.
Jess wasn’t there, and neither were the other two girls who had come with us. I stood and waited; Jess was probably flirting with that guy and she’d be out soon enough once she’d made a date with him. There were some already-drunk students straggling out of the stadium, headed to parties around the campus, I was sure—probably at least one on frat row. It wasn’t that late, but I wanted nothing more than to go back to the dorms and get a shower, maybe catch an episode of one of my favorite shows on TV, and go to bed. I was tired.
While I waited for Jess to show up, the team started to come out of the stadium one by one or in pairs. They paid me no mind, talking amongst themselves and heading to the frats or their own parties. After winning such a big game, they’d all be partying it up, and I couldn’t really blame them. I called out “Good game!” to a few people, just to not look like too much of an idiot.
Zack came out of the stadium and started to walk past me, headed to the parking lot; I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to call any attention to myself, in spite of the warm fuzzy feeling I had from his success. But just like before, it didn’t matter; Zack spotted me and stopped in his tracks, smiling slowly. “I didn’t know you came to any of our games,” he said, grinning more broadly.
“First game I’ve been to,” I said, shrugging. “Jess made me come out and just my luck—you get to show off for me.” My heart was beating faster.
“Are you waiting for a ride, then?”
I shrugged. I wondered what was taking Jess so long. Normally when she flirted with a guy like the one in the stadium, she made a quick date and then was on her way. I wondered if she was making out with him in the nearly-empty seats.
“Kind of,” I said with a little smile. While it had given me a warm, fuzzy feeling to see Zack doing well, I was still uncomfortable around him.
Before I could make an excuse to go after her, or something that would help me get away from Zack, Jess came strutting out of the stadium with the guy she’d been talking to all night. Neither of the other two girls was around, and I wondered just what had happened to them.
“There you are, Evie!” The guy’s arm was around her wai
st. “Derek has this great party he wants to take me to. Can you grab a ride home? Unless you want to come with us.”
I considered going with them, but it was easy to see that it would be a party where I knew no one; Jess would go off with Derek somewhere and I’d be the sad sack in a corner nursing crappy beer and waiting for the chance to go home. Zack was still right there next to me.
“I can get you home,” he said cheerfully. Jess glanced from Zack to me and she grinned.
“A ride home from the winning QB? I’m a little jelly,” she quipped.
I bit back a retort; the last thing I wanted—or so I thought—was a lot of time alone with Zack. But for the moment, at least, it seemed like that would be a slightly better option than a strange party by myself waiting for Jess to finish hooking up with a new guy.
“Have a good time,” I said to Jess. She walked away quickly with the guy she’d taken up with for the night, headed to the parking lot and off to a party. I looked at Zack. “So, where are you parked?” Zack smiled slowly—a rueful, slightly guilty-looking smile.
“It’s… actually back at the frat,” he said.
I sighed. “Seriously? You offer a ride when your car isn’t even here?”
“Would you have hung around if I’d said my car was back at the frat?” I shook my head. “Besides, it’s not as far away as the dorms are. It’s only ten blocks.”
I looked down at my shoes. They were comfortable at least—much more so than the heels I had worn to the party the other night. I sighed. Ten blocks to the frat. It could be worse, but not much. I looked up at the sky and told myself that at least it wasn’t about to rain.
We walked back to the frat house together, and my irritation started to fade as Zack jollied me along. He hadn’t wanted to take his car to the stadium; it wasn’t that long of a walk, as he pointed out, and parking was always a nightmare. I could see his point. He was used to running several miles regularly as part of his practice and training; ten blocks was nothing to him. It was a little more than nothing to me, and by the time we arrived at the frat house, I was ready to take a break and sit down for a little bit.