by Stacey Kade
“It’s at eleven. Do you want to—” I cut myself off. “I’m walking over at ten forty-five.”
There. If she wants to walk over at the same time, fine. But I’m not being “friendly” or whatever.
“Okay,” she says.
When I return from the shower, I half expect her to have vanished again, but instead her bed is made for the first time, with a brightly colored patchwork quilt and two fluffy pillows. That must have been what she brought in her backpack.
So she went home last night? I don’t know exactly where her family lives in Ashmore, but evidently it’s not far, or she has a car.
Lexi slings a towel over her shoulder and grabs a bar of soap, a bottle of shampoo, and a disposable razor from inside her closet. “Give me ten minutes,” she says, heading for the door.
I think that might count as a civil conversation. Wow.
What could have happened between yesterday and today to change that? Never mind—I don’t care. Lack of open hostility is a low bar for a roommate relationship, but I’ll take it.
• • •
“We have a ninety-two-percent job placement rating after graduation, so you have that to look forward to.” The head of Admissions pauses, clearly waiting for cheers or shouts or even tepid applause.
But she’s twenty minutes into a speech—with accompanying PowerPoint on a portable screen—about why Ashmore was a great choice. Something I think we all already know, because we’ve chosen to be here. There are a thousand of us crammed into two sets of floor-to-ceiling bleachers—no sign of Liam yet, as far as I can tell—and, for whatever reason, the air-conditioning isn’t on.
So by conservative estimate it’s approximately nine hundred degrees in here. A good percentage of my fellow freshmen are asleep, and it’s starting to smell rank.
“It’s hot!” someone calls from below us.
Flustered, the Admissions lady pushes up her glasses. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s a little warm. We’re working on fixing that.” She looks nervously toward the troupe of student admissions counselors, dressed in Ashmore blue shirts, who are standing off to one side, waiting for her to finish her presentation to begin the “fun.” As if she expects them to handle either the air-conditioning issue or the heat-induced riot that may be in the offing.
Next to me, Lexi exhales sharply in annoyance, shifting in her seat. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see that she’s piled her still-wet hair on top of her head in a topknot, but she, like everyone else, is fanning herself. Only it has to be worse for her, because she’s still wearing her boots instead of flip-flops like the rest of us.
On the way over, I kept expecting Lexi to break away without warning. Like, I’d look up and there she would be, cutting across the quad in the opposite direction, for reasons I couldn’t discern. But she stuck with me the whole way, with most of our floormates clambering down the stairs at about the same time. Minus Tory, who was, presumably, passed out in her room or too hungover to get up.
“This is ridiculous,” Lexi says under her breath.
Feeling fairly certain this was directed at me, I respond. “I know. I don’t know why they didn’t—”
Lexi stands up.
My mouth falls open. “What are you—”
Without a word of explanation, she squeezes past everyone to the end of the row and then begins clomping down the stairs, with no attempt to quiet her footsteps. Heads turn in her direction, but it doesn’t seem to faze her.
Is she leaving? If so, others might follow her. We were warned not to interrupt the presentation for bathroom breaks or phone calls, except in cases of “extreme emergency.” No one said anything about leaving due to contempt. Or heatstroke.
“We have . . . we, uh . . .” The Admissions lady stumbles over her words, her attention caught by Lexi, who has now reached the bottom of the bleachers. “We have a fully staffed career center with resources available to you, starting now if you want to get a jump on it.” Her slide features a GIF of a girl jumping rope.
But I don’t think anyone is fully appreciating the pun or the idea that we’re supposed to start worrying about our career prospects four years before graduation, because they’re too busy watching Lexi stroll across the gym floor.
She pushes through the doors leading deeper into the athletic center, and they slam shut after her, the noise echoing.
It sets off a wave of nervous giggling. Ayana is two rows below me, and I can sense her disapproval by the way her neck is craned in the direction Lexi went.
The head of Admissions labors on for another couple of slides, and then the door opens again and Lexi returns. Once more she casually walks across the gym floor in front of two thousand-plus eyes, like it’s nothing.
When she’s about halfway back to the bleachers, the huge air-conditioning units kick on with a roar, and everyone cheers like our team just scored the winning basket. Probably the reaction Admissions lady wanted for her 92-percent statistic.
And Lexi, in the face of Ayana’s disapproval, is sporting a mocking, pleased-with-herself smirk as she climbs the stairs.
“Did you do that?” I ask when she sits again. “The air-conditioning?” I don’t wait for her to answer, because it can’t be a coincidence. “How did you do that?”
“It’s Sunday; the air-conditioning isn’t programmed to come on. When they realized it was off, they probably called the main physical plant office,” she says.
I don’t know what a physical plant is, but calling its office was clearly the wrong move.
“It’s closed on Sundays,” she adds. “Which Admissions would know if they actually paid attention. Plus, physical plant won’t do anything without a signed requisition.”
“So what did you do?” I can’t imagine it’s as simple as finding the thermostat on the wall somewhere in the building and flipping the switch.
“Used the building phone to call Jerry, the security guard. He has access to the environmental controls for the basketball team’s weekend practices.”
Around us, people are chattering and laughing like kids dancing in an open stream of water from a fire hydrant. The Admissions lady has virtually given up, racing through her last slides while no one pays attention.
I stare at Lexi.
“It’s dumb. They should have been prepared if they were going to stuff us in here,” she says.
“But how did you know to do that?” I’m still trying to remember where the buildings are on campus. Lexi seems to know that and a whole lot more.
She’s silent for a long moment, rubbing the edge of her boot on the underside of the bench in front of her. “Because my dad works here. He’s on the janitorial and groundskeeping staff. Technically, a maintenance engineer.” Her fingers move in sarcastic air quotes around the word “engineer.” “My dad’s been cleaning up Ashmore shit my whole life,” she says tightly, staring at an undefined point in the distance.
Now I kind of see why she might not want to be here.
“It looks like they’re breaking us up into groups.” Lexi stands.
I glance down and, with a sinking heart, see that she is correct. Our classmates—still no Liam—are heading to the gym floor, where the blue-shirted student admissions counselors are divvying them up, like Best Buy salespeople diverting customers into cashier lines at Christmas.
This whole thing reeks of icebreakers.
Lexi starts down the stairs, only to pause. “Are you coming or what?” she asks.
“Yes!” I get up and follow her down the steps to the gym floor, relieved that if I have to do this, at least I’m not alone. The crowd is so loud, it’s reached the point of sounding like nothing but white noise. No individual voices, no individual people, just a teeming mass of humanity. It makes me feel like I can’t breathe. More of that highly sensitive–person stuff, Wegman would say, I’m sure.
Forcing myself to focus, I stand on my tiptoes, searching for the top of Liam’s head.
“What are you looking for?” Lexi asks, lean
ing closer so I can hear her.
“I . . . a friend from high school,” I say, raising my voice. “He goes here too. We promised we’d meet up today. . . .”
Okay, that’s technically a lie, but he implied as much, didn’t he?
Lexi arches her eyebrows in question.
“We weren’t super close, but his friends were friends with my friends, and we used to hang out together.” The words dribble out, and I can’t seem to stop them. “Julie and Elena and Felicity and I—” I clamp my mouth shut. Lexi isn’t stupid, and I have a giant Felicity poster hanging on one of our walls.
But she just shrugs. “Good luck.”
I realize belatedly that her skepticism wasn’t about me having friends—duh, Caroline—but about my ability to find someone in this crush. She’s right; it’s impossible with so many people milling around.
I try not to let my disappointment show. It’s one day. So what? Liam and I are on campus together. We’ve spoken and made tentative plans to speak again. I’m way ahead of the game.
As soon as Lexi and I reach the front of the line, we’re assigned numbers—she’s a three and I’m a four—and then we’re shuffled off to separate groups.
My group turns out to be three other girls and one guy. The guy, wearing plaid shorts and a pale pink polo shirt with the collar popped, insists on shaking my hand. “I’m Derek. We’re going to win this thing.” He squeezes my fingers too hard.
“Yes!” One of the other girls calls out, her fist pumping in agreement.
They are really into this. That is not a good sign.
The other girls introduce themselves as Beth, Hazel, and Dara. Beth and Hazel seem to know each other—they’re whispering. Dara is the one who shouted in agreement with Derek. She’s flipping her hair behind her shoulders repeatedly, and she and Derek are doing that thing where they’re flirting by holding eye contact for a few seconds too long.
“It says here our first task is to name ourselves,” Derek says, reading a half sheet of paper provided by one of the student admissions counselors.
Beth and Hazel immediately tilt their heads together and whisper—again—and Dara looks thoughtful.
“No, wait, guys, I’ve totally got this,” Derek says. He waits until we’re looking at him expectantly. Then he says, “Ash-holes.” He puts the word out there, like he’s handing us a giant gift. “Boom,” he adds, in case it’s not clear how world-shatteringly genius this idea is.
Dara nods immediately. “I love it!”
Beth and Sofie don’t seem convinced, though, and neither am I.
“But we’re calling ourselves assholes,” I point out.
Derek makes an exasperated noise. “It’s a play on words, Carolyn. Duh.”
It’s Caroline. “Yeah . . . I mean, I know, but it . . . it’s a play on words that still—”
“Are we ready?” Derek asks. “Step two.”
“—calls us assholes,” I finish, and everyone ignores me. Whatever.
“We’re supposed to find two other teams, introduce ourselves, and play Shoe Mingle,” he says. He looks around, and then shoves the paper at Dara. “Here.”
A few seconds later, he comes back triumphantly, leading two other teams of five. They’re the Molehills and the Sleepy Cardigans.
“We’re the Ash-holes,” Derek announces.
It gets a couple of snickers, but that’s it.
I swallow a sigh. It’s not like I was expecting this to be awesome, but the chance to meet people who might want to be friends would be nice.
Dara reads the instructions aloud. Everyone has to take one shoe off and put it in a pile with the others in the middle. Then we’re supposed to grab a shoe from the pile—one that is not ours—and search for the match on its owner’s foot.
That, at least, won’t involve a lot of pressure or even small talk beyond “Hey, here’s your shoe.”
Except once we’ve got our shoes in the requisite pile, Derek, living up to our name, has to take it one step further. “First team with all their shoes back wins! Go!”
It’s immediately chaos and people shrieking, throwing themselves at the shoe pile and running away with flip-flops in upraised hands.
I step back automatically, away from the wildly flailing limbs. No. Just no. I refuse to enter this version of the freaking Cornucopia from The Hunger Games.
When Beth slips and wipes out on the floor, several student counselors rush over to help her up. “Hey, hey, guys, we need to calm it down over here, okay?”
But Derek chucks my flip-flop at me from where he’s apparently wrested it away from someone else’s hands and lifts his fists in victory. “We win!”
I put my shoe on, and both the Molehills and the Sleepy Cardigans walk away hating the Ash-holes. I don’t blame them.
The second game is even worse. Grandma’s Root Cellar. According to the instructions, we’re supposed to go around in a circle, each adding food items to “Grandma’s root cellar” in alphabetical order, after reciting all the items that came before our turn and the name of the person who added them.
“So, like, Beth puts apples in Grandma’s root cellar. Hazel puts bananas in Grandma’s root cellar,” Dara says. “Easy enough.”
Despite the air-conditioning now blasting overhead, my palms are sweating. I wipe them on the sides of my shorts.
Derek returns with two new groups to play with us—the Pussy Bandits and the Delinquents, neither of which must have been close enough to see how the first icebreaker went down with the Ash-holes.
Lexi is on the Delinquents, and with her arms folded across her chest and her eyebrows drawn together in a scowl, she looks about as thrilled with this as I feel.
Which makes me feel slightly better.
Never trust anyone who likes icebreakers. If that’s not on a bumper sticker or fridge magnet yet, it should be.
We arrange ourselves into a circle, and through either my bad luck or his conviction that I need more help, I end up right next to Derek.
The only positive is that I get B the first time through. But the alphabet is twenty-six letters long and there are only fifteen of us, so . . . this is coming back around again.
The problem is, I’m so busy trying to keep track of who is saying what that I don’t have a chance to think ahead to what my letter will be the next time.
And it’s Q, which I realize too late as Derek rattles off the whole list, adding “peppers.”
Everyone looks to me, and my brain immediately goes blank. I can’t think of anything except “quiet, queen, quite, quote.” Nothing you can eat.
“Start with what you remember,” Dara calls from across the circle, trying to be encouraging.
“Come on, come on,” Derek urges me impatiently. It’s not even like there’s a timer or that the Ash-holes will win, as we’re playing together. He just doesn’t want “his” team to fall apart, apparently.
“I . . . um . . .” Under their scrutiny I can feel heat spreading up my neck. “D-D-Derek put apples in Grandma’s root cellar; I put bananas in Grandma’s root cellar.”
By some miracle—and with some kind whispers from the other teams—I make it to Q. But I still don’t have an answer. To my horror, tears burn in my eyes. I’m not going to cry over this. I’m not.
“ ‘Kumquat,’ ” Derek says, throwing his hands up in the air, his complexion blotchy with frustration. “Say ‘kumquat.’ ”
At this point, though, it’s too late. I can’t say anything, my voice curling up in my throat like a small animal hiding.
“Hey, asshole.” Lexi speaks up, taking care to emphasize her words. “Leave her alone. And ‘kumquat’ starts with a k.”
I blink, my lashes damp with barely repressed tears. She’s right, of course. A surge of gratitude washes over me.
“It does not,” he retorts.
“It does,” she says without hesitation. “Look it up.”
A shadow of doubt crosses his face. “I don’t have to. And it doesn’t matter an
yway,” he says, turning his attention back to me. “Say something that starts with q, anything!”
“I said, leave her alone.” Lexi stands and crosses the circle to stand near me.
“This is none of your business,” he snaps, getting to his feet. “She’s not even on your team!”
Lexi leans in, unintimidated. “I wouldn’t want to be on your team. And she’s my roommate.”
He looks her up and down and makes a dismissive noise. “Right.”
I don’t even know what that means, but suddenly Lexi is shoving him. Actually shoving him.
The student counselors hurry over again, and this time, I recognize one of them: Jordan.
He steps between Lexi and Derek, his hands up to keep her from going after Derek again. “Stop. What’s going on here?”
“She’s a bitch,” Derek snarls.
Jordan’s gaze, though, never leaves Lexi. “Lex, are you okay?”
Oh. The softness in his voice says there’s history of some kind between them—that’s why he was asking about her—but Lexi can barely look at him.
“Do you need—” he begins.
Lexi pushes his hands away. “Don’t call me that,” she says in a low voice. “This guy is screaming at people.” She points to Derek.
“I was not,” Derek says, indignant.
“Take it down a notch, buddy,” Jordan says sharply. He touches Lexi’s arm, barely more than a graze, but Lexi stiffens like he made a grab for her chest.
“Don’t.” She spins away from him, marching across the circle and toward the double doors on the opposite side of the gym.
“Lexi!” he calls after her, sounding defeated.
“I said, don’t!”
The rest of us stare at one another on the floor, not sure what to make of this unexpected drama.
Derek glares at Jordan. “She’s just some trash charity case who—”
Jordan turns around and grabs his shirt collar. “Finish that sentence,” he says. “I dare you.”
Derek’s face turns pink, but he snaps his mouth shut. Then Jordan pushes past him and walks away. In the opposite direction of Lexi.
After a brief hesitation, I get up and hurry after Lexi. We’re not friends, but she got into the fight because of me, coming to my defense. Making sure she’s okay is my responsibility.