The Long Winter #2
Orientation part 2
The Cleveland Concert Hall made the most of its location on Lake Superior. Rippling stained glass in blue, black, and white climbed the back of the ivory band shell to a ceiling styled to mimic the waves and clouds of the November gales rushing across the vast lake beyond. The rest of the hall’s ceiling matched the stained glass’ severe dark blue and black and silver, another stylistic choice that suited both its location and the official colors of the two learning institutions sharing it. Penny sat with perhaps a hundred other students, a seemingly equal number of boys and girls, arranged in alphabetical order in the plush, blue velvet seats facing the stage. Maddie was all the way in the front. Clark was in a middle row near the aisle. To her right was a tall boy with long, wavy hair who ignored her presence named Sneidlewski, and to her right was a girl with soft platinum hair and a delicate nose hiding behind thick, horn-rimmed glasses and a cashmere sweater two sizes too big named Stewart.
Orientation went quickly. The Institute’s president, a thin man with graying hair and sharp eyes named Alistair Crowley, gave them a short welcome speech and exhorted them to work their hardest. Miss Paula and the boys’ wing Residence Directer Mr. Kenneth, an equally severe-looking young man with more mischief in his eyes than Miss Paula, then covered a few of the more important rules (no boys or girls in the other’s wing overnight, no drugs, no leaving the campus, meaning the Institute and University together, without informing someone, and things of that nature). There were drivers available at nearly all hours. The security staff worked with private security and had an umbrella that covered most of the county. They were then encouraged to explore the campus and join any interesting student organizations. With that, they were released.
Penny watched Maddie greet Clark and they walked away without even looking at her. All right then. The two on either side vanished as well, so Penny decided to take Miss Paula’s advice and left the concert hall for the University campus. She wandered into Harden University and its densely packed academic buildings, all stone structures in a very formal Collegiate Gothic style set around a landscaped and immaculately trimmed academic mall. On this sunny summer day, the mall was home to tables and booths set up by the myriad student groups that kept the students of both the Institute and the University busy when they were not studying. There were artists’ groups and intramural sports. Some of the University teams were holding tryouts for empty slots on their Division I teams. Members of a book club in long sleeves and pants and glasses beseeched passers-by to join them to enrich their academic journey. Edgier students at a rival club jeered them in a passive-aggressive way and Penny passed by both without making eye contact with any of their members. She did make eye contact with the cute girl behind the manga and anime club’s table, only to earn a glare as a response. She frowned and continued on, smoothing her hands over her flowery sundress—
“Damn, girl, you look fine as hell.”
Penny gave a start and looked over. A dark-skinned young man with a winning smile, a shaved head, and the shadow of a beard across his chin stepped near her.
“You here alone?”
Penny glanced behind him. Another young man stood nearby with a camera phone in a motion control cradle trained on them. She giggled nervously and sidestepped to keep this dashing young man between her and the internet.
“I am.”
“You got no boyfriend?”
Penny laughed and shook her head. “No, no boyfriend.”
“Fine as hell girl like you, and you got no boyfriend. That’s probably the way to do it when you come to college. You a freshman?”
“Yes.”
“You looking for a boyfriend?”
“No.”
“Really? You’re going to be breaking some hearts, you know.”
Penny did not notice the cameraman sweep to their side.
“I don’t want to break hearts. I want to study hard.”
“So serious! You must be a Gravenreuth baby!”
“I am! How did you guess?”
“I’ve gotten good at this sort of thing. You know, most of your lady classmates are there for their MRS degrees.”
“What’s that?”
The dashing young man laughed. “MRS, like Mrs, you know? Like a married lady?”
Penny laughed, and then she glanced over at the cameraman and her breath caught.
“I’m not going to be online, am I?”
“You got something against it?”
“Not exactly, but I don’t really want to be online.”
“No problem,” the man made a slashing gesture at his cameraman and he lowered the phone and prodded its screen.
“You want me to delete it?” he asked.
The man with the smile looked at Penny.
“Tell you what, let’s finish this interview, and then if you don’t like it we’ll get rid of the footage.”
Penny looked at that phone. He was not spying on her. And she was not in the midst of physical intimacy in her bedroom. She looked back at the man with the smile and smiled back.
“What’s the point of this interview?” she asked.
“It’s just a study thing, like a social work study. I’m interviewing random students to see what their goals are, with a specific focus on relationships.”
“That’s why you asked me if I had a boyfriend?”
“Well, that and you caught my eye.”
They shared a laugh. Penny glanced again at the cameraman.
“Okay,” she said with a nod. “You can interview me.”
“Great!”
The cameraman began recording once again.
“What’s you’re name?”
“Penny.”
“Penny, I’m Jimmy, but my friends call me Maxwell.”
Penny laughed, and so did the cameraman.
“So you ain’t up here to find a boyfriend, or husband or whatever. What you majoring in?”
“Robotics.”
“Damn, cute and smart! I can see why you planning on staying single, I bet you have a bright future ahead of you!”
“I hope so!”
“But you know, if you were looking for a boyfriend, what sort of things would you be looking for?”
“I wouldn’t be, though.”
“Why not?”
“I like girls.”
“Oh shit, a lesbian!”
“Is that bad?”
“Hell no, it’s not bad! But it is a surprise! That dress and them sandals are cute as hell, I did not pick up your vibe at all!”
Penny giggled nervously and glanced at the cameraman. The dashing man laughed and continued on seamlessly.
“So what do you look for in a girl?”
“A girl?”
“Yeah. There got to be traits you’re looking for.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like, do you like a tall girl? A rich girl? You look and sound vaguely Asian, you like other Asian girls?”
Penny laughed. “Well, my girlfriend back home was Asian, but I wasn’t drawn to her for that reason. She was… well, she was mysterious, and I suppose if I look back it was exciting trying to figure out if she liked me enough to go out with me.”
“She sent you mixed signals.”
“Lots and lots of mixed signals!”
“Gay or straight, girls like some adventure!”
“I love adventure!”
“Where you from?”
“Port Matthew.”
“A good place to be from if you’re the adventurous type!”
A shout cut off the laugh they shared.
“What are you doing?” A Chinese boy stepped into their midst, his hair disheveled, his t-shirt and jeans ill-fitting. “Don’t humor her! She shouldn’t even be here!”
“Shouldn’t be here?” Maxwell looked at Penny. “You got a visa?”
Penny nodded.
“Then yeah, you should be here.”
“That’s not the point! The point is that she’s a fascist and she has no business being anywhere other than a reeducation camp!” He stomped between Penny and Maxwell and gripped Penny’s arm. “You get the hell out of here! Or else!”
“Whoa, dude! What the fuck you doing?”
A crowd gathered around them. Someone shouted an insult at someone else. Other people laughed. More phones appeared, all trained on her. Penny tugged on her arm and could not free herself. Her heart hammered up into her throat and she could not speak.
“You little fascist whore!” the Chinese boy spat at her.
“What the fuck!” Maxwell began wrestling with the Chinese boy and the shouting around them grew intense. The Chinese boy would not give up her arm and she felt herself yanked this way and that as Maxwell worked to free her.
“I’m going to bite you!” she managed to say, or rather squeak, at the Chinese boy, and that was enough to get him to give up her arm. She stumbled back from him and the Chinese boy shook himself out of Maxwell’s grip. He jabbed his finger in her direction.
“You better get lost! Don’t bring your fascist ways around here! We don’t want them!” And with that, the boy stomped away. Several onlookers stared at Penny with disdain while others ended their videos and laughed with each other about their good luck to be present for such an incident. A doughy University cop wandered through, glancing at everyone in confusion. Maxwell stepped close to her.
“Yo, you all right?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m fine. I’m sorry about that.”
“You’re sorry? What the fuck, man, I got that whole thing recorded.” He grimaced and then met Penny’s eyes. “Tell you what, I’ll blur your face and put up the end of it to see if I can’t shame him a bit.”
“Do you think he even watches your… your channel?”
“Don’t know about him, but a lot of people up here do. I get permission to do this here every year. This ain’t no guerilla thing like he just tried to spring.” He glanced down at her. “You okay?”
“Yes. I appreciate it if you blur my face, but you don’t have to. I don’t think there are any other PMers up here, so it’s not going to be a mystery who I am.”
Maxwell laughed. “That’s too bad. You like mysteries.”
Penny laughed too.
“Okay. I’ll leave you be. Good luck, and I hope I see you again somewhere.”
“Me too. Thank you!”
Maxwell took his leave and he and his cameraman sauntered away for a new opportunity. Penny continued on through the crowd, now diminished enough that anyone who had come to find out what all the ruckus was ended up as confused as the University police officer. She sighed.
Well, that was tough, she thought at Marv.
At least you’re not crying!
Whoever that boy was, he didn’t have Marley’s charm.
True. But maybe it would be a good idea to get back to the Institute where you’re actually wanted.
You heard Maxwell, or Jimmy, or whatever his name was. He didn’t seem offended at all that I’m from Port Matthew.
Good point. You made it this far. You might as well check out the other booths. Maybe there’s still something interesting to join you haven’t seen yet.
She walked on, hoping that with every step she would feel normal again. She passed an engineering table with a pair of boys discussing General Motors’ LS series of engines. That seemed normal enough. There was a singing club with some sort of Latin name, five members of which were on a series of benches in the midst of a hymn. Weird, but not unsettling. She stood listening to their hymn for a few comforting moments and moved on before the boy sitting at the table could speak to her. She felt better as she passed several tables displaying sign up sheets for intramural sports: soccer, flag football, basketball, hockey, and wrestling. She imagined wrestling with Maddie and the image put half a smile on her face.
At the end of the academic mall’s wide main walkway under the cover of a grand American elm tree was a table with a rainbow tablecloth draped over it and pink and blue and brown and black insignias elsewhere. A person of indeterminate sex with several facial piercings leaned back on a chair with booted feet up on the table and a cell phone in his or her hands. Penny was drawn to the rainbow (her research into American life had noted it as a symbol of gayness in the States) and picked up a pamplet. The person of indeterminate sex did not bother looking at Penny, but someone’s hand landed on her shoulder.
“You’re better off avoiding this group of psychopaths.”
Penny looked over to see a young woman with startling blue eyes and close cropped frosty blonde hair on her head in a very stylish (and attractive!) mess. Her clothes were the height of fashionable in shades of blue that made her eyes sparkle that much more and fit her slim figure perfectly. She drew Penny away and the thing behind the table made a disgusted sound at their backs.
“Psychopaths?”
“You didn’t see that vision of loveliness behind the table? I thought you Gravenreuth fascists were more observant than that.”
“Fascists? Are you going to tell me to go home like that Chinese kid did?” Penny’s heart hammered against her ribcage and her legs tensed for a quick escape. To her surprise the blonde girl smiled and laughed at her.
“I saw you over there and somehow I knew you were going to end up here. My name is Shawn Vincent. You could say I’m your fairy godmother up here. I have a house a few blocks south of campus and host get-togethers a few times a week. Even if you want to stay single up here it will still do you good to mix in with the community.”
Penny glanced back at the rainbow-topped table. The thing behind it was glaring in their direction. A rainbow group should have been her community, and rainbows were cute. But that rainbow group was not.
“You mean a community of all lesbians?”
“That’s right.”
“But why aren’t you, ano, we a part of that community?” Penny nodded towards the rainbow table.
“They are psychopaths and it’s something better discussed in private.”
“Are you going to use this opportunity to hit on me?”
Shawn laughed.
“I’m not ever going to hit on you. Not that you’re not attractive, in a shallow sort of way. But my job is to look out for you. For you and the rest of us up here. No one else will.”
“And if I don’t get in trouble?” Penny put her hands on her hips and squared off with this Shawn with a flirty smile on her face. While she had stated she was not hitting on Penny Penny would not let that stop her from flirting back at her.
“Someone like you will always end up in trouble. You’ve got it written all over your face. I’d feel bad for anyone you rope into a relationship with you, but you know, I have no room to be critical myself. Whatever. Here’s my card. Put my information in your phone and call me when you need me, or if you just want to hang out with someone more interesting than the fascists you’ll be surrounded by. Ciao.”
Shawn handed Penny a business card and strutted away. Before Penny could follow she disappeared into the crowd and Penny was alone once again. Alone and lonely. She walked back through the crowd and would have let panic seize her heart and set her legs into a run, but she spotted Maxwell as he searched for another interviewee and they exchanged smiles and friendly waves. After that, it was much easier navigating the crowd and returning to the Institute’s side of the boulevard.
There were students outside. Some relaxed on the grass under the trees, talking with each other or reading or playing on their phones. Boys ran here and there, playing catch or showing off, hoping to catch not just a football but some pretty girl’s attention. She wondered if joining one of their games would get her some pretty girl’s attention, but she heard Shawn in her head telling her she was trouble and sighed and walked towards the doorway to Aspen Hall. Before she made it there, Clark stepped beside her and veered her off the sidewalk.
“So, baby, what’s your sign?”
“I’m a Pisces, but you might have better luck with some other girl.”
Clark gave her his best smile and glanced around.
“Is there some reason why you’re directing me to another girl?”
“Well, I’m not interested in boys.”
“Just boys?”
“I don’t really want to go out with anyone at all. I expect to be extremely busy once classes start.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. At least we can still be friends. What’s your whole name? Mine’s Clark Lafleur.”
“Your last name is very pretty! My last name is Stark.”
“Stark? I expected you to have a different last name.”
“Really? What do you mean?”
“Your accent isn’t the sort of thing I’d normally associate with a “Stark.” More like, I don’t know, “Li,” or something like that.”
“Li? Don’t be an idiot. She’s obviously Mexican. Her real last name’s probably Burrito!”
Braden and his cinder block head muscled his way past Clark and he draped his meaty arm around Penny’s slender shoulders and pressed his pelvis towards her hip.
“Look, conchita, I don’t normally go for skinny little putas like you, but I do love me some muy caliente spicy Mexican babes even if they got no mas tetas! My bed, over there,” he turned and gestured with the arm over her shoulder in the general direction of the boys’ wing. “The sheets need turning down and my pillows need fluffing every morning! I got something else for you to fluff, too, but I don’t know if you’re ready for the burrito in my pants!”
“More like a cocktail weenie,” Clark said. Braden ignored him.
Penny shrugged out of his grip and leaped him away. He staggered two steps after her before he caught himself.
“I’m not Mexican.”
“Please, Miss Burrito-Tex-Mex-Bean-n-Rice-Bowl, don’t give me that! Dark eyes, totally hot-ass tan skin, dark hair, even if you did cut it so short. You’re a Mexican. If turning down my sheets is too much to ask, I’m pretty sure I can hook you up with a good agriculture program so you can learn to pick tomatoes!”
“Fuck off, Braden,” Clark said, half under his breath, for Braden was already leaving.
“Come find me! Sheets and pillows every morning! And don’t forget the mints!”
He raced across the grass for the Aspen Hall doors, howling at some boys ahead of him.
“What a fuckin’ douche-canoe.”
“I wish he wasn’t here…”
“Yeah, lots of people feel the same way.”
She and Clark shared a laugh, but fell quiet as the senator’s son’s hyena howl echoed past them again. He and half a dozen other boys, all wearing slacks and untucked button-down shirts, raced out from the Aspen Hall doors, only earning a ripple of mild curiosity from those within earshot. Clark spoke again.
“So listen, it’s going to be hot as hell today and I’ve got plans to go do some cliff-jumping this afternoon. I have a buddy who goes to the University who’s got a Jeep, and we know a place.”
“Know a place? For cliff jumping?”
“Yes. Interested?”
“I love cliff jumping. I’ll ask my roommate if she wants to go. She seems like she likes excitement.”
“Maddie’s a babe, and more than welcome to come with.”
“Anything to see a girl in a bikini, Gorilla-man.”
The girl with the platinum hair who had sat beside Penny at the orientation session materialized out of the ether next to Penny. In addition to her pretty blue-gray eyes, she had a very slight lisp that drew Penny’s interest.
“Leah, did you walk up just to bust my balls?”
“Who is your new friend, Gorilla-man?” She gave Penny a quick look from her toes in her cute sandals (painted to match her dress) to her short bobbed hair. “I hope you are not a lost cause.”
“Are you going to insult me like that Braden Garies guy?” Penny frowned back.
Leah’s eyes widened. “You’re from Port Matthew.”
“What? You can tell that? She said one sentence.”
“How are you even here if you can’t tell that?” Leah cast another dour look at Clark and then looked back at Penny. “Just ignore him. He’s a clod and he just can’t help himself.”
“I thought he was funny.”
“You’re from Port Matthew and you think Clark The Gorilla-man Lafleur is funny?”
“Oh, that was really pretty how you just said that, his last name, I mean.”
“She’s French.”
“Half-French.”
“Neat! I’m half-Japanese, half-American.”
“Well, in that case, I’m more French than American, my mom is Hollywood over there.”
“Your mom?”
“His mom is Adeline Lafleur,” Leah said in her exaggerated French accent. Penny’s eyes widened and she giggled and blushed. Leah frowned at her.
“She thinks you’re cute, Leah.”
Leah leaned torwards Clark with her brow drawn ever farther down over her eyes.
“Yeah. In that way.”
Leah directed her attention back to Penny.
“Clark is being obtuse and I do not trust him.”
“I’m a lesbian.”
“So you just, you just come right out and say it,” Clark said. “Just like that.”
“What? I’m not going to lie about it.”
“How does your roommate feel about it?” Leah asked.
“Now there’s a question I want to know the answer to!”
“Silence, Clark. We are having a grown-up conversation. If you can manage to observe thoughtfully it is entirely possible you could learn something. Even if it happens by accident.”
Clark snickered at her and Penny answered.
“She’s fine with it. She said there were girls like me on her soccer team.”
“Big, burly soccer bitches, sure there are lesbians among them,” Clark said with a sage nod.
“Whatever.” Leah put her hand on Penny’s shoulder. “Let’s go find Maddie and have lunch. We can discuss our afternoon plan then.” They started walking.
“Wait, this was my idea!” Clark trailed after them and Penny giggled, the angry Chinese boy vanished from her mind. The rest of the day, and indeed the ensuing semester, was looking up.