The Long Winter #54

Previous Engagements part two

“You two look like you had a good time.”

Leah stepped into her room to see Penny and Sandra sitting together on the little couch giggling together. They were nearly glowing, their skin golden from the tropical sun. They looked up and welcomed her, Penny jumping up to give her a too-familiar (but welcome) hug Leah answered with a nervous laugh of her own.

“It was great!” Penny said, pulling her towards the couch. Leah’s suitcase followed forlornly behind her. “We went skydiving and scuba diving and I surfed—“

“Hey, I surfed, too!”

“You totally did not! I don’t think you stood up on your board for even a fraction of a second!”

“I might not have, but I was still there with you!”

They laughed and Leah smiled at them.

“How was your break, Leah?” Sandra asked.

“It was fine. I spent a week in the Alps and a week at our chateau in Nice.”

“Nice? Wow! Like in Europe?”

“Yes, Penny. Like in Europe.”

“She’s part French, remember?” Sandra frowned at Penny then turned her dazzling smile on Leah. “Is it like a familial chateau? Something that’s been in your family for generations?”

“Yes. My mother’s family goes back to the Bourbons.”

“Bourbons? Like the drink?”

“Yes, Penny. Like the drink. But also like the royal family that pretty much all got killed off during the revolution. They were all inbred anyway, so good riddance.”

Penny and Sandra laughed.

“When did you two get back?”

“Two days ago,” Sandra said. “It’s been pretty quiet, but now people are starting to come back things feel more normal. Our adventure really is over.”

“Is Clark back?”

“I have no idea.”

Leah glanced at Penny.

“Don’t look at me. He hasn’t been texting me at all. He’s been avoiding me for like, months now.”

“And we went on a break, his idea, before we left for winter break,” Sandra said. “I don’t know about him anymore. I thought I really liked him, but even as he was leaving for France he was making a big deal about me and Penny going to San Mateo. And now he’s MIA.”

“Maybe your temporary break is an actual break,” Penny said, her eyes full of sympathy.

“Nah. Or yah. Whatever.” Sandra forced a smile onto her face. “We had a great time though, didn’t we?” Her smile turned into a smirk when she looked at Leah. “We can share her. You can take her with you during spring break. Although I can’t imagine what would count as an adventure for you two nerds!”

“You’re talking about me like I’m a toy or something!”

They laughed and Leah had to walk away to hide her pinkening cheeks at the thought of using the PMer like one. Then Sandra looked at her phone.

“Still no message from him. If we are broken up for good, I’d really like to know.” She began typing out a message.

“Well, don’t say it that way,” Penny said, leaning over Sandra’s back to peer down at her phone.

“Oh, I’m not. I had a social life before we met, you know. I think I can navigate these things…”

“Clark’s pretty direct. I don’t think there’s any need to dance around the subject.”

“Hm…” Sandra deleted whatever she had typed and then frowned up at Leah. “Sometimes I think I didn’t know my own boyfriend half as well as his female friends seem to know him.”

“I meant nothing by that—“

“I know what you meant. It’s fine. You’re right, of course. I should be direct.” She sneered at Penny. “I guess you don’t know him as well as you should, either.”

“I guess not, jeez you two.” Penny plopped backwards and crossed her arms.

“Honeymoon is truly over,” Sandra muttered, sending her message and shoving her phone between the couch cushions. “We may have to file an annulment. I’m not sure we can live together after this.”

“Fine. Have it your way.”

Leah glanced between the two of them. “What exactly happened down there? You’re not really married, are you?”

“Married? Heck no!”

“We’re not even engaged,” Sandra frowned. “Everything we experienced definitely brought us closer together, but I’m still not sexually attracted to her.”

“If only you were,” Penny sighed, casting dreamy eyes in Sandra’s direction.

Sandra laughed. Then she pulled her phone back out. No response from Clark.

“We should just walk over to his room,” Leah said. “The worst he can do is tell you it’s really over.”

“Or maybe that it’s not over and he regrets what we said to each other,” Sandra muttered. “I liked him a lot. I’m not sure if I loved him, but I definitely liked him. Now I’m not so sure. I had a great vacation, and maybe I’ll feel different if I see him, I mean, we did a lot of stuff together last semester. It’d be a shame for it to end this way.”

“Then let’s go find him,” Leah said, standing up. “I think Penny wants to see him, too.”

“Yes, of course. Even though he’s been avoiding me for the past two months…”

“That’s because you’re trying to steal his girlfriend the way you stole your high school girlfriend from hers.”

“Whatever. That’s totally not how it happened.”

“That is what you made it sound like,” Sandra smirked at Penny.

“Okay, maybe it was—“

“Okay, I’m done wasting time,” Sandra stood up and pulled Penny up to join them. “Let’s go.”

***

“You just missed him.” Clark’s roommate, tall and handsome and every bit the high school heartthrob, looked down his nose at the collection of girls before him.

“What? Where did he go?”

“I don’t know. I’m not his babysitter.”

“Well, fine. Just tell him Sandra stopped by.”

“Oh. You’re Sandra. Okay. I will. Good bye.” And he closed the door.

“Jeez, that was abrupt,” Penny said, rubbing her upper arms as they walked away.

“Not to mention rude. What the hell was that? “Oh, YOU’RE Sandra.” Like it’s something shameful. What the hell…”

“I never liked Ken. He reminds me too much of Mason.”

“That’s that creep who showed everyone my videos, neh?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll bet he’s seen Maddie.” Sandra glared at Penny. “Let’s go to your room. Maybe your bitchy roommate knows something.”

“Maddie’s a lot of things, but I’m not sure I’d call her bitchy…”

Sandra glared at Penny.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You wanted to go see her. I’m just saying she’s not bitchy. Not much, anyway—“

“You only like her because she parades around in front of you naked. I mean, I get it, I did the same thing the last two weeks, but you might actually have a shot with her if she breaks things off with her abusive shithead fiancé.”

They fell quiet as they descended the stairs to the common area. Groups of students laughed and talked together in little groups throughout the room, the largest of which was beside the fire. Among them, and the loudest voice in the room by far, was Braden Garies and his high-pitched laugh. As soon as their feet hit the fine hardwood floor his eyes locked on Penny’s and he rushed over to them.

“Oh no,” Penny groaned, trying to shrink back behind her friends.

“Hey! Penny Stark!” He shoved Leah aside and shouldered himself in front of Sandra and grabbed Penny’s arm. “Hey, where are you going? What the hell, I thought we were friends!”

“We’re not friends, you creep!” Penny wrenched her arm away and stepped back from him. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m reinstated! But only if I apologize. Some old bitch wanted me to get down on my knees and fucking grovel, but that shit’s not happening. So instead here’s what you get—“

“I don’t want anything from you, I just want you to leave me alone!”

“And don’t worry, I will! But I’m required to do this as part of my reinstatement here, so here goes: I’m sorry I called you a Mexican all last semester. I’m sorry I made fun of you and your friends. There.”

“That’s it? You’re sorry for making fun of me?”

“Well, yeah.”

“You’re not sorry for letting that Mason creep show those illegal videos?” Penny kept her voice low, almost menacing. At least for her.

“Well, that too—“

“You’re not sorry for publicly humiliating me at that party?”

“Yeah, of course I am…” Braden squirmed.

“Or for dumping your beer or whatever on my head?”

“Okay, Jesus Christ, Penny, you fuckin’ over-sensitive, picky little bitch! I’m sorry for all those things at the party, too! Are you happy now?”

Penny took a deep breath and drew herself up.

“No, of course not, you can’t even imagine what it’s like to go through that. But, I can act like an adult about this. So long as you can, too. It shouldn’t be too hard to ignore me from now on.”

“Yeah, whatever, plenty of diversions up here. Good bye.”

And he turned and fled back to his friends.

“What an asshole,” Sandra muttered.

“I can’t believe they let him back,” Leah said.

“It might be my fault,” Penny said as they continued their way across the common area. “When his dad cornered me at the airfield I told him I didn’t care what happened to Braden so long as he leaves me alone.”

“You clearly did not think this through.” Sandra frowned at her.

“Well, his dad’s like some politician, neh? He and his lawyers probably were able to work out a deal. I mean, obviously they were. I should have just told him I never wanted to see either one of them. Maybe that would have gotten him kicked out for good.”

“But so long as he leaves you alone…”

“It’s fine. I’ll be fine, Leah.”

They climbed the stairs back to the ladies’ wing. None of them spoke as they arrived at Penny’s room. She led them in and they looked around. No Maddie. No Clark. The door on her side of the suite was closed and all was silence.

“Well.” Leah's voice made her friends jump. “I guess we’re going to have to live with a sense of suspense for a little while.”

“I guess we are,” Sandra muttered.

“Then,” Penny said, “like the Braden thing, let’s just make the best of this. We have the whole afternoon. Shall we get some studying in?”

And, albeit reluctantly, they did. Back at Sandra and Leah’s room.

***

“Wheeler-dealer!”

Delaney looked up from her book. There was no one around her, but the voice, its strength and direction, it sounded like it was meant for her.

“Yeah, you, Lin’s anorexic friend. Hey.”

And she twisted to find Greg Tables striding across the wide lobby towards her. She cringed as he arrived, rounding the bench to plop down right beside her.

“So Wheeler-dealer, listen—“

“Why are you calling me that?”

“Calling you what?”

“Wheeler-dealer.”

“That’s your name.”

“It’s not—“

“What, you want to be called Lin’s anorexic name? Because that seems borderline insulting.”

“That definitely is—“

“Unless you’re some sort of masochistic kid. You into masochism? That’s something you fuckin’ dykes get into, right?”

“No!”

“Right, so listen, Wheeler-dealer—“

“My name’s Delaney.”

“That’s what I said.”

“No, you said—“ Delaney bit the words off her tongue and glared at him. “What do you want?”

“Right, so before you so rudely interrupted me, several times I might add, I was going to ask for your help.”

“My help?” Delaney’s book fell from her hands and she gaped at him.

He laughed in what he must have thought was a charming, disarming sort of way, and rubbed his stubbly hair before continuing.

“Yeah, you see, I guess her roommate Laurie sort of liked me. I mean, we hung out kind of a lot, but I thought she was just going to give me the inside track to finally getting Lin to see the light and go out with me. Along the way I sort of accidentally made her like me instead.”

“So?”

“What do you mean, so? You’re supposedly a girl, you’re supposed to be good at this sort of relationship garbage. Unless that whole lesbian thing renders you useless to me and I’m now wasting my time.”

While his words made him sound a moment from standing up and storming away he continued to sit there. In fact, he settled back in the bench, resting his arms across the top and making more-than-incidental contact with Delaney’s back. She leaned forward and he smiled at her before continuing.

“Well, I still think you can help me, even if you are what you claim to be.”

Delaney made a disgusted sound, but before she could move to stand up and flee he was talking again.

“So listen, I need you to say something to Lin and get her to say something to Laurie so she’ll talk to me again.”

“You can talk to her. You seem to be doing a fine enough job of talking to me.”

“Yeah, and I’ll bet you’re just loving it, but unfortunately you’re apparently a “LESBIAN.” But that’s beside the point. There are protocols one must follow, and I’m following them to the letter. You’ve got to get Lin to talk to her and get her to talk to me again. I’m trusting you to do the right thing in this.”

Doing the right thing would be telling you to go fuck yourself and telling Laurie she’s better off without you…

“The thing is, I wouldn’t be here, but I guess I really screwed things up over break. We were talking about stuff and I was talking about Lin and, well, I guess—I mean, I know I hurt her feelings. Laurie’s, I mean. She must like me for me to be able to hurt her like that, and I don’t like thinking of myself as the sort of person who just goes around hurting random girl’s feelings, you know?”

“Actually, my experience is quite the opposite—“

“Yeah, see? I knew I could come to you for help in this.” His arm fell forward and he crushed her against his chest in a cigarette-stinking embrace. Then he stood up and left. “I’m counting on you!” he called over his shoulder. Then he was gone.

Delaney shuddered and glanced around. Anyone passing by must have seen the awkward scene, but no one had stuck around to see its end. She shoved her book back in her bag and shuddered again. Greg Tables had been far too close to her, her clothes reeked of him, his presence lingering on even after he was gone.

I need a shower…

She stalked away from the bench for the exit. The art school was not far, just across the academic mall. Lin was likely there working her afternoon away. There was nearly an hour before her class was to start. She thought about sending a message to warn the artist of her imminent arrival, but decided that surprise was better. Just like Greg had surprised her.

Wind screamed across mall out of the north, sending her scarf flying and she failed to properly huddle in her coat. Her hair whipped across her face forcing her to squint. The only other people around were battling the elements the same as her on their ways to different destinations. At least there were no icy snowflakes machine gunning her. She hurried on.

The art school was warm. The walls were finished in some sort of blond wood paneling with track lighting overhead and shiny tiles under her feet. She squeaked her way down the hall and smiled at the sight of a friendly face.

“Nadine!”

“Del! What are you doing in my building?”

“I’m looking for Lin.”

Nadine laughed. “Of course you’d be looking for her. I haven’t seen much of her so far, and you’ve been cagey as hell since I’ve been back. Something going on between you two?”

“No, not because I don’t want it to, though…”

Nadine laughed again. “I knew it, I knew you had the hots for her!”

“Please keep it down—“

“And you spent the entire break with her and couldn’t close the deal? What’s with you, Del? Porno hottie steal your mojo?”

“Please keep it between us. She still has her girlfriend. They reconciled sort of, on the first.”

“Well, I won’t say anything to anyone. You can trust me. But you are hunting her down right now. Any particular reason why?”

Delaney deflated before Nadine and told her of her encounter with Mr. Tables.

“Ugh, that guy? He was in one of my English classes. I thought the professor was going to strangle him. He was all “Communism this!” and “Socialism that!” And the rest of us sat there helpless, so don’t feel bad. He has that effect on people.”

“Yeah. So I want to find Lin and tell her about it. Just in case that guy does corner me again I can at least tell him I tried and have it be God’s honest truth.”

“I hear ya. Let’s go check the studios. Sometimes she hangs out back there. She’s close to Professor York, the lady who runs the studios.”

“Okay.”

Delaney tried not to bristle at hearing about Lin’s closeness to this female professor. Nadine noticed and gave her a spicy smile as she turned and led her down the hall. They talked about their classes and their new professors, and about the professors they were looking forward to seeing again, and as they walked past an open classroom Delaney looked over and caught sight of her.

“So she wasn’t in the studios…”

They stepped into the classroom. Lin’s attention was on the canvas before her, a pencil in her hand. She swept it across the clean surface, one of many such fine lines giving shape to her subject, something Delaney could not make out as they approached.

“Hold on,” Lin said, holding up a finger. “I’ll be ready in a sec.”

Delaney and Nadine stopped a few yards away and waited as Lin finished her pencil work. Then the artist turned around and hid a smile at the sight of Delaney’s face.

“Hello Nadine. Del. What can I do you for?”

“Oh, I was just bringing her to meet you,” Nadine said, backing away. “I thought you might be in the studios, but she zeroed right in, turns out she didn’t need my help at all! I’ll see you two around!”

“So long,” Lin said. The she gave Delaney a wry smile before turning back to her canvas. “Greg went and talked to you.”

“How do you know?”

“Laurie cried for three hours yesterday about how horrible a person he is. Blah blah blah, he doesn’t even see her, he’s horrible for how he treats me, she wishes she could just wish him away, blah blah blah. So I knew he was going to try some way to get back into her life. And thus, into mine again.”

“He wants you to try to patch things up between him and your roommate.”

“No fucking way.”

“Okay. Well, now I can tell him I tried.”

“What, you’re not reporting back to him, are you? And here I thought we were friends.”

“I am not reporting back to him! One million times no! Absolutely not. But you know he’s going to hunt me down and ask me.”

Lin smirked over her shoulder at Delaney.

“Yeah, you’re right. He’s definitely going to come crawling back to you to work what he thinks is his irresistible magic on you. Be afraid.”

“He doesn’t scare me so much as disgusts me.”

Lin chuckled at her.

“I think Laurie’s better off without him.”

“I agree. She was pretty heartbroken, it was incredibly hard not to laugh my poor keister off at her for not recognizing her incredibly good fortunes.”

“I’m not entirely sure this is a laughing matter…”

“Of course it’s a laughing matter! But I’ll tell you what, because you came here and relayed that pigfucker’s message, I’ll mention it to Laurie, but I’ll also warn her to stay away from him. She can do better.”

“So you don’t think your roommate’s a pig.”

“Fucking Hilary’s a pig. That fat bitch Geri Nye is a pig. Laurie’s not. She’s just a little, well, slow. I guess that’s the most charitable way I can put it.”

Delaney snickered, imagining Lin doing her best to guide Laurie through what must be the roughest time she has had since school started the previous fall. Lin laughed as well and then put her things away and walked slowly down the hallway with Delaney. They talked about the afternoon (Lin was in back-to-back classes, and Delaney was working) and made plans to visit Shawn’s house again that weekend. Delaney wanted to clasp Lin’s hand in her own, but instead smiled at her (perhaps a tinge too sadly) and Lin smiled back and they parted as friends. Still friends. Still just friends.

Follow The Long Winter into #55 Previous Engagements part three here.