Finding Dell (4 page)

When I gave up and returned to my room—two cheerful apple-shaped cutouts decorated the door reading “Natalie and Madeleine”—Natalie wasn’t back from lunch yet and boxes still littered the rug. I didn’t turn on the light, but crossed the room to shut out the bright sun filtering in through the curtains.

I slipped between my crisp blue sheets still fully clothed. As soon as my head was buried in the pillow, the tears flowed with a desperate urgency.

I’d imagined my first weekend in a new dorm would be spent with Will, but instead I listened to the unfamiliar rumblings of a new building. A honeyed but weak singing voice carried down the hall. My breath hitched in my throat as I tried to steady my breathing.

I reached for my phone and dialed Will’s number and held my breath through three, four, five rings, until his voicemail picked up.

Sophomore year was supposed to mean that I had already met my boyfriend and best friends and now I could relax and enjoy the moment, but I was alone in a hall of strangers.

After I tucked my phone into my pillowcase so I wouldn’t miss Will’s return call, I felt my eyes close in a heavy but fitful path to sleep. My mind started to clear the debris from the night before, but it still felt crowded with images.

My last thought before falling asleep was a wish that I would wake up in a warm cuddle with Will’s content eyes next to me, but instead, Natalie nudged my shoulder. Disoriented, I opened puffy eyes to see our unfamiliar room bathed in the fading light of dusk.

“You’ve been asleep all afternoon,” she said. “We have a floor meeting.”

“I’m not going,” I said, my voice muffled into the pillow.

“It’s mandatory.”

I groaned. “I look like crap.” I waited for a response, a reassurance, but when it didn’t come, I rolled over.

The room was empty and the door was open. I sat up quickly. I could hear the shuffling sound of furniture being pulled down the hallway and I realized Natalie went to the floor meeting without me. She was acting like she had no patience for me, like I was pathetic for being upset about Will.

I hurriedly wiped makeup from under my eyes and scrambled down the hall to the meeting. I took a seat on the floor when I found all the chairs occupied. Ruby perched on the arm rest of Natalie’s chair and the sight of them paired up together reminded me that I was alone.
I should be sitting with Will right now
, I thought miserably. I tried to fight back tears. I couldn’t be the girl who cried at the first floor meeting of the year.
The good thing is
, I thought as I tried to cheer myself,
this happened before everyone in Paso Fino even knew we were together
.

Levi cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted to get the groups’ attention. He introduced himself as a geology major, a junior, from Chicago. He pointed around the loose circle and each person introduced himself. It was only yesterday morning that I moved into the dorm, but I already recognized some of the names of people on the floor from scouting out nametags earlier.

The couch across from me seated Ben, a trumpet-playing musician with a love of sailboats despite growing up in landlocked Kentucky. He lived next door to Natalie and me, and I’d spied his walls covered with posters of sailboats when he left his door open earlier in the afternoon. Beside him sat Walter, a dishwater blond boy, who had already ordered takeout food delivered to the dorm twice in the one day since he’d moved in. Eric, a gangly senior studying poetry, lounged on the floor with his back against the wall. The late afternoon sun created a glare off his wire-frame glasses and I couldn’t see his eyes. I heard he had red silk sheets on his bed, which left an uncomfortable first impression.

Levi prattled on about the rules of the floor—the zero-tolerance policy against alcohol and underage drinking, the mandatory quiet time study hours, and the overnight guest policy.

Over the summer, I hadn’t been nervous about starting my sophomore year, unlike the weeks leading up to freshman year. I knew what to expect. I already had friends and I wasn’t worried about eating alone in the dining hall or getting lost on campus. When I sat in last year’s dorm meeting in Sugarbush Hall, I didn’t know Natalie or Ruby yet, and I’d only seen Will from afar, moving in his stereo.

But since I couldn’t predict how my freshman year would turn out, I wondered who, from this group, would surprise me.

Anna, with long, dark hair reaching the small of her back,
dangled her legs from the tabletop where she sat, idly watching Levi speak to the group. Every few minutes she giggled under her breath and her glazed eyes gave her away. She was destined to be the Paso Fino pothead. Beside her sat Helen, a petite blonde with a strong Southern accent, who looked increasingly uncomfortable each time Anna giggled. Bernie, short for Bernadette, stood behind Anna and Helen, watching the scene through oversized, black-framed glasses. Bernie was stylish and quirky; I’d seen her in the communications building on campus.

“I want to address a few last-minute changes on our floor,” Levi said, interrupting my people-watching. “Where’s Ruby Rae Mackey?” he asked, glancing around the group.

Ruby shyly raised her hand, and Levi nodded. “Ruby, your roommate unenrolled last Friday, so your double room will be a single until another person is added to the waiting list.”

“No complaints here,” Ruby smiled.

“And, Walter, your assigned roommate made other living arrangements, but we do have someone lined up to be your roommate. He’s moving in on Tuesday.”

When he mentioned the change in living plans, I felt my body tense as I thought of Will.

The meeting ended without any more indirect references to Will. The group started to disperse to their rooms, engaging in awkward small talk as strangers-cum-roommates walked down the hall together.

No one stopped to introduce themselves, but I knew my pain was radiating from me in miserable waves. I sat on the floor until the hallway was empty again. I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed Will again. The empty ringing and the hopeful moment of silence before his voicemail message clicked on amplified my lonely confusion.

How could I fix us if I couldn’t even talk to him?

CHAPTER 4

THE WINDY MORNING
carried the scent of hot asphalt and mown grass across campus. Across the street from the science building, red flags waved a warning at the entrance to the freshly paved faculty parking lot.

A path wound through the hilly campus, but the students spilled over the footpath onto the rich bluegrass. Pale purple and fuchsia petunias lined the path, but already the sharp destruction of bike tires had crushed the petals. Near Bailey Hall, a girl lost her yellow scarf in the wind and it grazed the grass like a snake.

The freshmen were easy to spot—wild eyes and backpacks already full of books before the first classes even started. Their class schedules rippled in the wind as they struggled to smooth out the paper and remember the names of the buildings from orientation weekend.

I ran through my schedule in my head. My geology lab followed the lecture on Monday mornings, and I had a short break, barely long enough to eat lunch in Georgian Grande, before I had to be in my graphic design class. Mentally, I calculated the
distance between the communications building and the architecture hall and wondered if I could catch Will in between his classes.

Outside the science building, I leaned against the clay-colored brick and dialed Will’s phone number. When he didn’t answer, I sighed and clicked off the phone, thinking about how quickly the dull ache of dread had replaced my bubbly excitement over seeing him.

The wind pushed me a few steps forward and reminded me that my geology lab started in a few minutes. I struggled with the heavy glass door and took the narrow corridor with the stairs rather than waiting for the elevator, its dim lights signaling its travels through the old building.

Through the teasing window pane on the door to the lab, I spotted Levi’s distinctive red mohawk. I’d only known him for a weekend, but I could see the glaze of anxiety that clouded his dark eyes as he shuffled papers in the front of a crooked podium.

The classroom was windowless, airless; a fluorescent light flickered near the back of the room where dozens of dusty jars of sediment lined the wall.

Levi raised a caramel arm to wipe a bead of sweat off his forehead, which was creased with worry. He gestured to me to take a seat. As I settled in the unforgiving bucket of the plastic chair, I realized that Levi was the teacher’s assistant for the geology lab, and today was his first day. He was leading a classroom of kids not much younger than he, some much older.

Next to me a middle-aged woman in a university T-shirt had a pen poised above the structured lines of her notebook before Levi cleared his throat.

“Geology is the study of the way the Earth is built,” Levi began. “In the accompanying lecture, the professor will teach you how the tiniest crystals affect the biggest mountains. We’re
a research-driven department, where the professors are still learning every day. This isn’t a stagnant area of study. We’re always evolving, just like the Earth.

“In this field techniques lab, I’ll teach you how the Earth rebels, just a little, every day, to evolve into something new.”

I smiled at Levi’s ability to put his own spin on the geology lab, how his alternative outlook on his appearance and music preferences bled into his academics. A pen scratched on paper and I glanced at the older woman’s notes—she’d written three words:
crystals
,
evolve
,
rebel
. My mind wandered as I imagined a poet finding inspiration in her geology class notes.

Levi ended the first class early after passing out a syllabus and encouraging everyone to walk the banks of the lake and note signs of weathering and erosion before the next lab. The room started to empty as people shuffled out, but Levi motioned for me to stay behind.

“Do you want to grab lunch at Georgian Grande since we have some extra time today?”

I shook my head as I stuffed the syllabus into my backpack.

“I’m going to meet someone at the architecture hall before I go to my next class,” I said. “You know Will Easton? He was supposed to live in Paso Fino this year.”

“Ah.” Levi nodded. “All I know about him is that he caused me a lot of paperwork.”

“When did he, uh, let you know that he wasn’t moving in?” I prodded.

Levi shrugged as he gathered his extra papers and clipped them neatly into a binder.

“July? It wasn’t last-minute, which I appreciated.”

I felt my ears start to burn. I mumbled a goodbye to Levi and rushed out of the classroom, taking the stairs two at a time, grateful for the cool air trapped in the stairwell.

Outside, I forgot how walking across campus on a hot, windy day made you feel tired. I was too anxious to see Will to let it slow me down.

The architecture hall was curiously the least structurally impressive on campus. The wide bricks were the color of mustard. Although the building had the low, squat appearance of 1960s construction, sometime in the last five decades twin turrets had been added, turning it into a laughable castle.

Wooden benches dotted the bluegrass in front of the building. I took a seat at one that was shadowed by a turret and scanned the benches for a glimpse of Will. The warm wind tousled my hair and lulled me into lengthy daydreams about our second reunion, when he’d explain the misunderstandings of the girl at the party and moving off-campus. The scattered students dissolved until we were alone, Will walking toward me with a hand up to shield his eyes from the sun, his hair wind-swept, until he broke into a smile that electrified his eyes. He reached me and blocked out the sun; a shiver ran through me at the temperature change on my warm skin. Then the sun slid behind a cloud and I realized I was daydreaming and alone.

The clock tower punctuated the end of the Wild Mare Woods with a jarring break in a stretch of trees. Like a steeple, it tore at the bright blue sky and reminded me I was running late after skipping lunch to lurk by the architecture hall.

Inside the communications building, a maze of low-ceilinged hallways were lined with vibrant and sometimes controversial print advertisements and still photos from student-made movies. Clever one-liners dotting the ads served as attempts at copy-writing.

Professor Sylvie Morrow had a reputation. She looked like she might be better fit buying scratch tickets in bulk at the gas
station and shouting at morning game shows while sweating in a hot trailer, but she was one of the most experienced graphic design professors in the program.

With fingers so short they looked cut off at the knuckle, she whipped her long braid from the center of her spine to dangle over a shoulder. She then tugged on the tail of her hair hard enough to pull on her thick neck, and paced the room with a crooked neck and a contemplative gaze.

At first glance, Sylvie Morrow elicited snickers from the boys, the young ones who’d drop out of the program within months anyway. But those who were serious about learning the principles of the craft sat in silence, watching her pace the room. She brought her braid to her mouth to chew on while she waited for the muffled chime of the clock tower to signal the top of the hour.

While Professor Morrow handed out copies of the syllabus and pointed out the spatial balance on the page, I read quickly through the semester’s assignments. In a few weeks she would introduce a project in which we’d have to work with partners. Immediately I thought of Bernie, who sat across the room with her willowy legs crossed twice, as only the skinniest girls can do. Her lanky frame folded in on itself like a flamingo, but she still looked graceful, even behind her glasses that magnified her eyes and gave her a false aura of naïveté.

I offered a close-mouthed smile to Bernie, hoping she might reciprocate. It would be nice to study with someone in the dorm for a change, rather than listening to Natalie, an equine science major, prattle on about horse breeds or the condition of their stables.

But Bernie studied the page as Professor Morrow talked about light mixture estimation. She traced her long fingers along the negative space on the syllabus and didn’t catch my eye.