But really, he won’t be there, and leaves me free to not make an ass of myself in front of Dr. Rossi.
“Here,” says Harper, holding out a small, slim packet as I grab my purse, ready to leave.
Despite myself, I blush.
“Caleb’s not going to be there, for crying out loud,” I say, ignoring the offered condom. “And I told you, we shut it down as soon as realized that he was —”
They’re all looking at me like I’ve started speaking in tongues, and I stop speaking mid-sentence.
“If you don’t want a Shout wipe, don’t take the Shout wipe,” Harper says, one eyebrow raised. “You don’t have to get weird about it.”
I look at the thing she’s offering me. It’s not even square. It looks nothing like a condom.
It’s possible that I’m feeling a little high-strung right now.
I clear my throat, grab it, and shove it into my purse.
“Thanks,” I tell my three grinning friends.* * *The banquet takes place in Randolph Hall, right in the center of campus. Even though it’s the second-oldest building on campus, it’s been beautifully maintained and renovated every so often, and it’s got a certain old-Virginia charm that’s hard to put into words.
When you stand in front of it, you feel like if you turned around, you’d see horse-drawn carriages on cobblestone streets, ladies in long dresses and men in suits, gas lamps lighting the dark.
It’s brick, four stories high, a colonnade on each side, the copper roof now a dull pale green. Each window has a single candle in it, as if it’s waiting to welcome us.
Just in case, I check behind myself. There are no cobblestones, just a few guys wearing shorts and playing frisbee.
Inside Randolph Hall looks just as old-world as the outside: wooden floors with wide planks, ceilings with intricate plaster molding around the light fixtures, lamps in walls sconces, the whole nine yards.
Aside from the ballroom, this floor is a series of small salons, each set up with arm chairs and tables, bookshelves, a fireplace. Originally this building was the center of student life at VSU, where undergraduates could come and discuss their intellectual ideas with one another, back when there were three hundred of them.
“Everyone has a cheese plate,” Harper mutters to me as we make out way through the network of rooms. “How?”
“I imagine there are appetizers somewhere,” I tell her.
“But where?” she asks as a skinny guy in a badly-fitting suit walks past holding a small plate filled with cheese, crackers, and grapes.
“In the foyer,” I tell her, as we walk single-file through a doorway. “It’s always in the foyer. Every year. Cool your tits.”
“My tits are an excellent temperature,” she says, reaching up like she’s going to pat them.
At the last second, she touches the neckline of her dress instead.
“Good save,” I say.
“I’m a demure, sophisticated lady who would never grab my boobs in public without thinking first,” Harper says. “Oh! There it is.”
With that last statement, she grabs my arm, and I can’t blame her. The cheese table is a thing of wonder, just like it is every year: there are cubes and chunks and wheels surrounded by crackers and grapes, some artfully spilled and some neatly stacked.
The cheeses are stacked on multi-level plates, interspersed with other bite-size snacks. Some cheese plates also contain charcuterie, and I even grab a minuscule pickle from one, hoping it’s not merely decorative.
I also get some grapes, but they’re mostly for show because in front of all these professors and colleagues, I’d like to seem like the sort of person who looks at four metric tons of cheese and chooses fruit.
I snack. I even eat the grapes, though admittedly I eat them last. I chat with some other students about the best non-library study spot on campus (it’s in the basement of the Economics building), and inform a few freshmen about the best sandwich place on Main Street (it’s called Shorty’s).
Just as I’m about to grab more cheese, I catch sight of a short, serious, gray-haired Latina who’s practically barreling toward me.
I forget the cheese and stand up a little bit straighter.
“Thalia,” Dr. Castellano says. “I was hoping I’d find you here. Could I have a word?”* * *As I follow her, I automatically catalog all the things that this could possibly be about. I just saw Dr. Castellano a few hours ago, and everything seemed fine then.
Did I screw up the bibliography that she asked me to put together for her paper?
Are the page numbers wrong? Did I spell a name wrong?
Maybe she doesn’t like the sources I found.
My brain is still whirling as I follow her outside to the colonnade and she finally turns, her back to one stark white column, slowly going blue in the evening light.
She looks at me, her mouth a grim line.
“Is this about the bibliography?” I blurt out, but she just shakes her head.