Bold and Simful

Kitty Cwik had slept in, but the other residents of Wingate Hall rose early and enjoyed a pancake breakfast while getting to know each other. In reality, most of them were already well acquainted, only two were new.

Veronica broke the ice by talking about something they all had in common… moving in, which got the conversation rolling and a few minutes later everyone was laughing and talking.

“We should go out and see campus,” Monica Drysdale suggested from her seat at the far end of the table. She had been apprehensive that people at Hunter would be snobbish or elitist and look down on her because she was attending on scholarship, but everyone seemed so nice and open that her suggestion popped out before she could fear it being rejected.

“Definitely!” Maleena accepted instantly.

“Oh, it’ll be such fun! We have to wake up Kitty though and take her clothes shopping. Where did she ever get that dress?” Veronica asked no one in particular.

“Shopping? Boooring,” Xavier drawled. “I’ll catch you guys on the next trip, when you’re going somewhere interesting.”

Jodie Gunderson laughed and sided with the only other male present.

Like her brother, Elizabeth had begged off the outing to explore campus, she had already declared her major and somehow managed to know what homework to do before even attending her first class.

Alone in her room, hunched over her desk, she heard the taxi honk below and for a moment wondered if she had made the right choice.

“Isn’t there anything that you like?” Maleena begged Kitty, “I’m sorry, but you look like you raided my grandma’s closet and I just can’t be seen around campus with you dressed like that.”

Kitty stared straight ahead, slightly offended. Monica was less direct in her approach and waved her arms to display the overflowing shelves, “How about this? It’s long but definately not geriatric. Go on, try it on,” she encouraged.

Veronica watched from the register and cringed when Maleena doubled over with laughter. ‘My sister has no tact,‘ she thought to herself and finished paying for her perfume then wandered over to convince Kitty that grandma-glam was not in, now or in any other decade.

Their shopping bags tucked safely under the table, the girls dined on burgers and discussed their planned majors.

“I’m thinking of Literature, the classics,” Maleena said.

“I don’t think Vogue or Elle count as classics,” Veronica laughed. “I’m going Poli Sci, anyone see the prof? He’s a hottie,” she emphasized with a whistle.

“You’re really going to determine the rest of your life based on a cute teacher?” Monica wondered, completely shocked. This concept was anathema to her, she just couldn’t comprehend what Veronica was thinking.

“The rest of my life?” Veronica laughed, “This is just for the next four years, I’m already set for the rest of my life.”

“You shouldn’t count on that,” Kitty turned serious, “I thought I was set for life too until Daddy lost most of our money gambling on the stock market.”

“Like you’re going to work when you grow up,” Veronica scoffed at her friend. Kitty had gone to the same private school as she and her sister and Veronica knew full well that Kitty was not the most studious person in class.

“I am, I don’t want to live off my daddy’s money,” Kitty challenged back, “I’m going to be a lawyer.”

All this talk of daddys with money left Monica feeling uncomfortable. Not only did she not have money, her father had left when she was an infant. Maleena’s voice interrupted her personal pity party, “So what about you, Monica?”

“An actress, I want to be an actress,” she said with determination. As the conversation rolled on around her, Monica realized that Drama classes would help her play the role of spoiled rich girl, a role she knew she should maintain if she wanted to keep Kitty, Veronica and Maleena as friends. In spite of her first impression, none of them seemed the type to hang out with a scholarship student.

“You missed it, I did a good thing today, Xavier,” Veronica congratulated herself as she cuddled up to her long time boyfriend, “I saved a girl from style hell. Too bad Hunter doesn’t offer fashion design, I think I’d be good at that. Your sister and I used to talk about going to Paris, me the designer and she the model,” Veronica remembered her and Elizabeth’s dreams of taking the City of Light by storm, but things had become too complicated recently. “Oh,” she started out of her revery, “Have you decide on your major yet?”

“Philosophy.” Xavier said with complete confidence, “After that speech I gave my father, I think I’d be good at talking in riddles and pondering nothing all day.” His knew that his choice would only piss off his dad, who never contemplated anything other than how to make more money. Paying for his son to learn to wonder about nothing would just gall the old man.

Life at Wingate Hall settled in to a comfortable routine. Everyone had declared their major, even Jodie had finally settled on Art as the most self-expressive option offered in the catalog.

Everyone’s classes were at different times of day, so they caught each other coming and going. Evenings were usually spent studying, they had envisioned Freshman year as one big party but the professors saw to it that that would not happen, even Xavier found his classes interesting enough to spend extra time reading.

But he was not philosophical enough yet to get along with everyone. He had taken an instant dislike to Jodie, whose room was right next door to his own. Maybe it was that all the girls seemed to fawn over Jodie or may be it was the strangely sweet, coying smell that always surrounded him.

“Ok, so Xavier doesn’t like you,” Maleena was never one to mince words, but she was one to get distracted easily, “hey, are those tattoos real?”

“I know, but he will and yes, they are real,” Jodie was sure enough of himself not to be phased by Maleena, he had known girls like her before. Rich, snobby, sheltered girls who only attended college to find a husband, not that he was judging. He didn’t do that, he assessed those around him and accepted them for what they were, even if they weren’t sure what they were themselves.

“You’re awful sure of yourself,” Maleena answered, admiration sneaking into her voice.

“Yeah, um…you’re blocking the tv,” Jodie waved his dorm-mate aside.

“Well!” Maleena huffed and spun on her heel. A smile crept across Monica’s face which was still buried in her book and as Jodie watched Maleena flounce way, a smile lit his face as well.

Of all the girls in the dorm, Jodie found Elizabeth the most intriguing. He had yet to figure her out, she was rich like Maleena, Kitty and Veronica but worked harder than all of them put together, as if she had to earn everything she was given. She was quiet and kept mostly to herself, she never joined the others for movie night, the only time she looked like she was enjoying herself was when she was playing chess.

“Nice move,” Elizabeth said. Jodie was so shocked that he almost dropped his pawn, it was the first time she had spoken since they started playing three games ago.

“Thanks,” he stared at her waiting for her to say something else but all she did was study the board.

“What’s wrong with you?” Xavier came upon Veronica crying after returning from class.

“Nothing,” Veronica sniffled and wiped her eyes quickly, “I guess I’m just homesick.”

“So call your parents, they can visit ya know,” Xavier had solved the problem so he wondered why his girlfriend was still crying. “Apparently that wasn’t it, what’s really wrong?”

“I said nothing, leave me alone,” Veronica turned to view her boyfriend through reddened eyes and reached for the phone.

Maleena caught her father outside the dorm the next morning. “Wait, before you do inside, here’s the deal… Veronica is failing miserably,” she still wasn’t mincing words, “Her paper was so bad that her professor told her to rewrite it and if she doesn’t she has no chance of passing. She’s failed every test and I’ve never seen her do any homework.”

“So she’ll do the paper again,” Robert didn’t see the problem.

“You don’t understand, she only has three days, she’s never cracked a book, she has no idea what to write about,” Maleena tried to explain her sister’s predicament, “and she can’t find anyone willing to write it for her.”

While Maleena had caught her father outside, she had missed her mother. ‘It’s too late,‘ she thought as she sat down to eat lunch with Jodie while listening to the conversation going on behind her.

Maxine was already well aware of the situation and was in the middle of explaining to her daughter that she needed to write the paper.

“But can’t you just give him money?” Veronica was persistent that work was not required of someone like her.

“I can’t bribe professors into letting you pass!” Maxine was annoyed at the suggestion. “How did you make it through high school with such good grades?”

“Xavier did my work for me,” Veronica answered simply, as though everyone should already know that.

“Did he?” Maxine was stunned but in an odd way proud of her daughter for figuring out how to get by, “then get him to do your work again or you’ll have to actually have to start applying yourself.”

Veronica shuddered at the thought.

“This is the whole room?” Robert was confused. He was paying a fortune for his daughters to attend Hunter and this was all he was getting for his money? Maxine strode through the door, then stopped because three people weren’t going to fit in this shoebox.

“Oh, honey, we have to get you girls your own place,” Maxine’s voice dripped with sympathy.

“No, no,” Maleena protested and went on to explain the benefits of living in the dorm, being sure to focus on the academic rather than the social benefits of dorm life.

“Well, alright honey, but if you change your mind, just say the word,” Maxine and Robert hugged their daughter, the one who was doing well in her classes and turned to leave.

Her mother’s voice drifted back to Maleena who stood watching them from her doorway, “Maybe we can talk to maintenance about enlarging the rooms, you know merging two into one. I thought Catherine said this was the most modern dorm? Puh-lease!”

With only one day left before finals, Xavier sat up late into the night trying to write a paper on the citizen’s right to free speech. ‘For someone who talks as much as she does, you’d think this would have been an easy paper for her to write,‘ he thought with a hint of bitterness.

(Note: For those who dislike Uni, this post wasn’t the exciting defense of this stage of the game that I hoped it would be. I needed to get them settled, present their personalities and majors and see how they would interact with each other. I am sticking with my original plan to send them through Hunter without speeding up time, because college should be a place for them to grow into their personalities, develop who they will become and create new relationships. What I’m saying is, bear with me, these years will have an effect down the road. )

 

Posted on May 21st, 2008 under Wingate Hall. Tags: elizabeth, jodie, kitty, maleena, maxine, monica, robert, veronica, Wingate Hall, xavier. RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback.