Читать книгу Bone of My Bones - Cynthia Gaw - Страница 11

And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived . . .

—1 Timothy 2:14

Holly Billingham rises from a desk in Rankin Hall at 10:50. She reels from the cognitive overload produced by her Monday anatomy lecture. Holly makes a beeline across the Avery Mall for the student union where she has staked out the perfect study venue, a little paradise in the midst of her busy days. It’s only the second week of her first semester in college, and she already feels in danger of falling behind. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays she has an hour break between her anatomy lecture and her freshman composition class in Avery Hall. Between those two locations is the solarium, the idyllic place to organize and begin memorizing the complexities of the human body. Above the huge plants and flowing fountains stretches a narrow loft lined with comfortable rocking chairs. The peaceful setting seems to help her get an intellectual grip. She also wonders if Kevin Parsons will be there again.

Last Monday, the very first day of classes, she had been in the rocking chair that she now considered her own. Her anatomy book had been open. He had walked past her and seemed to observe what she was doing. Her first thought of him had been that he was “checking her out,” but she had long forgotten that initial impression. Wednesday, after her second lecture, he had shown up again. He took the rocking chair next to her, introduced himself, and showed her that he had the same anatomy text. He told her that he needed to prepare for Prof. Collins’ twelve o’clock anatomy lecture.

“Really?” she said, “I have Collins at ten.”

He looked surprised and a bit nervous. “That class is a bit frightening for me. I need it for my major, but I’ve never had to memorize so much.”

Holly’s sympathetic response was, “I know what you mean. I’m already feeling swamped. My usual confidence is melting.”

He asked for a summary of the ten o’clock lecture which he assumed would be repeated at noon. The process of telling him back the lecture that she had just heard was precisely what she needed to do. As she summarized for him, she created order of the material in her own mind. In high school she had always avoided group study sessions. She considered them nothing but a waste of time. But this was different; perhaps this kind of study could be really helpful for both of them. He seemed eager to have a head start on the material, and he listened attentively as she tried to explain it. Kevin had shown up again in the solarium loft on Friday. Another quality study session had resulted. Holly also needed this course for her major, nursing, and she was already beginning to depend upon their meeting to review the lecture.

She had just passed her first weekend of college. On Saturday she, Jill, and Megan had hiked the Poplar Fork Trail, watched part of the football game from their dorm window, and in the evening gone off campus to Sweet Frog for customized yogurt sundaes.

Megan had gone to an early mass on Sunday morning, but the subject of church attendance had been avoided by the two Protestants. Holly and Jill had slept in, and all three had spent most of Sunday studying. Late in the afternoon, they went next door to the McGinn Recreation Center and worked out. Now it was Monday again, and Holly was hoping Kevin would appear, along with his helpful questions. As she opened the loft door, she saw him already waiting for her.

She sat down next to him and was soon caught up in an explanation of the bones, tendons and ligaments of the foot and ankle. She exhausted her notes and knowledge well before time to leave for freshman comp, and he started a new subject.

“I live in a fraternity house over on Orchard Street, just the first right off Grand Boulevard. My frat brothers and I are having a little party on Friday evening. Would you like to come? It may be a bit boring,” he admitted, “and totally drug and alcohol free, not even a DJ.”

The word “fraternity” raised red flags like poppies in spring. She had been warned about frat parties by her older brother, Darren, who was at Chapel Hill. He was definitely overprotective and had unilaterally demanded that she “never go to frat parties.” Her father had heard Darren’s imperative and seconded it. At orientation she had heard many rules pertaining to “Greek social events,” but she didn’t remember them now. Kevin was a clean-cut sort, and not at all bad looking. He was obviously a serious student, and had specifically stated no drugs or alcohol. Last week he mentioned that he attended the Baptist Church adjoining campus on College Street. But those mental red flags fluttered still. So Holly responded noncommittally. “If I did come, I’d want to bring my friends, Jill and Megan.”

Kevin liked the idea. “My frat brothers won’t mind; bring them along. I’d like to meet your friends.”

Holly Billingham, Jill Kelly, and Megan Clery were old friends. They grew up together in an upper-middle-class neighborhood, Asheford Green, in Concord, a suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina. They had often gone to different schools, and did not share many of the same special interests. They had, nevertheless, been friends as long as they could remember. During the school year they had often gone weeks without seeing one another. But they had always spent a lot of time together during summers. Their parents were friends, and Holly’s brother, Darren, dated Jill’s sister, Katie.

During their senior year of high school, they were delighted to discover that the others were also applying to Blue Ridge State. Holly wanted to be accepted as a nursing major, Jill was hoping for interior design, and Megan sought a place in the Reich College of Education. They decided that they would try to room together if they were all accepted, but they worried that two of them would get in and not the third. Amazingly, they had all been accepted, and now they were suitemates, along with a girl from Asheville, Lauren Davis, in Gorman Hall. They had loved their dormitory right away. They were on ninth floor and just across the street from Kidd Brewer Stadium—right in the middle of football hoopla. Their parents liked that they would be together, for there existed mutual respect among these families. The three girls had survived high school together relatively unscathed. The parents thought they would be good for one another.

About six thirty Monday evening Holly brought the troubling subject up. The three were eating in Privette Hall, the dining commons near their dormitory. Before placing the forkful of mashed potatoes in her mouth, Holly said, “Do you remember me telling you about the guy I’ve been studying anatomy with in the solarium? Well, today he asked us to a fraternity party on Friday evening.”

In the silence, Holly recognized the two other fields of red flags springing up. Jill eventually said, “I’m pretty sure my Dad would blow a gasket if he knew I went to a frat party.”

Holly reassured her with, “Kevin said that there wouldn’t be any alcohol or drugs, and it would be just a small, quiet event” (borrowing the PC term from orientation and carefully avoiding “party”).

Megan, likewise leery, asked, “Where is the frat house?”

Holly replied, “It’s just behind King Street. I know a little trail between Hubbub and Poplar Bagelry. We could quickly walk over. If we cross the Raley parking lot, walk the half block up Blue Ridge Street, and up the little shortcut, we’d be in the house’s backyard in five minutes.”

Jill asked, “What’s Kevin like?”

Holly looked more confident than she felt. “He’s cute and clean-cut. He seems like a nice guy. He takes anatomy seriously.”

Then Megan offered the persuasive facts when she said, “My dad was in Kappa Gamma Pi, and he’s still good friends with those guys. To hear them talk, they must have been pretty nerdy. They’re all serious Catholics, and I know the fraternity volunteered together at a soup kitchen in a church basement. They were at East Carolina, but they were not rowdy.”

Megan’s father was now the principal of the large Catholic high school in Charlotte, where her stepmother was a reading specialist. None of the girls could imagine Dr. Clery as anything but law abiding and responsible. If Meg’s dad was a frat boy, they couldn’t all be bad.

In spite of a unanimous sense of reluctance, they agreed to go. But they pledged to each other that if any one of them wanted to leave, they would all go with no questions asked. It was also agreed that no one was to speak of the “event” with anybody from Concord.