Chapter Seven

“Just then, Tess whipped off his wet T-shirt revealing his undulating pecs, and McKenzie fell into a dead-swoon. He cradled her in his glinting man-arms and…”

“Now wait just one cotton-picking minute, Clear –– who made you the narrator? Also, ‘man-arms?’ For that matter, when did McKenzie swoon? She sounds like an antebellum plantation-owner’s daughter.”

“Tess wasn’t telling it right,” Clear replied to Al. “What’s antebellum mean, anyhow?”

“It means ‘before-the-bellum.’ So, anyhow, there Tess was with something cold and sticky splashed over his front and onto his pants. I believe it was rum.”

“Kahlúa,” Clear corrected him.

“I know my drinks and it was rum.”

“Gummi berry juice,” said Maya, mostly to herself.

“Ambrosia,” said Amy.

“Phlogiston,” said Maya, and Amy laughed.

“Well, that explains the discolored patch,” said Milo, “but why all the little rainbow streaks?”

Tess leaned toward him across the table: “She told me it was Skittlebräu.” Milo shrugged uncertainly. “You know, vodka with skittles floating in it?”

Milo recoiled in disgust. “Oh sweet Jesus …”

Maya’s eyes went large. “So the legends are true!”

Clear elbowed Amy in the ribs. “You see what you miss by not drinking?”

“I do drink! I had two beers.”

“I meant all the time.”

Milo rolled his eyes. “So anyhow, Tess, what happened next?”

“There wasn’t really a ‘next’ –– I said ‘woozle wuzzle’ at her, she knotted her shirt at the navel, and went down to the basement where everyone was dancing. I’m pretty sure she hates me now.”

“You can do a ton better than her anyhow,” said Maya. Clear grinned like the Cheshire Cat but said nothing.

“Wait,” said Amy, turning to Milo. “Why are you only getting here now anyhow?”

“Funny you should ask. I ducked into the closet to get a sweater and felt snow beneath my feet. Pushing forward, I found the coats around me transformed into fir trees and I emerged into a highly allegorical fantasy world where I spent centuries righting wrongs, foiling the machinations of evil witches, and bringing peace to the realm. My exploits were recounted in song with lute and drum in moonlit glens and the very mountains bowed to my heroism. I was monarch of all I surveyed. Then, one day, while pursuing a wounded hart I had felled while hunting I entered that fateful stand of firs and in a flash was back in my room, the years melted away as though the merest residue of a dream. I walked over to the party and they said you guys came here for pizza. I explained this all ten minutes ago.”

“The girls were in the bathroom,” explained Al. “Doing … girl things.”

“Yes,” said Amy. “Beautifying ourselves.”

“Discussing our feelings,” added Maya.

“Menstruating in unison,” Clear concluded sweetly.

“Well, that solves the mystery of the stained shirt,” said Milo. Everybody looked at him. Al raised his eyebrows and took a long sip of water. “His stained shirt,” Milo said, pointing at Tess.

“You still haven’t asked about the cops, though,” said Clear.

“I figured some townie didn’t like hearing Green Day through their bedroom window at 115 decibels of quadraphonic sound and complained.”

Tess shifted in his seat and Maya shifted her weight minutely toward him as though she was leaning into a turn on a bicycle.

“Well,” said Clear, “there we were on the front lawn…”

“Driveway,” Al corrected.

“Anyhow, there we were, standing in front of the house, when out of nowhere Mike Branstetter nearly ran over Maya in his Ford Tempo. Tess came tearing over like a bat out of hell and totally body-checked her into the leaf pile.”

“C’mon,” said Milo, “tell it right.”

“Actually she is,” said Maya, and pulled at the collar of her shirt to reveal a prune-colored bruise the size of a fried egg flowering on her right shoulder.

“Holy shit! Is Mike Ok?”

“That’s the weird thing. The cops wanted to talk to him but he wasn’t anywhere. He went off with these two girls who said they were med students.”

“I figure they go to school two towns over or something,” said Amy.

“Did you not pay attention during that four hour drive from the airport?” asked Clear, staring at her in disbelief. “There is no ‘two towns over’––it’s like corn for six towns in every direction.”

Just then their server placed a bubbling pie the size of a Conestoga wagon wheel between them, commanding the attention of all present in much the same that a cage dancer in monastery might. Everyone grabbed slices. Milo and Amy dabbed at theirs with folded paper napkins while Al sawed off sections of his pizza with knife and fork and placed them into his mouth at regular intervals. Maya reached across the table for a stout glass jar and shook it vigorously upside-down over her slice, producing a dense flurry of parmesan cheese. Clear folded her slice in half and inserted it into her mouth as a sword swallower would. Tess looked up from his plate.

“Did something about those girls seem weird to anyone?” he asked.

“Wrmm,” said Clear with her mouth full. “Nao dat u meshun i, dey di see uh li weer.”

Al set down his knife and fork and dabbed at the corner of his mouth with a paper napkin. “It was like,” he said and paused. He propped his chin on his interwoven fingers and cast his eyes upward. “It doesn’t make any sense but it was like they were talking in unison, only they never talked at the same time. Do you know what I mean?”

“Right,” said Tess, “that’s a good way to put it.”

“That’s a borderline autistic way to put it,” said Clear after swallowing, “but I can’t think of a better way.”

“What?” said Milo. “That doesn’t make a lick of sense.”

“No argument here,” said Al. “It was like their brains were synched up, like when one was talking the other was thinking the same words loudly.”

“You know,” said Tess, “I didn’t say anything before because everything was kind of crazy back there but I only noticed the car coming after Kincaid dropped a coin on my head and said Maya was about to be run over.”

Clear and Al looked at him, startled.

“Yeah, he was up in that big oak tree in front of the house.”

“Wait,” said Amy. “The guy from matriculation?”

“Well,” said Tess, “it’s like this. A couple of weeks ago Kincaid broke into my dorm room, told me I have to find out something about some teacher named Sterne and drugged me.”

Al raised his hand from the table and said “yo.”

“Oh yeah, he drugged Al too.”

“Thank you.”

“So I stalked…”

“Wait just one minute,” interjected Amy. “Do you mean to say that a professor broke into your room, drugged the both of you, and you were just fine with it?”

“Well, not ‘fine,’ exactly. But in all fairness he didn’t actually break anything so near as we can tell,” said Al.

At this point Amy’s eyebrows seemed to be locked in a battle to see which could look most incredulous.

“That is not the point, Al. A professor actually assaulted you guys! Why wouldn’t you just go to the police?”

“There was some talk of mushrooms and drywall,” said Tess.

“Yeah,” chimed in Clear. “Apparently this one kid crossed Kincaid and, like…”

“No, just stop,” said Amy. “Seriously, we’re at a school, not some compound in Texas here. It’s not like they can declare martial law or something.”

“I think they can in Harry Potter,” said Maya.

“Lord give me strength,” muttered Amy, burying her head in her hands. She looked up again. “This is real life, not Harry Potter. Really, someone give me a serious answer: why wouldn’t you just call the police?”

“I thought about it,” said Tess. “I really did. But why would they believe me? I was the only person awake for it. And it’s not like he actually broke anything when he broke in. It’s more like he kind of limboed under the door or magically climbed through the keyhole or something. I was starting to think I dreamt the whole thing until the stuff with him and the tree and all.”

Amy rested the side of her head on her hand and stared at him quizzically.

“You don’t actually believe that do you?” she asked.

“Wait,” said Maya. “Don’t you believe in angels and things?”

“Hey, yeah,” said Clear.

“They’re metaphors, for Christ’s sake,” said Amy, extravagantly rolling her eyes. She paused before adding, “Well, for the most part.”

“Well, anyhow,” said Tess. “That’s why I didn’t do anything.”

Amy sighed. “It’s your life, I suppose. So, what happened next?”

“Huh? Oh, well, I stalked Professor Sterne for a while…”

Amy reburied her head in her hands.

“So hot!” interjected Clear.

“So British!” agreed Maya.

“He’s from Idaho,” said Al.

“Yeah, but he went to school in England,” said Clear and then made a “rowr” noise.

“And then I got a key…”

“Two keys,” corrected Clear.

“Right, two keys in the mail and used one to get into Colbert hall. The other one opened up a classroom named after a different Sterne who used to work here in the thirties.”

“We think there was guano,” added Clear. “Bat guano!” Al nodded sagely.

“But no clues?” asked Amy.

Tess shook his head. “That was just a little while ago and here we are.”

Maya looked as though something was bothering her and Milo turned to face her.

“What?”

“Do you think Professor Kincaid was in cahoots with Mike or those girls or something?”

“Huh?”

“What did he say?”

“In the tree? I think he said something like ‘Tess, my boy, it looks like your friend Maya’s about to be run over.’”

“He said my name?”

“I think so. I guess I’m not sure.”

“How did he know my name?”

“You don’t know him?”

“Tess, I’ve never met him before in my life.”

* * *

“You know, Tess,” said Al. “I think Maya likes you.”

“Have you ever actually met our RA?” asked Tess, looking back down the hallway they had just traversed and not paying him any attention. “It’s like he never leaves his room. Maybe somebody slides him flat foods under his door or something.”

“I only mention it,” continued Al, fishing his key ring out from the side pocket of his jeans, “because Buddha teaches us that attachments like that only…” he swung the door to their dorm room open. “Oh my.”

“What?” asked Tess, looking over his shoulder into the room. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”