Wrecked(15)

“I’m sorry, Jenny,” Haley says. “I wasn’t judging. Not you, not Carrie, no one.” But Jenny doesn’t seem to hear.

“Here’s one thing I’ve learned: the real snakes in the world? Don’t look anything like you’d expect them to.”





. . .


He conducts this symphony.

The dissonance of laughter and grunts as they grapple with the keg and stagger--stumble up the steps, the foaming liquid swaying side to side. The diminuendo of an empty trunk as strong arms heft cases of beer, bottles of vodka. The crescendo of assembly: hauling, dragging, piling, stacking.

The tune--up complete, Exley surveys.

The evening’s ingredients. Fuel for all their expectations.

. . .





6





Richard


It’s not Richard’s day to be on duty at the math lounge, but he goes anyway. And sure enough, she’s there: at the long table, textbook and papers spread out.

You get to know the regulars. The Frantic Freshmen from Calc II, who wave their C--minus midterms in your face and insist they scored in the high seven hundreds on the math portion of the SAT. You have to talk them down. Then there are the Multivariable Geeks, who were feeling pretty good about themselves . . . until they started Multivariable. They spend a good portion of their time—and his—agonizing, out loud, about whether they should switch their majors to economics.

Luckily, there are a few reasonable students who have a question or two about their problem sets. They get the answers, then move on. Finally, you’ve got the folks who just like to study here, who might not even take math. The lounge is comfy.

Soccer Girl is a hybrid of the latter two, although most days, she’ll camp out in the cushiony seats and do work. Once, she fell asleep, her mouth slightly open, the history book she was reading in midslide off her lap. Without waking her, Richard had removed the book before it fell, marking her spot with a slip of paper and placing the closed volume on the floor next to her chair.

She smelled like honey and vanilla. The dryer sheets his mom uses.

When Richard enters, she’s deep in conversation with Useless Brent, their heads bent over her paper. He takes a seat at the end of their table. And waits. Like Richard, Brent earns work--study dollars as a tutor, but unlike Richard, Brent doesn’t do much to explain math concepts to anyone. More times than he can remember, Richard has had to bail him out.

“I really think it’s an inverse tangent we want here,” he hears Brent say.

Soccer Girl doesn’t look convinced. “I’m thinking inverse cosine.”

Brent takes her pencil. Literally grabs it out of her hand and begins marking up her paper. Her shoulders rise and fall noticeably as she takes a deep breath.

“Hey,” Richard says. They both look up. “Want me to take a crack at it?”

“We’re good,” Brent says grumpily, ducking his head back to the paper.

Richard looks at Soccer Girl.

Yes! she mouths silently at him.

He grins and moves to the chair across from them.

“I’ve got this,” Brent repeats.

Richard ignores him, reaches across the table, and flips her homework sheet around. They’re working on the chain rule. “What don’t you get?”

“We’re trying to resolve this integral, and I think we’re dealing with an inverse cosine, but Brent says inverse tangent,” she explains.

“You’re not even scheduled today,” Brent protests.

“Hey, I’ll take all the help I can get,” Soccer Girl says pleasantly.

Richard scans the page, thinking. “Totally an inverse cosine,” he says, flipping the page back toward her.

“Yes!” she exclaims. She fist--pumps. Heads turn in their direction.

Brent gets up. He walks to another table where a group of freshmen are arguing about a proof.

“No need to get huffy,” Richard says under his breath.

“Guess that was rude of me,” she says, laughing. “I should apologize.”

“Nah. He should apologize for being a dweeb. Anything else?”

“No. That was it. Thanks.” But she doesn’t move.

“Are you a math major?”

“I’ve been here all of seven weeks. I have no clue what my major is. You?”

“Pretty much.” He shrugs. “I keep taking math courses.”

“And clearly rock at it,” she adds. Trace of a smile. “I’m Haley, by the way.”

“Richard,” he replies. “Nice to meet you. Now that I know your name, I won’t have to think of you as Girl with the Soccer Sweatshirt anymore.” He thinks this is an okay thing to say. But her expression clouds. “Team sweatshirt, right?” he asks.

“Used to be on the team. I mean, I’m still ‘officially’ on the roster. But I got hurt, and . . . well, let’s just say it was a career--ending injury.” She tries to smile when she says this, but her eyes aren’t laughing.

“I’m sorry. What happened?”

“Can you two take it somewhere else? I’ve got a test tomorrow.” This from someone at the table next to theirs.

“Sorry,” Richard mutters at him. He looks at Haley. “Whoops.”