“The party starts at nine, Aimee Spencer.” Then he’s gone—jogging after that girl—and I’m left staring after him trying not to notice how nice and round his butt is.
***
While I wait for my next class to start, I get lost in my head. Considering that the closest I got to attending a party last year in Portland was stumbling into the middle of a flash mob on the corner of Fourth and Madison, I don’t think I’m ready for the party scene. After so many months of keeping myself drawn into a tight ball, I’m realizing that it’s harder to make myself unspool than I thought it would be.
A fresh start.
The goal of coming back to Florida was to start living again and I know that if I’m being honest with myself, I’m only partway there. My classes are going well, but other than Mara and a few professors and now Cole, I’ve barely talked to anyone since I’ve gotten here.
A noise startles me from my thoughts. In the seat next to me, a girl is staring.
“Hi,” she says cheerily.
“Hi?”
I realize that I know her. It’s the blue-haired girl from Mara’s sorority.
“We didn’t meet properly last time. I’m Jodi,” she tells me, kicking her head to the side.
“Aimee,” I say and take the small, pale hand she holds out to me. She has an awfully strong grip for someone so tiny.
Jodi grins—it stretches across her face like water over dried up sand and exposes a small gap between her two front teeth. “I know your name. Not only are you Mara’s little sister, but we have two classes together.”
“We do?”
Jodi laughs—it’s light and airy and reminds me of another girl’s laugh. “Yeah. Are you a Library Sciences major? Because you sure don’t look like one.”
I glance down at my khaki colored shorts and plain white tank top. If I don’t look like librarian material, then Jodi certainly doesn’t. With that nose stud and the mesh top and loose linen skirt she’s got on today, I think she’d look more at home in front of a pottery wheel than sitting next to me waiting for a lecture on archival access to start.
“Um, I don’t know yet. Technically I’m undecided but it’s a definite possibility. Or maybe English.” I give myself a little shake. “I’m a bibliophile.”
“Ditto.” Jodi lowers her pointy chin to her chest. “Look,” she says firmly, “I have a bit of what you might call ‘the sight,’ and it’s been pretty clear to me since the recruitment fair that you and I are going to wind up as friends so I think that we should both just go with it.”
The sight? I’m not really sure what to say to that. I can’t tell if this girl is crazy, or on something, or being serious. Whichever way, I’m intrigued. I place my elbow on the armrest of my chair and lean back. “Okaaay…”
That’s all the encouragement that Jodi needs to be off. She tells me about her loser ex-boyfriend that showed up at her apartment last night and professed his undying love for her, and her straight-laced mother, who Jodi calls confounding, and the yeast infection that she had over the summer, and her thoughts on whether or not cats should be declawed.
Jodi is a sophomore. She’s also a Sagittarius who likes reptiles and thinks that Facebook is a tool of social destruction devised by Satan. She tells me that she’s only a member of Mara’s sorority because she’s a legacy and her mom made it clear that it was either join up or face the wrath of a thousand angry gods.
“They keep me around because of the legacy thing, but I don’t participate unless I’m forced. I only went to the fair last week to freak the rest of the girls out.” She laughs. “You should have seen the horrified looks that they gave my clothes when I showed up at their precious glitter table. Priceless.”
By the time the class is over, my head is spinning and I feel slightly out of breath. Jodi is bobbing two steps behind me in the hall—still talking and seemingly unaware just how out of practice I am at this whole “friendship” thing.
“Okay, I added myself to your contacts so you’ve got my number now.” She hands me back my phone. “I’ll look into the tickets for that concert on Saturday and I’ll let you know. Do you want to get food first?”
I don’t even remember agreeing to go to a concert with her, but my coherent brain function is almost zilch at this point so I just nod my head.
“Great. Chinese isn’t really my favorite but there is a place nearby. This one time I ate like eight egg rolls in one sitting and got so sick. Ugh. You don’t want the details. Just imagine Hiroshima contained in this stomach.” She waves her hand dramatically over her midsection. “Anyway, last weekend I discovered this amaaahzing little Indian place off of Connell Street if you’re up for it. They have a vegetable pakora that is like—no joke—to die for.”