Chapter 16

At dinner, we didn’t see Sandy or Liz in the cafeteria after all. Instead, we had a pleasant meal with some of the guys from our floor. All three of them were from out-of-state, but different midwest states. They’d picked CU for the skiing as much as the academics.

Len wasn’t paying attention to the conversation. He kept fidgeting with his glass. He’d slide it to the side a bit, or pick it up and set it back down without drinking. He also twirled his fork in his fingers when he wasn’t actively eating. He didn’t relax until we were back in the room sitting at our desks. Even then, he was staring out into space. So I decided to ask.

“Still thinking about Sandy?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know what you could’ve done differently.”

He smiled ruefully. “Besides not sleep with her?”

“Whoa! I didn’t say that!”

“But you were thinking it.”

I shrugged sheepishly.

“In hindsight, I shouldn’t’ve.” His statement was very matter-of-fact. He paused and stared at the wall for a moment before the corners of his mouth turned up in an ironic smile. “She was just, well, all over me.”

I chuckled a bit more darkly than I’d intended.

“What?”

“Ann was all over me,” I explained. “I said no and she got mad. Sandy was all over you. You said yes and she got mad.”

“Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

“Yeah.”

“Well,” he said, “Ann didn’t think you had a relationship. So she’ll get over it faster.”

“Maybe,” I conceded, although I really wasn’t sure. After all, Ann had been pretty pissed when she’d stormed off, and we hadn’t talked since. It’d been almost a week.

Len sighed. “Thank God I’m going home tomorrow.”

“Yeah.”

Then he paused in thought before he leaned forward and clasped his hands together

“You know what I’d like to do?” he asked.

I shook my head, slightly confused at his change to an upbeat tone.

“Watch a comedy. You seen What’s Up Doc?”

“Isn’t that ... um...”

“Early Barbra Streisand,” Len said.” And Madeline Kahn. I think it’s the first thing she did.”

“Before Blazing Saddles?”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s hilarious.”

I grinned, though my head was still spinning from his mood change. “Then let’s do it.”

We didn’t see Sandy or Liz at breakfast or lunch the next day. That afternoon, Len left for home and I had dinner with some random guys from the floor. I did see Liz and Sandy across the room, but we didn’t talk. Liz waved while Sandy glared at me. I shrugged it off. I wasn’t Len after all.

After dinner, I decided to go to the party in the quad tower. As I climbed the stairs of that wing of the dorm, the pounding beat of Foreigner grew until it was almost earsplitting. Thankfully, the party was as far from my room as physically possible and still be in the same building. No one in this half of the dorm was going to get any sleep, but maybe they didn’t care. It seemed like half the dorm was there. People spilled into the hall, sat on the stairs, and even had taken over a couple of nearby rooms. I waved to the people I recognized but didn’t see anyone I really wanted to talk to so I wormed my way through the crowd to the keg. Well, kegs. They had three. All Coors, which was disappointing.

After getting my beer, I worked my way back out to the hall. The crowd inside was just too much. I spotted a guy I knew waving to me before pointing toward the stairs. When I furrowed my brow, he did it again. So I followed.

I didn’t know him well. His name was Aaron and he lived on my floor. We’d chatted casually over dinner a couple of times, but that was about it. I thought he was a poly sci major, but wasn’t sure. He had great hair, though, wavy and thick like an actor or rock star. Like Simon LeBon, I realized.

He was waiting for me the landing.

“Dude,” he said, “Oh, I’m glad I saw you.”

“Okay...?”

“You’re a movie guy, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And pre-med?”

“Yeah...”

“Cool.” He rubbed his hands together excitedly. “This’ll work. What would you think about Beer Pursuit?”

“Beer Pursuit?”

“Trivial Pursuit but you miss a question, you take a drink.”

“Okay...” I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that.

“It’s teams,” he explained, “and I need a partner. I know history and geography, so we’ll be good.”

I shrugged. It was better than a loud, crowded party where I couldn’t move or hear anyone I was talking to. Still, I glanced back up.

“Oh,” he said. “We’ve got better beer, too.”

Well, that was an incentive.

He motioned me to follow him toward an open door halfway down the hall.

We reached the door and Aaron walked in without knocking. “Found a partner!”

A step behind him, I paused. Four people sat around a makeshift coffee table constructed of crates and a board. The Trivial Pursuit game was set up and each of them had beers. I didn’t recognize three of them, but the fourth smiled at me.