Chapter 26

Larry was gone when I finally got up. A look at the clock explained why. It was after eleven. Clearly, I had needed the rest. In fact, I did feel better, and better still after a shower. Then it was a late breakfast/early lunch at the grub hub.

Thus fortified, I began to plan my day, and the ones following. We were down to the wire, with a week of classes remaining before finals. I chose my first subject and headed off to the library for a Brain Sponge session. I won’t go over the details, as I’ve explained it before. It involved one or two sessions to work through as much of the book as we’d covered, plus lecture notes. At the other end, I would have committed almost everything to memory.

I did this every day, carving out time for the last classes and any final assignments that were due. By the end of the week, I’d be ready.

At lunch in the grub hub after one Brain Sponge session, I saw Al Marquez leaving the counter with his tray and nodded to him. He raised an eyebrow in a ‘Can I join you?’ query and I motioned him over.

“Hello, Al. Trying to fortify yourself for yet more studying?”

“I am here mostly because I cannot look at another book for a while. I need a break.”

“Everyone else feels exactly the same way, so you are not alone. What are you doing for the Christmas break? Are you flying back home?”

“No, I will stay here. I will visit my cousin’s family and stay with them until classes start again.”

“Oh, that’s nice. Where do they live?”

“They are in Atlanta in Georgia. Just outside the city. There is a branch of the family business in Atlanta and he runs it.”

“Well, it should be nice to have some warmer weather for a month. There is no escape from it for me.”

He asked where I was from, and I gave him the two minute overview of the glories of Cleveland. I had to pad it out some to fill the full two minutes.

“Is it just your cousin and his wife in Atlanta, or is there other family there?”

“They have two children, a boy, Juan Carlos, who is about my age, and a girl, Anna Consuela, who is two years younger. We get along, and they try to include me in their activities.”

“I’m glad to hear it. You should go to many parties to try to recover from school, that is my recommendation.”

“They are more American than they are Spanish, I think, because they have lived here for a long time. They use lots of slang, and even their Spanish accent has some flavor of Georgia in it. They know all about parties.”

“Then you will have a good time, I am sure. Flirt with lots of girls, even if you are engaged. Have you heard the saying, ‘What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’?”

“I think I have but I do not know what it means.”

“It means that anything you do in Las Vegas will probably not be known by anyone outside of Las Vegas. It forgives many sins. So ‘What happens in Georgia stays in Georgia’. Unless your cousins like to tell your secrets.”

He smiled at that. “They are in their teens. They try to keep as much of their life outside the home from their parents as they can. I know a few things they’ve done that would make their parents very angry.”

“Good. Then they can show you the way. I’ll want a full report when you return.”

I picked up my tray and wished him success on his exams and a restful vacation.

I forced myself back into my study routine. Even with the aid of Brain Sponge sessions it was beginning to wear on me.

The others on campus, of course, mostly relied on the old standby: cramming. I’d never found it to be much help, because short-term memory doesn’t retain information for very long.

So even if you think you know it, because you’ve quizzed yourself, much of it is forgotten by the next day, when the exam is. You sit there in the exam room with your pen in your hand and you panic because the stuff you were sure that you knew is now nowhere to be found.

Same thing had happened to me all through high school. Well, at least till I figured out how to borrow the knowledge from the teachers, along with the grid they used to organize it.

Here, in college, that method wasn’t often available to me because I usually couldn’t get a link to the instructor’s mind. That required them to focus on me so I could locate their thread and step into their epicenter. That’s really hard to do in big lectures or classes with many students, and the instructor seldom focuses on a single person.

So discovering Brain Sponge was a huge boon and allowed me to assimilate all the information and retain it. I’d been doing these sessions all semester, in smaller bites, so I already had most of it. This was mostly reinforcement, maybe even unnecessary but I wasn’t taking chances.

By the time the following Monday rolled around, the first day of exams, I felt ready. I may have been one of the few calm faces walking across campus to the exam rooms. Everyone else looked decidedly worried and nervous. And sleepy.

Karen had sent me an email filling me in on the end of her semester, of projects she was working on, the dread of exams after the break, and also her plans for when she was due to fly home. I spent a few minutes looking at her picture above the desk to remind myself that I’d see her soon.

Skip forward a few days to Friday, my last exam, and I spent the last twenty minutes of the period just reviewing my answers, double-checking my math (I’d once lost a full letter grade in a Chemistry final by making some incredibly careless arithmetical errors on some calculations).

I came out of it feeling okay about everything that week. Back in my dorm room I started packing a bag for my trip home. The door opened and Larry dragged himself in.

“And?” I asked him.

“How the hell do I know? I answered the questions on the exam. Some of the answers might even be correct, who knows. I had no real certainty about anything. I just want to forget about it and get out of here. You?”

“Okay, I think. None of the questions seemed like they were out of left field. I’ll pass.”

“I don’t know why I bothered to ask. Of course you did okay. When are you out of here?”

“There’s a train tonight that’ll get me in before midnight, so I’ll leave here just after dinner.”

“I’ll be glad to have some down time for a month. I’ll need to blow off some steam after I get home. I’ve gotta pack, then I’m in the car and on my way. A few hours on the road and then I can forget ---------- till the end of next month.”

Our school, ------------, has exams before winter break, then takes a month off so they don’t have to heat the buildings for a month. So I’d be a man of leisure for a few weeks.

Larry threw everything into a couple of bags, dirty clothes included, and I helped him carry them to his car. He stuffed them all in the trunk and opened the door. “You have a great Christmas, Carter. See you when we get back. If I’m allowed to come back.”

He gave a wave as he accelerated out of the parking lot, and I went off to an early dinner. They hadn’t given much thought to the menu since so many students took off early, so I assumed it was leftovers dressed up to look new.

I got a hamburger instead, which I watched them cook fresh, along with fries, plus a small salad because I heard Karen going ‘Tsk, tsk’ in my head. And pie.

I sat and finished my burger, and started on the salad. I had to force myself to eat that before starting the pie.

“Carter, thought you’d left!”

I looked up, and Mindy and Katrina were holding their trays, heading for the bussing station.

“Right after I finish eating. Got a train to catch. You?”

“Got a carpool ride in the a.m. with someone who lives near me, we’ll share driving expenses. Katrina’s got a plane in the morning, too. See you when we get back. Have a great Christmas.”

I wished them the same as they walked off. I’d meant to ask Mindy how her exams had gone, but she hadn’t looked worried so it was probably okay. Same for Katrina.

Not much to tell after that. Got a cab to the train station, a long, boring trip home. At the station my parents were waiting, my mother jumping up and down with excitement. The car ride home was a stream of non-stop questions about my semester, how had I done, what had I liked most, who had I met, is she pretty?

We’ve talked about this before, you should be able to write her dialog yourself by now.

And at home, with the bags waiting at the bottom of the stairs, the questions continued, now bribed with some of her homemade apple crisp with vanilla ice cream which she knew I was a sucker for.

“When is Karen getting in?” she asked me when she momentarily ran out of questions.

“Last word I had is Sunday. That’s the first plane she could get a seat on. She’ll call after she gets some sleep, if it’s like last time.”

“Tell her to drop by when she has a chance. I’d like to catch up.”

I made my way out of the kitchen while she was distracted, then carried my bags upstairs. I suddenly felt really tired, thought I had slept on the train. I had my clothes off and was about to fall into bed when my last functioning brain cells called out desperately, “Window shade! Down!” I detoured to pull down the shade so the sun wouldn’t wake me, then collapsed into bed.

I had a moment of disorientation when I awoke, then it came back to me. I looked at my wrist watch, which I’d forgotten to remove and read 10:30. I thought I deserved another half hour but I couldn’t get my eyes to stay closed, so I got up, showered and dressed.

There was no one in the kitchen, my mother’s usual haunt, then I remembered it was Saturday, my parents’ normal time for errands and shopping. There was still some coffee in the Mr. Coffee pot, maybe a bit overcooked from sitting so long after brewing but desperate times, desperate measures, so I poured burnt coffee into a cup.

So what’s my day gonna look like? No more exams, no studying, no papers due. There’s always the mall, the usual answer when you literally can’t think of anything else to do. I could do my Christmas shopping instead of waiting till the last minute and shopping with all the other procrastinators. If I can’t think of anything else, then I’ll do that.