Chapter 3: Mary

When Anne went to take a shower, she didn't take any clean clothes with her. I wondered what would happen when she came out. When she did, she wasn't wearing a towel or anything else. Naked. Said she forgot. Maybe, but no problem.

She's a great-looking woman. About 5' 6" or 7". Broad shoulders, good legs, breasts all over her chest, but not huge or flabby. None of her is flabby. Tan everywhere but where the bottom of her little bathing suit was. Square face and jaw, full lips, dark brown eyes that see everything. Brown hair cut square to shoulder length, not frizzy or anything. Simple. No paint. Knotted gold studs in her ears. No hair on her crotch; think I'll let that ride for a while.

She didn't mind that I looked her over like I'd look over a filly. I'm starting to like her.

On the way out for food, I looked over the rooms as I closed the door. You can see the fields out the windows — incredibly green for August. But this is the Mid-West. They have rain here in the summer. The rooms are good — will be better when we get things set up right.

In the pizza joint, we got a big one, lots of stuff on it.

"Now," she said, "Tell me where you're from in Colorado, and all that."

"Fairplay, they call it. Up in the mountains, mostly cattle country, lots of sagebrush, some mining. Cold winters, hot, dry summers. Windy. What about you?"

She told me the name of her home town, but of course, I'd never heard of it, any more than she knows Fairplay. She's here to study Retail Marketing, she said. My game is more like Financial Planning.

"How'd you do in high school?" I asked.

She looked me straight in the eye. "I was number three in my class of 800. I decided I didn't want to have to give a speech on Graduation Day, so I fiddled an exam or two so I wouldn't be any higher. And you?"

I looked back. "I was top in my class of 200. When they asked me to do a valedictory, I told them if I had to, I just wouldn't show up for graduation. So they stuck someone else with it."

She smiled that smile of hers that sort of makes her glow.

"I plan to be pretty close to the top when I get out of here, too, you know," she said.

"I hope you are, if that's what you want. I want to learn what I need to know. If I get good marks, so much the better. But I guess that's not too much different..."

"Well, yeah. You're right about learning what you need. But well, I guess I've got this thing about excellence. I really want to excel. And I want my life to have beauty in it. But I also want to have fun..."

I got right back in. "That's sort of what I was getting at before, about guys. I like guys, but I want to find some who care about more than beer and sex."

"Uh, didn't mean to get high and mighty, there..." Anne said. She looked a little concerned, as though she might have turned me off. She hadn't. And then she smiled that smile again. "I like beer. And I like sex. But, yes, I've seen too many guys who stop right there. The problem is finding guys — and girls — who like other things, too. Love is important, but I really worry about what some people call love. I don't know what to make of it some days."

"Well, anyway, it sounds like we have our work cut out for us. Good marks, good guys, a mix of beer and beauty, sex and love. That's some agenda."

"We'll manage. I've been lucky so far. But you make a lot of your own luck. It'll hold."

"I like you," I said. "I like that you think about the same things I do. I think we're going to be all right."

Back at the dorm, we headed upstairs. There was a crowd of guys hanging out on the steps, and we talked to them as we went in. Several wanted to know if we wanted company, and we just let it go by. Up in the room, we suddenly realized the only lights were the ones on the ceiling. "Better put some lamps on the Salvation Army list," Anne said and made a note in a little book. "I guess I can cross off the wastebasket I was going to get."

"Unless we want another one."

It was still early, and we sat and talked for a while about the next few days. Registration, courses, books, where to eat, what it costs. Laundry. Telephone — we had a small debate about cell phones, then decided to use them just for long distance; we'd get a land line for local calls.

"You leave any boyfriends at home?" I asked.

"No. That is, I have boyfriends at home, but I'm not going to miss any of them too much. I enjoy being with them when I'm there, but while I'm here, I'm going to find some fellows I can share this life with. I figure I'll see who's in my classes and see if I can put a study group together."

"What do you mean, a study group?"

"Well, I don't know if it will work here, but at home I had some friends — guys and girls in my class — and we'd get together and keep our homework up and study for exams and stuff. I didn't get to be top of my class without some help, you know. Anyway, I hope I can get something like that together here. It'll be more fun, and I think it's less work when you do it together. You get to see things the way other people do, and that helps."