Page 6 of A Storybook Wedding
I cleared my throat and stood up a little taller, trying to compose myself. “Cecily Jane Allerton,” I said. “I’m in your workshop.”
He smiled and reached out his hand. I gripped it hard and gave him the firmest handshake possible. Here is a career author, Cecily. Big leagues. Act like you belong.
“Ow,” he said, pulling back reflexively. “You’ve got some grip.”
“Sorry.” I ran the offending fingers through my hair in a poor attempt to illustrate how soft and gentle they could be, or perhaps how skilled with a pen and words and such.
He shrugged, rubbing his hand on his thigh. “Anyway, nice to meet you. I’ll see you around.”
With that, Nate Ellis walked away. It was at this moment that I realized he was wearing a T-shirt and khaki cargo shorts, low white socks, and sneakers. Like a typical person my age who was going out on a Saturday for, I don’t know, groceries or something.
I looked down, considering my own outfit: a wrap dress and a chunky statement necklace paired with gladiator sandals. I looked classy, I decided. Very business casual. Appropriate. This is higher education, not Stop & Shop, I told myself. I flipped my cell phone over in my hand and checked the time, then begrudgingly snapped a photo of my one friend so far, the Whiteboard, and left for the orientation lunch.
As I walked to the entrance of the dining hall, located on the side of the adjacent main house, I could smell burgers and hot dogs being grilled and saw smoke off in the distance. There were two lunches, separate and distinct from one another, for this day. The outdoor offering, overlooking the beautiful blue-gray Atlantic, was being prepared around back and was for faculty and returning students to partake in. My lunch—the indoor one—was for the incoming class. Professor Dillon Norway, the fine gentleman who wrote about my submission with such generous praise, would be in attendance, along with eight other new students, plus me.
The room itself was set up with round tables, each seating ten people, with a buffet-style line running through the center of the room. Sandwiches, several salads, and a soup tureen labeled tomato basil were all displayed down the buffet in a sightly exhibit of culinary art. The tables were dressed in burgundy cloths, a fine match for the cedar-planked walls of the room. Sconces lit up the space and made it feel like a New England tavern on a brisk autumn day. Truly, it was lovely, a stark contrast to the holding cell I was sharing with Gurt.
I positioned myself at the one table set with cutlery, facing the door so that I could see people as they entered the space. Students trickled in. The first one was a girl younger than me, probably fresh out of undergrad. She wore short shorts, high-top Chuck Taylors, and a T-shirt with a picture of Harry Styles on the front. She gave me an awkward half smile and sat down several seats away from me. “This is the orientation thing, right?” she asked.
I pushed my glasses up on the bridge of my nose and nodded. “I’m Cecily. What’s your name?”
“Ashlyn,” she said, taking out her phone and swiping at it.
“Pretty name,” I replied. When she didn’t respond, I didn’t want to repeat myself and seem weird. Instead, I figured I’d speak a little louder to make sure she could hear me. “So you a big 1D fan?” I asked at a significantly elevated decibel.
She startled. Too loud, I noted. My bad.
“1D hasn’t been a thing since 2015,” Ashlyn said, setting her eyes back on her cell phone screen and keeping them there.
“Right.” I laughed awkwardly as another girl about Ashlyn’s age entered and sat down right next to her.
“Orientation?” the new girl asked.
“Yeah,” Ashlyn said. “I’m Ashlyn.”
“Kelsey,” the girl replied. “Cool tat.” Kelsey looked at Ashlyn’s wrist.
“Aw, thanks. I just had it done, like, a month ago.”
“Oh yeah? Let me see,” I said, trying to remain involved in the conversation.
Ashlyn rolled her eyes and reluctantly showed me her wrist. On it, there were four small black birds flying in no particular formation. “That’s wicked dope,” I followed up in an attempt not to seem like an old lady who still equated Harry Styles with One Direction.
Evidently, wicked dope is not trending, because the girls just sneered at me. A third girl came in and sat beside them, and the three began chattering away about where they were from and some show that’s all the rage on MTV.
“Is that like the Jersey Shore?” I asked, feigning interest.
Again, they snickered, but neither Ashlyn nor Kelsey even bothered to answer the question. The newest of the three, who introduced herself as Trix (Like the cereal? I wondered), just said, “Jersey Shore? I don’t know. I think my parents used to watch that show.”
“Yeah, for sure. Mine too,” I replied, faking a laugh, even though my parents only watch Jeopardy and Law and Order: SVU.
I’m twenty-nine years old. I’m not a dinosaur, but I began to feel like these girls were working hard to make me feel like one, so I kept quiet as the remaining members of our cohort trickled in. I was confident I would be among the older students in the group but was surprised to learn that more than half (count: five) of the students in my cohort were entering straight out of undergrad. The Gen Z trio began giggling with each other as they discovered their shared love of Post Malone over pasta salad and turkey clubs. One young man had AirPods in throughout the entire meal, signaling (at least to me) that he would prefer not to speak at all, and the other younger man spoke in short, one-word answers. In addition to those five, there was an older man with a handlebar mustache, like the kind you might see at a three-ring circus in the 1940s. Sandwich crumbs crept into his pubic upper lip and nested there, and I tried not to look so as not to upset my (sometimes sensitive) gag reflexes. The last two people at the table were a real feast for the eyes: a set of middle-aged women, possibly about fifty years old, who were identical twins. All the way down to their outfits, like schoolchildren. They wore matching purple sleeveless mock turtlenecks and knee-length denim skirts. Their synchronized hairstyles were coiffed in tufted layers, like a halo of dirty-blond feathers reaching up toward the sky on top, out to the east and west on the sides, and limply falling in the back, just grazing their shoulders, with enough Aqua Net holding it all in place to power a small blowtorch for days. And their makeup. All I can say is turquoise eye shadow.
Cat and Pat.
Yes, I am serious.
Needless to say, it took a laborious amount of conscious effort not to stare.