Authors: Christine Duval
“Laurel?” Someone is shaking my arm. “Laurel. What are you doing here?”
I open my eyes to see the silhouette of a man crouching beside me, and I jerk my arm from his grasp and sit up with a jolt, completely disoriented.
“I didn’t mean to startle you.”
It takes my brain a minute to register who I’m looking at. “Uncle Jake?” My grandfather’s brother tilts his baseball cap at me and then, with what seems like a lot of effort, pulls himself up to stand.
“What are you doing here?”
“That’s what I asked you.”
I stand, too, and brush myself off. “I go to Colman now.”
He squints at me. “Is that right?” It’s like looking at a thinner version of my grandfather, with the same white beard and hair.
“Don’t you live in California?”
“Up in Oregon these days.”
A chilly autumn breeze brushes across the lake, and I shiver. “What time is it?”
“After five.”
“Five?” My jaw drops. I slept all afternoon.
“Come on. Let’s go up to the house. It’s getting cold.”
Uncle Jake moves at a snail’s pace as we make our way up the hill. He pauses a lot, and a couple times I have to steady him.
“So, Oregon. That’s a long trip,” I say when he rests again, hanging on a fence post. “Why’d you come back?”
“I have a meeting with the realtor tomorrow. I’m trying to get this place back on everyone’s radar screen. I’d like to get it sold.”
Looking up the hill at the boarded up barn, the tiny cottage of a house, not to mention a couple of run-down old sheds, I can’t help but ask, “No offense, Uncle Jake, who is going to buy this?”
“It’s not Napa Valley. That’s for sure.” He exhales, pulling a grape off a vine, squeezing it, and letting it drop to the ground. “At least your dad had the sense to lease the land to another winery so these didn’t all rot away. Not sure I agree with his other decisions, though.”
We continue our ascent. “Like what?”
“Well, someone offered to buy these nineteen acres.” He points to the vineyard. “Problem is he doesn’t want the house or the eleven acres on the other side of the property. Just the vines.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“Your father doesn’t want to divide it up.”
“Why not?”
“Because he thinks he’ll be stuck with the house and eleven useless acres.”
I grab his arm again. It’s all bone and loose skin. He’s aged quite a bit since my grandmother’s funeral. “What do you think?”
“I think we should take what we can get.”
We reach the back porch and go into the kitchen. Uncle Jake takes a seat at the table. He’s winded, breathless really, so I wait before asking my next question.
“Why don’t you tell my dad he has to sell it?”
“Because your grandmother put him in charge of her estate. And the property is in your name.”
“It is?”
He nods. His wrinkles have grown deeper over the past few years, and his beard is like powder now. “After your mother died, your grandparents put everything in your name. Not that everything is a lot, unless you’re counting a lot of headaches. But there was one provision. If you sell, half the assets go to me. He never told you?”
“That would be too long a message for him to text.”
Jake knows I’ve struggled with my dad. His face tightens. “Maybe you could have a talk with him.”
“Sure,” I lie. It’s not worth me even bothering. Besides, I have way too much else to deal with right now. This is the last thing I want to get in the middle of. “Maybe you should have the realtor talk to him. He listens to her.”
“That’s why I’m here. I’m not getting any younger, you know.”
After I make him some tea and devour a box of stale biscuits he’s brought from Oregon, I check my phone. 6:15. There’s no way I can ride back to school now. It’s going to be dark soon. But I don’t want to spend the night here, either.
“Any chance you could give me a ride to campus?” I ask, hopeful.
“I don’t drive anymore after dark. Too old for that.”
“Oh.” I guess I am spending the night. My shoulders sag.
“Why don’t you take the truck?”
“What truck?”
“Your grandmother’s.”
“It’s still here?”
“Where else would it be?”
We go out to the garage, and sure enough, there is my grandmother’s blue Chevy pickup looking like a muddy dinosaur. Uncle Jake opens the driver side door and feels around for the keys. “Just where I left ’em.” He climbs in and attempts the ignition.
It stalls once, then twice, but on the third try it catches. He motors onto the driveway and rolls the window down. “You remember how to drive now, don’t you, city slicker?”
“How could I forget your driving lessons? Are you sure it’s okay for me to take this to campus?”
“It’s not doing any good sitting here. You may not want to mention it to your father, though.”
“Right. Let me grab my backpack.” I run into the house.
When I rejoin him on the driveway, he’s already lifted my bike into the bed of the truck, and knowing how much effort that must’ve been for him, I attempt to give him a hug. He brushes me off.
“You’ve got half a tank of gas. You shouldn’t have any trouble.”
“So when do you head back?” I ask.
“On Tuesday.”
I climb in and reach for the seatbelt. “You don’t mind if I come here from time to time until it’s sold…do you?”
“Whenever you want.” He smiles. “Heck, the place belongs to you. Bet you never thought you’d be the proud owner of your very own grape farm.”
“Yeah.” I smile. “Hopefully for not much longer, right?”
“From your mouth to god’s ear.” He pats the side of the truck. “Get going.”
Driving the empty roads back to Colman, it’s just me in my own head, and it starts again. That anxious feeling, rising up like a tidal wave in my chest. The panic is overpowering, so I try to take deep yoga breaths, but I can’t stop the rush of overwhelming thoughts.
What am I going to do?
I’m waiting for something inside the logical part of my brain to give me an answer, and nothing is coming.
And the clock is ticking.
When I pull onto campus, students are barreling in droves down the hill to the Roebling Center, which houses one of the cafeterias. There are three others, but Roebling is where most of the freshmen tend to congregate. I drive around in circles, looking for a spot, but my only option is a side street about a half mile away.
The grumbling in my stomach keeps me from heading straight back to Miller. Those biscuits didn’t do it for me, and I need sustenance – badly – so I ride my bike past the flocks of hungry freshmen and chain it to a rack. After running my student ID under the barcode machine, the old lady who acts as the gatekeeper but looks more like the crypt keeper waves me through. I scan the room for familiar faces, spotting Liz in a corner by herself.
“Hey,” I say when I reach her table.
She glances up. “Hi.”
“Can I sit here?”
“Sure.” Her voice is flat, and her face expressionless. I’m not sure what I’m getting into, but I don’t want to sit alone. Maybe Liz doesn’t mind, but eating by yourself at Roebling is like committing cafeteria suicide as far as I’m concerned.
“I’ll be back in a few.”
When I return with a plate full of mashed potatoes, roasted chicken and carrots soaked in butter, Liz is gone and so is her bag. I sigh. Why does she have to be so odd? I guess I am eating alone.
I’ve wolfed down half my plate when she reappears, with a cup of coffee and a brownie.
“I thought you left,” I say, still shoveling food in my mouth.
“No, just wanted something else. What’d you do today?” she asks, though she doesn’t seem too concerned about the answer.
“I went for a bike ride over to Seneca Lake. To my grandparents’ old place.”
“Why?”
“Just felt like it.”
“That’s kind of far, isn’t it?” she asks flatly.
“Eighteen miles. But I drove their truck back to campus.”
“Their truck?” She sits up, suddenly more interested. “I thought freshmen couldn’t have cars on campus.”
“They can’t. So I parked it off campus.”
Her eyes brighten, and I can tell her mind is exploring the possibilities afforded by having a friend with wheels. “So where are we going tonight?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s Saturday night, and you have a CAR.”
“It’s a truck,” I correct.
Liz’s mind is churning. “How about a road trip? To Rochester.”
I weigh the thought of sitting in a dorm room all by myself along with an envelope full of decisions or the distraction of a night out in an upstate metropolis. I am swayed.
“Okay.”
We return to Miller to shower and change. Neither one of us has been to Rochester before, so after we are looking our Saturday night best, we gather in her room and do some online reconnaissance. We decide on the neighborhood that Eastman University is in because it’s a huge school and there is bound to be something going on somewhere. She prints directions, and we’re off.
We’re not even halfway down the hill when we hear the thundering footsteps of someone running behind us.
“Liz, Laurel.” Mike stops when he reaches us, panting. “I was calling you from all the way up the hill. Where are you going?”
“Laurel scored herself some wheels, and we’ve decided to take a road trip to Rochester.”
His eyes narrow. “A car? From where?”
I open my mouth to explain, but Liz interjects, “Does it matter? The point is we have an automobile that can transport us to fun places.”
“It’s actually a Chevy pickup,” I offer.
“Can I come?”
“What about your friends?” I ask.
“They took off.”
I shrug. “The more, the merrier. Although, it might be a tight fit.”
Neither Mike nor Liz seems to care.
We climb in, three across, with Mike sitting next to me in the middle despite the fact Liz offered him the window seat. He presses his leg against mine, and I don’t mind.
“Let’s hope she starts,” I say as I put the key in the ignition. After a short stall, the engine turns over.
Liz rolls down the window, allowing fresh air to fill the cabin. “Rochester, watch out!” she yells to the crisp, clear night.
Forty-two miles hums along thanks to Mike’s easy conversation. He braves the questions I’m afraid to ask. “So what happened with tall guy last night? You seemed to be pretty cozy in the corner.”
“Yeah. Who was he?” I ask.
“A junior. Lives off campus. I get the impression he likes to troll the freshman dorms.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve seen him at every freshman happy hour.”
“Does tall guy have a name?” Mike asks.
“John Smith.”
“That’s his name?” Mike snorts. “Did he give you a phone number beginning with 555?”
Liz and I laugh. “I didn’t get his number. But I did get this.” She pulls down her collar to reveal a black and blue mark on her neck.
“Is that a bruise or a hickey?” I ask.
“If I could remember, I’d tell you.”
Mike throws me a let’s-not-touch-that-one look.
She puts her collar back up. “I’m not drinking tonight.”
The lights of Rochester sparkle in the distance, and my pulse quickens at the sight of a skyline. It’s nowhere near Manhattan’s, but I’m a sucker for the city life, and getting out of rural land for a while will do me some good.
Since we don’t stand much of a chance of getting into any of the bars and clubs around Eastman, being underage with no fake IDs to speak of, we seek out the next best thing on a large campus: the Greek Life. An unfamiliar thing at Colman – they have a policy against fraternities and sororities – but Eastman is loaded with them.
We don’t have any idea about the Greek system or how it works, but we are good at scouting out where a party is. We find a campus map, which shows a small cluster of Greek houses sitting on the west end not far from where we are. An easy walk from the Commons area, we soon find ourselves among a handful of decadent mansions with Greek symbols on their gables.
We wait and watch like spies as students come and go from the different houses, but none seem to be alive with the energy of a party, at least not yet.
“I thought every house here would be rockin’. This is lame,” Liz says.
“Let’s go back to the Commons. I bet we can get the scoop on something there,” Mike suggests.
When we’re seated in a crowded café, a group of girls, wearing their best skinny jeans and platform pumps, perch themselves at the next table with non-fat lattes in hand. Mike swoops in.
“Excuse me. Um, hi.” The girls give him an unfriendly stare, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “My friends and I are visiting from Colman for the night. We’re doing some research for a project, and since we’re here, we were trying to figure out what we should do. Are there any parties going on?”
All four of them glare at us for an uncomfortably long time until the olive-skinned girl with straight hair down to her hips says, “There’s a party at the apartments.”
Mike has the magic touch.
“Where are the apartments?” he asks with a sparkle in his eye. He’s a smooth one, this Mike.
I can tell the girl thinks he’s cute by the way her mouth curls up when she talks to him. She gives Liz and me the once-over. “They’re not far from here. You can come with us if you like.”
Her friends shoot her the look of death.
“That’d be great.” Mike is satisfied with the workings of his charms. “I’m Mike.” He reaches across the invisible hostile line that separates our tables and shakes her hand. “This is Liz and Laurel.”
“I’m Natasha. This is Jessica, Jen and Becca.”
We exchange cool hellos, and Mike begins the diplomatic mission of teaching us all to get along, which with their attitudes is probably going to be more difficult than negotiating peace in the Middle East.
“What year are you?”
“Sophomores. You?” Natasha asks.
“We’re freshmen.”
“You’re freshmen, and you already have to go off campus to do research? Your school must suck.” That comes from Jessica, who doesn’t look up from her gel manicure.
Mike shrugs off the comment. “So tell me about this party.”