from the front of the classroom. “It’s time for us to begin.”
And with that, I began my very first and probably last college class.
After an hour and a half of Reggie droning on about the significance of classical liberal political philosophy in the early American novel, I understood why college kids drank coffee all dang day. When he finally announced that we’d take a ten-minute break, I grabbed Alice’s hand and pulled her bodily out of the classroom and down to the basement where the vending machines hummed contentedly.
“Are you having fun?” Alice asked, as I dug quarters out of my purse for the soda machine.
I searched her face for any hint of sarcasm, found none, and sighed. “Darlin’, your aunt Tally probably isn’t cut out for college. Now, your mama might get a kick out of this, but I’d really rather be home watching ShopNet.”
Alice rolled her eyes. “How can you watch that crap? You don’t even buy anything. It’s weird.”
I shrugged as I studied the pictures of different flavors of soda. I couldn’t remember which brands of root beer had caffeine and which ones didn’t. Unwilling to risk a decaffeinated beverage, I opted for the diet cola.
“I just like looking at the stuff.” The can fell into the receptacle at the bottom with a satisfying clunk. “I don’t know why. And it’s relaxing.”
She shivered dramatically. “Hardly.”
I’d always had problems with insomnia, with my brain running on overdrive whenever I closed my eyes. Years before, I’d discovered that home shopping channels provided the perfect antidote: just enough sense to keep my mind from flying in a million different directions, but not enough meaning to actually keep me engaged and awake. After enough nights falling asleep to the patter of ShopNet announcers, I’d started to find them soothing even when I was awake. Alice and Bree both thought I should be committed for watching that drivel, but in the grand scheme of vices, bad TV was pretty far down on the list.
I cracked open the can and took a long pull, then had to stifle a little belch. “You want one?” I asked Alice.
“No, thanks.”
We’d turned to head to the stairs, Alice leading the way, when we ran into Ashley on her way to the machines. She looked a little unsteady, like maybe she was still a little tipsy from the night before.
“Hi, Ashley,” Alice said.
“Nnngh,” Ashley moaned. She lurched past us, swiped her ID card through the reader built into the machine, and drew out a can of ginger ale.
Poor kid.
I shooed Alice away, so Ashley could nurse her hangover in peace.
Even though my mama drank her way to an early grave, I didn’t have a problem with partying. Bree and I had both imbibed. Especially Bree. As long as you could say “no,” and you didn’t put yourself in harm’s way, I didn’t judge. But Bree called her daughter “Saint Alice” for a reason: we loved her to itty-bitty pieces, but she was a prig.
“That’s not the best way to start the semester,” Alice muttered as we hiked up the stairs.
“What? Ashley?”
“Mmmm-hmmm. We’re going to go through this material fast, so if she falls behind . . .” She shook her head and clucked like an old schoolmarm.
“Lighten up, Alice. For all you know, Ashley’s already gotten ahead on the reading and will ace all the tests.”
Alice huffed in disbelief. “Right. If she’s not careful, she’ll fail this class again.”
“Again?”
Alice peeked over her shoulder to make sure we were alone. “Yeah, she took this class last fall. From what I heard, she blew it off all semester and then whined her way into an incomplete.”
“A what?”
“An incomplete. It’s a grade. If you get sick or something at the end of a semester, after the deadline to drop a class, you can request an incomplete. You just have to finish up the work the next term, and then the grade gets changed to whatever you earned.”
“Was Ashley sick?” I asked with surprise. The girl I’d seen near the end of last October seemed the very picture of health.
Alice rolled her eyes. “No, she just got all weepy and said that she was broken up over Brittanie Brinkman dying, since they were sorority sisters and all.”
Now it was my turn to scoff. I talked with Ashley just after Brittanie was murdered, and I knew for a fact that Ashley despised Brittanie and didn’t care a lick about the other girl’s death.
“I know, right? Anyway, she got her incomplete from Bryan.