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ANDY

O KAY, GIRLS . T HREE orders of the fruity waffles, one without whipped cream, and a side of sausages, says our waitress, an older woman in jeans and a pink sweatshirt that says Ask Me About My Fur Babies. According to her name tag, she’s Gayle.

She distributes laden plates to the three of us.

We’re at Batter Up, a diner off campus in the surrounding town of St. Viola. They have the most amazing waffles: crunchy golden discs piled high with fruit and dusted with powdered sugar. I could write an ode to these waffles.

Sunday brunch is a monthly ritual for me and my two best friends, Dawn Wheaton and Emily Mueller. Today, we’re celebrating Dawn’s biggest artistic accomplishment to date. This past Thursday, the administration unveiled a huge mural in the Student Union Building that she worked on all summer.

Dawn has been my friend ever since we were roommates in freshman year.

Well, technically ever since we traded our incompatible partying roommates for each other.

We’re both dangerously honest, and we don’t take crap from anyone.

As befits an artist, Dawn is famous for her ever-changing hair colours; today’s is lavender.

She’s paired it with a lime green sweater, black striped pants, and combat boots.

She never had to worry about conservative me borrowing her clothes when we lived together.

Emily is an English major, like me. We bonded over a terrible TA in our Renaissance Lit class. Her resting face is an optimistic smile, which matches her Mona Lisa-style brown hair and flowing, boho dresses.

And here’s the maple syrup, says Gayle. Need anything else?

Emily smiles at her. How are your fur babies?

Just peachy. You want to see? She brings out her phone and shows off photos of two fluffy tuxedo cats named Porky and Petunia. And then an extremely old dog named Jasper who seems to be missing an eye, an ear, and a limb.

Emily is effusive about the cats, but stumbles when it comes to the unfortunate pooch.

I jump in. Jasper looks like he’s had a lot of adventures.

Gayle snorts. You don’t have to be nice, hon. He belonged to my ex. It’s probably time to have him put down, but if I do he’s going to take it personally. The ex, I mean. Then she swoops off.

Pretty sure that Jasper would take it personally too, Dawn observes.

I giggle and raise my tea. A toast to Dawn. And to her amazing public art!

We clink our mugs and dig into our waffles. Delicious. We talk about the mural, how our classes are going so far, and random bits of gossip from our friend group.

We’re going to have to make more of an effort to see each other this year, Emily says. Last year, we all lived in a shared house, but this year we have separate places. The college offers these 7:00 AM boot camp classes. We could do them together.

7:00 AM? Are you insane? I don’t do mornings, Dawn declares.

C’mon, it’ll be a great start to our days. We’ll get to see each other and stay in shape. It’s not like when we were teenagers, now we have to move it or lose it, says Emily.

I’ll go, as long as they’re not every single morning, I offer. I’m not opposed to the commitment of a class, since my usual exercise routine is intending to run in the morning and then hitting my snooze button repeatedly instead.

We can do drop-ins. Of course, it’s better if we do them at least three times a week, Emily suggests.

Dawn continues to complain, and I yawn. She points at me. See? If Andy can’t even stay awake for brunch at a reasonable hour, how can you expect her to exercise before the sun rises?

I shrug. It’s fine, I’m usually up early. I’m tired because I had to deal with two idiots in the middle of the night. One of them was completely naked.

That grabs Dawn’s full attention. You make that sound like a bad thing. Was it Bryce?

I scrunch my nose at the mention of my ex-boyfriend. God, no. Why would you think that?

Because I know he’s been trying to get back with you all summer. Although I can’t imagine him coming over naked. Dawn punctuates this with a vicious bite of sausage.

No, Bryce is more of a naked-under-a-trench-coat pervert type. But in any case, we’re done. No takebacks, I say.

It had been Bryce’s idea to break up last spring.

He’d decided that a long-term relationship was a waste of his college dating opportunities.

After two years together, I’d been devastated.

And I’d had to scramble to find last-minute accommodations since we were supposed to live in a shared house for senior year.

My desperate search for affordable housing led me to the RA job.

I get almost-free housing in return for resolving resident issues.

Although, naked men appearing in the middle of the night was not covered in our training program.

So now, I have zero sympathy for Bryce’s discovery that the single life isn’t as exciting as he imagined. To his shock, it took me only ten seconds to turn down his offer to reunite, and five of those seconds were spent wondering if I’d heard him correctly. Pfft, good riddance.

So, you saw some stranger naked? Emily asks. How does that happen?

I swallow some waffle. It was accidental.

Emily groans. My accidents involve dropping my AirPods in the toilet, but yours are getting to see naked hot guys. How do I sign up for that?

Was he hot? Dawn asks eagerly.

I eye the maple syrup and remember Jack’s golden-brown nipples, broad chest, and tiny tattoo. Whatever personality flaws he may have, I cannot deny that he’s hot. I nod.

A nice peen? Dawn has her priorities.

I didn’t get to see his— I make an up-and-down motion with my hand. At her pout, I add, He had a great ass though.

Is there a word for those amazing dents in the sides of his butt? As an English major, I should know.

Dorm life seems to have its advantages. Dawn giggles and steals a chunk of my blueberry-laden waffle.

I shake my head. He wasn’t a hot man sent to fulfill my midnight fantasies. He was a freshman who needed rescuing because he was fooling around with a girl on my floor and her boyfriend showed up.

In the daylight, Jack’s decisions seem even worse, and yes, I’m judgemental.

He can sleep with anyone he likes, as long as it doesn’t involve waking innocent people from a sound sleep.

And as far as reading my journal goes, even if it didn’t say Private on the front, he should have realized what it was within one paragraph and put it down.

Of course, hockey players believe that they’re above normal life rules.

I would hate to be an RA, Dawn muses. Didn’t you have to deal with some medical emergency last week?

Yeah. An allergic reaction. Luckily, it wasn’t too bad.

Also luckily, the campus medical clinic was open at the time and an actual nurse was on call.

Besides a mandatory first-aid course, I have zero medical knowledge.

Even without medical emergencies, it’s been pretty hectic as all the freshman residents adjust to life at Monarch.

According to the other RAs, things will calm down by October.

I don’t really mind though, since I enjoy giving solicited advice.

You’ve always been calm during emergencies. Dawn uses the lull of a compliment to steal another bite of my waffle.

Hey. I brandish my fork threateningly, but I’m pretty full. Good thing I didn’t get the whipped cream too.

How will it be working with Bryce on the newspaper this year? Emily wonders.

It’ll be fine. We’re both mature adults. Besides, I’m the opinions editor and he’s the editor-in-chief. I’m supposed to have journalistic freedom. He’ll leave me alone to do my job. I cross my fingers as I say this, since Bryce isn’t really a hands-off editor.

Emily shakes her head. I could never work with an ex. Did you think of quitting the Messenger ?

Not really. I need the writing and editing experience to help in getting a job in journalism once I graduate.

Monarch is a great liberal arts college, but as an English major, I’ll be competing for jobs with actual journalism grads.

Besides, I wasn’t going to let Bryce keep me from doing something I really love.

I finally pass over the remainder of my waffle to Dawn, who enthusiastically demolishes it. Once we’re done, we roll our overstuffed bellies back towards campus.

Shall we walk out to the lakefront? I motion to the wide path.

I can’t come, I have to go back and finish an essay, Emily complains. We hug her goodbye, then go for a stroll.

On a bright fall Sunday like today, St. Viola is a postcard-perfect town.

The pretty main street is lined with little shops and cafés.

Trees in a riot of reds, oranges, and yellows dot the town.

Today, tourists stroll down the sidewalks enjoying the fall foliage, but we make our way towards the lakefront.

We mosey along the path created by the breakwaters along the shore of Lake Superior. Today is a perfect day since the lake is calm, but during the stormy winters the waves are scarily rough. Even though I grew up in Minnesota, living here on the shore of a Great Lake is completely different.

It’s our last fall here, I say.

True. I wonder if we’ll come back after graduation? Dawn’s tone suggests fat chance.

I nod. We’re not the reunion types. But maybe that will change once we’re older. It really is pretty here. The fall breeze ruffles the trees and scatters leaves onto the dark lake.

Too bad that most of time we’re here, everything’s covered in snow, Dawn grumbles.

When we’re back on campus, I suggest walking by Dawn’s mural once more to appreciate it fully. Her artwork covers one long wall in the Student Union Building. It took the entire month of August for Dawn to paint this.