Page 8 of June (New Orleans #6)

C aroline was walking out of her building and down the street, with Viv in tow. She had asked Viv if she wanted to go for a late lunch at one of the other dining halls on campus. They typically ate in the hall downstairs in their own building, but the same food week after week got boring, so Caroline liked to mix it up when she had the time. The dining hall in the union was cash-only, though, so they couldn’t use their meal plans for it. The food there was the best on campus because, of course, it was, but there were six other dining halls to choose from where they could swipe their student IDs and get their food paid for with their plans.

Caroline’s meal plan included fifteen meals per week, and they didn’t roll over, so if she didn’t use them, she lost them. All seven dining halls had sit-down spaces where you carried your tray through a line and couldn’t take anything to-go, but one of them had to-go options for lunch seven days a week. She could pick six items, and it would count as one meal. She already had drinks back in her room, so she didn’t need one of those to be included in her six, and that meant that she could pick two hot items for lunch now, like a hot dog or chicken sandwich and some fries or something, and grab four items that she could eat as snacks later. Caroline sometimes grabbed the trail mix or fruit snacks. It gave her something to eat when she got hungry that she didn’t have to buy with cash.

On top of her meal plan, her parents also gave her fifty dollars a week for food. She tried to be smart with that money and usually went to the grocery store to buy stuff instead of eating out, but she allowed herself ten to fifteen bucks a week to grab fast food, which didn’t even get her that much these days. With that meal plan, she also had one thousand dollars per semester to spend in campus stores, which included the bookstores and the small convenience store attached to one of the dining halls, but that money only worked for the fall and spring semesters. For the summer session, she had two hundred dollars to spend, so as she and Viv walked silently, she tried to remember what she had inside her buddy Frank and what snacks were on her small crate shelves behind her desk. Fifteen meals were only enough for the week because she skipped breakfast some days to make up for the other meals she would need. Today, she decided she would swipe her card twice to get the items for lunch and stock back up on her snacks, and she’d skip breakfast tomorrow to make up for it. She could still afford to grab something from the convenience store, and they had this juice drink that she really liked, so she would grab a couple of those.

“Are you here?” Viv asked.

“Huh?” she asked back, looking over at her.

“You haven’t said anything since we left.”

“You haven’t, either,” Caroline replied.

“Actually, I asked what you were going to get for lunch about two minutes ago,” Viv said.

“You did?” Caroline shook her head at herself. “Sorry. I guess I was thinking about something else. I’ll probably get the chicken sandwich and fries if they’re fresh.”

“Me too,” Viv said. “So, what are your plans for the rest of the day? I’m thinking about checking out the movie they’re showing at the union theater.”

There was a small theater on campus that only had one movie playing in it a few times a week, but the tickets were three dollars for students, which was far better than the major off-campus theaters. The price even included one free small bag of popcorn per student. It wasn’t a bad deal, but it did mean that they’d be stuck seeing the only movie playing this week, and she’d heard of it and wasn’t interested.

“The tickets are cheaper there,” Caroline said. “But it’s some action thing, so I don’t know.”

“Yeah, probably not good. But it’s something to do. Plus, it’s air-conditioned,” Viv replied.

“Please tell me how they can afford to air-condition a theater they only use, like, three times a week, but not our dorm rooms where we live.”

Viv laughed a little and replied, “Honestly, it’s cheaper to do that.”

“Then, just charge us more to live in the dorms to cover the cost. It’s sweltering, even with the fans we have on constantly.”

“I was actually thinking about asking my parents for one of those swamp coolers,” Viv shared. “You put ice water in it, and that cools the air it puts out. Before they moved, our house didn’t have AC, so we had a bunch of those that you can plug in and move around the house where you need it. Our room is so small that we’d only need one.”

“How much are they?” Caroline asked.

“Depends, but like a hundred bucks or something for a smaller one. We don’t have ice in the room, and the mini fridge won’t be able to hold enough, but we have the kitchen on the floor. We could buy a big bag of ice, label it with our room number on it, and put it in the freezer. Plus, the water from the sink is pretty cold and takes forever to heat up, so we could use that in a pinch. It might help.”

Caroline thought about how much money she had in her bank account right now and replied, “I’ll go halvsies on it with you, if you want. We can go find one in the store, I guess, or order online. It would just take longer to get here.”

“Do you want to go to the store instead of the movie? We can grab ice, too, while we’re there.”

“Yeah, I–”

Caroline stopped when they rounded one of the science buildings and she saw Enid sitting at their table. Yes, it would forever be known to her as their table now. The only problem was that Enid wasn’t alone there. Caroline wondered if Enid thought of that table as her own or her table with this other woman – or, rather, women because another woman had just sat down at the table next to the one Caroline didn’t know.

“Care?” Viv asked.

“Yeah?”

Caroline couldn’t tell all that much from where she was because she wasn’t exactly close, but it looked as if the other two women might be together because they were touching each other. Maybe a hand was on a thigh. That could mean that they were just friends with Enid. That was a good thing. Caroline might relax a bit and worry about why the possibility of Enid sharing that table with another woman bothered her so much later.

“Care?” Viv said again.

“Yeah, sorry. I just saw someone I know,” she replied.

Viv followed her gaze and uttered, “Oh.”

Caroline felt a buzz in her pocket, which wasn’t a distraction that she wanted right now, but she pulled out her phone anyway.

“Oh, cool,” she said, having read the message. “Jodie’s at the hall now. She’s waiting for us. Do you think you can meet up with her and tell her I’ll be there in a few minutes?”

“Yeah, sure. Um… Why?” Viv asked before she looked back at the table. “Got it. I’ll tell Jodie.”

“Thanks.”

Caroline nearly gave her a sympathetic smile, but that wouldn’t have been right. She needed to trust Viv when she said that she understood that Caroline didn’t feel the same way and that she’d be okay with her being with someone else.

“See you in a few,” Viv said.

If Caroline weren’t mistaken, she thought she heard a little bit of excitement in Viv’s tone, but she shook it off and decided that this could be her only chance to see Enid. She planned to approach and at least ask for her number so that they could maybe hang out later. Then, she watched the two women stand and walk off. Enid was, thankfully, alone now, and that made her a little more confident as she approached.

“Hi,” she said when she arrived at their table and saw Enid staring down at her phone.

Enid looked up at her, smiled, and said, “Hey.”

“Can I maybe join you?” she asked.

“Yeah, of course,” Enid replied and motioned for her to sit in the chair next to her.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Caroline said as she put her bag on the chair next to her.

She had only brought it because she thought she might want to eat outside today and could get some sketching in.

“You are?”

“Yeah. I was kind of mad at myself yesterday because I didn’t–”

“Get my info?” Enid completed the sentence for her. When Caroline nodded, Enid set her phone down and added, “Me too. I mean, I was kind of mad at myself, too. I almost went to your building to try to find your room but thought that might be a little creepy. Like, you might run if you saw me standing at your door kind of creepy.”

“Besides, you can’t get in without a key card,” Caroline replied, loving that Enid had thought to track her down.

“They didn’t have those when I was an undergrad.”

“They had the cards, but during the day, the building doors were open. They locked after eleven when I first got here, but now, they have it set to always be locked, so you have to have a card to get in. No exceptions, either. There’s not even a code you can give someone, so you have to walk downstairs whenever you have guests and let them in.”

“I guess that’s better security,” Enid noted.

“Yes, but it’s annoying. Although, my calves are looking better from having to walk up and down the stairs all the time.”

“How many guests do you have?” Enid asked her with a smirk.

“Friends,” she replied. “I have friends .”

Enid chuckled and said, “No judgment either way.”

Caroline smiled and asked, “Studying?”

“Yeah. I have a class soon.”

“I was going to grab lunch with Viv and Jodie. Do you want to join us?”

As soon as the words had left her mouth, she wanted to smack herself. Caroline should’ve just said that she was going to have lunch and then texted Jodie and Viv that she’d changed her mind and was going to eat somewhere else, but her brain seemed to struggle with completing her thoughts at the moment.

“I don’t have enough time,” Enid replied. “But thanks for the invite.”

“No problem,” she said, trying to hide her disappointment. Then, she decided to be brave. “Um… Do you maybe want to exchange phone numbers? We could hang out another time or something.”

Enid smiled at her and said, “Yeah.”

She had her phone on the table already, so she just unlocked it, went to her contacts, and passed the phone to Caroline, who added her info. Then, Caroline texted herself with Enid’s phone, handed it back to her, took out her own, and added Enid to her own contact list.

“What’s your last name?” she asked.

“Becker,” Enid said. “And you are Caroline…”

“Timothy.”

“Timothy? Any relation to Tim the TV?”

Caroline laughed and said, “Yes. He’s my second cousin twice removed.”

Enid laughed then.

“I could’ve gone with Tom, but Tim was just right there, so he’s Tim now.”

“What’s your middle name?” Enid asked her.

“Oh, it’s pretty basic. It’s Elizabeth. ‘Caroline Elizabeth’ was yelled at me several times during my childhood. What’s yours?”

“I don’t have one, technically. My full first name is Enid Eve, so they didn’t give me a middle name. I didn’t get ‘Enid Eve’ a lot during childhood because I actually behaved.”

“You do seem like you were a well-behaved child. Did you ever even bring home a B?”

“Once,” Enid said and chuckled.

“And you were in all the clubs, I’m sure.”

“A few.”

“Valedictorian?”

“No,” Enid said. “Fourth in my class, though.”

“I was, like, fiftieth out of two hundred, so top twenty-five percent.”

“That’s good. I was fourth out of one hundred. Small school.”

“And I suspect you make the dean’s list here all the time, given that GPA you told me about before?”

Enid nodded, looking a little embarrassed, which was cute.

When Caroline’s phone buzzed, she looked down and noticed a message from Jodie checking in on where she was. She and Viv wanted to join the line but were waiting for her.

“I should go. My friends are waiting for me,” she said reluctantly.

“And I might as well get to class early and finish reading this,” Enid said as she looked down at the closed book in front of her.

“I’ll see you around?” she asked, unsure if she should commit to a call or a text or something.

“Oh, okay. Yeah,” Enid replied, sounding like she expected something else.

Caroline didn’t know what to do now, so she said, “Tim and Frank asked about you.”

Then, she internally cringed at what she’d just said.

“They did, huh?” Enid chuckled as she tucked her book into her bag.

“Yeah. They were just wondering if you were going to stop by anytime soon.”

“Just Tim and Frank, though?” Enid stood up. “That diva Miranda couldn’t care less, could she?”

“I warned you about her… You didn’t listen.”

Caroline grabbed her bag from the chair and stood as well.

“I think she’s just misunderstood,” Enid replied and nodded toward the left. “I’m that way.”

“I’m this way.” Caroline pointed straight ahead toward the union.

Just behind it was the dining hall, where her friends were waiting for her.

“I’ll talk to you later,” Enid said.

“Yeah,” Caroline replied, hopeful, and waited for Enid to walk off before she did the same.

Arriving in the hall a few minutes later, she found Jodie and Viv standing off to the side of the line, looking down at Jodie’s phone in its usual green case.

“Hey, sorry,” she said when she approached.

“Oh, thank God. I’m starving,” Jodie replied. “What took so long?”

“She was talking to Enid,” Viv said.

“Enid, huh?” Jodie asked with a lifted eyebrow.

“Get in line,” Caroline replied with a laugh.

All three of them got their food, but Caroline couldn’t get her card swiped again without joining the line a second time, so she did that, and by the time she joined Viv and Jodie at one of the few tables in this smaller hall, they had nearly finished their chicken sandwich and burger.

“So… Enid, huh?” Jodie asked before eating a fry.

“We just talked outside for a few minutes,” she said as she sat down across from the two of them. “She had a class to get to.”

“Did you get her number this time?” Jodie asked.

“I did, yes. She has mine, too,” she replied.

“When are you going to text her?”

“Why can’t she text me ?” Caroline asked before eating a fry of her own.

“Oh, just text her!” Viv spoke up, sounding exasperated about the whole thing. “You clearly like her. Just text her.”

Jodie looked over and laughed at her, looking surprised that Viv would suggest that. When Caroline looked at Viv to make sure that she had heard that right, Viv just gave her a shrug, which told her that she had.

“I guess I could,” she said.

“Okay. So, text her that you want to hang out sometime,” Jodie suggested. “Keep it casual. Maybe tell her that you could hang out on the quad or grab a drink somewhere. Simple.”

“I can’t grab a drink with her yet. I still have close to a month to go,” Caroline reminded.

“Oh, yeah. Shit. I keep forgetting. Coffee, then?”

“Or, you could try being honest and tell her that you like her and don’t want to just hang out,” Viv suggested. “The direct approach doesn’t always work; I would know. But at least you’d know where you stand.”

Caroline offered her a soft smile and replied, “Maybe I will.”