Lessons in Love by Emily Franklin

Author:Emily Franklin [Franklin, Emily]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 978-1-4804-5227-5
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2013-09-27T22:04:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

By Sunday, chapel dinner looms not only because it signals the end of the weekend, but because my story is officially due to be placed in Mr. Chaucer’s hands. The heat hasn’t broken, and all of us — the boarders from the west side of campus — making the haul up to main campus, soggy in our formal gear. The guys have their required blazers draped over an arm or held by a finger over their shoulders, the arms of their shirts rolled up. Like most of the girls, I’m in a sundress just so I can keep cool. I borrowed the dress from Harriet Walters down the hall after she came and asked for “that flowery shirt you wore that time” and I actually knew what she meant. Before the walk up here, Fruckner was ablaze with more heat from hair dryers, girls running around half-dressed I search of a suitably alluring outfit, and lots of clothes-swapping.

“It felt like — I don’t know — some scene from a boarding school movie,” I say while Mary swats at a bug and Chili fans herself with an actual paper fan.

“How do you think movie people come up with ideas?” Harriet asks. “From life. Art, life, the clichéd conundrum. Fuck it’s hot.”

The steady stream of Fruckner, Bishop, and Deals people moves slowly past the graveyard, past the main buildings, and finally down the hill toward the big dining room for our family-style dinners.

“Maybe it’ll be something good,” Mary sniffs the air once and holds the door open for us.

I look at her with my eyebrows raised. “Maybe it’ll be roasted sweet potatoes.” I keep hoping she’ll clue me into what the words mean — the untold code of starch.

She shoots me a look and then glosses over it. “I prefer homefries.”

“Me, too,” Carlton says, clearly getting her hidden meaning. He swats Mary’s butt as he walks by. Following closely with him are guys I saw on the Vineyard — Nick Samuels, Jon Rutter, and then Jacob and Dalton.

My blush mixes with the heat of outside as I wait my turn to go in. Jacob. My virginity. Chris appears next to me. Having told him everything from my weekend, he knows just what to say.

“Look, either he knows or he doesn’t. He heard or he didn’t. And does it really change things? No.” Chris looks at me, his face pleasantly flushed, as if the stifling temperatures haven’t phased him. The reality is I know he and Haverford Pomroy did their own version of Friday Night Flicks but at an actual movie theatre, unbeknownst to Haverford’s boyfriend Ben, who was studying all night. My best friend’s a cheater, the other man. But at least he seems happy.

“You have the crush-high written all over your face,” I say and touch his cheek.

“Does it show?” Chris backs into the doorway, and I follow him, past Mary and her assigned table where there are no clues as to what Sweet Potato might mean, and past Harriet Walters and Chili who are sharing Chili’s fan.

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