Page 18 of June

This woman, who, in daylight, looked a little younger than her, had long brown hair and bright green eyes. She was wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt with the school’s logo on the front. Her backpack was slung over one shoulder, and where there hadn’t been a smile on her face before, there was one on it now.

“I wasn’t sure… I saw you and thought I’d say hi.”

“You go here?” Enid asked.

“Yeah. Taking summer classes.”

“Undergrad?”

“Soon to be a junior, technically. I took a semester off, so I’m playing catch-up over the summer. You?”

“Grad school,” Enid said.

“Oh, cool. Um… I can leave you to get back to whatever you’re doing. I just wanted to say hi.”

“I’m here. Sorry, I couldn’t find a parking space,” Enid’s relief said as she approached from the right.

“No problem,” Enid replied.

“Did I miss anything important?” she asked, dropping her bag to the ground.

“Not really. Only one person interested,” Enid said.

“Hi. Are you interested in the program?” she asked the woman in front of the table.

“Oh, no. Not me,” the woman replied.

“Yeah, not her. A guy,” Enid added.

“Okay. Well, I guess you can go,” her relief told her.

“Thanks,” Enid said before she picked up her own bag off the ground, stuffed her phone inside, and traded places with the other grad student at the table. “I was going to walk around. You?” she asked the woman she’d run into at the bar.

“Yeah. I’m still trying to figure out what to do with my entire life.”

“That seems like a lot of pressure for one four-hour job fair,” Enid noted as they walked a little farther away from the booth with no particular direction in mind.

The woman chuckled at her comment, brushing a non-existent strand of hair behind her ear, and Enid thought it was cute.

“I’m Enid,” she said and held out her hand.

“Oh. Caroline. Sorry,” she said, shaking it. “Should’ve introduced myself earlier.”

“It’s okay. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone in line at the bathroom before and actually gotten their name. Besides, you were busy talking to your… girlfriend?” she more asked than said.

“Who? Oh. Jodie? No, not a girlfriend; just a friend,” Caroline told her and then looked at Enid, confused. “Wait. How did you know?”

“I didn’t. I mean, I don’tknowanything.”

“But you just asked if she was my girlfriend,” Caroline pointed out.

“She’s a little… on the butch side,” Enid replied. “And her fingernails and yours both…”

“Oh.” Caroline looked down at her hand. “Yeah. Well, always want to be ready, right?” Her eyes went wide. “I can’t believe I just said that. That makes it sound like I have a lot of sex or something. I don’t. I mean, I’m no virgin; I’ve had sex before. It’s just not, like, every day or anything.”

Enid laughed and said, “No? That sucks.”

“It does?” Caroline asked.

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