“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 doorkind 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 manyguestsdo you have?” Enid asked her with a smirk.
“Friends,” she replied. “I havefriends.”
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 toexchange 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. Ididn’tget ‘Enid Eve’ a lot during childhood becauseIactually behaved.”
“Youdoseem like you were a well-behaved child. Did you ever even bring home a B?”