Page 21 of The Black Table
Successfully.
Or mostly.
Never mind the roommate who seems to resent my existence. Or the French class where I seem to have madeanotherenemy by daring to speak with the blue-eyed class hottie I have zero interest in.
Or the guy who told me point-blank to watch myself.While holding a sword.
I grip the handles of my tray and look for a place to sit.
The dining hall at Caliburn may not look like a high-school cafeteria, but as I proceed with my dinner tray and look for a seat, it sure feels like one.
None of the linoleum floors, fluorescent lights, and chipped-edge tables of St. Catherine’s. This is plush carpet, glowing lantern lights suspended from a cathedral ceiling, and long wooden tables that could’ve been borrowed from Henry VIII’s personal collection. Even the tray feels more elevated than thescarred gray plastic I’m used to, with actual handles to hold onto and a neatly folded napkin—cloth!—in a matching Caliburn red.
I have no appetite, but after having nothing but coffee all day and procrastinating dinner until the last half-hour of the second sitting, I know I should force something down. And the Friday menu—locally-caught whitefish in a beurre blanc sauce with thyme-honey carrots—does smell terrific, and I say this as someone with the deep-seated aversion to fish Fridays that only Catholic schoolgirls can appreciate. It’s a weekend, at least, which means no formal second sitting—those are every other Wednesday, not that I ever intend to pay the extra for high dinner service, let alone find agownto wear—but still fairly crowded, which isn’t helping my seating dilemma.
And, unlike at St. Catherine’s, I don’t think taking this tray to the girls’ room to eat is a possibility.
The weight of my bag starts to dig into my shoulder. Every second I stay and stare is another second I’m making it weird, but there’s too much information pouring at me all at once—the social calculus of who knows who, who’d welcome a stranger, whether it’d be better simply to eat by myself except for the fact that there are no lone seats available. As my eyes flick around the room, I catch a glimpse of a familiar face—Morgan, my beloved roommate—but if she’s seen me, she’s studiously pretending not to have, frowning at a book she has propped up against an empty glass.
“‘Scuse me.” Someone sidles past me from the serving line, waving to friends. “Hey, cut that shit out!”
That’s it. I take four decisive strides and plunk my tray down at the first of three empty seats—next to, I realize, another recognizable face.
“Bonsoir, mademoiselle.” The ponytail guy—Brett? Brent?—from this morning gives me a little imaginary doff of the hat. He seems…harmless enough, if a little dorky. I suppose that’s the sort ofcohort I’ll have to get used to in a medieval studies track. Might as well bite the bullet and learn to adapt. “Brett. From class.”
“Hello,” I say, hoping the English will be enough to clue him in that I’m not in the mood for conversation. I shake out my napkin and cut a bite of my fish that I chew absentmindedly as I look around the room. Every panel in the wall’s hung with an oil portrait of some dean or another—all men, all white, no surprises there—with the style of dress getting gradually more up-to-date a decade at the time. We must be at the bleeding edge, here, because the nearest portrait shows a golden-haired man in a modern three-piece suit who’s broad-shouldered, imposing, and much less portly than his compatriots.
I chew and read the brass plaque.
Luther Victorinus Pendragon
President, Caliburn Board of Trustees & Dean Ex Officio, 2008?—
“Ah, yes, the illustrious board president.” Ponytail Brett, says, straightens his glasses as he follows my gaze. “Quite wealthy, from what I’ve heard.”
“Hm.”
“You know him?”
What? No. I shake my head. “Just…an ironic name, is all.”
Ponytail Brett frowns. “Luther?”
I set down my fork. “As in, Martin? The Protestant Reformation?” I gesture at the fish on my plate. “Are we not a nominally Catholic university?”
We. It’s not until I say it that I realize I’ve already, subconsciously, attached myself to this place.
And I like that.
If it’ll have me. If I can stay.
“Oh. Ha!” Ponytail Brett laughs a little too loudly.Calm down, buddy, it wasn’tthatgood of a joke.“I never thought of that, but you’re right! Especially since he’s the one who funded so many of the rare book archives?—”
“You’ve seen them?” I interrupt. Maybe too forcefully, because Ponytail Brett looks startled.
“Oh,” he says. “I mean…no, not yet. Except the ones they rotate out on display. I don’t think first years are allowed to handle the books at all, usually. But—you’re history?”
“Medieval studies,” I say.
