Page 3 of The Black Table
Registration complete. I have my dorm assignment too. I’ve got placement exams in the PM but I’m free until then. Where should I meet you?
I hit send and wait, awkwardly shuffling my weight and avoiding the gaze of the student worker girl, who’s bent over an open book, her blonde hair falling like a curtain. The hallway is narrow but tall, arched and open overhead with wood panels easily fifteen feet high and hung with oil portraits. The whole effect is so Tudor-era that it’s almost shocking to see an electric bulb humming in one of the wall lamps.
My chest aches with how much I love it.
My phone buzzes, yanking me back.
Good to hear.
I stop the disappointment before it fully sets in. Of course she’ll be brief, not answer my actual question. Of course. Patiently, I try again.
So where should I meet you? Just a quick run to town for stuff, I figure.
This time, her answer’s quick.
Meet you?
The typing dots pop up, then disappear.
God, don’t tell me she forgot. Don’t tell me?—
I grit my teeth. Type a response. Delete it. Hitcallinstead.
“Gwenna?”
Mom never has time for hellos.
“Who else?”
Inever have time for inane questions.
“Where are you? You never told me what time your train?—”
“Gwenna, I’m not sure—I’m afraid you’re confused.” Hervoice is almost apologetic—if you can apologize while fully blaming the other person. “We talked about this. I’m not coming with you.”
“You’re…” In spite of myself, my voice cracks. The blonde girl lifts her head, just slightly, and I try to speak more quietly. “You’re not?”
I hate how I sound. Like a sad child abandoned at her ballet recital. Which I have been in the past, of course.
There’s a pause.
“We talked about this,” she repeats. “I told you, several times. I can’t get away from work.”
“Yes, but…” I clench my fist, my jaw, my everything. “You said you couldn’t take the wholeday. But the afternoon…you said you could take the train from the city and?—”
“I assure you, I didn’t.” Now the lawyer’s edge is there, the I-dare-you-to-depose-me certainty Laura Vale is known for. “Are you feeling all right, Gwenna?”
And there it is. What I’m sure she was waiting to deliver all along.
I crinkle my exam schedule in my hand as I try,trynot to fall to pieces in this big, quiet, public hall.
“If you’re imagining things like this, maybe this is a bad idea. Dr. Riggs said the pressure of college could?—”
“I’mfine,” I bite out. And then, because I can’t resist. “I just remember what you said and what you didn’t say. You said?—”
“No,” she interjects sharply. “You’re not fine. Because what you’re doing now is calling me a liar, Gwenna. Do you think that I am a liar?”
I inhale, long and careful, through my nose, and exhale through my mouth—the one actually useful thing Dr. Riggs taught me.
