Gateway to Fourline (The Fourline Trilogy Book 1) (2 page)

CHAPTER TWO

Six Years Later on the Other Side

It sounded like a freeway with cars swishing past. Nat listened as she waited for the red light to turn off. The stainless-steel door then slid open, and a swell of steam enveloped her face. Another load of clean dishes rolled down the line in a lime-green crate. She touched the edge of the crate to keep it from falling off the rolling track.

“Naaaaat!”

The dish-room matriarchs shook their heads as Nat’s roommate, Viv, danced toward her. A zebra-patterned hairnet held back Viv’s moss-green hair. Nat tucked a strand of straight brown hair behind her ear with a damp finger as Viv danced in circles next to Nat, pointing to Nat’s green eyes in a spastic disco move. She patted her stomach in a drumroll before pulling out an earbud.

“Shift’s over, Nattybumpo,” she sang and removed the dish and dish towel from Nat’s hands. “My notes from chem class are on your desk.” She replaced the earbud, and Nat mouthed, “Thanks,” knowing the spoken word was pointless.

“Hey!” Viv called.

Nat turned.

“Your mom called.” Viv wiped a dish as she yelled, “Not that I mind talking to your mom, but try turning your cell phone on once in a while.”

“I know, I know, but ignorance is bliss, right?”

Viv gave her a wide smile. “I can’t hear you, but I know you just made some smart remark. Make me proud—call your mom.” She turned her back on Nat. A noise like a bellowing baby seal filled the air. Viv’s green ponytail bounced inside the hairnet in time with her singing.

Nat walked past the long line of sinks and tossed her wet dish gloves in the last sink, the rubber slapping against the side of the basin. Viv’s singing reached a crescendo. Nat glanced into the dishroom and shook her head at the sight of Viv belting a song to a dirty soup ladle. Even after living with Viv for more than a year, Nat was still amazed by her less-than-normal appearance and overt gregariousness. The two had made peace long ago with what was obviously a twisted joke by someone in the housing office. Or she sometimes wondered if the psychology department had deliberately put the two of them together as an experiment, like lab rats, except without the whiskers and tails.

Nat swung the dishroom doors open and walked by a line of students picking through the salad bar. Buzzing voices from the cafeteria replaced the sound of Viv’s singing. She paused in front of an information board plastered with flyers and scanned the colored sheets.

“Don’t need tutoring, can’t afford a new computer,” she said under her breath. Failing to find any “Help Wanted” ads, she pulled a tab off an advertisement for singing lessons.
Viv could use this if she’d ever pull herself out of the art studio,
she thought. Viv’s sketches and sculptures always boggled Nat. She could barely draw a stick figure, let alone shape clay into anything beyond a pathetic-looking bowl, while Viv could create a detailed miniature of a person in minutes. A small portrait of Nat’s little sister, Marie Claire, hung above her desk. Viv had given it to her after she’d met Marie Claire during a visit their freshman year. The sketch captured her sister’s sweet, eager face.

A squirrel climbed up the metal exterior of a garbage can directly outside the doors of the Student Center. It dived its paws into the overflowing can, retrieving a half-eaten sandwich. Nat watched it scamper away toward the Science Center. A trail of students streamed into the building. She dug through her backpack for her phone, wondering how she was going to squeeze in the extra labs her biology professor had just assigned her class. She loved her biology major, especially her Plant Morphology class, but she needed more work-study hours, not more lab hours.

A red bar flashed on the screen of her phone. Low battery.
Need to make this quick,
she thought, feeling slightly relieved she couldn’t talk long. She passed the Science Center and jumped over a pile of leaves onto the concrete path leading to the library. She paused below the safety lights and dialed home.

She hadn’t spoken to her mom or dad since the rushed visit to the hospital two weeks before. Her father, always trying to do too much, fell from a ladder while pulling a grain bag from the barn loft. It wouldn’t have been so bad, except he’d landed on a scrap heap of barbed wire. A broken leg and sixteen puncture wounds later, he was now laid up with no one to help him with the farm chores or with the orders from his small woodworking business.

She couldn’t be home to help, and neither of her parents had asked. But that reality did little to relieve her guilt. A cluster of students, hands shoved in their pockets, passed her. She watched them as they disappeared into the library, wondering what it would be like to worry only about her classes. She skipped onto the sidewalk leading to the Speech and Theater Building, adjusted her backpack, and listened to the phone ring.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Mom. You sound tired.”

“Natalie, I’ve been trying to reach you all day.” Now her mom sounded exasperated and tired. Nat’s guilt level deepened.

“Sorry, Mom, I’ve been in class and then work. Viv told me you called her. What’s going on?”

“Your dad’s back in the hospital. Nothing serious, I think. He has an infection of some sort. Dr. Bitty had him admitted this morning.” Nat cringed, remembering how she’d ignored the call earlier in the day.

“I can be home Friday.” She didn’t mention the lab she needed to catch up on or the work shifts that she couldn’t afford to miss. She’d figure that out later.

“No, don’t, Nat. He’s going to be okay, he just needs to get this infection cleared up. I’ve got Gary, Jim Harris’ boy, coming over every day to help with the farm while I’m at school. Marie Claire is helping so much. She had dinner made when I got home from work last night.” Her mom let out a little laugh. “It was mac and cheese with celery sticks on the good china. Lots of people are pitching in. Even Cal is helping out. She’s been on the phone calling Dad’s customers, letting them know about the delays.” Her voice had a false tone of lightness to it.

“Cal should be doing more than calling customers. She can help Gary with the sheep at least.” Nat imagined her middle sister holed up in her room, talking on the phone while her mom prepared lesson plans, Marie Claire made dinner, and Gary tried to handle the farm. Cal never did a lick of work unless bribed or coerced.

“Lay off Cal, Nat, she’s trying,” her mother said testily. Then she sighed. “Honey, given everything that’s happened, it’s going to be difficult to come up with the money we were planning to send to help with tuition. With paying Gary and the doctor bills, and no money coming in from Dad’s business, I’m not sure what you can expect from us.”

“Don’t worry about me. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy for you and Dad, so I already looked into it and have it covered.” The lie sounded fairly convincing, and she hoped her mom bought it. “The last thing you need to think about right now is my tuition. Tell Dad I love him.”

“I never need to worry about you, do I?” Her mom sounded relieved. “Thanks for being older than you should be. I know none of this has been—”

“Mom, really, you have enough on your plate,” Nat interrupted, not wanting the conversation to continue. “I’ve got to get to class, but I will call Dad.”

“Thanks, Nat. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Nat hit “End” on her phone and stared at the bright light spilling out of the Speech and Theater Building’s glass doors. The smell of rotten crab apples hung heavily in the air. Her parents didn’t know that she was already trying to cover the tuition increase for her sophomore year on her own. She pushed open the doors leading to the foyer. She turned right and climbed up a worn set of wooden stairs, wondering how long the college would let her attend class if she stopped making tuition payments.

A little of her stress seeped away when she walked into the dark, circular theater. Something about the room, with its high-arched ceiling and mini–flying buttresses, pleased her. It was the exact opposite of the auditorium and labs in the biology department, where she spent most of her class time. Strips of silken fabric in the deepest hue of blue adorned the honey-colored walls. The octagonal stage looked like an island amidst the surrounding audience chairs. As much as she groused about having to take this Acting for Nonmajors class to meet the fine-arts requirement, she loved the peaceful atmosphere of the small theater, especially when it wasn’t her turn to take to the stage.

Chairs creaked as students claimed seats around the scuffed-up stage. Nat glanced at her watch; Professor Gate was late as usual. Normally this didn’t bother her, but she felt frustrated as her thoughts slipped back to her tuition problem. She dropped her backpack on the floor next to her seat, accidently bumping the leg of the boy sitting next to her.

“Thanks. Now the eye patch is all wrong.” Butler, one of Viv’s friends, had a drawing pad cradled in his arm and gestured to the pencil sketch. He erased a crooked line. “I call it
Pirate Annin
.” He held up the pad, revealing a harsh sketch of a young woman with long, wild hair, a discolored right arm, and a lopsided eye patch. Her other hand held a thin sword.

Nat immediately recognized the subject of his inspiration. Annin sat in a high row of seats on the opposite side of the stage. Nat tended to forget she was in this class, because she rarely attended and never spoke except during required performances.

“Aside from being cruel, it’s not bad.” Nat held the pad in front of her, glancing quickly at Butler’s subject. “The sword suits her, I think, but you have the other arm wrong. She’s got a line . . .” She looked up. The young man Annin always sat next to, Estos, was staring at her. His blue-gray eyes unnerved her, and she glanced away. He whispered something in Annin’s ear. Annin lifted her chin and shot a cold look at Nat. Thick coils of black hair hung over her uncovered eye. A creepy shiver ran down Nat’s spine, and she dropped the pad into Butler’s lap.

“Next time you draw her, make sure she’s on the other side of campus, not the other side of the room. She gives me the creeps,” she said. Butler shrugged and slid the pad into his bag as Professor Gate came hurtling down the theater stairs. He pushed a wavy lock of black hair away from his thick glasses and spread a sheaf of papers across the edge of the stage.

“Pull up your syllabus, and note the two assignment changes,” he said as he hopped onto the stage. His lanky frame cast a long shadow over the wooden floor as he listed the new due dates for monologues.

“Do you know of any jobs on campus that pay more than the caf?” Nat asked Butler as she powered up her old laptop. Professor Gate looked in her direction.

“Ask Bloomers. Regan found a job through it a few weeks ago.” Butler peered at Nat’s computer screen. “Maybe you need to ask Bloomers for a winning lottery ticket, too.” He pointed at the thin blue stripes marring her screen. “That thing isn’t going to last through the semester.”

“Yeah, well, it doesn’t have a choice,” she said, thinking Bloomers, the campus-wide search site wasn’t a bad place to start a job search.

“Ms. Barns, you seem chatty tonight.” Professor Gate eyed her from the center of the stage. “Why don’t you and”—he spun around and pointed—“Annin start us off with an improv exercise. I’ll set the scene. Come, come.” He gestured to her, and she groaned inwardly. She hated improvisation.

She handed her laptop to Butler. He smirked at her. “Don’t let her break your leg,” he whispered.

Nat shot him a nasty look over her shoulder and climbed the stairs to the stage. Annin stood across from her with her arms folded defensively. She brushed her hair away from the patch that covered her eye, and Nat glanced at the floor, trying hard not to stare.
Of all the people, why her?
Nat looked briefly at Butler, whose amused expression only increased her irritation.

“Ms. Barns, you are traveling on a packed train in a foreign country when Annin attempts to lift your wallet from your bag. Let’s begin.” Professor Gate clapped his hands and strode toward the edge of the stage. She took a deep breath and stepped hesitantly toward Annin.

The college’s logo moved slowly across the computer monitor’s screen. Nat stared blankly at it and yawned. Like her laptop battery, she was drained. She glanced at the clock hanging above the library shelves. It was only eight thirty p.m., but she felt exhausted as she thought about her day, which had started with an early morning run and ended with that stupid improv exercise. She still had a study group and at least an hour’s worth of work to finish up the extra biology lab her professor had asked her to complete.
And I need to find another job,
she thought and sighed.

Nat scooted her chair closer to the library’s computer monitor and typed in “Bloomers.” She clicked on the link, and the sunshine-yellow Bloomers home page popped up. She glanced around the empty table, thankful she was the only one using the public computers. Most evenings, this corner of the second floor of the library was packed.
There must be a game tonight,
she thought and tried to remember the last time she’d managed to catch one of the college’s sport events.