Marshall arrived earlier than needed to the lecture hall and waited in the back, near the one entrance. He leaned casually, in a studied manner, against the door scribbling in his open notebook. Every other second, he looked up as other students strode in until he saw her. Most students shuffled to their seats already yawning. But not her. She moved deliberately, past her somnambulistic colleagues to far side of the room sat, as she always did, on the aisle sea at the front.
He followed, intent on making contact.
The hall held class for “Geology 101” affectionately known as “Rocks for Jocks.” It was a popular class with more English and philosophy majors. They were there to fill the school’s science requirement in the most painless way possible, which is to say not sink their GPA. As for the jocks, the school just wasn’t that athletic aside from squash, lacrosse and geocaching.
The other jam-packed class that worked was Introduction to Astronomy, or “Stars for Tards.” Marshall had taken it a semester earlier and barely managed to stay awake, which was a damn sight better than most of the others. The professor’s name was Darone, informally pronounced drone, which was entirely fitting for a class held in the dark. The darkness lent itself to the images of the cosmos the professor displayed. It also lent itself to napping. If Darone noticed the snores it didn’t faze him; he had tenure.
Marshall connived all sorts of tricks to stay partially awake such at completing the NYT crossword puzzle. Fortunately, the class met on Mondays and Wednesdays.
He’d been looking around, forcing his drooping eyes wide in anticipation of the lecture to come. That’s when he saw her. She was attractive, not beautiful, but striking. Cliches rose in his head about porcelain skin, kind eyes, a figure to die for even if only partially revealed from a chair. While the other students slouched and fidgeted, she alone was stock still. Attentive though the class hadn’t yet started. He turned when she looked at him, maybe. Mona Lisa couldn’t hold a candle to her smile.
When the lights went off her blond hair seemed to glow in the dark capturing all his attention and interest and when they came back he found himself staring, feeling uncomfortable at his own fascination. She would be looking off into some distance, not at the professor or the screen, her eyes squinting slightly. Intense. He wondered what, what could capture such focus. Certainly not the class; that was all memorization. She was constant tapping her cheek with a finger. Periodically, she’d stop, look down to her notebook and write in it, fast, furiously.
What had come to her mind?
If it hadn’t been for assigned seats he would have tried to sit near her earlier. If it hadn’t been for the rush out the exits after the professor stopped, he might have caught up to her. If it hadn’t been his Human Sexuality class on the other side of campus, he could have tried to follow her, say something.
And so came rocks for jocks. A few chosen seconds after she sat down, he walked over, straightened up, took a breath and said to her, “Excuse me” as he edged behind the chairs. “Mind if I sit here?”
She looked up at him with a squint that seemed to ask, do I know you? and then, shook her hand. “No,” was all she said, in a soft voice that reminded him of Marilyn Monroe.
He put his backpack down and pulled out his notebook, opening it to a page with random cartoons he’d drawn – quite good – hoping to attract her attention. “Are you an artist?” she would ask. “No, just staving off boredom. Something I learned in Intro to Astronomy.” But she didn’t look, and he turned to a blank page.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Weren’t you in that Astronomy class last term?” She screwed up her eyebrows, thinking. The look on her face was, he hoped, one of vague recognition. “Hmmm? I don’t know. I was in Astronomy. In Parker.”
“Yes, Parker! We must have been in the same class. I thought I recognized you. Duller than dishwater.”
“Excuse me?”
“The class I meant. BOR-ing. I could barely stay awake. Hence the cartoons. Easy A, though.”
She opened up a notebook filled with notes and highlighting. She said nothing.
“Astronomy? Did you like it? I mean it would be interesting if you’re interested. I just needed the credit.”
“I suppose it was okay. It’s hard to say.”
“What about this?”
“This?”
“Yes, this class. Do you like this one?”
“I suppose. There’s a lot to it.”
A lot to it, he thought. A lot to memorizing rocks? Maybe this was her major. She must be a science major. That would explain her measured way of answering. She was analytical, dissecting each question, constructing her answers, avoiding superficial talk. She was, he started to think, one of those smart science people.
“Well, I guess you could say geology is a multi-layered subject. Gritty, eh? It really does require some deep digging. Frankly, I came in here igneous of the subject, not quite stoned you might say, but you’re right, there’s a lot to extrude…sorry, puns are not my forte.”
He gave her a smile and a look that contrived to make him look embarrassed. She looked at him, coolly, not sharing the humor and concluded with, “I see.”
He started a new doodle, wondering if she was looking over and out of the corner of his eye sensed she was not.
The lecturer started on about the Moh’s rock hardness scale and measuring techniques, repeating nearly verbatim the chapter that had been assigned. With wide lazy strokes of his pencil he started to draw fighter planes in flames, and then with the tip pushed back the cuticles of his fingernails. He noticed she was looking up, at the board, then to the lecturer, and then up to nothing in particular, and then down to her notebook where she started to that furious writing. He paid more attention, worried that he was missing something that she obviously was hearing.
As the class came to a close, he held out his hand and introduced himself. She looked at his hand, hesitated and then held out hers. It was covered in inky smudges of letters and numbers.
“Listen, I’m sorry for my lame jokes earlier….”
“What lames jokes were those?”
He laughed, saying thanks for deflecting the blow.
“Can I buy you a cappuccino or something? I mean if you’re not in a rush. There’s the coffee wagon just outside.”
“If so. Yes.”
If so, yes. That’s what she said. If so, yes. That sounded so thoughtful, thought out. Accepting, but challenging. Cool. Aloof. Appraising. But it was a yes and it was a yes from her.
They sat at took at one of those small round high tables with uncomfortably tall chairs. He said it was his treat; she nodded his direction. “Cappuccino?” he offered. “Sure. Lovely,” she responded.
He ordered at the counter and turned back to see her looking into the distance and then writing with urgency in a notebook. “What was on that mind of hers?” He imagined some sudden insight into a problem she’d been mulling, or perhaps a character for a story she was writing, or maybe even she was writing about him, this moment.
Returning to the table, coffees in hand, he put hers down and wasted no time. “You looked intense back then. What on earth are you writing about?”
“Oh, thoughts you know. Stuff. I do that a lot.”
“Well now you’ve got me. What are you writing about if I can ask? I mean if it’s private and all, no. I don’t mean to pry, but you were writing in class as well. In both classes. I watched. I’m dead curious.”
“Dead curious? What do you mean?”
“Huh.”
“Dead curious? What do you mean by that?”
“Oh, you know, like really curious. Interested I mean. In what you have to say. What you’re thinking. Who you are. That’s all.”
“Dead curious could mean you’re not curious. Like dead or nothing, right?”
“Yeah, I guess, but I mean more like LIVE curious…ha ha.”
“Oh.” she said.
“So are you going to keep me hanging?”
“Sorry?”
“About what you’re writing! Am I being too intrusive here? I don’t mean to be.”
“Oh, what I was writing.”
With that she opened her notebook back up and turned it around for him to see.
He leaned over and stared at the pages, looked up at her, and back down. Without asking he turned back a page and then another and another.
“Words?”
“Yes. I write a word like…like that,” she pointed to grandmother, “and I make other words out of it. Like mother and grand. And other, and and. Look you can jumble them up a bit…. Den, moth. I made 17 words from grandmother”
He looked up at her in disbelief. Not only was she brilliant, she had to be, she had a sense of humor. He joined in on her fun. “Yes, I see. A is a word you got. To. You could also make dragnet or another. Or anthem or garden. “
She sat up straight with an excitement new to the conversation. “You’re good at this! Let’s do one together. How about that? Together.”
“And that’s what you’ve been doing? Making up smaller words from larger ones?”
“Yes, exactly. It’s hard to follow in class anyway even though this is the second time I’ve taken it. I get lost.”
“All the reason to pay more attention.” He thought.
“There are other words, you know, from grandmother.
“Like what?”
“Drear comes to mind. And moan, horrent, gorm. Methadone fits. And gomer.
“Gomer Pyle? It has to be a real word.”
“A gomer is someone who’s inept or stupid.”
“We should do this more!” she was squirming now.
“I should spend more time studying astronomy, I think. You know what they say, still waters run shallow.”
“I think they’re supposed to run deep.”
He looked into the distance. The word moron came to his mind, then moon, mono moor, room. “Not always,” he said. “You’d be surprised.”