Page 2 of Sunsets & Other Dangerous Things

Rule 2: Do NOT do weird stuff where others can see you

Rule 3: Do NOT make friendsor obsess over you-know-who

Cynthia’s warning floated back to her. But if she were obsessing, she would write about it in a notebook. And see? She’d crossed it out, and therefore, she was not obsessing.

“Would anyone care to summarize the reading from last week?” Professor Jenkins stalked the small lecture hall of Anthropology 101, hunting for prey. The wooden floors creaked beneath her kitten heels, growing louder as she approached Ashley’s desk.

Ashley kept her gaze firmly on her list, avoiding eye contact. Maybe she could disguise the crossed-out bit with flowers like she never wrote it. She uncapped another pen.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t done the reading. She’d glanced at it—something to do with cultural relativism? But there was this party with Cynthia last night, and Ashley had lost track of time.

The floor in front of Ashley creaked, followed by a long-suffering sigh from Professor Jenkins. Ashley tensed, lettingher curtain of blond hair shield her while she curated a list of buzzwords from the two pages she did read.

“Esther,” called Professor Jenkins. An endorphin rush like nailing a perfect back handspring shot down Ashley’s spine. “I know this isn’t your job, but would you share your thoughts on today’s reading? Just to get us started.”

Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look. Ashley’s betraying eyes tracked to the seat at the opposite corner. The seat where Professor Jenkins’s hot graduate assistant always sat. Not that Ashley kept track of where Esther Green sat. That was something someone obsessive would write about in a notebook somewhere, and Ashley wrote nothing of the sort.

She couldn’t see Esther from this angle, another pitfall of the front row. Not that Ashley knew which seat had the best view of Esther—two seats back and three over.

“I guess a part that stood out to me was the discussion on cannibalistic practices and the different approaches to it.” Something about Esther’s matter-of-fact tone had Ashley envisioning Esther behind a library desk pressing spectacles up her nose while giving Ashley a stern look, maybe biting the end of a pen. “You have the spiritual with Christian communion in holy human sacrifice versus the militaristic eat-your-enemies-and-reduce-them-to-waste approach. But I liked the description of cannibalism as a communal funerary practice. I suppose this is a bit of a personal take and probably borders on moral relativism, but the idea of your ashes being put in a stew and consumed by your closest friends and family so you are literally carried with them, even in death, sounds… poetically beautiful.”

A shiver ran down Ashley’s spine. If Esther was into being eaten, Ashley wouldn’t push her out of bed. Hypothetically of course. She’d never spoken to Esther. Never so much as made eye contact with her from Ashley’s usual place in the back of the class.

Ashley leaned forward. However, with Fadl reclining and Taylor leaning over their notes, her view was blocked.

Forming friendships was off-limits, but Ashley took pride in her ability to remember names. Plattsburgh was a small enough college town that she’d run into at least half the class on weekends.

“Thank you, Esther. And that segues into our discussion on what Franz Boas meant when he used the termcultural relativismand how it differs frommoral relativism. Would anyone else care to give us a quick definition?”

When Fadl leaned over his notes, Ashley performed a backward-stretch-and-lean to catch a sight of the woman on the other side of the room. The woman she was absolutely not obsessing over. Esther’s face was blocked as she twirled a lazy finger around a lock of brown hair that had escaped from her messy bun—the motion mesmerizing in its slow and steady rhythm.

“Ashley.”

Ashley dropped her arms and whipped her head back to where Professor Jenkins waited. What was the question again? “Cultural relativism…is culture…relative to…other cultures?”

“Their own culture. Relative to their own culture, Ashley.” Professor Jenkins continued up the center aisle. “Would anyone else like to continue the definition?”

Ashley snatched up her pencil to pantomime taking notes. Despite her better judgment, she glanced to the far side of the room. If she slouched back just right… Esther’s slender fingers returned to her notes, revealing a touch of pale, sharp cheekbones and blood red lips. If this were a romance, Esther and Ashley would be enemies. She pictured Esther in a forest green tunic and impractically tight leather leggings, holding a knife to Ashley’s throat. Ashley sighed dreamily.

And then something happened that never happened two rows back and three seats over—Esther and her deep-set eyes glanced back at Ashley.

She had the aura of Winona Ryder from the early nineties.

Ashley shifted in her chair, unable to blink.Jesus, I’m in trouble.

Fadl chose that moment to lean back again, blocking her view. The snap of Ashley’s pencil splintering in her fist startled her back to reality. Someone in the back of the class eloquently discussed Franz Boas’s work in the growing field of anthropology, how racist views of the time shaped and emphasized the novelty of his research on Inuit culture. Ashley took this monologue in like the cold shower she needed.

She most definitely did not need distractions like pools of deep, brown eyes and talk of the romantic elements of cannibalism calling her long history of falling too fast and too hard. Ashley’s crushes led to obsession, which led to oversharing, which led to discovery, failure, banishment, and starting over again in a room full of her previous classmates who had magically forgotten her name.

“Thank you, Charlotte. That was quite thorough.” Professor Jenkins’s smile looked genuine for the first time. She returned to the SMART board, clicking to the next slide. “Now, your assignment for next week. We’re doing ethnographies focusing on everyday rituals. Preparing dinner, putting on makeup, making the bed. Big or small, as long as you can fit it within the?—”

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