Page 1 of Lovely War
ONE
I used to be asucker for a cinematic moment.
When the woman with the dark bob and Skechers perches next to me on the bench and says, “It’s like something out of a movie,” I get it. I understand why she’s whipping out her phone, trying to figure out how to take a panoramic photo.
It’s one of those perfect October mornings when there’s a bite in the air, the kind that always makes my lungs crave more. Everything is dripping with caramelized sunlight. Ardwyn University students stroll through the quad toward a cluster of old stone liberal arts buildings, the field green like tuition dollars and mown with precision. I breathe in the smell of fallen leaves and, inexplicably, apple cider donuts.
“It’s something,” I mutter in response, eyeing the brochure sticking out of her colorful paisley shoulder bag.A Bright Future, it says at the top.
There was a time in my life when I would’ve eaten this shit up with a spoon. Now, Ardwyn seems suspiciously likeDisney World: too perfect, like it must’ve been synthesized through a series of focus groups to feel like college, and all these young people in their chunky sweaters are going backstage for a cigarette break as soon as they’re out of my field of vision.
“Beautiful day,” the woman declares.
My anxious brain does not have the bandwidth for small talk right now. I try to get away with a noncommittalmm-hmm, but she snares me with eye contact and sticks out her hand. I shake it a beat too late, offering a perfunctory smile.
She tells me her name, and I forget it immediately.
“I’m Annie,” I reply.
“Oh, there they are!” She waves to a man in a windbreaker and a teenager twirling a bucket hat in her hands, both walking toward us from the student center. “My husband and daughter. They went to find a restroom.”
I rise. “Let me make room for them to sit with you.” I can’t stay still, anyway. My jaw aches from clenching, I’m tapping my foot, and I picked the cuticle off my right thumbnail before she sat down.
She protests, but I wave her off. As I back up, a student walking behind me says, “Excuse me,” so I step off the path into the dappled shade of a heinously majestic oak tree to let him pass. He’s dressed in what must be all the Ardwyn gear his parents bought him at the bookstore on move-in day: Ardwyn hat, Ardwyn lanyard holding his Ardwyn student ID card, Ardwyn Tigers T-shirt featuring the mascot holding a basketball.
At the sight of the basketball, my stomach churns like the quaint old waterwheel behind the library.
Another student pops up in front of me, a perky, red-facedkid in a polo and khakis. “Hi! Are you here for the tour? It’ll be a few more minutes.”
For the first time I notice a handful of other families milling around behind the bench. Prospective students and their parents, chatting and waiting and peering around.
“No!” I respond too quickly. “I’m not. I don’t. Um, no. Thank you.”
I shouldn’t be allowed within a ten-foot radius of this tour group. Eight years ago, I graduated and swore I’d never set foot on this campus again. For eight years I kept that promise to myself. Yet now, thanks to wedding-induced nostalgia,Home Appliance Magazine, and Ben Fucking Callahan, here I am.
My new friend leans toward me. “I was wondering!” she says. “Are you a graduate student?”
I shake my head. “I…work here.” The words feel all wrong coming out of my mouth. “Today is my first day.” Which is why my eyes snapped open before sunrise and now I’m loitering outside, forty minutes before my first meeting.
“Which department?” she asks. “Madison is debating between biology and computer science.”
“I’ll actually be working for the basketball team.”
Some of the other parents and kids swivel in my direction, and one of themoohs.
“So lucky,” says a mom in a cable-knit sweater, lifting her sunglasses. “You must be excited to be here.”
I’m here because I have no other options. But if I say that, the tour guide will probably haul me off with a hook and lock me in whatever cell they’re using to hide the creepy frat boys and the protesters pressuring the school to divest its endowment from fossil fuels.
Her husband sidles up to me, hands on his hips. “Basketball, huh? I’m a big fan.”
“Of Ardwyn?”
He laughs like my question is a joke. “No, I’m a Duke guy. Cool job, though. You guys have been so-so the last few years, so keep your expectations low and you’ll probably have fun. Shame that old coach of yours didn’t stick around. I always said he could’ve done something special here.”
I shrug like I don’t know exactly who he’s talking about: Coach Brent Maynard, everyone’s favorite Ardwyn icon. I swear, if I turn a corner and run into a bronze statue of that man, I will drag the thing to the Schuylkill River and drown it. The tour guide won’t be able to stop me.
It’s still early, but this is my cue to exit. “It was nice meeting you,” I say to the mom on the bench as I make my escape.
