Books Chapter 17...

Books Chapter Sixteen B

Jade looked up and spotted Gloria in line for coffee.

“Hey, Gloria! Hi!”

Gloria turned and saw her, “Oh hi! Wait, do you go here?”

“I do. I’m a junior, I did my first year back home and transferred here second semester of my sophomore year. Are you thinking about coming here?”

Gloria laughed, “I have been. For the past three and half years. I can’t believe I’ve never seen you around campus.”

“Well, there are a few thousand of us, so I guess maybe it’s not so weird. But hey! Now we know. Umm, so, I’m on my way over to look at art installment in Rickover Hall. Did you want to join me?”

“Oh, I do want to see that. I’m meeting a friend though so…”

Jade tried not to look disappointed. Afterall it wasn’t like they had made plans, or even were planning on making plans. They didn’t even really know each other. And really Gloria probably thought she was weird for even asking and…

“But, I know she has plans at 3 so if you could push it, we could meet back here around 2:30 and go? I mean, I have no idea what your schedule is or if you have something you could do to waste some time, but I do want to see it and...”

“That sounds great. I was going to return some books at the library after I saw the exhibition and I’ll just swap the order.” Jade grabbed her empty coffee cup and pastry wrapper from the table, “You keep this space to meet your friend and I’ll see you back here in a little bit.” She was trying not to smile too broadly.

“Sounds good, see you again soon!” Gloria settled down to wait for Ellie.

She was reading her book when a chair across from her was pulled out. Looking up expecting Ellie she was surprised to see Peter.

“Oh hey, long time no see.”

“Hi, yeah, Ellie is grabbing coffee and will be over in a second.”

“Okay…”

Ellie came over and took a seat next to Peter across from Gloria. “Okay, no beating around the bush. We’re worried about you.”

“First off, hello to you too. Second off, we? Since when are you and Peter a we? And third, what?”

Ellie blushed a little, “We aren’t a we. Not like that. I just mean we have been talking about you and…”

Gloria cut her off, “You have been talking about me? What? Why have you been talking about me?”

“That’s what we’re here to talk to you about. If you’d give me a chance to explain.”

“We live in the same house. You could have explained anytime you wanted to instead of dragging my advisor in to this.”

“I’m not here as your academic advisor, I’m here as a friend. At least I thought we were friends?”

“Yeah, I thought so too, but this is feeling very much like getting called to the principal’s office over some sort of bullshit.”

“It’s not like that at all. And I didn’t ask you at home because you are never at home. You’re always at the bookstore. Or running to class because you were up so late at the bookstore that you slept in. And every time I try to bring up next semester and where you are going to do your student teaching you run off. So, I went to Peter to see if he knew what was going on.”

“You went to Peter to spy on me? What the heck, Ellie. You are all about honesty and just saying what you mean, and you’ve been discussing me behind my back? And you. Isn’t that completely unethical or something? Discussing my academic plans with someone else?”

“It’s not like that. You are overreacting. We’ve just both been really concerned about you and haven’t been able to talk to you because you are always busy and…”

“Yeah, I’m busy. Unlike some people I have to work and can’t just lounge around between classes.”

Ellie looked stung. “That’s…that’s not fair.”

Gloria knew it wasn’t, but she was too mad to really care. “And did you tell her that my grades are fine and I’m doing the work? Or do you not trust that anyone other than you can judge my output?”

Peter sat back a little, “Look, this is not at all the way we had planned on this going, or what we were trying to do. We weren’t meeting to talk about you behind your back as some sort of judgment. Just you’ve pulled away from both of us and have seemed really evasive when either one of us has tried to ask you questions and so we thought it was best if we just…”

Ellie interrupted, “Jade? Hi… I…”

Gloria spun and looked from Jade to Ellie, “Wait? You know each other? Oh perfect. You couldn’t just be content meeting with Peter to discuss my future you sent in a spy? Oh, I’m sure it was for my own good. Something your mother would do, right? Cover all the bases. But with the best of intentions only. Unbelievable.” She pushed away from the table and grabbed her pack, “Talk amongst yourselves. I’m fine. If you had bothered to just ask, I could have told you that.”

And with that she stormed out of the cafeteria leaving Peter and Ellie to wonder how their good intentions had been so misconstrued and leaving Jade having no idea what had just happened.

“Either one of you want to explain to me what that was and why I’m apparently seeing the new installation by myself?”