Moving in Reverse (8 page)

I nodded, clenching one fist in my
pocket as he closed the briefcase.

“
I look forward to reading
your assignment this week,” he said, dismissing me.

I felt my lip tremble, and turned to
leave the classroom as quickly as I could.

The paper was due in six
hours.

And I hadn’t even started the
book.

Chapter Ten

I went straight to the library, flying
through the first hundred pages of the book in three hours before
resorting to the Wikipedia summary for the rest of it.

I strung together three pages on
feminine identity and naming conventions, and then deleted half of
it, started over with a focus on Biblical references, and then
deleted that too.

My cell phone buzzed twice, but I
ignored it, typing furiously on my laptop.

Ambiguity, I thought. The language in
the Handmaid’s Tale is clearer than our last book, but the same
ambiguity is underneath. We don’t know what happened to change
society into the setting for the book. We don’t know what happens
to the characters when the story ends (courtesy of Wikipedia). Just
like Oedipa Maas, I wrote, ignoring the red squiggly spell-check
line that was trying to make me look like an idiot again, we follow
the story with a veil over our eyes, trying to find answers that
the author purposely left out. The important question, I typed,
feeling a smile creeping onto my face, isn’t always what we’re
given, but what we’re not. The Handmaid’s Tale doesn’t have to tell
us how society got to its dystopian landscape. It’s enough that we
believe that it could.

Good
enough
, I thought to myself, hitting the
button to print what I’d written and saving the document on my
laptop. I took a deep breath and closed the computer, feeling the
tension in my back start to let up.

It was after three o’clock and I was
starving. I’d read over my paper in the dining hall and then turn
it in on my way home. I texted Blake where I was heading and packed
up the rest of my stuff, opening my bag as I left the library so
the guard could make sure I hadn’t stolen anything.

I had a voicemail from my mom and my
younger brother. They’d called as she was picking him up from
school, and I hadn’t even heard the phone vibrate. Trevor started
fifth grade this year, and apparently was on his way to his first
school dance that night. I smiled, thinking about my goofy younger
brother asking some girl to slow dance.

I picked the dining hall closest to
our dorm and started towards it, figuring it was my best chance of
seeing someone I actually knew, and not having to sit at a table by
myself.

An hour later, I’d suffered through a
forty five minute lunch with our hall’s residential adviser, a
mousy girl named Jillian – “not Jill,” she’d corrected me — who was
the only person I’d recognized eating lunch at 3 o’clock on a
Friday. Darby still hadn’t called me, so I figured I’d run by our
room and make sure she hadn’t gotten rejected from Kappa and
started contemplating suicide.

Standing outside my dorm, though, was
the last person I expected to see.

“
Snow,” Tanner Cole said,
looking rugged and annoyingly handsome in a shearling leather
jacket and jeans.

I narrowed my eyes. “Are you stalking
me?”

He laughed, shrugging his
shoulders. “I’m here to see Blake,” he said. “But it turns out the
registrar won’t just
tell
you which room on campus is Blake Parker’s.” He
shot me a sly smile. “Probably overly cautious on their part,” he
said. “Blake’s not really my type. Your room, on the other hand —
that one, I might be interested in seeing...”

I rolled my eyes so he wouldn’t see me
blush.

“
Blake’s probably
studying. I haven’t seen him since this morning.”

“
That’s ok,” he grinned
again. “I’m sure he’ll turn up. I’ll just stick to your side until
he does.”

“
Or maybe I can text him
again,” I fumbled in my bag for my phone, keeping it out of
Tanner’s reach. The last thing I needed was another cannibalized
text floating around.

I texted Blake to ask where he was,
not mentioning Tanner. He’d never replied to the message I’d sent
before lunch, which wasn’t really like him.

“
So, where to?” Tanner
looked around, as if there were some yellow brick road about to
form in front of us.

It was actually pretty weird that
Blake hadn’t written back. I knew he didn’t have classes this
afternoon, but I hadn’t seen him in the library.

“
I guess we can check his
room,” I said reluctantly, turning left on the concrete path
towards Blake’s dorm. “But if any iPhone pictures end up in US
Weekly, I know who to blame,” I tried to look serious. “My mom’s a
lawyer, just so you know.”

Tanner fell into step next to me.
“Maybe I should go to college,” he smirked. “You guys all seem to
think that Blake Parker is actually still a big deal.”

I shot him an angry look. “If you’re
going to be a jerk—”

“
Wouldn’t dream of it,” he
held up his hands in mock surrender. “That’s the last peep you’ll
hear out of me.”

Blake’s room was usually neater than
mine, and when we walked in, my first thought was that either some
groupie had managed to break in or that Ethan had finally lost his
fragile hold on the non-RPG world and gone off the deep
end.

Blake’s clothes were everywhere — on
the bed, the floor, flung over every available surface in sight.
His books peeked out from underneath them — not just the few that I
recognized from classes this semester, but other copies I’d never
seen before that looked antique and probably shouldn’t have been
sitting in piles of dirty laundry.

“
Whoa,” Tanner raised an
eyebrow. “Did Blake become a hoarder?”

Ethan had opened the door for us, and
he looked at me with a worried expression. “I haven’t seen him
since this morning. He tore up the room and left for class, I don’t
know. I figured you guys had a fight or something.”

I wrinkled my eyebrows, looking down
at my phone for a reply that still hadn’t come.

“
Where else could he be?”
I wondered out loud.

Ethan shrugged. “Maybe he just wants
some time to himself.”

I looked at Tanner helplessly, trying
to keep my unease off my face.

“
Don’t worry, Snow,” he
gave me a reassuring smile. “He’ll turn up when he’s
ready.”

“
Maybe I should wait
here,” I said uncertainly, thinking about Blake being late to class
this morning, his obvious distraction throughout the
lecture.

A thought flickered through my
head.

“
What did you want to talk
with him about anyways?” I asked Tanner.

He shook his head. “It’s not
important,” he evaded my question. “I can try again when he’s come
down to earth a bit.”

Ethan gave Tanner a look I couldn’t
read, and sat back down at his desk.

I glanced at the bed and recognized
the book of T.S. Eliot poetry Blake had bought on the night we met.
It was a contemporary paperback the antique dealer had given Blake
for while we were on the road that summer, and I saw the familiar
dog-eared pages where I’d marked my favorite poems.

“
You can wait if you
want,” Ethan said to me, giving me a halfhearted smile. “Or I can
just tell him you came by.”

I took the hint.

“
We’ll get out of your
hair,” I said, turning for the door. “See you later.”

Tanner was right behind me as I walked
out into the hallway, barely glancing down as we took the stairs
two at a time.

“
Want me to buy you a
coffee?” Tanner asked once we were outside.

I blinked twice, still worried about
Blake, and then a glint of metal flashed in front of me in the
sunlight. I squinted at Tanner’s expensive-looking
wristwatch.

“
What time is it?” I felt
my stomach sinking.

He glanced down at his wrist. “Five of
five — why?”

“
Shit,” I said, feeling in
my bag for where my printed paper was still sitting in its manila
folder. I’d forgotten all about it. “I’ve gotta go, I’m
sorry—”

I had four and a half minutes to get
back to the English department, find my professor’s office, and get
the paper in his mailbox.

I took off at a sprint.

“
Next time—” I yelled over
my shoulder.

I was still running when I heard
Tanner’s voice behind me, barely audible over the wind whipping
around my face.

“
I’m holding you to
that...”

Before I could stop
myself, I let out a laugh.
Don’t hold your
breath
, I thought, still running at full
speed towards the English Department.

Chapter Eleven

I didn’t hear from Blake until after
dinner, and by then I was back in our room, tying to listen while
Darby explained to me the ins and outs of how the weekend would
go.

We’d both gotten in to
Kappa.

I’d almost forgotten about out our
bids until I walked in the door and Darby waved the envelope at me,
grinning like a madwoman.

She was still on the phone with her
mom. I guessed it had been about three hours at this
point.

Tonight there was a low-key party just
for girls, Darby informed me, but tomorrow was the real
fun.

“
I mean, how could it not
be?” She said, her eyes sparkling with excitement.

“
Right,” I said, dropping
my bag on the bed. “And, um… why is that again?”

Darby rolled her eyes at me, pointing
to an overstuffed shopping bag in the corner of the room.
“Halloween? Come on, Casey. You can’t seriously be this
clueless.”

I exhaled, remembering the afternoon
Darby and I had spent shopping for costumes before rush started.
She’d gone with “Sexy Dorothy” from the Wizard of Oz — which was
kind of redundant, because there really weren’t any un-sexy Dorothy
costumes in the store. I’d bought a “Sexy Bride” costume, a pair of
black lace gloves, and a bunch of cheap necklaces, and planned to
crimp my hair and go as Madonna circa 1985. I’d actually been
pretty excited about it.

My phone beeped, saving me from
responding. I flipped it open and read the text.

Back in room. Sorry to be
MIA. Mtgs.

Meetings? Since when did Blake have
meetings?

“
Darby, I’ve gotta go,” I
said, giving her what I hoped was an enthusiastic smile. “I’m so
excited, though — really.”

She shrugged, turning back to her
computer. “Whatever,” she said, still facing the screen.

I hesitated for a second, wondering if
something was wrong. But Darby would be there when I got back — and
there was definitely something going on with Blake. I grabbed my
bag and walked out, trying not to let the door slam behind
me.

Blake’s room was in a little better
shape than it had been earlier in the day, and I felt some of the
tension leave my shoulders when I knocked on the door and he
answered it, giving me a half smile.

“
Hey,” he opened the door
a little wider to let me in.

“
Is everything okay?” I
stepped past him and into the room, relieved that for once, Ethan
was apparently out doing something on a Friday night.

“
Oh, yeah,” he said a
little too quickly, his eyes flickering over me and back to his
computer. “Fine — everything’s fine.”

“
What were the meetings?”
I looked at Blake, and he finally seemed to register my concern.
Taking a step towards me, he put both his arms around me and pulled
me into him.

“
Nothing, Casey. It’s
fine. Don’t worry, really.”

I looked up at his bright blue eyes,
the first thing I noticed about him when we’d met in person. They
always seemed too perfect for real life, like something
photoshopped on a movie poster or a billboard twenty feet
high.

He exhaled deeply, and I felt him run
his fingers through my hair.

“
It’s fine,” he repeated,
half to himself this time, and leaned down to kiss me.

I wanted to press further, but it
didn’t seem to be the right time — and when Blake kissed me,
everything else I was thinking about suddenly seemed to lose its
urgency. I wrapped my arms around his neck, and let him pull me
closer.

“
You want me to put a sock
on the door?” he whispered, and I let out a quick laugh, my body
still shaky from the kiss.

“
Har har,” I said
sarcastically, and pulled away from him. “Maybe next year you could
get a single.”

Something flickered across Blake’s
face as I said it, and I immediately regretted my words without
knowing why. I slid out of his arms and sat down on his bed,
pulling my knees to my chest.