Got Your Number

head.
    Roxann agreed. Even the students seemed smaller, compact and waiflike. And so impossibly young. It was a warm Wednesday afternoon, and the little people streamed in all directions over sidewalks and grassy banks with purpose and synchronization. They looked so happy and so unburdened. Had she ever been that happy?
    "Let's go this way," Angora said, pointing to a sidewalk that would take them up and away from the direction Roxann wanted to take—through the oldest part of campus, and coincidentally, past the building where Carl's office was still housed, according to the address in the alumni newsletter.
    "Okay," she agreed, chastising herself. She'd see him in due time.
    As they walked, Angora pointed to a nondescript redbrick building on the crest of a wooded hill. "There's our old dorm."
    "Uh-huh. Probably coed now."
    "You think? Wow, I bet no one leaves here a virgin anymore."
    Roxann smiled her agreement. Students surged by them, laughing and poking each other, lopsided from the bulging backpacks on their shoulders. Earbuds bounded. Despite the brisk temperature, lots of skin was on display—navels, thighs, and oh, the cleavage. And from all the touching that was going on, hormones did indeed appear to be running amuck. A tall athletic guy winked at Angora and turned around to walk backward as he perused her up and down.
    "It's the crown," Angora insisted as she gave him a little finger-wave. "This is going to be fun."
    "He thinks you're a teacher."
    But from the glow on Angora's face, she definitely had plans for her virginity to die a quick death. Roxann bit her lower lip—she hoped the event would be all her cousin thought it would be. And that the lucky guy was of legal age.
    Yellow banners on every lamppost announced Homecoming week and shouted, "Be there!" in frantic letters.
    She was there, but feeling a little out of sorts. Didn't someone say you could never go home? South Bend was as close to home as she'd ever felt. To realize that her four years here had been replaced by thousands of other footprints and term papers and first loves made her feel very insignificant. They walked higher and higher, where the foot traffic thinned and the fall leaves thickened.
    "Will your sorority be doing something special for Homecoming?" she asked Angora.
    She shrugged. "I suppose."
    "You don't keep up with your sisters?"
    Angora's face went odd, and she looked off in the distance. "I quit the DZs."
    "I didn't know that. Why?"
    She shrugged again. "Some of the girls started being mean to me, calling me 'Church' because I wouldn't sleep with their creepy brothers. Tammy Paulen—" She stopped walking.
    Roxann swung her head around. "What about Tammy Paulen?"
    Angora seemed dazed.
    "Angora, what about Tammy Paulen?"
    "She...was the worst."
    She wet her lips and spoke carefully. "I thought you said you didn't know Tammy very well."
    "I didn't. I don't even think she knew my name."
    "But she teased you?"
    Angora nodded. "Her brother heard I was a virgin, and she...wanted to give me to him for his birthday."
    Roxann's stomach convulsed. "That's sick."
    "Well, she got hers, didn't she?"
    A chill went through Roxann that had nothing to do with the breeze. "Angora—"
    "Hey, is that who I think it is?" Angora pointed like a bird dog across the street.
    Roxann followed her finger, and her heart vaulted. She hadn't realized it, but the path led them high above and opposite Carl's office building, leveling off in front of the humanities building for a splendid view through an opening in the trees the distance of a football field. Without knowing, Angora had led them to a perfect vantage point.
    It was Carl, all right. Sitting on the steps of the building, munching a sandwich and reading a book in the sunshine. Still broad-shouldered and lean, he was wearing a soccer coaching jacket over chinos, T-shirt, and V-neck sweater. The sunlight picked up the silver in his hair, and the glare from his small wire-framed glasses. Years fell away, and Roxann's tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth. No man had affected her the way Carl had, not before and not since.
    "I was thinking barbecue for lunch," Angora said, nodding to a concession stand below them on the street mere paces from where Carl sat.
    "Sounds good," she murmured.
    Concrete steps took them down to street level. Thank goodness there was a handrail for stability—the heeled boots were making her legs wobbly. Scenes about how she might approach him, and what he