Chatoyant College Book 2: Initiates

Chapter 33: Tomorrow

Corrie was extremely cheerful walking back to her dorm; the rain had apparently stopped for good, she had plans (even if it didn't quite sound like a date) with a really hot guy, and she had a way to get Edie meeting some girls. Most things were going well in her life. Now she just had to deal with whatever was going on in Roe's vision, and everything would be great.

Edie and Dawn were both in her room when she arrived. They looked up when she entered and grinned. "Were you talking about me behind my back?" she demanded, throwing her damp jacket over the back of her chair and hanging her umbrella over her closet door handle, where it could drip onto the tile floor.

"Yes," said Dawn. "We were wondering whether we should tell you that your hair is really ugly and you should get a new haircut."

"Do you think so?" Corrie glanced in the small mirror hanging over her bureau. It was hard to tell what her hair looked like, since it was damp from the rain. She didn't think Dawn was serious, but it was true that her hair--which she almost always had pulled away from her face in a ponytail--was kind of boring. Plenty of girls would kill for her natural blonde, but few of them would treat it as shabbily as she did. "It might be fun to do something different with it," she said, thinking of the party she'd agreed to go to.

Dawn laughed. "I was kidding. Your hair is beautiful. We were talking about Professor Lal again."

"Oh." Corrie dragged her chair over to where Dawn and Edie were sitting--on Edie's chair and her bed, respectively--and sat down. "Any new insights?"

Edie shook her head. "I guess we'll find out more tomorrow, one way or another."

"Ah, tomorrow," Corrie said dramatically, stretching her arms upward. "So much rests on it. My romantic prospects and yours."

"Romance?" Dawn said, confused. "What are you talking about?"

She leaned forward, looking at Edie. "You are going to meet some theater lesbians."

"Uh... what?" said Edie, looking slightly alarmed.

Corrie grinned and leaned back again. "Byron invited me to a theater department party tomorrow night. I got him to say you could come, too. Sorry I couldn't get you an invite, Dawn, but he didn't really want to let Edie come until I said she's taking a theater class and is a lesbian. Apparently they need more lesbians around there."

"Doesn't bother me," said Dawn. "I'll be hanging out with Rico anyway. But if this is a date, do you really want to mess it up by bringing a friend along? It seems kind of weird..."

Corrie hadn't thought about it that way, but she did for a moment, then shrugged. "I like him, but not as much as I like you guys. If he can't accept my loyalty to my friends, I don't want to date him anyway. Plus, I don't think it's really a date, just a chance to hang out. It sounds like the whole theater department will be there."

"Let's get back on the subject at hand," said Edie. "Theater lesbians?"

"Isn't that a great phrase?" Corrie laughed. "You need to meet some girls, Edie, and Byron says there are some good ones in the theater department. You'll be fawned over. Plus, I'll be there the whole time, so you won't be alone. And like I said, my friends are more important than any guy; if you say you need to leave, we'll leave, no questions asked."

Edie's face relaxed. "Thanks, Corrie. Okay, I guess I'll go, even though you never actually asked me if I wanted to."

"Oh, Edie." Corrie grabbed one of her curls and tugged it playfully, letting it bounce back. "I knew I'd convince you, so why bother to ask?"

Edie hit her with a pillow. "You are much too arrogant!"

"Thanks," said Corrie, grabbing the pillow. "I prefer to say I know my friends."

"We've barely been here for a week!"

"Huh, I guess you're right," Corrie said. She hadn't thought about that, but Edie was right--it had only been the previous Wednesday that they'd moved in. "It feels like much longer."

"We were pretty busy before classes even started," Dawn pointed out. "I think we got to know each other better than most people did just over that weekend."

"Speaking of busy," Corrie said, turning to Dawn, "how are things going with you and Rico?"

Dawn blushed immediately. "Uh, they're good, yeah. Can't complain."

"Yeah? Have you had sex yet?"

"What? No!"

"Corrie!" reprimanded Edie.

"I just wanted to know!" she said. "Will you tell us when you do have sex?"

Dawn was blushing even harder now. "Maybe? I don't even know if we will have sex."

"Well, it's obvious that you're madly in love. Okay, I'll stop asking." She winked. "But I won't be surprised when it does happen!"

"Let's change the subject," Dawn mumbled.

"I have a good subject," said Edie, standing up. "Dinner."

"Is it that time already?" Corrie said, looking up at the clock.

"I don't know, but I didn't have lunch, and I'm starving."

Corrie shrugged. "I guess I can eat something. As long as we go look at the statues afterward."

Her friends agreed, and after a quick dinner (at which they were joined by Annie and Salome) they headed outside in the fading, but thankfully still bright, evening. They found three other statues, two to the west and one at the north end of campus; all three were of women. Rebeckah Williams looked the most weathered, while Sorcha Motsinger and Lara Sumaya looked more or less the same as Vertiline Gravette. Their clothes were all different, but Corrie didn't think that meant much. She wrote down all the names and returned with them to her computer, deciding to only look on Google tonight--she still had reading to finish for Intro to Magic.

All three of them had far more Google results than Vertiline Gravette had, but search as she might, she couldn't find anything to connect any of them with Chatoyant College other than the fact that there were statues of them there. None of them seemed to be famous, either; from what she read, it didn't seem like more than two Google results referred to the same person for each of them. Finally, when Dawn knocked on the door and came in with her textbook, she closed the window with a sigh.

"No luck?" Dawn asked sympathetically.

"None," she said. "I'll try the library tomorrow, I guess." She and Dawn turned to their textbooks.