Chatoyant College Book 5: Parents' Weekend

Chapter 28: Family Matters

"So what are Leah and Jake up to this weekend?" Edie asked, sitting down on the edge of her bed next to her grandmother. "I was surprised when you said you were going to leave both of them at home." Corrie was off for the morning at least with Byron, and she and her family were sitting around in her room, just spending some time talking.

"Jacob has a soccer game this weekend," her dad said from his seat on top of the trunk where Edie kept her yarn. "He tried to get us to stay home for it, but you know, he has a game just about every other weekend."

Edie nodded. It seemed that her little brother had gotten all of the popular genes in the family—he played two different sports and took tae kwon do lessons, and still managed to do well in most of his classes and have time to hang out with his friends. "What about Leah?"

"Oh, when we tried to get her to come, she just whined," said her mom. "I think now that you're gone she's hit the teenage years hard. All she wants to do is sit in her room and read."

"You should be used to that!" Edie said with a grin. Edie had spent most of her high school years sitting in her room and reading (at least, whenever she wasn't in class or eating with the family). She hoped, for her little sister's sake, that she didn't take after her in too many other respects.

Her dad laughed. "I guess we got used to Jake disappearing out of the house every afternoon, we weren't expecting Leah to disappear inside the house every day."

"You seem to have more of a social life now," her mom said.

Edie nodded. "Yeah, I guess I do. Well, it's different sharing a room with someone my age with similar interests than it is with someone much younger than me... even if she is my sister." Living at a school full of people who mostly neither knew nor cared that she was a lesbian made a big difference, too, as did being away from people she was used to being shunned by. But she thought that having Corrie as her friend made the biggest difference in her social life.

"So, was there anything in particular you wanted to do today?" she asked her family, looking around so as to include her grandmother, who was sitting next to her on the bed but hadn't said anything. "I don't remember anything special being scheduled for today, except the morning coffee with the president, which we've already missed." If the coffee hadn't been so early in the morning, Edie might have been tempted to go. She'd never met the president of the school, and in fact, she couldn't figure out what the purpose of a president was.

"There's some kind of sports game, but I don't think anyone except Jake would be interested in that," said her mom.

"Oh, right, it's... basketball, right?" Chatoyant College seemed like too small of a school to have real sports teams, but apparently there were a few of them. She'd tried to convince Corrie to join the track team once, but Corrie had said competition would make her lose interest.

"No, we just wanted to spend time with you today," said her dad. "Are there any of your friends you haven't introduced us to yet?"

Edie could think of a lot of people she might introduce her parents to, but none that she was particularly close to. Anyway, she didn't know how to track down Leila's group of friends, or the people from their pagan study group that her family hadn't met yet. Not that she was willing to tell them about the pagan study group. And she didn't want to come close to touching the subject of Troy. "No... I don't think so." She shrugged. "I could show you where the Hillel meets."

"Oh, so there is a Hillel group on campus?" her mom asked.

Edie nodded. "A small one. They don't have their own building."

"I'd like to see that," said her grandmother. "As long as the rest of you don't mind walking slowly."

Edie's mom stood up with a smile. "Of course not, Mom. Let's go." She held out her hand, and Edie's grandmother took it to help herself stand.

"We'd better make sure we have all our stuff so we don't have to come back up here," said her dad. "Not that it's not a nice room, Edith, but it is a long walk..."

Edie grinned. "I understand." She stood and looked around to make sure no one had left anything on her desk, bed, or floor. She did find her dad's cell phone on her desk and handed it to him. Soon they were all on their way.