College Girl (Book Four, BTVS)

chapter 8 - Pangs

Buffy, Willow, Anya and I were standing on the lawn outside a building site, watching Dean Guerrero give a speech to a small gathering at the podium.

"Of all the duties of a dean, one of them most pleasant is to see a colleague realize a dream. Ladies, gentlemen, students, I present to you Professor Gerhardt of the anthropology department."

Professor Gerhardt replaced the dean at the podium. "When I first realized we were outgrowing our current cultural center, I was concerned. Then I realized. It was like seeing one's child grow up and move on to better things. In this case, a spacious new facility to be built on this site."

Anya was watching Xander at the site as a construction worker. "Look at him. Have you ever seen anything so masculine?"

"You mean Guerrero or his wife?" Buffy asked.

"I think she means..." Willow trailed off, gesturing to where Xander was starting to dig.

"Oh," Buffy told us. "Very manly. Not at all village people. So much sexier than the outfit from his last job."

"Oh, I miss the free hot dogs on sticks," I told them.

"I'm imagining having sex with him right now," Anya told us.

Buffy, Willow and I exchanged a look.

Gerhardt continued her speech. "And that's why it's appropriate that the ground-breaking for the UC Sunnydale cultural partnership center is taking place so soon before Thanksgiving. Because that's what the melting pot is about. Contributions from all cultures, making our culture stronger..."

Buffy started to clap.

Willow stopped her. "What a load of horse hooey."

"We have a counterpoint?" I asked.

"Yeah," Willow answered. "Thanksgiving isn't about blending of two cultures. It's about one culture wiping out another. And then they make animated specials about the part where, with the maize and the big, big belt buckles. They don't show you the next scene, where all the bison die and squanto takes a musket ball in the stomach."

"Okay," I told her. "Now, for some of that, you were channeling your mother?"

"Well, yeah, sort of," Willow answered. "That's why she doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving or Columbus Day. You know, the destruction of the indigenous peoples. I know it sounds a little overwrought, but really, she's... she's right."

"Yeah, I guess I never really thought about it that way," Buffy told us. "With my mom at Aunt Arlene's this year, and with Zo's mom working too hard with the overshifts again..." She looked at me. "I can finally see where you get it from." I poked out my tongue. "I guess we're not getting a Thanksgiving. Maybe it's just as well."

"Well, I think that's a shame," Anya told us. "I love a ritual sacrifice."

"It's not really a one of those," I told us.

"To commemorate a past event, you kill and eat an animal," Anya told us. "It's a ritual sacrifice, with pie."

Gerhardt continued her speech. "And, thus, a symbolic beginning."

Gerhardt walked over, commencing with the ground breaking ceremony.

Anya was incensed. "What's she doing? Xander said he was going to dig. I want to see Xander dig."

"That part's just ceremonial," I told her.

"Well, it bites," Anya told us. "She's not rippling at all. Oh, look, there he goes." Xander started to dig. Anya sighed. "Look at him."