Schooled

Chapter 4

It was a brutal first week of classes. Apparently my senior year business profs took their job of preparing us for the "real world" very seriously. After multiple hours of law, finance, economics, and marketing, I was beat. The one upside was that my class schedule ran Monday to Thursday, giving me a three-day weekend to dig myself out.

My book snapped shut faster than our financial econ professor could say "see you Monday." Rising with thirty other students, I looped my book bag over my head.

"This assignment's going to take all weekend," grumbled Jane beside me. Jane was possibly the only person more serious about school than I was. Her black hair and almond-shaped eyes came courtesy of her Asian mother and the faintest hint of freckles was from her Scottish father. Jane's look was striking and exotic and Ava had been dying to get Jane in her clothes since I'd introduced them the year before.

Jane and I were both business students. We'd established a solid bond over calculus and caffeine—both major themes of junior year.

"Want to work on it at Bart's?" she asked. I could feel a marathon session coming on. This course definitely had the heaviest workload of the four I was taking.

"Deal. I could go for a sugar fix. I'm pretty sure the mental gymnastics Finske's putting us through could burn off anything we want to eat."

We walked along one of the paved lanes that connected the campus buildings and bordered greenspaces on which students lounged. Our destination, Bart's Café, was in the social sciences building on the other side of campus.

Don't ask me why the coffeehouse was called that. As far as I knew, there was no Bart involved in its management. Maybe at one point there had been. Maybe Bart had taken Dr. Finske's Advanced Topics in Financial Economics course and thrown himself off the social sciences building.

I waved at a few friends we saw on our way across campus. As usual, the first week of classes carried a certain energy. I chalked it up to excitement on the part of the freshmen, who were easily distinguished by their enthusiastic expressions, tendency to be clustered around campus maps and signposts, and the telltale college bookstore bags clutched in their hands.

We pushed through the doors of the café to find it packed. Bart's was a popular hangout for students of all vintages. It boasted schizophrenic décor that looked like the contents of a surf shop and a record store had been tossed in a giant box, shaken, and dumped out again. Case in point, the café's crowning glory: a surfboard mounted behind the counter from which Gene Simmons' countenance leered. But the real reasons for its loyal following were that it was open twenty-four hours and also served beer after noon.

I placed our orders at the counter while Jane miraculously found a booth in the process of being vacated. This was an impressive feat, as Bart's was especially popular with both the coffee and beer consuming patrons near the end of the week.

"Did I tell you I'm taking my LSATs next month?" Jane swirled a spoon in her cappuccino after our drinks were delivered to our table. Jane was a serious brain. The Law School Admissions Test was just one more step on her path. I knew she'd blow it out of the sky.

"That's amazing. You'll be a hot shot litigator in no time. Are you excited?"

"I'm excited that my parents will be excited," she hedged. Jane had a tight-knit family and big expectations to meet. I knew what that was like, but while Jane was following the path her parents set out, I was hell-bent on making success on my own terms. If things had worked out differently, maybe I'd be the one taking my LSATs instead. My mom would trade me in for Jane in a second.

"But you've always wanted to be a lawyer, right? I mean, I haven't heard you talk about anything else."

Jane thought for a minute before responding. "I think it's partly because I've never had anything I wanted to do, unlike you. As long as we've been friends you've planned to start your own company. That's so ... daring." I guess I hadn't thought of it that way because it had been the goal for two years. Success seemed inevitable, even if I had to jump through a thousand hoops to get there.