The Date Auction

Chapter 8: Strangers and Stranger

My astronomy class dragged on. It was my last class before Friday. Blaise had never told me when or where our date was, so I was going to post up in my dorm, drown myself in coffee starting at 11:59 PM tonight, and not sleep, leave, or use the bathroom until our date just to be sure I wouldn't make him wait outside again. God, I couldn't wait for this to be over so I no longer needed to be entangled with him. And yet, something was growing inside of me. A nagging sensation that just maybe, I'd feel disappointed when it was all over.

The TA teaching the course, Galil E. O. Starlook, went through his dull lecture on the various kinds of constellations. I already knew about all of them. I probably could have passed this class without attending but I thought it was really important to always attend classes. My dad had disappeared studying things, leaving me with the important lesson to always study things. Sometimes I wondered if I'd ever shed any light on what happened to him.

Instructor Starlook continued his lecture. "Conjunctions are when the planets and stars line up in a way that is good. Many ancients believed that in addition to being a good line, it was also a line with secret powers. Wow. There have been two major conjunctions in the last one thousand years. The last one was a few or several years ago. The other one was one thousand years ago from the end of this semester."

He continued, but I suddenly found myself lost in my own thoughts. I had an inkling of the timing of that last conjunction. Once class had ended, I ran after Instructor Starlook.

"Hey, wait up!"

"Madison! One of my best students! We've never met, but I've been very impressed by how many constellations you listed on your last test."

"Thank you, professor." I said, "The moon is my favorite."

He nodded sagely.

"Hey, Professor." I swallowed nervously. I was either about to solve one of my personal mysteries, or embarrass myself in front of a teacher. Yikes. "Can you tell me... was the last conjunction above the grand canyon?"

He paused, not answering immediately. "I'm not sure. My research is in dark matter, so I'll need to take a few days to verify. Is this urgent?"

"No, but I'd appreciate it if you could email me when you know. It's just something I curious about."

"Because of your dad? My advisor used to work with him. I remember seeing some old drafts of a paper of theirs, about-"

Another person who knew my dad. I wondered why there were so many of them at the university where he worked. I couldn't believe I'd found a clue, after so long wanting to know what happened. I wandered around campus for hours afterward, trying to figure out why everything seemed to be coming together. My wandering brought me to the university's park just as it was getting dark.

"Haha, Lena, you wouldn't!" A familiar voice. Blaise? I never saw Blaise around. I turned to wave at him, but I tripped over the copy of David Copperfield I'd left in the park and tumbled into a pile of pine needles. I couldn't get up now! Blaise would see me all disheveled and he'd never want to date me. Date me tomorrow. For the last time before I never had to deal with him again. I hunched deeper into the pile.

A woman's haughty voice laughed cruelly. Some tall blonde was walking with Blaise. She looked too put together, as if she had to put work into maintaining femininity instead of effortlessly inhabiting it. And she was so pretty.

"Now Blaise, you know I'm encouraging him too. I've said for years you two would be great to-"

Blaise held up a hand for her to be quiet. I silently cheered for him, standing up to her against something or other that was almost certainly hateful and unfair and all around bad.