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  Christie pointed to the chair next to her. “Have a seat, fresh meat. Enjoy a sunrise with me.”

  “Why are you up this early, anyway?”

  Christie shrugged. “What makes you think I’m up early? I might be up late.”

  “Point.”

  Cara bumped her knee on a chair on the way over to the chair.

  Christie looked her up and down. Something passed through her eyes again.

  “You okay there, champ? Feeling a bit under the weather?”

  Cara laughed politely. “Oh, just clumsy in the morning.”

  “Right…” Christie narrowed her eyes, staring at her for an uncomfortably long time, then leaned back and looked out their wide suite window.

  Cara sat down, trying not to bump into anything else in the process. She didn’t appreciate the “fresh meat” or “champ” labels. Condescending nicknames always rubbed her the wrong way.

  The view out the window was like a perfectly crisp HD view screen. No sunrise ever looked so perfectly framed.

  “So tell me about yourself,” Christie said through a mouthful of fish sticks.

  Cara shifted in her chair. “Not much to tell. Just an average student. Hoping to learn a lot.”

  “You’re not average, don’t pretend to be.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re the cream of the crop if you got accepted here. You need to accept that.”

  “I wouldn’t say—”

  “I would. But now that we’ve established that, be aware you’ve been a big fish in a small pond. The pond is a lot bigger here.”

  “I know, I—”

  “Here’s another metaphor. You’re glittering gold where you’re from. But everyone’s gold here, so the market value of gold plummets.”

  Cara rolled her eyes. “I appreciate the insight.”

  “The sooner you figure these things out, the sooner you’ll learn to shine on your own terms. Become somebody special.”

  Cara nodded. “Thanks. What about you?”

  “I’m nobody special, either. Average-size fish in an enormous pond.”

  “What are you working on these days? Big local history project, I think you said?”

  “I have grand ambitions for my dissertation, but I just can’t crack it. Everything’s been academia’d to death. I’m thinking something local and quirky. Like a history of Charlottesville fires, going back to the Rotunda. Something about the cleansing power of fire, it being a metaphor for renewal, maybe pushing the middle class out of the city, or how it burns minorities worst of all. I dunno.”

  “Could be cool,” Cara commented.

  “It could. I want it to be cool. I’d like to bring history to life. Find the stories that tie the big events together. Make people interested.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  “Thanks.”

  They watched the sun rise for a few minutes, then Cara dug around for another conversational topic. She peeked into Christie’s room, saw it was barren except for a large poster of Faulkner on the wall. She pointed to it. “So, are you a fan of Faulkner, or did that poster come with the room?”

  Christie looked back at it. “I love Faulkner. Big fan. Never read him before I came to UVA, but I took a class on Literature of the South and fell in love.”

  Cara reached into her backpack, pulled out her copy of Requiem for a Nun.

  Christie squealed. “No kidding! All right, that’s amazing on three levels: a) You read. b) You read Faulkner for fun. And c) you’re reading that one?”

  Cara laughed. “I didn’t love Sanctuary, so this being a sequel to that book isn’t a selling point. I just like its unconventional structure.”

  “Yeah, the hybrid play/novel thing.”

  “Faulkner was nuts.”

  “Weird, even by modern standards.”

  “And the world-building where we learn all about Yokna…uh…”

  Christie laughed. “I don’t know how to pronounce his county, either!”

  “I feel like, I’ve read so many books set there, I should know the word, right?”

  “You’d think! But you’re not alone there. Yoknapataw-something county. Few things make me feel more ignorant than trying to remember or pronounce that word.”

  “Yeah, and what about—”

  Cara was interrupted by her phone vibrating in her pocket.

  At this time in the morning?

  She pulled it out, saw her mom’s number. She tapped the green button. “Hello?”

  “Your brother’s had an accident; he’s in the hospital.”

  “Oh, that idiot. What happened?”

  “He was climbing on to the roof, trying to get his remote-controlled helicopter.”

  “He fell from the roof? How is he still alive? Did he break his neck?”

  “No, no, he fell from a tree he used as a ladder to climb down. Landed on his shoulder.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Yes, hon. We’re pretty sure it’s a broken clavicle. But he’s pretty scared, and he’s asked us both to stay with him today.”

  “Right…Oh…You mean…”

  “Honey, we can’t come pick you up this afternoon.”

  “So I’m stuck here?”

  “Not at all! If you want to take a train or bus home, we can set you up with a ticket. Or does Uber travel that far?”

  “No way I’m using Uber again. Not after last time. But yeah, train or bus would work.”

  Her mother was breathing heavily. “The website says the station for each of them is on Main Street, you could—”

  “Sure, sure. Yeah, sounds good. So many choices. Let me think—”

  Christie slapped her shoulder. “Stay here with me.”

  Cara held the phone away from her face. “What?”

  “You need to crash here an extra night, you can stay at my place.”

  “You’d do that?”

  “Sure. Us Faulkner lovers gotta stick together.”

  Cara put her mouth pack against her phone. “It’s okay, Mom. I have a place I can stay here. You can pick me up tomorrow, right?”

  “Tomorrow? Yes, of course! We just need to stay with your brother tonight while he stays for observation. They have to wait several hours for the swelling to go down before they can operate. It’s really ugly. He’s crying a lot, the pain meds don’t seem to be working—”

  “Mom, I’ll be fine. Please stop talking to me and go be with him.”

  “Okay, hon. We’ll see you tomorrow. Love you.”

  “Love you too, Mom.”

  Cara hung up and turned to Christie. “Thanks, but is the University really going to be okay with me staying here in the dorm another night?”

  “We’re not staying here; we’re staying at my place. I have an apartment near 14th Street.”

  “Oh. I thought—”

  “Nah, I just crash here during orientation sessions.” Christie grabbed a notecard off a nearby table and wrote her address on it. “This is my place.”

  Cara pocketed the paper. “Thanks!”

  “Hey, what time is your class signup session?”

  “Uh…not until four.”

  “Okay, you have time to kill. How do you plan to spend the day?”

  Cara thought that over. She wanted to read. She wanted to recover. She wanted to take it easy. She wanted to be left alone. She wanted to beat up on herself for being weak and pathetic and abusing herself so badly last night.

  “Oh, nothing,” she said. “Just getting ready for class signup.”

  “That’ll take five minutes.”

  “Yeah, I guess…”

  “You’re not feeling so hot, are you?”

  “No…”

  “Well, you know what does a wounded body good?”

  “What?”

  “Lots of fresh air.” Christie shoved the last of her fish sticks into her mouth, set the plate on a nearby table. “Come on,” she said through a full
mouth. “Want a real tour of this place?”

  “Yes, I do!”

  Christie handed her a Nutri Grain bar (200 calories) and stood up. “Then let’s tour!”

  “Okay!”

  They went out the door together and rampaged through grounds in the clothes they’d slept in.

  Chapter 10

  “This is Thornton Hall. It’s new.”

  “Yeah,” Cara said. “It stands out. Less traditional brick, and—”

  “More huge glass cube. Yeah. It’s nice inside, but so uniformly nice, it’s boring. Next!”

  *

  “These are the 3D printers.”

  “So many. That one over there’s huge!”

  “It is. You’d be shocked to know how much it cost.”

  “How much?”

  “Let’s just say this department is sponsored by Rolls Royce.”

  “Say no more.”

  “And this is the lab where they display all their 3D-printed creations.”

  Cara looked in, saw several dozen multicolored guitar heads, everything from a Jaws poster shark head to Sonic the Hedgehog to a ninja turtle to Mario to Cthulhu to Scooby-Doo.

  “They make guitar heads? Why?”

  Christie shrugged. “Why make any art? It’s a project that engineering students do as a fun way to learn how to design and produce something using 3D printing.”

  “Whoa, maybe I should be an engineering student.”

  “Go ahead! More money there than in history.”

  “Or Faulkner.”

  “Yeah.”

  *

  “This is the hidden underground chamber between Gilmer and Chemistry.”

  “Hidden?” Cara asked as she looked at a built-in lamp on one side of the hallway that looked like something out of a Gothic mansion.

  “No, it’s public. But no one comes down here. There’s a big decommissioned office space for the Center for Biological Timing down here.”

  Cara peeked in. “Looks like a nineties-style office suite.”

  “Yes, and you can walk through it and see the decay.”

  They did so. Cara poked her head in the offices, saw fallen roof tiles, exposed electrical wiring, decade-old food wrappers, cracked floor tiles, exposed paneling, and a thick layer of sawdust and mold along most surfaces.

  “And check out these lockers!”

  Cara checked them out. There was a hallway full of P.O. box-size lockers, each individually labeled with its own combination lock. “What were these for?”

  “This group got a grant to study local aquatic specimens, and they stored their samples here, since this hallway is climate-controlled.”

  “Why did they stop?”

  “No one knows. Marine biology was a hot topic in the mid-nineties, but then their funding got abruptly cut. Everyone was transferred to other departments, and this place was decommissioned. No one’s been able to use this space for two decades now.”

  “Wow. What a waste.”

  “It’s probably political. Or maybe the cost of refurbishing the place is too high.”

  “Maybe this could be the topic for your dissertation!”

  Christie stroked her chin. “Not a bad idea!”

  *

  “This is the Astronomy Library.”

  Cara looked in. “It’s a room.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  She tried the door. “It’s locked.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  *

  “This is the Observatory on Observatory Hill.”

  Cara was breathing heavily and sweating after the hike up the hill, where Christie had also pointed out the waste treatment plant and regaled her with the names of the mountains visible from their panoramic view. She also pointed out a couple buildings that she advised not going near, unless she wanted DHS agents knocking on her door.

  Cara took a sip from her UVA water bottle. She took a long look at the Observatory, then commented, “It looks like a big boob.”

  “It does. There’s a crazy-powerful telescope in there.”

  “Can we look at it?”

  “It’s open to the public on special nights. You’ll have to come back for that.”

  “I will!”

  *

  “This empty storefront was a video store.”

  “You’re showing me an empty storefront?”

  “Yes, because this video store stayed open a ridiculously long time. What year do you think it closed?”

  “2010?”

  “Try 2016.”

  “Wow!”

  “And here’s another zinger for you—on the outskirts of town, we have a video store still open.”

  “Wait, a real retail video store, where you can check out DVDs?”

  “And Blu Rays! Hottest new releases are available.”

  “Is it a front for organized crime?”

  “Might be. Trivia question—how many video stores do you think are still open in the D.C. metropolitan area?”

  “Uh…three?”

  “Zero. The nearest video store to D.C. is the one here in Charlottesville.”

  “What does this have to do with UVA?”

  “Nothing. But is it interesting?”

  “Yes.”

  “There you go.”

  *

  Cara pointed up to a striking mountaintop house with pillars along the front.

  “Is that Monticello?”

  “No, that’s Nonticello.”

  “Huh?”

  “Everyone thinks that house up there is Monticello, but that’s actually on the other side of town. Urban legend says that place up there was built by a woman who was angry about being unable to attend UVA in the nineteenth century due to gender discrimination. That it was later owned by the Campbell soup family. And that Dr. Seuss lived there.”

  “Oh, like the Grinch? In a house, looking down on the Whos?”

  “Exactly. But all three of those are myths. It was just a nice house built by a Civil War general, then owned by monks who made their own wine until about 1950, then it’s been owned by an angry family that wants you to get off their lawn ever since.”

  “Have you ever been up there?”

  “I have a rule in my wanderings—if it’s locked or says No Trespassing, I leave it alone. If it’s open, it’s fair game. There are NO TRESPASSING signs all over the property up there.”

  “Oh. Too bad. It looks really nice.”

  “It is. I made one exception to my No Trespassing policy to sneak up there. It’s dazzling, and the view is spellbinding in every direction.”

  Cara laughed.

  “I’m not perfect,” Christie said with a shrug.

  *

  “Students went calathumping up and down the Lawn here. A professor got shot in 1840 during one of those romps.”

  “Cala-what?”

  “Calathumping. It was a term for making a ruckus, usually wearing masks, and it was an accepted way for students to run around and blow off steam.”

  “A professor got shot?”

  “Yeah, it was a different time. Students were armed, and they would fire shots in the air. Not too much of a stretch for a bullet to get fired horizontally instead.”

  “Wow. Is that why there are such strict rules against guns and masks now?”

  “No, but it got people’s attention. It changed the culture here when the administration cracked down on that. It got masks outlawed, first and foremost. Ultimately people gravitated more toward the Greek scene, partying and letting off steam there.”

  “Ah.” Cara refrained from commenting on the Greek system.

  Christies waved up and down the Lawn. “The students who live in these apartments lining the Lawn are called Lawnies. It’s considered quite an honor to live there. But you know what’s not an honor?”

  “What?”

  “Not having your own bathroom.”

  “Really?”

  “
Really. When these folks need to shower or relieve themselves, they have to walk out in the cold and go to a communal facility.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “They do have sinks in their rooms, though.”

  “Oh.”

  “So you can draw your own conclusions about that.”

  Cara thought about that. “They’re sink-pissers?”

  Christie smiled and playfully shrugged. “Maybe! Something to think about if you ever hear someone bragging too much about their prestigious Lawn room.”

  *

  “That’s a papier-mâché mammoth.”

  “Cool.”

  “There used to be a real stuffed mammoth in here, since it’s the anthropology building. So this is a tribute to it.”

  Cara nodded. “I love this building. It looks like some kind of Dickensian Gothic church.”

  “Yeah, it’s a building out of place. Nothing on grounds looks like this.”

  “It’s amazing.”

  “I’m shocked they haven’t demolished it.”

  Chapter 11

  “And this is O-Hill Cafeteria.”

  Cara looked up and around in every direction. “It looks like a NASA facility.”

  “It’s pretty epic. It used to look more like an army barracks cafeteria. Remodeling does wonders.”

  Christie swiped Cara in at the entry point using a guest meal, then they went their separate ways to hunt and gather food for their trays.

  Cara hadn’t really explored Newcomb Hall cafeteria the previous day, just grabbed the first things that looked palatable and got out. But she was in a more exploratory mood this day.

  There was a Chinese food island, a pizza bar, a sushi bar, a salad bar, an island full of vegan options, and a table full of dessert options—cookies, brownies, ice cream, pie, cake, even fruits.

  Cara tried to act normal and pretend this didn’t stress her out and make her wonder what the brownies would taste like on their way back up. She looked around to see where the nearest bathroom was located. She didn’t see one. Plus, Christie was in close proximity with her, so it would be hard to get away for an extended period without arousing suspicion.

  After making the rounds, she carefully decided on some food items for her tray: a 200-calorie veggie burger patty—no bun, a slice of vegan pizza (300 calories), a large apple (150 calories), and a Coke Zero (zero calories).

  She reconnected with Christie, and they sat together on the top floor.