Bette quickly hung up the phone not wanting to hear his response and knowing she’d catch ***** when she did see him for hanging up on him.  She dropped into her desk chair and put her head in her hands.  “Oh, Christ, this is so royally fucked up.”

_____

Bette arrived at Beinecke freshly showered and unexpectedly happy.  She walked into the Collections room where Gail was busily scratching word after word onto notebook paper.  Bette’s smile blossomed.  Her friend looked scholarly beautiful or beautifully scholarly.  She couldn’t decide which.  Bette surprised herself when she walked up behind her and kissed the top of her head.  “Hi.”

Gail turned and Bette saw the same sense of happiness.  “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, fine.”  Bette pulled a chair out beside her.  “Let me ask you?  If I cram, I mean, really do some major cramming, do you think I can get three papers written by Friday.  It’s not like I have a choice.  I have to get them done.”  Bette’s anxiety over her class work was pouring from her.  She had to finish these papers not just for her, but for her father.  More importantly, she wouldn’t get into a good Business School if she had incompletes or anything less than As in her senior classes.  She had to make this happen. 

“Three papers?  Sure, you can knock those out in no time.  I told you that you should have been buckling down weeks ago and…”

Bette pulled out a notepad.  “No lectures, okay?  I’ve had a few of those in the past 24 hours.”

“Did you talk to Ash again?”

“No, my father.  He left a bunch of messages on my machine, then he called while I was in my room.  Ash told him.”  Bette didn’t want to begin that discussion.   She removed several paperbacks and one cloth-covered book from her backpack and placed them on the table. “These papers are three-quarters of my grade.  I’ve got to get going on them.”  All Bette wanted to do was grab this woman and kiss her senseless, but her father had put the fear of failure into her and above all else, that was something Bette responded to—she wouldn’t allow herself to fail or accept mediocrity.  Success was engrained in her and even this budding passion that had her changing her entire view of life, could not penetrate her basic foundation to achieve and take top honors in all her endeavors.  “Gail, I’m going to pretend that you’re not here until lunch time.  Forgive me.”