The courtyard at UC Berkeley was crowded as usual, but more so today.
It was the first day of classes! The indistinct buzz and busy-ness was
all over the place with pensive profs, frazzled froshers, jazzy juniors
and serious seniors. The buzz died suddenly as a black limousine eased
up onto the roundabout.
“Who the ***** is that?” someone yelled.
“I thought Carly Pope came in yesterday….” another voice murmured.

The door opened to reveal smooth, tanned, long legs wearing …tennis shoes!

“Arthur, I can’t believe you!” Dana whispered to the man in the
driver’s seat, “Of all the places to drop me off at. Couldn’t you have
picked a loading dock or something?!”

“Perhaps,” Arthur replied thoughtfully, “But then, Miss Dana would be complaining about the smell instead.”

The brunette stuck her head back in the backseat to get her backpack
and admitted with a wink, “Good point. Not very funny, but good point.”

She closed the door to the limo, and was about to nonchalantly wave
goodbye to Arthur, when she realized she couldn’t. In fact, she
couldn’t seem to move her left arm at all! The sleeve of her jacket
must’ve gotten caught on the door when she was closing it. She dropped
her backpack and waved her hands profusely, hoping to get the driver’s
attention before he drove away.

“Arthur! Wait, don’t start the limo!”

She banged on the glass of the passenger door, hoping to God it
wouldn’t shatter and attract even more attention than she already has.
Opening the door quickly and getting her sleeve unstuck, she heard
Arthur mutter something that sounded a lot like a “Good Luck!” as she
closed the door again.

She then turned to face the crowd in the courtyard. The buzz returned
suddenly, everyone pretending as if they hadn’t been watching. But
obvious, of course that they were.

“Well, at least I can’t complain about the smell.” Dana muttered under her breath.

She picked up her backpack from the ground and slung it over one
shoulder, unable to stop herself from thinking that this was gonna be a
very, very interesting year in college.

——————-

At the other end of the courtyard, just outside the library, another
commotion was turning the heads of passersby. A bleached blonde and a
taller brunette were arguing animatedly at the side of the building.

“I can’t ***** believe this! Bette, what the *****!” the blonde yelled.

Bette stood unmoved with her arms crossed in front of her, “You’ve gotta be kidding me, Alice. Tell me you didn’t think–”

“What? That we would last longer than six weeks? Or that we’d have the
best ***** time of our lives together?!” Alice retorted, giving the
older woman an angry look.

Bette held her hands up as if in defeat, “You know what, I’m not even
gonna go through this with you because you simply won’t listen.” Alice
rolled her eyes, stuck her thumb in her back pocket, lowered her head
to look at the ground and shrugged.

“Whatever.”

“Oh, come on, you’re in college, Alice. There’s plenty of girls you’re
gonna meet. And a handful you’ve probably already got your eyes on.”
Bette joked and was happy to get a smile from Alice. “But, for the
record, I agree, we did have the best ***** time of our lives
together.”

“Really?” she looked up at Bette to see if she meant it.

“Really.” Bette rubbed Alice’s shoulder in assurance, “Which is why I’m
ending this now. Whatever we were looking for the past six weeks, it’s
just not there. A whole lot of other great stuff is, but that isn’t.
D’you know what I mean?”

“Yah, I guess.” Alice replied dejectedly. She understood what Bette
meant and, eventhough she won’t admit it for a while yet, she even
agreed with her. But for some reason, Alice just wanted to feel mopey.
And mopey she felt, so mopey she acted. Deciding that she’d rather be
in her dorm room, being mopey, she decided it was time to end this
conversation. Alice reached into her pocket for her keys. She took a
silver key out of its chain and put it in the palm of Bette’s hand
before turning around to walk away.

“I guess you’ll be wanting this back then. See you around, Bette.”

Bette looked at what Alice placed in her hand and quickly grabbed Alice’s arm before she could walk away.

“Alice, wait, hold on.”

TBC