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“That would be sexual harassment, Jane,” I informed her primly. “Pretty sure it’snotoffice appropriate.”
“Oh, whatever, you prude.” She turned back to her book. “You know you want to. ‘What’s that, Mr. Sterling? My blouse just happened to fall open? Oh, no! I didn’t mean to shove my rack in your face!’”
“Jane!”
The thing was, it was a little too easy to imagine myself in that fantasy. Laid across the big desk I imagined Sterling had. My shirt ripping, buttons flying. I already knew what his big hands felt like on my feet…maybe they would slide higher up…
I shook the image away and bent to my work. I didn’t have time for pipe dreams. The quicker I could get fantasies of Sterling out of my head, the better.
* * *
Typical of theweekend before classes began, the COOP was bustling with undergrads and grad students shoving their way around the tall stacks of books. With class lists in hand and plastic baskets over our wrists, Jane and I made our way to the law section and started loading up on textbooks.
“Fucking vultures,” Jane mumbled under her breath as she heaved a copy ofConstitutional Lawinto her basket. “Did you see how much this cost? Two hundred motherfucking dollars!”
I chuckled as I put an equally expensive book into my basket. We went through this exact routine at the beginning of every semester.
“Jane,” I said. “If you don’t want to pay COOP prices, why don’t you just buy them online?”
Like always, I was rewarded with a massive eye roll.
“Oh, they’d like that, wouldn’t they?” Jane grumbled. “It’s the secret test of HLS, how they separate the shitty students from the good ones, you know. Only give us a week to order textbooks so that the ones who are willing to pony up retail prices can get ahead by reading early. Natural selection by way of student budgetary restrictions, the opportunistic bastards. Ooh! A used copy!” She snagged another book, this one well-worn, and turned to me with a wide parody of a smile. “Look, Ma, I saved ten bucks off a hundred twenty!”
“At least they only assign one or two books,” I said. I wasn’t that good at comforting, but then again, Jane was just venting. “Really, we spend as much as anyone else, just on fewer texts.”
“Yeah, but you forgot to factor in the readers.” A male voice interrupted our exchange, startling both Jane and me.
We glanced around to find one of our classmates, Jared Rounsaville, standing behind us.
“Hey, Jared,” I greeted him.
Jane raised a hand and went back to muttering further obscenities at the stacks. It seemed her Advanced Criminal Procedures course was a particularly expensive one this semester.
“Hey, Skylar,” Jared said, sidling up to me. “Have a good break?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I finished that internship at Sterling Grove. You?”
He whistled at my accomplishment. “Nah, I just went home. I had a clinic last semester, so I figured I was good on the experience stuff.”
Jared was the typical Harvard legacy. He was smart, but it was hard to tell how much of that intelligence was breeding and how much was innate talent. I didn’t know him well, but I knew that his dad and grandfather had both attended HLS and that his dad was a sitting congressman. He had a position waiting for him at his grandfather’s firm. Between his pressed chino pants, his blue polo shirt, his straight, light-brown hair, and his pin-straight nose, his looks were about as WASPish as it got. His smile, however, was genuine, and his straight, tall build made him a common target of a lot of the girls in our classes. Even in law school, some girls were only there to get their MRS degrees.
“So, I’m pretty excited,” he said as the three of us made our way to the registers. “I managed to score tickets to one of The Starfoxes’ shows next week. They were sold out, but my dad’s campaign manager was able to hook me up.”
I could feel, rather than see, Jane roll her eyes next to me. She hated what she called “privileged soccer mom music,” which was usually anything that was on regular rotation at Starbucks. This band definitely qualified. It didn’t matter that she was the daughter of a privileged white man herself. She would just shout one of the few vulgar Korean terms she’d picked up from cousins on her mother’s side and throw the nearest soft object at me.
“That’s nice,” I said neutrally as we stepped into line, Jared in front of Jane and me. The line wound around several stacks of health and lifestyle books, but it was moving quickly. “I’m sure you’ll have a good time.”
“It would be better if you took the other ticket.”
Just before Jared turned around for my answer, Jane’s eyes shot open wide before she brought them back to an even, neutrally curious expression.
I blinked. I hardly knew Jared and hadn’t really interacted with him much socially. He was cute, but I had just told Jane I thought dating was a waste of time. Not to mention I didn’t really like this band either. I was pretty open to different styles, but whiny, pseudo-folk music wasn’t really on my radar.
“Um…” I said, trying unsuccessfully to stall. “I’m going home next weekend.” I exhaled. It was a good excuse and one that was mostly true.
Jared nodded. “Okay. Another time then.”
The line moved up, and one of the cashiers flagged him forward. Beside me, Jane grabbed my arm and jerked me around.
