Nightlife

A phone vibrated on a nearby library table. It wasn't unheard of or particularly intrusive, and the pale redheaded student gave her screen a brief cursory glance before returning to her textbook. Within seconds, several more phones across the reading room vibrated simultaneously. Now this was much more noticeable, and hushed whispers began to turn to open conversation. At the other end of the table, Dante checked his phone.

'Important Public Safety Notice.’ From the school's app, they were not frequent by any means but normally ignored by most of the student body. Most of the time, the messages were about a student being robbed, jumped, or somehow accosted around the campus area. More pressing emergencies were broadcasted across the university's sound system. Dante and the ginger-haired girl at the end of the table set their phones down simultaneously and made brief eye contact. Dante gave a polite nod and a crack of a smile. The girl blinked and quickly returned to her book, and Dante returned to his own, suppressing a grin. A moment later, he looked up again, making more awkward eye contact, and near-immediately the girl began blushing.

'Ahh,’ he thought, a freshman.’

Dante had taken a gap year to travel to Morocco between his 3rd and 4th years and was now in his first year of grad school. He knew he was handsome in more of a more dignified manner. He was well-dressed, not in the uniform way fraternity boys dressed, all Patagonia vests and baseball jerseys, but somewhere between 'hipster' and 'academic.’ Dante had an easy smile, a few minor visible tattoos on his forearms, and always seemed confident and relaxed.

Most freshmen were easy to spot, particularly during their first semester. They generally moved in insular packs or kept mainly to themselves. The boys usually overcompensated for their new environment, binge drinking and being obnoxious. The girls often struggled to find their place in a new pecking order; girls that were popular and pretty in their hometowns often struggled to adapt to being reshuffled in the pecking order as girls that weren't given a second look in their high school suddenly blossomed in university.

For Dante, the whole charade was amusing. He had his fair share of friends, an on-again/off-again girlfriend, and a good relationship with his professors. He worked part-time as a promoter for some bars and nightclubs, though he didn't particularly need the money. Life was good. But it could be better.

After returning his eyes down to his own took, he spoke just above a whisper, "I can't believe Prof. Rossen is still assigning that nonsense."

He didn't bother lifting his eyes above his book. But he heard the girl shift in her seat as if she was peering around the table. From the corner of his eye, Dante saw the girl struggling to decide whether to respond. She did.

"Come again?" She returned the whisper.

Dante raised his eyes again and grinned knowingly; he nodded and gestured toward her book. The freshman girl seemed a bit perplexed but not as bashful as he would have thought. "Oh, I'm sorry. I had Professor Rossen during my freshman year as well. Despite how boring that class was..." Dante lifted his textbook off the table to show it to the girl; it was titled 'Readings in Economic Sociology'. Dante let his head drop to one shoulder with an amused expression, "I managed to stick it out this long."

She gave a polite and knowing giggle. "He certainly does drone on, I-"

Nearby another student coughed and gave Dante a polite smile. Dante returned it in kind, "Sorry, Ben, I was just going. Good luck with your paper."

Dante began gathering his things, and the girl tried her best not to look disappointed. He stood up rather abruptly, which was just his nature, and the girl caught his mockingly impatient stare. "Ben over there is kicking me out. Will you let me buy you a coffee? I could use some caffeine and shit-talking Rossen."

The blush returned, and she hesitated a moment, "I-Uhm..." Dante pulled his bag over one shoulder and regarded her with a polite smile. "Of course! I could use a coffee."

___

They walked out of the library and into the cooling autumn air. It was that time of the Fall semester when most of the students still weren't particularly worried about their first examinations. Frisbees flew, students lounged, and somewhere across the quad, a sophomore was unsuccessfully covering 00s pop music with an acoustic guitar. All said, a normal afternoon on campus.

The pair turned and reached the end of the library stairs, and Dante led them to the sidewalk that skirted the south part of the quad. After a pregnant pause, "Dante, by the way."

"Abigail! It's nice to meet you, Dante." She smiled. Now that they were in the sun, Dante considered her. Her hair was more auburn back indoors, but in the fading afternoon, it was closer to ginger. She seemed naturally pale, but Dante guessed that some summer vacation had lent her a slight tan that accentuated her freckles. She wore little makeup and had full, but not indulgent, nude-colored lips. Her eyes were pale-green, small and innocent, though not unclever. She wore a clever black top that exposed just a line of tummy and came to a conservative 'V' high on her neckline. Her jean shorts were the current fashion, short but baggy. Dante tried not to gaze too hard at her chest or ass, but he guessed she was rather flat-chested but had a decent-sized ass. All things considered, Dante thought she was the kind of beautiful that needed another year, or two to emerge. He guessed that she probably hadn't received much attention in high school.

"So what are you studying, other than 'Intro to Hating Sociology'?" Abigail and Dante moved cleverly to one side of the sidewalk as what looked like an art student zoomed by. Side-by-side again, she answered.

"Oh, you know, the basics... 'Psychology I,’ 'Microeconomics,’ 'College Writing II', 'Intro to Soc', obviously, and..." She looked a bit lower, "University Exploration." She said the last one as if she was a bit embarrassed as if Dante hadn't already guessed she was a freshman 5 minutes earlier.

"Ahhhh, a freshman," Dante could tell she had the same irrational embarrassment as many first-year college students when talking to an upper-classmen. She did meet his gaze with a nervous smile and a shrug.

"But it's Fall Semester and you're in English II and already in Micro? I'd ask if you started last Spring, but I know they make you take that dumb Exploration course. What's your dad the chancellor or something?"

To her credit, Abigail laughed more heartily at that. "No-no. Soothing so pretentious as that, I just had a few AP credits from high school." She tensed up after mentioning high school, and Dante noticed. A lot of freshmen either tried to distance themselves from where they were three months prior or were still stuck in their hometown mindsets. Abigail continued the conversation onwards naturally, however. "And what about you? 'Readings in Economic Sociology, is that for your Senior thesis?"

Dante nodded with a faint grin; she was asking a few questions at once, clever girl. "Master's thesis, unfortunately. I hope you won't think any less of me." She looked a bit off put but not uncomfortable. Dante added, "And to be more specific, I'm trying to earn my Master's in Sociology. Most of my research is on Saharan trade, Spain, and North Africa." He feigned embarrassment, "that kind of boring stuff."

She took the bait, "Oh no, that's fascinating!" They walked by the turn towards the university coffee shop. Abigail did a confused doubletake and asked politely, "Didn't you want coffee?"

Dante politely nodded and tried not to sound ostentatious, "I did, but somewhere a bit quieter and with better coffee." He appeared deferential, "It's only a block or two off-campus if that's all right... if you have another class or something, I understand..."

Abigail looked like she knew she had made some girly mistake, which Dante had intended by walking this way. "Oh yes, of course, sorry. I haven't done enough exploring in the city as I wanted to by this point." She looked around at campus as if, for the first time, she was realizing that the Freshman experience wasn't as widening as she once had thought. Dante remembered what that was like, first you feel small, then big again, and smaller.

But Dante had easy mannerisms that put her quickly back to rest. "Well, thank you for coming with me, I spend so much time in that café alone that I'm beyond glad to have the company. The staff must think me all sorts of an awkward creature."