30 Guys in 30 Days by Micol Ostow Read Free Book Online Page B

inconspicuously as possible to the back of the room but, in the process of shimmying into my seat, managed to catch poor Jesse’s cup of coffee on my festive, if inappropriately wide, “first day of classes” skirt. My professor stopped the entire lecture to bawl me out. I didn’t have a mirror handy, but I’m pretty sure my face turned the exact shade of that pink skirt. I whispered a quick apology to Jesse, who, I must say, took the whole thing in stride. Given that he had little dregs of coffee grounds nestled in the ridges of his corduroys.
    Welcome to my mortification.
    More news later.
    —xx
    On Thursday morning I popped out of bed earlier than the early bird. Earlier than theworm, even. I was determined to get to my classes on time, and to make a good impression on those professors who weren’t already soured against me. I dressed in another “first impressions count” skirt, though I was careful to select one that was slightly more streamlined.
    I made my way to the dining hall, grabbing a
Chronicle
on my way inside. I briefly contemplated some scrambled eggs, but the woman behind the counter set me straight with a swift shake of her head
no.
Right, then. I scooped some granola into a bowl, grabbed a plastic container of yogurt and a cup of coffee, and settled into a table off in a far corner, next to a window.
    I pulled open the paper to have a look. My review had run in Wednesday’s issue, and nothing new had been assigned to me just yet, but I wanted to keep up, both with whatever was going on around campus as well as with whatever was going on at the
Chronicle.
    Blah, blah, SGA meeting, blah, blah, op-ed on the new shuttle system
(I fleetingly wondered who in their right mind would have any objection to this service),
blahblah, cat stuck in tree, Greeks announce all rush season, new album released… bl—
    Gabe’s music column. I had learned from Anna one evening that an editor could petition for a column by submitting three sample pieces and letting the editorial board vote. That was how Kyra had gotten her advice column—three or four semesters ago—and that was how Gabe had gotten his column, “Heavy Rotation.” Columns ran once a week. Gabe’s topic for this week was a “back to school”—type theme that drew parallels between the “fresh start-yness” of the fall and the fresh sounds of the indie scenes. I wanted to take notes. All I knew about music I’d learned from listening to local pop stations, and later, from indie-influenced friends at summer camp, but I was woefully undereducated, and suddenly these things mattered to me.
    “Suddenly” since I’d met Gabe, of course.
    I skimmed down to the end of his column, promising myself I’d check out the bands he mentioned online later. Then I flipped to the back of the paper.I pulled out a pencil, preparing for the ego-boostingly-easy crossword, when my peripheral vision honed in on something else:
    GODDESS: HOT TIMES AT THE LIBRARY, 10 p.m. -ROTATOR
    “Goddess?” “Rotator?”
    Their column names.
Ick.
    Gabe and Kyra’s relationship had penetrated the personals section of the paper.
    They weren’t the only ones advertising their affections, though. I took a sip of coffee and scanned the rest of the personals. Now that I was slightly more conscious, the little inside jokes practically leaped off of the page at me:
    CHIEF: WINGS TONITE. BE IN THE BASEMENT AFTER BEDTIME.
    John, we’ll order wings after we put the paper to bed.
    PRINCESS, IT’S YOUR DAY.
    Princess is Megan. It’s her birthday—heard her talking about it the other day.
    Mind you, there were plenty of personals from innocent, non
-Chronicle-
affiliated students, wishing each other well this semester, saying hello after summers apart. Personals cost three dollars, and it was fun to see ones name embedded within the text. Like silly yearbook messages gone public. One of life’s simpler pleasures.
    Or so I imagined.
    I don’t know if I would have reacted in quite