THE HATCHLINGS OF FALL ’08: A TALE OF TWO UNIVERSITIES
Chapter Two
by Stewart Berg
The Hatchings of Fall ’08 is the story of two Tacoma-area institutions of higher learning and a group of friends who find themselves at the center of the two schools’ traditional rivalry
Chapter Two: A Questionable Morning
Enough hair of the dog
-Modest Mouse: “The Good Times Are Killing Me”
To make myself an entire rug
The good times are killing me
Two days following that late night at Real Eve’s—on the morning, that is, of September 8, 2008—Jasmine and Valerie were together in their kitchen. Corey’s, as the house was typically called, was a four-bedroom, two-and-one-half-bathroom, recently renovated home in the Bungalow style, and it was located on a street corner only a few blocks east of the UPS campus. The house had been sold once in the last five years, twice in the last ten, and three times in the last eighty.
The kitchen in which the two friends sat was both large and the primary focus of the home’s recent renovation. A whole section of wall had been removed, a four-seater island had been perfectly envisioned then installed, and all the appliances were new. The only desired change that had not been included by the owners—a married couple in their fifties by the names of Philp Bold and Shannon Williams—was a pantry to replace the obvious issue of kitchen storage, but the limitations of space, along with the fact that the couple would not themselves be living on the property, were ready settlers of the matter.
Seated at that most exquisite of islands was Jasmine, and not far from her stood Valerie, the latter wearing a large raincoat that covered a fair amount of her blue jeans, the former wearing a black camisole atop pink pajama bottoms. Both students had their heads in their hands.
“Why’d I let myself get talked into shots on a Sunday?” Valerie asked rhetorically, though the words were muffled by her hands. “It was Aire, too. All night, he waits, and then, it’s shots.”
“Don’t talk about them,” Jasmine replied; on the countertop before her was a toasted bagel with cream cheese that had several strips of refrigerated salmon atop it, though no bite had yet been taken. “I don’t want to throw up.”
As if on cue, a door upstairs opened, and the pair in the kitchen heard the final notes of a toilet’s flushing.
“Speaking of,” Valerie said with a laugh, and she began going through the backpack on the counter beside her, trying to tally all that she would need for her day’s classes.
Footsteps on the house’s old stairs were soon heard, and Jasmine and Valerie looked into what they could see of the living room, expectant of Cordelia Bold-Williams. She, like the pair in the kitchen, was a senior at the University of Puget Sound, but there was a difference in that Cordelia’s parents had for several years been buying then renting out houses around campus, and the house that the three women lived in was one of these. This station meant that Cordelia occupied the house’s master bedroom, and she tended to be the one to collect their monthly rent checks, as well.
“I’m surprised she’s up this early,” Jasmine said. “She and Jam were going off to go take another shot when I went up to bed.”
The creaking of the stairs ceased with a final croak, which was that of Cordelia’s first footfall upon the living room’s old hardwood floors. She wore a plastic pair of sunglasses along with a large white bathrobe, and beneath was a sports bra atop neon green pajama bottoms. After taking a quick peek to make sure that no one unknown was present, she headed for the kitchen.
“Eve’s for coffee?” she asked at-large.
“You can have mine,” Valerie offered, indicating her half-finished mug on the countertop. “I’m heading out.”
“How do you feel?” Jasmine asked, addressing Cordelia, and she then took a first bite of her bagel, though avoiding any of its salmon.
“Questionable,” Cordelia answered after apparent consideration. “That’s the word for how I feel. I already threw up, though, so that’s done.”
“I’m surprised there’s never been a house rule against drinking on Sundays,” Valerie said. “It’d be smart.”
“House rules are always just broken.”
As confirmation for her words, Cordelia shrugged then took a first sip from Valerie’s mug. That taste of coffee, however, instantly reverted the course of her thoughts, and she turned upon the mug’s former owner suspiciously.
“Wait just a minute,” she said. “You don’t have class this morning. I know you don’t. So, why can’t you come with us for coffee?”
“I’m working,” Valerie replied, shouldering her backpack.
Cordelia gave Valerie and her alibi a full-over evaluation, but she eventually broke from the act with a dismissive wave.
“In that case,” she said, “you’re free to go.”
“I promise not to leave the State,” Valerie replied.
The house’s stairs suddenly began a second series of creaking, and the three women knew that the house’s fourth occupant was awake. Less heavy than had been Cordelia’s, the new footsteps gave no indication of being hungover, though each step still sounding; in fact, those steps seemed to have some way of suspecting that the conversation in the kitchen had ceased upon the notice of them, and they thus became softer and more tiptoed with every step. From their places in the kitchen, Cordelia and Jasmine could not see far enough into the living room to view Valerie, who had made her way to the front door, greet Rebecca Hyde at the base of the stairs, but they heard it.
“Becky!” Cordelia called out. “Are you dressed? We’re going to Eve’s!”
A few moments of silence passed.
“I’ve got class,” Rebecca called back, though much more softly. “We could do a different morning, though.”
“It was just a thought,” Cordelia replied. “It’s sort of a house tradition to drag ourselves to Eve’s whenever we’re hungover. I forgot you had class.”
There were another few moments of silence, during which the two in the kitchen could hear the house’s front door opened.
“See you guys later!” Valerie called out, and her voice made it clear that she was passing out onto the large front porch, which the home’s recent renovation had largely enclosed from the outside, making of it a sort of second living room.
“Bye, Val!” Cordelia replied. “Bye, Becky!”
“Bye!” Rebecca called back awkwardly; as she spoke, the front door’s closing muffled her voice.
Back in the kitchen, Cordelia gave Jasmine a wide smile, and the latter, who had been eating as much of her bagel as she felt comfortable with stomaching, returned the look, though less widely.
“I’m going to force that girl out of her shell,” Cordelia said, “if it’s the last thing I do. She’s only getting until winter break, though. My final semester of school’s definitely going to be about me.”
“Just because she didn’t want to get drunk with us doesn’t mean she’s in a shell,” Jasmine replied; however, her own thoughts on the topic tended to those recently expressed.
Cordelia moved about the island until within reach of Jasmine’s plate, and she began nibbling at the pieces of salmon that had been pulled off the bagel.
“That’s exactly what it means,” she said. “It’s not just last night I’m talking about, either.”
“I know what you mean,” Jasmine replied. “When she said she’d be moving in during the summer, I thought it’d mean she’d be doing stuff with us by now. She has her boyfriend, though.”
Scoffing, Cordelia slightly choked on a piece of salmon, but the morsel was quickly got back between her teeth.
“A long-distance boyfriend,” she said, emphasizing the modifier such that the distance between Rebecca and her boyfriend could not be more obvious; however, she then paused for a moment to select a new piece of salmon before speaking honestly, though with the inclusion of a shrug. “I only know him from that one time she had us meet him. She definitely spends a lot of time with him on their video calls.”
“They’ve only actually met once, I think,” Jasmine said. “In person, I mean. That’s what I remember her telling me, at least. It was just that one weekend this past summer.”
“He’s in California, right?”
“The Bay Area. He’s a sophomore at one of the UCs.”
Neither woman desired to further state the concerns that both possessed, and their words ceased. Jasmine picked up her plate, which was by now emptied of both bagel and salmon, and carried it to the kitchen sink. Cordelia, meanwhile, took a seat atop the stool just vacated; doing so, she came a bit closer to the small, expensive speaker that stood on the island’s countertop. Since the wee hours of the morning, when it had been left on, the speaker had been faintly playing music. At the moment, one of the quieter parts in the song “The Good Times are Killing Me” could be heard, though just barely.
“That’s Aire’s new speaker, right?” Cordelia asked.
“Yeah,” Jasmine answered, not turning from her act of running water over the plate; additionally, the sink contained a number of dirty glassware that she was considering washing, as well.
For a moment, Cordelia stared at her friend’s back.
“Does that mean he slept here last night?” she asked, her voice sounding hollow.
Jasmine hardly had time to set down the plate in her hands before her laughter became convulsive, and the glass in question was only saved from breaking due to being able to nestle amongst all the other glass in the sink. She began to turn around, but an imitation in her mind of the voice that Cordelia had used caused her to double over, and she covered her face to hide the slight spittle that had resulted from the shock.
“The way you asked that,” she managed to say. “I can’t believe how funny it was.”
“I didn’t know it’d be that funny,” Cordelia replied. “You still never did tell me what happened between the two of you.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“No, you didn’t. Not exactly.”
By now, Jasmine’s laughter had died out, and she felt herself inclining, instead, toward an area between annoyance and exasperation. Leaving the plate to the pile, she returned to the island, and she stood with her hands on its countertop, across from the seated Cordelia.
“I told you nothing happened,” she said.
“‘Nothing’ meaning what, though?” Cordelia asked.
“‘Nothing’ meaning ‘nothing worth talking about.’”
“I didn’t think there was. Jam kept asking me about it last night, though. I didn’t think he wouldn’t know already.”
Jasmine inwardly sighed, and the act caused her a feeling of aging. The Academic Year currently unfolding was to be the last of school for her life, and she could not, therefore, help but feel a little nostalgic over what she presumed to be this final instance of summertime rumor.
“What’d he say?” she asked after a moment.
“Nothing,” Cordelia answered. “He just asked if I knew anything about it.”
Jasmine made no reply. Her friend’s vagueness, as well as that of her brother, perfectly fitted the nostalgia in her mind, and such provided another small wave of it.
“What actually did happen, though?” Cordelia asked, not letting up. “If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine.”
“It really wasn’t anything,” Jasmine replied.
“What, though?”
“We just made out. It was on the Fourth this summer, too. We both went to the party that Val’s family had at their place out on the Peninsula, and it was pretty much just the two of us, Val, and then her whole family, plus a few of her friends from high school. Their place backs up to a lake, and we were out by ourselves on the dock when they had their fireworks going off. Both of us were drunk, too.”
Cordelia made no immediate comment to her friend’s story. The words had come out to less than she had assumed they would, and even that assumed amount was not what she would have deemed considerable.
“That’s less than I thought,” she eventually said. “I assumed you guys slept together.”
“Aire and I?” Jasmine quickly asked, her face stricken.
“Yeah.”
“He’d sleep with anyone. We’ve watched him try.”
“I didn’t think you would. I just thought it might’ve happened whenever everyone’s asking about it.”
By now, Jasmine’s feeling of future nostalgia had become too strong. What had been little, tumbling waves were now crashing breakers that seemed to subtly include an undertow, and she could see herself lost at sea.
“Is that what Aire said happened?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Cordelia shrugged. “Jam said he couldn’t get him to say anything.”
“Well, why would he when everyone’s already thinking the most?”
To this rhetorical question, Cordelia soon thought of a change of topic, and it was only poor luck that caused this change to be like a further blow to her friend.
“By the way,” Cordelia began, “was it true what he was saying last night?”
“About him and me?” Jasmine quickly asked.
“No. I already told you he hasn’t been saying anything, as far as I know. I mean about the Hatchet. Did the University really get it back?”
Jasmine pushed away from the countertop then began to walk out of the kitchen.
“I don’t want to hear any more about Aire and me or the Hatchet,” she said. “They’re literally the last things I want to talk about.”
“I was just asking,” Cordelia replied.
Jasmine stopped at the kitchen’s edge.
“Asking what?” she asked.
“Well,” Cordelia answered, “is it true that we found it, or got it back, or whatever? The University, I mean. It’s not just another hoax with a replica like they did two years ago?”
Jasmine bristled defensively, which did, however, succeed in starting her back to the island.
“It wasn’t the President’s Office that did that,” she said, “or even the University. It was just whoever was in student government, and they were just wanting attention.”
“When’s the last time the University had the real thing?” Cordelia asked. “I don’t even know.”
“2002. I know for sure because I’ve heard it mentioned in the office. That was when someone found a way to shut off all the alarms to its display case. I know everyone in the President’s office thinks it must have been one of students on the campus safety staff, but I don’t know. It probably was, I guess. Before that, I don’t really think the University has any idea what was happening to it. I only know what I’ve heard from asking, which is that they had it sometime in the early ‘60s, and that was when they were first wanting to retire it, so they built its glass display case, but it was immediately stolen. Someone eventually gave it back in the late ‘80s, and the President showed it off at Homecoming, but it was immediately stolen again. Then, they got it back in the late ‘90s, and the President showed it off at Homecoming again, but someone smashed the display case later in the year and got away with it. The University got it back right away after that one, I guess, since it was stolen again in 2002, but that’s all I know.”
“And it’s back now?”
“Yeah.”
“Since when?”
“A week ago, I guess. Someone mailed it to the President or something like that. He hasn’t told anyone what happened.”
“What’re they going to do with it?”
“They’ll put it back in its display case, I’m sure.”
Cordelia paused for a moment, considering the Hatchet’s future. Though not fully versed in the relic’s history, she was well versed enough to know that stealing had been a different part of it at different times during different decades. Some years, she knew, a possessing senior class had tried to pass it down to the juniors below them without the intervention of the school’s underclassmen; some years, a class that had previously stolen it spent their time trying to keep anyone else from doing the same; some years, it had been stolen a number of times and each in ways questionably legal; and some years, it had not been seen at all, having been stolen away somewhere by an alum.
“Someone’s just going to steal it again,” she eventually said.
“Don’t even say that,” Jasmine quickly replied. “You sound just like Aire. It was all he talked about as soon as I mentioned it. I told him they haven’t even told anyone yet, so they’d know it was someone in the President’s Office, like me, who was responsible. He thought the whole thing was funny.”
“He was just joking, I’m sure.”
“I know, but it doesn’t matter.”
As before, the pair’s conversation had reached a point that neither wished to precede beyond, and Jasmine again turned to leave the room.
“Eve’s?” Cordelia asked.
“I’m working this morning,” Jasmine answered; as she spoke, she looked down at herself with a laugh. “I need to get dressed.”
“Not me. Nothing until my afternoon class.”
“Are you going to Eve’s?”
“Not if you’re just going to go off to work. I’ll go back up to bed until I hear from Henry.”
This name caused Jasmine to stop her walk to the stairs, and she retreated several steps back into the kitchen.
“Are we going to get to meet him today?” she asked with a smile.
“I told Val last night that I’m saving him for the party on Saturday,” Cordelia answered. “It’s close enough now that I’m going to, at least now that I’ve said it. He’ll save until the weekend. I know he’s going to be bringing some of his friends from PLU, too, so I said I was going to set Becky up with one of them.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m not.”
“What’s his full name, again? You told me before.”
Cordelia smiled widely at the request, and she laughed a little.
“He’s Henry Wayne, Junior, from Pacific Lutheran University,” she said. “I can’t remember what position he plays, but that would add to it.”
“That’s right,” Jasmine replied.
“How perfect is that? Henry Wayne, Junior. He sounds like he died in a World War.”
“It’s definitely old-sounding.”
“Henry Wayne, Junior. I always say his full name whenever I’m with him.”
“He doesn’t have a middle name?”
“I don’t think so.”
For a moment, Cordelia reconsidered her answer.
“Actually,” she continued, “I should ask him.”
“I can for you,” Jasmine replied, “if I ever meet him.”
“This weekend’s your chance.”
Jasmine laughed under her breath, and for the third time that morning, a topic of the pair’s reached the end of its course. Resolved to the loss of her friend, Cordelia took a long drink from her mug, whose contents were now hardly warm, and her eyes drifted about the kitchen. On the nearest counter was the debris of the previous night, and Cordelia’s vision settled on the empty liquor bottles, dirty glassware, and scattered deck of cards in question.
“Jam’s hitting it pretty hard,” she said absently.
“He did all summer,” Jasmine replied matter-of-factly, and she stood with one foot in the kitchen.
Unlike priors, the topic of James’ increasing alcohol consumption was that which neither woman wished to so much as begin, much less see out its course. Jasmine glanced to the large clock that hung on the kitchen wall, and she made another start for the stairs.
“I really have to get ready,” she said, and this ended thoughts of her brother.
“I know,” Cordelia replied. “Will you be back before class?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll see you then, if I’m here.”
In place of a reply, Cordelia heard the creak of the first living room stair, and that old wood gave off the sound of a light run.
CHAPTER THREE
A Celebratory Evening
