Second aorist endings suck balls. But I wrote fic.

[wizened_cynic]

Being the brilliant person that I am, I stayed up till 2:30 in the morning to write fic. Yeah, I know, I'm so screwed.

Off the top of my head, I decided that this Grace-in-college thing will have 11 installments. It will be a semi-related series of vignettes that are probably not in chronological order. Still unbeta-ed because, dude, TWO IN THE FUCKING MORNING, and I usually end up making more changes after I post it somewhere. Which is why it's actually better to read the almost-final copy (complete with footnotes!) on my website. I gave my website a makeover, by the way. It now has color. Color! No, I did not renovate my website just so I can stick pictures of Amber Tamblyn everywhere, but that was indeed an incentive.




#


The one thing about college that Grace will never get used to is the cold.

They didn't warn her about it on the college brochures, but that's a given. Those things are fucking propaganda, almost on par with the posters used to recruit soldiers in the Second World War.

This is the type of cold that you anticipate, arming yourself with blankets and sweaters, but sneaks up on you nevertheless and hits you full in the face when you aren't looking.

This is the type of cold that almost, almost makes Grace wonder if she was too hasty in ruling out California. After all, Stanford's not SoCal, right?

This is the type of cold that makes Grace want to skip her classes and burrow in bed, only that would be futile. Her roommate, Caroline, insists on keeping their window open all hours of the day, regardless of rain, shine, or blizzard.

"We're fucking freezing here," Grace says, stifling the urge to wring Caroline's neck as Caroline opens the window twenty seconds after she closes it.

"You are. I'm not."

"Your lips are blue. You're practically hypothermic. Not that I care, since you obviously want to go for the Violet Beauregarde look."

"Doctors say that breathing recycled air is not good for us," Caroline explains. "If we keep the window closed, our room will fill up with carbon dioxide and dust, and who knows if the radiator is releasing toxic or flammable gases?"

"Well, I guess we can find out by lighting a match and seeing if it explodes."

Caroline frowns as she contemplates this. "Speaking of fire hazards, Grace, I need to talk to you about your menorah."

"I don't have a menorah."

"In the event that you get a menorah. I'm respectful of other religions and I understand that this is very important to your faith, but don't you think it's a little dangerous to keep a lit candle in our room? What if our books catch on fire? I keep a first edition of Hemingway by my bed, you know."

"If that happens, we can always throw the book out the open window and into the ten-inch snowbank outside."

"Don't be puerile, Grace. A little cold won't kill you. Thoreau lived in the wilderness and it didn't kill him. We should learn to live in harmony with nature."

So says the girl whose prized possessions include a brand-new BMW and her Blackberry.

Grace ignores Caroline's desire for the room temperature to remain sub-zero, as she ignores most of the things Caroline says, and closes the window every time she sees it open. Caroline opens the window every time she sees it closed, and a week before Hanukkah begins, the window jams itself halfway open.

"You are fucking kidding me," Grace mutters to the window, a testament to how delirious from cold she's become. Maybe Caroline wins this round, but she is so getting the menorah (of course, she will never tell her father, who is still trying to convince her to come home during the Non-denominational Winter Break).

She bundles up in her thickest clothes and a patchwork quilt her friend/case study Sophie has "borrowed" from last year's drama production of Little House on the Prairie (Sophie has a penchant for taking things from various places and relocating them elsewhere on campus. She insists it is not petty thievery, because she always returns them. Grace isn't thrilled with having to handle stolen goods, but beggars can't be choosers, and beggars most definitely cannot call their suppliers on their kleptomania). She makes a nest in her bed with her books and laptop computer, and tries to study while exposing as little skin to cold air as possible.

When Luke messages her five times in a forty-second interval, she violently stabs the caps-lock button on her keyboard and types, "JUST ONE MINUTE, FREAK. MY FINGERS ARE FROZEN."

He types back, "It's cold in Arcadia, too," and Graces wishes he were here in Boston so that she could teach him a thing or two about what being cold means.

Maybe she just wishes he were here, but that is another topic altogether.


#


The electronic beep wakes Grace from a study-induced semi-consciousness. Murmuring a couple of Hebrew words her father wishes he's never taught her, she trails her hand along the floor and finds her cellphone amid a pile of rubble. "Speak."

"Are you cold?"

"Who is this?"

"Very funny, Grace. I know you have caller ID." Joan sounds more annoyed than usual, even though she is the one doing the calling. "I probably have a special ringtone too."

"I don't do ringtones, Girardi."

"I thought your phone had a special ringtone for Luke. How come he gets one and I don't?"

"I'm hanging up."

"No, wait! So Luke said you were cold and I'm wondering if you want a sweater. Have I told you this? I'm taking up knitting again. It's not exactly my idea, but I had all this leftover yarn in my house, and somebody told me to finish what I started. Which I did, only I had to buy new yarn, and I bought too much, so I thought I could knit you something since you're freezing and all."

Grace closes her eyes. Talking to Joan at seven in the morning and on an empty stomach always gives her a headache. "Whatever, Girardi. I don't care."

"Great! What color do you want?"

"Pink."

Grace swears she hears Joan drop her phone and narrowly catch it before it hit the floor. "Really?"

"No! Are you on drugs? Nothing bright, nothing pastel, just … do whatever you want without giving me an aneurysm, okay?"

"Fine. Fine. I'll start working on it today in Calculus. If I knit fast enough, I think I can get it done by next week."

"Don't hurt yourself over it."

"Oh, don't worry. I'm getting really good at this. I'm learning to make sleeves tomorrow."


#


Luke calls a few minutes later, and no, he does not have a special ringtone.

"Are you cold?"

"Your sister and I covered this three minutes ago."

"Yeah, Joan's really into this whole knitting thing. Anyway, I need your opinion on this: will it be deemed hideously inappropriate and stalker-like if I sent you my old winter jacket?"

Grace tries very hard not to smile. "Yeah. Kind of."

"But you see, I outgrew it last year and I really have no use for it. And you're cold, so I thought it could keep you warm. I mean, I can't fly over and fix your window --- actually, I can't fix windows, not very good with tools --- so I thought this could be at least something. And it's made of synthetic materials, so no birds were harmed."

"Whatever, Girardi. I don't care. Are you done here?"

"I guess. I'm just …" He takes a deep breath and says in a small voice, "We're not celebrating Hanukkah together this year."

"Dude, you're Catholic."

"Grace."

"If you're done, I have to go for breakfast now." It takes a lot of will and effort to get out of bed and tackle the ten-foot distance from her dorm to the cafeteria.

Luke hangs up, and Grace tosses her phone back onto the floor. She envisions pancakes and hot coffee (which, in her imagination, taste far better than what the cafeteria actually serves). She is hungry, but on second thought, she buries herself back in bed and tries to pretend she were in Ecuador or other places near the equator where stupid roommates get eaten by wild animals.

But she is so far away from Ecuador and even Maryland, and she is so cold.


#


Luke's parcel arrives first, a large box that clutters up Grace's half of her prison-cell dorm room. She originally left the box in the hallway, but after another lecture about fire hazards from Caroline, she is now keeping it in her room and deliberately refusing to flatten it or make it smaller in any way.

Even though Luke has outgrown the jacket, it is still almost two sizes too big for Grace. It reaches her knees and hides her fingers with a good inch of fabric. It smells like detergent --- probably courtesy of Helen Girardi. Thank God, because it would not only be disgusting to wear something laced with another person's sweat and dead skin cells, but also far too creepy and rabid girlfriend-like.

For practical purposes, Grace abandons the quilt for the jacket, and uses it only to cover her legs and keep her toes from frostbite. She wears it to sleep, wears it to class, wears it to sleep in class, and just as she stops thinking it as Luke's jacket and starts thinking it as her own, she notices something when she shoves a folded-up flyer (Toga party tonight! Free BZZR and lesbians!) into her pocket one morning.

She reaches in and discovers a glass marble the color of a 7-Up bottle when the sun hits it just right. It is accompanied by a folded Post It, which says, "The color reminds me of your eyes. Please don't hurt me for saying that."

She rummages in the other pockets, and produces eight small gifts. An article from the school paper telling the tragic incident of Mr. Price's being attacked by a live turkey during Thanksgiving; a small silver slinky to remind her of Physics class; and, in true geek form, a pencil with Massachusetts Institute of Technology embossed on it, to remind her of the future.

Grace waits for two days before she calls Luke to thank him, and her way of saying thanks is asking, "So, do you plan to spin the dreidel as well?"

"No, but I have been reading up on the Maccabees."

"Dude, you're turning more Jewish than me, and I'm the rabbi's daughter."

"I'm glad you liked them, Grace."

"Who says I liked them?"

Grace can almost see that, hundreds of miles away, Luke is smiling too.


#


Joan's package arrives a few days after Luke's, a smaller box that fits on top of the big box and makes Caroline's eyebrows twitch. Inside, Grace finds a gray sweater, made from warm, scratchy wool. She is no expert when it comes to knitting, but she is sure there shouldn't be so many holes.

One sleeve is slightly longer than the other, and the wool makes her neck itch, but Grace puts it on anyway, hiding it under the jacket. It keeps her warm.

There are also two scarves, traditional Joan scarves, the long, ever-winding kind that threatens to trip her over and gets caught in doorways. They are folded neatly and placed under the sweater, and at the very bottom of the box, there is a message: Sorry that the sweater took so long. Hope you haven't died of frostbite. Extra scarves to keep you warm--- don't worry, I didn't knit them. Mom is sending you cookies. They're in the shape of Christmas trees, I hope you don't mind.

Grace eats the cookies for lunch and theological differences aside, they are the best damn cookies she has ever tasted. She wraps one of the scarves around her neck and heads off to Linguistics. Midway through another soul-draining lecture on polysynthetic languages, she holds one end of the scarf to her nose and breathes deep. She breathes in traces of the blackberry perfume Joan always puts too much on, and something else that smells like Joan herself --- something sweet but not overtly so, and not really noticeable until it engulfs you completely, suddenly. Smacks you in the face like the cold, only in a good way.

The scarf eventually attracts Caroline's attention, seeing as that it has been two weeks, and Miss Can't Breathe Recycled Air herself has been caught attempting to shut the window whenever she thinks Grace isn't looking.

"You don't need two scarves at the same time," she says, eyeing the box at the foot of Grace's bed. "And you've already got that winter coat. It will be the charitable thing to do for you to ---"

"Harmony with nature, Thoreau," says Grace. And if Caroline even dreams of touching her scarves, or her coat, or even her maybe-stolen quilt, Grace will rip her first edition of Hemingway apart and feed it to her.

Caroline scowls and disappears, most probably to the library, possibly to a church, where the fire hazards will, if Grace is lucky enough, drive her to a mental breakdown. Grace gives the open window a satisfied look and returns to her books. When Caroline returns, she is already in bed, snug and warm under her coat and blankets.

"I'm hiring someone to fix the window tomorrow," Caroline tells her. "The maintenance people here won't come until spring. You're paying for half of it. I'll send you the bill later."

"I'm keeping the menorah," Grace says, even though Hanukkah is over. The polyester of her jacket makes a shifting sound as she turns her back to her roommate. Wrapping one of Joan's scarves around her hand, she gently rubs the material between her thumb and index finger, back and forth, over and over, until she falls asleep.


#




Just for the record, I know nothing about cold, geography of the eastern United States, or Jewish holidays. Please suspend your disbeliefs for the time being, and close the fucking window.