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Tami was studying in the library. Brian came in and put his books down beside hers.
She looked up. "So, I'm only your study partner, I guess."
"Hi. What do you mean?"
"Just your study friend. We've been studying together for what? more than a month. You always have a date on Friday nights, and sometimes on Saturdays, but we only study together." She sighed and returned to her books. "I guess I do like studying."
"I thought you didn't have time for dating. Besides, I didn't think I was your type." He sat down.
"I am a mercenary woman. As your sister said, a gold digger."
"Ha ha."
"No, seriously." She turned to face him, finger raised accusingly. "I don't think I would mind being married to you, and it would make your trust money accessible to you, wouldn't it?"
Brian thought. "I don't think it's a good way to think about things."
"Am I ugly?"
"No."
"Do you hate me?"
"No. But we really don't know each other."
"If we date, we could get to know each other."
"Now you're scaring me."
"You're the one who told me about your trust fund."
"That was Mark's idea, not mine. And I kind of thought you'd let it slide, as a joke."
"But it's real, right?"
"Well, yeah."
"You want it, don't you?"
Brian didn't say anything. He just looked at Tami thoughtfully. "Okay, I haven't made a date for this Saturday. What do you suggest?"
"There's an art museum on campus."
"Deal. Let's get to work on the biology homework."
|***|
"Oh, I love this view of these peasant class people working in the river and on the banks."
"Look at the patterns on the floor of this church, and see how they get swallowed up in some sort of unnatural shadow here." Brian laughed and shook his head. "It's not like I have any idea what I'm talking about."
"Neither do I. We should probably try to at least memorize the names of the original artists and their works."
"I've been trying for the last half hour, and I remember nothing."
"Well, some people say trying just makes things worse. But your Alma says you have to water that plant, so I guess trying is better than not trying."
"My Alma? Oh, in the Book of Mormon."
"Yeah."
"Where he compares faith to a seed or something. I remember hearing about it in Seminary, but I never actually read it."
"Aren't you taking a religion class? Oh. I think I know this one. Night Watch. The label says it's a student's reproduction in acrylic."
"Missionary prep class. Just in case. Keep my dad off my back."
"Watering the seed a different way, maybe?"
"Maybe so. This girl with a blue, what is that? scarf? "Girl with a Pearl Earring". She's beautiful." He turned and grinned at her. "Looks a little like you." Then he turned back to the exhibits.
Tami stopped and stared at Brian's back as he moved ahead, examining more student paintings. Then she looked at the painting he had commented on and bit her lip, and turned and quietly caught up with him. For some time after that, they examined paintings in silence.
Brian looked up to see an art student approaching them. "Well, I think they're about ready to close the museum."
"Have we been here two hours? We'd better get back to the dorms. Homework in your dorm lounge?"
"Sounds good."
"We're about ready to close for the night," the student informed them.
"Thanks. We're on our way out."
"Has it been interesting?"
"Yes, thanks," they answered in chorus, turning to looked at each other, and laughing.
As they walked back down to the dorms, Brian asked, "I was thinking you were into art or something."
"My history professor suggested it."
"Well it wasn't not fun!"
They both laughed.
"Okay, it was fun. We'll do it again sometime."
"You were going to tell me about a guy named Algorithm."
"Al Khwarizmi."
"He invented the algorithm, whatever that is?"
"Not exactly. He used lots of algorithms in his descriptions of algebra and proofs without actually using a term such as algorithm for them."
"So they named the algorithm after him?"
"I guess so. I'm not sure. The use of formal descriptions of methods and procedures preceded the formalization of the concept by at least two millennia, and preceded him by at least one."
"Useless facts for tests."
"Maybe."
|***|
Tami sat back against her chair, resting her eyes and looking beyond her books. "There's Mari," she said in a low voice.
"Huh?" Brian looked over at Tami and then followed her gaze. "Oh. Mari. Heh. She once told me she would only date returned missionaries. Then she changed her mind."
Mari stood near the entrance to the stacks from the stairwell, looking around. She said something to the male student standing next to her.
"You like her?"
"Hard to follow her conversations."
"Who's she with?"
"Steve." Brian stood and and waved. "He's in my home evening group. Wanted to know where I go to study."
"Oh, there you are!" Mari said, turning towards them, dragging him by the hand.
Tami caught her eye from where she sat and raised a finger to her lips as they approached.
"Sorry." Mari lowered her voice. "I guess we can just sit anywhere?"
"Yeah," Brian nodded, "tables are first-come, first-serve."
"What are you studying?" she asked quietly as Steve held her chair for her and she sat down next to Tami.
"World history," Tami said. "Brains here is working on some kind of physics."
Steve looked at Brian's textbook before sitting down next to Mari. "Dynamics." He whistled under his breath. "I'm not going to be taking that 'til next year."
"Steve and I are studying for the Book of Mormon class. We're in the same section."
Steve nodded. "I taught Russians about the Book of Mormon, then I get home and take this class and realize how little I know about it. Have you guys taken it?"
"Tami the gospel scholar is. I'm taking the missionary prep class."
"Hmmph. I am not a gospel scholar. Hardly know anything about what Mormons believe."
Mari shook her head. "You're so smart, Tami."
"You haven't been yet?" Steve asked.
Brian shrugged. "I didn't think I was ready for it."
"Are you preparing now?"
"Not sure."
Steve nodded. "Well Mari, let's crack these books. I think we're studying about secret combinations."
Tami looked over at them. "I don't get this secret combination thing. What's it supposed to mean?"
"It's what keeps me out of your locker," Brian quipped, and Tami poked him with her elbow. "Ouch."
"Gadianton. Kishkumen. Robbers." Mari said. "A bunch of rebels."
Steve nodded. "They go around secretly trying to overthrow the government."
"But why do they call it a combination instead of a conspiracy?"
Brian thought a minute. "Maybe they combine their different bad ideas and misguided efforts like a secret recipe for wickedness?"
The four of them smothered their laughter and turned to their books.
|***|
Mark studied the scoring card. "Well, it looks as if team BrianTami is positioned to take the lead, if Tami can pull off a spare here. Team MarkKiki, ganbare!"
Kiki turned and gave Mark a glare.
Tami concentrated, lifting the ball as she stepped forward. She swung smoothly, shifting her hips as she brought the ball through the bottom of the arc to the release point, and pushed it so that it was sliding and spinning left as it first hugged the right edge of the gutter, then curved in and took the lead pin at a perfect angle.
Three voices erupted behind her, two groaning and one cheering, "Oh, Tami!"
She turned and grinned. "Sorry, Kiki."
Kiki sniffed, pretending to be miffed as she stood to retrieve her ball from the return. For her first ball, she attacked the pins straight on, hitting the lead pin just to the left, and took her strike.
"Oh! KIKI!" Everyone laughed.
"Dang it Mark, we're just completely outclassed here. This is terrible stress." Brian grinned and pitched his very slowly. For an agonizing two and a half seconds, it rolled in slow motion down the lane to split the pins cleanly down the middle. The seven and ten pins remained standing.
"Sorry, Tami. I've never been able to pull in a seven-ten split. You want to do it?"
"No pinch bowling," she replied with a smirk.
Brian grinned. "Which side should I try for?"
Tami looked thoughtfully at the pins. "Try for the ten."
This time, Brian pitched at full speed. The ball grazed the inside of the ten pin, and the ten pin flew aside, to rebound whirling from the side of the lane and take the seven pin with it as it rolled into the gutter.
Mark muttered something about pressure under his breath as he stood to take his turn. He pulled off an ugly seven and three spare, leaving the score tied.
The four exchanged high-fives.
When Mark and Brian returned to the dorm, Mark shook his head. "If you guys are getting ready for the marriage of convenience thing, you sure are doing a bang-up job of making it look real."
"Whaddaya mean?"
"If you can't tell, I guess I shouldn't say."
"I think Kiki likes you. Speaking Japanese won you some points, but I'm not sure it even counts any more."
Mark grinned. "You think so? I kind of hope you're right."
|***|
"This is dance?" Brian lifted his program and pointed at the stage with it as the applause died down.
"What else would it be?"
"That last number looked more like a cross between gymnastics, something from a play, and martial arts. Other than the ryhthmic grunts and shouts, there wasn't even any music."
"It was probably inspired by both gymnastics and martial arts, and intended to have some dramatic meaning. Modern dance is a study in the motion of the body -- of ways to get from here to there. What do you think it meant?"
"Little girls chasing a leaf?"
"That could be the picture they were painting, but what do you think it means?"
"The guy who was the leaf represents romance?"
"Could be. This next one might be more to your liking, it looks like it's going to be basicaly a jazz dance number plus a bit extra."
"Didn't say I didn't like it, just didn't know it could be called dance. We'll have to tell Mark and Kiki they missed out."
"I think they wanted to be alone."
"Looks like they're ready."
And the lights dimmed.
|***|
"You missed out on some interesting performances. I did not know they called that stuff dance."
"I don't want to talk about it." Mark was lying on his bed, face down, as if he had just fallen there and hadn't moved.
"That's a lot of sudden negatives. Why don't you want to talk about it?"
"I don't want to talk about anything."
"What happened?" Brian sat down and watched his friend.
Mark rolled over and stared blankly at the cieling. "I can't believe I did it."
"What?"
"I had my arm around Kiki's shoulder, and I thought I'd see if I could encourage her to turn my direction for a kiss."
"Dangerous."
"She turned away, and my hand dropped." Mark covered his face in his hands.
"And you got to what, didn't our friends in high school used to call that second base?"
"I did not intend to do that."
"I remember you guys joking about that kind of stuff in the locker room."
"And you just watched us disapprovingly. I called you a prig. We had no idea what anything meant. All that sex ed and they don't teach you anything important." Mark rolled his head back and forth against the mat.
"They did try to warn us not to play games or push for things the other person doesn't want."
"While they passed condoms out."
"Yeah, it was a mixed message."
"What kept you from the games back then?"
Brian laughed. "I had bad habits when I was six that you guys didn't seem to be thinking about until you were twelve or so."
"You?" Mark sat up and stared. "Although I'll admit, some of the girls at church thought you were a little scary. Never understood why."
"I kept it to myself. Never dared even mess with porn because I knew how easy it was to lose control. But it took me several years of learning to look other places to get my eyes away from places a guy shouldn't look. I guess some of the girls saw where I was looking and it made them uncomfortable."
"Funny. Now we're in college Kiki says some of the girls don't trust you because they can't get you to look at them. She laughed about it." He examined the cieling again. "But, man, she's mad at me now."
"You apologized?"
"Tried. She stood up and left -- right in the middle of a big scene."
"Ran. She's not going to forgive that."
"I followed her back to the dorm. I think I said I was sorry about a hundred times. And promised I'd never do it again about as many."
"Well, that's good."
"She ignored me."
"Makes sense. She's disappointed. She thought she didn't have to be on her guard. Probably. Anyway, now she know she does. Give her some time."
"Ya think?"
"What's your options?"
Mark looked at the wall. "You're right. No options but to wait until she's willing to talk."
"Hey. You say praying is good, why don't you pray about it? Oh, here's another note on my desk."
"Yeah. I didn't look at it."
Brian read it. "Guess I'm going down to call my family."
"Still don't see how you can survive without a cell phone."
|***|
"So what do you think?" Kiki looked at Tami miserably, almost accusingly. Tears threatened in her eyes, and makeup spread and tracked where tears had already dripped down her nose and cheeks.
Tami reached for the tissue box on her desk. "Cleaning the makeup off your face will help you feel better."
Kiki grabbed Tami's pillow and threw it at her.
Tami ducked and smiled ruefully. "I promise. Get yourself occupied with something and it helps the pain go away."
Kiki froze. "You know about this."
Tami nodded.
"I'm sorry."
Tami shook her head. "It's in the past for me." She reached in her drawer and pulled out cold cream and a mirror and went over to sit beside Kiki. "I'll hold the mirror, you work on the makeup. And tell me what happened again."
Kiki sighed, and took the cold cream and a tissue and started working around her eyes. "I'd been looking forward to seeing Ran."
"I know."
"Mark had his arm around me."
"Is that bad?"
"I hadn't thought so." She paused and examined her work. "It felt like he was trying to push, well, gently, my face around towards him."
"For a kiss."
"I wanted to watch the movie, so I turned away."
Tami nodded.
"And he touched my breast."
"Any chance it was an accident?"
"How do you think it could be?"
"Mark's a pretty decent guy."
Kiki busied herself cleaning the tear tracks from her cheeks.
"Did he grab?"
"I'm not sure. I was just too shocked."
"And then you left the theater."
"Yeah. I'm pretty burned at that, too."
"Did you think you liked him before this?"
"Yeah! That hurts, too! I was feeling like, you know, maybe this is the guy."
"Real love?"
"Yeah."
"If such a thing as real love exists, it has to be able to survive this kind of thing."
"Huh?"
"I don't think he meant to touch you there. Maybe when he was a high school student, maybe he did that kind of thing. But I don't think he does now."
"But it couldn't be an accident."
"I'm going to put my arm around your shoulder." Tami did so. "Was it something like this?"
"Yeah."
"Turn away like you're avoiding a kiss."
Kiki turned. "Ah?" She looked at Tami's hand in horror, where it had slipped down and was hovering just barely away from touching her breast.
"If he'd had the instinct to pull back, you'd be finishing the movie now. But he missed pulling his hand back."
"I see. Maybe all that apologizing when he was chasing me back was for real."
"Maybe. Maybe it's worth talking it over with him."
"Wow." Kiki's face lit up.
"Don't get your hopes way up, just quit getting down on life. Do you feel like you've done something wrong?"
"I feel, well, dirty. Yeah. I do have this doubt, like it was my fault."
"If there is such a thing as a devil, I think that must be the devil talking. Name one thing you've done wrong."
Kiki shook her head. "Letting him put his arm around me was not wrong. And it was not my fault I trusted him."
"Not your fault."
"So now I just have to listen to his side of the story, I guess."
"That would be a good idea."
"And maybe we can still be friends."
"And if it happens again, you can slap him or walk out on him or whatever. If it doesn't happen again, maybe you can rebuild that good thing that was happening."
"What if I don't?"
Tami moved around so she could look in Kiki's eyes. "Hmm?"
"Slap him. For one half a second, I liked it."
"Don't you dare. Save that for when you're married to someone you can trust."
"I thought it was fun in high school."
"If it never went beyond that, you were lucky."
"I guess I was." Kiki stopped and looked again at Tami. "And you know about this, too."
Tami nodded again.
"I'm sorry."
Tami just leaned her head sideways and gave her a sideways grin, and reached around her shoulder to give her a hug.
"Thanks."
"Sure. Get back to your room and get some sleep."
|***|
Mark had his eyes closed, and his mouth was moving silently, when Brian came back. He finished his prayer and looked up. "I'm feeling like maybe I have a chance."
"Good. Joan says she thinks you should call Kiki tomorrow and ask if she'll talk to you where other people will be there."
Mark thought about it.
"And pray for help. Hey. I don't know if it'll do you any good, but I'll pray for you, too."
"I think I should talk to her. Is before breakfast too early?
"Maybe not. Ask God."
"And you tell me you don't believe in answers."
"Just not sure if I believe I hear them or not. But you believe."
"Heh. You're the best roommate I've got."
"I'm the only roommate you've got. I'm gonna get some sleep.
|***|
"Uhm, Tami, ..."
Tami turned from her seat at the study table.
"What's up? You look serious."
"I think my family is inviting you to Sunday dinner this week."
"They are. Joan called me."
Brian sat down and leaned forward to remove his pack. "I wonder how she got your number."
"Mark?"
"You should understand they will be grilling you."
"Probably. You, too. We should review what we know about each other, and maybe decide how we're going to answer the obvious questions."
"You're not worried?"
"You thought this wouldn't happen?" She grinned.
"You're laughing at me. Ooomph." He finally got the pack past the back of the chair and off his back, and set it on the table.
"We should go outside so we can speak more privately." She stood up and collected her books and papers.
Brian just sat there.
"Why the long face?"
"I'm not sure."
"If you want the fruit, you have to water the plant. You got your Book of Mormon?"
"It's on my desk in my room."
"I have mine. Let's go."
He picked his pack back up and followed her down the stairs and out onto the quad.
"Where do you want to sit? Benches are out."
"You pick."
And they wandered out on the grass and sat down to read Alma 32 together.
When they were done, Tami said, "Water the seed. Paper and pencil."
"Huh?"
"Get it out. We have to take notes." She waited while he got out a pencil and a notepad. "Okay, the first question we should look at is how many kids we plan to have."
"Kids?"
"We are supposed to be thinking about this, aren't we?"
"I'm not sure I'm ready for this."
"You're deciding you like someone better?"
"No."
"It's not like we'll be getting married next week and having ten kids the week after."
Brian laughed. "Okay, okay." He thought for a moment. "No, the first question is how you kiss. And how you rate my kisses."
"Top notch, of course."
"French?"
"No deep kissing. We're doing it by the book."
Brian grinned. "Okay. I'm with you on that. Necking?"
"Only the back of my neck, and I like it. And my ears."
Brian swallowed. "Oh. I guess you blow on the back of my neck and I complain." He shivered.
Tami laughed. "Holding hands."
Brian reached out and took her hand. For a minute they sat there.
"Nothing," they said in unison, apparently relieved.
"But that won't do. It's electric. I need my hand back so I can write."
Brian laughed. "Maybe it is a little electric." He released her hand. "Where were we? Date?"
"Maybe mid-spring, after final exams in winter semester?" Tami swallowed as she thought.
"Tentative. Number of kids, well, I never really thought about it. Maybe we'll say we'll leave that to figure out later."
"Sounds good. What's your favorite position?"
"Huh?"
Tami closed her eyes and leaned back, face to the sky, as Brian looked sharply at her. She seemed to be thinking unpleasant thoughts, which she did not elucidate. She shook herself. "Never mind. My mistake. We aren't supposed to know about that. At least, not be thinking about that kind of thing."
"Oh." Brian bowed his head and thought. Hesitantly, he ventured, "Look, we can say we need to study this Sunday."
"But we won't be able to put it off forever."
"Uhm, if there's something you'd ... like me to listen to, I'm all ears. I mean, we've kind of gotten to be friends, haven't we?"
"No." She paused. "Nothing, really, to talk about." She put her pencil back to her notebook "We aren't yet supposed to know each other's favorite toothpaste, because we live in the dorms. And Joan won't be asking if I've left feminine hygiene products in your bathroom to scare your friends, for the basically the same reason. I hope."
"What are you talking about?"
"You don't have a bathroom I can bomb. Questions there should be no reason for."
Brian shook his head again.
"But we don't want to be too surprised, just in case they come up. Your mission."
"Not thinking about it."
"It's an option."
Brian looked at her doubtfully and she looked back with a firm expression.
"Trust me on this. We need to say it's an option."
"Oh-kay. It's an option. But I'm thinking I'll just volunteer for a ward mission if I ever get the answers I'd need to be a missionary. Where do we want to live?"
"Well, in married student housing until we graduate. More important, I guess is who graduates first. Your family won't want me to know about your trust fund, so I'm going to support you through school."
"I think you'd better trust me on this one. We've talked about part-time jobs and student loans, but we'll see who has the better job next spring. For now, we assume it's going to be me working."
"The breadwinner --"
"-- earns the bread," he replied.
And they continued for most of an hour before running out of questions.
"Look. About the trust fund."
"I'm not supposed to know."
"We'll make one of those agreements. Pre-up, uh, pre-nuptials. I can't get it all at once anyway. I'll get a bit each month, enough for rent and tuition and books, if we don't splurge. There will be enough for both of us, because that's the way Grandad set it up if I get married. We'll make the agreement and you'll get half."
"But we should probably still work part time."
"You might be right about that."
"What if I divorce you?"
"I'd think it's fair."
Tami blinked. "Anyway, we'll finish talking about this trust fund once I'm supposed to know the details. But I'm not planning on divorcing you, okay?"
Brian looked at her inquisitively.
"It wouldn't look right, and I wouldn't leave you with the questions you'd face."
"Okay." Brian nodded his head and grinned. "We must be crazy."
Tami grinned, too. "Yeah. Maybe this isn't such a good idea. But we can always change our minds, up until we actually get married."
They sat thinking for a moment. "Besides," Tami continued, looking at the grass she was running her hands through, "it really isn't the money I'm after."
Brian looked at her. "I believe you. I really don't think you're mercenary."
"I am. But it's not money." Tami bit her lip.
"Then what?"
"Stability."
"What do you mean?"
"Money means a chance at stability. It's something I need."
Brian waited for her to explain, but she still kept her own counsel.
"Let's go back in to study." Tami got up. "Did Mark mention anything about his date with Kiki last night?"
Brian got up, as well. "Yeah. Did Kiki talk to you?"
"She came in looking really distraught, so we went to my room to talk. She was really upset."
"Mark, too. He said it was an accident."
"I could believe it, from what she said. And a little bit of bad habits from high school for both of them."
"I could see that. He called her before breakfast, and they talked in the cafeteria before classes. I didn't sit close, but it looked like they ended on speaking terms again."
"Good. Keep an eye on him, okay? I really hope they don't both decide what they did in high school was too fun to wait for."
"Agreed."
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