28. Hildy
Hildy
TEN YEARS AGO
TAMPA, Fla.—Sweet freedom. She’d made it here at last.
Hildy’s first dramatic inhale filled her lungs with a smell best described as future sinus infection, but that was a minor detail, like the dingy walls and ancient twin beds.
The squalor was a means to an end: independence, knowledge, control of her own life.
She would sacrifice a lot more than comfort to get where she wanted to go.
Comfort and privacy, assuming the black garbage bag on the other bed contained her absent roommate’s belongings—as opposed to actual trash.
Maybe she was sharing these narrow walls with someone who objected to luggage for political reasons.
There were probably a lot of crusading-activist types here for the fellowship.
You had to be interested in the world to want to report on it.
Even though reporters were supposed to be neutral bystanders, most of them secretly believed their work had the potential to change lives.
Doubt flittered like moth wings at the back of her mind.
Was Hildy really one of the twenty best high school journalists in the entire country?
Could she hold her own with the nineteen other “rising stars” for a highly competitive weeklong summer intensive that would make or break her college applications, and by extension her entire career?
Her family certainly didn’t think so. They’d tried to talk her out of going, right up to the moment she left them behind at airport security.
Okay, that stiffened her resolve. This was her opportunity to prove them wrong. Maybe the last chance, before they shoved her onto the conveyor belt leading to a future more in line with their expectations.
“I can do this,” she announced to the empty room. “I will do this.”
A sarcastic huff from the doorway was Hildy’s first indication she wasn’t alone.
“Great,” said a girl whose obviously dyed black hair showed several inches of blond at the roots. Hildy couldn’t tell if the look was intentional, or she was overdue for a trip to the salon. “I got the one who talks to herself.”
The garbage bag made more sense in the context of its owner.
The other girl’s look was designed to be in-your-face edgy, in that classic “don’t you dare look at me” style: black nails, tattered denim shorts, T-shirt cut to fall off the shoulder, barely tied combat boots, a necklace made of …
paper clips? Maybe she’d stolen them from an office supply store, in the true spirit of anarchy.
On the other hand, she’d obviously put a lot of time and effort into crafting this punk rock girl persona, which was the teensiest bit contradictory.
Notice me! Stay away! There was some aesthetic whiplash happening—not that Hildy planned to kick off their week of cohabitation by mentioning that fact.
“I’m Hildy.” She held out her hand, then worried a handshake reeked of capitalism and the patriarchy.
“Hildy Who Hears Voices.” The other girl left her hanging while she studied Hildy’s clothes.
Sue me for wearing a sundress in freaking Florida in July, Hildy thought.
As if that revealed something about her character.
This would be so much easier if they could sniff each other like two dogs squaring off at the park.
Get the dominance thing settled and move on.
“Corinne.” Her roommate sighed like she begrudged the necessity of even that much politeness. But she did pump Hildy’s hand once before letting go. That seemed like a victory, however small. Maybe they wouldn’t spend the next six days giving each other the silent treatment.
“Where are you from?” Hildy asked.
Corinne flopped onto her bare mattress, tugging her garbage bag closer so she could root around inside. “Can we save the icebreakers for tomorrow? I’m meeting some friends like five minutes ago.”
Hildy waited for an invitation to tag along, smiling in case Corinne glanced over, but her roommate was busy throwing clothes onto her bed.
And the floor. Since her body language did not say “ask me about my social life,” Hildy was left to guess how Corinne already had friends when the program hadn’t even officially started.
“I’m going to unpack,” she informed Corinne, who spared her a did-I-ask? glance.
Whatever. The point of this week was to work. And network, but surely there would be easier targets than Corinne, who tapped the doorjamb with her knuckles as she sped off to do her thing. Why knock on the way in when you could be different and make it a goodbye instead?
Maybe Hildy needed a signature gesture to set herself apart. She pictured herself winking uncontrollably. That would for sure win friends and influence people.
But hey, that was a tomorrow problem, and she still needed to tackle today.
The itinerary made it sound like most people would be eating with their families tonight.
Which wasn’t an option for Hildy, since she was flying solo.
By design rather than abandonment, since she couldn’t risk letting her relatives loose anywhere near here, but it still promised to be a lonely evening.
Not a big deal! There must be at least one or two pizza places that delivered to the college dorm where all the fellowship kids were staying.
Her uncle had offered to put her up in a hotel instead, but Hildy wanted the full experience.
By this time tomorrow, she’d have a whole day of workshops behind her, and plenty of people to hang out with.
Maybe she and Corinne would bond over breakfast, if her roommate consumed anything more substantial than black coffee and snark.
Hildy frowned at the bed not covered in Corinne’s clothes.
When female business leaders talked about claiming your space, they probably didn’t mean a plastic-covered brick of a twin mattress in a rundown dorm, but everyone had to start somewhere.
She pulled out her phone, murmuring as she typed: “How to make a bed.”
Who knew you were supposed to wash brand-new sheets before sleeping on them?
On the off chance it wasn’t a scam concocted by Big Detergent, Hildy felt compelled to follow the multistep instructions she’d found online.
The only problem was that laundry was not among the skills she’d planned to acquire this week, reasoning that it would be easier to pack extra underwear than waste crucial reporting time washing her own clothes.
That was fine! She could roll with a change in plans, because she was a mature and resourceful person who conveniently had nothing else going on this evening.
How hard could it be? Put the clothes in the big hole and add detergent …
once she acquired said detergent. After that she’d worry about the array of dials and buttons.
(Although seriously, why were there so many? You’d think it was a small aircraft.)
You found the laundry room, Hildy reminded herself. Step one, in the bag—no thanks to the RA who was supposed to be on duty at the deserted front desk. It would have been nice to think someone knew where she was in case this basement lived up to its potential as a crime scene, but oh well!
The imaginary trailer for a Who Killed Hildy? podcast had barely started playing in her head when the lights switched off, plunging the laundry room into darkness. The package of sheets made a slapping sound as it hit the ground, but it wasn’t loud enough to drown out her whimper of alarm.
“Shit,” said a voice from the other end of the room.
The lights flickered back on, and Hildy forced her lungs to expand. She had the strap of her purse stretched between her hands like she was about to strangle someone. Good to know her crisis response was fight rather than flight.
“I’m really sorry,” the guy hovering at the base of the stairs called out. “I didn’t realize there was anyone down here.”
“That’s okay. I have a strong heart.”
“I’m Walter.” It sounded like another apology.
His shoulders hunched like he felt bad for taking up so much vertical space, which reduced the creepy factor of him being male and blocking the exit.
It also helped that he was wearing cargo shorts and a ratty T-shirt, as opposed to a long black robe with a scythe in one hand.
“Hildy,” she yelled back. “Are you by any chance here for the Pachner Fellowship?” Because he did not seem laid-back enough for college.
“Yeah. You?”
She nodded before bending to retrieve the sheets. “I don’t suppose you know how to work these things?”
“The washer?”
“I’m not familiar with this model.” Or any others, but he didn’t need to know that.
As Walter slouched across the laundry room, Hildy took a closer look.
He was not what most people would call hot, but the potential was there, once his weight caught up with his height.
His hair had the opposite problem—too much volume, in the wrong places—a relatable issue in this humidity.
(Hildy suspected she looked like she’d been struck by lightning.) Was his skin perfect?
No. But if you looked past the scattering of pimples, the long straight nose and dimpled chin would likely be handsome on his grown-up self.
When he smiled, Hildy got a sneak peek at future Walter’s charm. Her fingertips tingled—though that was mostly relief at the thought of having a friendly face to look for tomorrow morning.
“Do you have quarters?”
“What?” Hildy struggled to jump from her current train of thought (isn’t it strange how you can tell just from looking into someone’s eyes that he’s smart) to unzipping her purse.
Walter frowned at the handful of coins she dropped in his hands. “For the washer,” he said gently.
It was the mildest possible correction, but Hildy felt her face heat anyway.
Of course he wasn’t asking her to pay him.
She scooped the quarters out of his hand, blush intensifying at the slightly sweaty skin-to-skin contact.
To her relief, the coin slot was easy to find, now that she knew to look for one.