Chapter 13 The Bonfire
The Bonfire
That, and my grading was beyond reproach. I had followed our answer key to the letter. I was more than happy to hand my exams over to Cooper, confident that he would find no fault or foul play. Hell, I had even left detailed notes. What more could he want?
If I was being honest, I was painfully curious to know how Cooper’s students had performed.
I felt like I had done well—the best that I could do—but I had a niggling fear that he had done better.
That his section had outperformed mine. It was probably just anxiety, but I was having trouble shaking it.
There was too much riding on these damn scores.
But worrying would have to wait until Sunday when we traded tests. Because tonight, it was time to build a bonfire.
My nails were painted in jewel tones, adorned with falling leaves, to complement my new October Lovers sweatshirt.
I purchased one in a golden yellow shade that reminded me of sunshine on ash leaves.
It went perfectly with the dark wash jeans and brown leather boots that I picked in concession to the beach venue.
My hair was pulled into a high ponytail, functional yet pretty.
I met Russel, Miriam, and a few other October Lovers—all in matching sweatshirts—in the cafeteria, where bonfire supplies were staged in preparation for heading to the beach. Russel was in his element, sorting and organizing like a squirrel preparing for winter.
“Don’t you all look festive,” I said by way of greeting. “What do we have here?”
Miriam looked up and smiled. “Hey, Ms. Burke. Perfect timing. We’re just getting started.”
“It looks to me like you’re almost done,” I said, surveying the piles of food, lighter fluid, and enough fierce-looking roasting sticks to lay siege on Troy.
“We’ve got all the good stuff,” said Russel, proudly. “Hot dogs, buns, graham crackers, chocolate, and enough marshmallows to build a life-size igloo.”
“Plus cups, plates, napkins, and sticks for roasting,” added Miriam.
“Be careful with those sticks.” I gave them another wary glance. Sending students to the hospital for skewering each other would be a quick and shitty way to end the night.
Russel and Miriam shared a glance and shrugged, unconcerned.
“Alrighty,” I said, not feeling remotely reassured. “Should we start moving this stuff down to the beach?”
“Yep. Matt and Janelle are down there already setting up tables. And Jose and Wade are lugging firewood over from Wade’s car.”
“We have enough wood to burn down the campus,” Russel added with a wily smile.
I was reasonably sure he was joking, but just in case said, “let’s not do that.” Between the fire and the skewers, I was starting to wonder if this bonfire might be a horrible mistake.
Russel just rolled his eyes and picked up a few bags of food before heading out of the cafeteria. Other students also started collecting bags, so I grabbed a couple and headed after them. I fell into step with Miriam as we followed the path down to the beach.
“How are you feeling about all this?” I asked, sure I was picking up some tension from her.
She looked down at her feet as we walked. “A little excited. A little nervous. October Lovers has always just been for us, you know. It’s gonna be weird having so many people at the bonfire. I really hope we don’t mess it up.”
I nudged her with her arm. “Nervous is okay. This is something new for this group. But it could be a lot of fun. Maybe the rest of the students don’t love October like you do, but we’re going to help them see how awesome it is.”
“Do you think we’re ready?”
I smiled and tried to fill my voice with as much reassuring confidence as I could muster.
“You can never be one hundred percent ready for anything, but we’ve done the best we can.
I just need you to promise me that once we have this fire lit, you’ll try to relax and have a good time.
There will be plenty of chaperones to keep an eye on things.
You just need to worry about enjoying yourself. ”
She shrugged again, and I started to worry that her shoulders were going to get stuck up by her ears.
“I heard David say he was coming,” she said, so softly that I barely heard her over the crunching leaves under our feet.
“Oh,” I said, her nerves suddenly taking on a new dimension. “Do you think you’ll talk to him?”
Miriam’s eyes were firmly on her shoes. “I don’t know. We don’t run in the same circles.”
Her words landed like an anvil dropped on my head. Cooper had said the exact same thing about he and I. “What do you mean?” I asked carefully.
She shrugged, and I had to fight the impulse to hold her shoulders down. “Nothing. Just… did you know I’m here on a scholarship?”
My brows pulled together. “Does that matter?” I asked.
“It feels like it does.”
I suddenly wanted to drop the bags I was carrying and give Miriam the biggest hug.
I had always been on the inside, the center of attention.
I thought I had treated everyone around me the same, but maybe I hadn’t.
Maybe there were more people on the outside looking in than I realized.
It broke my heart to think that this sweet, smart girl felt like an outcast.
I nudged her arm with my elbow. “Promise me that you’ll talk to David tonight. At least say hi.”
“I don’t know.”
“That window you think you’re outside of—it isn’t real.”
“It feels real.”
She broke away from me when we reached the beach, dropping her bags and heading down to join Janelle, Matt, and Jose in the sand. They were in the process of stacking logs into a waist-high tower, which (thankfully) did not look big enough to burn down the campus.
I helped Russel set up a couple of folding tables on a paved patio at the edge of the beach and started unpacking our bags of supplies. My attention was very much still on the bonfire crew.
“Do they know what they’re doing?” I asked.
Russel looked up from where he was artfully arranging marshmallows on a tray. “Matt? Oh, definitely. That guy has been lighting fires since he was old enough to strike a match.”
I put my shoulders back and my hands on my hips in my best imitation of a responsible adult and gave him a skeptical look.
“Oh, you don’t need to worry about him,” Russel continued. “He’s always super careful. Plus, we have plenty of fire extinguishers.” The boy gestured to a couple of red canisters laying in the sand.
“That’s marginally reassuring,” I said under my breath.
Over by the pyre, Wade had begun sword fighting with Jose using the roasting sticks. “Cut that out before you put an eye out!” I called. Some things never changed, especially not teenage boys.
I got to work arranging the drinks table, lining up two-liter bottles by type and removing the red, plastic cups from their sleeves.
The chaperones were going to have to keep a really close eye on this table.
When I was a student, my friends definitely would have tried to sneak some booze into our drinks.
The last thing I needed tonight was a bunch of tipsy teenagers stabbing themselves and falling into a fire.
When the sun dropped below the tree line, blanketing the beach in shadows, more students and chaperones began arriving.
Matt and Janelle had been able to get the bonfire lit under Russel’s watchful eye, and the flames were crackling merrily, casting a warm, orange glow over the beach as the sky grew darker.
I waved Ashley and Phyllis over to me when they arrived and poured each woman a soft drink. Together, we retreated to the edge of the party where we had a wide view of the beach and the path leading back to campus.
“This is a nice little gathering you put together,” Ashley commented, surveying the students milling in little groups.
“I can’t take much credit,” I said. “The club put all this together.”
“I’m sure you had more to do with it than you think,” Ashley said.
I took a sip of my drink. “Not really. They pretty much planned the whole thing, got all the supplies. Everything. Jose is eighteen, so they didn’t even need me to buy lighter fluid for them.”
Ashley gave me a pointed look, which I did not understand.
“What Ms. Politically Correct is trying to say,” Phyllis supplied, “is that there is no way those October geeks could have planned this shindig without your encouragement.”
I gasped as Ashley hissed, “Phyllis!” and looked around to see if anyone had heard. “You can’t call students geeks!”
The steely-haired matron threw up her hands and rocked back on her heels. “Don’t Phyllis me! Nobody can hear us, and I’m too old not to speak my mind. I’m just saying what everyone is thinking,” she said, not the slightest bit chastened.
I had to wonder if Phyllis had always been this forward—and unfiltered—and I hadn’t noticed while I was at school.
Or perhaps she simply had less regard for rules and tact as she approached retirement.
Whichever it was, it didn’t feel like my place to say anything and rock the boat, so I decided to follow Ashley’s lead.
She seemed earnest in her desire to help me stay at Newbury, and I doubted she would lead me off track.
Ashley turned to me and placed a hand on my arm. “It’s a very nice party, Melanie. I think the students are having a great time.”
“Do you want to have a better time?” Phyllis pulled a flask out of her pocket and waved it invitingly.
My eyes grew round. Drinking on campus was prohibited. Full stop. If we were caught, it could really hurt my chances of landing this job. I looked around the beach, scanning the fire and the party. The number of students had grown considerably, but no one was looking in our direction.
The ironic thing was that I wouldn’t have hesitated to accept a spiked drink when I was a student.
I had even been caught drinking once or twice after a football game, though nothing ever came of it.
In hindsight, I strongly suspected that my parents had a hand in saving me from punishment.
The topic was never discussed outright, but I could recall more than a few lectures from my mother about moderation and discretion.
Ashley shocked me when she held out her red cup to Phyllis. “Just a bit.”
“Hey hey!” Phyllis laughed and tipped the flask into Ashley’s drink and then her own. “That’s a girl!”
“But—why?” I sputtered.
“Just between us hens,” Ashley said with a shrug before taking a sip.
Phyllis was already tipping the flask into my cup before I could protest further, then tucking it back into her pocket. She held up her cup to me and Ashley. “What should we drink to?”
I pinched my eyes closed before looking down into my doctored cup and then back up to Ashley and Phyllis. At least if I got caught, I wasn’t going down alone. “October, obviously,” I sighed and bumped my cup against theirs.
“And fine-looking men,” Phyllis added, bumping her cup into Ashley’s.
I choked on my drink. “What?”
Phyllis gestured over my shoulder with her cup, and I turned just in time to see Cooper and Alan walking down the path.
Alan looked like a lumberjack—red plaid shirt tucked into blue jeans tucked into brown boots.
Beside him, Cooper looked positively edible in dark jeans and a long-sleeved henley that stretched across his lean chest. His dark hair was a little messier than he usually wore it for class, falling over his forehead.
The rest of his angular face was bronzed to perfection in the firelight.
My heart jumped up into my throat even as my stomach plummeted to my feet.
I hadn’t been expecting either of them to come tonight.
The part of me that missed our games was thrilled to see Cooper.
However, there was no way to know if the playful mischief-maker was here tonight or if it was the tense professional rival.
I desperately hoped it was the former, but after a week of avoidance and awkwardness, I feared it was the latter.
I suddenly became very aware of the plastic cup in my hand, and its contraband contents.
“Shit,” I cursed. “Do you think they saw us?” Ashley and Phyllis were one thing, but Cooper absolutely could not catch me breaking rules.
I did the first thing that came to mind. I threw back my head and downed my drink in one long swallow. The whiskey and carbonation burned as it ran down my throat. In hindsight, I probably should have dumped out the cup rather than chugging, but at least the evidence was gone.
Misinterpreting my distress, Phyllis and Ashley both laughed. “Slow down, girl.” Phyllis patted me on the back while I coughed. “There’s plenty more to go around.”
“Plenty more of what?” Alan smiled good-naturedly around our little circle. Next to him, Cooper looked stiff and unreadable.
To my horror, Phyllis produced the flask again, waggling it playfully. “Plenty more of this.”
“We’re way ahead of you.” Alan laughed and knocked Cooper’s arm with the back of his hand. “Right, Coop?”
Cooper shared a smirk with his friend. “Right.” His voice was low and husky. I leaned in to hear him over the sounds of the party.
“Good man,” Phyllis said. “What’s your poison?”
“Whiskey,” Alan replied and patted a pocket which bulged conspicuously.
“Us too, us too. Got to pace yourself—though Melanie shotgunned her first round.”
We stood in the shadows, so, thankfully, no one could see the flush bloom up my neck and cheeks. “Well, I—”
“Still the party princess.” Cooper’s eyes were dancing with firelight.
“No!” I protested, my gaze jumping from face to face. “I didn’t—”
“It’s fine,” Alan said, though it felt anything but. “You’re not a student anymore.”
“I didn’t want to break the rules,” I said.
“They’re more like guidelines.” Ashley took a prim sip from her cup and gave me a knowing look. “Most of the faculty live on campus, so it’s not like we can just go to a bar after class.”
Even stringent, rule-abiding Ashley thought I was too uptight. Relief mixed with a touch of embarrassment as I finally started to believe them.
“As long as you aren’t reckless or breaking any laws, there’s wiggle room,” Alan added.
“Right,” I said, still feeling very silly.
I needed a little space. I raised my empty red cup and stepped out of the group. “Well, I think I’m going to go check on the students and get some more ginger ale.”
“I’ll come with you.” The voice, like black velvet, wrapped around me, making my breath catch in my chest.
“That’s what she said!” Phyllis whispered loud enough for all of us to hear.