They'd arranged the cafeteria into long rows of tables, and Linda and Lauren usually sat around the center of the room with a few girls they knew from Bartholomew Hall.
As soon as they settled themselves, Lauren held court by beginning her brag session. "You'll never guess where Lin and I went yesterday."
Marie, Penny, and a couple of the other girls looked back at them with blank expressions.
"I'll give you a hint," Lauren went on. She pantomimed holding a microphone and twisted her features into a passionate grimace. She sang "Waaaaaay down inside! Woman…you need me."
Penny, who was a sassy accounting major from the northwest suburbs of Chicago, said "You…made a whole lot of love?"
"No," Lauren said, and then launched into a long description of the past twenty-four hours. "And Linda met her new boyfriend!"
Lauren rambled on about the concert for such a long time that Linda had finished her salad plate by the time Lauren took her first bite. She picked at the gray slab of Salisbury steak, flicking at the gravy, which had congealed and thickened around the mushy breading. "This is absolutely gross." She sneered down at the meat and runny potatoes. To start, she gobbled up a few slimy string beans, wincing as they swished around inside of her mouth.
Next, she washed a few bites of grizzle and potatoes down with a healthy swig of milk.
Marie, a music and theater major, raised an eyebrow exaggeratedly while she noticed Lauren eat. With a melodic voice and the appropriate pauses for dramatic effect, she said "My sister told me that by the end of the year they start to get sloppy with the food. And that, whatever you do, never eat meatloaf!"
Lauren set down her fork and said "Yeah. You know what? Fuck this place! We should get an apartment together. Like at Belmont Green or the Tuileries."
Marie and Penny nodded with agreement. They discussed how nice it would be to come home to a place with real carpet, for instance, with several rooms to roam around in, and the freedom to cook scrumptious meals of their own.
"Aren't those places four hundred dollars a month or more?" Linda asked.
Lauren flashed her a snide grin. "They'll be four of us, goofball. You'd only have to pay a hundred a month. Your daddy can handle that, can't he?"
"He kind of wants me to be in the dorms the first couple of years."