Lauren lifted up a forkful of mashed potatoes, allowing them to run off the tines and dribble back onto the plate. "Well, if you want to put up with another year of eating this slop, be my guest!"
***
The Spring semester ended after the second week of May. Because Linda had made choices such as rush home after their road trip to attend class and avoid wasting evenings getting sloshed at the Firm's quarter beer night, she received all A's once again. Twice after she brought up the idea at the cafeteria, Lauren again proposed moving off campus for their sophomore year.
"I don't think I could afford it," Linda said. "Buying your own food can get expensive. And you have to pay for telephone and the electric bill, too."
"And you build up credit. That's how you make it in the real world. Don't you have friends back home who have their own apartments?"
She thought it over for a moment. "No. They're all in college, like me."
"Forget I asked. But Marie and I already signed a lease at the Tuileries for this fall. We need you and another girl. You can come with us and live in a place with carpet and nice beds or you can stay here or Bartholomew and get bloated by that disgusting food. Your choice."
The last remark was a low blow. Lauren knew how sensitive she was about weight matters.
Friday of that week, her father and her little sister Molly arrived in the big woody station wagon. Her mother worked as a teller at one of the largest banks in town and could never get Fridays off unless she was on vacation. Her father, a manager at a rail yard, brought shipping crates and a hand dolly. While Linda filled one of the crates with books, stuffed animals, blouses, t-shirts and records, he shook his head, snorting through one nostril the way he always did when he was exasperated. "Dang, girl. I should have brought one of the trucks instead."
Molly, who was fourteen but already boy crazy noticed the swarms of guys moving out of the Wilson Triads next door. "There's so many cute guys here! How do you get straight A's?"
Before Linda could respond her father gruffly interjected "Because she does the right thing and studies instead of playing games with them. Something you ought to be doing."
On the way home, the three of them rode in the front seat since the entire back seat and cargo area had been filled with crates of Linda's things. To make conversation on the way home, she told her father about Lauren's idea.