Innocence Read online

Chapter 4

  Our dorm room became the hub for the first meeting of The Five. It would be the first of many for our group. There would be plenty of talk about guys, lots of gossip and much propping each other up when life or love would knock us down.

  It became our support system, the collective making each individual stronger. The others’ strengths bolstering individual weakness. It became a comfort zone, a confidence-builder and confidential seminar on everything a young woman confronts as she is coming into her own at college.

  I would long for its cocoon of safety, security and secrets many times in my life. But there’s just something about college that is irreplaceable. And there’s surely something about college women who come together to form such a close-knit alliance that can never, ever be duplicated, replicated or replaced in our lives. It is of a particular time and place. And as we move out into the world, we become different people. The rush of the day and the relentless responsibilities of our lives change us.

  The young women who gathered, one by one, in that dorm room on that move-in day wouldn’t recognize the people we would become. But our older selves would always remember the naïve yet nurturing college women we once were. And that knowledge, sweet as it was, would make us long for what we could never be again.

  We’d ache for it. Many times, when life threw a curve, I would ache for it. Perhaps, this is one of the reasons I am writing this now. Because as I do, I live inside my former self. And I don’t remember all those things I didn’t know then.

  I first forget who I am. Then inhabit who I was. The Five are there again, just as we were.

  And I have the joy, the sheer joy, of living with those wonderful young women once again.

  The Five. Us.

  Together.

  Next to join our circle was the prim, proper Chelsea Daniels. She was Lauren’s roommate, and she hailed from a textbook family and fine upbringing in a tiny, Norman Rockwellesque town up north. Her father was a doctor and her mother a lawyer. And the family’s roots in the wiles of Wellsboro went back generations. They had the many acres of land to prove it. Acres that were now worth millions, due to the shale gas drilling phenomenon in that part of the state. A phenomenon that turned salt-of-the-earth farmers and other landowners into the nouveau riche. Rich beyond their imaginations, in fact.

  Chelsea’s family now had the money to send her to school anywhere. But both her mother and father were Old State alums. Her parents had met here at this fine land grant university that united all ends of the state. And deep down, I believed that Chelsea Daniels hoped to meet her husband here, as well. But coming from such a sheltered existence in such a small town still seemingly stuck in the 1950s, she had no idea how to go about doing this. On the campus of Old State, surrounded by so many men – men, not little high school boys – Chelsea was out of her element and a step behind the culture in terms of fashion, dating, social mores – and most especially sex.

  Luckily, her newly minted membership in what would become The Five would change this. It would change it for the good, but also for the bad. Very bad, indeed. But that was the thing about the members of The Five. We couldn’t help trying to make the others a little more like ourselves. And with Chelsea, we wanted to live vicariously in the thrill of her discovery of college men, their many endowments and, of course, the sex, itself.

  She represented the uninitiated. In a way, the rest of us all longed for her wide-eyed innocence. But in trying to change Chelsea, we would help destroy what we secretly cherished. We would all play a role. But the men who would desecrate her were the real culprits. Yet, each of us who had a hand in Chelsea’s awakening would hate ourselves – and one another – for having changed her. Chelsea, the small town girl who made the mistake of trusting, looking up to us, even, with those doe-like anticipating eyes.

  “Lauren, there you are,” came the soft, almost apologetic, and lost-sounding, voice from our opened dorm door. “I thought you’d be back in a sec.”

  Chelsea Daniels poked in her pretty head. Everything about her was top-notch. There wasn’t a blemish on her face. Her make-up was understated, and not a brown hair was out of place. Yet, her whole look, as cute as she was, (and cute was the right word for Chelsea) was just a little outdated. It was as if she hailed from a time and place that was a step or two behind the rest of the world. And perhaps she did.

  We all looked up. Lauren and I were on the bed, and Sonya was hanging the last of her precious paintings.

  “Hi Chelsea,” Lauren said, rising from the squeaky mattress.

  “Wanna see the quilt on my bed?” Chelsea pleaded perkily to her roommate and perhaps the only person she knew on a first-name basis across all of Old State.

  “Quilt?” Lauren Marks screwed her plain but attractive features into a question.

  “Yeah,” Chelsea said, stepping further inside, her anxious eyes darting about the small space that was the mirror image of her own, except for all of Sonya’s colorful, bold and in some cases, sexually risqué, artistic touches. “It was my grandmother’s, and her mother’s before that. Mom says it will make me feel at home, even though I’m far away.”

  “Chelsea,” Lauren chided gently, almost as a protective parent might, “the whole point of college is to get away from home. That’s why you’re here. For new experiences. New people. New things. Come in and meet our neighbors.”

  Lauren waved her roommate forward, and Chelsea obeyed Lauren’s command.

  “Guys,” Lauren began, “this is Chelsea. She’s from a tiny, little town up north, if you haven’t guessed.”

  Both Sonya and I nodded at the cute girl in our midst, who was such the polar opposite of her plain-spoken, no-frills roomie.

  “This is Sonya.” Lauren gestured.

  Sonya stepped forward with a smile and outstretched hand. “Sonya Kessler,” she said, taking Chelsea’s limp hand. Women didn’t shake, now did they? “I’m an artist.”

  Chelsea’s eyes wandered over the freshly hung paintings, a cautious, quizzical look on her face.

  “Hmmm,” she hummed. “Father wants to buy some art. Says it’s a good place to park money. I’m just not sure he knows much about it. I’m afraid I don’t either. But father says you can buy advice, good advice. Father says you can buy just about anything.”

  “Oh yeah,” Lauren interjected. “Chelsea’s rich, like mega-rich. All that shale gas drilling up north.”

  “Doesn’t that fuck-up the environment?” Sonya accused, withdrawing her hand.

  Chelsea actually flinched at the curse word, almost as if she’d never heard it before.

  “Pardon?” the shocked small town girl managed.

  “Never mind,” Sonya said. “Well, your daddy’s wrong about one thing. None of my paintings is for sale.” Sonya waved a hand at her artwork as a showroom model might.

  Chelsea nodded. “Guess he’ll have to take you off his list, then,” she retorted.

  I smiled at that. Chelsea had a little zing in her. It was down deep, but it was there.

  “I’m Monica,” I said, rising from the bed and extending my hand, even though handshakes weren’t Chelsea Daniels’ thing. “Monica Creed. Why don’t you hang out?”

  I shrugged, and Chelsea considered this. Then she shrugged, too.

  “So what are we talking about?” she asked, wide-eyed.

  “Guys,” Sonya answered, deadpan. “What else?”

  “Yeah,” Lauren intoned. “Creed, here, thinks the hottest guy in the dorm propositioned her to shower with him.”

  Lauren shot me a mock-accusing look and I took a half-hearted swing at her muscular shoulder. No doubt she had taken many harder shots.

  “I never said that,” I protested.

  Chelsea watched it all with the dazed look of an uninitiated spectator following the bouncing ball of a tennis match.

  “So what do you think she should do?” Sonya asked, staring at our newest member of the club.

  Chelsea was struck dumb.

  �
�Shower?” she squeaked. “Together?”

  “Well, the bathroom is coed,” Sonya explained.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Chelsea said in a whisper. “I think I’ll just listen for a while.”

  Lauren smiled at her roomie. I could tell even then that Lauren liked her, liked her a lot, in fact. But it was more than that. Lauren felt protective of Chelsea, an instinct that only grew more powerful and fierce as days, weeks and months wore on.

  “You do that, Roomie,” Lauren said. “Listen and learn.”

  “Okay,” Chelsea agreed, sitting down daintily on the squeaky mattress. “But later, can I show you girls my heirloom quilt?”

  Lauren shook her head. “Enough about the quilt,” she muttered. “Maybe you should wonder if the first dude you invite into your room will like it.”

  Chelsea pulled back.

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” she demurred.

  “You will,” Sonya assured. “Stick with us, and you’ll know all about it, soon enough.”

  And with that, we became four.