Archives:
January 28-February 3, 2007

January 28, 2007

“Hey Mom,” I say over the phone as I pull one leg through my blue jeans.

“ Preston , how are you, honey?”

“I'm good. Actually on my way off to work.”

“Oh. Well don't let me keep you if you're headed to the office.”

“Na, not to the office, Mom,” I say, searching my dresser for my deodorant. “Sunday afternoons I work at the Front Desk back in Smith Hall.”

“Oh, right, the job you had last year.”

“Yep.” Finally finding the deodorant, I put it on, cell phone pinned between the side of my head and shoulder. “So how are you doing?”

“Good. Avery went out golfing today so I'm just around the apartment, cleaning, catching up on the dishes.”

“Thrilling,” I say, pulling on my coat. “So you and Avery—any ideas for a wedding date yet?”

“Nothing yet. We're not in any hurry—we just want to go at our own pace, and make sure we're financially set, and emotionally set, and have everything planned out. That's what's sort of different about marrying at this age—you want to be certain of everything.”

“Yeah, wouldn't want to make a mistake again.” Mom sort of clicks her tongue, and I'm sorry I said it. It's weird to me that she and Avery are getting married, but it's not like I'm really that opposed to it. It was just an off the cuff comment. As I head out the door of the suite, I go on, “I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything by that.”

“I know you didn't, Preston . You're a good boy.”

“Thanks, Mom.” I stand just inside the building, ready to head out where I can see the snow whipping all around in the wind. “All right, I do have to get to work. I'll talk to you later, OK?”

January 29, 2007

As impressed as I was at the start of the year by Tucker's office, Taylor College President Ed Lambert's place of business blows it away. The President's Office is unlike any office I've seen at the school. After sitting in the brown leather furniture of his waiting room, listening to his receptionist take calls and tap at her computer keyboard, Lambert calls me into his office. The walls are covered with paintings of past administrators, beside expansive windows overlooking the main quad.

“So I finally get to meet Preston Burns,” he says, “The star reporter for The Window.” Lambert's a small man—surprisingly diminutive up close. He remains in his chair, reaching his hand half way across his enormous, freshly polished desk.

I shake his hand, smiling, and then sit down on one of the chairs on my side. “It's a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Lambert.”

I'm about to launch into my questions, but he speaks first, “So what year are you, Preston ?”

“I'm a sophomore.”

“A sophomore? Really?” I nod, and he laughs. “Well imagine that—you breaking the story about Alan Chilling when you were just a freshman. And then saving that girl on Halloween this year.”

“Well, I do what I can,” I say a little awkwardly.

He smiles. “So I assume you want to be a professional journalist when you leave here.”

“Well, to be honest, I'm not sure what I want to do.”

“Imagine that.” He shakes his head. “That kind of talent, and not sure what you want to do with it. It's sad in a sense. But exciting too,” he gestures wildly with his hands, “because things are so wide open—you could do whatever you want. But anyway,” he goes on, settling himself a little, “you came to talk to me about the Groundhog's Day Festival.”

“That's right,” I nod, clicking my pen, getting my legal pad situated on my lap. “So, what can you tell me about this festival?”

“There's a lot to tell,” he says, opening a drawer of his desk. He pulls out a pamphlet and slides it across the desk toward me. “This is the publication we sent out to all of the alumni. And I'm sure you've seen the website.”

I nod.

“Basically, we're looking to put together a signature event for Taylor College . I head up a strategic planning committee for the college, and we determined that that was something we need in order to define and distinguish ourselves.”

“OK, that makes sense. And could you tell me more about this committee?”

“I oversee it along with Tucker, the SA President—I'm sure you know him.”

I nod again. “I know him.”

“Well Tucker's done a lot of the legwork on this, and he'll probably be your best source of information for an article. But from my end, I can tell you about the administrative open house.”

As he goes on, I can't help feeling disappointed. As I began to plan out my interviews and coverage, I had been hoping I could avoid Tucker. I don't want to talk to him again, and I'd rather not send one of my writers to him. But now, there just doesn't seem to be any way around it.

January 30, 2007

“All right, so I'm looking at a big front page photo around here,” I say, drawing in pencil over last week's issue. “Maybe a photo of the groundhog.”

“But we're still adding the groundhog graphic to the logo, right?” Teri asks.

“You think it would be overkill to have both?”

“I just think there'll probably be something more worthy of the front page photo. Maybe one of the bands playing, or at least Lambert giving a speech or something.”

I look over the page. “Yeah, you're probably right.”

“Are you literally going to have your whole section dedicated to the festival?”

“If nothing big comes up.” I nod. “I mean, I figure there'll be a lot for Student Life and Arts to cover too, but with photos and the open house at Vanderberry, there should be enough for me to fill three pages.”

“You know, I heard the Off Beats are singing at the festival,” Teri says. She's not looking at me, still scanning the page.

“Is that right?”

“Yeah, them and the other a cappella groups—they're rounding out the night with a concert in the Vanderberry lobby.”

“Hmm. Probably not going to have much of an audience after everything else going on all day,” I say, skating along the edge of something

“Are you going to keep the national news bit on page three?” she changes the subject.

“I think so. But like I was saying, it all depends on what else I have for the section.”

“All this talk about the festival is great,” Sam chimes in from over at my desk, where he was giving my section a preliminary look-over. “But before you get too excited about the next week, maybe you should figure out a way to fill all this white space in the issue coming out in two days.”

“Still waiting on Carl's article,” I call back. “That'll kill most of it.”

January 31, 2007

“Preston , how are you doing?” Tucker asks looking over his shoulder at me as he sorts through a filing cabinet behind his desk.

“Doing all right,” I say with a nod, glancing at my watch. “Sorry, I'm a few minutes early—”

“Na, that's fine, have a seat.”

“Well thanks,” I can't help remembering the last time we spoke to each other, at the start of the fall semester, when I could barely get him to look at me.

“So you wanted to talk about Groundhog's Day?” Tucker asks, sitting down behind his desk.

“That's right. So what can you tell me?”

Tucker shrugs. “Probably not much that you haven't already heard. The publicity behind this thing has been insane.” He leans back in his chair. “The Student Association is co-sponsoring the bands, and of course, we have a number of student organizations putting on performances or presentations throughout the day. I'm especially looking forward to the fencing club—they're staging a duel on the quad.”

“Nice.”

Tucker nods. “Aside from that, I've been working closely with President Lambert and some officials from academic affairs to pick some presentations based on research and special projects. Then there's the administrative open house—that, and, of course, the groundhog himself.”

“Now all of this sounds great,” I say, finishing up my notes. “But I suppose that an event like this still begs the question—why all of this fuss about Groundhog's Day?”

Tucker chuckles. “I think the philosophy we've been going into this with is ‘why not?'”

February 1, 2007

“I'm telling you it's nothing. I've just been busy, all right?” Chang says in the common room. We had gone to bed maybe a half hour before Claire came knocking on the door. That was about an hour after Chang hung up on Claire's phone call.

“No, it's not all right,” Claire says. She sounds really angry, as I listen from our bedroom. “I thought we had something going. We were having a good time last semester weren't we?”

“Yeah, we had a lot of fun,” Chang says. He sounds tired.

The wind is really blowing outside. I can hear it pushing against our bedroom window, and see the silhouettes of snow flakes, cascading past the lamppost just outside.

“Then what's going on?” Claire asks. “You never want to do anything now. You never return my calls. And don't tell me you've been busy.”

“What do you want me to tell you?”

“I want the truth. I deserve that.” There's a flutter in her voice when she says that. It wasn't there before.

“It's just—I don't think we really fit.”

“Derek, we were just starting to get somewhere—we were just getting to know each other. We were just about to make this something real.”

“Claire, I'm sorry if I—if I led you on, or something—”

“If it's just the commitment thing that's scaring you off, that's OK.” She's definitely crying now. “We can slow things down.”

“Claire—”

“We don't have to be exclusive. Really—”

“Claire, it's over.”

“No—I really like you. I—I just walked over here in a snow storm.”

“Look, you can spend the night on the couch here, or take my bed—”

“Derek, please. Please—” She trails off, and there's a lot of sniffing, and a few shaky, gasping breaths.

Then it's quiet.

“You really can stay,” Chang says.

Claire says something—too quiet to be audible through our door. A minute later, I hear the suite door open, then close. A minute after that, the door to our room opens. I lie as still as I can, eyes closed, like I was asleep the whole time.

February 2, 2007

“You know,” I say over the brim of a styrofoam cup of coffee, “we've got at least three actual photographers from the paper here today. You could relax.”

“I could,” Teri says, centering her camera on the stage in front of us. “But why not have four sets of photos to pull from.” She takes her shot, green glove covered finger pressing down on the button to capture Dave playing up to the crowd. “Besides, wouldn't you want to be sure you have shots like this for your personal collection?”

“Right.” I chuckle, handing the coffee off to Teri, as she lets her camera dangle down from her neck.

“All right,” Dave says from the makeshift stage set up outside Vanderberry, “Twenty degrees out, and we still have an audience. I'd say these folks should give themselves a hand.” I can see Dave's breath take shape in front of him. He started the show in his pea coat, but has since cast it aside, performing in just a hoodie. “I suppose you all deserve something special.”

Dave reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pair of large, black framed glasses. This was a gimmick Dave began playing with at his last show of the fall semester, and now he has it down to a science. He steps up to the mic and puts on the glasses, just as the group launches into a cover of Weezer's “Buddy Holly.” The crowd cheers.

It's a little funny seeing President Lambert and other administrators watching this band that, prior to today, I've only watched at bars or weekend parties. I suppose it's a part of the inclusive environment that Lambert was telling me about, though, trying to tie the college together.

“This whole thing's kind of anticlimactic,” Teri says.

“How do you figure?”

“Well all this fuss is for Groundhog's Day, but they had the actual groundhog out here to see his shadow in the morning, before half the campus even woke up. It just feels like that should have been a bigger part of this whole thing.”

I shrug. “A groundhog can't see his shadow at night.”

Teri rolls her eyes.

*

The open house at Vanderberry was supposed to be one of the bigger attractions of the Groundhog's Day festival, but, as I could have told them, the students weren't too interested and most headed home.

A lot of faces returned for the winter cookout on the quad, where the Eskimo mascot wandered through the crowd, and Mike and his teammates were the guests of honor, talking up their home game for tomorrow night.

The night wraps up in the Vanderberry lobby, with the a cappella show at 10 p.m. The administrators head home once it starts. A lot of people leave after their respective friends are done performing. As the The Off Beats take the stage, the last group to sing, there couldn't be more than thirty people left. Teri says she's tired, and notes that her memory card is full, before heading out.

Especially with Teri gone, I think about sticking around to talk to the girls—to Emma, really. This is actually the first time I've seen her this semester, and in all honesty, the last time I remember talking to her was just after the night I brought her home with me. Seeing her here today, I feel this urge to say something—to put us back on speaking terms.

I guess I miss her.

The girls are all talking to each other, though. I see Claire and think of what I overheard between her and Chang just last night, and think better of wanting to get too close to her. I opt to head to the bathroom, thinking maybe I'll catch up with Emma if she's alone when I get out.

I'm washing my hands when I hear the unmistakable bang.

It's a gun shot.

I turn off the water.

The screams are quick to follow.

February 3, 2006

“You've gotta be shitting me, Presto,” Sam says over the phone. “You're in the bathroom at Vanderberry right now?”

“Yeah. Now can you tell me what's going on?”

I'm standing on top of a toilet in the back corner of the men's room in the Vanderberry lobby. Over the course of the last hour, this is the only spot I've found where I have any kind of signal on my phone. I haven't left the bathroom since I heard the gunshot. After that, all I've been able to hear are screams and yells, a lot of chatter. There was one more gun shot later on.

“There's a guy in the lobby,” Sam says, “and he's holding everyone there hostage. He's got a hand gun and he says he's got a bomb strapped to his chest.”

“You've gotta be kidding me. What does he want?”

“He was talking about what a waste of money the Groundhog's Day festival is when, a year ago, Taylor raised the GPA requirements for students to keep their financial aid, dropping twenty percent of the students who it covered.” He pauses, sort of chuckling “He failed to cite that statistic from your article last year.”

“That's a shame.”

“Anyway, as you might have guessed, this guy—Tim Rush—lost his aid last semester because he was just under the line. He's saying that for all of the times he's visited Vanderberry and written letters, and gotten faculty to speak on his behalf, no one was willing to listen to him.”

“And people are listening now.”

“Exactly. He's got 27 students held hostage—28 counting you.”

“And what's he asking for—readmission?”

“He wants them to overhaul the policy. He said he knows it's too late for him, but he's not leaving until they let the rest of that 20 percent back in. That and he wants Lambert to officially resign.”

“And he thinks this is going to work?”

“He's going on one hour. The police are still trying to talk him down.”

“So if they're in the lobby, do you think I've got a shot of getting down the hall and out the back doors, or should I try to get out the window?” I ask, eyeing the windows, high overhead. I have no idea how I'd reach them.

“You're kidding me right?”

“What?”

“You've got a front row seat the story of the year. You should be covering this.”

“Are you nuts?”

“Have you got a camera?”

“Just the one on my cell phone.”

“That'll do. That's our front page photo.”

“You're expecting me to go out there and take pictures?” I ask. “Fuck that, I'm leaving.”

“Well, just in case this persuades you, I thought I'd let you know that half the hostages are girls from The Off Beats.”