Students stir excitement into havoc with catch-up chatter and questions about classroom locations and curriculum. The scene drums up dark memories of my long forgotten youth, and they move me more than the scents that overwhelm.
I finally elbow my way into the registration office. The hall noise winks out as quickly as the office door closes behind me, replaced by smells and sounds of a functioning workplace. Phones chime, keyboards click, and the pages of old books and fresh milled paper fuse with scents of cleaning fluids. Human imprints waft from the walls around me.
Staff chatter with students vying for immediate attention, and endless movement in a room that is too warm further threaten the beast in me. I feel the wendigo attempt to surface, take a deep breath, and pull the animal deep inside me. If I give in to my hunger, the room will reek of blood, death, and destruction in a matter of minutes. And when I finish in here, I would not be able to contain my desire for more blood; the need to be shrouded in death would spread into the halls and upon those walking there.
As I move toward a stout woman who has a head covered with riotous yellow hair, I catch her attention and she stares at me through muddy brown eyes, forces a smile, but continues a conversation on the cell phone pushed against her ear.
I tune out all other noise and listen to the woman’s voice as my eyes wander the two-tone gray walls.
“I left the envelope with the check on the table in the hall—just like I said I would—not my fault you left without it. Summer’s over, buddy. I got work to do, too. You want it, go home and get it. I’m not bringing it to you.” She pauses.
In a statement painted on the wall behind the counter, two words catch my attention and pulse red on the gray wall: Spartans Will.
I will myself to stay calm.
“Uh-huh, you too. See you at dinner.” The lady with yellow curls thumbs the cell off and stuffs it into a pocket on her airy rayon trousers. “Can I help you?”
“I certainly hope so, Ms. Moe Holt,” I say, reading her name tag.
Moe gives me a weary smile.
“I’m here for my sister, CeCe. She forgot her driver’s license when she came in to pick up her schedule Friday. It’s supposed to be here in the office.”
“Not that I know of, but if it’s here, there’ll be a note on her registration information,” Ms. Holt says, fingers poised on a computer keyboard. “Full name?”
“CeCe, that’s spelled C E C E. The Cs are caps. Last name Graham, like the cracker.”
Moe’s fingers move effortlessly over the keys, pause, click, pause. Then she looks up at me. “That was capitol C, E, capitol C, E, and G R A H A M, right?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say.
She gives me a quick smile at the respectful tag I use to address her, and then back to business. “You wouldn’t happen to have her social security number, would you?”
I shake my head and hope she doesn’t ask for a birthday. I would hate to show just how unrespectful a wendigo can be. I can feel the curvature of my spine shifting.
“Address?”
That I had, thanks to my sleuthing. “8060 Joy Haven Road in Leesburg, Florida.”
More clicking, another frown. Both hands relax on the keyboard. “Sweetie, your sister is not registered at Michigan State. I even tried nixing the second capital C, and then tossing in two Es. You sure it wasn’t U of M in Ann Arbor? Hope you didn’t come too far. Maybe you should call your parents before you drive the sixty-five plus miles to Ann Arbor.”
Well, that went well. At least I know CeCe is not here. “Can you call the University of Michigan’s registration office?”
She returns my audacity with amused impatience. “Honey, its eight forty-five on the first day of the fall semester. I can’t even take a bathroom break right now, never mind call U of M for you.”
I want to remind her she took a personal call less than five minutes ago and angrily educate her in the art of multitasking. Instead, I drum up a little brotherly frustration—face contorted in embarrassed anger—and I say, “I’m gonna kill the idiot.”
I hope I’m not prophesizing.
Moe shakes out a laugh, turns on her Birkenstocks, and says, “If it was me, I’d tell her to pick up her driver’s license herself.”
No shit, I think, if only she really was my sister.
I’m grateful the woman didn’t kick me out the door. With all the security nowadays I was lucky to get the information I did. I scoot into the hall and pull out my cell phone. I’m off to U of M, but not without a call to Mrs. Graham.
Jane