Wise Men

Chapter 3

He did indeed call. I could hear the smoozing a mile away. There didn't seem to be any developments in the case for it had been several days since he called us back. In order to give my roommate some privacy as his parents called again, I leaned on the doorway outside, drinking a diet coke and sporting a new jacket I had found at the Salvation army. Vi came by  on her morning jog to invite Revelin and me to a celebratory dinner. She frowned, shifting the thin sheen of sweat on her face, and said mid invitation:

“Your hair is such a mess. Do you ever wash it?” She proceeded to run her fingers through my unruly locks in an attempt to tame them. I grimaced and brushed her hands away.

“What time did you say?”

She smiled. “Eight tonight.” She clasped her hands in front of her and giggled. Her red ponytail bounced behind her. I never knew how she could stay so chipper. “I put the reservation under Lesage to get us the table. They’re booked every night.”

“I’ll do my best to convince him to come,” I promised. Still holding her hands away from my hair. I had tried to comb it this morning, but it never stayed put unless I weighed it down with a bucket of gel and a handful of oil. Maybe I’d have liked these unruly locks if I had a pair of light eyes to contrast them—it wouldn’t have hurt dating either—but I saw the world through a pair of boring, brown orbs. Vi said it made me look dark, especially when I wore a matching attire of black, brown, and dark green, or, in other words, more than half of the clothes I owned.

“You’re going to have to dress nice,” she warned me. She scowled down at my clothes. She was one to talk in her jogging sweats and a pair of bright pink ear pods blasting punk music in her ears. At least her face was void of glitter eye shadow and brink red lipstick.

“I’ll take something Revelin owns,” I told her. I didn’t think I had anything better than my newest band t-shirt, and that was only because it didn’t have a hole or stain somewhere on it.

“Y’know, you’re going to wish you had some nice clothes when a prissy rich girl looks in your direction.”

I rolled my eyes. If I had a mother, Vi would sound just like her. “I’m also going to wish I’m not drinking my wine like it’s a shot and wiping food off of my face with my sleeve.” There was no room for manners in the college cafeteria, and I was not the worst offender.

Vi laughed and murmured a hasty good bye as she continued her jog down the hall. I watched her go, a smile on my face. Revelin opened the door a moment later just to see her for a split second before she took a left.

“Are you two plotting to max out my credit cards?” he asked. He leaned on the door, pulled out a cigarette. He offered me one, which I rejected as usual. We weren't allowed to smoke in the dorms, but he had already talked to the guard on this floor and slipped him a twenty. He flipped a lighter from his pocket and lit the cigarette. He only smoked when he was tense. There was a slight downward curve to his lips that pointed toward a less than pleasant mood.

“Yeah, you game?”

“Il Castello,” he said the name of the restaurant before he exhaled two plumes of thick smoke from his nostrils. “I didn’t know you liked those high class Italian knock offs.”

“Only you would know if it was a knock off or not.” He looked a dragon, breathing fire in misty, grey increments. The tip of the cigarette glowed forebodingly.

“My parents have a tab there.” He exhaled again, puffing hot smoke between his lips. “The caviar can be on their Visa, the sherry on their monthly bill.”

I blinked, albeit surprised that convincing him had been so easy that I did not even have to tell him we were going to Il Castello. He didn’t even seem to mind that Vi had been the one to invite us.