Basic Anatomical Parts

Big Blues and Pearly Whites

I looked up at the skyscrapers shearing the clouds, prodding them for another torrential downpour. The ground already boasted a black slick from the previous night’s rain, and puddles lingered in every pothole and gutter.

I glanced enviously at the woman flouncing along the brownstones beside me – vain enough for heels and pantyhose with the promised rain, and clutching a large, yellow umbrella in her meticulously manicured hands.

I groaned inwardly, and pulled my thin jacket tighter around my shoulders. I reached the front doors of the administrative building as the first fat drops began to fall. I shivered slightly in the new warmth as I looked around and locked eyes with the woman sitting at the nearest desk.

She was older, with graying blond hair, bright vermillion glasses, and green eyes – a thick layer of glass and crows’ feet. She smiled warmly and pushed aside an outdated carbon copy pad. “Well, hello dear. What can I do for you?”

I blinked, struggling to gather my thoughts, “Right. Yes. I don’t have a schedule. I mean, I have a schedule – I just don’t have it with me.” I backpedaled quickly. “I signed up for fall semester a couple of weeks ago, but I forgot to print out my schedule, and then I got locked out of my student account because I forgot my password, and it was this whole thing.”

She held up both wrinkled hands to hush me. "Well I can sure get you a copy of your schedule for now, but you'll have to go to IT Support to correct any issues with your account later.”

“Oh. Well, thank you.”

“It's no problem, sweetie," she said, turning toward the dusty desktop, "What's the last name?"

“Kobolds.”

Her red-tipped fingers clicked and clacked across the keys, summoning up an invisible file with my name on it.

“Ms. Kobolds,” she sang, “here you are. Oh!” She abandoned her harmonic. “What is this first name,
dear?”

I tried to smile amiably, like it wasn’t the millionth time I’d had to expound on some aspect of my name or another. “Jaidea.”

“Oh, what a pretty name." She leaned towards me, fingers splayed across the mass of forms and miscellaneous papers cluttering her desk. "I just love those unique ones that you don’t hear every day. I hope you thanked your parents good for that one. It’s gorgeous!”

I forced my lips into the slightest of up-curves. “Oh, every day." A forced laugh dribbled over my lips. "So, that schedule…?”

“Oh yes!” she exclaimed, nearly leaping from her swivel chair. “Silly me!”

A paper jam and a printer out of ink later, Mrs. Holloway – as I later learned was her name – gave me an all-invasive hug and assured me that I’d love it there at big ol’ NYU. But her optimism fell on deaf ears.

It wasn’t just this university. It was the whole thing – the whole reason I was there to begin with.

I curled my shoulders in as I stepped out into the rain to make my way across campus for my first class.

The broom closet of a room I found myself in was almost empty – a smattering of people in the back, and two stragglers on the outskirts. I dropped my bag with a thunk, and slid into a seat, eyes moving subconsciously to the clock hanging above the lectern.

An hour and fifteen minutes. I could do an hour and fifteen minutes.

With mere seconds to spare, the rest of the class fled in, ushered by a middle-aged professor with elbow patches. I reached blindly for my bag, fingers fumbling through books and loose papers. The professor stood and surveyed his student body—a likeness of Robert Klein in every sense—receding gray hair, average height, a little heavy, and a strong but warm voice; “Good morning, people.”

The people grunted in response.

“I am Dr. Farrell. Welcome to English 227—one of my favorite classes to teach, because you’re all English and Communications majors, and you all want to be here.” He picked up a stack of papers from his desk and began dividing it throughout the rows.

“This class is very simple. As conveyors of the sacred word, we must be able to express and communicate in the most effective of ways. You must know what you want to say, how you want to say it, and the difference between the two.” He moved to the chalkboard mounted behind the podium. “Playwrights are prime examples of this, as they must convey the bulk of their message purely in dialogue, rather than in body language, which we will also discover this semester is inexplicably efficacious. Give me the names of some Elizabethan writers. I realize it’s been a while for most of you, but I’m sure your tenth grade English teacher beat them into you.”

There were a few scattered Marlowe’s and Jonson’s, but the brunt of the class murmured ‘Shakespeare’.

It was then that I noticed that the walls were white-painted cement bricks.

“And some of their works?” he asked, etching the dead men’s names in white.

I sat up a little straighter, craning my neck around to see what other prison-like effects this room had. The one solitary window didn’t help matters, but at least there were no bars over it. It was New York, but we were college students; our greatest animal instinct was fornication, and caging us certainly wasn't going to put a damper on that one.

Farrell was right, though: High school English teachers are notorious for overdoing Shakes and his pals—four solid years of it—so I felt justified in tuning him out and reverting my attention back to that lonely little window. Not that it offered much of a view, but even counting bricks on the side of the next building over was more stimulating than this.

“Homework, class!” Farrell said, interrupting screeching chairs and fleeing students sixty-three minutes later.

I pulled myself up in my chair, resisting the urge to check for stray drool.

“I want you to brainstorm ideas for your first assignment and be prepared to present a brief overview during our next meeting.”

I shoved a book back into my bag, annoyed at the aspect of a real assignment after the first day of classes. Enraged by my roughness, it took a suicidal leap, dragging with it a few incensed pens and papers.

“Fuck,” I cursed under my breath. I stooped wearily, reaching out with heavily ring-clad fingers, but quicker hands than mine darted out before me. I looked up at the man, blond hair and blue eyes, handing over my renegade belongings. His eyes flitted over my face.

“Thanks,” I muttered.

He smiled, big blues and pearly whites. “Not a problem.”

I’ll claim now that it was the accent combined so unexpectedly with those fair, innocent features—high cheek bones and fluid movements—that caught me off guard and resulted in that which was soon to come, but it was really something so simply beyond either of our control it seems petty and ridiculous to even attempt to hold accountable: basic anatomical parts.

His smile shrunk and grew again as I broke his gaze.

One more class today. One more class and I was home-free.

...Sort of.

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