Kindling. Chapter 7: Colleen and Connor
The Orme School, Arizona — October 1982
Previously, we got insight to why the Kindle hadn’t been backed up the night before Kelly and Scott left it behind.
The first eight chapters of Kindling will release to all subscribers on Tuedays and Thursdays each week. Starting with Chapter 9, only paid subscribers can see past the preview.
Chapter 7: Colleen and Connor
The Orme School, Arizona — October 1982
“You’re lucky.” Connor said to Colleen. “So many students get dropped in the middle of the desert and hate it. They count the days until they can go home, but their parents have bigger plans. Or they just find they can’t parent.” He paused. Did he just tread somewhere he shouldn’t have? “But then for some of us, the ranch is a five-star resort compared to the home situation.”
Colleen stopped to pick a rock out from her sandal. “Have you been here long?”
“Third year here. I’m a junior. It’s good here. It’s my home,” said Connor. “Coach Miller, the Dean you just met, he’s a fine man. He’ll watch out for you. Ms. Davis, she’s a bit tough, but she loves us.”
They continued to Elliott House to the top floor, one floor up in a dorm with eight rooms. Colleen’s room was one of only four in Girls Camp that had a balcony. All the other dorm rooms were repurposed cowboy bunk houses of the working ranch. Their low-slung roofs, adobe walls, and wooden slats for doors appeared rustic at best.
She silently thanked her dad for selecting Elliott House. She was glad to be on the second floor, safely away from the rattlesnakes that plagued both her home in California and here in the Arizona desert.
Connor opened the front door to Elliott House and threw one bag over his shoulder. He grabbed the handles of the other two and climbed the stairs two at a time. An impressive act. Colleen noticed.
The door to her room was open. He entered the bright space and dropped her bags next to the closet.
She followed behind him. The room smelled of fresh paint. Connor cranked open a window and pulled the repaired cord of the ceiling fan. Two wooden bed frames held twin, sagging mattresses. Two simple desks squared with identical wooden chairs. Two wooden bookshelves held two black lamps. Two four-drawer dressers. White cinder block walls. Duplicates of everything simplified her choices.
She looked around the room and breathed. The room was rough, but it’d be her space, free from parental judgment. She could be who she wanted to be here.
Her roommate hadn’t arrived yet.
“First rule of dorm life: stake your claim on the good mattress now,” Connor said. “Also, move the room around in a way you like it before your roomie gets here. Don’t wait and be nice.”
Weird advice, Colleen thought. Shouldn’t I wait? At least Connor’s Irish accent sounded sexy.
Connor stopped at the door. Her name was written on a card slotted into the brass holder, Colleen Collins.
“Collins,” he said. “That’s Irish. Huh. I wonder if we’re cousins?”
He skipped down the stairs before she could answer.
Colleen took Connor’s advice and screeched the beds across the linoleum to position under the windows. A spider scurried up the wall. Rather than scream and expect her dad to help, she trapped the spider in a plastic cup, slid a piece of paper between the spider and the cinder block, and released it from the balcony. She returned to her room.
The closet held sixteen hangers. She claimed eight. Now, I need tunes, she thought. She had packed so quickly when her dad finally gave her the go-ahead, she couldn’t remember what was where. She opened all three bags, found her radio, plugged it in and immediately heard Joan Jett belting out, “Leather and Lace.” That’s better.
She easily filled the eight hangers. With her remaining clothes, she neatly folded them and placed them on the liners she put in the bottom of the drawers. In the bathroom that she would share with the two gals next door, she claimed a spot for her toothbrush, makeup remover, mascara, and deodorant. She placed her shampoo and conditioner in the shower, which was old with broken tiles and a bent drain lid, but at least it was clean.
Back in her room, she smoothed the shimmering white 1000-thread Egyptian cotton sheets on the sagging mattress. Really, mom?, thought Colleen. The extravagance felt wildly out of place on a desert ranch. She hung her favorite picture of the hiking trail behind her house north of San Diego. Hopefully there’d be some good hiking here in the desert, too.
She haphazardly stacked the pieces of her luggage in the closet, spilling over into the other half of her roommate’s space. She’d have to deal with that later.
Once unpacked, she returned to the balcony where she’d released the spider. A hammock hung in the corner. She approached it, wondering what the elegant way would be to get into it. She turned her back to the hammock, held one of its edges, and gently placed her bottom into the drape while simultaneously twisting and lifting her legs parallel to the hammock. She failed. It flipped her in two seconds, plopping her on the dirty balcony floor.
“Dammit,” she said, hoping no one witnessed her lack of grace. Her mother would have been appalled.
She wiped off the dirt and tried again. This time with success. In the distance beyond the cottonwood trees, she could barely see the other students continuing to arrive. She wondered where Connor had gone.
“I see you found my hammock,” said a voice at the slider to the balcony.
Colleen turned to find a short, fair-skinned student with straight black hair cut in a bob. She looked about the same age as Colleen, seventeen, wearing white athletic shorts and a red Hello Kitty t-shirt. “I’m Ayumi, your roommate. Welcome newbie. Want to help me get my stuff out of storage from the summer? Or are you going to hog the balcony all afternoon?”
Next: we’re back in Venice, where Marcus and Leenie are boarding a vaporetto into the city.
Author Notes:
I called The Orme School home for three years during high school. Up Elliott One was my room during my senior year. While Colleen meets only one spider in Kindling, we had to deal with a bevy of critters almost everyday, including javelinas and coyotes! I loved the school.
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