FD #2: Freshman Lies

Still an A-minus. I like the character development in KC and in Lauren. KC is not the nicest person, but the author shows what makes her tick (unlike Campus Fever, in which, with one exception, a bitch is a bitch and can never be redeemed). Winnie makes me cringe a bit, but I like the storylines with KC’s business project, Faith’s theater work, and of course, Lauren trying to establish herself as a writer!

KC is the only one telling lies in this. IIRC, the titles were not always indicators of the storyline.

Now we’re starting to see some growth. Or at least the seeds of it.

KC really does not like guys coming on to her. The first chapter has her going almost full Medea on a guy who’s just trying to introduce himself: “SO BUZZ OFF, BUZZ!” and later, blowing up at a guy over a near-fenderbender that was largely her fault. Girl’s got issues!

And so does Lauren. She’s still going to join Tri Beta because she doesn’t know what else to do. Naturally, Marielle gets assigned as her Big Sister, to take her through rush. Lauren takes the other girls to the Blue Whale restaurant (fine dining, if you can’t tell by the name) in her BMW, which she lets KC drive. which immediately leads to a close call with a vintage Corvette (and its arrogant driver; more on him later). And that doesn’t stop Lauren from extending the offer for KC to borrow the BMW to go job hunting, and to cancel the debt for the dress KC charged in the last installment!

So what does Lauren have to offer besides money and material things? Well, her writing. She takes an essay she wrote to the office of the U of S Weekly Journal, where she meets Dash Ramirez, assistant editor. Unshaven, chain-smoking, bandana-and-ancient-t-shirt wearing…and unimpressed by Lauren or her essay. But she insists, so he assigns her a piece on Dorm Life. “Three hundred words. Typed. Double-spaced. No globs of whiteout bigger than a cockroach.”

She’s got a week and a bit to work in this, so she interviews the Tri Beta pledges, and everyone in her dorm. And she’s terrible at interviewing, so no one has anything interesting to say…but they do appreciate the incentives: free pizza and small gifts like nail polishes. Then, while she’s struggling to write something, she overhears some other girls talking about her. The interviews put them on the spot. “I just sat there eating her pizza!” The thank-you notes (!) were over the top. Sure, she’s nice, but jeez. So Lauren goes back and pounds out a cri de coeur about how dorm life makes her feel so alone. Back to the Weekly office, where Dash finds it acceptable (and since old habits die hard, she almost gives him her expensive pen), and it looks like she’ll be back there again.

Not much happening with Winnie, so I’ll get that out of the way. She’s trying to get back on track with Melissa, but Melissa doesn’t eat pizza when she’s in training and doesn’t make small talk when she’s studying. She’s dropped two classes without signing up for anything else, and the administrator is not impressed by her “life will work itself out” philosophy. (Also, while she’s in his office, she’s fiddling with her fishnet bag, which has plastic doodads sewn onto it. Like much about Winnie, it’s quirky for the sake of it, and utterly impractical.)

She and Josh are talking again, and they have a late night at the Zero Bagel, which causes her to nod off in Russian History. So the next time Josh wants to hang out, she tells him, truthfully, that she has to study. Good going, I say; keep him interested!

Faith is immersed in the theater department. Not a whole lot of technical detail, but she’s organized, pays attention, and is not afraid to go up on the catwalk. Hammond comes to her in a panic: a TV reporter is coming to rehearsal the next night, so they have to pull an all-nighter to get ready. Naturally, this lets down a lot of barriers. Not that night, but a couple nights later, they go to a tavern. Beer for Hammond, who is legal; wine for Faith, who doesn’t like it much, but I wouldn’t blame the wine for the fact that once they get in his car, they start kissing passionately.

So what’s wrong with that? Well, Christopher has a girlfriend at another school. They may be engaged, depending on who you ask. KC and Brooks found out about this first: Brooks told Faith, defiantly, but the heart wants what it wants.

And what of KC? On the first day of Intro to Business, the class has to form into groups to do research. The driver of the ‘Vette is in this class too. His name is Steven Garth, he’s the heir to Garth Petroleum, and he pays off another student to switch groups so he can be in KC’s group. “Capitalism in action,” he calls it. KC can’t let him have the last word, so she suggests, instead of just doing research, why not start a one-time-only small business?

Soccer shirts is what she comes up with. There’s an all-dorm intramural soccer league, but they’re so new they don’t have uniforms. KC and Steven go to a clothing factory, do some negotiating, and they’ve got a deal to get so many jerseys made, with a discount, and so forth…and of course, this leads to them hugging and not squabbling.

Which is good, but what’s a lot less good is what happens when KC opens a business account at the local bank. They offer her a credit card. Oh lordy. Banks and credit companies really did a full-court press on my generation; they were setting up booths in spring-break towns, for heaven’s sake. KC is as susceptible as anyone else. Maybe more so: when they hand her the card with “Kahia Cayanne Angeletti” on it, she feels proud of her name for the first time. Right: because now she has buying power.

And of course she abuses it. First she buys a blazer that’s just under the $200 limit. Then she sees a pair of shoes, without which the blazer just won’t work, yanno? Then she snaps up a bunch of accessories and office supplies, and the charges go through at the store, but of course, when she goes to deposit the soccer-jersey payments, she’s told she’s over the limit on the card, and has to set up a payment plan.

And who should overhear this but Courtney Conner (remember, the president of Tri Beta). She still wants to be on good terms with KC, and offers the helpful advice that if she pays it off right away, they’ll raise her credit limit. So, not wanting to lose face in front of Courtney, KC pays off the card…with the cash that was supposed to go into the business account. Fraud and embezzlement! Guess that’s what’s really important to learn when you’re a business major.

Oh, and there’s another penny to drop. See, Steven thought that KC was the owner of the BMW, and that her finances were on that level. They’re at the Blue Whale, and KC is already sitting on a tack because of her guilty conscience, when Lauren rolls up. She’s going to have to ask for her car back, since KC was only supposed to use it for job hunting. KC runs out, humiliated, and when Steven catches up with her the next day, he wants answers, she gets defensive, and it ends in passionate kissing.

So, pretty good so far. The characters’ storylines intertwine realistically: KC gets the soccer-jersey idea from Winnie, who is talking to distract Faith from thoughts of Brooks; after Faith’s all-nighter, she crashes in KC’s quiet dorm instead of her own noisy one, and for some reason Brooks comes in. I will say, I don’t think Lauren’s article sounds publication-worthy: the topic was dorm life, not her life. But I like other details, like the handwritten sign on the vending machine that says “poison” in one handwriting and “lighten up” in another, and Melissa typing on an “old” manual typewriter. Also Winnie thinking of Melissa as a brick wall and herself as a Christmas ornament: not a bad analogy. And this being a continuing story, KC still owes that money! And Lauren won’t help her out, so we’ll see in the next installment how KC deals with it.

One more thing. This edition has a sneak preview of Horror High #1: Mr. Popularity. Goodreads tells me this was an eight-book series, probably meant to have a limited run, since the last book is called Final Curtain. But when I first searched for it, another series with the same name came up, by Caroline B. Cooney. (Any relation to Linda A? I can’t find anything by Googling or Wiki-ing.)