[REG] Winter Solstice (Corinna, Jesse, Dylan)

[Shazari]

There were advantages to having a schoolteacher for a parent. Most of these came in the form of chauffeuring -- her mother was home by 4:00 every day, and all day on summer and winter break, so Corinna rarely had to worry about not having a ride somewhere. But other advantages came at Christmastime and again at the end of the school year, when enthusiastic parents of the third-graders her mother was responsible for would send in presents. Twice a year they had impersonal bath and shower gel sets and more scented candles than a person could use in six months' time.

In this case, she had a two-gallon tin of popcorn in her arms -- a third of it regular popcorn, a third cheese popcorn, and a third caramel corn, with cardboard dividers between each. The halls of Hillworth Grammar were austere, gray brick, and the only posters hanging up said things like "PUNCTUALITY" -- but some of the residents had their doors propped open, and a few even dared to play their stereos. One or two saw her walking by with her giant popcorn tin, and called things from their doorways. Given the abhorrent state of affairs at this institution, Corinna decided the generous thing to do would be to ignore it.

She'd had more trouble than she expected just getting admitted. Hillworth was apparently about two blinks away from being a military institution, and a gendered one, at that -- she'd had to make her case (her case involved yelling, but not unjustly) to three different people before they would let her past the gate or into the dormitories.

It was some relief when Corinna found herself, at last, standing outside room 303. The door had a gray face with a peephole, and someone had taken a sharpie marker and drawn a figure around the peephole, so that it appeared as though a naked figure was bent over -- the peephole was at the center of the figure's presented rear end.

She knocked.  

[candy lamb]

Corinna had gotten enough wolf-whistles and on-the-spot offers in the Hillworth senior dorm corridors to fill about six building sites. She ignored them all with gravitas. It was still uncomfortable standing out there with her gigantic tin and no door opening -- wait, there it went.

The boy standing in front of her was patently not her boyfriend, in fact her boyfriend's utter opposite. The Hillworth uniform made every single person look like they had come out of the casting closet of a ripped-off Hogwarts, and this dark-skinned, green-eyed boy wore it particularly louchely: sleeves rolled up, tie untidy, green woolly vest abandoned. His eyebrows had shot up in his forehead.

"Well, ho ho ho," he said. "This looks like I'm having a Merry Christmas, finally. Someone up there likes me." He leant in the doorway. He was someone who leant in the doorway. Ugh. "Is that a giant tin or are you just happy to see me."

Obviously he thought this joke was funny, because he laughed at it -- but before Cora could respond to this incredibly witty sally, the light of recognition shone in his eyes. "Wait a second. Wait a second." He was looking at her, leaning over. "Wait. I know you."

This had not been the most amazingly cordial or polite beginning. "You do."

Another two boys passing gave the requisite comments on Corinna's figure, how she filled her uniform, and how they could spend time filling her uniform. One of the boys even raised his hand for what would inevitably be a butt-slap -- in a show of misplaced chivalry, the roomie immediately shot out and shoved the guy. "Hey. Hey. ******** watch it. Watch it, you a*****e, what do you think you're doing? ********, you douchebag." Was there a reason Cora was getting this knightly treatment? "That's Rasmussen's girl. d**k-stick. Yeah, get out of here, Jesus, I hate you, go away."

Rasmussen's girl was an annoyance when you were Corinna Grant, not some kind of concubine associated with Dylan Rasmussen. But all three were busy exchanging brief hate cusses. Dylan's roomie finally came back, and, thank God, apparently didn't expect gratefulness or thanks for his act -- he just bowed and made a slightly sardonic movement for her to come into the room. "This is Casa Alvarez-Rasmussen. It's a bit shitty for a Meadowview girl. You probably won't like it. Probably ain't seen a wall with no wallpaper in your whole entire life."

A lot of stuff had, in short, happened at once.  

[Shazari]

It was not that Corinna was ungrateful for Jesse's intervention, certainly not that she'd wanted her a** grabbed -- it was simply that for Cora, doing the right thing was a person's civic duty, like voting in the primaries or serving on a jury, no thanks required. Generally she never expected thanks for these things, either -- they were simply correct human behaviors.

The inside of the room looked a lot like the outside hallways, and the outside of the building, and the grounds: it was all colored in gray. There was a single sink by the door, with a mirror-front medicine cabinet over it. The walls were gray cinderblock, with a single, suicide-proofed window that only opened about an inch high. Beneath the window was a radiator, and on either side of the radiator, a twin bed. Each bed had a green plaid blanket over white sheets; it all looked military issue.

"No, actually," she answered, "I've seen places like this before. I stood in line at the DMV for two hours once, and I'm pretty sure they used the same decorator." The two beds looked basically the same, but without hesitating, Corinna identified the one on the right as being Dylan's Bed and crossed over to sit on it. The popcorn tin was balanced on her lap, and she folded her arms atop it.

Cora took another moment to study the room and its sparse furnishings. Her eyes fell on a movie poster that had been taped up over one of the desks. It was Russell Crowe in sepia tones, and the old Gladiator poster had jagged white lines across it like some kind of strange lightning bolts. This made no sense to Corinna at first, till she realized they were the sort of lines you got on a glossy picture when it had been creased and unfolded again. The poster more or less looked like it had been fished out of a dumpster and repurposed. Either it was covering up a hole in the wall where Jesse and Dylan were slowly digging to freedom, or someone who lived in this room really liked Gladiator. "I liked that movie," she said as an icebreaker, "but it was tragic."  

[candy lamb]

"Know what's tragic?" Jesse had flopped down on the other bed, arms beneath his head -- well, one arm beneath his head, the other gesturing. Jesse was a gesturer. He was currently doing a large, grandiose movement described by most theater students as 'milking the giant cow'. "Life is tragic. The DMV is tragic. This school is ******** tragic. Gladiator is about, is about." Was he always this full-on? "Husband to a murdered wife, father to a murdered son. -- Life is terrible, life is about getting kicked. It's about what you do when you're kicked down. Or what you do when you see someone getting kicked."

But the arm was back and he looked comfortably over at her. He had nice green eyes and he was sentimental over Russell Crowe films. He couldn't have been that bad a person. "So," he said, after the awkward pause. "You're Dylan's girl. Huh." More awkward pause. "He has you as his cellphone wallpaper."

Romance.

"You got a sister? Nah, just messing with you."

Unbeknownst to her, Jesse was trying really hard.  

[Shazari]

It was pure luck that not all Russell Crowe posters were born equal. While the Gladiator poster made a compelling demonstration of badassery on the part of Russell Crowe, the posters that had been issued for 3:10 to Yuma had prominently featured one of three options: Ben Foster's backside, Ben Foster striking a saucy gunfighter pose, and Russell Crowe and Christian Bale making smoldering faces at each other (presumably). This was lucky not because it was awkward to engage in a lengthy discussion about Ben Foster's backside (though it would have been), but because while Corinna Grant had liked Gladiator in all its tragedy, she had emphatically not liked 3:10 to Yuma. There would have been no stopping her from expounding upon her dislike for 3:10 to Yuma, or eventually comparisons of 3:10 to Yuma with High Noon. Fortunately, instead the poster Jesse had hanging was Gladiator, and it seemed they both could agree that life was about what you did when you saw someone being kicked.

"I do have an older sister," she answered, even though Jesse had clarified that he was 'messing with her,' "but she's married and lives in Prospect." Prospect was about 30 minutes drive straight north of Destiny City, but it might as well have been a world away. It was an old steel workers' town, and people there still remained insular and community-focused, and about four or five years behind the times.

"How did you end up in a place like this?" she asked out of curiosity. Dylan hadn't talked about his roommate in too much depth, but she wondered often about the boy he was living with, what sort of person he was. The answer she hoped for was 'I ended up here because I accidentally killed a man while protecting a skinny kid from gang violence.' Something like Nicholas Cage in Con Air. Such was Corinna Grant and the audacity of hope.  

[candy lamb]

Jesse was not one for lying, or else his story would have absolutely been that he accidentally killed a man while protecting a skinny kid from gang violence. Maybe three skinny kids. Skinny kids with HIV+ on the streets of Philadelphia. But instead he grimaced, and said a bit aggressively: "I'm poor, okay? We're not all in here because we set fire to a goddamn cat, or, -- or stalked somebody's a**. Some of us are in here because we're just poor." Beat. "Or Dylan. You know, wrong place, wrong time."

Yes, because being caught high one too many times was 'wrong place, wrong time'. Jesse obviously had some rose-coloured glasses where Dylan Rasmussen's e habit was concerned. He'd probably even parrot Dylan. That stuff shouldn't even be illegal! This is bullshit!

At least he didn't have a Proof Of Life poster.

"We got one guy down the hallway who crashed his car into a creche while totally ******** up on Coors." This was, er, fascinating information. "Me? I just got screwed up by being bumped in and out of foster care and my nana's trailer. There. That's my life story, have fun with it." Nana, not abuela. Jesse had shame issues.  

[Shazari]

Cora hadn't thought about it. Meadowview was a public school, and for her, that was where the story had always ended: everyone could go to a public school, even poor kids. It was public. Some kids got subsidized lunches. Some kids got free lunches. No one needed a scholarship. That was it.

What hadn't occured to her was that Hillworth was a boarding school. The sort of teenager like Jesse apparently was, who didn't have the money for breakfast or dinner or toothpaste much less central heating, was probably scraping out some kind of existence by living in this glorified jail cell. At least all the light bulbs were working. At least they had desks and paper and white sheets. She hadn't thought about it -- and that made her so embarrassed that it was a while before she could think about anything to say.

"This is popcorn," she finally settled on, rapping her knuckles against the lid of the tin. "I only brought one, for Dylan -- but one of the sections is the powdered-cheese kind, and he hates those, so you can help yourself. I mean, if you're a powdered-cheese popcorn person." Cora extended the popcorn tin in the space between the two beds.  

[candy lamb]

Jesse took it. "Thanks," he said, and he wedged open the tin to toss a piece of powdered-cheese popcorn into his mouth -- powdered-cheese popcorn didn't exactly fill him with joy everlasting, but it was a gift, and he knew what to do with gifts. She was being classy. Trust Dylan to have a classy girlfriend. She didn't look his type, actually -- she was pretty, but she was kind of serious-looking in person; he'd assumed she would be. Dylanesque. Have eyes that kind of made you want to look at what he was looking at. He could look at things in a new way; Dylan could make a ******** brick be interesting.

Eh, she probably thought that too.

"So. Fill me in." He was wedging the lid back on. "Pretty white girl, no wonder they didn't frisk this thing for pot -- where'd you and Rasmussen meet?"  

[Shazari]

Dylan had strange, violet eyes that were otherworldly, sort of fey, like they weren't constrained to viewing just reality, just Earth: he looked at things like they weren't just bricks. He had an anti-gravity gaze.

His girlfriend, on the other hand, had gravity and a ton of it. Her gaze was like a tractor beam when it caught onto something, locked and unrelenting. It was as though she had you pinned like a butterfly to the board, and wouldn't let you go till she had scoured you down to your vulnerable truths and judged you on them. You would be weighed; you would be measured; you would be found wanting. That was how she looked at the gray cinderblock walls, at the too-thin blankets on the beds, as though to say: Cinderblock walls, thin blankets, you are on notice.

She put a hand out to make sure heat was coming out of the radiator: it was, thinly. "I'll get you better blankets than this," she said aloud. "These aren't winter living conditions." She said it with absolute certainty, like she was going to snap her fingers and feather comforters would appear at the foot of each bed. Jesse wondered if all pretty white girls who never questioned where their meals came from were like this.

"Dylan and I met," she returned to his question, "at a summer carnival. There was this -- you know, this hall of mirrors -- funhouse mirrors. And a room where they circle all around you and you're supposed to have trouble finding your way out. And there was a fog machine, you couldn't see your feet or anything... He was there with another group. And I saw him, and I just knew." Cora folded her hands back over the tin. "He bought me caramel corn."  

[candy lamb]

Well now, that was ******** romantic, wasn't it. I just knew. It was spoken simply, but with the same gravity that Corinna apparently gave everything -- a weighty reality to it, as though things such as fate and destiny were real, important and moreover the whole truth. Nothing but the truth. Jesse found himself liking her in a weird way -- she was kind of like some knightly chick in a film (what was that one with Heath Ledger in it?) who made proclamations. That was her first proclamation. Better blankets.

"You're cute," he said, with affectionate patronization. "Don't worry your head about it. Seriously. Dylan doesn't even have to steal my blanket any more." Dylan felt the cold a lot. Dylan had sometimes gone to bed wearing his uniform, until Jess had just -- given him a ******** blanket. If people knew how soft he was over his roomie they would have been laughing at his a** forever. As it was they called Rasmussen gay about six times per week. Shut your ******** mouth, he'd say. He got a girl. Unlike you, limpdick.

And now here was the girl and she was important, grave and judgmental about blankets.

"Trust Dylan," he was saying, finding the words came awkwardly out his mouth. "I buy a girl I met at the carnival candy corn, she'll think I'm a carny. That's kind of romantic, huh?"

Dylan had an anti-gravity gaze. Corinna had a gravity-gaze. And Jesse had eyes that were flicked on all the time, like a tractor beam in some film.  

[codalion]

Someone knocked on the door. That was inaccurate. Someone kicked the door several times. Jesse frowned and got up before Corinna could and went to the door, the peephole, clearly armed for trouble -- and then peered through and, without reacting, turned the doorknob to let the door-kicker in.

It was Dylan Rasmussen, and the reason for the kicking was shortly obvious. Under one of his arms was tucked a giant stuffed bear with a red heart on its stomach, which was to say, a giant replica of Tender Heart. Under the other arm was tucked what appeared to be a genuine real-deal honest-to-God red and black guitar, in addition to a plush snake with a floppy tongue and a Barrel of Monkeys. In that hand he had a small bowl of oddly colored spherical material. On his head he had a small, rainbow-patterned party hat, and in his mouth a purple lollipop, which he was currently holding between his teeth like Rambo with a knife.

Jesse and Cora stared. Dylan said something inaudible, frowned, spit out his lollipop like the floor was a trash can, and then waved faintly, with one of his thumbs.

"I have Dippin' Dots," he said to one or both of them. "Hey, Jesse. Are you stealing my girlfriend?" He sounded entirely unworried.