"Cooney, Linda A - Freshman Dorm 10 - Freshman Changes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cooney Linda A)

Freshman10 - Freshman Changes - Cooney, Linda A.

One.
"Whoa!" a male voice whispered. "Would you take a look at her! She's definitely my type." "Keep dreaming," another guy said. "She's the Freshman Princess. She wouldn't look at you cross-eyed."
KC Angeletti was within hearing distance, standing by the salad bar in the University of Springfield Dorm dining commons. She was used to getting this reaction. Even before being crowned Freshman Princess at the annual Winter Formal, KC had always turned heads. Ordinarily she didn't care, but today she took it as a happy omen. If two guys she didn't know thought she
looked great, then Peter Dvorsky was bound to think so, too. Not that he ever seemed to notice what she looked like, but things were starting to heat up between them. Any minute now, he might come wandering through the door to the dining commons, and when he did, KC was planning to dazzle him-with restraint, of course. It wouldn't pay to look too eager.
Leaning toward the shiny, aluminum hood over the salad bar, KC examined her reflection. Her face was distorted from the curve of the metal, but she noted with satisfaction that her long, dark hair glistened and her gray eyes sparkled. Her trim navy blue suit hung crisply from her broad shoulders. Watch out, Peter, KC mentally warned him, I'm going to make you notice me this morning.
Not that there was too much competition at this hour. KC straightened up and scanned the dining room with its rows of dark, wood tables. Most of them were already filled with drowsy young men and women, their hair standing up in combed clumps. Though KC witnessed this frumpy spectacle every morning, she still couldn't understand how people could appear this way in public.
"Somebody point me in the direction of an empty table," Winnie Gottlieb mumbled sleepily
as she shuffled toward KC with her breakfast tray. Her muddy running shoes squeaked against the linoleum floor and her black, silk kimono flapped open to reveal neon green running shorts and a man's tank undershirt. Her spiky, brown hair, which normally stood up straight, now flopped around her face like dozens of wilted antennae.
"Why don't you just open your eyes?" KC suggested as Winnie stopped beside her and rested her head on KC's shoulder.
"My eyes are on a timer," Winnie said. "They don't open before ten A.M. I can't believe I signed up for a Friday morning class. What could I have been thinking of?"
"Come on, Winnie," Faith Crowley laughed as she followed a few steps behind her friends. "It's seven-thirty. Hardly the crack of dawn." Faith's golden hair escaped in wisps from her French braid, and she wore an old, unraveling cardigan sweater and faded jeans.
"There," KC said, nodding her head in the direction of a long table with four empty seats at one end. "I think that's the best we're going to do." KC gently pushed Winnie's head to an upright position. Then she strode briskly toward a table beneath a large picture window framing distant mountaintops.
The three girls had become best friends in ju-
nior high school and were still an inseparable trio even though their first semester in college had pulled them in different directions. KC was the go-getter of the group. She wanted to be a business executive and thought getting ahead meant making the right social connections-such as joining a sorority. Winnie, on the other hand, thought sororities were for snobs. She wasn't about to change her wild and wacky ways. She was a free spirit, for better and worse. Faith was the one who kept the trio balanced. She was steady and thoughtful, and was already getting a reputation on campus as an up and coming director.
After the girls sat down, KC watched Winnie rip open a paper envelope of artificial sweetener and pour it on her sugar-frosted cereal.
KC cocked one eyebrow. "New diet?" she asked. "Not that you need one." Small and compact, Winnie was a compulsive exerciser with a tight, firm body.
"I know this looks weird," Winnie said, "but I'm trying to cut down on sugar."
"Not me," Faith said, spooning brown sugar onto her oatmeal.
Before digging into her watery, scrambled eggs, KC removed a compact from her purse and checked her face. Her eyes still sparkled and her
skin was satiny smooth. Nonetheless, KC patted her face with powder.
"You look great," Winnie said. "Like you just stepped off the cover of Vogue."
"Or Business Woman Today," Faith added.
"Making the rest of us mere mortals look like the shlubs we really are," Winnie finished.
KC frowned. Was she making it too obvious that she wanted to look good for Peter? Knowing how much her friends liked to tease her about him, KC tried to get Faith and Winnie off the track. "Laugh all you want," she said. "I can take it. Besides, now that Tri Beta's finally invited me to pledge, I don't have any choice. A Tri Beta has to look good all the time, or she's letting her sisters down."
This wasn't a lie. Beta Beta Beta was one of the most exclusive sororities on campus, with the best-looking, most well-connected girls. Now that KC had finally gotten in, after months of frustrating setbacks, she was going to make sure she stayed in. Her whole future depended on it. Being in the sorority would give her valuable contacts when she graduated and entered the business world.
"I understand completely," Faith said, nodding. "It's just a sorority thing." She smiled as she sliced a banana into her hot oatmeal.
"Oh, but don't worry," KC said, leaning forward. "I'm not going to get so caught up in Tri Beta again that I'll forget who my real friends are. I promise I'll always be there for both of you, no matter what happens."
Winnie's brown eyes, peeping over the top of her orange juice glass, grew serious for a moment. She swallowed and put the glass down. "You know," she said, "I never thought I'd be able to get used to the idea of you as a sorority sister. I was afraid those mannequin girls with their goldplated fingernails had brainwashed you forever. I thought you'd forgotten about me and all the other people you knew from your previous life."
"The Tri Beta. Stepford Sisters," Ruth agreed.
Winnie laughed. "But now that we're friends again, I guess I can share you. Sorority girls aren't as bad as I thought. I even like Courtney Conner."
"I do, too," Faith said. "I used to think she was stuck-up just because she was president of Tri Beta, but I obviously had her all wrong. And she's been a good friend to you, which makes her okay with me."
KC smiled. "How does that old camp song go? Make new friends, but keep the old . . ."
"Yeah," Winnie giggled. "And isn't it funny
how new friends can be male as well as female?" Winnie and Faith exchanged an amused look.
KC froze for a moment. Then she composed her lips into a tight smile and said, "I don't know what you're talking about."
Faith laughed out loud. "You don't fool us for a minute, Kahia Cayanne Angeletti. You may be a Tri Beta, but we know the real reason you're looking and feeling so good this morning."
"And we know his name, too," Winnie said. "Peter Dvorsky."
KC blushed. "Is it that obvious?" she asked. "I guess you guys have known me too long."
"Since junior high school," Winnie said. "Which qualifies us as mind readers."
Faith leaned forward, elbows on the table, and rested her face in the palms of her hands. "Come on, out with it," Faith said. "How are things going with Peter?"
KC sighed and cut a piece of ham. "Slowly," she said, lifting a forkful of ham halfway to her mouth. "But I like it that way. I mean, if he'd come on too strong, I might have gotten scared away, but we're both taking our time. The more I get to know him, the more I see in him." KC's fork drifted-back down toward her plate, the ham uneaten.
"That's better than jumping right into some-
thing with a guy you're infatuated with, then discovering he's not as great as you thought," Winnie said. "That used to happen to me all the time."
KC nodded. "I'm just glad Peter's stuck around after all I've put him through," she said.
Even though Peter had forgiven her, KC still felt awful when she remembered how she had invited him to the Winter Formal, only to dump him when someone better-looking came along. How could she have been so superficial? Peter wasn't gorgeous, but there was nothing wrong with the way he looked. And he certainly had a lot more on the ball than most of the spoiled, rich boys at the fraternities.
Peter was a talented photographer whose offbeat humor made KC look at herself honestly. That was painful sometimes, but KC always felt better for it. And the funny part was, the more time she spent with him, the cuter he seemed.
"Yoo hoo, KC!" Winnie called in a high voice. "Earth to KC! I think she's on Cloud 9," Winnie said to Faith.
"I'm sorry," KC said. "Did you say something?"