Free One Hot Fall Term (Yardley College Chronicles Book1) by Sharon Page

to go. “Get out,” I say, and I grab his shirt sleeve and pull him out in mid-zip. He yelps, but I feel no sympathy. I dart in and shut the door. Unlike the other bathroom occupants, I am done in five minutes.
    When I come out, I see Lara running down the corridor toward the stairs. She’s muttering something and she grabs the bannister so she can take the steps three at a time. She brushes at her cheek, and her hair is streaming behind her. Obviously, she’s running away from Jonathon.
    What happened?
    I follow, but lose her in the mass of people. I almost run face-first into the chest of a older guy with long grey hair, who I suspect is a professor. He is bringing an armload of drinks to a group of pretty female students. I dark around him and chase after Lara.
    I can’t find her anywhere on the main floor, nor on the terraces or the lawns. I end up in a small room with a table that is a sheet of thick glass. A computer screen sits on it, with black wireless keyboard. There’s a black leather couch and a painting above the couch. The painting is an impressionist view of a Parisian café in the rain. I’m drawn to it. It’s real paint, not a print. The signature is strong and black, but not a name I know.  
    There’s another picture at my feet, leaning against the wall, not mounted on it. It’s in a heavy black metal frame. I tilt it away from the wall, curious. It’s a woman with dark hair, wearing a man’s white shirt over a black bikini. It’s a black and white photograph, which makes the woman look like a blend of Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn, but I think the picture is more modern than that. She’s laughing in front of the ocean, blowing a kiss at the photographer. Carefully, I put the picture back.
    There’s a door leading out from this room and it’s the only one I haven’t tried. Wondering what lies behind, I open it.
    It takes me into a small garden, one surrounded by a stone wall. It’s perfectly square, with a square stone walkway, and a small statue in the middle. A stone satyr…
    It’s the garden off the morning room at Manderley.
    From the description in the book, this is just the way I would envision that garden.
    Who designed this place? This is the kind of house I would design, if I had the money to do it. Except my house would not have as much glass.
    I walk outside, and I quickly have the creepy feeling I’m being watched. Whirling, I find no one in the doorway. I can’t see anyone in the small computer room.
    I look up. There’s a terrace above me with a glass railing. Jonathon is standing there, leaning on the railing, a glass dangling from his hand. He wears jeans, a dress shirt, and I can see a pattern of blue ink on his forearm near his wrist—a tattoo. Was he looking down at me? He’s not now. Jonathon is looking toward the lake, looking out over the crowd who are laughing, drinking, dancing, and playing touch football on the lawns.
    Watching Jonathon lean over the railing, surveying his crowd while he stays solitary and distant makes me think of that moment when Nick sees Gatsby at the end of his dock, alone, washed in moonlight looking at the light across the bay.
    I had assumed he’d broken up with Lara, or she’d caught him cheating on her because of the anger in her stride. But Jonathon exudes a sense of deep unhappiness.
    Suddenly he looks down at me. Like the Girl in Rebecca , I am tempted to look away and pretend I did not notice him and walk back inside.
    But I don’t do that. I look at him levelly, with an expression of disapproval. He crooks his finger, motioning me to come upstairs.
     
     
    ***
     
     
    When I find Lara, she is getting supremely drunk. A bar has been set up in front of a wall of windows in the living room. A white cloth covers tables, and behind them, there are tiers of glass liquor bottles and wine bottles, along with a dozen plastic coolers that must be filled with beer. All the bottles refract and reflect the sunlight, which makes