Again, Marco didn’t respond until I was halfway through an episode ofNew Girl.Well, the point of this scheme is to make a successful match, isn’t it?
My fingers flew across my phone screen, keeping pace with my heart.Um…you think Connor and I’d be good together?
It doesn’t matter what I think, Marco said, dodging the question and thus eliciting an eye roll.What matters is what YOU think.
You’re super wise, I joked.Anyone ever tell you that?
All the time, he said.Yesterday, actually. My philosophy professor.
I snorted, then bit my tongue as I wrote.Sometimes I do think about Connor that way… I worry that I won’t know about anyone else until I know about Connor and me.
I inhaled as three typing dots appeared.
But before Marco actually responded, a bridesmaid chat message from Amanda announced itself at the top of my screen. I tapped on it.
Davis who?she’d written.Mads, do I have someone for YOU.
Eleven
Unable to truly untangle my potential feelings for Connor, I wanted to go on my next date as soon as possible so I could at least move on from my disastrous date with Davis. But Amanda had yet to set a time and place. She’d told me that my next suitor was my age, although he’d skipped a couple grades and was finishing up his freshman year at Princeton.He’s excited, she reassured me,but asked to wait until the semester ends. He has a mountain of essays and exams.
So, I had to wait a couple weeks, already knowing from Marco that Princeton’s finals didn’t end until mid-May. Ironically, there was a chance I’d unknowingly run into my date before then, because my Princeton visit was upon us.
I skipped school on a Thursday in late April, excited to be an unofficial member of Princeton’s field hockey team for the next couple days. “Now, Mads, we know where your loyalties lie,” Da said when we were about five minutes away from campus. “This family loves Penn, but please go into this weekend with a wide-open mind. Consider Princeton forPrinceton.”
Princeton’s head coach, despite not using any exclamation points in her emails, seemed nice. She greeted us in the athletic department’s lobby, smiling warmly as handshakes were exchanged before leading us to her office to go over the weekend’s agenda. A girl with a blond ponytail sat in one of the chairs. I recognized her right away: Shelly Freeman. She had been Princeton’s standout freshman this past season and would be my host for the next couple days.
After we left the office, Shelly walked at a fast clip, and I kept my head on a swivel while trying to keep up with her. Spring had officially sprung on the Princeton campus; its dramatic Gothic architecture spiraled into the blue sky, far above the trees that burst green, white, and pink. Students had spread blankets out on one of the lush lawns, and there wasn’t a free spot to be had on any of the benches.
We speed walked across campus until we reached Shelly’s dormitory. It was gorgeous, looking like an old estate house—or a vintage hotel, even. Three stories tall, the entrance was white clapboard with soaring white columns and black-shuttered windows, and on each side of this already-incredible entrance were two stone wings, windows flung open to the fresh air. Dormer windows popped out of the roof, as well as four sturdy brick chimneys. A red and white FORBES COLLEGE banner hung from the third-floor balcony. “Wow,” I whispered.
Shelly hummed, the polite equivalent of clearing her throat. “Would you like me to turn all tour guide on you and recountits history?” she asked. “Or should we both say it’s beautiful and head up to my room?”
“Oh, um…” I said, a little taken aback. She hadn’t sounded rude, just unexpectedly direct. “I’m cool with seeing your room.”
Truthfully, I did want to know about Forbes’s origin story. But I could tell Shelly had no genuine interest in telling me, and it probably would be more informative (and amusing) hearing it from Simon, Marco’s friend who spoke like he was from a distant era.
“Get ready for two flights of stairs,” Shelly warned as I unlocked my phone and texted a group chat I’d dubbedThe Princetonians. Marco had set it up for whatever reason after I’d crashed their dinner at Ember & Ash.
Forbes College?I wrote, and by the time Shelly and I’d made it to the first-floor landing, I had some answers.
Timothy Hobson-Kirby IV:best freshman residential college.
Zach Danzig:Are you staying there this weekend?
And then, Simon Fielding:Built in 1927, FC was originally christened the Princeton Inn. It was a hotel until 1970, when the university bought the property and converted it into student housing to accommodate a growing population. Women were being admitted—
“Okay, here we are!” Shelly chirped. I’d mindlessly followed her to a dorm room midway down the third floor’s hallway. Two construction-paper-cutout tigers were posted on the door—onesaidShelly, the other readLois—and a mini whiteboard had been tacked up in between them.Return my leopard leggings, Seashell!!!the message read. Shelly pointed to Lois’s tiger while swiping her student ID over the door’s sensor. “Lois is another freshman on the team,” she said. “She’s from the Netherlands.”
I nodded, already well aware. Lois Hansen, number six, forward. She’d racked up almost thirty goals this season. Da and I watched a lot of college field hockey.
Shelly and Lois’s room was tidy, but I sensed it had been cleaned up for my visit rather than kept clean regularly. There was a standard dormitory-issued twin bed tucked in each corner, and while the wardrobes were shut, I could tell they wanted to burst open from all the clothes inside. The walls were decorated with Princeton field hockey posters, cute art prints, and so many strands of twinkly lights that I questioned the fire marshal’s judgment.
An air mattress floated like a life raft in the middle of the room, equipped with lavender-colored sheets, a fuzzy turquoise blanket, and a fluffy pillow. “You can dump your stuff and unpack later,” Shelly said. “We have econ in twenty minutes. It’s held in McCosh.”
McCosh, I soon learned, was the English building. Its lecture hall was all warm wood and sunlight streaming in through its monstrous cathedral windows. Instead of velvet theater seats, hundreds of classic chair-desktop combinations sprawled in a semicircle around the professor’s podium and projection screen.I looked up to see a dark wood-paneled ceiling finished with arched mahogany beams. Two medieval-inspired chandeliers hung above us.
“Follow me.” Shelly pointed toward a staircase. “I usually sit up in the balcony.”
