Chapter 11: The Morning After











     "Morning Jyz," I greet with relief that someone I know is at the sparsely attended Sunday breakfast in the Gibby-Hank cafeteria.

"It would be a good morning if this wasn't my midnight snack," he titters, a trace of bright blue on bottom eyelids and crimson at the edges of full lips.

"Out all night?" I query with raised eyebrows, temporarily forgetting my dilemma.







     He and I sitting together at the Delta Epsilon table was a study in contrasts: A morning person and a night owl; A shy introvert and an effusive extrovert; A straight heterosexual and, apparently, a closet cross-dresser. Pete Jyzcinski had been a mystery to his fraternity brothers for three years. He'd grow progressively despondent over weeks before disappearing for a weekend, returning recharged and ebullient. I was beginning to think he had manic depression, a term I only knew from a Jimi Hendrix song, but those traces of makeup played a different tune.







     "Let's just say it was a wild night in Richmond," he grins. "Didn't I see you heading to your room with a certain someone?"

"FM's still asleep in my bed," I blurt, grateful for an opportunity to talk about it. "I'm not sure what to do."

"You could give her till ten," he shrugs, digging into a ham and cheese omelette folded up by the ever present and always amused cafeteria host Miss Shackleford.

"Maybe she was more drunk than I realized," I worry, leaving an ugly implication floating behind the words.

"Just talk to her," he groans, downing a mug of coffee and taking his food tray over to the roller conveyor.

"I should just go study in the science building," I prevaricate, hunkering down over a plate of pancakes and strawberries.

"Come on Januzzi," he urges with hands on my shoulders to move me along. "I'll walk back with you."





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