I make my coffee at the coffee bar, simply with one sugar and the tiniest amount of cream, with white spirals spreading through the black liquid like webs, then go to sit down and have my first breakfast with what remained of the poets.
Apart from me and Homer, the only other person who had shown up for Virgil's meeting was Lucan, who sat at the far table nibbling on a cream cheese bagel while reading what appeared to be Persuasion by Jane Austen, which had to be one of the most tedious books in the world to get through without bashing your head against the wall at some point.
"Virgil, I love you and respect you, but tell me how someone so smart's dumber than a coon caught in a milk can." Homer says as he slathers butter on a thick slice of homemade bread, "My other thing is, how are you going to invite a stranger into your dorm in the middle of the night and let him sleep there? Are you looking to get murdered?"
"I'm sorry?" Virgil replies as he lifts a bite of pancake to his lips, "Wayne's part of the puzzle, Homer. I couldn't just let him walk off without figuring out where he came from."
"Right," Homer shoots him a side-eyed look. "And how'd that turn out for you, Professor?"
I stand there awkwardly with my tray while they bicker, unsure of who to sit by at the crowded table since Lucan was engrossed in his book and Homer and Virgil hadn't noticed me just yet. It felt as if I were back in high school all over again during lunch, trying to figure out where I fit in.
"Oh, Dante! Don't just stand there! Come sit down!" Virgil notices me finally, and he moves his bookbag over to the side so I can sit next to him. "I'm about to tell Homer about the crack in the basement."
Homer almost spits out his toast. "Goddamnit, are you two doing drugs now? That's where I draw the line! John got me to try something once, and I wrote all my papers in Latin for a whole week. I don't know how to write Latin, so I still don't know what the hell he gave me."
"You don't know how to write in English, either," Lucan mumbles from behind his book.
"He's talking about a crack in the basement wall that we uncovered when I fell into some crates," I explain once I'm seated, and I take a sip of my coffee, the liquid tasting bitter and somewhat thick despite the cream and sugar I had put in earlier. "There's some kind of room or hallway behind it, so we were thinking about tearing down some of the bricks to get in."
"And by we, he means you." Virgil points his fork in Homer's direction. "We're going to need you to borrow a sledgehammer from the groundskeeper so you can knock down the wall for us."
Homer takes a casual bite of his toast, drinks some coffee, and then dusts his hands off while we wait with bated breath for his response. He seemed to do everything slowly but with purpose, which I supposed was normal for someone who had to watch corn grow and feed cattle.
"Well," he finally says in his country drawl, "Ya'll just want to see a man sweat, don't you?"
There's a squeak and a shuffling from nearby, and John darts into view, looking rumpled and somewhat flushed in the face. "Oh, Christ!" He gasps. "Did we miss anything important? I had to take care of a few things, and time just ran away from me."
I look over and see a very satisfied Beatrice sauntering up the walkway behind him, her hands in her pockets before she casually takes a seat beside Lucan.
"I think you deserve a proper good morning after our awkward meeting earlier," she tells me cheerfully. "So, good morning. How are the pancakes?"
At this point, I notice her lipstick is a little more faded and that she's also wearing a man's sweater with a 1982 skiing competition advertised on the front instead of the shirt she had been wearing earlier. It must have been one of John's sweaters, and I felt silly for thinking I was special when he let me borrow his clothes earlier.
"The pancakes are great," I reply, and I turn my eyes away, heat rushing to my neck. "Everything's better than I thought it would be."
"Amazing," Beatrice says, and then straightens a little. "If it's okay, John and I want to talk to you later on when you get a chance. There's no set time, just whenever we run into one another tonight."
I look over at John and catch him staring at us as he's in mid-conversation with Virgil about breaking down walls and discovering secret rooms. Then he quickly looks away with a completely shy look on his face.
As it turns out, there was still so much I had to learn about the poets.
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