Stay: Vignettes & Outtakes by Moriah Jovan

OH MY HECK
    August 1995
    Oh, yeah.
    The cute little brunette sat toward the front of the lecture hall, so Eric wasn’t quite sure he wanted to sacrifice professorial invisibility for a chance at
that
, but at this point, he couldn’t afford to be picky. He was an obvious foreigner in the Land of Gorgeous Girls. This may be as close as he got to one of them.
    Eric slid into the seat beside her, jostling her a little to make sure she noticed him, but she was bent over her Book of Mormon with a red pencil.
    “Hi,” he said.
    “Hi,” she replied vaguely as she underlined something. Her book was her own, not the cheap little hardback he’d picked up at the bookstore, as evidenced by the fact that it was leatherbound, dog-eared.
    Dirk, do these girls just take one look at me and know I’m not a Mormon?
    Yes.
    Shit.
    “What’s your name?”
    “Heather,” she murmured, still underlining shit.
    It’d only taken him two days after moving into Deseret Towers, touring campus, buying books, exploring Provo before school started for Eric to understand he was far more than a fish out of water. He was a whale beached in the middle of the Sahara.
    Knox, these girls are looking at me like I’m trash, but they’re looking at you like you’re lunch.
    This isn’t Chouteau High, Eric. The James Dean schtick doesn’t play well here.
    You’re dressed the same way I am. Got my fucking hair cut, too.
    Suck it up, princess. Fact of life: A good quarter of these girls come from southern California, they’re rich, and they’re used to good-looking assholes.
    Oh, gee, thanks.
    I said you were smart, not that you weren’t an asshole.
    Hilliard—
    Not another word, Eric. There’s a reason I’m leaving you here and if you have an ounce of common sense, you’ll figure it out before you graduate and exploit it to its limit. And for what it’s worth, I couldn’t get a date in SoCal to save my life.
    Why the hell not?
    My roommate. He was crawling in girls and I kind of blended in.
    Oh, great, so Dirk—
    Dirk’s black. You’ll see what that means for him.
    Fuck. Racist much?
    No, it’s not racist. It’s reality. Give him a week, he’ll be a fucking rock star.
    Does he know that?
    Hell, yeah, he knows it. Shit, Eric, that’s why he’s here. It doesn’t hurt he’s got the pedigree, either. Born in the church, returned missionary, looking for a nice girl to take to the temple, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
    I don’t even know what that means, “take to the temple.”
    You’ll find out soon enough. Let’s go get your books. Shit, I love being back here. It’s like coming home.
    Even after...?
    Even after. Nobody here knows. I’m just a nice, regular Mormon guy here.
    But you’re not Mormon.
    You’re
never
not Mormon once you have been.
    Yeah, so first day of classes, second class. American history. He’d gotten about as close to a pretty girl as he could and she didn’t seem interested in the most rudimentary conversation.
    Three years of this bullshit. Eric almost groaned.
    Stay for graduate school.
    Oh, okay. Six years.
    BYU’s on a trimester system. What you do is, you go year-round and shave a year off your undergrad.
    Eric sighed and slid down in his seat, crossed his arms over his chest, and glared down at his books, trying not to feel so very...
alone
. A different alone than at home, where he was alone but known. Known and wanted. Known and feared.
    This was...alone and unknown. If he disappeared, no one would know. No one would care. Likely only Dirk would think to notify Knox and even then...
    “What’s your name?”
    Eric’s head snapped left to see her looking at him with a sweet curiosity. “Eric,” he said gruffly.
    “What tribe are you from?”
    He blinked, astonished that she’d picked him out so fast. He wasn’t used to looking
Indian
in short hair. His mother had certainly disapproved when she’d seen his haircut.
You look Italian
, she’d said flatly.
Just like your