“The ocean is out that way,” Katie said, pointing to the right. “It’s all smogged out today, but sometimes we can actually see it. Usually in the very early morning or at sunset.”
Sierra lingered a little longer on the deck, imagining how the view would look once the pale yellow petticoats of smog were lifted from the sky’s blue gown. It was a sight she wanted to see one day.
“Come on, Sierra,” Katie said, motioning from the grass area below the deck where she now stood with the rest of the group. “We have a few more places to see before we send Wes back to admin.”
“I’m coming.” So much was hitting Sierra so quickly she wasn’t sure she could take it all in. The university grounds held enough dreamy beauty by themselves. Being led around by Katie only added to the sensation that Sierra was imagining all this.
The cafeteria was the newest building on campus and was designed more like a mall food court than a typical school cafeteria.
“You should have seen the old cafeteria,” Katie said as she shooed them back toward the administration building. “They said it was like an army mess hall. I never ate in it. I arrived here four days after the ‘Sacred Caf’ was completed, and I have nothing but stellar reports about the food.”
“When did you start here?” Sierra asked.
“January. I transferred in from the community college at the beginning of the semester.” Katie leaned closer to Sierra. “I’ve only been here three months, so don’t feel bad about not knowing that. I don’t think I even told you. I just wanted to give you a hard time.”
Sierra looped her arm around Katie’s neck and gave her a squeeze. “It’s so good to see you. You’ll have to tell me everything. I want to hear about everybody.”
Katie flashed a sly grin at Sierra. “That can be arranged. I thought we would escort your brother to his appointment, go back to the Sacred Caf for some lunch, and talk our heads off.”
“Do you guys want me to meet up with you someplace later?” Wes asked. He stood at the door of the administration building, appearing a little hesitant to leave the rest of them.
“After we eat, I was going to take them down to the dorms,” Katie said. “When your meeting is over, ask Dawn to call my room. How does that sound?”
“Good. I’ll see you guys.” Sierra noticed that Wes was running his fingers through the sides of his wavy brown hair and looking a little nervous, as if he were going for a job interview.
Katie ushered them all back to the cafeteria and made sure they took full advantage of the variety of food available by using their visitors’ complimentary meal passes. Sierra barely paid attention to her salad, turkey sandwich, and glass of milk. Rather, she drank in and ate up every word Katie shared across the table.
According to Katie, this was an awesome school, and she planned to stay here until she graduated. Some of Katie and Christy’s friends, whom Sierra had met last summer when she came to California for Doug and Tracy’s wedding, also attended this school. Sierra’s imagination filled with dreams of how wonderful it would be to go to college with these very special friends, especially if Wes was going to attend the graduate school here. Lost in her daydream, Sierra didn’t hear Amy when she first spoke to her.
“Would that be okay with you?” Amy repeated, giving Sierra a nudge.
“What?”
“Vicki and I are going exploring. Randy went back for seconds, and you obviously are involved with your friend.”
Sierra caught an edge of hurt in Amy’s voice. It wasn’t that Sierra meant to snub Vicki and Amy. It was just that this was Katie. In all the world there was only one Katie. They should understand that.
“Are you interested in seeing the dorms?” Katie asked as Amy rose to leave the table.
“Maybe a little later,” Amy said.
“We’ll be at the pool if you come looking for us,” Vicki said. “I want to see if that California sunshine can do anything about this fish-belly white skin of mine.” Vicki pulled up the sleeve of her T-shirt for emphasis. She turned to Katie. “You could tell right off we were from Oregon, couldn’t you?”
“No,” Katie said, swatting the air with her hand. “You guys all look like naturals around here. You fit in great.”
Randy returned just then with a tray heaped with another sandwich, three drinks, a mound of French fries, and a large bowl of swirled frozen yogurt.
“Where did you find the yogurt?” Vicki said, reaching over and taking off the top swirl with her finger. “This is good. You want some, Amy?”
Whether Amy wanted any or not, she followed Vicki to the self-serve machine in the far right corner.
“What about you, Randy?” Katie asked. “Do you want a tour of the dorms, or are you going with the others to the pool?”
“I’d like to see the music building,” he said, chomping into his sandwich. After a few quick chews and a swallow, he added, “That is, after I finish eating.”
“Of course,” Katie agreed. “First things first. And with most of the guys I know around here, food comes first—especially with Doug. Did I tell you he and Tracy come up every Thursday night to lead a Bible study?”
“You’re kidding!” Sierra said. “Doug and Tracy. How are they doing?”
“Great. Cutest little married couple you’ve ever seen. We’re calling our group the God-Lovers II, after the original group that started down in San Diego a couple of years ago.”
“That must have been the group Tawni went to with Jeremy,” Sierra said.
“Oh, that reminds me,” Katie said. “I almost forgot. I called Tawni, and she said you guys were planning to stay at her place tonight. But if you want, you can stay here. I found a couple of people who are going home for the weekend, and they volunteered their rooms for you guys. It’s up to you. Tawni said to call her. If you stay here, she’ll come up to visit you.”
“I’d love to stay,” Sierra said. “I’ll see what everyone else thinks.”
“Do these meal passes work for dinner, too?” Randy asked.
Katie laughed. “No, sorry. But there’s a barbecued rib place in town I’ve heard is good. We could all go there if you wanted.”
Vicki and Amy returned with their frozen yogurt and a guy. Vicki appeared pleased with the yogurt, and Amy didn’t look any too disappointed with the guy.
“This is Antonio,” Amy said, smiling up at the dark-eyed, good-looking escort. But Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome wasn’t returning Amy’s affectionate gaze. He was staring at Sierra.
“Bella Sierra,” he said in his rich Italian accent. “It has been so long.” With that he leaned over and brushed a kiss across both of Sierra’s blushing cheeks.
Sierra caught Amy’s surprised expression and felt a need to quickly explain. “How are you doing, Antonio? I haven’t seen you since the wedding last summer. Did you meet my friends, Amy and Vicki? And this is Randy,” Sierra added.
Randy, his mouth full, nodded amiably at Antonio.
“Antonio rescued us at the yogurt machine,” Vicki said, holding up her overflowing cup of yogurt. “Look at this mess! I couldn’t get it to stop coming out.”
“Katie told me you were coming,” Antonio said, sitting down across from Sierra and Randy. He gave Katie a wink. “Have you told them our surprise?”
Sierra immediately suspected something of a romance was brewing between Antonio and Katie. Katie had kept no secret about how she was interested in Antonio last year. They made a cute couple, in that Antonio would bait Katie by pretending his English was insufficient, and she would fall for it every time and correct his mixed-up sentences. The only thing that seemed unusual now was that, if a romantic link existed between them, neither of them acted like it.
“Thanks a lot, Antonio,” Katie said. “I was trying to keep the little surprise a surprise, but now …”
“I didn’t say anything,” he said, holding up his hands.
“Nice try,” Sierra said. “It’s no good, though. One of you has to tell us now.”
A
ntonio leaned forward. “You are seriously thinking of coming to school here in the fall, aren’t you?”
“Well, I … I don’t know. Until today I hadn’t even considered it,” Sierra said.
“I’m interested,” Randy said. “If they have a decent music department. The food passes my inspection.”
Sierra motioned to Randy that he had a little smear of mayonnaise on the side of his lip. He reached for a napkin and wiped it off. “Is it always this good?” he asked.
Antonio nodded. “We eat well around here.”
Katie pinched her side as if measuring her fat. She was so athletic and energetic Sierra couldn’t imagine any flab under her baggy white shirt. “They call it the Freshman Fifteen. That’s how many pounds you gain your first year here. Even if you enter as a sophomore, like me.”
“My cousin said she gained only ten her first year,” Vicki said, licking her spoon and dipping it back into the cup of frozen yogurt.
“She must have gone to a state school,” Katie said with a grin. “Here it’s definitely a minimum of fifteen.”
Sierra began to feel those tremors of terror again. She had never tried to lose weight before, since her late-blooming tomboy figure had remained pretty constant until the last six or eight months. It was disturbing to be told she would gain weight when she went to college. That meant another area of her life where she would have to be responsible and disciplined.
“You guys,” Sierra said, eager to redirect the conversation, “I believe you’re attempting to change the subject. Go back to that surprise Antonio mentioned. What’s the big secret?”
Katie and Antonio looked at each other. Antonio raised his eyebrows as if to give Katie the go-ahead.
“It’s about Christy and Todd,” Katie began.
Before she could go on, Sierra clapped her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming in public.
sixteen
“NO, NO, NO!” Katie said quickly. “It’s not what you think. They haven’t announced their engagement. At least not yet. At least that I know of. But then, I’m always the last to know everything.”
“Who are Todd and Christy?” Vicki asked.
“Don’t you remember?” Amy said, the wounded tone still in her voice. “Sierra’s friend Christy is the one who took her to Switzerland last summer.”
“Actually, Christy’s Aunt Marti took us, but, yes, Christy is the one I went to Switzerland with. Todd is her boyfriend. They’ve been together forever. Only she’s at school in Switzerland now, and he’s over here. Isn’t he about ready to graduate from college?”
Katie shook her head. “Let’s just say that Todd’s educational path has been a winding one. He’s not going to school right now. He’s working two different jobs to put some money in the bank.”
“He’ll start his senior year in the fall,” Antonio added. “And where, might you ask, would Todd have chosen to finish his college years but here, at Rancho Corona.”
“And,” Katie quickly added, flashing her green eyes at Antonio, “the rest of the surprise news, which somebody couldn’t keep to himself, is that Christy has been accepted here, too. This September, we’re all going to be back together again.”
“Oh, man, you guys are going to have such great times together!” Sierra said, remembering the closeness she felt with this group of friends. Even though all of them were older than she, they had never made her feel younger or left out.
“You guys?” Katie repeated, motioning to Sierra, Randy, Vicki, and Amy. “How about all of us guys? The four of you included. Oh, and Wes, too. You have to come here now. All of you. You have no choice.”
“We probably should at least look at a catalog,” Vicki said, laughing at Katie’s command to them. “I mean, the campus and the student body are great. None of us would argue with you there. But those aren’t the areas my parents are going to ask about when I get home.”
“Some information packets are waiting for you back at the admin building,” Katie said. “I should have given them to you when you first arrived. Sorry about that. We could pick them up now, and then you could check out the pool or Dishner Hall or whatever.”
“Let’s go,” Randy said, getting up and taking his empty tray with him. “Where do I put this?”
“Over here,” Antonio said. “Are you the one who wants to see Dishner Hall?”
“If that’s the music building, yes.”
“I’ll show you around,” Antonio said.
Making their way out of the cafeteria, Sierra noticed Amy still appeared to have a cloud hanging over her. Was she disappointed that Antonio didn’t volunteer to go to the pool with her and Vicki?
Katie led them back to the admin building, where Dawn handed each of them an information packet. They were about to go their separate ways when Wes entered the lobby. He had a calm smile on his face. Sierra knew his meeting with the financial adviser had gone well.
After introducing Antonio to Wes, Sierra asked, “What’s next on your schedule? Have you eaten yet?”
“We can recommend the food here,” Randy said.
“I thought I’d head over to the cafeteria,” Wes said. “I have an appointment with an adviser at two-thirty. What do you think? Should we all meet back here?”
Sierra gave Wes the information about their being invited to stay on campus rather than at Tawni’s if they wanted to. Wes asked the others, and everyone was eager to stay except Amy. She said it was fine, but then she added quietly, “So we’re probably not going to the beach, then.” She wasn’t making a big deal about it, though obviously she had been hoping. And Sierra couldn’t blame her. If she had never been to the beach in Southern California, Sierra knew she would be sad about the missed opportunity, too.
They quickly made their plans. Wes would call Tawni, all of them would meet back at the van at five-thirty, and Wes would drive them to this barbecued rib place Katie recommended. They would stay in the dorms that night, and the next day, Saturday, they would head home and try to visit at least one more university campus on the way. Wes was adamant that he had to be back in Corvallis by seven Monday morning because he couldn’t miss his first class. Knowing how long the drive home would be made all of them understand Wesley’s concern about staying around too long on Saturday.
The group split up, and Katie directed Sierra toward the dorm.
As soon as they were out of hearing distance from the others, Sierra said, “Katie, whatever happened between you and Antonio? I thought you two were getting pretty interested in each other.”
“Tonio and me?” A glimmer of remembrance came over Katie’s face. “Oh, yeah. Last year. That’s ancient history.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing,” Katie said with a laugh. “That’s exactly what happened. Nothing! Antonio is a big flirt, in case you hadn’t noticed. Somehow I was the last girl on the planet to realize that all the sweet talk and kisses on the cheek were his way of communicating with everyone. Well, at least with all the girls.” She shook her head. “I’ve always been a slow learner when it comes to guys. I really believed he thought I was something special. Then one day I finally woke up, hit my head on the headboard, and the dream was over.”
“That’s too bad,” Sierra said sympathetically. “I think the two of you made a darling couple.”
“So did everyone else,” Katie said. “Try not getting your hopes up about a guy when everyone is telling you that. Here we are.”
Katie gestured toward a long, three-story dormitory. It was built in the same early California style as the rest of the campus. She slipped a plastic card through the security lock at the front, and the wide double doors opened automatically.
The first sight that caught Sierra’s attention was the court area in the middle of the rectangular building. It appeared more like the lobby of an exotic hotel than a women’s dormitory. The patio was paved with red tiles and filled with a garden of tall trees, under which sat benches around a small fountain.
“How beautiful,?
?? Sierra murmured. “This is where you live?”
“Yep. This is Sophia Hall, named after Mr. Perez’s wife.”
“And who is Mr. Perez?” Sierra asked, following Katie past several students, who all greeted Katie.
“Didn’t I tell you that part on the tour? Oh, no! They’re going to fire me as campus guide. I forgot to tell you the history of this place.” Katie stopped in the middle of the courtyard, next to the fountain, and took a deep breath. “Sometime in the 1920s or 1930s—I’m not real good with dates—all this property was owned by a man named Miguel Perez. He and his wife tried to start an orange grove here on top of the mesa. It didn’t work out because there was a drought or something. He gave up on trees and started to raise cattle instead.”
“How did he get the cows up here?” Sierra asked.
Katie gave her a funny look. “I don’t know. They had trucks back then, you know. Anyway, Mr. Perez promised the Lord that he would give half the profit from his cattle ranch back to God, and he did. For years the ranch did a fantastic business and half the profits went to Christian organizations. One of them was the Open Bible College of Los Angeles.”
“I’ve heard of that college,” Sierra said.
“I guess it was the Christian college of its day. Rancho Corona is actually a satellite of OBCLA because, when Mr. Perez died, he didn’t have any living children, so he left everything to OBCLA.”
“What a nice gift!” Sierra said. “I take it his ranch was called Rancho Corona?”
“Actually, the Perez ranch was originally called El Rancho de la Cruz y la Corona.”
“The ranch of the what?” Sierra said, attempting to translate the Spanish words.
“The Ranch of the Cross and the Crown. A stained-glass window in the chapel has the ranch symbol on it. It’s a cross with a gold crown resting on it. It’s really pretty. I’ll have to show you the chapel before you leave.”
“And which room is yours?” Sierra asked, looking up at the long row of dorm rooms that lined the three floors.