Cup of Sorrows
an excerpt

“Gabriel, where’s Piper? I thought she was planning on walking. Did she change her mind?” Nolan, another English student, leaned back toward Gabe. “Is she okay?”

Gabe nodded. “She’s okay; she just decided to walk with her other department. She graduated at the top over there, so they gave her the chance to speak at their ceremony. This department couldn’t top that.”

Nolan shrugged. “Couldn’t take any longer than this. Every lord-high muckey-muck seems to want to give a speech in this department. They limit the students to three minutes, but the windbags get ten? Damn, man! At least your speech rocked. I’m surprised that they let you get away with the opening line, though.”

“You mean, ‘What a long, strange trip it’s been’? Yeah, it wouldn’t have passed muster if it weren’t for Dr. Pavia. He’s the one that really threw the weight behind it.”

“Pavia? Yeah, he’s the kind that’d back that sort of thing. I mean, he’s not going to pass up the opportunity to have some fun at the expense of all of this pomp and circumstance.” Nolan laughed. “I mean, come on. how many times do we really need to hear that we’re the young people of the future?”

Gabe snickered. “Technically, we’re the young people of the present, and the middle-aged and elderly of the future.”

“Yeah, but are you going to point that out to the sub-chair, dean’s assistant, and president’s vice-secretary, all of whom have used the exact same phrase in each of their speeches?”

“Nolan, if I’d have gone after them, I would have added it to my speech and done it in a heartbeat.” Gabe poked Nolan’s shoulder. “Look, you better turn around; they’re staring at us, so we’d better look like we’re pretending to behave.”

“Yeah, but they’re going to stare at us no matter what.” Still, he turned around and resorted to whispering over his shoulder. “I’d heard that someone leaked it to the faculty that someone’s going to streak when the diploma cases are passed out. The whole mess of them are on edge, and some of the bigger ones are trying to figure out who they’re going to have to tackle to keep the dean’s people from seeing a B.A.’s b.a. I wonder who it’s going to be?”

Gabe raised his eyebrows, darted his eyes around to see who was listening in, and then whispered, “No one.”

“No one?” Nolan turned around in his seat, completely shocked. “No one?” Several people around them turned and stared for a second, then turned back forward after he shrugged at them. He lowered his voice. “No one? Then what’s the faculty getting so freaked out over? I mean, why waste all that energy getting tense if nothing’s going to happen?”

“Because they don’t know nothing’s going to happen.”

Nolan’s eyes grew wide. “They don’t? But then, how…?”

“Piper, of course. Her parting gift. She knew she couldn’t be here at this ceremony in person, but if a carefully placed fabrication got circulated fast enough, she could at least be here in spirit.”

“Bravo, Piper, bravo,” Nolan said, his voice now a reverent whisper. “Will wonders never cease?”

“What do you mean, ‘wonders’?”

“I mean, that gal never ceases to amaze. She’s like the eighth wonder of the miscreant world, Gabe.”

Gabe started to laugh, then stopped when he felt a heavy hand attached to a black velvet-robed arm descend on his shoulder. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nolan flinch as the matching hand descended upon him. “Gabriel Clifford and Nolan Carver,” a familiar voice whispered, a little frustrated. “Would it kill the two of you to actually behave and pretend like you’re willing participants in this farce? The faculty’s on edge enough without the two of you behaving like howler monkeys on crack.” Gabe and Nolan snickered until they saw the rather frustrated face attached to the ridiculous commentary.

Gabriel looked up into the slightly irritated, slightly freckled face of his advisor, Dr. Voirrey Delaney. Little wonder she still goes by Cricket even though she’s a Ph.D, Gabe thought, compared to the rest of the faculty, she looks so out of place in all that formal gear. Addressing her aloud, he smiled a little sheepishly. “Sorry, Cricket. We’ll behave, I swear.”

Nolan nodded vigorously. “Ditto, doc. We’ll be good.”

She sighed, brushing aside the straying curls that had fallen out from under her cap and into her face. “I only believe that because Piper’s not in the equation. Please. For my sake, just behave for another half hour, then you can go party. Remember, thirty minutes of quiet, a whole summer of wild, unadulterated debauchery. Okay?” They nodded, and she slipped back to her seat.

Cricket slumped down in her seat. It was tiring, this academic business. And if she heard “Pomp and Circumstance” one more time, she resolved that she was going to brain somebody with a mortarboard.