THREE Jessie

THREE

Jessie

How was your first shift?" Tanvi asked as she leaned across the U-shaped information desk. Dressed in the cutest coordinated mint-green spandex workout outfit, with her hair tied up in a messy topknot, she had stopped at the student center on her way to the gym.

"It's finished," Jessie said as she got to her feet. She scanned the student-center lobby to make sure that there was no one left who might need to ask her for help.

The space was filled with tables, chairs, couches, pool tables, and a coffee shop directly opposite the information desk. At 5:00 p.m., it was empty.

She felt like she had to be the luckiest work-study student on campus. All she had to do was answer phones, redirect callers to the appropriate department, and hand out maps so people could find their campus building.

In the four hours she'd worked that day, she'd received one call and talked to three first-year students who were asking where the nearest bathrooms were.

"If you're done here, do you want to come to the gym with me?" Tanvi asked. "There's a yoga class that's starting in, like, half an hour."

Jessie used the computer to clock out, then leaned down to lock all the drawers like she'd been trained to do at the start of her shift. "As tempting as that sounds," she said, "I'm going to the library. I had my first comp sci class today, which means lots of lab work. And because I know I'm going to procrastinate, I have to start thinking about my first-year seminar paper, too."

"Oh? Who do you have?"

"Professor Barnard." Jessie picked up her backpack from where she'd tucked it under the desk and looped it over one shoulder. "The majority of our grade is based on an essay about the importance of a name."

Tanvi's eyebrows furrowed. "What does that even mean?"

"It means I'm screwed," she replied. "Especially since it looks like I'm the only student in the class who is struggling with the topic. Everyone else seems to want to write about the Hartceller Library or something."

Tanvi nodded, her topknot bobbing as if agreeing with her. "That's probably because it's haunted. Well, Davidson Tower is haunted."

"What?"

"Oh, you didn't hear?" Tanvi twisted her lanyard neck strap around one fist. "There was a fire back in 1972. Apparently, it was an electrical short, but rumor has it that someone set the fire on purpose. Part of the tower was burned. People say that two students were inside, but no bodies were found. You can only access the tower from the basement level of the library now, and they locked it up this semester because they're going to start renovations soon."

Her skin prickled at the back of her neck. "How the heck do you know all of this?" Jessie asked.

"I read it on a message board before I came to campus," Tanvi replied. "There's also a rumor that if you're in the library alone at night, on the basement level, you can hear a woman crying or something."

"Bullshit," Jessie said, even as she fought the urge to shiver. She'd always been fascinated by spooky stories. Watching ghost stories on TV was her way of relaxing after a day of AP classes. That didn't mean she believed every haunting claim on face value, though.

Tanvi held up two fingers. "Swear. I'm just guessing that's probably what the other students in your class want to write about. The no-name student. Anyway, I have to run if I'm going to make that yoga class. You sure you're not up for it?"

"Maybe later this week," Jessie said. "I'll see you in the room tonight, yeah?" She waved at her roommate, then spun on her heels to head toward the back doors so she could cut through the quad toward Hartceller Library. The thought of ghosts and missing persons was intriguing enough that she was tempted to go straight to the basement and see for herself. The anticipation added a bounce to her step.

The library had always been her sanctuary, ever since she was a child. The smell of books; the sensation of running her fingertips over their thick, textured pages; and the hollow silence that enveloped her like a warm blanket were all so comforting and familiar.

As she approached the enormous structure on Davidson Square, built in brick and mortar with curved windows and sharp peaks, she realized that the biggest difference between her library at home and the one on campus was its size. The sheer enormity of Hartceller Library was what dreams were made of.

"Whoa," she whispered to herself as she paused on the sidewalk to take it all in. From this vantage point, she could finally see the whole building in all its glory. There were towers flanking all four corners, the doors were archways, and the windows gleamed in the sunlight. It was at least six stories tall, and in the shape of a rectangle with green lawn on either side.

When she approached the front doors, she was required to scan in using her student badge. She passed a café in the lobby and took the glass elevator to the top floor. Jessie figured she'd save the basement for last and work her way from the top down.

After exploring a temporary exhibit on the top floor featuring books by famous writers that had graduated from the university, she moved on to the next level. When she reached the third floor, she was greeted by a massive circulation desk with a team of people sitting in front of laptops.

By the time Jessie reached the basement, she was buzzing with excitement. Had anyone else in her first-year class come down here to explore? Would her roommate also visit the haunted tower to see if there were ghosts?

When she stepped out of the elevator, the first thing she noticed was the eeriness. There were barely any students, save for a couple near the exit. She also realized that the desks were old and scarred wooden alcoves compared to the white modern lift desks upstairs. The bookshelves hadn't been updated for at least four decades, either, and their industrial metal was coated in a greenish-beige paint. She started walking down the left corridors, then wove through the stacks and the benches.

She stopped when she saw the double doors in the back. Above the doorframe, an old plaque with raised, chipped gold lettering read Davidson Tower.

Through the glass, Jessie could see that the lights had been turned off. A long table took up most of the ground-floor level of the tower. There were also chairs covered in white sheets and rolling carts piled high with discarded reference books. She approached the entrance with caution, then looked up to see a balcony on a second level and a gorgeous stretch of stained-glass windows. Just as she made out the image of the scales of justice, a cascade of light filtered through the colored mosaic and cast brilliant warmth on her cheekbones, nose, and eyelids.

It felt like she'd been kissed by magic through a prism. Holding her breath, she clasped the door handle and pulled, only to be confronted by a very solid lock.

"Damn," she murmured.

She turned around, and her gaze landed on the row of study rooms along the left wall. Through their glass walls, she could see they were the only rooms in the basement that looked like they'd been updated with modern tables and chairs. There were even touch screens next to each door to access the booking system.

At night ... you can hear a woman crying.

She zeroed in on the study room at the end closest to Davidson Tower. There was a chance that she'd be able to see the prism of colors through its glass door.

She crossed the room and tapped on the touch-screen panel. A prompt appeared, requesting her student ID, so she pulled it out of her key-card wallet and scanned it under the red sensor.

The room was apparently available for the rest of the day. She quickly typed in her information to book it. Then, after scanning the basement level behind her, she checked the availability for the rest of the week, blocking off the study times she knew she'd want. She hit enter just as her cell buzzed in her pocket.

"Dad" appeared on the screen.

Jessie entered the study room and closed the door. It smelled of disinfectant and polish, a telltale sign that she was officially the first student to use the space that semester.

Dropping her bag on the table, she answered the call with a smile. "Hello?"

"Hi, bachcha," her father said. "How was your first day of school?"

"Papa, it's not over yet."

"You only had morning classes today, no?"

Jessie paused in the process of unloading her backpack. "How did you know that?"

"When you registered for classes, I stood over your shoulder and took a picture so I knew when not to disturb you when I called."

"Papa," Jessie chided. "You could just ask."

He chuckled. "But then you'll just say, Papa, I'm busy-busy, and I won't know if you're really busy or if you just don't want to talk to your papa."

Jessie rolled her eyes as she took out her laptop that she'd spent all summer working to afford and placed it in front of a chair at the end of the table. Before she sat, she looked through the glass door and saw straight into the enigmatic Davidson Tower.

Perfect.

"Papa," Jessie repeated when her father began rambling. "I promise you that I will always pick up the phone. If I'm busy, I'll call you back right away. Okay?"

"Good," he said, his voice filled with satisfaction. "Now, did you eat? If you had gone to a local school, then you could come home for dinner."

She began spacing out her pens and highlighters in a neat row on the table so that they formed a pastel rainbow, which was exactly how she planned to color-code her reading. "Yes, I ate. And you know this school was the best choice for my future career. All the big companies recruit their engineers at Hartceller."

"There is no sunshine without you here, my bachcha," her father sulked.

She felt a pang of remorse tightening her chest. In the four days she'd been on campus, it wasn't the first time she'd experienced homesickness. "I have a full scholarship here, plus room and board. Even though this school is more expensive than our local university, the fact that I'm going here for free makes it worthwhile. Plus, I'll be done with my master's and my undergrad in five years at this program."

"You already taught yourself everything you need to know," her father said. "And you know business! You've been working at the family store since you were old enough to walk."

Jessie didn't want to tell her father that the franchise sandwich shop in Texas that he'd poured his entire life savings into was not her dream. He'd think that she wasn't proud of the business that had sustained their family since she was a toddler. The truth was exactly the opposite. She was not only proud but humbled by how much her parents had sacrificed for her. But she wanted to do more, be more, and her dreams were now her reality because they were gifts from her parents.

She leaned back to admire her meticulously organized space. "Papa, I'll see you soon," she said. "I promise that everything I'm learning is worthwhile, and I'll tell you all about it the next time I'm home."

She heard him grunt and then make his familiar tsking sound. "It's too far away."

"Now that you know my schedule, we can talk every day until then," she said.

Her father laughed, and with a heartfelt "I love you," they hung up.

Jessie sighed, then opened up her physics book. Under the watchful eye of whatever ghosts lived in the tower, and with the memory of her father's voice in her head, she slid into academic bliss.

She'd barely read through the first chapter of her homework assignment before there was a knock on the door. Ravi Kumar was the last person she expected to see when she looked up, but there he was, staring at her as if she were the ghost of Davidson Tower itself. He wore his hat backward and carried a skateboard under one arm. Even more strange was the look of shock and irritation on his face.

Twice in one day. She knew that he was in her seminar class, but finding him in the library seemed like more than a coincidence.

Jessie got to her feet and opened the door a crack. "Yes?"

"You're in my study room."

She opened the door wider. "Excuse me?"

"I said, you're in my study room." His voice was deeper than she remembered from the previous night, and his words cut through the quiet. "I've been studying in this particular room since I started as a first-year. Five days a week, seven during midterms and finals." He stood with one hand on his backpack strap, and the other on the doorjamb, as if waiting for her to explain herself even though he'd been the one to interrupt her.

"For someone with money and popularity, it sounds like you do an awful lot of unnecessary studying."

His eyebrows jerked, and his jaw set. "You know who I am."

"It's kind of hard not to hear about you from every South Asian on campus."

He nodded, then ran a hand over his scruff. "Okay, so you've made plenty of assumptions about me by now, when I don't even know who you are."

"Jessie. Hi. I checked out the room. There were no other bookings for today." She tapped the screen on the reservation tablet next to the doorframe and then pointed to her name and the time block that appeared seconds later. "See?"

His voice sharpened with frustration. "I've never had to reserve this room in the two years that I've been here."

"Look, I'm sorry that I reserved the room before you and that I blocked it for the rest of the week—"

"For the rest of the week?"He dropped his backpack to the floor and pulled his key card from his wallet. He scanned the card and pulled up the schedule on the tablet. Ravi then scrolled left and right to see the red time blocks. "You have got to be kidding me!"

Was he seriously acting all pissy because of a study room that she'd reserved fair and square? She'd never met someone so entitled. At this point, she felt like she had to stand her ground as a matter of principle. "Sorry," she said, then shrugged. "Better luck next time?"

He propped his hands on his hips, then looked at her table, and then back at Davidson Tower before sizing her up again. "You interested in sharing?"

"The room?" she said, motioning to her pristine setup with her supplies, books, and laptop. "Absolutely not."

"Why?"

"Because I like to study alone," she said. She pointed to the three study rooms along the same side of the wall that were all empty. "You can try one of those. I think they're all free."

She shut the door and enjoyed the look of absolute shock on his face. She had just gotten settled again in her chair when she saw that he scanned his key card and was busy tapping something on the reservation tablet. Then he was gone.

"What did he do?" she murmured. Curiosity got the best of her, and when she couldn't hear anyone, she opened the study-room door again. When she tapped the reservation screen and pulled up the schedule for the week, her jaw dropped.

Ravi Kumar booked the hour before and after her study session for every day that week. Which meant that she couldn't stay longer or come earlier even if she wanted to.

"What an entitled jerk!"

"What was that?"

She whirled to see him leaning against the doorframe of the study room next door. His thick, wavy hair was finger-combed back, and he had a glint in his eye. It was the smirk on his face that pissed her off the most.

Jessie pressed her lips together. "Nothing," she said. "Absolutely nothing." Then she whirled on her heels and strode back into her room. She shut the door with a little more force than she should've, but that didn't matter. There wasn't anyone on their side of the basement level, anyway. She had to focus on physics. That was the priority right now.

Jessie had barely finished all her homework when her time in the study room ended. She knew that it was over because Ravi Kumar, with his terrible taste in music that she heard clearly through the walls, had stopped the thumping EDM and knocked on her door. He'd hitched his backpack over one shoulder with one hand and held up his cell phone to show the time with the other.

She ignored him as she put away her things, sliding her highlighters and pens into their appropriate slots in the front compartment of her ancient Jansport and clipping her laptop into the padded compartment. Then she slid her arms through the straps to secure it against her back and opened the door.

"It's all yours," she said, then turned to walk away.

It was late now, and the basement seemed even eerier than before because night was settling over the library. She wondered how her walk home would be. Her heartbeat accelerated at the thought.

It took her a minute to realize that Ravi was following her to the elevator.

"What are you doing?" she asked as he stepped in line with her. "I thought you had the room now."

"I'll come back," he said.

She pressed the up button on the elevator panel and turned to look at him. He was nearly a foot taller than she was. Now, bathed in the overhead yellow lighting of the library, they could see each other with acute clarity.

"Are you following me?"

Instead of answering, he asked, "Are you going to walk back to your dorm?"

"Maybe. Or the student center to visit the cafeteria. Why?"

"They're both right next to each other," he said with a nod. "I'll walk you. Or we can take the shuttle."

The elevator dinged, and they stepped inside at the same time. Jessie pressed the button for the lobby, then leaned against the wall, her backpack cushioning her from the steel car. "I don't need anyone to walk me. I can go myself."

"You're a first-year, so you don't know the area yet. It's getting late. I'll walk you."

"Ravi, you may be a big deal to other people on campus, but to me—"

"No," he snapped, his words razor sharp. The elevator doors closed even as he stepped back from her. "No, you don't get to judge me, or talk down to me, or make assumptions about who I am because of my last name. If you don't want to talk to me when we walk, that's fine, but I don't want to be the last person who saw you before you got hurt or something."

An uncomfortable sense of shame washed over her, coating her skin like itching powder. "I didn't mean—"

The elevator dinged, and the doors opened. Ravi held out a hand to stop them from closing so that she could exit first.

Even as she rushed through the lobby, she knew that she couldn't escape the truth. Ravi was right. She was judging him and making assumptions. She'd been irritated about the study-room encounter, about how entitled he felt to tell her that the room was his, about how he'd never followed the rules like she had.

But that didn't mean that she could talk down to him for simply being who he was.

Jessie pushed through the double doors of the library entrance and stepped into the balmy September air. It was dusk, and the sky bled from blue to pink.

She turned to face Ravi again. He'd pulled out a vape pen already. "I'll be careful. I'll call my mom or something. You don't have to walk me back—"

"We already went through this," he said.

She huffed, and when he didn't budge, she knew she had no choice but to give in.

"If you're going to insist on playing chaperone, can you wait to do that until I'm inside my building and far away from you?" she said, and pointed to the pen.

He looked down at it then back at her. With a sigh, he shoved it in his back pocket. "Lead the way, Jessie Jaissi Koi Nahin."

She cocked her head. That sounded familiar. Was it the name of a movie? Of a TV show? She couldn't put her finger on it. "Whatever," she said, and cut across the short lawn to the sidewalk that wrapped around Davidson Square and led directly to Main Street.

Jessie could feel Ravi's presence as he walked by her side, but she didn't say anything. She didn't know what to say. In theory, she should apologize, but there had to be a statute of limitations on apologies for stupidity.

Her prayers for a distraction were answered when Ravi's phone began to buzz.

He accepted the call, then pressed the phone to his ear. "Hey, dude, what's up?" he said. "Oh yeah? ... That sounds cool. I'm in. I have to walk to the student center to check my mail, and then I'll grab an Uber from there and meet you at the restaurant.... Yeah, man. ... Okay. Bye."

She didn't know what to think now. So he wasn't walking her to her dorm because he cared about her safety? Was it just convenient?

He obviously didn't want to tell his friends he was walking a freshman to her dorm. She was a nobody to him, a nobody to his friends, too.

They turned onto Main Street minutes later, and her dorm appeared in the distance next to the student center. Ravi stopped at the corner and pulled his vape pen out of his pocket again.

"See you tomorrow," he said, and waved.

She turned to face him. "Don't you have to go to the student center to check your mail?"

"No," he said.

"But—"

"See you tomorrow," he said again, then took one long, slow suck from his vape pen. It clicked, and the red light on the end of the digital screen lit up.

Jessie couldn't think of a more irritating, more confusing human being than Ravi Kumar. One minute, he was telling her she was in a room he'd claimed for himself, and the next, he was walking her home to ensure her safety. Was his chivalry just some fake act to get people to like him, or was he being genuine? He was a riddle, and she hated how badly she wished she could solve it.

Enough was enough, she thought. Jessie was here to study hard, become an engineer, and make a significant income. Ravi Kumar was occupying more brain space than she ever intended to dedicate to a man.

Without another word, she crossed the street toward her dorm. When she got to the door, she was tempted to turn around and see if he was still there, but she couldn't. No, she refused. Some truths she wasn't willing to find out.