Dear Wigleaf,

(A statue of) Benjamin Franklin sits across from an offshoot of my Alma Mater's English department, shooing pigeons with the butt end of his cane.

Four years ago, I screamed to see him there. I was a freshman, it was week-one, so the small grounds of our private college seemed wider, and the building's faces were yet unfamiliar to me. (Now I could tell you what you're looking at based only on the cheeks, if they are a painted blushing brick, or a weird pastel orange.) It was dark when orientation let out; I thought Ben was a real man.

About a year later I found a (statue of a) woman. In my ex-sorority's house, this woman stands high up in an architectural niche. She is dressed in a formfitting romantic gown, which might be sheer like Zsa Zsa Gabor's lingerie if she were real. Sometimes I sense she is envious; I am sure she's watched us teeter drunkenly through our corridors of Spanish tiles, laughing, having the best of times. She wonders what the sun feels like when we tan, because the sun cannot touch her cloudy limestone skin.

I'm graduating now, but before I leave, I intend to set Ben and this lady up. They could waltz on the lake that borders our campus, in a swirl of bats and mosquitos, or something.

I'll let you know how it goes,

Chantel





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Read CT's story, "How Barbie Came to Live in Our Barn."

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