Chapter 13 - Doña Lisette
The middle of November came and went. Mike and Ruthie turned in term papers and started new ones, took and passed all their midterms, and prepared for the final round of tests and projects for the end of the semester. When they had work to do on their computers, they quietly worked in Mike's room.
However, they often had to go to the library for different projects, especially if they needed to look up information in the periodicals section, where a lot of older material that had not yet been posted on the Internet was still bound in dusty volumes. Both Mike and Ruthie had to laboriously pick through the volumes, because he had to look at some very old political science articles and she had to search for literature reviews. It was a strange experience for both of them, to look at material that was 40 or 50 years old, in publications that had gone out of business long ago. The volumes were relics of an era that only recently had passed into memory, an era killed by the Internet and electronic storage of information.
On November 15th Ruthie resumed her naked escapades in the library basement. On that night she and Mike carried their volumes to the study area and stacked them on one of the spare tables. It was only about 10:00, but no one else was in the room. He commented that the tables had cleared out a bit early. He remembered Ruthie's confession about studying nude and was hoping that night she might want to strip for the last couple of hours they were in the library.
"Just to let you know...my offer to play look-out for you still stands."
Ruthie took the hint and kissed him. She pulled down her shorts and took off her shirt. She covered the chair with her shirt and sat down. Although she was able to study just fine, Mike found it very hard to concentrate with the thought of his naked girlfriend sitting only a few feet from him. He badly wanted to strip as well, but was afraid that it would be harder for him to quickly put on his clothes if anyone exited the elevator. For Ruthie it would be easy because all she had to do was slip on her shorts and shirt; she did not have to worry about buttons or zippers.
When she went to look for books or put volumes away, he went with her, carrying her clothes and standing between her and the elevator. There was much less risk than there had been when she was alone. The challenge of her naked study time was gone, but so was the fear. She could simply enjoy the feeling of being naked in the basement, under the protection of the guy who loved her.
From that day forward Ruthie continued her habit of being naked in the library. With Mike to keep an eye out for her, she expanded the time she could spend in the nude, and also experimented with some new areas within the library. The third floor offered another place where it was possible to search for books in the nude, but it was somewhat more trafficked and she would not have been able to safely streak that floor had she not had Mike to help her and keep her clothes handy. Even with him helping her, there were a couple of close calls. By the end of the month she decided that it would be better to stick with the basement.
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As the semester progressed, the two students put in their time at their respective jobs and earned salaries that were totally inadequate for their needs and expenses. Even so, from a financial perspective they were luckier than many of their classmates. Most of Mike's expenses were covered by his father's final round of mortgage loans and Ruthie's expenses were covered by several grants. They both knew that their financial support, although adequate for the moment, was fragile, precarious, and could vanish at any moment. The uncertainty was especially true for Ruthie, because she was going to school on state grants that were very likely to be cut from the California education budget the following fiscal year.
On the third Monday of November Ruthie showed up to work at 5:00 am as usual, but when she arrived it was clear that there was nothing usual about what was going to happen that day. The campus manager, the district manager, and two auditors were waiting for her. For the next two hours they looked at her cash drawer and conducted an audit of her transactions. By 7:00 it was determined that her audit trail balanced and that the money in her cash drawer was what needed to be there; nothing more and nothing less. She was dismissed, told that she would still get her hours for the day, but she needed to leave the student center and not talk to any of her co-workers. As she was going out the door, the co-worker who liked to take long smoke breaks passed her. He gave her an annoyed look, clearly wondering why she was leaving work. She kept going and did not say anything. It would be the last time she ever saw him. She never learned all the details, but two of her fellow baristas were fired that day, one of which was the smoker. The firing of the two co-workers meant that Ruthie was the only employee from the morning shift remaining and the manager had to scramble to hire replacements.
The same week there was a positive development for Mike; the likelihood soon he would be promoted. Throughout November he continued to deliver a couple hundred tickets per day for the parking department. His supervisor noticed his hard work and had him train two new student ticket-writers. He told Mike that once basketball season started, he would be placed in charge of other students collecting parking money for two lots during games. He also decided to make Officer # 036 an alternate for collecting money from the meters. He would train for the meter collection job in December and start with that new assignment in January.
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The month anniversary of their getting together came and went. Neither Mike nor Ruthie was the sort to romanticize dates on a calendar, but as it became obvious that they were going to stay together, both were faced with having to decide what to tell their families. Mike figured that he would break the news to his family during December and bring Ruthie over to his house sometime over Christmas break. He suspected Ruthie would be very nervous about meeting his relatives and unless properly prepped might not make a good impression. The more relaxed the meeting with his parents, the better.
Ruthie had not made any plans about introducing Mike at all, because she was used to keeping secrets from her mother. She had a vague intention to introduce him at some point in the distant future, but wanted to put it off because she saw no reason why Mike had to be dragged into her troubled relationships in Salinas.
She ended up having to introduce her boyfriend much earlier than she had wanted or expected. At the end of the third week of November, she was talking to her mother on the cell phone from Mike's room, taking advantage of having the place to herself on a Friday afternoon. The conversation consisted of the usual stressed dialogue about Ruthie not finding a church when it took a turn she had not anticipated:
"Honey, I asked Cristina Rosales to call you. She told me that she did, a bunch of times. Haven't you been getting her messages?"
"Uh...no Mom...I didn't get any messages...that function's...uh...kinda messed up on my phone...the messages, I mean...I'm not getting them..."
"You need to take that phone in and fix it. Why do you have a cell phone if you can't get messages?"
"I haven't had time Mom, honest."
"Yes love. But I've asked her to go by your room...and she told me she did...several times....and she says you're never there."
Fucking bitch, thought Ruthie to herself. Why can't Cristina mind her own fucking business?
"Of course I'm not there! I'm in the library!"
"Ruthie, she's gone by your room at 11:00! You're telling me you're at the library until 11:00?"
"Mom...I'm in the library until it closes."
"Please don't do that to me. Don't you know it's not safe for you to be out like that? What would I do if something happens to you?"
"Mom, nothing's gonna happen to me."
