“WHAT ROCK HAVE YOU BEEN living under for the past twenty-two years?” Mimi Lodge wailed. She shook her fist, the wide sleeve of her black-and-orange-pinstripe class jacket slipping down her arm.

Grantham University, an Ivy League college in Grantham, New Jersey, had been educating future world leaders for centuries in a pristine setting of academic Gothic architecture, ornamental shrubbery and a strong sense of entitlement. And every year its senior class picked a new jacket to wear for Reunions weekend before graduation. At five-foot-nine, with wide strapping shoulders from years spent competing in water polo—and the long, sleek torso from being in top physical condition—she was one of the few who could carry off such a garment with aplomb.

Of course, maybe it was just her forthright attitude that substituted for shoulder pads. She continued to fume. “In case you didn’t know it, this is the twenty-first century. Men and women are equal. Women have had the right to vote for almost one hundred years. You know the twentieth amendment?”

Vic Golinski, the object of her tirade, slowly peeled off his blue blazer. Vic was also graduating from Grantham, but he was wearing more sedate attire—or at least, had been wearing—until Mimi had upended a water pitcher all over him in a particularly heated moment. They were participating in what was supposed to be an open panel discussion.

Reunions organizers often featured panels with faculty members, administration officials and occasionally students to discuss topics of interest to returning alumni. Theirs had been anything but routine. With the subject being The Impact of Title IX on Participation in College Varsity Sports, the session had drawn a large crowd. Title IX was an amendment to the Civil Rights Act that prohibited discrimination based on sex in regards to school sports. And while the university abided by the law, there were any number of Grantham alumni from the once all-male bastion who felt it was undermining long established men’s teams.

And it appeared to Mimi, these former students—meaning, old, stuck-in-the-mud type guys—were not alone. Vic Golinski might be all of twenty-two, but as captain of the football team, he appeared to be firmly stuck in the mud. How else to explain his statement, “I believe the university’s football program must inevitably suffer due to siphoning off dollars to create so-called parity programs in minor sports. What’s going to happen next? The call for creation of a women’s football team when girls programs don’t even exist in high schools around the country? That would be the height of absurdity, all in the name of so-called equality.”

Whoa there. Minor sports? (Meaning hers, no doubt.) Height of absurdity? So-called equality? Talk about reaching a tipping point. Mimi had seen red. Her hand had migrated to the water jug. And upended it—all over her classmate.

“Giving women the right to vote was the nineteenth amendment,” Vic corrected, his voice low as if he was trying to keep his temper in check.

Mimi stood there, barely keeping still, while Vic yanked his arm out of the sleeve of his soaking blazer…when…when she momentarily forgot her anger. Instead, she realized that when water comes in contact with a man’s dress shirt, it turns the material virtually translucent. Translucent and amazingly pliable, she couldn’t help noticing, as the thin cotton molded to Vic’s biceps and triceps, in addition to his well-contoured pectoral muscles.

She stopped in midstride, took a deep breath and willed herself to replay what he’d just said. “Details,” she scoffed in rebuttal. Vic Golinski wet might be better than any firemen’s pinup calendar, but that didn’t excuse his reactionary sentiments.

He loosened the knot of his orange tie and undid the top two buttons of his blue dress shirt. A few dark curls from his wet chest hair peeked out through the opening. “The devil is in the details,” he responded.

Mimi gulped and turned away. She exited the building and marched away from Baldwin Gymnasium where the panel had been held. She walked a short distance along the path, before she cut between two of Grantham’s Social Clubs, the university’s version of coed fraternities. Ahead lay the Alexander Hamilton School of International Studies, an elite branch of the university. She had wanted to ditch Vic, but he kept up stride for stride, shoulder to shoulder—forcing her to keep acknowledging his presence.

“You deserved that soaking—and more,” she muttered, her eyes focused on the uneven sidewalk. “What you said is just so infuriating…such a personal affront to me as captain of the water polo team, one of your so-called ‘minor sports.’” She raised her hands and gestured with her fingers to form quotation marks. “You have no idea what you are talking about.” Without bothering to look she jaywalked across Edinburgh Avenue, oblivious to the fact that she’d also crossed against the light.

Her statement was met by silence. Surprised, Mimi looked over her shoulder—and realized that Vic Golinski was waiting for the light to change and the “Walk” signal to flash. Mimi shook her head. “What’s the matter with you?” she scolded him. “There’s not a soul, let alone a car, in sight. Don’t you believe in taking the initiative?”

The light changed, and Vic stepped off the curb. “That’s no reason to disregard the rules,” he said patiently.

Mimi waited with hands on hips.

He stepped up next to her, towering over her despite her above-average height. “You may have gained some satisfaction in pouring water all over me, but this is my only dress shirt—and I need it for graduation in a few days.”

“I’ll get it dry cleaned for you.” She raised her chin.

He lowered his. “That’s your solution for everything, isn’t it? Throw money at it?”

Mimi didn’t back down. “Well, I hope you’re not expecting me to break out the ironing board.”

Vic narrowed his eyes. “Spoken like someone who was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. I bet you don’t even know how to iron.”

He was right, dammit. Mimi whipped around and marched on. On the right was the courtyard for Allie Hammie, as the Alexander Hamilton School was affectionately known. The whole area was paved in white marble, the same stone that clad the exterior of the school with its attenuated columns and narrow arcade. A row of magnolias ran along the far side, and in the center of the courtyard was an ornamental pool out of which rose an abstract metal sculpture. Water jets splashed its rusty surfaces and droplets bounced off and rained down to the water below.

Mimi stopped by the fountain and held up her arms in exasperation before letting them fall to her sides. “Okay, I’m sorry.” Her palms thwacked against her black trousers. “In hindsight, the powers-that-be never should have put us on that panel. Maybe they thought we would provide a student perspective besides the usual drivel from the administration flunky and the coaches. But you are clearly a throwback to some Neanderthal age.”

“Just because I don’t believe that there needs to be a comparable women’s team for every men’s athletic team, doesn’t make me a caveman. And I’m sorry if it offends you, but guys who are friends of mine on the wrestling team—who work their butts off—are pissed, rightfully pissed in my estimation, that their sport is being thrown on the trash heap because there’s no comparable women’s sport. Following that logic, what’s going to happen to the football program?”

“There’s nothing wrong with being a club sport.” That wasn’t quite true, as Mimi knew. Club sports received only small budgets, didn’t have paid coaches and didn’t travel.

“Then why don’t you petition for Women’s Water Polo team to be a club sport instead of varsity?”

“No way! That wouldn’t be fair because the men’s team has varsity status. You want that to become a club sport, too?”

“Of course not.” Vic ran his hand through the top of his brown wavy hair. He seemed entirely unaware that it stuck up like a lopsided Mohawk.

For someone intent on maintaining the status quo on and off the field, he looked remarkably off-kilter. Mimi had an intense desire to fluff up his hair even more, loosen him up and see what lay beneath his stuffed shirt exterior. Actually, she knew exactly what lay beneath his shirt—lots of well-developed muscles.

Vic seemed completely oblivious to Mimi’s inner ruminations. “Listen, all I’m saying is, before you—or anybody else for that matter—goes jumping into things, they need to weigh the pros and cons, evaluate a program over time, consider making adjustments when necessary. I’m not saying things can’t—or shouldn’t—change just that why rock the boat too much? Why not take it nice and easy?” He furrowed his brow. “Doesn’t that make sense?”

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