by Atul Todi
Jolly tried to hide his face; he remembered flirting with her at the bars and getting rejected. Luckily, Precious did not remember; she must have been too drunk.
Popular girls never remember the boys they reject.
While Precious pretended to be indifferent, as if Abhay and his friends did not exist, Tia introduced Abhay to the girls, and he introduced his friends to Precious and her friends. Telling them that they were also heading down to Panama City, the boys took the empty seats at the girls’ table to continue their introduction.
They were six girls: Precious, Tia, Miranda, Emily, Sophie and Alex. Miranda and Emily were from New York, doing their bachelor's in management. Sophie was from Southern California, enrolled in the engineering department, and Alex was from Minnesota, enrolled in the fashion design program. Besides Tia, they were all Precious's sorority sisters and looked very fashionable and high maintenance women.
Had it not been for Abhay's confidence and Tia's presence there, they would have never dared to talk to those women. At first impression, they looked unapproachable and high-headed. Tia was clearly an outsider in the group; she looked simple and friendly.
While Tia did not fit in the group of sorority girls, they all looked very protective of her. She was like their little nerdy sister who made sure everyone stayed grounded and out of trouble.
Eating at Burger King never felt better. There were six beautiful girls and four boys on the table; the equation was clearly in favor of the boys. Sitting at the table, Nathan and Charlie tried their luck on Miranda and Alex, who were talking about hiking in the Smoky Mountains. Abhay continued talking to Tia while Precious, Emily, and Sophie talked amongst themselves. Feeling left out, Jolly eventually played the wild card. Seeing all the girls sober on Spring Break, he offered them ‘Jello Shots', that they were carrying in the car. Made with Jelly and Vodka, it was a perfect party starter.
He knew that sorority girls never said no to free alcohol.
The girls were more than ready to get the party started. They were just waiting for someone to offer. They clearly wanted to make the most of their Spring Break. Reluctantly, Tia joined the impromptu party.
Those few ‘Jello shots' turned into a drinking game in the parking lot of Burger King. The uptight girls were a lot friendlier than the boys had expected. With the music playing in the car, they turned the place into a little open-air party of their own. Few other partygoers stopped by to take free ‘Jello shots’. But, soon the restaurant manager was out and asked them to leave. He was going to call the cops if they did not vacate the premises.
They were more than happy to leave and get back on the road. Panama City was waiting for them. Offering Precious to come ride with them, the otherwise quiet Charlie, enticed her with some ‘good stuff' to smoke. It was too good an offer to say no to.
While Precious was more than ready for a car party with booze and ‘joints' flowing, Tia was a spoil-sport. She was the only girl sober, and she said "No." Being a motherly figure in the whole group, she was against drinking and driving. It was too risky, and she did not want anyone to get into trouble. She suggested that they all just continued driving to Florida and do whatever they want there.
Behaving like a responsible girl, she was not ready to let loose and Abhay was glad she was in her senses. She did not drink, smoke and was clearly not interested in flirting with anyone. She was just there for the ride and had no intention of doing anything stupid that other people had planned to do on a spring break.
Luckily the boys had a solution. To solve the problem, they suggested that she should drive the car, while the rest of the group continued to party. She reluctantly accepted, with one condition: drivers in both the cars could not drink. Everyone happily agreed. Nathan, who too was sober, was going to drive one car, and Tia was going to drive the other car.
Jolly sat in the front seat with Tia in the Honda CR V, while Abhay sat behind and flirted with Precious. Nathan and Charlie went in the other car with the four girls.
Everything was going as per plan. They had made good progress on ‘Mission Precious’.
After another hour of driving, they drove past the state of Indiana and entered Kentucky, the land of Jack Daniels whiskey. Singing, screaming, drinking, smoking and even dancing with the car roof open, everything was just like they had imagined. The only thing that was off track was Tia on the wheel. Instead of speeding at 90 mph, both the cars were going at exactly 55 mph. It was ten mph below the speed limit. Surprisingly no one complained, everyone was having fun; Panama City could wait a little longer.
It was a beautiful day, with the sun shining bright and roads empty. They drove for hours without stopping, listening to some classic old songs that Tia chose to play to keep herself entertained. Drunk and high, Abhay and Precious dozed off for a while, while Jolly gave Tia company by telling her knock-knock jokes that she did not find amusing at all.
Being smarty-pants, she was not amused by Jolly’s effort to impress her.
It must have been 5 pm in the evening, when Precious woke Abhay up. They had driven past Kentucky and were driving through vast yellow cornfields of Tennessee. She saw a sign for a country music show by Carrie Underwood at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville and she just had to go there.
She was a spoilt brat of a filthy rich father; she had to have what she wanted.
Grand Ole Opry was a massive indoor auditorium that could seat more than 4000 people. It was popular as the cradle of country music and took pride in making country music popular.
They had been on the road for eight hours and were almost one-third the way to Panama City. Not a big fan of country music, Jolly and Abhay wanted to continue driving, but no one could dare to say no to Precious. She wanted to stop and go for the show. So they did not have an option and did as she said.
On Spring Break, they didn't care where they were till the time they had alcohol and beautiful company. So they all just rolled with the plan. Precious was excited and the boys were happy to be in her good books.
Taking the exit for the city, they headed for the show. The plan was to have some food, give Precious and the other girls company at the concert and be back on the road before midnight.
Entering the Grand Ole Opry, they hustled their way to get tickets for the fully booked show. To Abhay's surprise, in an ocean of white folks, they were the only group with brown people. Completely out of place, with people staring at them and wondering what they were doing there, Abhay and Jolly managed to hold on to their drunk smiles.
Surprisingly, sensing his state of uneasiness, walking inside the Grand Ole Opry, Precious held his hand and said, "Don't you worry AB. I got your back. You gonna have a lot of fun, trust me."
He was in seventh heaven; the trip was turning out to be way better than he had expected. Other boys were clearly jealous.
High-fiving Jolly in his head, they shared a special smile. Tia, who was watching him, just shook her head in disbelief. She couldn't believe what Abhay and Jolly had got going in their heads. She could sense that they were all after Precious.
Later, as the show started, Abhay sat with Precious, saying hello to random folks, pretending that he was a big country music fan. His self-confidence was back. He even pretended to know some of the popular country musicians to impress Precious and strike a conversation.
That evening some new bands were playing prior to the main attraction of the show – Carrie Underwood. Both Jolly and Abhay cheered loudly, louder than the white folks in the crowd. It was quite an awkward scene, but no one complained. Everyone looked happy and in good spirit.
Band after band came and went; the clock ticked slowly for Abhay and Jolly, who were clearly not country music fans. With each new song, their energy level dropped one notch. As expected, while waiting on Carrie Underwood to come to stage and perform, listening to the endless number of country songs being performed live, both Abhay and Jolly dozed off to the mellow music.
Sleeping on each other's shoulder, they looked like tw
o schoolboys.
Tia decided to embarrass them. Supposedly, on her insistence, the camera was zoomed in on them and put on the big screen. The crowd had a good laugh and took pictures of them. Besides Carrie Underwood, they became the biggest attraction of the evening: the brown sleeping beauties of Tennessee.
Khushi could not stop laughing listening to Abhay. She could imagine how embarrassing that must have been to be sitting in the midst of a packed concert with the whole crowd looking at them and laughing.
Controlling herself, Khushi said, "This is all really funny, but how is all this connected with your love story? I am a little lost still."
Khushi clearly wanted Abhay to get to the point. His love story seemed a little twisted.
Telling her to be patient, he told her that the Panama City trip was the highlight of his story and everything else revolved around it. Ignoring Khushi's confused looks, he continued.
Blaming the slow country music, Abhay looked apologetically at the folks in the auditorium, who half-smiled and half-frowned at him. Tia, on the other hand, for the first-time laughed uncontrollably all evening. She looked adorable like a little girl who had seen a clown for the first time. Precious and the other girls gave her company, making Abhay and Jolly feel terrible. Being a sport, they both laughed along but promised to get even when the time was right.
Getting back on the road, Abhay gave Tia a break from the driving and took the wheels; she had been driving all day. Gulping down a double espresso shot, he was good to drive all night. Others in the car were on the verge of falling asleep; Tia sat in front and gave Abhay company. She managed to stay awake only for a little bit.
The roads were clear; there were no signs of any other vehicles for miles. All the other folks going down to Florida had disappeared. Staying on track, they zipped down highway I-65 N in the middle of the night, hoping to make it to Florida by noon the next day.
There was a strange quietness in the air as the wind hymned to the moving car. With her hair flying across her face, Tia cuddled with Abhay's jacket to stay warm. Listening to the wind and watching her face in the moonlight, Abhay couldn't help but smile. Removing her glasses, he just watched her for hours while driving. There was something comforting about her.
Slowly the time passed and they got closer to their destination. Having driven down south for almost six hours, they were in the state of Georgia.
Right around the outskirts of Birmingham city, there was a roadblock on the highway due to an accident. Seeing the heavy traffic jam, Abhay took a diversion. Using his GPS, he mapped a route from inside the city and back-roads.
With the sun rising on the left and an adventure in front of him, he was cruising through the quiet city. Suddenly out of nowhere, the calm morning was disrupted with blinding lights and a loud siren. For a second, he thought that there was an ambulance, but soon realised that there was a cop car behind him.
As there were no other cars around, the cop was indeed behind him. It was a signal for him to pull over to the side and stop. With drugs and alcohol in the car, he sat up straight and started to panic. They were in some deep trouble, and he knew that if he was caught with drugs in the US, he would get deported back to India.
Frozen in his seat, he cursed himself for being stupid.
Panicking, he did not know what to do. The excess of caffeine in his body from the red bulls he had been chugging, the lack of sleep and the fear of the possible outcome made him jittery. Shaking Tia, telling her to wake-up, he could hardly muster any words from his mouth. The troubled look on his face was enough for her to understand that something was wrong.
Luckily Tia was a lot calmer than him; seeing him freak out, she told him to relax and be normal. She said that her dad was a cop and she knew how to handle those situations.
She sprayed her perfume in the car to kill the marijuana smell and hid the beer cans.
The cop walked up to their car, looked inside the window, and stared at Abhay for a minute, giving him mean looks. Abhay could swear that he was racist and had intentionally stopped his car.
Finally, the cop said that he had pulled them over for doing a 55 mph in a 50 mph zone. At the point, all Abhay could think in his head was, "What a jerk! Who stops a car for being five mph over the speed limit and that also at 5 am in the morning."
They were in the middle of Georgia, and he had heard stories of racism in the Southern states. But, before he could over think the situation and panic, the cop asked him for his license and inquired about the people in the backseat.
Tia jumped in immediately with a worried look on her face and said, "Its an emergency officer." With her big eyes wide-open, she gave him a technical explanation filled with terms pulled from her biology books. She pointed towards Precious, who was fast asleep in the backseat holding her stomach, as if she had bad cramps. The only line Abhay understood was, ‘Food poisoning, need to go to the hospital in Birmingham'.
Tia asked the cops if he would like to escort them to the hospital.
To Abhay's surprise the cop let them go. While he clearly didn't believe Tia, he just asked Abhay to take it slow and be more careful. Seeing Charlie's message on the cars bar window, he surely knew that they were off to Florida for Spring Break. Still, for some reason, whatever Tia said, worked; maybe it was her politeness or the confidence with which she spoke.
Once the cop left, Abhay could finally breath again. Teasing Tia, Abhay told her that the cop surely liked her, perhaps he was seduced by her big carom-ball eyes.
Starting the car engine, he asked her, "is your dad really a cop?"
Looking back at Abhay sarcastically, she said in a Southern accent, "Hell no! But you sure wish he was ‘cause I just saved your life boy. Just imagine if the cop found all the marijuana and alcohol in the backseat. You were surely gonna be heading back to India."
Getting back at Abhay, she told him that he owed her a favor because she literally saved his life. To that, Abhay told her she could ask him for anything she wanted; he was clearly indebted to her.
Looking back to make sure no one was awake, she came close to his face and looked into his eyes. Before she could say anything, Abhay said, "Yes, you can kiss me. Go ahead. I am all yours. "
Giving him her sarcastic look, she whispered in his ear, "I have always wanted to try some marijuana, but I am too scared of what it would do to me. I just can't do it with Precious and the other girls; God knows what they would think. But I feel like I can trust you. So, I want to get high in Florida, just to experience it once. Can you make it happen?"
Tia felt a little embarrassed asking Abhay; for her it was a big deal. She was very conscious of what others thought about her and was very careful to not give a wrong impression. All her life she had been very conservative and in control of everything she did. She was the quintessential good Indian girl.
Somehow, being around Abhay, she had a feeling that she could live a little and let go. He had the ability to make people feel comfortable in his presence. Tia was clearly falling for Abhay.
Smiling back, Abhay told her: "It's a deal pretty lady; I am going to get you high and have the best time of your life. But, are you sure that's all you want. You can ask me for more; anything you want." With his lips pouted for a kiss, he got close to her face. He was just playing with her and she being a good sport smacked him across his face and said, "No, thanks! That should be more than enough for now."
Leaving the cop behind, they got back on the highway and continued on their way to Florida. They were just four hours away from reaching Panama City, their final Spring Break destination.
The other car with Nathan, Charlie, and the four girls, had gone ahead, and they were a few miles apart. There was no rush, and no need to catch-up. Nathan and Charlie were having a good time with the other girls, and so were Jolly and Abhay. There couldn't have been a better start to a Spring Break.
Entering Florida they were welcomed with a whiff of the Ocean that finally woke Precious and Jolly in the backseat. With
a cool wind blowing, they could smell the blue water nearby. Crossing some small towns, they were excited to see delicious oranges hanging from trees and people sitting outside their houses, grilling. After months of harsh winter, surrounded by snow, it was a much needed change. With wide roads and colourful tulips planted in the center, the whole town looked like a place from a fairy-tale.
Acting like kids, Tia and Precious wanted to go steal oranges from the stunted trees. Abhay offered to buy some for them, but they said that buying was too boring. Obviously not listening to Abhay, Precious blindfolded him with her fingers and forced him to immediately stop the car. She was very stubborn and had to have things done her way. She was too used to getting whatever she wanted.
Immediately pressing the brake, Abhay stopped the car and screamed in his head: "You bloody daddy's spoilt girl, you gonna get us all killed."
Telling them not to act stupid, Abhay tried in vain to stop Tia and Precious. He waited in the car with Jolly. Keeping an eye on them with his rear view window, he was ready to drive, incase the girls were chased by the local people.